Ryan's Journal

Now that phone and computer are from the same manufacturer, there are some interesting tricks to pull around the data. Someone put together a Ruby script that synchronizes iPhone call log and texts to iCalendar. Unfortunately, it broke with iPhone OS 3.0 / iTunes 8. It's been sitting around waiting for me to look into it, partly for an audit trail when it comes to business expenses, partly because it's just kind of cool.

It wasn't really any more compelling to undertake today than some other day, but I did actually take the time to examine what was going on and found that the changes in backup format were minimal. They were weird, but minimal. I submitted a patch to the project even though it might be dead. If the patch languishes for too long, I'll fork and then leave my own dead project lying around. Other changes include fixing contact name lookup, improving the SMS version of the script to better recognize numbers, placing the texts in the notes field, adding the tel: URL, and writing a shell script and launch plist that ran less frequently and made more sense for my purposes.

The next maybe step is to convert the call data into a form I can use for precise auditing of phone related business expenses. For another day.

I had less time available this weekend, so the hike was truncated and not worth tracking. There's a route from the tennis courts up a mild slope and along a fire road back to Vermont Canyon.

I had more time in the evenings, so I finally completed 120 levels of Super Mario Galaxy. Just in time for the sequel. Or not. If it's as good as the original, I don't really have time for it.

This week's hike was at night. Los Angeles has enough light pollution that a cloudy evening doesn't even require a headlamp, though I brought one just in case. The park is technically closed after sundown, but the Griffith Observatory remains open since it obviously works best during the hours opposite of those for the park. None of the street entrances close, as far as I know, so this particular restriction as it pertains to the observatory seems to mostly be about where you can park. Getting to the observatory from Vermont Canyon is straightforward, though it does require some scrambling. The authorized-access only applies to cars; I guess it's an employee/VIP only segment of the lot. They won't care if you're walking.

The route doesn't actually go to the observatory, but it's just down the road. The view of the whole of Los Angeles at night is fantastic.

From Godfrey Reggio's eponymous film, koyaanisqatsi meaning #5 as translated approximately from Hopi: a state of life that calls for another way of living.

I've put off watching the Qatsi trilogy for a bit since "experience film" tends to require undivided attention for a longer period of time with no promise of engagement, understanding, or worthwhile interpretation. Into Great Silence, a three hour documentary on an order of silent monks, is itself almost entirely silent, inviting the viewer for a brief moment into the lives of a strict monastic order whose daily experience from the time they take their vows dwarfs the comparatively short and yet decidedly uncomfortable time an audience would sit through it. I sort of watched it. At home. I cheated. I had two monitors at the time. The other one wasn't quiescent.

Koyaanisqatsi is a bit harder to describe. If you're not interested in monasticism at all, then Silence can be fairly safely written off (but don't write it off). Most people don't speak Hopi, and taking the more broadly used definition of "life out of balance" only conveys some small sense of what the actual experience is like. Thus you could read through a fairly detailed, scene by scene description of the film on wiki and still be unprepared to be moved by the film.

There is no plot, there are no characters. What narrative it offers must be inferred from observing and from the tone of the soundtrack, composed by Philip Glass. One of the final scenes, where a flaming piece of a disastrous explosion in space tumbles back to the ground, is utterly absorbing. The intention becomes clear in each segment, and I wish the film was more often described with that fifth meaning. Modern day life is out of balance - and that is a desperate plea for something about it to change. For a nearly thirty-year old film, Koyaanisqatsi is still wholly relevant. It may still be a bit before I get to the next two. There were nineteen years between the first and last, though; I'll try not to rush it.

One of my favorite parts of living in this area is the close proximity to Griffith J. Griffith Park, near immediate access to decent hiking grounds, sloping steeply up a thousand feet. In less than two miles, I'm out of the urban environment and into a series of valleys, hills, forests, and greenery. On a clear day, after the rains have cleansed the air, you can see clear down past Long Beach and into coastal parts of Orange County. I go at least once a week and am hoping to build up an intuition of where I am within its grounds. This was yesterday's hike (the park portion of it). Tack on about 3.25 miles for transit back and forth to the park. Most of my hikes are centered on Vermont canyon, which terminates within the main loop of Saturday's hike, and I think I've exhausted most of the clear paths that start and end within the canyon. Next week it will be time to explore west or east, and eventually venturing north. At some point I'll make my way to the zoo by foot.

I've come up across a fire reservoir and also found that the supposed southern entrance from Glendower Road is not well maintained - it's claimed to be closed during evening hours, but it wasn't open when I went to it during the day. That was a tortured path trying to get into and back out of the park, but it did provide an excellent view of Ennis House.

I'll try to post weekly routes from now on, partly to keep myself honest.