Ian's Blog

Ian's Blog http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php Copyright 2008, Ian Steiner Ian Steiner en-US SPHPBLOG 0.5.1 One thing I really miss from cable ... http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080905-111954 ]]> Misc http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080905-111954 Ian Steiner Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:19:54 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=09&entry=entry080905-111954 We're on a mission from God http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080903-194055

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." [Huffington Post]

She also investigated getting some books banned from a local library because of inappropriate language. [Time]

It keeps getting better ... unless she manages to win.

]]> http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080903-194055 Ian Steiner Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:40:55 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=09&entry=entry080903-194055 Who needs real science in schools? http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080830-004529
Check this one out ...
McCain's VP Supports Teaching Creationism

Awesome. Just the kind of leader we need when McCain croaks two years in.
]]> Misc http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080830-004529 Ian Steiner Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:45:29 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080830-004529 Age and Inexperience http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080827-230512
Clinton was 46 when he was elected. He spent no time in either the House or Senate before his election. He was the Governor of Arkansas for ~14 years.

JFK was 43. He was a House Representative for 6 years, and a Senator for 8 years.

Abraham Lincoln was 51. 8 years in IL Legislature, 1 term in Congress.

Obama is 47 years old. Obama was a community activist and lecturer at UofC for 6 years. He was a IL House member for 8 years, and US Senator for 4.]]> Misc http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080827-230512 Ian Steiner Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:05:12 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080827-230512 To all you Gmail Users ... http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080820-005631
Login to gmail.
Click on "Settings" in the upper right.
Make sure the "General" tab has been selected (it should be by default).
Scroll down to the bottom to the "Browser Connection" section.
Select the "Always use https" option.
Save your changes.

Usually when you login to gmail, it will encrypt your password when you send it across. However, future transactions inside of gmail are done via cookies and may not use SSL (encryption). Enabling this feature forces all communication to be done over SSL.

This addresses a hack that will be released in ~2 weeks. You can read about it here if you are so inclined.]]> Misc http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080820-005631 Ian Steiner Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:56:31 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080820-005631 India http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080803-232401
After arriving on Saturday, I tried to stay awake as long as possible, and stopped by the LaBagh Botanical Gardens which was pretty nice. Not a lot of flowers, but a lot of trees and a nice little lake.

After this I headed by the Parliament building and then headed back to the apartment.

On Sunday, the plan was to head out to Mysore and see the palace out there. On the way, my driver got in a pretty good car accident. Not sure what happened, but he slammed into two cars who were going over speed bumps. We were going pretty fast, but he managed to slide between the two of them. The car was pretty hosed, but nobody was hurt which was good. For a while I was afraid that my driver was going to get his ass kicked and I would be in the middle of nowhere in India with no idea what to do, but luckily that did not happen.

I was eventually picked up by another driver who was bringing a guy from HP out to Mysore. He had already been to the palace, so we scoped out an area outside of Mysore called Srirangapatnam. This is a large island that was the site of an old fort and some mosques on such. We started out at one end of the island which apparently is a place where people go to leave the ashes of their loved ones.

Next we headed to a mausoleum where the Tipu Sultan was buried. It was pretty cool.

After this, we headed into downtown Mysore into the middle of a Monsoon. I got to see the outside of the palace, but that was it :(. Oh well ... maybe next time. We were planning on checking out a market (not to buy anything -- just to look) but that plan was cancelled because of the rain and we just headed home with no more excitement.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. Despite being really careful, I came down with something nasty on Thursday and spent the last 72 hours in my apartment ordering room service. India and my stomach do not get along so well.
]]> Travel http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080803-232401 Ian Steiner Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:24:01 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080803-232401 England http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080803-225645
Monday I headed out to Cambridge with Francis. Cambridge was a a beautiful campus. It is arranged a lot different than your standard American University (Oxford is the same way). They have a bunch of little "Colleges" within the University. You actually apply to the college, and spend most of your time with the prof's and students in that college. There are some university-wide lectures, but for the most part you stay within the college. Different colleges are "known" for different things, but there is no "College of Engineering" per-say.

