All of Jacob Emerick's posts, page 25 of 57.

Hidden Valley via Pima Canyon

Rosy predawn light over the trailhead

Pink-tinted daylight spread over the low desert hills in the predawn. It was early, though not pre-dawn early, when Noah and I got out of the car and stepped into cool air. I wore shorts and a t-shirt - he wore pants, jacket, mittens and hat. I'd be carrying my son some six miles today and would…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted March 3, 2015
  • read more

For a View of Weaver's Needle

Slowly approaching the base

Standing like a tall, lonely guard of the southwest Superstition Wilderness is the impressive Weaver's Needle. This old volcanic shaft rises over a thousand feet from the surrounding desert, the bottom half steep piles of rubble and the top sheer cliffs. Chris and I had seen the formation from…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted February 23, 2015
  • read more

Death Marches in the Upper Peninsula

Snowy woods above the falls

Over the years I've thrown around the term 'Death March' a few times in reference to past hikes. The term has some real negative connotations in a historical light, though it is also used to describe a project management antipattern and a Grand Canyon Rim to Rim (to Rim). I use it to describe a…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted February 18, 2015
  • read more

Battleship Mountain and Yellow Peak

Humbling climb ahead

Anticipation grew as we zipped along the old Apache Trail northeast of Phoenix. For the last few months Chris and I had hiked around the city and slowly started to venture into the Superstition Wilderness. So far we had only tackled the very westernmost sections of the wilderness, climbing up…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted February 15, 2015
  • read more

PDO Connection Timeouts and Aura.Sql

For today's PHP developer there is only one way to code a connection to a database: PDO, an access abstraction layer that is a common extension to the core. It works across different databases (MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, etc), is class-based, and is also fairly lightweight. If a developer wants an…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted February 12, 2015
  • read more

Superstition Peak

Superstition Peak cloaked in darkness

A few weeks had passed since Chris and I hiked the length of the Superstition Ridge. That had been a big milestone for both of us, a long all-day hike that introduced us to some of wild lands that the Arizona desert could offer. Something bugged me about it, though. We had previously climbed North…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted February 10, 2015
  • read more

Browns Peak of Four Peaks

Roosevelt Lake in the dim light

Chris and I had already completed two iconic Phoenix hikes: Camelback and Superstition Ridge. It's weird to put those two in the same class, with Camelback a single 1200' climb and the ridge around 5000' of continuous up and down. Anyways, the third iconic hike beckoned to us far to the northeast,…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted February 6, 2015
  • read more

R Analysis on Git Log Data

A few weeks ago at work one of the managers asked me an interesting question. They were preparing an end-of-year presentation and needed to some stats for a few slides. Paraphrased, 'How many commits did the team deploy in 2014 and is there anything else interesting in those numbers?'.

Please note:…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted February 2, 2015
  • read more

Along the Superstition Ridgeline

Night lights bright over Phoenix

Bleary-eyed we stumbled along the rocky path to Siphon Draw. Chris and I had agreed to an early start for this hike thinking that we'd be familiar enough with the trail to Flatiron to tackle it in the dark. Knowing the general landscape of the trail does not stop you from tripping over railroad ties…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted January 30, 2015
  • read more

Desert Hiking Goals for 2015

Usually around this time I have a full list of hikes to tackle for the year, an ambitious list of mountain peaks and waterfalls and other remote areas. A list focused on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, that is. It has been hard to get as excited for Arizona hikes. I've mentioned several times that…

  • Category Hiking
  • Posted January 28, 2015
  • read more

Activity Stream

  • Pushed some code at jacobemerick/advent-of-code-2023.
  • Pushed some code at jacobemerick/advent-of-code-2023.
  • Pushed some code at jacobemerick/advent-of-code-2023.
  • Pushed some code at jacobemerick/advent-of-code-2023.
  • Pushed some code at jacobemerick/advent-of-code-2023.
View more activities…