Osten Family Blog: 2018

Monday, December 10, 2018

Canyon Sin Nombre Backpack

Troop entry level backpack through some great desert terrain and slot canyons.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Redis on Docker for Windows

Go here for the full instructions: https://hub.docker.com/_/redis/.

Install Docker forWindow.
Download and start the image: docker run --name localredis -d redis
Get the IP address: when the docker starts on Windows, it will generate its own IP. After docker launches, and the whale logo ASCII art shows up, the Docker IP address will be displayed (in this case 192.168.99.100).

The standard port (6379) won't be exposed to other apps so you have to figure out which port to use. So run docker ps. You will get a listing of the running containers with the ports. Notice that my redis instance has its standard port exposed on 32769.

Use the address and port you just discovered when configuring your client.

Monday, November 19, 2018

For the first half of our Camelback award hike, the troop headed out to Joshua Tree NP to hike the California Riding and Hiking Trail. We did the eastern part of the trail through the park a couple of years ago so this time we were doing the western section from Black Rock Canyon to Juniper Flats.

We drove up early Saturday morning and met up at the Black Rock campground. There were already two other troops there getting ready to hike. Two of use took a car and cached 10 gallons of water at Upper Covington trailhead. This would be the end of first day's hike. We then took three cars into to park and dropped off two of them at Juniper Flats. The car shuttle out of the way, we started hiking. This section of the park has more foliage than the rest. We hiked among junipers, pines and the standard desert plants. We made good time while steadily heading uphill. Light was fading when we got to Upper Covington. We then discovered that someone had taken half of our water - and left the empty jugs! Luckily, since it wasn't that hot, we didn't need all the water but we packed everything up and headed up trail another half mile to a good camping spot. After a nice dinner, it got dark and cold so we all went to bed early.

Next morning, we got up and heading out after a quick breakfast. The hike was really nice as we headed down into a large wash. The hardest part of the day was heading up the opposite wall of the canyon but once we all got up there, it was all cruiser trail to the cars.

First mile!

Great views

Camp near Upper Covington

More views

And more views

Sunday, October 21, 2018

Canyon Sin Nombre and Mine Peak

Knocked off a couple more hikes in the desert.
Canyon Sin Nombre included some great slot canyons. My route was to walk down the road, then up the big slot canyon and then back along the ridge.
"Afoot and Afield" did not describe the route for Mine Peak very well. The text says to take up a use trail from "behind" the mine. But behind really meant taking the curvy road up the side of the hill until it dead ends to a big pile of ore. I thought "behind the mine" meant behind the main structure. This led me a route that was east of the "trail" and was much steeper. No worries though as I made it to the peak and the awesome views.
One the way home, I stopped by Red Feather in Ocotillo for a great burger, highly recommended!

Entrance to small slot canyon

Entrance to main slot canyon

View from Mine Peak to the east

View from Mine Peak to the north

Monday, October 01, 2018

Books and Lectures

Jerky: The Fatted Calf's Guide to Cooking and Preserving Dry Meaty Goods by Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller
In the Kingdom ofIce: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette by Hampton Sides
Coffee Isn't RocketScience: A Quick and Easy Guide to Buying, Brewing, Serving, Roasting and Tasting Coffee by Sebastien Racineux and Chung-Len Tran
A Brief History of Time by Stephan Hawking
Espionage and Covert Operations: A Global History by Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague by Professor Dorsey Armstrong
The Other Side ofHistory: Daily Life in the Ancient World by Professor Robert Garland
Human Errors: A Panorama of our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes by Nathan H. Lents

Monday, September 17, 2018

Paso Picacho Campout

The troop had its first campout of the season out at Paso Picacho campground in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. We hiked up to the lake, got a lot of advancement in and had a great time!

Campsite

My tent

Meadow east of the lake

Big sky

Stonewall Peak

Sunday, September 09, 2018

Laguna Mountain Batch of Hikes

With a heat wave coming, I chose to knock off some short hikes up in the Lagunas that might be a bit cooler than the rest of San Diego.

Cottonwood Falls - obviously no water was running but this would be a good one to hit in the spring
Wooded Hill - very nice day hike with plenty of shade
Foster's Point - Great lookout point with a very interesting guide to local peaks at the end
Fages Monument to PCT - Recon'ed a segment of the CRHT to do with the scouts

Cottonwood Creek Falls

View from Foster's Point

Fages Monument

Monday, August 27, 2018

Week in Prescott

We spent a week in Prescott, AZ to drop off Bengt at Embry-Riddle. He is studying Cyber Intelligence and Security and is trying Air Force ROTC so we had to be there a few days early.

Unfortunately, his dorm is still under construction so him and his roommate are in the lounge area of existing suites but they are making it work.

We had time to checkout some of the sights in town: