Chapter 27: Roughing it in Palo Alto
© 1987 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Palo Alto, California (2,000 miles)
April 26, 1987
A fellow 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 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 adrenaline:
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...
Adrenaline’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
adrenaline 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, 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 en route 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 Anna
Lange.
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...