December 2009 Archives

Song on my mind... "Everything to Me" by Rockapella. The only version I could find on YouTube was one that displayed a single picture while the song was playing. I thought this would be better than embedding a video displaying moving pictures while a single note played.

I've been on an a cappella kick this past week and I blame The Sing-Off, a week-long singing competition on NBC, which pitted eight of the country's "best" a cappella groups against one another.

I had planned on skipping the show, having been burned two years ago by another NBC talent contest called Clash of the Choirs, but I succumbed to my curiosity at the last minute and watched it.

To my surprise (and delight), most of the groups weren't awful. I would go so far as to classify two of them as "good", perhaps even "awesome". One I would call "unique", primarily because they were the only barbershop quartet in the competition and an all-female quartet at that. The rest I would label as "mediocre" or "generic", which is probably harsh because they could all sing in tune and harmonize, and had one or two standout voices, but it's true.

One of the two "awesome" groups was Nota, a six-man group from Puerto Rico. They were the most polished and professional performers in the field. They had smooth harmonies, a strong lead singer (who had an outstanding falsetto), and an excellent percussionist. They spiced up every song with their Latin style, giving them a distinct sound in the competition. Of their performances, my favorite was "Down" by Jay Sean.

The other "awesome" group was a twelve-man team from Tufts University known as the Beelzebubs. They were talented, charismatic guys who gave energetic (and often playful) performances. They were my immediate favorites.

I loved how their arrangements made full use of every voice, but never overpowered the lead singer. Of their performances, my favorites were "Sweet Caroline" (Penn Rosen sang lead) and "Come Sail Away" (Matt McCormick sang lead).

I was also a fan of their creative process. When working on a song, they used something called the Bub Box, a rectangular space they'd mark off with masking tape in their studio. Inside the box, they'd allow themselves to go as wild and crazy as they could with a song. Nothing was off limits. I love the idea of a physical place where creativity is free, unencumbered by rules or judgment.

I was also struck by something one of the Bubs said. "If you get too far with a song and the goofiness of the song, it's easy to take it back. It's a lot harder to push the song farther if you never take it over the top." It's a nugget of wisdom that's so obvious, it's easy to overlook. It's also applicable to other types of creative pursuits.

Anyway, tonight is the show's finale. Luckily, Nota and the Beelzebubs are finalists, along with Voices of Lee (a.k.a. Voices of Old Navy). I'm rooting for the Bubs, but should they fall short of the prize, I hope Nota wins.

By the way, Ben Folds rocked as one of the judges. Unfortunately, he was the only one on the three-person panel who did.

Rip the conch from the shell, do the Junkanoo party in Bahama (back to back),
And they were singing (back to back),
They said it was nothing, but a zombie jamboree,
Gonna give a Bronx cheer with an eggcream mustache.

You only mean everything to me.

Gonna give a hot towel to a humble visitor.

You only mean everything to me.

Like most folks in the Bay Area, Monday morning's low-elevation dusting of snow had me in a state of wonder. Seeing the eastern hills covered in white sent a jolt of delight through me.

It was shameful, really. People in the Silicon Valley are supposed to be cool and hip (read: cynical and unaffected).

When somebody points out the window and says, "Ooh, look, snow on Mission Peak!" A proper Silicon Valleyite keeps his eyes on his computer screen, shakes his head in pity at the poor person's misguided joy in such commonplace things, and says, "Really? That's nice. You know it looks just like the stuff that falls in the Sierras every year, right?"

He doesn't leap from his chair, race to the window, and say, "Really? Snow? Awesome!" Then run outside to get a better view. Nor does he rush off the next day after work to climb Mission Peak so he can photograph and frolic in the snow.

Yet that's what I did.

Tuesday afternoon, I drove fifteen minutes to Mission Peak Regional Preserve, Fremont's marquee park. Any local hiker worth his or her salt has hiked it, or so I'm told.

