Glacier Park trip log with pictures
Here's us all loaded up just before we left on Tuesday morning.
We then road to Rexburg via Bear Lake and Palisade Reservoir. There's more photos in the album. Wednesday we road up into Montana and past Flathead Lake, over 40 miles long of gorgeous hills and water.
This was one of the first views of Glacier National Park on the morning of the third day.
A ways further into Glacier Park. The road basically cut straight up the side of the mountain on the left side. Quite the engineering feat.
This is at Logan Pass, the highest point of our trip through Glacier.
East side of Glacier Park.
The east entrance to the park.
The last photo stop of the trip at the Canadian Border.
After that we put the rubber to the road and made it back to Rexburg around 10pm, for starting at 8am that was a good long day of riding with some of the most scenic parts of the ride. Going back through Montana had some very pretty areas, some great curvy roads, and in places, sustained ~50 mph crosswinds.
Posted by: James Farrer on August 26, 2010, 10:36 pm - 0 Comments
To Canada and Back
So I just got back last night from a 1731 mile motorcycle trip up to Glacier National Park and the Canadian border. It was a whirlwind trip to fit into 4 days but somehow we pulled it off and it was great.
Glacier park was very rugged, majestic, and beautiful. We also happened to show up on the 100th anniversary of it being made a park. I think the engineering feat of building a road into the side of the mountain to allow people access to the park is also quite an amazing thing to see. I'm just trying to figure out who in their right mind would think of building a road like that. Whoever it was, thank you for making the beauty more accessible.
We were also able to see Crystal and Zach, and Jason and Alana for a short while which was fun. I wish I could get up to see them a little more.
On a different note, Shauna started her new job today. She's getting trained and all that fun today. So far I haven't burned the house down and no one has been injured with Mom away. Let's hope it stays that way.
Posted by: James Farrer on August 21, 2010, 1:34 pm - 0 Comments
Fast bikes and freedom
So today we all loaded up in our van and headed up to Salt Lake where they have a new BMW motorcycle dealership that was celebrating its grand opening. They had the BMW demo bike truck there with the whole fleet of new bikes to ride. I took an R1200 RT (road touring) bike out. I was impressed with how good of a ride they took us on for it having an official leader with a chain of 6 or 8 bikes. Freeway, high speed curves, and some city side streets.
They also had one of the BMW sponsored stunt riders there and while he didn't ride for a super long time it was still amazing how well he could make the bike perform with wheelies, stoppies, skids, and general mayhem. He's really cool about waving at the kids and playing to the crowd.
They also gave out free stuff, and who doesn't like free stuff? Especially when it's BMW stuff because it's not cheap and it's nice stuff.
It was a long day but I think we all had fun.
Posted by: James Farrer on May 22, 2010, 9:52 pm - 0 Comments
80 and 18
It is supposed to be 80 degrees today, who's excited? On a side note, $18 for a motorcycle to get into a state park is crazy. I felt significantly scandalized. I could have taken a bus in for the same price. All I wanted to do was see what was there and if it was worth coming back with the fam. All for a bunch of sand (dunes that is). At least the ride out there and back was nice.
Posted by: James Farrer on May 17, 2010, 7:55 am - 1 Comments
Riding a bike
Abby figured out how to get started on her bike on her own tonight without traing wheels. It was really the first time she really went riding on her own without Shauna or I holding on. She's been awfully timid about learning but once she gets into it she starts doing better. It a little crazy to think she is old enough to be doing that. I think the thing that gets me about it is that I remember learning to ride. I don't have all that many memories of my childhood so this milestone is a big step.
Am I really old enough to have kids old enough to make some of the same memories that I had? It doesn't bother me really but it's interesting to reflect a little about it.
Posted by: James Farrer on April 25, 2010, 9:18 pm - 0 Comments
Conversation with a 5 year old
Here's basically how the conversation went this morning over breakfast:
Abby: Do you know what my favorite number is?
Daddy: 5?
Abby (matter of factly): No, 28
Daddy: Why's that?
Abby: Because it's a really big number
I love my kids.
Posted by: James Farrer on March 10, 2010, 8:36 pm - 0 Comments
Complete Reorganization at Work
On Friday at work I had an interesting experience. The CIO sent out an email to all of the department saying the organization had essentially been dissolved and reorganized. So with no warning my office was split into three and I now have a new boss in a new group.
