Schmed Central

Hello! I’m Chris Schneider (aka Schmed). Welcome to my home page.

Contact Info

• e-mail me at schmed@transpac.com
• call me at home (530) 470-8468
• (I may someday be forced at gunpoint to carry a cell phone, but its existence will likely remain a closely-guarded secret.)
• (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media don’t seem worth the time investment to me. I already spend hours working at my computer every day; I’d rather interact with humans in person.)
  

As I mostly work from home, that’s the best place to start looking for me.

Send all snail-mail to me there at:

Chris Schneider
10491 Boulder Street
Nevada City, CA 95959-2626

The Latest “News”

This home page obviously pre-dates blogs, Facebook, etc., and is an entirely different kind of work. I update it very infrequently, usually when something significant changes in my life, I get a great new picture of Jenna, etc. In fact, the rise of Facebook has rendered such updates anachronistic (and consequently even less frequent). Why should anyone be interested in the ramblings of someone who isn’t even a Facebook friend?

“Fresh” Jenna Picture

Jenna Duff Krugler was constructed from a single cell a few years ago by our good friends Ken & Chris Krugler. Jenna is now a freshman at UC Berkeley, so we savor every chance we get to see her. Here's a picture of her wearing the wrong size shorts at the 2018 Youth Club Championships. Click here for a complete photographic record of her early years.

Of Historical Interest

Here are some interesting news items from past years. Warning - I haven’t bothered to update any of this text since it was originally written (e.g., you don’t need to worry about Cindy commuting to Stanford anymore.)

• 2016
  • Jenna at the World Championships
• 2015
  • Professor Nerd
  • Jenna at the Youth Club Championships
• 2009
  • Cindy & Jenna bag Half Dome
  • Jenna “publishes” her first book
  • Krugle sold to Aragon
  • Schmed takes a sabbatical
• 2005
  • Jenna’s first sleepover
  • Liloo Gets a Bodyguard
• 2004
  • Supreme Being
• 2003
  • Knee Repair
• 2002
  • Antenna Repair
• 2001
  • Austin Powers
  • With Mirth and Laughter Let Old Wrinkles Come
• 2000
  • Cindy’s a triathlete
  • Half Dome rock climb
• 1999
  • Trans-Sierra cross-country ski trip
  • Glacier NP trip
  • Human being constructed from single cell
• 1998
  • UC Berkeley
  • We can fly
  • We moved to Nevada City
  • It snows in Nevada City

Things I Work on Instead of This Page

Scale Unlimited

I’ve been developing Macintosh and other software for over thirty years at TransPac Software, a company I helped Ken Krugler found back in 1987. Initially, we specialized in software for Far East languages (including many years developing and extending foreign language support for the Palm OS), but we’ve done all kinds of software consulting.

TransPac was dormant for 3 years or so as Ken and I focused our time on Krugle, but (along with our Krugle colleague Vivek Magotra) we’ve re-emerged as Scale Unlimited, providing Big Data consulting services. We specialize in technologies related to search (e.g., Lucene and Solr), web crawling, machine learning and distributed computing (e.g., Hadoop, Cascading and Flink).

Air Traffic Control

I used to teach physics part-time at Bitney Prep, but my last year was 2015-2016. I still coach a co-ed Ultimate team I started there back in 2001 (though we draw players from several local schools): Air Traffic Control.

Requisite Random Personal Info

Q: What’s the Meaning of Life?

A: Cindy Branscum

Cindy and I were married on May 24th, 1992 in an old growth redwood forest along the Avenue of the Giants. Many of our guests stayed at the few Victorian B&B’s left standing in historic Ferndale (an earthquake shook up the town two weeks before the wedding). Cindy’s an RN at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, on a Medical-Surgical unit.

What’s a “Schmed”?

The guys in my fraternity (Delta Tau Delta) at MIT bastardized my last name:

Schneider => Schneidly => Schmedly => Schmed

The name stuck, and I considered myself fairly lucky not to end up with “Skippy,” “Flounder,” or “Coma” (all real Delt nicknames from my era).

Since Chris is a fairly common name on an Ultimate team, I decided to start using Schmed on the field as well. My partner Ken’s wife is named Chris as well, and after she started working on one of our projects, clients have started calling me Schmed. Perhaps this has gone too far...

What’s for Dessert?

