Steve Joyce's BLOG

Jasper in slow motion

2012-02-14T17:25:00.001-07:00

I wanted to play with my little Canon S100's super slow motion mode. It films small frame sizes, but at 240 frames per second. Like always, Jasper is my crash test dummy and assistant. He's can crank for an eight year old dog.

My apologies for the long delay in the beginning. I was too lazy to edit out the time before I pushed Start and the time I threw the snow ball, which is unfortunately filmed in slow motion.

Good air on this one, with a twist.

In this one I just let him run. He normally stretches it out even more, but he's in 6 inches of heavy snow.

Pretty cool, but it needs some work. Beyond the obvious clipping at the beginning, the snow throws off the exposure, which the camera tries to use as Neutral Gray. I haven't figured out how to adjust it in this mode. Also, I think I can get twice the frame size if I halve the frame rate. Another experiment.

Good marketing. Bad marketing.

2012-02-14T11:19:00.002-07:00

With my marketing background, I always find it interesting to see good and bad examples of marketing. Here, I can offer up each in one shopping trip. This is hopefully my last discussion about whacking my head while skiing.

I know that ski helmets are designed to take one major impact, after which they can't be counted on to offer the same level of protection. I knew I needed to get a new helmet, so I called the manufacturer, Giro, to see if they had any kind of program or discount for helmets that died in the line of duty. Sure enough, they do, but only some stores participate. Bring your dead helmet in, give it to the store, and get a 30% discount on a new Giro helmet.

Here is my new purchase. Very nice helmet, and I went with white this time.

So, where's the marketing story? In three parts...

For Giro, kudos. If you didn't offer any kind of discount, I would have started from scratch and considered Scott, POC, and others. Fairly easy to narrow my focus back to your helmets.
Then I went to Jans Mountain Outfitters. Julie and I have bought thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from them, including skis, poles, boots, helmets, jackets, bikes,... What did they say? "I'm sorry, but we don't participate in that program. You can come back and talk with our hard goods buyer and perhaps you can work something out." For what it's worth, I had a new helmet in one hand and a credit card in the other. I told them I would just head across the street to their main competitor. They didn't really care.
Across at Cole Sport, it was an entirely different experience. I walked in and started talking to the first sales rep I found. His answer: "Sure, we support that program. Looks like your helmet did exactly what it was supposed to. Grab another Giro, give us the broken one, and we'll give you 30% off." I was out of the store with my new helmet in minutes.

Now I will preface this with "I don't own my own outdoor store, nor do I do the accounting for one". However, I have to believe that a high-end store like Jans doesn't like losing a long-time, loyal customer. I bought the old helmet from them and wanted to pay them for a new one. So much for any hint of good customer support.

So, two thumbs up for Giro and Cole Sport. I wet sloppy raspberry to Jans. If you want people to buy from you instead of just shopping on the Internet, you actually have to differentiate yourself on service.

A happy weather surprise

2012-02-12T15:34:00.002-07:00

We get used to snow disappointment. The forecast calls for 5" and we get 2 or 3. Sometimes they miss it for everyone. Other times the Cottonwood resorts, like Snowbird and Alta, get the good snow but we don't.

Last night they predicted we might get 5 inches. Julie and I discussed whether we would go ski if we only got the normal two. This morning I checked the ski reports and sure enough, Alta got 2" and all the Park City resorts reported 1". Then I went out with the dog. We had 5" at the house and it was pounding snow. Apparently it had let loose around breakfast time, after the resorts had all measured.

Heavy snow doesn't make for great viability or great pictures, but the skiing rocks!

Julie and I opted for Deer Valley. I normally shy away from there on powder days because they have the audacity to groom all the fresh snow, but there's no way they can do that when the snow arrives just before they open.

These are the lunch tables at Silver Lake at around 11:00 It has been snowing on and off for the four hours since then. Nice that when they rebuilt the decks, they put a snow melt system in.

A nice morning of skiing and a nice addition to our drought-based snow pack.

Our first visit to Sun Valley

2012-02-11T14:25:00.002-07:00

We have skied with friends from Raleigh, Dick and Cosette, a number of times both in France and here in Utah. This time they flew out to Park City and the next morning we piled into the SUV and headed up to Sun Valley in Idaho. Julie and I hadn't been there before, but we had heard it was very nice.

The Sun Valley ski resort is in the town of Ketchum, which has a population of about 3,400. It was a five and a half hour easy drive from our house, although we learned that almost all the cafes along the way are closed on Sunday. Something to remember when you are in the middle of nowhere.

The views from the top of Sun Valley are really impressive. You can see snow capped mountains for miles and miles.

Dick found us a place to stay and signed a contract. Then the owner of the rental property decided they found a longer term tenant and pulled the plug on our contract. Not exactly legal. Fortunately the rental company found us an even nicer, bigger place and gave it to us at the same price.

Here we have Julie and Cosette working in the kitchen. Notice the very interesting piece of art over the sofa on the far left. It was a huge, fairly ugly Indian. I never did get used to looking at it. I couldn't decide if it was purchased art or the largest kid's school art project ever.

Sun Valley is the only ski resort in the area. It is smaller than the three Park City resorts, but very nice. They were a bit behind average on snow, but have had more this year than Utah has. One thing I really enjoyed about the mountain was the long lifts and runs. Most detachable quad lifts rise about 1,000 feet. Sun Valley had lifts rising 3142, 2673, 1844, and quite a few in the 1500-1600 foot range. This means when you start a run and get in a rythem, you can just keep on going. Very fun.

Here's Cosette carving through the bottom of the moguls. The moguls were firm, but not icy.

and Julie ripping it up.

and this is Dick (with Julie in the background). Notice how everyone has on a helmet? That's a good thing.

You can see that the texture of the snow was very nice. Even though we didn't get any fresh snow, it was cold enough at night to suck some moisture out. It was very easy to get an edge on all but the sunniest slopes.

You could tell that Sun Valley is owned by the same people that own the Snowbasin resort in Utah. In addition to the gorgeous lodges and wonderful food, there are the same big-wheeled wagons for hauling all your skis, poles and equipment. I've never seen those at any other resorts.

This was the only picture I got from my real adventure. I was enjoying the thrills of high-speed turns down the groomed runs. Unfortunately I was really flying as I merged in with another trail, which had small moguls. I'm a decent skier, but not good enough to go through a mogul field at that rate of speed. I lost one ski and tried to recover on the other. No such luck. I went down fast and hard.

I recovered quickly, but as we went up the next ski lift, I noticed that my brain was fuzzy and I was having problems remembering things. I told Julie I needed to go find a lodge and sit for a while. There was a nice ski patrol guy in the lodge having a drink. We chatted and he suggested I might have a concussion and that I should head down the hill in a sled. I would normally disagree, but I am not used to my brain being off in such a way.

Another patroller came and got me to take me down the hill. Notice the green box in his hand. That's my oxygen supply. I'm still not quite sure why I was on oxygen, but it was nice so I went with it. I was wrapped up tightly in the basket, so I didn't get a chance to take photos of my trip down. It was a nice long ride, about 3,000 feet of vertical. Do you count that in your total for the day?

This is the back of my helmet. As best anyone can figure out, the ski that stayed with me made a quick whack on the back of my head. I must be more limber than I thought, at least at speed. I am certainly glad this was not my head or I would have probably had a lot of blood to go with a much nastier concussion.

Giro has a policy that if you damage one of their helmets in a fall, you can get 30% of a replacement by giving them your dead one. It's important to realize that these helmets are designed to survive a single serious impact. After that, you need to go shopping.

Right behind our condo was a nice trail that follows the river. You can see the groomed cross country tracks to the right of my beautiful wife. Apparently this is very big in Sun Valley and they have miles and miles of trail.

One thing they don't seem to have in Ketchum is salt for the road. There was snow and ice everywhere, which made for a tough walk. I guess this is a benefit of living about 30 miles from a giant salt lake.

Things of interest (to me at least) about Sun Valley and Ketchum.

There is no ski-in/ski-out housing. Therefore, the best places to stay are probably farther away from the base. You would get a much better view of the mountains as you got further away.
I have never been in such a pedestrian friendly town. There is no way you could commit suicide by throwing yourself in front of a car. They would simply brake hard and wave you on with a smile.
The downtown area has an amazing amount of free parking. What a great idea. Several of the main roads are very wide and have parking on both sides and then two lanes of parking in the middle.
The base is at 5,750 feet, which is seriously lower than Park City, which is around 7000 feet.
I always thought of Sun Valley as being the "very expensive place that the stars skied." The stars might be there, but the lift passes and restaurants in town were definitely cheaper than Park City. I don't think the shopping was as good though.
It's a nice mountain for intermediate and easier expert skiing. There's not enough challenge for the gonzo experts and the hand full of greens might scare beginners. I can't remember seeing green runs that looked so steep.

I've given it a four days now without skiing. My head feels fine and my neck is loosening up more every day. I think tomorrow might be time to head out on the slopes again, although perhaps a bit more slowly and carefully.

Great. Something you have to explain over and over

2012-02-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

A bit of brilliance from over in Midway, Utah....

Every time you give anyone your address, you piss away another 5-10 minutes of your life explaining....

Ski Aerial Ping Pong?

2012-02-04T11:10:00.002-07:00

We had a busy day yesterday. We skied with friends, had a late lunch on the mountain, came home for some errands, visited another set of friends for drinks and then went out to dinner. After dinner we were all heading over to Deer Valley to watch the aerial ski jumping. The main thing you see in this picture is the mogul course. The aerial jumping is the little bright hill at the bottom.

Unfortunately, we were running late, traffic was backed up trying to get to DV and park, it was very cold to be standing around, and we were generally lazy. So, we headed over to the Covaleski's for some ping pong. There are some that prefer the more serious name of "table tennis", but we were definitely more on the ping pong side.

Here, Kathy and Loris are quite serious.

Across the table, Greg and Miriam were equally focused.

When you do well, you celebrate your victories.

But when life doesn't go as planned....

You get taunted from the other side.

At the end of the night, Jim stepped up to play against Bill.

The fan base was a bit distracted.

Then Bill pulled a big upset, despite Jim's home table advantage. Bill was our champ with a 22-20 victory.

OK, not a big evening, but at least we stayed warm and didn't have to fight for a parking space.

Next year we have decided to pay the money to watch the event from the VIP tent. You get dinner and drinks, a great spot to watch from, and a warm tent to duck into.

Finally getting out and skiing

2012-02-03T15:46:00.002-07:00

Bruce Kahn and his daughter Hannah came to town from Australia. I got to ski with Bruce one day, which is something I really miss. Unfortunately, Bruce went up to Wyoming, and right as he gets back to Park City, we take off for Sun Valley, Idaho. Accidentally poor planning.

Today we went out with what became a ski herd of friends.

We started with these guys (Jim Covaleski, Greg Glynis, Julie "the wife" Joyce, Kathy Covaleski, and Miriam Mason. I still think Miriam dresses like a ski ninja.

Later we met up with Bill and Loris Benson, and Jim O'Neill and Don Miller from Friends of Animals Utah. It is quite the challenge to try and keep 10 people together on the hill. With only a few minor failures, we succeeded.

The snow is pretty nice, but you definitely want to stay out of the woods. There still isn't enough snow in there and the forecast doesn't predict anything soon. Whine. Whine.

Off to a bad start

2012-01-30T14:19:00.001-07:00

I started my new workout today. You can see it on my blog here. As always, I jumped in too fast instead of easing into it.

I'm not sure which tore my hands up, the clapping or the towel twisting. I may have to give this up and go back to CrossFit.

Provo River in Midway

2012-01-28T20:14:00.003-07:00

We have friends rolling into town and I know I will do a lot of skiing with them, so I decided to get out for one more day of photography. Heber City and Midway are two little towns about 20 miles from Park City. The Provo River runs right through both of them.

I wanted to go find two things that I knew were along the Provo: bald eagles and river otters. The eagles have been hanging out as regulars, but the river otters were reintroduced a little more than a year ago.

The day went as expected. I never saw either one. Just the same, you can always find something interesting. Today's prize was the hoar frost that was coating every bush tree and blade of grass.

Every plant becomes a piece of art.

This is just one little branch on a small tree. The crystaline structure is beautiful.

and another...

There were several fly fishermen out in the frigid water. Are they trying to catch frozen fish?

I was talking to one guy about my search for river otters. He said I would have to be really lucky because they are primarily nocturnal. I figured I could trust this guy since he was an experienced, licensed trapper. This was a beaver he had caught last night. He also had four muskrats. If you haven't seen a muskrat, the key is "rat".

It was interesting to see these four mounds of snow floating down the river. Where did they come from?

Hey! Those snow mounds are actually swans. Pretty good disguise.

