Well, as I work on startup #2, which has a virtual office (we all work from home), it occurred to me that I can work as well from anywhere with high bandwidth internet access and cell phone coverage -- so I've been working out of my Tahoe house lately. A couple interesting things of note:
1) The concept works. I get as much or more done up here than in the BA, and I can pop outside for a heartbreakingly beautiful workout in the middle of my day and get back to work again in much less time than I can in SF. Careful scheduling of meetings is the key.
2) "It was a hairy bear, it was a scary bear...". Driving home from the gym the other night, turning onto my street, I saw a big dark figure moving through the trees. I followed it with my lights and out popped a BIG bear. This thing was in no way mistakable for a dog, it was huuuge -- and cute. As I'm sitting in my convertible with the top down, I realized that my passenger and I probably looked like two pop-tarts just out of the toaster. Anyway, he sniffed the air between us a few times with his big black nose and then ambled off behind the neighbor's house. I guess that the late night hot tubbing out back is a little bit like putting fresh hot stew out, but I'll take nature over humans any day.
3) Chopping wood is better than working on the computer. I wouldn't want to do it 40hrs a week, if nothing else because the pay is dismal, but chopping wood is my new favorite hobby. I'm also such a geek that I had to research axes first, turns out that there's like 20 different types of axes (news to me) and I ended up with an Axe made by a company called Gransfors Bruks (www.gransfors.com). I always liked Scandinavians, if nothing else because they invented Norse mythology and raping and pillaging the French (though you wouldn't know the later as they've become so shy), and they make some cool stuff (Volvo's not withstanding).
4) Altitude acclimatization. Living at 6000'+ and working out at 8000'+ was kinda hard at first, but now I'm used to it. I'm sure that made the recent Rainier climb go better as well. But now I realized that I've only moved the problem around. Before it was that my legs could outrun my lungs, now, when I go back down to sea-level, I find my muscles give out well before my lungs do. I'm not *that* tired but my legs just won't do another sprint at the track workout. I guess there is no magic trick to training after all and it's back to hard work.
BTW: I usually get altitude headaches when I ascend rapidly, whether working out, driving or flying, but used Diamox for the first time on the Rainier trip, as prescribed by my doctor/sister that was along with us, and felt no ill effects from our 14,000' ascent. It's made to treat AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness, which usually occurs between 9000' and 13,000') I recommend researching it, and talking to your doctor first, but if you're doing a high climb it worked great for us.
Yeah, I know, a boring entry. I'll do something stupid again soon enough and post it here, stay tuned.