Why We Yelp

"My Name is Corey Gray, and I'm a Yelpaholic."

E-logging (for work), blogging (for me), Yelping (for everyone)----man, there's so much to write about in this world!

I think ever since my 8th (Ms. Tavidian) & 9th (Ms. Silvus) grade English classes, I've always had a secret desire to one day become a devilishly wicked writer. I'm obviously not a published novel-writer, but I still aspire.

For years, I have had opportunities to write technical pieces related to work, our instruments, or how my shift went. For the most part, this scientific prose was written in websites we call e-logs (electronic log books). For my work at LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory), there were two elogs where I re-honed literary skills: the e-log for the Hanford observatory and the Seismic e-log for the new Advanced LIGO Seismic Isolation hardware.

During LIGO's two-year Science Run #5, writing e-logs was like breathing. I took in technical issues and exhaled shift summaries. My writing fix was appeased. After S5, there was a void. I still wrote technical stuff, but not as much. There was a hole. This is where blogging came in, but probably even more---this is where Yelping came in.

The Beginning

Basically I happened upon Yelp.com by utter randomness. I was working at MIT in Cambridge for the summer, and I wanted to find cool places to eat. With google, I happened upon some Boston restaurant reviews, and even a laundry service near my hotel. I used the site to help navigate my way around to places I would have never found on my own (my personal favorite from that trip: Muqueca--a corner Brazilian restaurant in Inman Square. It's one of those places I still daydream about). Later that year, I started my own account and was on my way writing my own reviews.

I liked being able to keep track of places I've been to. I guess I was sort of in "e-log" mode. Instead of writing about earthquakes in New Zealand shaking our instrument around, I was writing about other-worldly cocktails or curries with magical flavorings. Oh, and it's not just food. One of Yelp's plusses is you can write about just anything. As long as it has an address (you can even ballpark them), you can review anything. I've Yelped favorite hikes, a towing service, a Sheriff's department, a newspaper, a city, even Yelp.com! Someday, I have to remember to Yelp the Earth (not sure of the street address for that one though).

I travel a decent amount, and with that Yelp can be a really cool tool. Wherever I go I always do a quick scan with Yelp. I bookmark restaurants I wanna try out. I like to find out nuances about hotels which you won't find on the hotel's websites. You can also post questions on the Yelp Talk forums and get specific questions answered as well.

Getting A Life & Becoming "Cool"...Finally!
Once you get in the swing of Yelping, you become privy to more options when going out. You find yourself really searching those non-chain restaurants. You look for those places which are unique, and you become more adept at researching places to go. But randomness is also virtuous. There's nothing like discovering new and then writing about it for the sake of others. I used to not put much thought into going out (for a meal, a drink, fun, etc.), but now I try to always be on-point when & ready to go when I go out nowadays.

With that, there's a pressure. Once you become good at being able to find cool places (with thanks to Yelp), everyone will now look at YOU as a resource for picking out places to go---in other words, you become "Mr. In-The Know", or "Mr. Cool". There have been some misses, but there have been many more purely memorable places discovered via Yelp (I mentioned Muqueca, but there's also Quinn's & Paseo in Seattle, and Jimgermanbar in Waitsburg to name a few). Because of these treasures, one is always seen as the go-to person for picking out an evening's itinerary.

Inner Reporter
It's good to use Yelp as a resource, but it's also fun to be a part of the resource. I like being able to find new places to Yelp. I like being able to document all the taco trucks in my fair city. Yes, sometimes when I'm at a restaurant or other business, I snap a few pictures at the storefront or at my plate. Overall, I think Yelping has made me a more observant person when giving my business to an establishment. I'm far from being a well-seasoned foodie or cuisine critic, but I'm definitely good at giving opinions.

Yes, there's a Yelp sticker on my new bike (c/o Katie S.)

Stimulating The Economy
Yelp definitely does some stimulating. Yelp's a fairly new website, but it's quickly become fairly huge. It's used on the iPhone and on their commercials. If you look at some storefront's, you can see some "People Love Us On Yelp" stickers. When one thinks of review-websites, Yelp.com is definitely up at the top.

With its popularity, many of the 4/5-star business have to be getting stimulated. There's a big Yelp community, and many of these Yelpers will frequent places which are the haps. Even if this tough economy, people really need to think carefully about where they want to give their business. So Yelp helps to support those good businesses.

For people like me, who like to go out and explore new & independently-owned places (so that I can review them), it can only help these small businesses. So yeah, Yelp has done its part to help the economy, and Yelp should get its props for that.

