💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › fun › CAA › gecaa-27 captured on 2023-01-29 at 14:34:27.
⬅️ Previous capture (2020-10-31)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:24:48 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-27
ROUGHING IT IN PALO ALTO
#27 in the second online CAA series
by
Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
Palo Alto, CA; 12,000 miles.
April 26, 1987
Copyright 1987, Steven K. Roberts. All Rights Reserved.
GEnie subscriber S.PONTIN in Rochester writes: "Many of us in the less
temperate zones wonder when you'll be leaving the exotic climes of the West
coast to embark on the REAL adventure, the soul- destroying adventure that
ensues when you cross over into the the desert. After all, any of us can have
good time in Palo Alto..."
But Simon... we HAVE been roughing it! Why, just yesterday we were
sprayed with cold salt water as we danced in a 34-foot sailboat across the
violent, whitecapped surface of San Francisco Bay. There were moments of
terror as the deck dipped into rushing froth -- as the women screamed and the
captain intoned "It's under control... it's under control" like a reassuring
litany while Angel Island passed to starboard.
Yes, we're roughing it alright. Later, in the hot tub, we found the water
at the bottom chilly -- in sharp contrast to the steaming dark liquid that
first lured the three of us in, Maggie and Laura and me. Soft wrestling in the
murky depths, the two of them ganging up on me, tickling me, taking advantage
of my exhaustion...
So you think this is an easy life, here in Palo Alto? Why, it fairly
reeks of challenge, risk, and high adventure! My electronic calendar is
crammed to capacity with fearless assaults on high-tech pinnacles (subtly
camouflaged as speaking engagements): Hewlett- Packard. Apple. Sun.
Intellicorp. All-nighters of software-hacking alternate with those of
machining and still others of writing... leaving me wired yet exhausted, too
limp to face the daily onslaught of perky voices and curious faces. And then
there are the unexpected doses of adrenalin: skimming the Pacific with Alan in
a Cessna 172, only to nose skyward, squeak over a cliff, and aim for the
treetops of a 2,000-foot ridge. "There's my property," he says, pointing down
as the plane closes in on a cluster of redwoods at 200 feet per second...
Adrenalin's addicting stuff, isn't it? But unlike most addictions, it's
pure delight when the conditions are right and horrifying when they're not.
Skydiving, breathless tickling marathons, climbing to Alan's tree fort in the
dark, taking a blind corner at 30 in a Vacuum Velocipede -- those are OK.
Getting cut off by a jerk-piloted dirty white van making a left turn onto Page
Mill Road -- that's definitely NOT OK. That little buzz of adrenalin does
little to offset the chilling awareness of extreme vulnerability, of mortality.
Sometimes I get images... a mental slide show of what-ifs that urge me to flee
these risky highways and move to something else, something gentle, something
like a recumbent kayak or sailboat or even, while we're dreaming, something
airborne.
But in the meantime, lacking the requisite megabucks, I'll be pedaling the
Megacycle out of Palo Alto in about 2 weeks. The layover has served its
purpose; the tires itch violently like a sneeze that won't quite happen and the
urge to roll is so compelling that it seems almost hormonal.
And besides, I want to play with my new toys where they're designed to
work best -- out there on the road where comfort, like a gob of gelato, is rare
treat instead of daily routine.
* * *
New toys, yes. There have been a number of techie delights to offset the
stresses of my frantic business schedule. One of the major motives of this
whole Palo Alto adventure was to get some of the bike's sexier systems working.
A few highlights...
--> The machine now has pneumatic truck horns, powered by a compressed-air
tank with adjustable regulator and handlebar pushbutton. I now sound, as well
as look, like a Mack Bike. This exciting new potential for acoustic
obnoxiousness has already paid off in traffic with that jerk in the van -- the
kind of guy who bases his respect for a man upon strength, number of tattoos,
or loudness. Lacking the first two, I socked him with 140 db of air horns,
followed by 130 db of knifing siren and a quick clang of the bell. His shouted
curses, rendered feeble, dwindled to a trickle and then disappeared behind a
quick, defensive finger gesture.
--> The hydraulic brake project, product of Mathauser Engineering and a few
late nights with machining wizard Peter Lindener at Stanford, is done. A pair
of master cylinders under the seat is actuated by a transfer bar with a
proportional coupling to the right hand brake lever. This system, along with
the existing disc brake, might even be enough to stop my 1/5-ton biomechanical
absurdity before it crushes a stray Toyota or something.