They did have another headless disguise they used. I think these look more like glaciers.

Just a quick trip, but an interesting one.

Another trip to Farmington Bay

2012-01-27T20:55:00.001-07:00

I really enjoyed my trip to Farmington Bay last week, so Jasper and I loaded into the Honda and headed back. I was hoping that the cold weather and snow would have brought the bald eagles in, but that wasn't the case. I did see three or four, but they were all a quarter mile away, out in the middle of the water.

The day would be split into two chunks, ducks and hawks. The first batch were Coots on the run. They look so funny stomping along the water.

Then I went and found my favorite little Grebes. They're just so cute.

I had just set up to shoot this group of five Grebes. I had my eye to the camera...

... and suddenly all I saw was this. Confused I looked up and saw that a big hawk had just flown over the reeds and the ducks instantly went under water, scrambling for safety. Little ducks are tasty hawk food.

The nature center had a list of birds that were around during the year. There were three types of owls, and I was interested in seeing any of them. This was the only one I found. His job was to scare the other birds off the tower he was perched on.

On to the hawks... Most of what I saw were Harriers and Kestrels, but there was at least one Rough Legged Hawk.

This one was hovering for prey, right over the truck. I shot this through the sun roof. I was worried about shooting into the sun, but it actually provided some nice back lighting.

My best shots were of a Kestrel. He was sitting on a power wire with his recently caught mouse.

I got this shot just as he was getting ready to take off.

And now for my sad moment. I whine on my blog about not having a fast, long lens. My dream for wildlife photography is the Nikon 500mm. Instead I use a 70-200mm zoom with a 2.0x teleconverter. I shot this picture of two Harriers fighting in mid-air. It was pretty dramatic, but I couldn't zoom in enough and the focus was off. What a pisser. This is one that could have won contests.

Easier to get in shape

2012-01-26T20:28:00.001-07:00

Screw CrossFit. Those workouts are hard. I've found something new!

Remember to never dive into a new workout program without checking with your physician first!

Utah Legistlature

2012-01-24T19:00:00.001-07:00

Our Leadership Park City group got to make a trip to the big city (Salt Lake) and visit with the state and city government. It was educational and interesting.

This is our group in the Gold Room of the capital, which is normally used for special events, like meeting with VIPs or signing special bills. In the center of the group is Lt Governor Greg Bell. I'm peeking over his shoulder.

Folks we met with include:

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker
Lt Governor Greg Bell
Chief Deputy Attorney General John Swallow
Ex-US Senator Jake Garn (first senator in to visit space)
State Senator Kevin Van Tassel
State Representatives Mel Brown, Joel Briscoe, and Kraig Powell
Salt Lake City Councilman Randy Horiuchi
Park City lobbyist Des Barker
Park City Asst Manager Diane Foster

It was amazing that these people spent so much time with us, given that it was the first day that the legislature was back in session. In Utah, the house and senate are part time. They do a single 45-day session, at which point everything, including a balanced budget (per our constitution) must be completed.

The main points of interest with everyone were:

What important things are you working on now?
What's most important for Park City and Summit County?
What drove you to politics? What is your motivation?

I won't go into all the details, but it was a wonderful opportunity.

Wait for it....

2012-01-24T18:01:00.002-07:00

I went over to Deer Valley for a few hours of skiing this morning. Some people complain about skiing in flat light because you can't tell where the bumps and drops are. I would have been quite happy with flat light. I just wanted to make sure I didn't run into a tree or lift tower.

They promised that it was supposed to clear up, and sure enough it did. You can still see lots of clouds down at the lower levels, but it top it was gorgeous.

I try to stay out of the trees when I am skiing alone, but I found a physician to ski with for a run and we ducked in. With the 5" of last nights snow, everything off the groomed runs was wonderful!

And you really had to look around to appreciate it all. The tops of the tall aspens were glazed with frost, beautiful against the suddenly clear blue sky.

And this pine really got nailed. I have to guess that some of this was from snowmaking, but I'm not sure.

Even with the big storm, we are still way behind on snow. Tree skiing is hazardous and there are still little trees and shrubs popping up on the groomed runs. Please send more, but thanks for what we got!

By the way, as long as the light is good, iPhones take a decent picture.

Is this how hot tubs should be?

2012-01-23T20:55:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of a neighbor's hot tub. I am pretty sure that they work better if the tops aren't blown open for four days of a snow storm.

You might find yourself asking two interesting questions:

Wouldn't it be easy to walk down and close the cover, especially since these people live in L.A. most of the time? It might be open for weeks.
Is this the same neighbor that delayed your house's construction and cost you thousands of dollars for your driveway easement, even though it had no effect on them?

Quite the coincidence. The answer to both is yes.

Always a good idea to think twice before screwing over a neighbor.

A big game of snow roulette

2012-01-23T20:32:00.001-07:00

We finally got that huge snow everyone out west has been waiting for. On Saturday the local resorts reported between 20 and 28 inches of new snow. Sweet!

Now the question is where to go skiing. Hindsight is 20-20, but here is what happened on Sunday:

Little Cottonwood Canyon had a major avalanche and the risk of a lot more. Alta and Snowbird didn't open until about 1:00, and then only about half the resort.
Everyone that would have gone up Little Cottonwood went up Big Cottonwood to ski Brighton and Solitude. That meant a huge traffic jam, no parking, and a million skiers and boarders..
Canyons was in better shape, but still had a lot of avalanche risk. They opened the middle of the mountain, but left the left and right sections closed until about 11:00 and 1:00. So, there were long lines and a lot less choice.
Park City and Deer Valley managed to open just about everything almost immediately, even though DV was the one who reported 28".

We rolled the dice and went to the Canyons because they tend to have the best glade/tree skiing. Bummer. It was nice but I wish we had wandered over to DV instead. You just never know how the day will play out until ti's over.

Going to Canyons did create a great new game, ripe for betting. If you read my last post, you saw these little solar lights they put right along the road.

Sure enough, after the first good snow, lots of them were down. I counted as we drove by and I saw 39 of them down. When we left the resort later in the day we saw a work crew digging them out of the snow and putting them back up. Now we have a benchmark to see if we can beat.

It's about damn time!

2012-01-21T15:11:00.001-07:00

A few days ago they promised us that our dry spell was over and that the snow was coming big time. Yeah, sort of. Mostly it hit the places to the north of us like Snowbasin, Powder Mountain, and Jackson Hole. Places like Canyons reported 16" over the last three days, but I have to call bullshit. I skied there yesterday and there wasn't a time I couldn't clearly see my skies. We only had 3" at our house, and we live at 7400 feet, which is about 600 feet higher than the base of Canyons.

Today it got better. It's still coming down a bit warm, but at least it's piling up.

This is Deer Valley Drive, one of the most important and frequently plowed roads. Not looking so hot.

And of course, this is the first weekend of the Sundance Film Festival, so thousands of people are walking around town trying to get to movies. The ones that aren't walking are either standing around in the snow, waiting for a bus, or driving around in circles looking for parking spots that simply don't exist.

This lady was my favorite for the day. She couldn't be bothered to clear the 6" of snow off her roof. When she came to a stoplight, most of that snow slid right down onto her windshield. That much wet snow isn't moving for something as flimsy as a wiper blade, so she was out cleaning her car in the middle of a 5 lane road with cars slipping everywhere. Fortunately she got back in unscathed. I wish I had gotten a picture before she got the bulk of the snow off.

This may be tomorrow's good laugh. On the road to the Canyons ski area, someone thought it was a good idea to put hundreds of these dainty little solar lights. Notice that they are right on the edge of the road. Anyone want to guess where the snow plows push thousands of pounds of snow and slush?

We will probably ski there tomorrow so we can see how they held up.

Yeah snow!!!!! We love you. Keep snowing!

Challenges with depth of field

2012-01-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Warning: this post is probably only interesting to people who like photography....

In photography, depth of field (DOF) is simply the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in focus. It is controlled by the distance to the subject, the lens' focal length, the camera's sensor size, and the aperture (f-stop).

DOF can be a great tool for creating better photos. In this one I took in the summer, I wanted the flower and the bee to be sharp, but I didn't want all the distraction of what was behind it. By using f5.6 and my 105mm macro lens, I was able to make the background appear as some vague greenery. You know what it is, but there isn't any detail to grab your attention.

This week, I got a lesson in how bird photography can have some real issues with depth of field. I took this photo at f8 and 1/640th of a second. My zoom was set at 270mm. If you don't know, your camera stores all this information in the digital picture, so it's always easy to go back later and see how it was shot.

The problem is trying to get all the birds in focus.

This little guy was pretty sharp. He's the one that is second closest to the top right corner. Even zoomed in tightly, you can see

This blurry little guy was near the top left. Notice how you can't make out any of the feather detail.

I have a little iPhone app called Simple DOF. When I stick in an estimated distance of 75 feet, focal length of 270mm, and f8, I get a depth of field of 7.5 feet, with focus from 71.4 to 79 feet. That's not much. If I was zoomed in to my max of 400mm, the DOF would have only been 3.4 feet. While not as convenient as a phone app, you can find a nice quick DOF calculator here.

To get all the birds in sharp focus, I have several choices:

Zoom out. By zooming out to a focal length of 100mm, the DOF changes to 63 feet! That's great, but I don't want a picture of the marsh, I want a picture of the birds!
Set the aperture higher, like f16. This would double the DOF to 15 feet. However, closing the aperture also reduces the amount of light being let in. Instead of shooting at 1/640th, I would have to use 1/160th of a second. This is a problem because I was lazy and shooting without a tripod. A long lens and that slow a shutter can cause blur, even with all the fancy vibration reduction techology.
I could also increase the aperture to f16 and bump the ISO from 400 to 1600 to compensate for the loss of light. However, on my D300s, ISO 1600 starts to look grainy. Perhaps on my next camera?

So the real answer, and the one I need to grind into my photography brain, is to:

Check my app to make sure I have the right DOF before I start shooting. At some point, I will know it by heart, but not yet.
Set the aperture to get the DOF I need
Get the damn tripod out of the truck and use it like I am supposed to.

This is often described as one of the most common photographer failings: either not using a tripod or using a crappy one that isn't stable. I believed in this enough to buy a very good one and slowly but surely, I am using it more. This is just an easy visual lesson.

VW has a great ad

2012-01-20T14:54:00.001-07:00

This is just too funny! It's from an upcoming VW commercial.

UPDATE: Not everyone got it. Think Star Wars and Darth Vader.

Iowa Caucus? Carcus?

2012-01-19T17:54:00.001-07:00

I think we should do one of two things: either take away Iowa's niche of voting first in the primaries, or buy them a PC, even just an old beater laptop. How does it take you over 2 weeks to count votes and realize you announced the wrong winner?

There were only about 110,000 votes cast. I believe a small group of people could have counted them by hand and still finished long before now. Some math:

If you had 10 people, each counting a vote every five seconds, that's 7200 votes per hour.
Those 10 people, working eight hours a day, could knock out 57,600 votes per day
That means two days, for 10 people to count every vote by hand.
Let's throw in another two days to double check, so we don't do anything stupid, like announcing the wrong winner.

Congrats to Rick Santorum, I guess. Not sure how much pride you can have for winning a state where they can't count.

Sundance begins tomorrow

2012-01-18T14:52:00.002-07:00

Town is beginning to crank up for Sundance. What does that mean for me? Movies? Movie stars? Not really, at least not this year. What it means for me is that 40,000 people roll into a town of 8,000 full-time residents. Of those, about 38,500 have no idea where they are going or what they are doing.

For the next 11 days, you can't find a place to park, anywhere in town.

Even the grocery store, where there are available parking spaces, gets screwed up. How can you need two spaces with a Mini?

No making left turns. Too much traffic. No eating out. Too many visitors.

At least it gets a bit entertaining. This year's volunteer uniform is "I pick up trash on the highway" orange. It is fun to see people wearing them around already, making sure you know they are a volunteer. I hope people know they may look like a pumpkin. I also saw people wearing their passes, even though nothing starts for 36 hours.

Sundance is a great event for Park City and brings tens of millions of dollars into the local economy. Sure can test your patience though.

My first trip to Farmington Bay

2012-01-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

There are so many places around Utah to shoot pictures, and lots of them are close by. The Utah Division of Wildlife has a Waterfowl Management Area called Farmington Bay. These wetlands are home to almost 200 species of birds during the year and one of the best known is the wintering Bald Eagle.

So Jasper and I piled into the truck with all my camera gear, tripods, binoculars, and telescopes. It's about a one hour drive from home, about 15 minutes this side of Antelope Island. We were going to wait for the temperature to climb over zero before we left, but it was getting late.

Before we even got to the wildlife area, we ran across a farm with horses and this thing. Smaller than a normal horse and a lot shaggier. It looked like some form of prehistoric pony. Jasper got out of the truck and went to visit with ~~him~~ ~~her~~ it.