Cool Reviews, Cool People
What keeps me coming back? The Yelp community--definitely. Yelpers are definitely cool (well, for the most part). I don't live in a big city, but I do find myself in Seattle quite a bit. And with that, I've made lots of Yelp Friends in Seattle and in other cities. I can't wait to make it to a Yelp Event in Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco---one of these days. These are parties held at pretty cool places, with free food and drink, and with tons of Yelpers. They look like fun. One of these days I'll make it to one.

And Then There Are The Never-Ending Yelp Puns:
Yeah, I find myself swapping Yelp for other words in everyday language, and I do twitch every time I do! I can't help it, I'm just like a Smurf trying to Smurf everything.

C&C Yelp Factory
H.R. Yelp N' Stuff
"Good Morning, Can I Yelp You?"
"Yelp. Yelp Like The Wind"
"I'm Not A Playa, I Just Yelp A Lot"
"Yelp is Dead. -Friedrich Nietzsche"

And the list can go on.

Yes, I'm a Yelpaholic, but there is no Yelpaholic's Anonymous, so I'll just have to make do with this vice.

I Can Blog Again

My new Gary Fisher Sugar 4 (& No It's Not A Girl's Bike, John!)

For the last few months, I hadn't felt the calling to blog. My last real blog was post after we rolled down a mountain. And since then, life's just been hectic, busy, and an up and down whirlwind---all of it in a good way.

It had been almost 6 months, but this past Saturday I finally decided to return to the scene of the "accident". I just bought a mountain bike, and yes, I could have ridden anywhere (that's the way WA just is), but my first thought: Let's go where I wrecked.

I was all down for some catharsis (sorry--for some reason this $10 word was in my head, and I had to use it!), I think checking out the crash site, and hitting the trails would be the remedy. The drive up to the trails was great. Listened to some awesome music (Bjork & Fishbone always do nicely when hugging curves on mountain roads). It's summer, but there was a chill to the air. I still chose to ride with the windows down and sunroof open. I must admit driving in my Mini (with it packed to the gills with me, mountain bike, and fly fishing stuff), on this mountain road, in the summer, was exhilerating.

And then it happened. I drove by where it happened. It came and went. I drove by where I lost control of my truck and sent 5 of us careening down a hill. No time to dwell though---I was at the trailhead.

So, I pulled out my bike, stretched the cobwebs from my old joints, got on my bike, and I was on my way. Now this was the first time I'd really been on the saddle of a mountain bike since '97 (my previous bike [Gary Fisher Hoo Koo E Koo] was stolen just prior to me moving up to the northwest). For the most part, getting on the bike was like "riding a bike". All the motions came back to me...for the most part. There were nuances I had to get back into muscle memory. I forgot how good it felt to really use your quads. The trail I took immediately pointed upward & my legs were put into gear from the get-go.

Riding Uphill

Overall my ride was fine, but I did notice a few issues:

• I only have a 12-speed. The tiny (hill-climbing) gear wasn't working for me---the derailleur needed to be adjusted. So, I was going to have to Armstrong-it and go in lower gears than I would have liked--I didn't care. I was here for a workout.
• I didn't have toe-clips. It's amazing how much less force you can apply to the pedals when your feet aren't "tied down" to the pedals.
• I should have gotten bike shorts (it's three days after the trip, and my butt bones are still feelin' it!)
• Lastly, I might want to get a helmet (for obvious reasons).

Looking down at Bluewood

So, I basically rode a path friends and I snowshoed earlier in the year. I ended up treading some new ground and kept going passed where we snowshoed. I approached a side road, and this trail looked enticing. It was smaller and there was a non-motorized vehicle prohibited sign was up. I had to take it. After I made the first turn, I came across a deer leg. I don't know who left this here. Maybe a cougar left it as a sign: "This is my trail: turn back". Whatever the case, it got me thinking about animals---I was on their turf.

Road 500

I kept on going. One thing about mountain biking, it allows for reflection. Your mind can venture off path and think about all sorts of things. I missed this about riding. I'm so glad to be riding again. So within an hour I made it to the top of a ridge. It took me about an hour to climb 1300ft & I had some great views of valleys on both sides of me (one of which had the Bluewood Ski Resort). I chilled here for a bit, and then pointed my front wheel downward.

A Poser

Holy crap!! I forgot how fast you can go downhill. Within seconds I was easily going super-fast. This was without pedaling and with my elderly-self riding the brakes!! I don't know if its wisdom or plain old age, but barrelling down this trail was scary! It seems like in another life I would have cascaded down this rocky trail with abandon, but now I definitely had reservations. There were times I felt like I froze, but I think this was mainly related to my long absence from riding. I was able to loosen up by not putting all my weight on my hands and taking it more on my legs and upper back. I now have a full-suspension bike, but knee & elbow joints have always been the best shock absorbers.

