Kayaking - Yarrow Point

This morning Jean and I got to our launch point off NE 42nd Street in Yarrow Point very early - 6:45 AM. The launch point doesn't show up on any maps, I only know about it from having been there before.

Yarrow Point is an area of extremely expensive homes - 5 to 7 million dollars is not uncommon, especially the ones on the waterfront. It's really interesting to paddle around their "backyards" on the water, and get a glimpse of their toys - sailboats, float planes, etc.

The owners of this house set up a sandy beach. It looked great, but the sand was washing away quickly

Jean, posing in front of the biggest boat we've seen so far

The white slide is a track for large orange inflatable balls that you can climb inside, then roll down to the water

Lots of float planes on the water!

Kayaking - North Lake Sammamish

Another lovely evening kayak trip with Jean. Our staring point was Idlewood Park, which was very popular on this beautiful warm Sunday. We were lucky to find a parking spot, but then had to haul our kayaks down to the water. It wasn't very far, but 26 pounds on a shoulder strap is not very comfortable.

Setup went even faster - less than 15 minutes, I think. For the first time, we had an audience of friendly onlookers. We paddled towards Marymoor Park, and into the Sammamish River.

Right at the entry of the Sammamish River, there were some motorboats that had rafted themselves together and were partying, with beer, dancing (as far as you can on a relatively small boat) and playing very loud music. We paddled past them and saw many herons, two bald eagles, and - a first - two beavers. The beavers seemed to want to scare us off - they spashed the water loudly with their tails. I assume we were close to their babies.

Kayaking - Mercer Slough

Last night Jean and I went on our second kayak trip together with our new folding kayaks by Oru Kayak. Assembly of the kayaks is getting faster, but is still between 15 and 20 minutes.

Jean's kayak, in the car

Our destination this time was the Mercer Slough, a slow-moving waterway right next to the blueberry fields off Bellevue Way, and very close to downtown Bellevue. It was a great trip, we saw lots of wildlife including 2 bald eagles from very close by - the closest I've ever gotten. Also many turtles, numerous mama ducks with fuzzy little duck families, and 3 herons.

The slowest moving part of the slough was a little difficult to get through, choked with water plants. But most of it was easy paddling. There's a little office park at the end where I first worked for Microsoft in Bellevue many years ago, doing technical support for their database product, Access.

At the end of our trip, we paddled under Interstate 90 to see what Lake Washington was like. It's much windier than Mercer Slough

Using Beeminder to keep myself on track

For years - probably more than a decade - I've been trying via various goals, "life hacks", exhortations, etc, to try to get myself to do one thing. That one thing is to review my to-do list every morning, and come up with about 3 things that I must get done that day.

But even though I know, intellectually, that I could get a lot more done and feel better about myself if I were conscientious about this, I didn't do it. I was quite unsuccessful - I would keep it up for a few days, maximum a few weeks. Then despite all my motivational tricks, I would be back at my old habits of procrastination.

Then about a year ago, I found out about commitment contracts and Beeminder. I think I originally came across Beeminder in the book, Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done. The authors of this book have their own commitment contract website (Stickk), which I explored, but Beeminder works best for me.

I ended up setting up a few goals in Beeminder. And a few months ago, I just renewed them after my one year anniversary! The longest standing ones have been Morning Planning (review my to-do list and set 3 items as "do today, top priority"; and Doing Top Priorities (actually doing those top priority to-do items).

Every day I get an email for each goal, asking me how I did the previous day. I have it set up as either a yes/no (i.e., I get either 1 or 0 for the previous day, though sometimes on the Doing Top Priorities I give myself a .75 if I almost made it). I've "derailed" a few times - in the Beeminder lingo, this means I've gone of track, and haven't completed my goal in time. Every time this happens, my credit card gets charged a certain amount - it's at $10 right now. And I'm totally fine with that - it provides the "stick" in the carrot and stick analogy, and gives me the extra incentive that I need at times, to stop procrastinating. Not to mention that it pays the bills for Beeminder, which is important to me - I need them to stick around! I'm also a premium member (an extra $30 a year), which gives me more flexibility in the goals.

So what is it that makes me successful now, with Beeminder, when I wasn't successful before? I think it's a combination of two factors:

• Daily interactive reminder emails. It's not just an email reminder, the email also includes your goal progress in the past few days. And, by replying to the email I update Beeminder with my status for the previous day. This daily nudge, which forces me to evaluate how I did yesterday, is critical.
• Having to pay if I derail, and don't show progress on my goals. It's not a lot of money, but it's enough to make me think.