I'll get right to the main point. It was a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping for boatloads of eagles. I got exactly one, and he was a long ways off. That is one more than I normally see in a day (or month) so I guess I should be happy.

I tried slowly sneaking up on him, but then a pickup truck went whipping by and he flew off.

To make up for the lack of eagles, there were hawks everywhere. This is a Harrier. Ninety-nine percent of them were hovering over the marsh, hunting, but I caught this one lounging around.

Gulls are simple and common, but this photo came out really well. Double-click on it to see it bigger. I love all the curves of the wings and the tail.

I ran across this Yellow Headed Blackbird on the edge of the road. He was just hopping around enjoying the sunshine.

To get this shot, I was literally hanging out the truck window, as was Jasper. I could have just given the camera a little swing and smacked him. I'm pretty sure he is slow enough that one of the hawks will eat him before the week is over.

The sparrows were very active trying to dig around the frozen ground for food.

He was just posing so much I wanted another shot of him.

On to the waterfowl. I haven't figured what this one was, but he clearly decided that the water was warmer than the air. He would be up for about 10 seconds...

... and then back down he went for about a minute at a time.

These were my favorites though. The two with the black heads are American Coots. The little brown one is a duck. OK, I haven't looked him up yet.

This Coot learned that landing on the ice was considerably trickier than landing in the water. He slidfor about 5 feet, flailing as he went.

Once he settled in, he was a master of balance, even in a strong, cold wind.

This lucky guy found a spare fish floating on the edge of the water, so he drug it up the boat landing. Yummm! You just can't beat a decaying fish-cicle.

The little ducks were as cute as they could be. They were all just little puffballs floating along.

And for some artsy puffballs, they drifted into the reflections of the marsh grass.

I saw other birds that I couldn't manage to photograph. My favorite was the Ring Necked Pheasant sitting in a distant tree. They normally hunker down in the grass.

This will definitely require a return trip during different seasons of the year. Like Antelope Island, this is a huge area for the migrating birds, so spring and fall should be very interesting.

Good year, bad year.

2012-01-17T17:06:00.000-07:00

Looks like we may finally get the start of winter this weekend, but I offer one last comparison and then I will stop beating the dead (dry) horse.

Last winter, December 31, 2010 over at the library parking lot.

This winter, January 16, 2012, same parking lot.

Sad, sad dog.

When are you in good enough shape?

2012-01-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Our CrossFit workout this morning was to do as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 deep squats

I grunted, sweated, and gasped for air, but I was ok with my 10 rounds, plus the first two exercises of the 11th round. That means I did 55 pullups, 110 pushups, and 150 squats. Then I looked up at the board and saw a few of the people had done over 25 rounds, with one woman doing 29. I'll leave it to the curious to do the math, but she did an INCREDIBLE number of reps in 20 minutes! I don't even have a dream of being in that condition, but I walked away thinking that I should be aiming for 15 or 17, which is a long, long way from where I am now.

On a similar topic, a friend and co-worker Linda Bonanno was describing some of her fitness plans for 2012. She mentioned her body fat percentage and I was curious about how you can measure it. I ended up buying these remarkably cheap plastic calipers and using this web site to do my own calculations. As before, I was happy until I really started thinking about it.

Here is a chart showing percentage body fat norms:


Description	Women	Men
Essential Fat	10-13%	2-5%
Athletes	14-20%	6-13%
Fitness	21-24%	14-17%
Acceptable	25-31%	18-24%
Obesity	>32%	>25%

I clocked in at 16.5% which is right in the middle of the fitness row. Good enough. I'm certainly no athlete. Then the math struck me. Weighing 170 pounds and having 16.5 percent body fat means 28 pounds of fat. I know we all need fat to stay alive, but next time you're in the grocery store, pick out 28 pounds of meat and throw it in a bag. Suddenly it doesn't feel quite as "fit".

The things Park City does for snow

2012-01-14T17:34:00.001-07:00

OK, so this is a record dry year and the resorts are dying for some snow. People have been praying for snow, dancing for snow, wearing their lucky skis, and not a damn bit of it has been working. So far the nice people at Deer Valley have used 200 MILLION gallons of water making snow. What's next?

Clearly it is time to bring in the experts. Today I went over to Park City Mountain Resort to see Indians from the Northern Ute tribe do a real snow dance. First I wandered over to check the snow conditions. This little kid said it all: not looking too good.

So crank up the Indians. Apparently this same tribe stopped by the 2002 Winter Olympics to help out. The first guy gave a snow prayer in English. His clenched fists seem to be saying to the snow Gods "don't make us come up there and kick some butt." That was my thought anyway.

The next guy did a similar set of prayers, but in his native dialect. He tossed some snow and burned some incense to help.

Then the real dancing started. I loved this guys hat. It looked like a turkey feather duster.

This was one of the younger dancers. Very colorful and very energetic.

Of course it's the youngest kids that look the best.

And when the young boy got out to dance, he was ripping it up.

As much as it seems funny that we are looking for some help with the snow, the dancing was impressive and the crowd loved it. There were hundreds of people watching and everyone enjoyed the show and hope it works.

iPhones and iPads? What's for what?

2012-01-14T08:16:00.002-07:00

I am a professed technical geek with an interest in whatever gadget has come out lately. It is amazing that I managed to go through most of 2011 without a tablet. For my 50th birthday, Julie got me an iPad, so now I don't feel left out. I have been an iPhone fan for years and have dozens of applications running on it. How would an iPad be different? What will I use it for? Now that I have used it for a few weeks, I am beginning to find new habits.

The thing I love about my iPhone (or any decent smart phone), is the combination of computing power and portability.

When running, it is my music and my GPS tracking
When driving it is my maps and directions
When traveling, it helps pick things to do and places to eat
It's the camera that's always in my pocket
It's the quick read or game while wainting in the doctor's office
It's my star map and bird book, whenever I wish I had one
It's my email when I won't be near my computer for a while

All these things are really driven by the fact that my phone lives in my pocket most of every day. It is always there and now that I got off of that piece-of-shit AT&T, I am always connected.

The iPad is obviously different. You can bring it in your briefcase, but who am I kidding? I haven't worked in years. It is only really portable in the "better to travel with than a laptop" way. So, how do I use it? Mostly for reading.

I am a news junkie. There is a wonderful app called FlipBoard. It is a tremendous example of how a user interface should be built. I enjoy sitting down and reading through articles, many of which I might not have ever read otherwise.
Facebook is easier and more interesting from a tablet. It's nice to use while sitting on the couch, and much easier to read and type on than my phone.
Just browsing through things like the TiVo guide. When you have TiVo and HBO (free for 12 months), the trick is finding the movies you want to see and recording them. Doing this with a TV remote and a crappy guide is painful. Doing it from a tablet app is easy and fast. There are lots of examples of these little niche applications, but the more you look, the more you find.
Reading magazines and watching live TV both work, but aren't quite ready for prime time yet. The magazines still suffer from user interface problems and pricing issues. The live TV is actually ready, but is mostly hampered by contractual limitations with networks, stations, advertisers, ...
Lots of people play games on their phones, but with 50 year old eyes and fat fingers, that tiny iPhone screen leaves a lot to be desired. A tablet is much better. If you haven't seen the graphics capabilities on these tablets, they are stunning.

So, at least for the way I live, a tablet is a nice to have, but a smart phone is a have to have. It will be interesting to see if this changes over the next few months.

Want to get the most out of your phone or tablet? Talk to friends about what their favorite applications are. I welcome your suggestions here!

A serious Alpine Coaster

2012-01-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

My dad sent me this video. We have an Apline Coaster over at Park City Mountain Resort, but it just doesn't compare to this one. What a great way to take advantage of having a big mountain and some extra ski lifts come summer time. Looks like a rush! Next time I am in Austria....

Technology at the ski resorts

2012-01-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

I heard something on the radio that got me thinking about how the ski areas are beginning to adopt technology to improve their customer service. I thought it might be fun (since I can't actually ski) to show how the three Park City resorts are progressing.

Park City Mountain Resort
Oddly enough, PCMR seems to be the furthest along, which is amazing because they don't seem to spend much money improving the resort itself.

Tickets: PCMR was using hand scanners for tickets for quite a while. The old solution was to have a ski pass printed with the date it was valid. A human had to check it at every lift. The hand scanners are a decent improvement because the information about a ticket's validity is stored and updated in a computer. Get a 10 day pass and every day it gets scanned, it automatically deducts a day. Lose your ticket? They just cancel the lost one in the system and give you a new one. This year PCMR made the big jump to RFID-based passes. You get a pass with a tiny chip in it. You put the pass in your pocket and go ski. Gates automatically check your pass and allow you onto the lift (or not). Faster. Easier. No digging passes out for a human to read or scan. Huge improvement!
Smart phones: PCMR just released a pretty cool app for iPhones and Android. You get the normal ski maps, weather, and lift status, but it also adds the ability to buy additional days for your ski pass (no lines to wait in) and to use the phone's GPS to track your skiing all day. It can give you all sorts of great stats about where you went and how much you skied.
Old technology: As much as they have done a nice job with the new stuff, they can't seem to keep the Town Lift running, which provides the ski-in/ski-out for everyone staying around Main Street. They also made a big deal about a new (small) wind turbine they installed. It hasn't worked since December.

Deer Valley
The mantra at DV seems to be that having customers interface with machines is bad and interfacing with people is good.

Tickets: It is as old as it gets. You have to go to a sales desk and either buy a ticket or pick one up if you bought it online. Bought a 10 day pass? Every day you want to ski you head back to the counter to get a new ticket. You attach the ticket to your clothing and every time you get on a lift, a human reads the date. Lose your ticket, pray they believe you. Want to buy another day, get back in line.
Smart Phones: DV also came out with a smart phone app, but it seems like they took the cheapest route possible. They worked with a company called iMap which just stuck some DV specifics into a generic weather app. You can see the weather forecast, a useless map showing the topology of all of Utah, a snow report, and for the lift status, they just redirect you to a DV web page which has no navigation. Pretty sad. I hope this was just a temporary solution.

Canyons
Canyons has been putting a lot of money into improving their infrastructure with new lifts, overhauled restaurants and a nice apres ski area. Technology? Not so much.

Tickets: they are where PCMR was last year, with the hand scanners and computerized tickets. Worse than PCMR's new RFID system, but better than DV's 1950s solution.
Smart Phones: Nothing at all. Even DV's weather app looks good by comparison. Hopefully it is because they are trying to do something more useful.

If you want to see where things are really heading, check out EpicMix by the company that owns Heavenly, Vail, Keystone and others. Watch the little "What is EpicMix" video. They have even started hooking all the on-mountain photography into the RFID chips, so that any pictures they take of you show up in your online account and you can post them to Facebook or Twitter with a single click. It is a single solution for all of their resorts and the pictures are free.

I am hoping that Deer Valley and Canyons step up their game and at least catch up with Park City, but ideally look ahead to what companies like Vail are doing.

An evil stair case?

2012-01-09T12:37:00.001-07:00

About two years ago, I was walking down our stairs with a big box in my hand. My foot slipped on the last step and I fell forward. Fortunately, I was unscathed. Unfortunately my injury-free landing was mostly due to my holding the box in front of me and letting it slam into the wall, taking out a chunk of drywall. Better it than me.

Julie wasn't so lucky. Last week, the same evil flight of stairs caught her with some Christmas decorations. She ended up twisting an ankle on the way down and was in a lot of pain. We did the x-ray thing to make sure nothing was broken and then she did a very good job over the last few days of RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. It is the first time Julie has EVER been on crutches.

Today she went to a local doctor to make sure it was a sprain and not a ligament tear (which can require surgery). Here's her doctor. Recognize him?

Probably not, but let's try again.

It's Eric Heiden. I am slowly getting used to running into Olympic competitors on the streets of Park City but this is amazing. For those who recognize the name, but not all the details, he won five speed skating gold medals in the 1980 Olympics, set gobs of world records, and eventually became a professional bike racer, even riding in the Tour de France.

In addition to meeting one of the most successful athletes of our time, Julie found out that there are no torn ligaments and she can start easing back in normal life. As with so many injuries here in Park City, the recovery plan is "Let pain be your guide." They should save time and just put that on the highway exit sign coming off I-80.

More magazine deals

2012-01-08T07:47:00.001-07:00

Not sure why, but recently I feel the urge to share some great magazine deals. While many magazines are suffering from reduced quality, Wired magazine continues to have excellent in-depth articles, great photos, and even a quality print. Here is an opportunity to get 3 years for $11! Not only do you get the print edition, but it also allows you to access the online version for free.

