Mission Photos

I estimate that I took around 500 or so photos on my mission. This, of course, was back in the archaic days before the advent of digital photography. Saddly, my HUGE stack of mission photos is just sitting in a bin somewhere in the garage. One of these days I need to dig them out and spend 74 thousand hours scanning them in so as to preserve them.

I actually attempted that about 6 or 7 years ago. I scanned in merely about 50 photos. Apparantly, to my dismay, I only scanned them in at SUPER low quality. Nonetheless I found those scanned photos hidden in an obscure place on my hard drive. So after reliving the memories for a few moments I uploaded them to Flickr.

If you'd like to browse through the few I have, click here to view my mission photos Flickr set.

Otherwise I've posted a few of them here on the blog. Enjoy:

Heroes is Back, Among Others

The best show to grace TV airwaves is back on the air. Heroes delivered a fantastic 2 hour premier last Monday and this coming Monday cannot come fast enough.

As with previous seasons, this is the one show that I simply cannot DVR and watch later. I must watch it live, or at least only 15 minutes behind (enough to fast forward through commercials).

So far the season has started off wonderfully.

In addition to Heroes, there are a few other geek-favorites of mine that are starting up. I DVR'd the first episode of the new Knight Rider but haven't watched it yet. The second season of Terminator has started and, in my opinion, it is a fantastic show--love it!

And don't count out Smallville. Going on thier 8th season, this one has started off strong. I LOVE that Lana is out of the picture but I hate that Lex is gone too. The show isn't what it used to be without him. Still, the new producers have churned out a few great season-starting episodes. While the dynamic has changed over the years, I still easily count this as one of my top favorite 3 shows.

I started watching Fringe. I've seen the first two eps so far. It's supposed to be the new JJ Abrams show. So far I'm not terribly impressed. I think I'll give it one more episode to hook me in but somehow that doesn't seem likely. It's kind of like an X-files but seems to drag for me.

I'm interested in seeing "My Own Worst Enemy", starting next month. Looks interesting.

And of course there's Lost. Hasn't started yet, but I'm still waiting like a boy on Christmas morning for it to get underway.

I also enjoy Criminal Minds. The season premier recorded, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Cold Case is good, hasn't started yet.

I don't typically think of myself as a huge TV watcher but looking at this list, you'd wonder how I have time to do anything else. I didn't even mention American Idol or College Football.

But in the end there is only one hierarchy of shows--the top three. I could probably give up the rest if forced to at gunpoint, but these three would have me questioning mortality if given the same option:

1. Heroes
2. Lost
3. Smallville

Enjoy the season.

Bike Not Good Enough!

So apparantly biking isn't good enough to get my legs in shape for hiking. I rode four miles a day for two and a half weeks, and all the while I could feel my thighs burn. At the end of each week my legs were fatigued. I thought I was getting fit for my Half Dome hike.

Well this weekend I had my choir retreat. At the tail end of the retreat I went up with a bunch of my students to play laser tag. Basically it's a big indoor area, dark, lots of ramps and different levels to play on, and the object is to shoot and not get shot. It's a LOT OF FUN. I did it once with my brother before when he came out to visit and I had forgotten just how fun it was.

The game lasted 15 minutes. That's fifteen minutes of running in a crouched position. It's hard to explain how much of a workout it really is until you do it yourself. We were all drenched with sweat by the end of it. Half way through our time my heart was beating SO hard I thought I would die.

This morning, my thighs were SO SORE! After only 15 minutes of hard upper-leg work I am sore, and remember, that's after riding a bike 4 miles a day for 2.5 weeks.

So there you have it. I need to do some SERIOUS work to get 

in shape. If fifteen mintues kills my legs then a few hours hiking Half Dome could put me out for the rest of the week. And we CAN'T let that happen (Bob, Aaron, Jon and Dad) becuase we have a LOT more hiking to do that week.

So my plea to my Yosemite friends is: don't just assume that you'll be fine. You will NEED to get in GOOD shape for what we're setting out to do. The last thing you want is to be left behind at camp because you're too sore to go on the next hike.

...now to take my own advice.

Rockapella

Tonight Megan and I went to a concert. We saw Rockapella. You may remember them from the show: "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" (click the link to hear the song). It was a GREAT concert. They put on quite a show.

They have a bass, George Baldi III, that was fantastic. His voice was so smooth and easy to listen to. He was, to me, the highlight of the evening. Next in line was Jeff Thacher, the vocal percussionist. He was downirght awesome. Just as good as Blake Lewis, IMO.

The best song of the night was thier rendition of a familiar Mills Bros. tune: Paper Doll. It was fun and held a beat that you could relate to.

It's great to go on a date with my wife, and escape the screams of a 2-year-old and a 6-month-old for a few hours.

Here are a few pictures I took tonight:

Trophy Wife

I rest my case

I'm Famous!

