Sitka, Alaska

Group Photo on the last day - Unfortunately Oleg left a day earlier!

Over this labor day, my parents and friends, Oleg and Jeremy, and I, decided to go to Sitka, Alaska. My mom was always telling me stories about Russian influence in Sitka (since I speak a bit of Russian) and she likes to travel. My Russian friend Oleg likes to travel too. My friend Jeremy likes to kill animals, so we'll go on a gigantic fishing trip tomorrow in at attempt to catch ridiculously large fish. My dad and I wanted to be good sports, and to play handball today at a rec center.

Getting to Sitka was a pain. We left our place in Albuquerque at 6:50 a.m. on Thursday, September 3, 2015, to catch an 8:00 a.m. flight to Phoenix. In Phoenix, we had to walk to a completely different terminal, go through security again, and then head on a plane to Seattle. In Seattle, we took another plan to Ketchikan, Alaska, stayed on the plane, and then got to Sitka shortly afterward. It was about 6:00 p.m. Sitka time (8:00 p.m. New Mexico time) when we arrived.

It was breathtakingly beautiful when we arrived! The air smelled really, really fresh and good. My skin started feeling all the moisture in the air. Below are some of the pictures that Jeremy and Oleg took (they have MUCH better camera phones than I do.)

The above two pictures is the view from outside the Harbor Heights Penthouse apartment we rented on the third floor, overlooking the bay.

Friday Oleg, Jeremy and I went on a kayaking tour around the island after Jeremy made some delicious breakfast pancakes. This tour was a great way to see much more of the waterfront. Jeremy and Oleg were paired in a double kayak together, and I was paired with Brianna, another tourist, and her two female friends were paired together. We didn't know the femme fatal troika before the tour. 

The sun was actually in my eyes, despite how dark this photo looks! 

My friend Oleg - the tree hugging hippy... 

We stopped and walked around some abandoned World War 2 gunnery pylons. Apparently, Sitka was a heavily defended site against the Japanese in World War 2.

The below three pictures came from the guide. 

Oleg and Jeremy kayaked in the lead ahead of everyone else, including the guide.  

Brian and Brianna.

I caught a gigantic kelp crab, and then let it go. Unfortunately, they aren't good to eat.

Overall, I'm happy I went on the kayaking tour. Oleg asked everyone about 25 minutes before the tour began if they wanted to go, and both Jeremy and I agreed. We saw some sea lions, crabs, a few fish, and a bunch of the beautiful Sitka shoreline.

Other than the above, my dad, mom, Jeremy, and I played handball at the Sitka rec center, and ate a very nice home cooked meal my mom made.

417.5 Available = Available version 2.0

My one bedroom apartment at 417.5 Princeton has become available again. Unfortunately, the previous tenant broke his lease early, and left me empty handed during the summer months. I decided to take this opportunity to replace the carpet, and do some maintenance on the place.

I'd like to have a twelve month lease, at $600 / month for this apartment. I cover water, sewage, garbage, and internet access, and the tenant will need to cover electricity and gas. I like to get first month's, last month's, and a month of damage deposit, as a condition of starting this lease.

Since the last blog post, all of the kitchen cabinets have been resurfaced. More importantly, the carpet has all been replaced as well. The carpet was looking pretty worn (white), and I'm happy to take this opportunity to replace it all (with brown.)

If you're interested in this place, please call me at 505-750-1169. If I do not pick up, send me a text message at the same number.

Below are some pictures of the place. A lot of these are from a previous blog post I wrote about the place, but there are some new pictures below as well.

This picture, and the below two, show the newly refinished kitchen cabinets. 

 

The white carpet is no longer there - now it's brown.

The bedroom now has brown carpet. The white carpet was EXTREMELY worn, and needed to be replaced.

It's interesting how different the bathroom seems with slightly different decorations.

Professional Headshots

There are many opportunities for promoting my business that can use professional headshots. By "headshots" I mean a business/profession photograph in which a person's head is the primary focus of the image, rather than a debilitating blow to the head.

My friend Efrain Grijalva has been interested in photography since I met him, thirteen years ago as an undergrad. Lately, he's been expressing an interest in taking headshots. I volunteered to be his model, since I'm positive I can use some (updated) images of myself when promoting software development services. Below are the results.

 This one is my favorite. I seriously think it could be a stock photo. 

I like this one, but I think if you look closely you can see the PhotoShop.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the outcome. I would recommend ironing your shirt beforehand, as opposed to stuffing it in a backpack with a laptop and biking everywhere. If you're interested in having professional headshots done, give Efrain a call at 505- 453-5700.

Coyotes in the Diversion Channel Trail + Biking In Albuquerque In General

Be careful while riding your bike in Albuquerque. You have to deal with trucks running you over, coyotes, and homeless people. However, we do have amazing bicycle trails, lanes, and dedicated paths. Below is a bit of background before I expand more on the coyote element.

I try and ride my bike everywhere. Mostly, this is because I cannot stand sitting around in traffic, I am cheap and don't like paying for gasoline and car maintenance, and I want to have enough time to do lots of cardiovascular exercise each day, since I have a super sedentary occupation. The only way I found that I have enough time in the day to get exercise as I'd like is if I replace all commuting time with cardio time.

Normally, this is a pretty good trade, or I think I come out ahead. For example, it takes me about ten minutes to drive to my gym with traffic. On average, I bike there in twenty minutes. So, I spend forty minutes biking (round trip) to avoid twenty minutes of diving and get forty minutes of cardio in. This allows me to avoid doing 30-40 minutes of cardio at the gym, since I'm doing it on my commute to the gym. So I can focus on strength, flexibility through yoga, or playing handball. That seems like a good trade off to me, especially since it's way cheaper to maintain my bicycle than my car. There are other factors to weigh in and balance when making this decision (such as your relative likeness to die from a bicycle related risk, as opposed to morbid obesity...) One of these factors is the presence of coyotes.

One thing that I have start considering are coyote risks. In the past few months, I'm positive I saw coyotes twice, and I think I may have seen them two other times but I'm not sure. I've been riding my bicycle to a client's office, far on the north part of Albuquerque. Here is the route I take. It's about a ten mile ride, and runs north / south along Albuquerque. I saw individual coyotes twice, running along the channel. Both times they were a bit south of Montgomery street.

The last time I saw a coyote, a domesticated dog was trying to kill it. The dog was chasing the coyote up and down the channel trail. I am positive the dog was domesticated because it had a lease trailing behind it, as though someone was taking it for a walk, and it saw the coyote, escaped to freedom and made an attempt at carnage. Unfortunately, the dog was considerably slower than the coyote. The dog was also a LOT bigger, maybe clocking in at 40-50 lbs while the coyote was around 20-30 lbs.

Just like homeless people, one out-of-control coyote wouldn't be that dangerous. I think I wouldn't be afraid until there were three or more of them, and behaving aggressively. Due to my extreme weight restrictions while on a bicycle, and Albuquerque laws against publicly discharging firearms, I don't think that packing iron is a good potential solution. I'm leaning more and more towards getting a very lightweight ceramic knife, and a nice sheath. Since I have no idea how to actually use a knife in a fight, I'm not sure if I wouldn't be better off with, or without one. I'll likely ask my friend Jeremy (very into defense) his opinion, and consider taking a knife fighting class with these guys. That would be a fun thing to do with a friend. "What did you do this weekend?" "My friend Brian and I took a knife fighting class together."