For the most part I believe I will be doing essentially the same thing that I am currently doing but there are some aspects of my job that I'm sure will change. All of management was essentially removed and they are in the process of putting it back together. They may or may not use some of the same management. Most of the upper management has been replaced. There have been some challenges and I think this is a much needed change but wow this is a crazy way to do it. I think people have been so comfortable for so long that this really is the best way to do things without starting to fire people. I have been moved to a new group completely and will be part of the Infrastructure Services department. My group will be responsible for a lot of the underlying technology like the network, phones, and virtualization (i.e. servers). We will also be responsible for the department tools. This has essentially been what I have been working on and so I expect to continue working in this area. It will be interesting to see how things come back together. Over the next week and a half they will be putting a management structure in place. Who knows what that will mean, but it's sure to make a lot of people nervous for a bit. :-) I'm not too concerned. I'm pretty easy going and I think I'll be fine no matter what happens. From what I have been told, my new boss (who used to be my boss's boss) worked pretty hard to get me as part of his organization. It's nice to know that even through a major reorg they appreciate my work.
Posted by: James Farrer on February 28, 2010, 6:20 pm - 0 Comments
President Monson Announces New Temple in Payson, Utah
We're getting a new temple. How cool is that!
Posted by: James Farrer on January 26, 2010, 9:12 pm - 0 Comments
Simplicity vs. Complexity
I've been pondering the question of where the balance between simplicity and complexity should lie. At work my team is building a new site using an existing tool from another company. We actually work on several different sites, most of which are very customized and significantly complex.
While I fully understand how nice it is to have something that does exactly what you need it do, I think about the huge number of hours that it took to get to that point and am almost dumbfounded. The other side of it is how much effort we have to go to in order to replace the functionality. Two of our systems are built using technology that is outside our range of expertise. While I don't necessarily have a problem expanding our horizons, it doesn't make much sense to support several websites in different technologies that do almost identical functionality in many ways. Each system has its own super-customized sections, but on the whole, it's generally the same.
So whether the functionality is the same or it really is, and needs to be, different I find the same question coming up again and again. When is exactly what we need too complex? When is keeping it simple just not close enough? I think in general we underestimate or simply don't consider the cost of getting closer to what we need.
The cost comes in a number of forms. There is often a straight forward cost to obtain something (e.g. buying some software that does what you need).
There is the cost of implementing it in man hours. This is often overlooked because the people will be working the same hours either way, but in this case it is really an opportunity cost. If we do activity A then we can't do activity B.
There's also the cost of managing the stuff. The more customized something is, it generally means there are more data points that need to be managed. For example, if you just track computers for checkouts, then you have one item that you need to assign out and check back in. That's good and simple. What about the mice, power adapter, extra disk drive, etc. that come with the computer? Should those be tracked as well? All of a sudden it's not a simple system anymore, there are 5+ items that may or may not be checked out together. These tend to get lost or broken more often so is there extra fees, fines, or other information. There's a lot more questions that need to be answered, and more information to maintain. How do you take inventory on those? What happens when there's a new peripheral? How about replacing them?
Another blurring of the cost comes when a relatively simple system is created and then over time things are added here and there. Additional functionality and rules are added. When taking into account the cost to create it things don't seem too bad. But often this is done with little thought given to the long term strategy.
If we add this now, we're done right? Wrong! 6 months or a year down the road someone realizes the process has changed and the system needs to be updated to accommodate it. That's going to cost twice as much as it took to create it in the beginning, and now we've got 18 new points to configure or update just to keep things running.
Now after a number of years of minor tweaks and changes you look back and realize you've got this great system that is getting brittle and really needs to be replaced with something that looks at the bigger picture and you realize it's much bigger and more complex than you want to deal with.
But the catch comes in the fact that no one wants to give up the functionality that they've grown so close to over time. Even if you want to redo it and make it all more manageable AND have the resources to do it, now you've got to figure out if you're going to cut back to simplify or expand to make it do exactly what you want. Keeping exactly the same functionality usually isn't a real possibility because it's a lot of money and effort to get exactly what you've got.
So there you have the constant tug-o-war of technology. Simple or complex and customized. At a conference a few years back for a seriously complex piece of software they repeatedly said to tell users "no" 3 times before considering any customizations because they better really want it and be able to justify it or it's probably not worth the effort.
It's the rare occasion when someone steps out of the box and finds a truly great way to simplify and make it better. We need more people to do that. Now the question is how...
Posted by: James Farrer on January 12, 2010, 8:33 pm - 0 Comments
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
So here's the news of the week. William has had an increasing fascination with trains. Over the Christmas break Shauna's dad had his train set going around the Christmas tree and we have had Shauna's train on display in our living room. After getting home from our Christmas travels we got the train layout out and put it up in our room. William has loved just sitting and watching it. He's spent hours with it. At the same time Shauna was trying to figure out how to potty train him so she decided to offer him a train if he could go potty on the toilet enough to fill up a potty chart. From that moment forward he has been working hard at it. It's not been totally without accident, but for the most part he's done a fantastic job. It's been cool to get a glimpse into what makes the kid tick. He's also become much more helpful at identifying what he needs. For example he'll come up to us and let us know when his nose is running with a "notty no Daddy, notty no" (i.e. snotty nose).
It's pretty cool to see him growing up so much.
Posted by: James Farrer on January 10, 2010, 11:39 pm - 0 Comments
