Random Musings

random food post:

this past weekend, we joined some friends in doing a fundraiser for obama. this was one of our two contributions to the fundraiser:)

First, congrats to Chester and Chang and the entire TNC/Textcube team!

Secondly, congrats to Google Korea for making such a smart buy.

Chang announced the acquisition of TNC by Google Korea today on his blog. When I was in Seoul in March, both Chester and Chang demoed their product for me and all I kept saying was, “Wow, this is better than Wordpress!” which is the blogging platform I use here on this blog.  I even wrote up a short piece about it here and told by buddy Om to check it out.

I am not sure if Google will roll it out internationally, but I can say it is a first-rate platform that can hold its own against Moveable Type and Wordpress.   Also, I think this bodes very well for the Korean startup market.  In many ways, innovation in the Korean start-up market has been stifled because of the lack of good exit opportunities and the dominance of Naver and Daum.  This move by Google will not only attract the attention of other international tech and media companies to the innovative work in Korea, but it will hopefully encourage a new generation of entreprenuerial coders in Korea who thusfar think that working at Naver is the best thing for their careers.

Congrats guys!

i spent labor day weekend and the last weekend of my twenties at the beautifully remote lost trail lodge outside of truckee, california. the lost trail lodge is a truly interesting place. it was pretty empty when we were there, although i have heard that winter is their busy season which is amazing since that is the time of year when you cannot drive to the lodge. in the winter, you literally have to hike in 4 miles, with all your gear and food, at +6000 ft altitude - tough work, which explains why the winter crowd tends to be serious backcountry folks.

amazing kitchen, all the comforts of home, clean and great bathrooms. its off the grid, so its entirely powered by on-site solar panels and a generator during the winter. water comes from a well and tastes so pure. there are two babbling brooks on each side of the property, so you can sit and listen to them babbling. numerous hiking trails lead off from the site. plenty of mountain biking trails and two horses, plus stables for more. o, and did i mention, no internet service and only intermittent cell service depending on which way the wind was blowing.

the location is perfect. close enough to donner lake and truckee to get there pretty quickly once you make it off the long dirt, rocky road to the lodge

and here is the kicker - on the dirt road to the cabin, there are 3 major bouldering places with about 40 route! (split rock, shadow rock)

it was a perfectly peaceful weekend and i highly recommend it to anyone wanting to unplug for a bit.