Go here, add the magazine to your cart, then enter "SLICKDEALS" for the coupon code. It will only be $11 and there is none of those automatic renewal garbage. I'm not sure how long this will last, so if it is too late, bummer.

By the way, while I can't say the same things about quality, you can also get 3 years of Popular Science or Rolling Stone for $11 as well.

MovNat for exercising

2012-01-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote a long blog about how the population is growing fat in a hurry, and how I decided to stay lean to avoid the Zombie Apocalypse. My friend Tim Huntley suggested I visit a web site at www.movnat.com. This site promotes a form of exercise where you "move naturally", which sounds good until I watched the founder in what is supposed to be a promotional video.

I will leave it to you, but I ended the video less than motivated to join in. Start the video and then follow along with my expected injuries below.

0:03 - Torn up feet
0:18 - Scabs on stomach and chest
0:32 - Bad grass itch on back. More scabs.
0:57 - All feeling in feet gone. No skin remains.
1:20 - Slip on rock from bloody feet. Probably my death.
1:28 - Food poisoning
1:33 - Broken leg from jump.
1:41 - New hernia, ripping through the mesh the surgeon put in last year.
1:52 - Fall in river. Log falls on me. Untold broken bones.
1:57 - Gravel in rectum with untold consequences.
2:23 - Dislocated shoulder
2:49 - Fall off log, breaking whatever remains intact.
3:25 - Salt water pours into all the exposed wounds.

Thanks, but I think I will pass on this one.

Is this human evolution, and if so, what now?

2012-01-07T09:02:00.002-07:00

I was reading an article about how we have offset some of the huge technology improvements in automotive miles-per-gallon with two things: bigger cars and bigger butts. We all know how Americans drive much bigger cars now, with the transition from cars to monstrous SUVs being the most obvious example. What floored me was how much weight we humans have put on in a very short period of time.

The CDC reports that since 1960, the average man's weight has gone from 166 to 195, up 29 pounds! In that same period, women have gained 24 pounds. We refer to that blob of fat around the belly as a spare tire, and now I know why. We have added about the same weight as a car's spare tire, and in only 50 years!

The car manufacturers are struggling because they spend money, time and technology changing from steel to aluminum to composites, all to drop weight. They eliminate spare tires. The change the transmission systems. All with the goal of reducing weight to improve mileage. What do we Americans do? Take that new car and drive it to McDonald's.

Evolution?

But this got me thinking about more than mpg. There is a lot of debate about evolution, mostly framed as religion versus science. Some strongly believe that evolution is a farce and that humans were put here by God, exactly as we are today. The other side believes that humans evolved from apes, which evolved from little mammals, which evolved from fish,.. or something along those lines. Others try to find a happy union of the ideas: yes, we evolved, but it was because God guided it that direction.

No matter which way you look at it, we are evolving now, and at an incredible pace. We are evolving to match changes in our environment, where interestingly enough, we are instigating all the changes. We don't hunt our own food any more. We don't grow our own food any more. Hell, we don't even walk to the store to buy our food any more. We hop into one of the previously mentioned SUVs and drive to the store. The demands on our body don't tend to be out of necessity. We don't have to haul water and chop wood. We turn on the tap and crank up the thermostat. Many of our physical demands are just self inflicted, like a run through the park, a trip to the gym, or a game of hoops.

So where does this end? Do we eventually evolve to blog people with little stubby arms and legs? Do we get so disease prone that we go the way of the dinosaurs? For those with strong religious views, where is God taking us as a species? It's hard to imagine that this is on a path to something better.

What To Do?
I am torn with what to do in 2012, and some of it revolves around eating end exercise. From all the media hype, I have two options:

The Mayans are right and the world will end late this year. In this case, it should be a year of partying, eating and drinking. To hell with all those trips to CrossFit and long runs really make me tired. So what if I weigh a bit more at the end of the world?
The Zombie Apocalypse will occur. I have seen enough movies and TV shows to convince me that this is the more likely event. If this happens, I think that lean speed and endurance will have a huge impact on whether you'll be eaten or not. Lots of weights and agility for tree climbing. Quick feet for good fakes. Do zombies know how to ski?

So, I think I will lean towards the second choice, fight against the evolution of my species, and train to survive the inevitable onslaught. After all, if neither happens, I will be better off and my SUV will get better gas mileage.

A good football bowl season?

2012-01-05T06:50:00.003-07:00

I am torn. Normally in our household, four things have to happen for a "perfect" football weekend.

NC State wins
Michigan wins
UNC loses
Notre Dame loses

This year all four of those happened in the bowls, so I should be elated. However, my warm and fuzzy is to pull for all the ACC teams (except UNC of course). This year the ACC was horrible in bowl play.

NC State won
Florida State came from behind to beat Notre Dame
UNC got hammered
Wake Forest lost
Georgia Tech lost in OT
Virginia got pounded
Virginia Tech lost in OT (to Michigan)
Clemson, the ACC champs, looked like a girls field hockey team against West Virginia.

NC State went 8-5, which is OK but not great. But now it looks like those conference wins were less meaningful. The first year we get two teams into the BCS bowls may well be the last for a long time to come.

GO WOLFPACK!

The end of 2011

2012-01-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

The last day or two of 2011 were interesting for me. The good news is that I got to spend time with friends and thanks to a call from Loris Benson, got to see this sunset from our deck.

Funny how things like this can be going on outside your window and if you aren't watching, they can easily be missed.

The bad part of the last few days must be tied to me hitting 50, and apparently instantly falling apart. Somewhere between a minor head cold, lots of talking on the phone and at parties, and several big, heavy, late meals, I ended up with full blown laryngitis. It seems to have been caused by a bad attack of acid reflux, which I have occasionally. Yesterday I was only capable of a mouse whisper. Today I can talk a bit, but I am trying to keep my mouth shut so my voice box can heal.

I guess the alternative is someone made and got their wish: that I would shut up for a while. Julie?

Another view of our weather

2011-12-31T18:05:00.001-07:00

For those of you who have visited Park City or live in the area, you may know that one of the main TV stations is an NBC affiliate, KSL. Their weather guys have a long tradition of changing from their normal suit jackets to a solid white jacket whenever a big snow storm is coming. How bad is our snow this year? He traded in his suit jacket for a Hawaiian shirt. That's just mean!

Time for golf or tennis?

2011-12-30T12:33:00.001-07:00

Just how bad is the snow this year? This is what our house should look like.

This is our house as of this morning.

This is Jasper at the street corner in a reasonably normal winter.

Same street corner.

Pretty dramatic difference, huh? The only good news is that our temperatures have been cold enough that the resorts can make snow. As a result, most have about half their slopes open, although it is almost all beginner and intermediate terrain. The expert slopes are just to steep to keep sufficient snow on. An easy to read summary of the Utah resorts' snow conditions can be found here.

Colorado seems to be as bad as Utah and the east coast is no better. I guess all we can say is "thank God we aren't California!" In addition to the lack of nature's help, they have had temperatures that are so warm they can't make much snow. Squaw, a huge resort at Lake Tahoe, only has 5 of their 177 runs open. Wow!

Some local snow fall numbers... Alta, which is one of the snowiest resorts in our area, has had 92" of snow this year. That may seem like a lot but 76" of that was before December, and the early snows tend to compact and melt. A normal year would have Alta at about 200" and last year they had 264" at this point.

If you are wondering, yes, the 14.5 feet of variation between the two years does seem to make a difference in skiable terrain. Tonight they are calling for 1-3 inches, followed by 7 days of sunshine.

Finding your movies

2011-12-30T12:30:00.001-07:00

My mom sent me a NY Times article about some technology successes from 2011. Most I was very familiar with, but I discovered one new one I wanted to share.

When you know you want to see a particular movie, how do you find it? It is currently showing somewhere close? Is it available through your cable company's On-Demand service? What about Netflix DVDs or streaming? Amazon? Redbox? It could be quite a pain to hunt through all those options?

The solution? Watch It at www.gowatchit.com. When you first set up your free account, you tell it what services you care about. For instance, we get Netflix streaming, but not the DVDs in the mail. Then you just enter a movie's name and it comes back and tells you what all your options are. If it isn't where you want it to be, you can set up an alert, like "tell me when this movie is available through Redbox."

Pretty cool. The Internet continues to be getting more and more useful.

Outdoor Photographer Magazine

2011-12-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

This is probably only good for a day or two, but it is my favorite photography magazine, and I get a bunch of them. Quite the deal.

Outdoor Photographer Magazine Subscription $3.75 per year (up to 3 yrs)
http://www.tanga.com/products/outdoor-photographer-magazine-subscription--23
$3.75 per year with code PHOTO

or

Discount Mags
Outdoor Photographer Magazine
$3.99/year (up to 3 years) with code 4101

A wonderful Christmas and 50 years behind me

2011-12-26T17:22:00.001-07:00

You get to celebrate Christmas every year, but you only get these major milestones for birthdays every decade. I was born on Christmas day (about 9:30 that night) and yesterday I managed to hit my 50th birthday. I am healthy and active enough that the number is really something positive, an accomplishment of sorts.

As so many of the Park City locals do, Julie and I start every Christmas morning with a trip to the ski slopes. The snow still sucks (more on that another day) but it was as sunny as it ever gets. This year we opted for Deer Valley and by going out early, there are almost no crowds.

We started skiing with our friends Greg and Miriam, with the idea of catching up with others as the morning went on.

We found our next door neighbors, Monty, Sally and Hannah. This was our first chance to ski with Hannah, who is six years old. Too bad there aren't any black diamond slopes open. She was bombing down the blue slopes in complete control!

I was happy to see Julie get back up from this pose.

Here we have Julie, Hannah, and I. Please note my lovely attire. It is a combination of some new, hideous blue plaid pants and a 20+ year old Patagonia jacket. It's almost time to retire the jacket, but I figured on a day that I was celebrating a birthday that gets me an AARP card, I should wear something that has survived remarkably well and longer than anyone would expect. A good omen! The pants were chosen because they are great for finding me anywhere on the slopes.

We came back to the house after lunch, opened presents, and started prepping for our dinner party. It was quite the busy afternoon. Julie gave me an iPad 2. She loves hers and decided it was wrong for a gadget-person like me not to have a tablet.

To start the party, I am enjoying some wine in the glass my cousin Sara sent me for Christmas. In honor of my North Carolina roots, it is a Mason Jar with a sturdy stem. Nothing quite like a bit of red neck wine.

While she couldn't stay up late enough to join us for dessert, Hannah came over to visit and wish me a happy birthday. She's explaining a drawing she made to Julie and Sally.

We were dressed a bit festively, but somehow we got completely outclassed by Hannah, who decided that her new gown was appropriate for the visit next door.

For dinner, we were joined by Greg and Miriam, Rob and Theresa, and Jim and Kathy. Julie put on quite the fest! We had roasted red pepper soup, beef tenderloin, scalloped potatoes, green beans with onions and mushrooms, and a salad.

This is one of the three desserts we had, a carrot cake. We also had a raspberry cream pie and a flourless chocolate torte. I am pretty sure they were all low calorie. NOT! Isn't Julie beautiful?

Joining us for dessert was the Benson clan. Bill and Loris had their son and daughter in town, with a fiance' and a son-in-law to make a total of six. Loris and Julie did a great job of coordinating dinners and the timing was perfect for them to drive up the hill and join us.

It was a wonderful day! You just can't beat the holidays or a birthday spent with close friends. The weather was nice. The food was excellent. The gathering was fun and festive.

Then there is the cleanup. I snapped a quick shot before I started filling the recycle bin. Oops.

On to decade number 6!

Fancy beer

2011-12-21T13:08:00.001-07:00

We went out to dinner last night with our friends Miriam and Greg, before going to opening night for the new Mission Impossible movie. Always one to try new things, I was curious about Unitah Brewing's Detour Double India Pale Ale.

It arrived in a large (almost wine sized) bottle with a champagne styled cork. It was quite tasty but in large servings and at 9.5% alcohol, it isn't something you want to drink too many of. Definitely recommended and you can find more of these at the Crooked Line web page.

As for the Mission Impossible movie, it was pretty good although you definitely need to leave all logic at the theater door. The excitement was so nonstop, I was tired at the end. It was worth seeing if you like that James Bond-esque genre of movies.

Christmas lights

2011-12-20T07:03:00.003-07:00

Jasper and I went out last night to try and take pictures of Christmas lights. Mostly it was a bust. It turns out that trying to capture their beauty was very hard. I need to go search the Internet for some photography techniques, but the vast differences between the bright lights and the pitch black gave me too many pictures like this one. Just not very interesting.

I think these two deer felt sorry for us so they wandered into the picture. Their buddy was across the street watching me the entire time. It's odd how all these animals are wandering so close at night, and yet we rarely know they are there.

