Windy Hill

Last weekend I hiked for about 5 miles in Windy Hill Open Space Preserve. Just a few miles off of 280N - Alpine Road. I simply loved this place. Although I missed the (Hamm Gulch) trail I had intended to take on my way back, I didn't mind coming down the steep Spring Ridge Trail again. The beautiful view of the Bay Area from up there should not be missed. The best part was the bench that faces the Bay. To be able to sit there and take in the view alone was worth the effort.

The trail markers are confusing, especially if you start from Portola Road. I couldn't find the route to Hamm Gulch. Instead, I went up Spring Ridge and then at the summit, I went down Anniversary Trail, thinking that I'd be able to find the other end of Hamm Gulch. But I missed it completely and found myself trundling down Spring Ridge again! Strangely, I learnt from my co-worker the next day that he too had got lost there before.

Oh yeah, there's a reason why it's called "Windy Hill".

Small green bee eaters

Small green bee eaters, originally uploaded by SRJP.

Pic taken by my dad - Dr Jayaprakash, Bangalore

Small worlds

12x9-P1010562, originally uploaded by SRJP.

Pic taken by my dad - Dr Jayaprakash, Bangalore

Peek-a-boo

P1010579, originally uploaded by SRJP.

Pic taken by my dad - Dr Jayaprakash, Bangalore

Purisima Creek Redwoods

Last weekend I did a 7 mile hike in Purisima Creek Redwoods. It's almost across the street (CA 1) from Half Moon Bay Beach. It's quite nice. You get to see the Ocean at times while hiking.

I did the Purisima Creek - Soda Gulch - Harkin's Ridge loop. Mind you, the last bit of Harkin's trail is very steep, although it's wide enough to be a Biking trail and it probably is. It might be good fun to ride a bike downhill. We had to hike downhill. It would've been quite tough had we come the other way around.

You might also find a Quail nest where Harkin's Ridge and Soda Gulch intersect. Be careful not to disturb the birds though!

ConcurrentLinkedQueue has performance issues on multi-core machines

Recently, I was experimenting with a few thread-safe/concurrent linked-list implementations available in the JDK. The performance of some of them were strangely, counter-intuitive. I posted this question on the Sun forums. You can find more details there.