Anyway, here is a picture of "the backs", which is some small fields and a river on the back-side of all the colleges.

You can see all my pictures of Cambridge here.

The next couple of days I hung out in London on my own. I did spend an evening with my 3rd cousin Michael which was a lot of fun. We wandered around a bit downtown and then took the tube out to an English pub out in the more residential part of London that he likes to frequent.

I did most of the tourist stuff in London and really enjoyed the city. I started out in St. James Park and then hit up Westminster Abby (photo below). Both were great. No photos were allowed inside most of the "religious" buildings (which was fine) so I only have photos of the outside.

After Westminster I walked by Parliament and Big Ben (which looks way cooler than Congress in DC in my opinion).

Then I headed up to Trafalgar Square (for the first time) and then headed over to the London Eye (photo below), which is a HUGE ferris wheel on the Thames across from Parliament but decided not to go up because of time constraints. Trafalgar Square was nice -- but I enjoyed it a lot more when I swung by again around 5pm as there were a ton more people there.

I took a boat tour up the Thames to Greenwhich which was one of my favorite things that I did. Here is a photo of the meridian point:

Here is a photo looking down from the hill at the Meridian to the Naval College and across the Thames to the rest of London. Don't get confused -- that is a different ferris wheel than the Eye.

That evening I had dinner with Michael.

The next day I started at the Tower of London, which was okay. The Tower is actually a large fort that has been used for a variety of different purposes of the years. Today it houses the crown jewels. I enjoyed seeing the jewels, as there is a story in Janel's family that one of her ancestors was a lady-in-waiting to the queen and got caught trying on the crown jewels, and was then kicked out of the country. Not sure if it is true :), but it is a fun story! Below if a photo of the outer walls, and the "white-ish" building in the middle is the "white tower" which I think is what the fort is named after.

Next I hit up Tower Bridge, which is commonly mistaken for "London Bridge" which actually was a rather uneventful bridge which now lives in Arizona. I went up Tower Bridge, which was okay. Mostly just fun since now I can say I was in it :P.

After Tower Bridge I headed on over to St. Paul's cathedral which was great. They were practicing for a symphony when I was in there, so I go to enjoy the acoustics for (relatively) cheap :). I also walked to the top which was a good time. I would highly recommend St. Pauls. Below is a photo from the highest lookout level.

After St. Pauls I hit up the British Museum for a few minutes to see the Rosetta Stone. Below is a photo of the central hall at the museum which has a really cool roof.

Next I headed over to the Natural History museum, and then walked through Hyde Park to see Kensington Palace. It was pooring down rain, so I don't have any (good) photos. Then I met Francis and John for dinner. We had a fantastic dinner at this little French restaraunt in Kensington called "Le Circe" that is owned by the company that John runs. It was amazing food and I would highly recommend checking it out if you are ever in London.

The last day I headed out to Stratford-upon-Avon, the town that Shakespeare was born in. Francis and I enjoyed seeing the countryside and scoping out the town. Below is a photo of what for a while was thought to be his wife's childhood house. It turns out it is not, but it was a nice place to visit :).

You can see all my photos of England here.]]> Travel http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080803-225645 Ian Steiner Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:56:45 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080803-225645 Weddings http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080803-211011
Here is a photo of Janel and Ro.

And a photo of Ian and Steve, holding the girl's purses :P.

During the week we spent some time with family and friends. Got to see Megan and Trevor ... played some risk with Bober, Jim, and Matt. Good times :). Janel was busy with all sorts of stuff for Rohini's wedding...Bachelorrette party, Sangeet, Rehearsal Dinner, and more.

Saturday we had a couple of weddings. It was chaos (for me at least). Janel's day was a bit less chaotic as she was in Rohini's wedding. I started out the day at Rohini's Catholic ceremony. Then I went to Jeff's wedding. Then to Rohini's Hindu ceremony, which was a lot different than your traditional Christian ceremony.

Here is a photo of Janel and I at Ro's wedding. Janel got to wear a sari :).