Then we drove down to Main Street. I was hoping the Christmas decorations and lights would look better with all the other street lighting. No such luck. While the idea was a good one, the Christmas lights on Main Street look crappy. Must be the recession.

But thankfully there was the Wahso restaurant. They had taken their Asian style and mixed with with some Christmas lighting.

Jasper stayed in the car while I went up to find some pictures. Each light ball had lots of character.

But when you started looking through all of them you could imagine the stars and the planets.

For this one I was laying on my back on a set of stairs from the street. The tourists walking by must have thought this was a bit unusual, but Park City is known for being quirky.

This one was my favorite. The reflections in the glass make it seem to go on forever. What you can't really see is that there are people behind the glass eating. I wonder if they thought I was taking pictures of them?

Thanks to Wahso for making our evening's photography adventure a little bit of a success. If Wednesday night's little snow storm comes as predicted, then I should be able to find some new Christmas shots.

Welcome to the crustaceans

2011-12-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

I received my new pair of ~~gloves~~ ~~mittens~~ hand warmth devices. What exactly do you call these? The thumb and pointer fingers are separate, giving you dexterity, but the other three fingers are together mitten style, for warmth. The most common name seems to be Lobster Claws. This is the first pair I have had of these, so it should make for an interesting test on the mountains.

These gloves are made by Hefstra and if you take good care of them, they last a very long time. Other than a quality glove, what do you get with your purchase? A free carabiner! However, apparently it isn't high quality because they warn you not to use it for rock climbing.

OK, maybe it isn't just the quality, but perhaps the size. That's my pinkie as a reference point.

Do they really have a lot of problems with people using a cheap, tiny carabiner to go climbing? I'm not even sure a climbing rope would fit in there. Shouldn't we just let Darwin's principles work their magic?

Norm and Ginny come to town, sort of

2011-12-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

If you have read this blog for long, or just know me well enough, you know that every few years we pack up and head to France for some skiing and touring around Paris. The two people who have coordinated every one of these trips are Norman and Ginny Andrews. They are out in Utah this week for some early skiing.

The snow pack is pretty crappy so far, but we had a nice day of skiing yesterday at Park City Mountain Resort and today over at Alta. They have skied their other days at Snowbird and Alta, and head home tomorrow.

It was great getting to see them, even though it was a short visit.

As we left Alta to head back to Park City, we got a wonderful view of the pollution we know as Salt Lake City. Yes, that is Salt Lake down there.

As we get down near the mouth of the canyon, we get a better view of the wall of brown air. Who wants to breath that crap?

From here you normally look out over 10-15 miles of city with a mountain range across the way. Today, not so much. I wonder why Salt Lake City has such high asthma rates.

You never see these pictures in the chamber of commerce brochures.

Commercial shot in Park City

2011-12-12T08:21:00.001-07:00

This Traveler's commercial was filmed on Main Street here in Park City. I didn't see them do the shoot, but I read about it in the paper a few weeks ago. As with most of these Youtube videos, they are much easier to watch in full screen. A heartwarming doggy tale...

Hannah

2011-12-11T18:14:00.001-07:00

I was asked to shoot Christmas card pictures for our next door neighbors (and wonderful friends). I am not terribly experienced with doing great portraits, but Hannah makes it easy.

She pretty, precocious, and a wonderful model.

At some point I am going to have to commit to learning the art of good people pictures.

Until then, thanks Hannah!

Full Lunar Eclipse

2011-12-10T08:06:00.001-07:00

They say this morning's full lunar eclipse was better looking from Australia and Asia, but it was certainly one of the nicest views I have ever had. It started around 5:45 Mountain time. I set my alarm for 5:30, but the human body is strange and I popped awake at 5:25.

10 degrees and pitch black isn't the most comfortable way to take pictures. Beyond getting some good shots, my goals were to avoid freezing and to dodge the newspaper delivery guy who probably wasn't expecting someone to be shooting pictures in the driveway at night.

It took a bit over an hour to go from start to total eclipse. Slow motion, but you could certainly see the changes as the minutes ticked by.

Almost gone....

As it was heading towards the total eclipse, a lot of things were going on at once. In Park City, with all our mountains and hills, the moon was just about to set. Also, the first morning rays of the sun were starting to light things up.

The reason you can see so much moon in this picture is because I changed my exposure from 1/500th of a second for the first picture, to 1.6 seconds for this one. Light from the sun is passing through the earth's ionosphere, bending a bit and taking on a reddish tint, and then hitting the moon. With only this indirect light hitting it, the moon was darker than it appears in this shot.

I can see why being further west would make this nicer. The moon wouldn't be setting yet and the sun wouldn't be up at all. This would have been really cool to shoot from the beach in San Diego, partly because it would look cool over the ocean, and partly because it wouldn't have been 10 degrees out.

A bit of skiing

2011-12-08T17:36:00.001-07:00

Julie and I wandered over to Canyons for a few hours of skiing this morning. We are still short on early snow, but the runs that are open are quite nice.

Don't adjust your TV set. This is really what it looks like when you are riding an Express Quad known as "the Orange Bubble". Each chair has a drop-down shield to protect you from the wind and snow. I'm not sure who decided on the orange color, but the lift is nice.

Julie, coming down Doc's Run. She's been working out and lifting a lot over the past year and it shows with her skiing. She's strong and comfortable.

Off she goes, but notice the brown hill behind her. Anything facing south, like that hill is, is holding very little snow.

I'm actually enjoying the slower start as an opportunity to break in the ski boots I bought this summer. Summer sales equals 50% off!

Now this is a different problem

2011-12-05T15:27:00.001-07:00

We have noticed that several of Jasper's toys have gone missing from the back yard. Given the angle of our hill, it is easy for some of them to just roll off. We thought that our big neighboring Golden was taking the rest.

I just bought Jasper two nice new toys and they are both already gone. Today, with the fresh snow and some tracks, I was able to figure out that it is one of the local fox that is mooching them. He came right through the back yard, saw the toy, went straight for it, and then left the yard. The toy that was there last night when we hottubbed was gone early this morning.

I tracked him for a bit and found two of Jasper's older toys, but neither of the new ones. Tomorrow we go on a more ambitious hunt! I guess this is just one of those things you learn to deal with...

Let the skiing begin! Well, sort of....

2011-12-04T20:01:00.001-07:00

Julie and I went to the Canyons today for our first day of skiing. This year's early snow sucks, so it feels a bit too much like skiing in North Carolina. Most of what we were on was man made, although there was light snow coming down as we skied.

The good news is that we both felt pretty strong and we quickly remembered how to point downhill and stay upright. Even with limited runs open and no powder to be found, it was fun getting out again.

The snow is piling up

2011-12-01T08:03:00.001-07:00

Ok, so we are off to a very slow start for our snow year. Thank God all the resorts have good snow making equipment.

Last year, right before Thanksgiving, we got nailed with a big, heavy snow storm. The heavy snow isn't as nice for skiing, but puts down a great base. There's nothing much in the next week, but at least the temperatures are getting back around 10 at night to allow for some better snow making.

This time of year I hate high pressure systems.

Cosette for Xmas

2011-11-29T20:17:00.001-07:00

Cosette decided that our Christmas tree was pretty but it seemed to be lacking presents.

We thought it would be nicer with her brother Jasper, but he was a very reluctant participant.

We will see if they return on Christmas day to offer some pet love.

Thanksgiving with the moms

2011-11-27T21:45:00.001-07:00

I haven't been blogging much this past week because we have had company. Julie's mom (left) and my mom (right) both flew in last Monday and we have been pretty busy ever since.

Of course the biggest activity was Thanksgiving. Julie put on a great meal with help from the mom's. It is always a multi-day event in the kitchen and I just steer clear unless instructed to do otherwise. Here was the 21 pound guest for the evening. He was accompanied by tons of stuffing cranberry sauce, potatoes, pumpkin pie, Deer Valley carrot cake and more. I think I ate my body weight in food.

For last year's Thanksgiving, Julie and I were going on a trip down to warm, sunny southern Utah. We had to cancel it because of two heavy snowstorms. With no Thanksgiving dinner planned, Loris Benson came to our rescue and had us over to join their festivities.

This year we were able to host the dinner. On the left hand side you see Seth, Loris and Bill Benson. Seth is their son and he recently left a big job in NYC to live the calmer, more outdoorsy life in Denver. Thanks to Loris for a wonderful soup and veggie, filling out the menu.

Last night we trekked into Salt Lake to hit the Costco for some more Christmas lights and then to Temple Square to see what you can do with a big church, 50 bajillion lights, and three months of prep. It was pretty spectacular.

Our timing was such that we missed the numerous choirs they had singing, but the visuals alone were worth it. I guess I am going to have to step up my game for Christmas lights. Are we allowed to say that any more? Do they have to be Seasonally Adjusted Lighting?

Another day, another trip. My mom is a very avid bird watcher and has traveled the world in search of winged species. Oddly enough, I kept seeing one right here in Salt Lake that she had never seen, the Chukar. I've only seen it out on Antelope Island, out in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. So, we went in search of...

Finally, right before the sunset, we found a collection of the little guys. The picture stinks, but a Chukar is a Chukar. Add one more to moms list.

A more interesting sight along the way was the ever present Bison. This one wandered out right in front of our car. One year I am going to have to go photograph the annual fall Bison roundup. They do this to keep the population from overtaking the island.

Another mammalian find was a fat, waddling little porcupine. We got close enough to get good pictures, but not so close as to piss him/her off. How do you tell whether a porcupine is a male or female? I wasn't going to check.

Jasper (my dog) wanted to chase the "furry" little animal, but we left him sitting in the car. No need for an avoidable trip to the vet.

The most interesting sighting of the day was a very long ways off, so the photos are marginal. (I need a 500mm lens for Christmas). We saw an animal standing out in the shallow water, stalking some ducks and geese. It was a coyote, and we eventually saw a second one a few hundred yards away from the first. I'm not sure how they planned to sneak up on the waterfowl with nothing to hide behind, but then again, I am not a coyote.

Then we heard coyotes howling from the hillside behind us. The ones in the water started tilting their heads and howling back in response. Back and forth they went. Now I am pretty sure that any duck that might have been unaware, had a good idea of who was there.

We have had lots of other adventures during the week. Shopping on Park City's Main Street. Dinner out at Mustang to celebrate Julie's birthday. Hot tubbing. Long walks around town. Tonight we plan to grab a drink up at the Montage Hotel.

The only downside of the week has been the lack of snow. Sunny is OK to a point, but let's start dumping the white stuff!

Revenge of the turkeys

2011-11-25T11:27:00.001-07:00

After gorging on turkey, stuffing and so many other things yesterday, I had to go to CrossFit to try and burn some of it off. Here is my scaled down workout.

10 Handstand Push-ups
15 Deadlifts with 205 pounds
25 Box Jumps on a 30 inch box
50 Pull-ups
100 Wall Balls with a 20 pound ball
500 Jump Ropes
Run 400 meters carrying a 45 pound plate

I think I will be hurting tomorrow.

Ebay? Craigslist? Gazelle? UsedCameraBuyer?

2011-11-24T06:58:00.001-07:00

Everyone has heard about selling things through eBay or Craigslist, and many people have done so. It can be great, but it can take a lot of time and be a big hassle. I have had fairly expensive things, like a laptop or a camera, get "bought" by a scammer at the end of an eBay auction. They want you to ship the equipment to some far off country, knowing that their payment is worthless. You have to file a bunch of complaints and restart the auction. Yuck.

Along comes an easier model. You go to a buyer's web site, tell them what you want to sell and what condition it is in, then they give you a price. If you are willing to take it, you ship your stuff to them and after they verify the condition, they send you the money. Fast. Easy. Reliable.

So far I have used two of these:

UsedCameraBuyer was good for selling my old Nikon D200 DLSR and a lens that came with it. They were a bit slower than I hoped though.
Gazelle was great for buying old phones and other electronics. When I moved to Verizon on a new iPhone 4S, that left me with an AT&T iPhone 4. Gazelle bought it from me for $170 and paid for the shipping. In fact, if I took payment with an Amazon gift card (and I did), I got another 5%.

I was pleased with both of these services. Has anyone out there tried others like this? Any advice of ones to try or to stay away from?

Vacation in Kauai - The plants, animals and water

2011-11-21T14:16:00.001-07:00

So, one last post from our trip to Kauai, then on to other things.

When you have a place with so much sun, rain and humidity combined with nearly perfect temperatures, stuff just grows everywhere. Watching people work over our 10 day stay convinced me that landscaping in Kauai wasn't about making things grow. It was about cutting back all the stuff you either didn't want, or wanted smaller. The growing part was automatic.

