Clear Lake State Park: California’s largest natural lake

Roughly thirty minutes north of the infamous Napa wine region in northern California lies Clear Lake, California’s largest natural freshwater…

Bothe-Napa State Park: Camping in Wine Country

Located about a ninety minute drive north of San Francisco, in the northern part of Napa Valley, Bothe-Napa Valley State…

Salt Point State Park: Ocean Mist

Salt Point State Park is located off Hwy 1, the world-famous coastal road with endless views of the Pacific Ocean…

Hendy Woods State Park: Redwoods and a Hermit

For a lover of redwood trees, Hendy Woods State Park is a paradise. Located roughly three hours north of San…

Sequoia Loop

Going from Silicon Valley across the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Pacific Ocean and back is one of the finest…

Martinez to Sacramento by bike (and back on Amtrak)

Suppose there is an opportunity to combine public transportation with a reasonably long bike ride. In that case, one has…

Mt. Hamilton Challenge

Mt. Hamilton stands tall at 4,265 feet (1,300 m) in the southern San Francisco Bay Area and part of the…

A weekend at Humboldt Redwoods State Park

Hiking amongst redwood trees is one of my favorite outdoor pastimes. These tall giants, growing up to 360 feet tall…

Chico Metricflower, DIY version

I last visited Chico in April 2013 for the Chico Velo Wildflower Century. I wanted to return to this area…

Winter Camping and Snow Play in Yosemite National Park

The last time I visited Yosemite National Park in the winter was over ten years ago. I had slowly started…

How to change the size of an Amazon EBS Elastic Volume

This website (currently) runs on AWS, with a standard Amazon Linux 2 AMI instance. After uploading a few more content…

How to Pick or Plan a Bikepacking Route

When planning a bikepacking or bike touring adventure, the questions that need answering first are usually: Where should I go?…

How to prepare for a Software Engineering Manager interview

I recently prepared for a couple of onsite interviews for Software Engineering Manager positions. While the process and structure might…

How to render a Strava activity map using Mapbox GL JS

Using the Strava API, we can retrieve all kinds of data of a given activity, including geographical information. We can…

Implementing Bubble Sort in JavaScript

It is quite common in Software Engineering interviews to be asked to code up a popular sort or search algorithm….

Visualizing county-level spread of Covid-19 using New York Times data and D3.js

I am not a person who can easily make sense of things in an abstract fashion. I almost always need…

A failed attempt climbing Longs Peak

An attempt to climb Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. And learning an important lesson: what counts in the end is making it back alive.

The North Face Endurance Challenge: Hilly Lands of Marin

After having traveled quite far for races this year, it felt good to close out 2013 with an event close to home on a surface that I started to like more and more this year: trail.

The Moab Trail Marathon

“Welcome to the world’s most beautiful trail race. At least in my opinion,” the voice of the confident female start…

Running the Boston Half Marathon

Of course it’s not the same as running the full marathon, but a good excuse to go to Boston. That, and catching up with a good friend of mine.

Diablo Trail Run

Determination, lower body strength and a pinch of craziness was needed in order to show up for this trail race, up 3,859 ft Mt Diablo in the East Bay.

Riding the RBC GranFondo Whistler

“Look out for one another out there, especially under these conditions”, star-line announcer Phil Johnson had reminded the roughly 4000…

Backpacking Wrangell-St. Elias National Park with St. Elias Alpine Guides

“I can’t talk right now!” Kelly, a bush pilot for 37 years, barked over the PA system as Diane tried…

Marin Century

Lots of ups and downs in this popular century ride just north of San Francisco.

Cycling across Yosemite National Park

Everything after that little hump, about a quarter of a mile before reaching the east entrance of Yosemite National Park…

Running the Vancouver Half Marathon

A running event in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And only a two hour flight away. Sign me up already!

Great Western Bicycle Festival

The 49th installment of the Great Western Bicycle Rally, a true festival for everyone interested in cycling.

Chico Velo Wildflower Century

Transitioning from running to cycling events, I explored uncharted territory way up north at the Chico Wildflower Century.

Joshua Tree National Park: The Desert Experience

I explored the state’s deep south this time. Which, in California, means the desert landscape of Joshua Tree National Park.

Running the NYC Half Marathon

Between skyscrapers and amidst frigid temperatures, a half marathon event was held.

Yosemite National Park in Winter

Compared to Gothic cathedrals by John Muir, we decided to go to Yosemite Valley for a Winter Worshiping Trip.

Running a Half Marathon in Las Vegas

While California was haunted by a storm, I escaped the rain only to find myself on the Las Vegas Strip…

Hiking in Big Sur: Remnants of the Past

What happens when you decide to take a trail on a hike that is not really a trail? A regular hike turns into an epic adventure through the wilderness.

Running the Rock ‘n’ Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon

Thousands of runners answered the invitation by the City of Angels to celebrate Halloween running-style. And I was in the midst of it.

Running the Chicago Marathon

I trained more or less diligently for 4 months in order to run 26.2 miles in a city a 4 hour flight away together with 38,000 other like-minded lunatics. Yes, I just completed my first marathon.

Backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park with REI

I enjoyed my first trip with REI so much, that I decided to go for another one. This time, my sense for adventure took me to Colorado and the Rocky Mountain National Park for two nights of backpacking.

Climbing Mount Shasta and (almost) summitting

Longing for the next adventure, this time I found myself about five hours north of San Francisco, as part of an eight person group attempting to summit the fifth highest summit in California.

Death Valley Cycling with REI

Experiencing Death Valley with a group of 11 other fellow cyclists and supported by REI.

Cycling up Haleakalā

A bicycle. One of the most beautiful spots on earth. 35 miles. 10,000 feet of climbing. Feelings of pain and…