18-minutes later I was back at the trailhead: Whew!!

The Ride

I was now officially a mountain-bike-rider again. I had a great ride, and a nice time in the Blues. The memories of sliding off an icy road was behind me (I briefly stopped at where I lost it last time, on the way back---man, we were so close to the trailhead--we crashed within a half mile of leaving the trailhead!).

We All Have Our Own El Guapo

I then headed down to Dayton, put on my waders, put on some old basketball shoes (yeah, I fly fish rez-style!), and hit the Touchet. The Touchet is a small stream, but it's fun. I caught (and released) a grip of trout. A few were on the order of 12", but the average was more like 8". It was fun though. After this I hit up the Liberty Theater and checked out a special screening of Three Amigos (a classic!!). I then stopped off at my favorite bar in the world, had a Pisco Sour, and listened to a local rock band.

All in all an excellent day. A day worthy of getting me back into blogging!

Wind & Tumble Weeds At LIGO

Today there was no chance of running our instrument for Gravitational Wave detection: we had wind.

With steady winds around 40-50 mph (and gusts 10-20mph higher), our buildings were being pushed around and in turn were wiggling our Test Masses (big mirrors) to a point where we could not lock-up our 2k interferometer. I took this opportunity to venture outside, and snap a couple of video clips of tumbleweeds invading our facility (and overtaking our bridge). Enough talk, here are the movies:

Here I get hit in the head with a tumble weed (at about t = 15sec).




It was hard to keep my eyes open for this shot!




This is a shot looking down the X-arm. The tumble weeds look like running animals on the desert floor.




A shot as I was being pushed down the hill.

The Hanford site eventually shut down some of the main roads going into the Hanford site due to high winds. Tomorrow the "tumbleweed baling" begins!

"My Pony Threw Me, And Now She's Dead"

[ Quote from Philbert in Pow Wow Highway]

The Crash Scene

I was in the snowy mountains of the Blue Mountains with my brother, his girlfriend, and my two dogs. We had just finished a nice snow shoeing trip (http://www.yelp.com/bi...). After feeling a bit tuckered from an awesome snow workout, we were all ready to hit Waitsburg and check out some of their cool establishments. We hopped in my truck, and slowly left the Sno-Park.

Johnny Cash's "The Legend Of John Henry's Hammer" was playing on my iPod, and during this track, I took a leftward curve in the road and felt a little slip on the road. For a second or two we slid toward the UP-side of the hill, but the road then curved to the right, and this is when I lost it. We were now sliding full on toward the downside of the hill to the valley creek below. We were going slow, but we just kept sliding toward the edge. I had no control, and the edge of the road approached. The Johnny Cash song was still playing.

My Up-ended Rig

The nose of the vehicle thenwent down first and the butt-end swung forward (rotating us 180deg). Then we rolled 2-3 times down the hill (30-40ft below). The air bags never deployed (we were going slow & we were rolling along the long axis). As the world rolled around me down the hill, I couldn't help thinking of the scene in the movie The Fugitive when Harrison Ford and others rolled down a hill inside of a prison bus. Gunner and Gomez ended up flying from the back of the truck up to where Asia was sitting---acting as air bags! It seemed like it took forever, but the truck eventually came to a rest on the valley floor. We all ended up upside down. Asia and I were able to shake ourselves and take stock of ourselves. Tee appeared to have blacked out, but once I gave him a once over, and unbuckled him, he fell from the seat and then immediately woke up and started gathering all of our stuff from the wreckage.

We were fine, and Asia immediately climbed up the hill to the road and flagged down a couple of vehicles for help. The sheriff and the tow truck arrived fairly quickly. I had a one of Tee's police baseball caps in my truck by chance. He grabbed it, and when the sheriff arrived he jumped into action helping the sheriff handle the accident scene. We were ultimately on the scene for a couple of hours while the tow truck intricately maneuvered my dead truck from out of the valley below.

Pulling It Out

When all is said and done, all the males in the truck emerged no worse for wear. Asia appeared to be unscathed, but she ended up spraining her foot (leaving her crutch/cane bound for a couple of weeks). Still, we were so lucky. It could have been so much worse. I'm amazed and thankful for Nissan's engineering of the Xterra cab--it really held up well and protected us.

Now we have a crazy story to tell everyone we survived. It was very action-movie-like.

City Of Roses: PDX, Salsa, & Donuts

The City of Roses

Made an overnight trip to Portland to check out the City of Roses. It had been atleast year since I'd last been there. I stayed downtown in the area south of the Pearl District and Burnside. The primary reason for the trip was a show: Afro-Cuban All Stars at the springy McMennamin's Crystal Ballroom.