This field of flowers (something like Floweris Yellowis) was natively blooming along one of our many hikes. Keep in mind, this is in November. They were growing about 100 feet from the coastline, which is actually kind of surprising. The normal winds bash waves into the southeast side of the island and the wind carries the spray up onto the land. These must have tolerated, or perhaps actually enjoyed all the salt spray.

Right near our house were a few large bushes covered with red flowers. Again, I have no clue as to what they were.

... and you had to walk a few feet down the street to mix in some yellow. Both of these bushes were about 8 feet tall and covered with flowers, top to bottom. I'm actually fairly sure this is a Hibiscus.

Throw in a little sunset, a wave and some palm fronds and it looks quite pretty and very Hawaiian.

We saw very few mammals around the island, mostly just dogs and cats. The one exception (not photographed) was the humpback whale. They come to Hawaii in the winter, but don't really start showing up until December. We watched and watched hoping for early arrivals. Finally, on the last day, with only a few hours before heading to the airport, Julie saw some whales from our porch. I counted three of them. They were a good ways off, but you could see them come out of the water and blow out their spouts.

We also saw some porpoise, sea turtles, and a number of colorful reef fish the day we went snorkeling. The birds were beautiful, especially the Tropicbirds. (this is not my picture)

But by far and away the most common was the chicken. Their are tens of thousands of chickens wandering around the island, and those are just the ones I saw and counted. I am sure the true population is around a bajillion.

When hurricane Iniki hit Kauai in 1992, it was a category 4 hurricane and it gave the island a good ass-whopping. One side effect was that lots of the chickens (some for eating, some for cockfighting) escaped their coops and became the true free range chickens. Since, they have gone forth and multiplied. And multiplied. And then multiplied again. They are everywhere, just wandering around, eating, and making more chickens. Their only predator appears to be Americus Automoblius, which kept begging the question "why did the chicken cross the road?"

I was curious about why more locals didn't get good at catching chickens, plucking them and cooking them up. We learned that perhaps they aren't they tastiest of poultry breeds. It is said best in this recipe:

Kauai Wild Chicken Recipe

1 Kauai wild chicken
1 large onion
1 bunch seasoning spices of your choosing
1 large rock
Salt and pepper

Put all ingredients into a large covered pot. Simmer over a low flame for several hours. Remove the rock. Discard the chicken. Eat the rock.

I was left wondering at what population the chickens will hit some tipping point of being so large that they either suffer from some malady or just really piss of the Hawaiians.

If you follow my blog, you know I love photography and find things whose beauty just amazes me. Waves are one of those. This is a collection of photos that show some of the different ways you can capture the moving water.

We start with the waves crashing into the sharp black lava rock. The contrast of the white exploding sea and dark stone is dramatic.

Same thing, different wave on a different beach. These were shot with a fast shutter speed, around 1/500th of a second, to capture the crashing of the wave.

Now we slow things down a lot with a longer exposure, around 1/4 of a second. The rock stays sharp, thanks to a tripod, but the waves begin to blur with their movement and time.

The sun was beginning to set but it was still much too bright for a long exposure. To do this you need an Neutral Density filter (often written as ND filter). This darkens the picture without effecting the color, hence "neutral".

I have one that adjusts from 2 to 8 stops of filtering. It's fun trying to figure out what looks good. A quarter second looked interesting but 1 or two seconds looked pretty ugly.

I found the between 4 and 6 seconds gave an entirely new look. The waves took on the appearance of fog and mist.

It's fun to get such different pictures from the same place, same rocks, same waves, same lighting, but just a few changes on your camera settings.

And we will end our Kauai trip with a very happy Julie and Steve. A fabulous vacation that we would love to try again soon. As always, notice how pretty Julie looks and how much like a beach bum I appear. Aloha!

Vacation in Kauai - The activities

2011-11-20T12:09:00.001-07:00

One weird thing about blogs is that if your write about something over multiple days, people always read the last thing you wrote first. So, to make more sense of this, you might want to start with the post below.

The one thing I would suggest to everyone visiting Kauai is a helicopter ride. It's the only way to see vast sections of the island and you get spectacular views. Julie and I went with Mauna Loa Helicopter Tours. Lots of the helicopter companies use big helicopters that can seat six people plus the pilot. That means that some people have middle seats and are struggling to see out the windows over others. Mauna Loa offered three things:

Only three people, so no middle seats
If you booked with two people, they wouldn't bother adding a third
If you prefer, they leave the rear doors off. As a photographer, you just can't beat the view with nothing but open space next to you. If you have a fear of heights, you might want the door.

They operate out of Lihue airport and we had a great experience. All of the photos from the trip that look like they were shot from the air, were.

Another day we hiked the Kuilau Ridge Trail. On a dry day, it's wet. On a wet day, it muddy. On a rainy day, it's a sloppy, muddy stream. I am not sure they actually have dry days. It was nice getting wander through different ecosystems, most of which looked like variations out of Jurassic Park. Thankfully we had some spare shoes in the car.

There is a famous 11 mile trail along the Napali Coast called the Kalalua Trail. It's very rocky with large elevation changes which make for slow going. We did the common, non-camping version, which is two miles to Hanakapia Beach, and then back.

This is Julie at one of the overlooks.

This is Ke'e Beach, which is where the trail starts. As you can see, we have climbed quite a bit in the first half mile. Simply gorgeous!

But it isn't all fun and games. The official beach warnings included:

Waves break on ledge
Rip currents
High surf
Sudden drop off
Strong current
Slippery rocks

That's enough to get most people's attention

The unofficial sign said "Hanakapia Beach. Do not go near the water. Unseen currents have killed xxx visitors", where xxx seemed to be a very large running count.

Can't imagine why there is a problem. Just some little waves...

and the rocks they smash into. I guess that could be a problem.

However, having done the hard two mile hike to get to the beach with the violent surf, we discovered these two locals. Both cats were fairly small and seemed quite comfortable. We couldn't figure out how they got there, but I guess as long as there are lots of people with food, no hurricanes, and lows in the 70s, being a beach cat might be just OK. Hang loose little kitties!

Another day, another trip. We did an 8 mile kayak journey down the south side of the island. The ocean waves were fairly calm that day. There were five of us and a great guide (Adam).

We stopped at two beaches along the way, one for some body surfing and this one for lunch. As you can see the beach was quite crowded. This little protected cove had the smoothest water we saw the entire trip. I couldn't grab pictures, but we saw about a dozen Green Sea Turtles and an endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal. The turtles would float along a few feet from the kayaks until they decided we should probably be avoided. The biggest were about 3 feet across.

If you want to do a kayak or adventure trip, I would happily recommend Outfitters Kauai. They were well organized, had great guides and equipment and for us, were located conveniently in Poipu Beach.

The big activity that unfortunately, comes with no pictures, was surfing. We were both in the water, struggling for success, so there was simply no time to go grab a camera. Trust me though, it was AMAZINGLY fun. I think our biggest trip regret was not having done this sooner in the week. If we had, we definitely would have done it a few more times.

Julie and I took a class from Jamie at Kauai Surf School. You did about 30 minutes of training on the beach before heading into the water. We had nice big beginner boards and some fairly small waves to learn on. The trick was to get up and ride the board all the way on to the beach and then simply step off the board. There were lots of crashes along the way (accompanied by great laughter), but we both did some nice beach rides and we felt for a very brief moment, like surfers.

At this point the instructor left and we had another 30 minutes trying to do it on our own, which meant that you had to learn to pick your own waves and get the timing right. This is WAY up on our priority list for a return trip.

One more post in another day or so....

Vacation in Kauai - the trip

2011-11-19T13:16:00.001-07:00

As I have blogged already, Julie and I did a 10 day trip to Kauai, the northern most island in the Hawaiian chain. It was one of the best vacations we have ever taken together. Normally at the end of a week, we are both ready to head for home. In Kauai, we stood around on the 10th day trying to think of some reason that we could stay.

We rented a house off VRBO.com (Vacation Rental By Owner). It was a fantastic find. It was a two bedroom house, ocean front, in Poipu Beach on the south side of the island. You can see it's location here.

The real prize was the porch that ran across the back of the house. There was also a small lawn with some lounge chairs for sunning.

We knew the house was special when this was our view from the porch the first afternoon. It was clearly a sign of a good vacation. We had some shower the first few days and there seems to be some magic about rainbows in Kauai. They seemed to be everywhere you looked.

We somehow managed to find ourselves sitting on the porch with a glass of wine ten evenings in a row. Highs of 80 and lows of 70 every day, makes for some good porch sitting.

If the sunset wasn't enough, throw in a catamaran.

...or a surfer. There were some surfers who came every evening, probably from work, and surfed until the last of the light disappeared.

The incredible thing was that this house cost us about the same as we would have paid for a room at the Grand Hyatt that overlooked the parking lot. An ocean view hotel room would cost about three times as much as our house. Yeah VRBO!

Now lets take a look around the island. If you haven't been to Kauai, it is one of the most spectacular places on the planet. Beaches, mountains, jungle, reefs, bays, a dry side, and the rainiest spot on earth.

This is the Waimea Canyon. It's 10 miles long, one mile wide, and 3500 feet deep. Not quite the Grand Canyon but very impressive.

This is the north coast, up at Hanalei Bay. Long sandy beaches offer good surfing and snorkeling. The mountains just shoot up from the coast.

And this leads along the north side to the Napali Coast. The only way to travel this coast is by hiking trail or boat. The mountains are way to steep for a road.

You get some perspective of the heights when you notice the tiny white dot, which is actually a large sailboat.

The Alakai swamp is the wettest place on earth. They get about 300 inches of rain per year. The humid air comes rolling across the Pacific, hit the 5,000 mountains, and dumps all the moisture. This results in nonstop cloud cover at the peaks.

And all that moisture results in forests and jungles that seem to have more shades of green than you could name.

And there are waterfalls everywhere. Little ones. Wide ones. Some that are 3,000 feet tall. Most are back in the mountains where there are no houses, but this one had a house right at the top. I wonder if they can see any of it.

I'll put some more things out tomorrow. Just too much for one post.

Time to head home

2011-11-15T21:44:00.001-07:00

It's very sad but we have to head home tomorrow evening on the red eye. Our vacation has been about as perfect as you could ask for. Today was a gorgeous 8 mile kayak along the southern coast of Kauai, hanging out on some beautiful beaches as we traveled along.

This is last night's view from our porch. If you look on the right side, you can see one of the surfers who comes out every evening, probably after work.

I may have mentioned this before, but Kauai definitely does not suck.

When did first class stop being first class?

2011-11-13T10:12:00.001-07:00

Since Julie and I are celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary and both our birthdays, we decided to do our vacation in style. We used the very last of my Continental frequent flyer miles to book first class tickets to and from Kauai. Even though they were Continental miles, our flights are through two other airlines, US Air and United. United and Continental have actually merged into one company, but it isn't complete yet.

On our flights from Salt Lake to Phoenix to Kauai, we got to experience US Air's version of first class, at least on a domestic flight. What a huge disappointment. The seats were bigger and roomier, but that is about it.

The meal served on a 7 hour flight was crap. It was what you used to get for a coach ticket on a flight from Raleigh to Dallas.
My favorite thing on first class is the warm nuts they serve as an appetizer. Here we got a small bag of some salted mixed food product.
The seats barely reclined.
The movie was shown on an old 15" TV, about 10 feet in front of us. An eagle couldn't have followed the visuals.
No wi-fi on board. Other airlines have this on all their flights.

As a contrast, we flew business class to France earlier this year. Delta's 10 hour flight from Salt Lake to Paris was about as nice as you could ask. Roomy chairs that reclined way back for a nap. Individual monitors to watch your own choice of movie or TV show. Decent food from start to finish.

So, for the $1300+ premium US Air wants to bump you to first class, I would suggest:

Book coach early so you get a decent seat assignment
Buy a $7 sub at the airport
Bring a $20 pillow, knowing you can leave it at the airport when your flight is over.
Buy a $5 of Exedrin PM and take one for a nap
Pocket the remaining $1268 and have a most wonderful vacation.

On the way back we get to see if United is any better.

At least the house we booked on Kauai is everything we expected and more. That and lots of pictures in the near future. Today we are off to the Na Pali coast for some hiking.

Heading to Kauai

2011-11-05T17:24:00.001-06:00

Today the temperature in Park City soared into the high 20's. There's a fresh layer of snow everywhere, but not nearly enough to ski on. So, time to head to Kauai to celebrate our 20th anniversary and both of our birthdays. Hope to gather tons of wonderful photos!

Aloha!

Lieutenant General? Already?

2011-11-05T06:31:00.000-06:00

Just 18 months ago I wrote about a guy I went to high school with, John Hesterman. In only three years he had gone from Brigadier General to Major General in the Air Force. Now, 18 months later, he gets a new job taking him to Lieutenant General (3 star for those counting). He's just waiting for Senate confirmation.

