La Jolla with Friends

A random opportunity arose last week when I realized a friend from Brooklyn was flying home for a month to Escondido, California. I quickly put together a plan to drive out for a visit as I had never been south of Los Angeles.

The plan quickly came together to include seeing friends from San Clemente and Tijuana, having a beach bonfire, and visiting some of the many local breweries.

Below I have made a really nifty interactive tour, with a service called Tripline, of my trip based on my Foursquare check-ins! Push the play button and see some of the places I visited… (Its Flash so it wont work on most mobile devices)

Some of the highlights from the trip you can see below. The beach bonfire on Saturday night put together by my friend Kanan was really excellent. It was a cold night but the beaches in San Clemente are beautiful and a commuter rail line running right next to it really lends to a unique atmosphere.

San Clemente T Street Beach

I got to visit four local breweries out of the hundreds(?) in the area. Latitude 33, Mother Earth Brew Co., Ballast Point Brewing, and Stone Brewing of course.

My favorite was Ballast Point because of the crazy and unique beers they had on tap that day. They don’t really advertise their adventurous stuff on their website, but I highly recommend stopping by if you’re in the area.

Stone Brewery Tour

Ballast Point Brewing

B&W Fire Security Systems is a local business that approached me in late December to build an entirely new web presence to better represent their growing business and really highlight the different services they offer.

Outdated and Dysfunctional

The old website, which had been in use for several years, was broken in most of its functionality and really failed to present any actual benefit to potential customers.

The main attraction on the front page featured a Flash video of fire, large and harsh looking icons, and image based navigation with many broken links. Not only did the website not perform well on desktop computers but was nearly useless to a mobile visitor.

A Fresh Approach

Starting with a modern responsive theme is always my first step in building a proper WordPress website. WordPress is first and foremost a blogging platform and so its important to find a theme that allows for robust page creation.

With a proper foundation I was able to create vibrant and dynamic pages to truly showcase all the many services offered by B&W. The site is further brought alive by using custom WebFonts. An occasional slider was used to provide key information in an eye catching way.

Making Money

A website is a neccesity for most small businesses today, but a proper website really becomes an integral part of a business when it brings in new customers and helps increase overall sales. This website was built for that purpose and only a week after launching we are seeing a fair amount of traffic coming in from organic searches in the area. Hopefully it will serve them for many years to come.

Visit BWFireSecurity.com and see this new website in action!

Everyone loves a good cat video. I recently toyed with this love by posting a very simple video of my cat Waffle to my YouTube channel. I uploaded it on December 19th, 2011. My expectations were low since I have no reputation for these types of videos. I took the video with my phone and uploaded it directly, no graphics or music added, very dry by my standards.

It exploded on Christmas day. It seems everyone is so bored while on holiday that they turn to YouTube for entertainment. Other than the span of a few days around Christmas the video has received very few other views.

Another interesting thing I found in the analytics was where this traffic was coming from. I expected to get some traffic from other cat videos because I loaded up on tags and keywords, but I got more traffic from mobile devices overall. I guess everyone was sitting at home, surrounded by family, playing with their phones. Lovely.

I designed from a mobile first perspective, making sure someone viewing my website from a mobile phone would have a full and optimized experience. From the I made sure the site would look and perform well on tablets using the iPad the benchmark, then expanding that interface to a wider resolution to take advantage of the extra screen real estate.

I am no designer, so there are many rough edges that need to be polished up, but I wanted to ship rather than tweak for another month. In the coming weeks I will be adjusting and improving the design based on feedback from some great designers.

I hope you enjoy my website and it helps you to get to know me a little better.

Until next time!

In total I was gone for over 7 weeks and drove over 7,500 miles! I saw parts of the United States I had never been to before and came to appreciate the places I have been all my life. Traveling, especially alone is something I think everyone should experience at least once in their lives. You gain confidence, helps you become a better problem solver, and learn alot about who you really are.

View Cross Country 2009 in a larger map

Of course the trip began with the flight to North Carolina where I bought a 1986 Honda Civic Wagon with about 180,000 miles on it. My first car was a 1987 Civic and so I was familiar and confident in these old cars. After making a loop in the North East seeing friends and checking out awesome places like the New River Gorge I drove home to Texas and took about a month to plan the next leg of the trip.

My goal for the entire thing was to stay on the road however long felt right and always choose the scenic route. I drove through many desserts, high mountain passes, forests, and amazing coastal roads. It was wonderful to see alot of family and friends that I had not seen in years, and I made more new friends than I can count! Every hostel I stayed in was a fantastic experience, one I wish more American’s would take advantage of.

I got to experience the horrible city of Las Vegas, the healthy and vibrant city of San Francisco and everything in between. One of my favorite some towns was Cambria, California. There is a small and charming hostel there, the scenery is breathtaking and the beaches are great, not to mention Big Sur is directly north. I had always heard about how amazing California is, yet I was skeptical it could live up to the hype. By far California was one of the most beauitful places I have ever been. From the beauty of Big Sur to the majesty of the Redwoods, everything was amazing in California.

By the time I got to Portland, one of my main destinations, winter was settling in and I was becoming home sick. So after a great week in Portland I set off with Texas as my destination. I made a few stops, but ultimately drove home as fast as I could. As many amazing places are out there, it all made me appreciate even more the diversity and uniqueness of Texas. I chose the settle down in Fort Worth because it is a city that still has a small town feel while still offering everything you could want in a city. Fort Worth is also on the verge of becoming a really amazing city, if things continue as they are it will be able to rival places with reputations as high as Austin and Portland.