So there's this website called Schmap.com. From the looks of it, they are an internet mapping program like Google Maps that professes to go above and beyond (meaning they provide descriptions and reviews of places, etc.). Well a few weeks ago I got an email from them saying that my photo (found on Flickr) was a finalist in thier selection for a photo of the Mariposa grove in Yosemite. They wanted to know if they could have my permission to publish it on thier site if it was selected as the final photo in ther pool of selections. I said sure, why not? I'm all for the free world of trading photos--among other things (*cough* *music*). But anyway I responded in the afirmative and thought nothing more of it.

I just got the email today. They've decided to use my photo! So now when you go to Schmap and look up Yosemite, you'll see my photo at the Mariposa Grove description.

See for yourself. My photo (shown here below) can now be seen at Schmap. Click here, and cursor over "Mariposa Grove." My photo will show up on the right hand side of the screen (and you'll see my name credited under it too).

So if you want my autograph, I'd be happy to give you one ($100 each)

I Have the Coolest Friends

Check me out. Can you see what I'm drinking? POCARI SWEAT! If you didn't know, this is the best drink on the planet. It's sort of Gatorade-ish but more refreshing (in my opinion). I fell in love with the stuff when I was in Japan but knew that, sadly, I may never get to drink it again. I wrote a blog about the drink and it paid off.

I have a good friend that just spent a year in Macau China (singing at the Venetian). He read my blog while there. He just came back from China this week and he brought me a gift. Best. Gift. Ever.

Thanks, Skyler. You da man!

Metallica is Back

Since I was in high school, if you ask me what my favorite bad is, I would say Metallica. Why? Don't they play crazy mind numbing heavy metal? Not really. Don't get me wrong, they have thier share of heavy metal, but most people don't know that in spite of the heavy/goth sounding name, Metallica is actually a very musically tallented group of people.

A few years ago, they came out with a new album: St. Anger. It sucked. I was such a big fan that I tried to convince myself that I liked thier new sound. In the end I had to face reality: Metallica had hit a new low (well not a new low because they didn't have one to begin with).

But in 2 days Metallica will release a new album: Death Magnetic. IT. IS. AWESOME. They totally redeemed themselves with this new album. It harkens back to the good old days of Justice for All and Master of Puppets. I've listened to the whole thing a number of times now. HOW? It's not even released yet! Well the album leaked online a few weeks ago. You can hear the music in any number of places including YouTube.

Metallica never ceases to amaze me with their tallent. Killer vocals and fantastic melodic guitar riffs accompanied by perfect chord structure and a constantly advancing musical form.

Enough from me. Hear it from the masters themselves. Here are my two favorites from thier new album.

This is one of my favorites. AWESOME! (Cyanide)

This Song is instrumental only but awesome: (Suicide and Redemption)

My Kids Rule

Well I've uploaded my August photos to flickr. It's a small upload this month (only 86 photos)--guess I didn't take that many pics. But I did take some REALLY GREAT ONES. So, you can browse my flickr account, or just look below at some of my favs:

This is my brother-in-law, Jason, on the wake board. I thought I took a great pic, so I wanted to share :P

CUTE Kaelyn!

SUPER Cute Kaelyn!

Cute Madelyn!

4 Miles a Day

So I've done it. I just finished my first week of riding my [borrowed] bike to work and back. My school is 2 miles away; round trip is 4 miles.

The great thing about riding the bike is that I can say "I rode 4 miles today" but I don't have to take time out of my day to "work out" -- It's simply a means of transportation.

And how did it go? My legs hurt a lot. I never really felt sore per se, but my knees seemed to weaken over the course of the week. I couldn't wait for Saturday (today) so that I could take a break.

I haven't lost any weight but that's okay--I'm not really doing this to lose weight; I'm doing it to get in shape for my 26-mile Yosemite hike in June (though losing weight would be a nice side effect).

Riding to school is tough because is a gradual uphill almost the whole way. It's not terribly steep; as a matter of fact I never realized it was uphill until I started riding my bike. The ride home is much easier for the same reason.

Hopefully I can keep this up. I want my Yosemite trip to be perfect and it won't be if I'm tired and exhausted the whole time.

Star Trails

Using my Google Reader I subscribe to the Yosemite photo pool at Flickr. Basically this means that anytime someone posts a new photo to the photo pool, I get to view it using my Google Reader. Usually that means between 3-10 photos per day. I love it.

One of the things I've discovered while viewing these posted photos is Star Trails. What this refers to are photos that are prolonged exposure shots, some as short as 10 minutes and others as long as 2 hours! (meaning the camera shutter is open for that long!) and in the process you can see where the stars have moved in that amount of time. See for yourself:This photo has an exposure time of 91 minutes! I think it's pretty incredible!

Another fun thing to do (apparently) with long exposures is something called "Light Painting." This is simply the concept that if you take a long exposure shot, you can shine a colored light on something, or even write something with a laser pen, and the exposure would pick it all up. Here's one example:
Here you can see the star trails, but you can also see the red tint on the tree. This is due to the photographer shining a red-bulb flashlight up and down the tree trunk during the long exposure shot. This particular exposure was for 46 minutes (the lights in the background are all the cars driving by in that amount of time).

So there you have it: photography really is art. Now I just have to go out and by a $3000 camera to take pictures like these!