Brian's Offramp

Welcome to the home page of Brian Dipert (click for pix!). I live in the Tahoe Donner community of Truckee, California, along with my dog Moo Shu (click for pix!), and two cats, Sheba and Charlene (click for pix!)).


My Work Life

I am a senior technical editor for EDN Magazine, covering mass storage, multimedia (audio, displays, 2-D and 3-D graphics, and still and video imaging), and PC core logic and peripherals. I graduated with a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, in December of 1988.

I have also written four books, 'Designing With Flash Memory' (co-authored with Markus Levy), 'The PCI Handbook for Hardware and Software Engineers', 'The Hip-Pocket Guide To MS-DOS 6.22' and 'The Hip-Pocket Guide To Microsoft Windows 3.1/3.11', all published by Annabooks Press. If you're interested in purchasing any or all of these books, you can reach Annabooks via the info below:

My books are also available through Fatbrain.com, Powell's Books, Amazon.Com, Barnes & Noble or Borders.


My 'Real' Life

My hobbies and other interests include the following:


Miscellaneous Ramblings

In the summer of 1996, I took a 2-month sabbatical, a 'perk' I got every 7 years from my previous employer Intel, plus took two additional weeks of vacation for a total of 10 weeks of fun. I spent a week in Utah and two weeks in Africa, where I both went on safari and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. On the way back home I stopped off in Europe for two weeks of travel, focusing on Switzerland and Spain, and spent a few days in New York City and Washington D.C. Finally, I returned to Glacier National Park, traveled north into the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and took my new car for a tour of highway 101 and a backpacking trip into the Trinity Alps. Click here for more info!

In November 1998, I traveled to Nepal for a three-week trek through the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. On the way back, I spent two days in Bangkok, Thailand. It was a great trip! Click here for pictures and here for a journal of my activities.

1999 was a busy year of outdoors adventure. I climbed Mt. Whitney twice (my 2nd and 3rd times total), Mt. Hood, Mt. Shasta (my 2nd time, once on the north side and this time on the south side) and ran the Hood-to-Coast race for the fourth time. That fall, I originally was going to travel to Argentina to climb Aconcagua, but as of mid-August my plans changed and I went back to Nepal instead. I had an amazing time. Click here for the pictures and here for the journal.

What about 2000?. Memorial Day weekend I had the backcountry campsite at Butano State Park all to myself. Late June found me in Carson Iceberg Wilderness for a backpacking weekend with two dogs and two other Sierra Club members; see all the details here. July 4-6 three friends and I did a backpacking trip in Yosemite which started at Tanaya Lake, ended at the Valley, and involved summits of both Clouds Rest and Half Dome as well as twilight and 2AM visits from a particularly persistent bear. The following Friday and Saturday, I ran a relay race called Rainier-to-Pacific; see pictures here and here (yours truly is on page 1, pictures 6 and 7). The next day, I went hiking in the Columbia River Gorge, and the day after that I climbed Mt. St. Helens. After attending friends' wedding in Anacortes, WA on July 29, I spent the next four days doing a solo 45-mile backpacking trip in North Cascades National Park, from Hannegan Pass to Ross Lake. Click here for the journal. August 25 and 26 I ran the Hood to Coast relay for the fifth time (click here for a particularly bad picture of yours truly), and on December 3 I ran the California International Marathon as a charity fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training.

And 2001? I'm writing this in late October. Fellow EDN editor and good friend Nicholas Cravotta and I visited the Grand Canyon before January's Consumer Electronics Show, and in late March I spent a week in Kauai. In mid-May I was honoured to spend four days attending lectures given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Shoreline Ampitheater in Mountain View, CA, and Memorial Day weekend found me hosteling and day-hiking in Yosemite National Park. Planned Mt. Shasta and Mt. Jefferson climbs fell through at the last minute, and Mt. St. Helens ascent hopes were dashed by bad weather, but I hope to climb Mt. Adams early next month. I got to 13,200' feet on Mt. Rainier in early July before high winds convinced me to beat a hasty retreat (see Dave Pellerin's journal and pictures for the details). Afterwards I, along with friends Sherlock and Kate, spent three days car-camping and day-hiking at Rainier National Park, and less than 24 hours after returning home I turned around and headed up to Quincy, CA for the four-day High Sierra Music Festival. I ran 18.5 miles' worth of the Rainier-to-Pacific relay, although I had to 'pass' on Hood-to-Coast this year due to injuries. I revisited the Yosemite backcountry (no bears this time!) Labor Day weekend, and I just got back from three weeks in Nepal. Click here for the pictures, here for the occasional emails I sent home from overseas, here for the journal and here for the latest status report on my health situation.


And Now For Something Completely Different....

Check out the pages below for more details on some of the ways I like to spend my time, both at and outside of work. Enjoy!


Send Me Mail!

I'd love to hear from you (remove NOSPAM from email address).

bdipert@NOSPAM.pacbell.net


URL For This Page: http://www.oocities.org/bdipert/index.html.

This page was created on December 23, 1995. It was last updated on March 23, 2008.

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