I want to travel more now than I did before and I hope that my trip will inspire you to do one of your own. Come visit me in Fort Worth!

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I could have stayed much longer in Cambria, it was a lovely little town and had a perfect hostel. It is tucked behind some hills, guarded from the ocean, and had some beautiful beaches around. Maybe I will get back there one day…

The drive was just as nice as it is said to be, and I am sure even more spectacular when the hills are green. You can drive very fast because you have a sheer rock wall inches from one side of your car and a cliff leading down into the ocean on the other side. I have a feeling it would be a better drive going south because you would be on the ocean side of the road. It was a beautiful day with some fog in the morning and low clouds hanging around the hills all day. I stopped to take pictures whenever I could but you can only stop so much and make any distance.

My destination was Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Most of the park is closed because of fires in  recent years but McWay Waterfall is still there and absolutely beautiful. I was stopping to stay at a secret section of the park, two environmental hike-in campsites. I say secret because the park has no camping signs all over the place and so you have to have read about them before hand to know about them.  The sites are just behind the waterfall under a grouping of trees. It was lovely weather to camp, just chilly enough to need a fire and sleeping bag. My only complaint was the stream of tourist that would meander down the trail and walk around my camp, especially the creepy photographers that stayed for hours!

Because of my short drive I got there rather early and setup camp, did some hiking, and read for a while perched on a rock above the ocean. It was a long evening alone out in the woods. At one point in the night I was dancing around the fire when I turned around to see a small fox sitting on the hill watching me, I returned the favor and watched him for a little while. I slept great and was able to pack up and get on the road fairly early. I ended up in San Francisco on this day!

I had planned on camping at one of the nice state parks on the beach in the area but that turned out much harder than you would hope. Turns out getting a spot in a California state park is like winning the lottery. rant/ The state has given all reservation responsibilities to Reserve America, which reminds me of the horrible Ticketmaster.Every season they open reservations on a certain date for California and what happens is that every spot gets booked immediately for the whole year. California state parks are not very conducive to a random last minute traveler like myself.  One last note about a Reserve America policy that is idiotic is that you have to book a spot at least 48 hours in advance, after that there is no way to get a spot even if the park is empty. \rant

So when I realized I wasn’t going to be camping I headed for the hostel in Santa Barbara. I had already done research on it and had it as my backup plan. Turned out to be a nice backup because it was cheaper than a tent site at a park and was a very fun experience. The hostel was only a block from the beach and was centrally located in Santa Barbara. I stayed for two nights and was able to check out the city. I met alot of awesome people at the hostel including a guy from China riding a $150 bike from San Francisco to New York! After my Sunday morning plan was changed because everyone was at the assembly I rented a bike and rode around the city. The highlight of the visit was the Santa Barbara Art Museum. There was a fascinating exhibit on an ancient tomb found in China and the artifacts that revealed what life was like back then. The permanent collection was nice but not outstanding. I mostly just loved that it was a nice museum that wasnt to big or to small. My favorite piece was a collaborative piece made of clay that encouraged you to sculpt something to add to the piece. In the afternoon I rode my bike along the beach and wanted to try and get in to swim but it was just way to cold so I just watched the surfers for a while and took pictures.

When it was time to leave I headed north on Highway 1 towards Cambria, CA as a stopping point before driving Big Sur. On the way I stopped at Pismo Beach to look around and have lunch. Got to eat some delicious clam chowder and see the amazing beaches there. Again, wish it were summer.

I planned on writing a huge rant about how creepy the city is, and that it reminded me of Pyongyang, North Korea… blah blah blah. I will save you and me the time and cut to the chase, it’s not my kind of city. I have some good friends there and they are the only reason I will ever go again. The End.

Bright patches of red rock jutting out of a valley plain, it was beautiful driving into the park. At first we drove around to the normal tourist spots, weird old drawings on the rocks, cool arch formations and such. They were interesting but not that captivating so we drove around the campground a bit. Wow, what a place to camp! I am sure it fills up fast, some very dramatic spots in between giant rocks and boulders.

The hiking urge overcame me and so I dragged Anthony down a trail and up one of the largest rock formations in the area. It had a steep but walkable incline on one side so we were able to scramble up the side pretty easily. It doesn’t matter how high, when you reach summit its exciting. We stayed up there for a while just taking in the views and watching the sunset. I even got to see the sunset twice by jumping up as soon as it dipped below the mountains! Overall it was a great afternoon and I hope I can stay out there longer in the future.

Getting from Skull Valley, AZ to the interstate was a fun drive through the mountains. Made a little detour to see Bagdad, AZ because it’s a mining town that my family lived in for many years. After that it was straight on to Nevada.

I wanted to stop and check out the Hoover Dam as I made my way over it. Traffic was very light coming from my direction happily. I later found out it takes hours to get through security coming from the Nevada side, so many people! This will all be made alot easier once they have the bypass done. After 9/11 they realized what a huge target the dam was with so many people driving over it so they stepped up security and made plans for a bypass route. This is a huge project that is going to be finished in 2010, you will see the photos of it.

I made it through and happily paid for parking, its a nice garage with some decent views of its own. Decided I wasn’t going to pay and wait for a tour so I just walked around, took some pictures, and headed on to Vegas.

I made it to Las Vegas Nevada in good time. I must say that it was creepy driving into the Las Vegas and being able to see the entire city. The whole city creeped me out, but I will go into that later.

I was able to see my friend Brenden and his wife Lacy and alot of their friends and family on Tuesday night. We drove out to Red Rock Park and hiked around, went back to his place for homemade pizza and watched the new Star Trek (which is sooooo good!).