After this I headed on over to Jeff's reception for a couple of hours. This was a lot of fun -- I got to catch up with a lot of old friends from LT/UIUC. After dinner I headed on back to Rohini's ceremony. This too was a lot of fun. We had a nice mix of American dance music and Hindi music which was a lot of fun. I had to be good and not drink (much at least) because I had an early flight to London the next morning.]]> Travel http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080803-211011 Ian Steiner Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:10:11 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=08&entry=entry080803-211011 Candidate Policy Comparisons http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080628-102116
Anyway, I ran across a nice article comparing the proposed tax policies between McCain and Obama and thought it was going in the right direction. They have a nice table in the upper right corner "Breaking the Numbers Down" that shows some estimates about how different income levels will be effected by the proposed changes. At the very least take a look at the table if you don't want to read all the text (I don't blame you).

Here.

I don't want to get into McCain's policy vs. Obama's here, but will comment on one snippet that I thought was interesting (since I think both candidates are going in the wrong direction):

Under both plans, all American taxpayers could pay a price for their tax cuts: a bigger deficit. The Tax Policy Center estimates that over 10 years, McCain's tax proposals could increase the national debt by as much as $4.5 trillion with interest, while Obama's could add as much as $3.3 trillion.

What's the deal with this? Last I checked the national debt was already at 9+ trillion and this is impacting the value of the dollar in the world economy. Now I am no economist, but why is neither candidate pushing for a balanced budget? Republicans -- what happened to fiscal conservatism? Democrats -- what happened to reversing the mistakes of Bush? We should be paying back our debts to China, not incurring more. If that means higher taxes, I don't want to pay them but I understand it may be better for me and the country in the long-term.]]> Misc http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080628-102116 Ian Steiner Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:21:16 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080628-102116 Latourell Falls and Oneonta Trail http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080617-194029
We started off doing the Latourell Falls trail. Latourell Falls itself is one of my favorite falls in the gorge. It is very close to the road though, so we usually just stop by and had not ever done the 2.7 mile loop hike up to Upper Latourell Falls. For those of you looking to do the hike, definitely start out uphill (not downhill towards the lower falls) as the view are better this direction.

Upper Latourell Falls turned out to be a good waterfall. Not quite as large as the lower falls, but still worth the hike.

The lower falls are of course great. Definitely take a quick walk down to these falls from the historic highway if you are ever in the area.

On the way we also saw a snail which I thought was kinda cool :).

Next we moved on to the Oneonta Trail. We started up from Horsetail Falls and first hit up Poneytail Falls. It is one of those falls that you can walk behind, but really not all that exciting if you have done that sort of thing before. The ones at Silver Falls are better.

You then head along the gorge to the West. Not really that exciting. I got once decent photo out of it though.

Next you come to a little view into the Oneonta Gorge. This is a really thin canyon that comes up to Oneonta Falls. It is supposed to be a really fun hike -- but only in the late summer when the snow melt has settled down and on a hot day (the water is really really cold and you have to wade through it). Here is a (poor) photo where I try to capture the gorge (admittedly not that well).

Finally, we headed up to Triple Falls. We had a nice picnic along the river just above the falls.

All in all, I would rate the Latourell Falls hike a 3.5 and the Oneonta Trail a 3. You can see all the photos from Latourell Falls here or the photos from Oneonta Trail here.
]]> Photo Album, Trail Reviews http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080617-194029 Ian Steiner Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:40:29 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080617-194029 Affordable iPhone My A$% http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080609-224739
Then I looked into it some more...

The first thing I found was that the $199 price was with a new contract. Okay -- I expected that. Still though -- keeping the $399 price and adding a GPS and 3G is not so bad. I might be able to swing that.

Then I found out the second detail (which they are not as "open" about). The price of the data plan that AT&T requires for the iPhone is increasing from $20/month to $30/month [source]. So, over the coarse of two years -- that means $240 in additional cost.

