Life: Whoa Guys

Life: Whoa Guys

Hey all you sometimes read this blog! I'm heading out on an incredible trip with my boy and I have lots of photos from the past few months to share! I have a craft project, a home improvement, hiking, and decorating our place. I really can't wait to show them all off... in the mean time here's my favorite picture that my friend took at Big Basin this past weekend! Dressed up in old lady khaki shorts glory! And I really love the meta picture :)




Love ya!

Life: My Tech Job

Life: My Tech Job

One reason that I don't blog much, other than being lazy about sitting at my desk, is that I kinda get burnt out at my job. But it's the good burnt out. I absolutely love my job. I work as an interactive designer at the Weather Underground, the first weather website as well as the most concise bringing weather data from not only government sources but local do-it-yourselfers and self proclaimed meteorologists. It's amazing.

We have recently redone the entire site including the outdated '93 logo that was a nod to our namesake, the 60-70s radical left group. Everything was launched the 15th of April and since we're an agile company we're constantly working on it. My team was in charge of the City forecast page, plus the overall experience of the site minus our Wundermap and our social/community pages, ie the photo and blog community. I have learned so much about organizing a SUPER DATA HEAVY site... and I mean super heavy. There were pages that's code hadn't been touch since the early 2000's, which is like 50 internet years.




There's still so much more to do and design, and I'm so happy to be there with such amazing people some who I've become good friends with. It's an absolute blast. It amazing how much was put into this site, the design will continually become refined, but the backend things that were done is just, whoa. The end consumer doesn't really understand how involved this site is behind the curtains. Of course there was a lot of "If it aint broke..." stuff but the site was actually broken, or just being held together by small strings of code. Now the backend is more robust, but we're still working on it, and not just piece-mealing it together which in the long run builds a better product.

Also if you ever watch Silicon Valley on HBO... it's crazy how spot on some of the absurdness of the startup/tech industry is...  

Now if only I found the time... no energy... no ambition... to actually make this blog look presentable. I mean really the kerning in the title font. Absurd.

Now go check out the site, http://www.wunderground.com/, and download our apps!! They're awesome!

-Lauren

Travel: Angel Island

Travel: Angel Island

Now weeks ago a few of my buddies and I took a nice little sail to Angel Island, a state park off of Tiberon in San Francisco Bay. It's a pretty common place we sail to always rewarding us with a deserted island (since the last ferry leaves at 4). This time as we neared we could hear the barking of seals playing in the bay that we usually anchor in. Lucky for us they were super playful, one even came up to the boat and did a backflip for us! Sadly I don't have an awesome photo but I have some pretty good ones... you guys have an imagination :)





After some hotdogs and burgers, we made our way to the old abandoned military buildings along the shore. Some you can walk into but the stairs are knocked out so you can't go upstairs. Another building you can get into by jumping and pulling yourself up onto a second floor ledge. I myself would not do that, so while other people went on a head and made fun of me, I walked around the building surveying the land. And lo and behold one of the locked doors was open... so I sneaked in a scared the others. Naturally.







This history of Angel Island is quite spectacular and also somewhat depressing. Starting out as a base it soon became the "Ellis Island" of the west, hosting immigrants from russia, asia, and sometimes europeans. Unfortunately the times weren't the best and there was strong racism towards many asian immigrants many times quarantining them and forcing them into small living quarters sometimes for years waiting to be allowed entry to the US. None of these photos are of the immigration buildings which are on another side. These are all part of the massive fort on the island, Ft. McDowell, specifically the East Garrison. These buildings were mainly occupied during WWII since San Francisco was a major staging area for the Pacific theater.





I go back often and this isn't the first post, and I'm sure it won't be the last. We go there often and it's a definitely favorite of living in the bay area. If you're in SF ever you should definitely visit, it's not as common as alcatraz but a billion times more beautiful, and there's cute little deer living there too... So that's awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Island_(California)

- Lauren

Travel: Steep Cliff Ravine Pt. 2

Travel: Steep Cliff Ravine Pt. 2

Man it's been a while... so here's the rest of mine and Mike's weekend at the Steep Cliff Ravine Cabins. On Sunday we had to check out of our cabin early so we drove down the road to Stinson beach to have a good yummy breakfast. Best part of breakfast was a loud guy sitting near us telling his friends about his eggs benedict sauce has like "Three cups of cheddar cheese... you know to get the sauce yellow!" His friends tried once to correct him that there was no cheese in the sauce but you could see them easily give up. Haha I really love listening in on some peoples conversations like the creep I am.





After the beach we drove up and up and up to Mt. Tamalpais to go hiking around the redwoods, and walking in the grassy fields. I love Mt Tam, but of course like most everything here I want to go there more often but can never find the time, aw sadface. Such a poor little girl who lives in San Francisco... haha







I absolutely love redwood pine cones, they're soooo tiny yet make the biggest trees! I had a gold coated necklace with a little redwood pine cone on it, and it was my favorite until I lost it :(





Anyway we hiked a bit to a little waterfall, unfortunately the drought made the fall nice but not spectacular like pictures of it in years past. We didn't hike much further because Mike had a twisted ankle, but I know I want to go soon!!

Can you believe these photos were taken in January, I swear the winter here is the most beautiful... If only the summer was warm!!

Huggles,
Lauren

Travel: Steep Cliff Ravine pt 1

Travel: Steep Cliff Ravine pt 1

About a year ago Mike, Adam, Brit and I got up very early to go to some natural hot springs along the coast... It was what I'll say an interesting experience, but the real take away I had from it was peering down the beach at these little cabins on the shore hundreds of feet below the road sitting right above the water. They were the steep cliff cabins, part of Mt Tam State Park, that were built in the 30's and getting reservations there seemed impossible. Enter a month ago when one of my new coworkers casually said, do you know anyone that would want my steep cliff cabin reservation... UM YES ME!!! So I bought the reservation from her and Mike and I decided to call the weekend outing an early 2nd anniversary... Wait I can't believe we've been dating for that long.





One day was a bit rainy which was beautiful. Each cabin (there are only 10) has an incredible view and hug windows in every room and a little wood stove to heat the place up. These are bare cabins so no water, no bed (there a platform to sleep on), no luxuries except a table, bench and stove. But with the view that's all you need.

The first day we got there late in the evening but it was super quick getting set up in the cabin. They were a lot bigger then we thought, they can sleep up to 5 and have two bedrooms and a bed platform in the living space. One thing you definitely need to bring are curtains or sheets to hang in the windows, they're huge and don't offer too much privacy at night. But it's cool the cabins have curtain rods to hang you fabric. The next day after walking around in the sprinkling rain. Then we went into the small town down the road during the day and bought provisions, and made hamburgers on the little wood stove.




We spent the whole weekend cozying up in the cabin or going on walks on the beach (I know so cheesy), and walking around the paths. Unfortunately Mike had hurt his foot so we couldn't go on any extreme hikes. But on sunday he hid his pain and we walked to a little waterfall on Mt. Tam. I will someday hike to the vista point but that'll be another time.




If you ever are in the bay area or planning look these place up... But the are near impossible to get a reservation, you can only get one 6 months in advance on the 1st day of the month starting at 9am... See near impossible. I'm so grateful that my coworker sold me her reservation and we were able to experience a beautiful magical weekend.




We also watched the Hobbit while there... seemed fitting to be cozied up in a cabin in a place that is as magical as Middle-Earth.

The next day we hiked and drove around Mt. Tamalpais... More on that later!