--> Maggie has a whole new bike. The Infinity, faithful workhorse that it
was, couldn't be adjusted far enough to let her 5'5" body turn the cranks
without hyperextension. Her latest sponsor is Life Cycles, the all-recumbent
bike shop here in Palo Alto (LIFECYCLES on GEnie), and the bike itself is a
beautiful silver De Felice, hung with the glitter and sheen of polished
aluminum components. As I write, Maggie's in the lab making drilling noises
and puzzling over her all-new problems with communications gear, solar panel
mounting, packing, cabling, and so on... all of which, for both of us, are
about to be further complicated by a pair of lightweight Equinox trailers.
--> My new security system is wonderful. Called the UNGO Box and made by
Techne of Palo Alto, it senses even the most subtle movement (by watching for
flux-density changes in a 40 kHz field around a puddle of mercury). Set to
maximum sensitivity, the system can trigger my pocket beeper or the on-board
siren when someone sneezes on one of my orange flags or stretches an uneducated
finger toward a console switch. With digital remote control of a few bike
functions (like speech), my response to an alert can dissuade casual tinkering
with no loss of humor.
--> The brain-interface unit, built on a Bell helmet substrate, is living up
to its name. Linked to the bike by a 12-pin medical- grade Lemo connector and
coil cord, the unit provides stereo jacks for my ears, adjustable boom
microphone for my mouth, and a halogen lamp over the visor if I want to feel
light-headed. And now, I'm designing a swing-down eyepiece for the new helmet
optical system -- since Color Microimaging Corporation is providing detailed,
full-color maps on microfiche. We have to do whatever we can to increase our
brain's I/O bandwidth, you know... time to re-think that handlebar keyboard...
--> Packet datacomm is working so well that I now view my bike as a mailbox --
just like the HP computer. Every time I climb aboard, I sign on and download
the messages, which are beginning to roll in from all over the country. The
other day, I was pedaling to Mountain View while communicating digitally with
Sourcevoid Dave while HE was enroute with friends to Monterey. A few minutes
later, I accessed the satellite wormhole, emerged in Maryland, and left a
bulletin-board message for a friend on the East Coast -- risking my physical
self by typing my way through noontime El Camino traffic. It's really
happening, folks... nothing can stop the networks now. If a solar-powered
bicycle can go online while rolling, then how far are we from real-time pocket
mailboxes?
And speaking of new magic in the communications world, have you heard about
DASnet? Remember my urgings in Chapter 24 on the general subject of
universally linked networks? Well, I was obviously not the only person
thinking about that -- it's been done. For information on linking to ARPANET,
ATT Mail, BITNET, CompuServe, EIES, EasyLink, MCI, Portal, The Source, Telex,
TWICS (Japan), Unison, and UUCP, drop a line to R.BRIGGS here on GEnie.
* * *
Meanwhile, all this whiz-bang technology aside, what's life like as we
struggle through these last twelve rugged Palo Alto days?
Well...
The dinners range from world-class Maggie-pizza to creative productions of
pumpkin seeds, roadside vegetation, and fish heads -- the spirited Conganese
drummer Maboukaka to my right spitting eyeballs <tink> <tink> onto the plate,
Maggie to my left helping herself to more flowers. Drinks run the gamut from
exotic cognacs to homemade Kahlua, a tasty substance that imposes its own
curfew. Strangely confused conversations in the bike room continue for two or
three minutes before we suddenly realize that I'm talking about interrupt logic
and Maggie's discussing aluminum fairing mounts. Daily show-n- tell jaunts
throughout the peninsula are exhausting but profitable (at least in "soft
dollars"). KLRS is on the radio -- the area's new station dedicated to that
wonderful and yet-unnamed breed of music variously referred to as new age,
Windham Hill, space, alternative, and yuppie muzak. Traffic roars by on
Middlefield, now and again syncopated by the thundering bass of an East Palo
Alto cruise-mobile. The perennial clutter is slowly getting sorted into boxes
and disk files. There are far more amazing new friends and corresponding
social opportunities than I can possibly keep organized in one overloaded
wetware infosystem. And as always, free moments are filled by the detailed
planning and fantasizing that precedes travel.
For this, I suddenly realize, is more the beginning of trip 3 than the
continuation of trip 2.
So here we go again... drawing back the bow, steadying the breath, slowing
the heartbeat, relaxing, sharpening the focus until the target point turns
inside-out and becomes infinite space...
-- Steve