Now I understand that Apple (deservedly) should get a good margin here. And AT&T needs to cover the costs of their 3G infrastructure and I am fine with that. However, it shameful how Apple and Steve Jobs presented this to their loyal customers. Preaching about making it more affordable. What a load of crap.]]> Misc http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080609-224739 Ian Steiner Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:47:39 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080609-224739 Trail Log http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080529-141317 Webpage Announcements, Travel http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080529-141317 Ian Steiner Thu, 29 May 2008 19:13:17 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080529-141317 Olympic Coast Backpacking - La Push to Toleak Point http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080527-223456
You can see select photos by srolling down or looking at them in my photo gallery here. Or you can see all the photos here. Read on for some details about the hike.

We started at the Third Beach trail head near La Push, WA and headed South (toward Oil City). This is called the "Central Coast Trail". There are a couple of campsites and beaches along the way, and it is a great hike. It is ~3-4 hour hike for the 7 miles down to the Toleak Camp.

The trail starts out in a rainforest. You hike down a little over a mile to 3rd Beach through the woods. This first mile is really not all that exciting...

Once you hit the bottom you find yourself at 3rd beach. This is a pretty heavily travelled beach, as it is a popular day hike and you can camp there.

After hiking down third beach, you quickly come to the Taylor Point overpass. This is where things get really muddy, and where we caught up to Rob and crew (they drove separately from us). Below the first pass you come to another short beach. There is no campground down here.

After another short beach hike, you come to Scott's Point. This has an overland pass, or you can try to scramble over some slippery rocks if the tide is out. We decided to do the latter. It was a lot of fun, but I think took a good amount more time than the overland pass would have taken. Below is a picture of Allen balancing on a rock.

Right after the bluff is Scott's camp. There is a good water supply here and a good beach. We kept on chugging and had lunch near Strawberry Point. There is another campground here.

After this we kept on rolling and eventually made it to Toleak Point. There were a lot of people at this site, and for good reason. It was beautiful and makes a good stop-off point for people making the trip all the way down to Oil City.

Here is a picture of where we setup our camp.

Here is a picture of everyone sitting around the fire at our camp looking south to the point.

A picture of the point looking South:

A picture of the point looking North West:

And finally, a great sunset from our campsite looking out towards Strawberry Point:

On day 2 we split up and did a couple of day hikes. About half of us took a long hike south down on the long beach towards Hoh Head, and the rest of us (including Janel and I) took a shorter hike south to Goodman Falls.

Here is a photo looking up towards Toleak Point from a bluff to the south:

Along the overland passes there are a bunch of ladders that are uses for getting up and over the bluffs. Here is a photo of Janel and Chrissy below one of the ladders on the way to Goodman Falls.

We also saw a bunch of bald eagles from our campsite on day 2. Here are two photos:

On day 3 we got up early to try to get home early. We decided to take the overland pass at Scott's Bluff rather than scramble over the rocks and it proved to be a lot faster. We also got to rapel down the far side which was a lot of fun. Here is a photo of Janel on her way down:

On the way home we stopped at "Sully's Burgers" in Forks, WA. It was not all that exciting :).

]]> Travel, Trail Reviews http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080527-223456 Ian Steiner Wed, 28 May 2008 03:34:56 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080527-223456 House Photos http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080420-151952 here.

As you walk in the front door, you come into our living room.

If you walk in and look back, you see our office. I am not going to show a photo in there because we have not really finished that room yet.

Here is another view of the living room looking back into the family room and kitchen and into the backyard.

If we walk back to the back of the house, you can look left and see the kitchen and our table that we eat dinner at.

To the right is the family room.

Here is a view of the family room from the kitchen.

Here is a look out the sliding glass doors onto our deck. There is a large flowering tree that provides shade on the deck.

The previous owner did a good job with landscaping. Here are the views to either side of the deck.

Let's go back inside now and head up the stairs. Here is a view looking down from the top of the stairs.

Upstairs we have three bedrooms and two baths. Here is our guest bedroom. I do not have a picture of the other room as it is currently empty and not very exciting.

Here is a photo of our master. Sorry the photo is coming out so dark.

And finally, a photo of our master bath.

]]> Misc http://www.iansteiner.com/index.php?entry=entry080420-151952 Ian Steiner Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:19:52 GMT http://www.iansteiner.com/comments.php?y=08&m=04&entry=entry080420-151952