So the real reason we were in Las Vegas was not to traipse around Lake Mead, but to attend the wedding of my college friend Alice and her now husband, Mike.

After our failed camping attempt on Sunday night, we made a beeline to the Golden Nugget and extended our reservation by a day. How nice it was to shower and sleep in a bed! On Monday we checked out Fremont Street (since the Nugget is downtown, not on the Strip) and pretty much took it easy, knowing that Alice and Mike were having a pre-wedding reception in their suite that night.

I think the cake topper on their Vegas-themed cake pretty well captures their sense of humor.

On Tuesday we got to ride with them in their limo to the ceremony, which was quite lovely, short and sweet with perfect weather. As you can see, Mike takes a serious picture.

They had the reception at the Main Street Station casino, just down from the Golden Nugget, where we ate, drank, laughed, and talked. I chatted with Mike’s dad about North Carolina pottery, his brother about pulled pork barbecue and otherwise made sure I sampled a little bit of everything at the buffet. Afterwards folks met up at the poker tables, which was about as close to gambling as I got the whole week.

I’d been working as a web producer at O’Reilly for about a year when I got an IM sometime in April 2006 from ex-coworker Tony Stubblebine. He asked if I knew any good web developers who were looking for a job. I replied, “You mean other than me?”

Tony had left O’Reilly a few months earlier to start as director of engineering at Odeo. So in hush-hush fashion I went down to the city for an interview. Actually it was multiple interviews over the span of several hours. It was a little intimidating, but also exhilarating. I learned a lot. Most importantly I realized that this was exactly the kind of environment I wanted to be working in.

I also learned that they were hiring because two of the Odeo engineers were off working on a side-project called twttr. I don’t even think it was available in beta at the time, but Tony said he’d hook me up.

Apparently everyone gave me the thumbs up, so it was up to Evan Williams to actually approve the hire. This is where it gets interesting. Tony had recently moved into a new house, and was throwing a housewarming party that weekend. Ev was supposed to be there, as was I, so he figured why not just kill two birds with one stone? The only challenge, as I learned the moment I walked in the door, was that the party was attended by most of the people I worked with at O’Reilly, and most of the people I’d interviewed with at Odeo. I recall a few awkward how-do-you-know-so-and-so moments, but for the most part the two groups kept to themselves, and I was able to navigate between them.

Towards the end of the party, Ev and I sat down together, and had a perfectly nice chat. It seemed to go really well. It was funny to discover later that the event was captured on Ev’s girlfriend’s Flickr stream in the form of a ristebilder (or headshaker) photo:

Meanwhile, back at work, I started getting these, well, annoying text messages from Tony telling me what he was doing. I remember something about strawberries and a minivan. I was annoyed mostly because every text message I received cost me ten cents, but also because I didn’t want to be drawing attention to the fact that I had recently interviewed at Odeo. I also admit I didn’t really see the point. So I unsubscribed myself.

Later I found out from Tony that Ev had approved my hire, but that the Odeo board had instituted a hiring freeze. It was like learning I’d been hired and fired in the same email. Thankfully I didn’t dwell. It wasn’t long before I found Federated Media, and the rest is history.

We went down to Joshua Tree National Park over the long Thanksgiving weekend, which is becoming something of a tradition for us (see Thanksgiving at MacKerricher, Thanksgiving at Lassen). This was our campsite, complete with joshua trees.

We met up at the park with our friends Julie, Patrice, and their daughter Eva. They drove separately but camped and cooked out with us for two of the three nights we were there.

Here’s a panorama of Hidden Valley, our hike on Friday. I didn’t know what to expect from Joshua Tree (other than joshua trees). Turns out it’s well known (especially among climbers) for its piles of eroded granite rocks. Everywhere we looked we saw people on rocks, some professional, some just goofing off—like us.

Hidden Valley panorama

On Saturday we hiked out to the Fortynine Palms Oasis. Along the way, two tarantulas crossed our paths!

Compared to the hot desert sun (even in late November), it felt air conditioned in the shade of the palms. We all sat down to eat our well-earned sandwiches. It was a mile and a half to the oasis, with about 300 feet of elevation gain and loss just getting there—which we’d repeat on the way out.

Back in June Stephanie and I brought like 16 tins of fois gras and paté back with us from France, with the idea of throwing a paté party (or partay). But the summer was so action-packed that we weren’t able to find a free weekend to bring people together until last night.

Apparently our timing was right. Not only was the weather unusually warm this weekend, but 23 people showed up (including 2 children)!

In addition to the paté, we also made 4 different quiches, 2 with ham, 1 with rainbow chard and bacon, and one with just rainbow chard, a cake aux olives (ham, cheese, and olive bread), salad, and for dessert bananes flambées—the only thing we managed to take a picture of.

Right now I’m basking in the party afterglow. Our apartment is quiet and clean. And I had quiche for breakfast. Does it get any better than this?

On Saturday, Stephanie, Patrick, and I drove out to Mt. Rainer National Park for a little day hike. We were hoping the weather would cooperate, but as it happens, we never saw Mt. Rainier, even though we were standing right on it. With the summit at an astounding elevation of 14,410 feet, it spent the whole day in the clouds.

That didn’t stop us from getting our hike on. We parked at the White River trailhead/campground, and started out on the Glacier Basin trail. Immediately we came upon this foreboding sign:

It read:

Over 1 mile of the Glacier Basin trail was obliterated by floods last fall. The damage starts just beyond the trailhead. There is a flagged route through the washed-out sections, connecting the old sections of trail. This route is marked with 3″ wide, yellow “caution” flagging.

The route is mostly unimproved with travel over large, loose rocks and log jams.

Follow at your own risk.

Well it didn’t say “don’t go” so we took a moment to record the sound of White River and then continued on our merry way. Sure enough, the trail deteriorated into absolute mayhem. We were climbing over fallen trees, jumping over newly deposited fields of boulders, and crossing improvised stream after stream. It wasn’t that the trail was impassable, it’s that it no longer existed. When they wrote “obliterated,” they were being literal.

I have to say it was certainly one of the more exhilarating hikes I’ve ever been on. Not so much for the difficulty in traversing it, or the natural beauty of the surroundings (elements that normally make for a good hike) but more for having had the chance to experience the raw destructive power of nature. The landscape had clearly been changed very recently, which made me feel as though I was exploring something new and undiscovered. I preferred the trail in its “unimproved” state. (I highly recommend that anyone interested take a visit soon, before any improvements are made.)

We hiked the entire length of the trail, 3.1 miles with 1700 feet of elevation change. The last mile or so we were walking through snow—in July! Then with wet socks and sore legs we turned around and began our slow decent down the mountain.

This is where the trail used to be

Patrick put up some of his pics here.