It may come as a surprise to my readers (hello, you two!) to learn this was my first visit to the park. I don't know how I managed to go all this time without setting foot within its boundaries (considering every time it came up in previous conversations with other hikers, I was always greeted with enough disbelief to motivate even the laziest couch potato to jump in the car and speed over to Fremont), but I had. Now, at least, that won't be an awkward topic on the trail.

Anyway, I parked at the end of Stanford Avenue and started the long climb up Hidden Valley Trail to the summit of Mission Peak. The way was wide, windy, and covered in gray gravel. Although one climbs 2,200 feet over 2.8 miles, the grade isn't steep. In fact, some people have found the slope so easy, they've worn footpaths into the hillside, creating shortcuts that are steeper and more challenging (in blatant disregard of the signs urging everyone to stay on the trail).

My first sighting of any significant amount of snow came two miles into the hike, just before the Grove Trail junction.

The toughest part of the hike came near the top, on the Peak Trail, where the slope and mud combined to make a slippery slide. Luckily, I had my trekking poles and kept to the snowy patches, which offered better footing.

On the way up, I passed this snowman, who seemed to have an extremely optimistic outlook on life for someone who would only be here a short time. There's a lesson in that somewhere.

When I made it to the top (2,517 feet above sea level), the view was spectacular. I could see Fremont,

the bay,

and the peaks to the east. I could even see Mt. Hamilton to the south.

I spent twenty minutes on the summit. While up there, I only encountered three hikers and a dog. One of the hikers was nice enough to take my photo, which turned out surprisingly well despite the fact that I'm in it.

All told, the hike took two hours, including time to photograph and frolic, and I must say the park and snow exceeded my unsophisticated, Silicon-Valley-unworthy expectations.

You can see a few more photos from my hike on Flickr.

For more information on hiking in the preserve, be sure to visit Bay Area Hiker, Trailspotting, and Two-Heel Drive.

After last year's NaNoWriMo loss, I wasn't sure I'd be able to manage a victory this year, but by adopting traits closely resembling concentration and persistence, I somehow succeeded. It took all thirty days, but I was able to write a 50,000-word document that looks roughly like a novel (if one squints, possibly to the point of closing one's eyes entirely).

While I'm not brave enough to share an excerpt from my NaNo-novel, I did want to share a few things that made this year's challenge unique. This year, I...

• attended only one write-in, just to see if my aversion to them had diminished. It hadn't. I lasted thirty minutes before I had to bail, unable to cope with the people and the noise. And just to be clear, by "people", I don't mean fellow novelists; I mean other cafe patrons who seemed intent on being as annoying as possible.
• found Twitter-based word sprints to be great sources of motivation The NaNoWriMo folks set up a special account (@NaNoWordSprints) to lead sprint sessions, which ranged anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes in length. The organizer would tweet "Go!", everyone participating would write furiously for the given amount of time, the organizer would tweet "Stop!", and participants would tweet how many words they had written and share a noteworthy phrase. The sprints were fun to observe and to participate in (silently).
• wrote part of my NaNo-novel in five parks -- two national parks (Yosemite and Pinnacles) and three county parks (Calero, Santa Teresa, and Almaden Quicksilver). It was an idea inspired by this year's "Camp NaNoWriMo" shirt. While the hike-n-writes weren't big word count boosters, they were great idea generators and stress relievers. They also gave me a chance to improve my iPhone thumb-typing skills. Next year, the plan is to hit more parks.

As I do every year, I would like to sum up my NaNoWriMo experience with a few fun statistics:

• Words written: 51,498
• Words written in parks: 2,091
• Highest one-day count: 6,933
• Lowest one-day count: 0
• Percent of novel written on my iPhone: 4.1
• Least productive day of the week: Saturday
• Most productive day of the week: Monday
• Number of writing days: 26
• Number of zero-word days: 4
• Cups of coffee consumed (above "normal"): 17
• Pounds of Skittles eaten: 0 (Shocking, I know!)