I've mentioned Beeminder to a few people, and told them how much I value it. Almost uniformly, they've said that they can't imagine giving a company their credit card number, in order go get charged money if they don't show progress on a goal. I can understand that - it does sound a bit weird. But what can I say, it works for me far better than anything I've ever tried, and I'm not about to stop!

Taxi drivers protecting their turf in Europe, protesting ride share companies like Uber

In April of last year when I took a trip to Barcelona with my family, we took taxis a few times. One of these times was on the way back to the airport. We called for a taxi, loaded up our luggage when it arrived and set off. Then after we'd been driving about 20 minutes, and I didn't see any signs indicating that the airport was close by (our apartment was very close to the airport), I looked at the map on my phone. It turns out that we were headed in the complete opposite direction, away from the airport.

I asked the cab driver what was going on. He said, "Oh, there's a marathon going on today, I was just avoiding traffic". He immediately got on the highway heading towards the airport, and we were there in a few minutes. Pathetically, we actually believed he may have been telling the truth, and still gave him a tip when he dropped us off.

Of course, there was no marathon that day, he was just ripping us off by taking us on a long ride. And this isn't the only time we'd been ripped off by taxi drivers - it happened a couple times when we were in Istanbul years ago (taking the "scenic route", and then also being charged the night rate in the middle of the day), and in other cities as well.

What does this have to do with Uber? A lot, really. Had something like this happened on an Uber ride, it would have been very easy to complain - just a few clicks on a smartphone app. And I'm sure it would have resulted in a problem for the driver. Which is why this type of thing happens very rarely, if at all, with Uber.

With a regular taxi, there's realistically no means of complaint. Sure, if you looked carefully enough in the car there may be some kind of registration number, and if you did lots of calling around to government offices you'd probably be able to lodge some kind of complaint. But would anything actually happen to the driver or the company? Unless the taxi driver murdered someone, I doubt it.

I was reminded of some of my taxi horror stories when I read the articles in the Wall Street Journal today about taxi drivers all over Europe protesting the popularity of ride share companies such as Uber. To me, it's just typical protectionism -the taxi drivers and taxi company owners protesting against sorely needed competition. It's nothing new - it's just like the textile workers in 1700's England smashing the power looms introduced by the Industrial Revolution. People protect their own interests.

We used Uber a few times in San Francisco on our last trip there, and it was very impressive. You make a request, a driver accepts the request and you can follow the little car icon on your smartphone screen as they come pick you up. The drivers were always prompt and friendly. Some of them were, in fact, former taxi drivers. I hope they, and other ride sharing companies, prevail and provide some much needed competition to the taxi companies.

First test of my new OruKayak folding kayak!

I was thrilled to receive my Oru Kayak foldable kayak last week. I was intrigued when I saw it on Kickstarter a few years ago, kept track of them, and decided to go all out and purchase two of them after I saw a demo by an Orukayak engineer on Lake Union.

Roberto, the engineer, was able to assemble the kayak in less than 5 minutes.  I made some assumptions based on that - like, for instance, it would take me maybe 30 minutes the first time, but then I'd rapidly get lots faster.

This is what it looks like, before being folded up in kayak shape

But it took more like an hour and 15 minutes - plus lots of strength! Granted, I'm not a weightlifter or anything, so perhaps I'm weaker than the average user. The kayak shell (which is a corrugated plastic, like what election campaign signs are made of) is very stiff originally, and fitting everything where it belongs was very challenging. The seam channel, that fits the top joint of the kayak together, was so tight that I was not able to fit it on the first time I assembled it. I loosened it up by first running the handle of a hairbrush inside it, and then just mounting and unmounting the seam channel over and over again until it fit a little bit more easily - enough to get the top seam attached, in any case.

Since then, I've assembled the kayak 5 times, and have gotten lots faster. This afternoon when I did it, it probably took about 20 minutes. I hope that someday I'll get to 5 minutes assembly time, like Roberto!

I've only done one trip so far with my new kayak, with my friend Jean. Jean is always up for adventure, came with me to watch the Orukayak demo, and ended up buying one as well! For our maiden voyage we went to Phantom Lake, a calm lake not very far away. The kayaks performed very well, and I look forward to exploring more around here.

My friend Jean on a creek leading into Phantom Lake

Among the water lilies

The Seattle area is really an outstanding area for paddling. I have a whole list of places to go - seeing the houseboats on Lake Union, local rivers such as the Cedar River, and of course the Puget Sound.