As an exercise in self-discipline, I only eat dessert once each week. This practice is a constant source of consternation and amusement for my friends and has led to seemingly endless debates on what constitutes dessert, etc. If you’re interested, check out the Official Dessert Diet Rules.

Interests

Mountain Biking

My hometown of Nevada City, CA has two important advantages:

• If you’re willing to climb a few hills, then you can easily get anywhere in the greater Nevada City/Grass Valley area on a bike. It typically adds only about 15-30 minutes to each trip, compared with a car.
• It’s a mountain biking mecca - miles of awesome single track easily accessible without putting my (awesome) 2015 Stumpjumper FSR Comp 29 up on my car.

My exercise regimen is pretty simple: stay out of the car. I even haul 4+ bags of groceries on my Sport Utility Bicycle (aka XtraCycle):

Like my vegetarianism, I do this primarily out of concern for the environment, but both have obvious health benefits. In 1999, I launched the ambitious “Schmed 2000 Project”. The goal was to get in better shape than I’d been in since high school, and to remain fitter than I’d been during my 20’s and 30’s for as long as I possibly could. The project continues to be a success (though this probably says more about how lazy I was when I was young than anything else).

Mountaineering

“Climbing is a joyous, instinctive activity; unless restrained, most children will scurry up trees, garden walls, building facades, and anything else steep and enticing. While society, in the form of parents, teachers, and the law, discourages these activities, some determined individuals persist and eventually find their way to the mountains.” - Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills.

On Starlight Peak in 1993
(we didn’t make it)

I’ve been climbing mountains ever since I finally escaped from a frustrated childhood in Florida. I learned winter backpacking from Mike Bromberg and other members of the Vulgarian Ramblers Mountaineering Club (VRMC) while I was at MIT. We still get together every summer to climb in the Sierra, Cascades, Rocky Mountains, or elsewhere in the West. We’re peak baggers for the most part, favoring mixed alpine climbing. We bring gourmet delicacies to savor on each and every summit.

I’ve compiled the Official Vulgarian Ramblers list of all the mountains in California at least 13,000 feet tall. To my knowledge, this represents the most complete and accurate listing of California’s high peaks. I don’t even want to think about how much money I could have made consulting instead of compiling, publishing and updating this peak list.

Check out the trip report and video from the 2015 Summer Tour.

Ultimate

Ultimate combines the passing game of American Football with the give and go ballet of Basketball, and then extends both by using a projectile that can itself be taught to dance. Ultimate is a non-contact sport where the Spirit of the Game is taken so seriously that officials are only required at the absolute highest levels of competition. Ultimate is quite simply the most exciting, in-your-face game played anywhere on the planet. I’ve competed on several Bay Area teams (one made it to Regionals, and the first West Coast Masters team came in third at Nationals in 1991.) The Ultimate Players Association has a ton of cool Ultimate graphics, info, etc.

I started an Ultimate team at Bitney Prep, where I teach physics. The kids are very enthusiastic, but our tiny school (less than 100 students) is a very small pool from which to select world class athletes. Check out the team’s web page.

There’s a local pickup game at Pioneer Park with adult players in the Nevada City/Grass Valley area. If you’re a local Ultimate player, please join the Gold Country Ultimate email distribution list.

Rants and Raves

I occasionally lose it and vent on a variety of topics. If you’re interested in my political or other viewpoints, have a look.

Random Links of Interest

Sierra Club - Consider the prospect of explaining to your great-grandchildren why the environment didn’t seem very important to you back when decisive action might have mitigated many of the problems they inherited.

Natural Resources Defense Council - Arguably the most effective environmental organization.

Rocky Mountain Institute - A research group that focuses on environmentally sustainable living. Starting to notice a pattern?

Project Vote Smart - These guys force political candidates to answer issue-based questionnaires so you can base your vote on more than posturing.

Down with Facebook! - A priceless article from the Weekly Standard by Matt Labash, who obviously shares my disdain for web-based social networking. (But wait - isn’t my home page just an infrequently updated blog? OMG - perhaps I was actually a social networking pioneer!)

Astronomy Picture of the Day - Why not check out a completely different part of the cosmos every day of the year?

Recent Earthquakes - Find out what’s shaking in California and Nevada.

Please e-mail comments regarding this web site to: schmed@transpac.com.

© 1997-2019, Chris Schneider. All Rights Reserved World Wide.

Last updated 30 March 2019