I’m really looking forward to camping at Whitney Portal. It is supposed to be an absolutely gorgeous campground and the site I have is somewhat out of the way. I have two days prior to the ascent to get used to the altitude. In reality it is going to be closer to a day and a half by the time I actually get from Vegas to Lone Pine, but so it goe... Read more 29 Jul 2026 - 1 minute read

Now we are cooking! I felt good enough after the last stair climb that I bumped up the pack weight to 27lbs. I was able to do 30 minutes on Wednesday and another 30 minutes today (Sat)! Each time I feel like I am recovering faster and able to get through the climb with less struggle. I’ve been focusing more on my breathing these last couple hik... Read more 29 Jul 2026 - less than 1 minute read

Ok, so I let things go a bit longer than I should have, but after 10 days I got back on the stairs at the park. The plan was to use the same pack loadout and see how things felt at 20 minutes. Thankfully I felt great and was able to go until 30 minutes. It’s not a massive improvement, but I feel so much better afterwards than I did last time! I’... Read more 29 Jul 2026 - less than 1 minute read

It’s been three days and recovery is going so slowly. I’m finally walking reasonably well again but there’s no way I can attempt the stairs again for another few days. If that continues I will never get where I need to be to tackle Mt Whitney. So how can I help my body recover faster and progress faster… The wonderful world of suppliments Well,... Read more 29 Jul 2026 - 1 minute read

This sucks. I was only able to manage 25 minutes of up and down those 63 steps wearing a 20lb pack. My legs are so wobbily it is really going to be miserable walking up the stairs to bed. The only bright point is that I found a beautiful new part of a park that I had never been to. Gonna give the body a day of rest tomorrow, maybe a leisurely ... Read more 29 Jul 2026 - less than 1 minute read

First off, if this actually goes off successfully a large credit will go to the hiking guy’s amazingly detailed guide. I mean, seriously, if you want to do this hike, that is where you need to start. Instead of repeating what he says, which you need to read if you want to attempt this, I’m going to focus on my planning and prep work. Travel an... Read more 29 Jul 2026 - 3 minute read

Want to hike Mt Whitney?

I was with my college friends and their families relaxing when one of the guys mentioned that he had managed to get permits to hike Mt. Whitney in about a month and a half. Fortunately(?) the people he was going to go with backed out so he asked us if we wanted to join him. After learning that Mt. Whitney is indeed the tallest mountain in the lo... Read more 30 Jun 2026 - 3 minute read

Ham Radio General License 4

General license complete! Took the test online today with the great folks over at PARC. Disappointingly I missed a question and was then unable to get any information from the volunteer exam administrators (VEs) as to which question I missed. But so it goes. Now that I’m certified to operate on HF, I am probably going to try to get more involved... Read more 18 Feb 2026 - 1 minute read

CompTIA A+ Certification

The next step in Project Antartica is CompTIA A+ certification. Ugh. The cost for this is going to be $530 unless I can find some discounts. There’s a ton of free resources for learning the content, so that’s nice. There are a ton of widely available discount codes for the exams that give you 10% off. There are also student discounts (which don’... Read more 18 Feb 2026 - 1 minute read

Ham Radio General License 3

As seems to happen frequently, life got hectic and so I missed my goal of having my General test completed this week. However, I have managed to complete the ARRL General Class book and have full coverage of all the questions in the hamstudy app. I think I’m up to 7 or 8 reptitions of the questions, so I have pretty good confidence at this point... Read more 14 Feb 2026 - less than 1 minute read

Ham Radio General License 2

I was pretty much stuck at the end of Chapter 3 of the ARRL General book for about 2 weeks before I remembered my goal to schedule the exam is next week. Today I got through Ch4 and should get back to a chapter each day. The organization of the ARRL book is pretty much exactly oppostite of the HamStudy partial book. So I am at the point where I ... Read more 03 Feb 2026 - 1 minute read

Ham Radio General License

Based on the recommendation not to modify your FCC license for 30 days, I’m setting Feb 9th as the day to schedule my General exam. I started using the HamBook.org guide again, but as I’ve gotten farther into the book (about half way through) there are headers saying that it is a work in progress and lots of images are obviously missing. Also, t... Read more 16 Jan 2026 - 1 minute read

Ham Radio Technician License III

So I took a few practice tests and felt pretty good, so I scheduled an online exam for today. Which just happened and I aced the test. Frankly, the hardest part was waiting for the exam to start - so I just did more practice exams. Overall, I did 9 practice exams missing only two questions. The practices were really good and had me very prepared... Read more 07 Jan 2026 - less than 1 minute read

Ham Radio Technician License II

Well, I have finished all 8 chapters of hambook.org and have gone through at least 4 instances of all of the flashcards in the app! I think my next step is to take a practice test tonight. If I do well (aka > 85% correct) then I will sign up to take the test on Friday. I will likely take a practice test each day before then and possibly work ... Read more 06 Jan 2026 - 1 minute read

Ham Radio Technician License

Welcome to Day 1 of learning Ham radio! After a little bit of searching I discovered the first thing I actually should do is to create an account with the FCC and get a “Registration Number” (FRN). This was surprisingly easy, something I rarely say about government websites. To get your FRN (as a US Citizen) you need to register using the FCC C... Read more 02 Jan 2026 - 2 minute read

New Year - Time to Plan...

Happy New Year! Hmm, well it has been a year since I’ve posted here. Bah. I was hoping to do better at this, but now that I have a more concrete goal hopefully that will help. Plus I’ve started a number of other projects this year that have kept me quite busy. Regardless, my goal is to be working on Antartica once my kids graduate HS. Yeah, I’... Read more 01 Jan 2026 - 2 minute read

New Year - New Sled

Happy New Year! Every year our Scout troop participates in a Klondike event where they have to carry all their gear on a dog sled (yes, they are the dogs). For years now they’ve used these old, heavy, rotting sleds that are difficult for the girls to pull and steer. This year our SM decided to do something different and build the sled used by s... Read more 01 Jan 2025 - 2 minute read

Python in the Cloud

I’ve written dozens of Python scripts for work over the past decade that start out as a tool for me and then evolve into a critical component of multiple people’s jobs. That results in me having to teach everyone how to do things like: download code from gitlab/github, run and maintain a Python environment locally, upgrade their code without des... Read more 01 Aug 2024 - 6 minute read

Kayaking and Camping - 1 night

Not sure if this one is going to happen. We are taking the Troop kayaking and then camping to get one of the Camping merit badge items crossed off. However, the forecast calls for storms. We will see what it looks like as we get closer. Gear List tent sleeping bag sleeping pad backpack plastic sheet/trash bags headlamp camp stove... Read more 31 Jul 2024 - 1 minute read

Summer Camping - 2 nights

I have a two night trip coming up in a couple weeks with the Scouts. While we are still a ways out, the forecast looks to have some rain on Friday and then dry and pleasantly warm the rest of the trip! Fingers crossed it stays that way. Part of the goal of the trip is to teach the kids some backpacking fundamentals. They will do a short hike upo... Read more 12 Jul 2024 - 2 minute read