Arrived in PDX around 4:30pm and headed to my hotel: the stylish Ace Hotel. I must admit I tripped out on the hotel, because I had a bit of déjà vu looking at the photos of this hotel. I actually stayed here 10 years ago when it was the old Clyde Hotel--back then, it was a bit of a decrepit & cheap hotel (with character)--a scene from Drugstore Cowboy was also filmed here. That was a different time. Now the hotel is a cool boutique art-filled hotel. Glad I stayed here.

Ace Hotel Pendelton Blanket

My Room

Later in the evening, I met up with my fellow Tri-Cities salseros for a meal at Mama Mia Trattoria down on 2nd Ave---I love downtown Portland, because there is so much to see and do, and you can easily walk around to wherever you want to go---or you can always take the Max.

After a decent meal, jogged back to The Ace, and slipped into Salsa Gear. I then walked a couple of blocks west and around the corner to The Crystal. This show was part of the larger Portland Jazz Festival. The Crystal Ballroom is a notable venue in that its dancefloor is an old one which is fixed with springs, so you can really get the dancefloor going.

Lilla D'Mone & Her Band

The opening band was Lilla D'Mone. She's a sultry singer whose music spans jazz to R&B to reggae. She got the crowd going, and I must admit I jammed up to the stage and was feelin' her. After her set, I found her in the back area and talked to her a little while buying one of her albums (it's actually pretty good). I found out she played at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year--I was down at that point & she signed my cd: "To Corey, Thanks for the support. Peace, Love, & Music. Lilla D'Mone". Ummmmmm....nice.

Next up: Afro-Cuban All Stars.

Viva Salsa!

This was a big band with three singers, several horn players, percussionists, etc. They immediately got the crowd goin' with some Afro-Cuban salsa. Maybe it is because this was part of the Portland Jazz Festival, but from where I was at (near the stage), most of the crowd (including me) were not dancing salsa---we were all just checkin' out the band and groovin' to the music (solo). Until......

Afro-Cuban All Stars

"Check this dude out! He's dancing better than you," said some random person to my right. I glanced at him and then to who he was talking to: a totally stunning Latina behind me!! After closing my slobbering mouth, I tried to smoothly turn back toward the band.

The woman behind me said something, but I couldn't hear. It was some time around this point, that I ended up stepping on the woman's foot behind me. I turned toward her, and she had a "No you didn't", look on her face.

"Oh, he cannot dance better than me," she said. Her friend was laughing at her because he knew he was pushing her buttons. I simply agreed with her, and bowed down to her skills. And then I grabbed her and danced salsa with her. I tried the basics, and we did alright. We received a bit of attention, because there was no partner dancing going on up where we were. I did the best I could and held on to her. A few cross-body-leads, and spins of her, we were doing alright, but at some p0int our salsa transformed more to "dirty dancing"---I didn't appear to mind. My only regret is not asking for her name, phone number, or another dance.

I have no skills.

Christian "The Salsa Master" & Me

It was alright though. I had such an awesome time. Afro-Cuban All Stars were great, and I danced and sweated the night away. My fellow Tri-Cities salseros kicked butt dancing salsa from the back of the dance floor, and I watched them from the balcony (while I cooled off). After a few encores, the show ended around 12:30-1:00am. The night wasn't over though. Next up: The Mambo Lounge across the river.

At the Mambo, there was another band--CAÑA SON. This was a pure salsa place. Here there was a large dance floor and everyone on the dancefloor was dancing salsa. It was awesome, and packed. Here I watched the pretty awesome dancers from the sidelines, as well as watch the band. I was too chicken to ask for any dances here, but I had a great time, and now know a cool place to go for salsa next time I'm in PDX.

CAÑA SON at the Mambo Lounge



CAÑA SON

Made it back to my room around 3am. What a night.

The next morning, my main objective before heading home was a getting a donut. Not just any donut, but a Voodoo Doughnut. I walked to Voodoo, and was surprised to find a line going almost around the block. I grabbed a place in line, and waited for about 30 minutes. It was worth the wait. Voodoo had a menagerie of donuts of every kind. I knew what I wanted: the bacon maple bar! Surprisingly, this donut wasn't as scary as it sounds. It was actually very tasty. I can't believe that this was my first time to the Voodoo---how I've deprived myself!

The Donut Line

This Is Just Some Of The Donut Craziness

What a weekend. I've always loved Portland, but this trip renewed the love affair. Portland is like a woman. When you feel her, you're alive. It can be rainy, but it flashes you sunlight, like flashes of skin. Ok....I better stop.

I won't be such a stranger to Portland--no doubt.