President Obama nominated Air Force Major General John Hesterman to be the military deputy for readiness to the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, the Department of Defense announced. Hesterman would receive a promotion to Lieutenant General. Hesterman currently serves as the assistant deputy chief of staff for operation, plans and requirements for the Air Force.

It's an honor to know someone who has done so much for his country and who is so good at doing it.

Amazon Prime keeps getting better

2011-11-03T08:00:00.005-06:00

I got an annual membership to Amazon Prime a few years ago and I have been sticking with it. For around $75 per year, you get free two-day shipping on all your orders, no matter how small. You can also extend the membership to cover several family members for no additional cost.

Amazon has been adding new features to the Prime membership and leaving the price exactly where it is. Surprising in these days! About a year ago they started a video streaming service ala Netflix. It's free for Prime members and it works with my Roku box.

Today they added a new feature for Prime members who own a Kindle or their new Fire. You get to borrow one book a month for free. And it's not just crappy old things no one wants to read. The list includes a lot of the NY Times Bestseller list. More information can be found here.

Just passing along things I find that seem to be a good deal.

Occupy Park City

2011-11-02T16:24:00.003-06:00

This is one of the funniest things I have witnessed in a while. You can't watch the news without seeing the huge groups of people in the major cities supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement. The wander around with signs, sing chants, and generally hang around. That is until the police decide that enough is enough and run them off. That's frequently a bit of an aggresive effort.

It just wouldn't be acceptable for Park City to be left out of the excitement, so there is now an Occupy Park City movement. It even has a Facebook page here.

And this is the sign.

And here are all the tents and people. I guess it will take a while to build momentum. There is one more tent than I saw yesterday.

I like the fact that people believe in a cause enough to take action, but this still seems very lonely.

A spectacular Halloween party

2011-11-02T14:16:00.000-06:00

Julie and I got an invitation to a great Halloween party this year. We new it was going to be special when we got the invitation. It was a hand delivered box, with Halloween decorations and the invitation inside. It was clear that you had to put some thought into your costume and not just throw a sheet over your head.

Julie went as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. I'm bummed the the pictures all seemed to have left out her sparkly red shoes. They made the costume. If you can't read the basket, it is a note that says "Auntie Em: Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog. Dorothy."

We wanted our costumes to reflect our couple-ness. What could I be? The wizard? The scarecrow? The lion?

Nope. I was the tornado, complete with flying cows, pigs, trees, cars, and people. The structure was primarily a grey carpet from Home Depot. Some people got it right off. Others struggled. At least some thought I was a climbing wall. Seems that even in such an outdoorsy place, they would figure out the cars and cows don't use climbing walls. Oh well.

Here is Julie with our hostess, Denise (left), and someone I don't know on the right. Her costume was clever. She had little notes all over her that said things like "Really, I'm over 16", "officer that's not mine" and "Size does not matter". She was dressed as Little White Lies.

Denise's house was decorated beyond belief. As a tornado, I did a pretty crappy job of taking pictures. My favorite thing was a broom that danced all around the room by itself. It was actually riding around on a well-hidden Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.

Alison and Tomoko are friends from my host job at Park City. They were dressed as Venetian Blinds.

Randy and Karen were driving me nuts. I knew I knew them, but I could not figure out who they were. They finally had to pull out the ugly false teeth for me to get a clue.

The Hugh Hefner character (with the pipe) is Rob Schumacher, who built our house.

Rob had his wife Theresa and a friend Lisa dressed as his matching bunnies. Here's Lisa.

Just more interesting costumes. I was impressed that nobody took the easy way out and did something like "see my t-shirt, I'm a sports fan".

Mario (left) was on the Friends of Animals board with Julie and I.

And we end with an abstract photo called "Oops, the flash didn't go off". Long exposures can be cool, even if it is by accident.

This was definitely one of the best thought out, most interesting Halloween parties I have gone to.

The Park City Halloween Dog Parade

2011-11-01T20:19:00.002-06:00

Every year we head down to Main Street for the big Halloween dog parade. It is definitely one of the things that makes Park City special. Thousands of people turn out with hundreds of dogs. It really isn't much of a parade. More of a giant mingle.

We didn't do much of a costume for Jasper this year. Julie found him a pumpkin outfit to wear.

Most of the stores give out candy to the kids. All the kids and some of the adults get dressed up in pretty elaborate outfits.

This year seemed to have no shortage of tall people.

And another tall one...

The little kids are my favorites. The two or three year olds are the most fun.

Of course our favorite kid is our next door neighbor Hannah. She's giving her dad Monty a big hug.

A football player. Around here, red means Utah University.

This giant dog was quite the reggae dude.

Some people took the easy way out and spray painted their dog. I wonder how long that lasts.

And this years best costume was quite simple. This little fur ball was a Chia Pet. He was quite cute and just scurried along at his people's feet.

As we have lived here longer, we get to know more and more of the locals. It's great when you can go to an event like this and see so many of your friends.

Apple iCloud's My Photo Stream

2011-10-30T14:23:00.001-06:00

I have played around a bit with Apple's iCloud. I was pretty unhappy with how it messed up my Outlook Calendar. This was surprising because my iPhones have synched perfectly with Outlook for years. One feature I do love and keep enabled is My Photo Stream. By activating the iCloud software on my laptop and on my iPhone, any photo I shoot on the phone shows up very quickly on my laptop. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to attach the phone. They just magically show up. Very handy!

Today's iPhone 4S picture is Jasper visiting with the llamas and mini-donkeys. Here he is giving a mini-donkey a kiss. We got lucky on the timing. Within minutes of our visit, the owners arrived to load up all the animals and take them to their winter pasture. No more visits until June or so. I know Jasper won't understand driving by the empty field.

Visiting Arches and Canyonlands

2011-10-29T17:08:00.000-06:00

Julie and I loaded up the dog and cat and headed to Moab for a week. Moab is a town of about 8,000 full time residents, but it swells and shrinks with the flow of tourists. The three big attractions seem to be mountain biking, ATV riding, and the proximity to some incredible parks.

It was interesting to see the locals. Moab was definitely full of outdoorsy people, but they weren't the granola people from Portland or the athletes from Park City. They seemed to lean closer to a variation of Grizzly Adams, who now mountain bikes, drives off road, and camps out of the back of his car. I saw one open garage with nine mountain bikes, a bike stand, a tool chest, and no space for a single car.

This was our first journey with the pets, and they did wonderfully well. We plan to go back to Moab for another week in the spring, and they get to come back with us.

Julie and I got up one morning and did the sunrise trip into Arches. The rock always glows with the warm morning light. This formation is The Three Gossips.

Right across from the Gossips is a monstrous fin. They are definitely my favorite formation in the park. Here's a nice explanation of how fins and arches get created.

This is the well known "Balanced Rock". Ideally, I would have waited the extra 20 minutes for the sun to creep up into the little notch, but there were places to go and things to see.

There are 2500 arches in the park. To count, they have to be at least 3 feet across. Unless Julie is about 4 inches tall, this one counts. This is one of the "Windows", right near Balanced Rock.

Julie is pointing to one we found that probably won't make the cut for another few millenia.

After a day in Arches, we went for a visit to Dead Horse Point State Park. This park is right next to the vast Canyonlands National Park, which we visited the following day. Both of these parks overlooked the huge carved out canyons of the Colorado and Green rivers. It's amazing what 10 million years of erosion can do.

Both parks had some form or a "rim trail" They allowed us to get in some exercise while having a nonstop scenic vista. Because Dead Horse is a state park, Jasper got to hike along with us. We also found a great map of hikes around Moab that Jasper can join us on during future visits.

The rocky landscape with little but brush and scrub doesn't provide an easy way to mark trails. You quickly get used to looking for cairns. A cairn is defined as a mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark, but there is a much more interesting read here. Most of the trail markers would be 3-5 medium-sized rocks in a simple stack. Sometimes they got a lot more interesting and definitely required more time for creation.

When you lose the trail, you really appreciate finding the next pile of stones.

Another day and we went back to Arches. As we got into the park, you could tell that all 20% chance of rain was arriving. Not great for most touring, but as a photographer, I have learned to hate clear blue skies. They make the light harsh and add no interest. Even though this was mid-day, the light on the stone was a lot softer.

But there were places where the clouds hadn't moved in yet. Soft light, a bit of blue, and some big puffy white clouds starts getting more interesting.

The reason we went back to Arches was to do the ranger-guided tour of the Fiery Furnace. This tour takes on a three hour hike through the furnace, a set of large, tightly packed fins. It's a great trip and I definitely recommend it. Sign up in advance, especially if you are going during any time close to peak season.

Of course, we were about an hour into it when it started to rain. To their credit, they just keep right on going. They said the only two reasons to call off a tour are lightning and flash floods.

When we came out of the fins and got back to the parking lot, God seemed to be parting the clouds a bit.

There aren't many trees taller than 10 feet in the parks, but there were some nice aspens growing down in a stream bed. For the few trees around, it was close to peak season.

Back to the outskirts of Moab, where we found a ski lift. It looked like it was in great shape, but we never saw it move. We talked to some locals and discovered it was part of some great tourist plan in the late 90s. The idea was that you take the lift up to awesome views, mountain biking, rock climbing, and tourist shopping. Unfortunately, it became a huge fight with the zoning and city council. The lift hasn't run in years and there is nothing at the top to visit. The latest news is that some rich woman was buying it and tearing it all down to "return it to its original state and give it to the Nature Conservancy".

We were staying in a condo on Williams Way, just a 5-10 minute walk from the core of Main Street. There are a number of condos for rent along this street and we definitely plan to stay there on our next trip. Why? Decent places at OK prices. Convenient to town. Quiet. And of course, across the street from the regional hospital, should that ever be an issue.

This vehicle belonged to people renting just down from us. They had two other similar off-road monsters. If you like off road driving, or think you might, you won't find a much better place to visit than Moab. You can rent little ATV's, somewhat mellow four passenger ATV's, serious dune buggies, Jeeps (both current and old army versions), and even Hummers. Julie and I are a bit too much of the nature loving hikers to explore this seriously, but clearly we were in the minority.

I heard some people complain that restaurants in Moab were mediocre and touristy. Thanks to reviews on Yelp, we had nothing but great luck. I would happily recommend:

Breakfast and lunch: Love Muffin, Eklecticafe, Jailhouse Cafe, Pantele's Desert Deli, and Wicked Brew
Dinner: Desert Bistro and the Moab Brewery

I hope to catch a few days this winter when it snows down around Moab and the parks. I'll hop in the car and go shoot pictures. Like so many areas, this clearly looks very different in each season of the year.

What beast did this?

2011-10-28T13:07:00.002-06:00

When we got back from Moab, we found one of our bid feeders lying in the driveway, beat up a bit. We found the post it hangs on looking like this.

Damn! That's a pretty solid 1/2 inch metal bar, sunk down into a 4x4. This is not one of those cheap little WalMart feeder hangers. Something with some heft must have grabbed the feeder and yanked. Then yanked again. All I can imagine is either a moose or a buck. I didn't find poop from either one though.

I guess the alternative would be a concerted effort by 30 or 40 Magpie's. That would actually be scarier than the moose.

My first iPhone 4s video test

2011-10-27T16:54:00.000-06:00

It's just a quick test. We just got home from Moab and Jasper was twirling to burn off some energy. I uploaded the HD version, which requires a WIFI link and some patience. If you watch it, you can see a fair number of motion artifacts. His rapid motion is a good test for any small camera. In general, with decent light the 4S seems to take good movies. My next test needs to include some useful sound.

Moab for a week

2011-10-25T08:32:00.001-06:00

Our trip in Moab is going splendidly. The pets have settled remarkably well and that cat is doing better than the dog. You just can't tell until you try.

We did Arches, then Dead Horse State Park, then Canyonlands. The views in Canyonslands are breathtaking. We stayed last night to try for some sunset pictures. They were ok, but not great. I'll post some when I get home.

An experiment in pet travel

2011-10-19T19:24:00.000-06:00

Julie and I have pondered renting a house somewhere during Park City's spring season that we refer to as "mud season". One of the big questions is how well the pets will do living in another house. Jasper will almost certainly be fine, as long as he gets to hang with us. The cat is the big question. Cats tend to get more upset about being displaced.

We rented a condo for a week in Moab, Utah, starting tomorrow. Moab is right next to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and Dead Horse State Park. Should be nice for photography. Hopefully it will be nice for pets as well.

Nikon DSLRs in short supply

2011-10-19T16:21:00.001-06:00

If you have been giving any thought to buying a Nikon DSLR, including the great new 7000, you might want to jump on it now. The plant that makes a lot of the low-to-mid range Nikon DSLRs is very, very underwater from flooding in Thailand. The cameras will be in short supply, making it unlikely to see any big discounts for Black Friday or Christmas. From what I have read, it sounds like they may have to rebuild the plant from scratch. Fine assembly machines don't work well after weeks under water.

The Washington Post has some interesting pictures of the flooding here.

A future Photoshop feature that will amaze

2011-10-18T07:20:00.000-06:00

It isn't in the product yet, but this is amazing technology. Adobe has learned to analyze a blurry photo, figure out how you must have been wiggling the camera to make that blur, and then they undo it. The before and after pictures are stunning. Watch it in full screen mode.

iPhone 4s camera

2011-10-17T12:56:00.001-06:00

Here is a photo I took this morning with my new iPhone 4s. It is fairly easy to get a decent picture in bright sunshine. I was a little disappointed in the amount of noise in the blue sky. You may not be able to see it on a small copy, but it was pretty obvious in Lightroom.

It's nice to have a camera in your pocket all the time, but this clearly isn't going to replace a good pocket camera. The sensor is definitely better than the older iPhones, but you can only do so much through a lens the size of a pencil lead.

More as I take them.

The new iPhone

2011-10-16T07:43:00.000-06:00

I just upgraded my iPhone from a 4 to a 4S. If you have read all the press, you know that wasn't a very big upgrade so why bother? I HAD to get off AT&T and move to Verizon, so I waited for a new phone to make the move. In the Mountain West, AT&T basically sucks. I can't get a solid signal at my house, on the ski hills, or in anything remotely rural in Utah. Switching to Verizon gets me much better coverage almost everywhere.

So, given that I have the new iPhone, what makes it interesting?

Physical layout? Nope. I wish the screen was at least a half inch larger. I hit 50 in a few months and tiny text is getting more challenging.
Faster processor? It feels a little quicker, but I never had problems with the iPhone 4.
4G support? Nope, they seem to have forgotten this. I would love to have it, but we are a year from getting LTE support in Park City, so it doesn't matter much.
The new camera? Now it gets more interesting. I have done a few quick tests with the camera and can see a noticeable improvement. I will do some real shots and post them out here. The biggest change seems to be in low light.
Siri? This is the new voice recognition and artificial intelligence software. I thought this might be stupid, sitting there chatting with your phone, but I am beginning to understand how this might be another monstrous change in the way we interact with phones/computers. Not only is it voice recognition, the phone is smart enough to know where to go look for what information.

Here are some examples of what you can ask the phone to do/find. There's a much more complete list of examples here. I have tried a number of these and they work almost flawlessly.

What's Michael's address?
When is my wife's birthday?
Who is Michael Manning?
Set up a meeting with Michael at 9
Schedule a planning meeting at 8:30 today in the boardroom
Reschedule my appointment with Dr. Manning to next Monday at 9am
What's on my calendar for Friday?
When is my next appointment?
Wake me up tomorrow at 7am
Change my 6:30 alarm to 6:45
What time is it in Berlin?
What's the date this Saturday?
Email Lisa and Jason about the party and say I had a great time
Show the email from Lisa yesterday
Directions to my dad's work
Where is Starbucks?
Find a gas station within walking distance
Good Mexican restaurants around here
Send a message to Susan on her mobile saying I'll be late
Text Jason and Lisa where are you?
Play Alicia Keys
Play some blues
Call Susan on her work phone
What's Apple's stock price?
What is the Dow at?
Check next week's forecast for Burlington
What's the forecast for this evening?
When is sunrise in Paris?
How many calories in a bagel?
What is an 18% tip on $86.74 for four people?
What's the square root of 128?
How many dollars is €45?
What was the Best Picture of 1983?
How many days until Christmas?

Pretty interesting. Apple's plan is to add additional data sources to Siri so that you can ask more questions. For instance, tying it to the flight databases would allow you to ask about flight status, plan trips and buy tickets.

It's beginning to feel more and more like Star Trek. I am still waiting for someone to invent transporters!

Leadership Park City

2011-10-15T07:25:00.001-06:00

I was recently accepted into a one year program called Leadership Park City. It's purpose is to help find and educate potential community leaders. Over the year, we will learn a combination of basic leadership skills and lot about how our local government runs. There's a lot better description of the program here.

This is the 18th year the program has been running, and there are 32 of us in the class. Our first two meetings have helped us get to know one another and develop as a team. I have to say that the group is fantastic. There are a lot of very talented people with extremely diverse backgrounds in Park City.

I'll blog a bit more about this as we get into the meat of our education, but for now, I am really excited about the opportunity. Some of you may have heard me joke about being mayor or governor. This is the first step.

20th Wedding Anniversary

2011-10-12T08:19:00.000-06:00

Julie and I are celebrating 20 years together, and that's if you don't count all the years we spent with on and off dating. Thanks to our family and friends who have been part of our lives for those two decades.

And us at Jim and Kathy's this weekend, still happy and in love.

This morning we exchanged romantic gifts and meaningful Hallmark cards to show how we feel. OK, not really, but we plan to go for a nice dinner tonight at the Prime Steakhouse here in town.

Some spectacular time lapse photography

2011-10-12T08:03:00.001-06:00

Make sure to watch it in fullscreen mode. The images are stunning.

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

A wedding in DC

2011-10-11T13:28:00.003-06:00

Julie and I went to our nation's capital this past weekend to attend the wedding of Bill and Loris Benson's daughter Shannon. We got to stay with our friends the Covaleski's at their condo in Old Town in Alexandria. What a great location!

We spent Friday and part of Saturday getting some exercise, seeing Old Town and just hanging out enjoying the 75 degree sunny weather. We were very lucky on timing the weather. DC had been getting a lot of cold rain during the past month and Park City got snow on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Here we have Kathy, Julie and Jim about to hit the wedding. Living in Park City, we rarely find an opportunity to get dressed up. People go to the fanciest restaurants in boots, jeans and a fleece.

The wedding was held at the Hay-Adams hotel in the middle of DC. The wedding was on the 9th floor and here was the view. We were right across the street from the White House, looking at the earthquake-damaged Washington Memorial, back to the Jefferson Memorial, and on to the Potomac River. Not too shabby!

Dave and Shannon, the groom and bride.

Julie and I at the wedding. I so rarely end up with pictures of us together, because I frequently have the camera. My tan is from spending the previous week outdoors in Grand Teton.

It is easiest to do these out of order. On the right is Bill Benson, father of the bride and very close friend from Park City. On the left is his son Seth. In between is Seth's girlfriend Ericka. They recently moved from Manhattan to Denver and are now enjoying the mountain life.

Jim and Kathy dancing out on the balcony. You can barely make out the White House behind Jim. I wonder if our band was keeping the Obama's awake.

A bevy of beauties.

And we end with a full-length shot of my beautiful wife. It's nice to have such wonderful arm candy.

Great weather. Great friends. A fun wedding in a gorgeous setting. Now I am back in Park City looking up at the snow on the mountain tops, remembering how much nicer walks are in the 70 degree weather.

Thanks to Bill and Loris for letting us share in such an important part of their lives.

Football Saturday

2011-10-04T08:37:00.000-06:00

Cosette actually does like watching football. I'm not sure whether it is because of the big colorful movement on the screen or just because we're watching. She seems to prefer college games over the NFL.

She reminded me that NC State sucks this year.

Summer, a few days of fall, then winter

2011-10-03T16:24:00.001-06:00

I complained bitterly about the long, cold, wet spring we had. As a reminder, it snowed all three days of the Memorial Day weekend. Now we have been getting our revenge. It's October 3rd. Not only have we been snow free so far, the last three weeks have been sunny and in the 70's, every single day! This is incredible for Park City, so everyone has been cramming in the last of the golf, running, biking and such.

Now the end is near. It is around 70 outside right now. By Thursday, the highs may not hit 40. The rain starts soon and turns to snow Thursday morning and it keeps snowing through Friday. Oops. So much for fall. The good news is that we leave Thursday morning for a wedding in Washington DC, where the weather is supposed to be sunny and in the 70's.

To pay a brief homage to fall, I offer some pictures of our local scare crows. Every year they let people put up a line of scare crows on the fence near the historic white barn. As you will see, they get quite artistic.

The first, and most important is the Scarecrow of Liberty. It was done by our next door neighbors, Sally and Hannah Lutzker, and friends of theirs.

This is "Crow Magnon Man"

"The Snow Queen"

"Fright of the Valkyrie"

"Nana Peep Crow", but I thought this should be Big Bird.

And two of the most artistic and involved... Willy Wonka.

and "Top Chef". It is hard to see but the shelf on her right (your left) included very detailed containers of things like Belly Button Lint, Werewolves Eyeballs, Spider Parts and Rats Blood.

It's very considerate of the artistic people in town to do things like this so that those of us who apparently have no right hemisphere of the brain can wander along and enjoy them.

Health update

2011-10-03T15:59:00.000-06:00

I got my flu shot this afternoon. I hope everyone has gone for theirs already or at least plans to. Most places do it for free if you are insured. A few minutes or prevention sure beats a week with the flu. I haven't had the flu in over a decade.

People are becoming more aware of the calories they ingest. Eating at some restaurants can be terrible for your diet, including Macaroni Grill, TGI Fridays and Applebee's. What is often a huge surprise is how bad beverages can be. Julie sent me a link comparing the sugar content of some drinks to food that you already know is horrific. Take a look. My favorite is the DQ MooLatte, which has the sugar equivalent of a DOZEN Bavarian Kreme Doughnuts from Dunkin Donuts.

Photography in Grand Tetons National Park

2011-10-02T12:59:00.000-06:00

I spent three days this week taking photos in Grand Teton National Park. Julie and I spent a day or so there a few years ago, but we haven't been back since. I was trying to time my trip around the fall foliage, and for the most part I got it right.

I think the key to the quality of the trip's pictures, beyond my own skill or lack thereof, was the weather. It was certainly a case of good news, bad news. The good news is that we have had a massive high pressure system over Utah and Wyoming for the last two weeks. The result has been sunshine, blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures. I spent most of each day in shorts and a t-shirt, which is absurd for northern Wyoming in late September.

The bad news was the same high pressure system. Cloudless skies are actually very boring in photos. Bright sunshine washes out all the color. The warm temperatures mean that there is no new snow up on the mountains. Finally, the lack of storms leaves the air very still, which means all the smoke from the fires, both wildfires and prescribed burns, hangs around in this ugly haze.

Above is a picture of a prescribed burn that was started at the south end of the park on my last full day. I was so unhappy with how it messed up the mountain pictures, I decided to try to go photograph the fire itself. As you might expect, as I got close, I was stopped by six rangers, a "fire information" vehicle, and a fire truck. I never got close. Fire is such a prevalent issue in the area of the country that there is a nice web site dedicated to the firefighting status and plans: www.tetonfires.com.

One thing the haze didn't affect was the foliage. The aspens were in full color and they were quite common along the Snake River. When we went to Yellowstone a few years ago, I was disappointed by the very high percentage of evergreens. Grand Teton is much more interesting in Fall.

On several of my photo trips, I have found areas that if you catch them early in the morning before the winds pick up, you can get incredible reflections in the water. I find these to be beautiful and I end up with lots of different versions of these photos. This was from Schwabachers Landing.

This is Oxbow Bend. Ansel Adams made this famous and I can't imagine photographing Grand Teton without spending at least a few mornings or evenings at this spot.

Jenny Lake is very scenic, but you are right up close to the base of the mountains, so it has a different feel.

There is a row of houses and barns at the south end of the park called Mormon Row. It's on Moran Road, which seems too close to avoid confusion. Several of the 100 year old barns are in good shape and their style seems quite unique. They are very beautiful in the glow of sunrise. Of course they would be nicer if they didn't have all that damn smoke behind them.

Here is a different one from down the road. Notice how different the picture feels, even though the barns are similar and the mountains are the same. The first was taken from about 200-300 yards from the barn. The second was taken from about 30 yards away. The change in perspective makes a big difference in how the mountains appear compared to the barn.

There are lots of split rail fences around the park. I think some are to contain the wandering bison and the others are because there is still a fair amount of active ranching within the park. I liked how this one pointed to the mountains and then curved out of the way. Did I mention I hated the smoke?

This was just a fun perspective shot. There were odd weeds of some form that dried in fuzzy vertical clumps. I wallowed around on the ground for a while trying to find a more interesting way to capture the image. This turned out to be my favorite. It was funny watching cars slowing down to figure out what in the world I was doing laying on the ground with a camera on a tripod.

On to the wildlife... I captured some pictures, but on the whole I didn't see as much wildlife as I expected and I couldn't get photos of some of the most impressive.

There are large numbers of Pronghorn in the 10-20 miles north of Evanston, Wyoming. I saw some in the park, but these were a lot more fun. It's the rutting season and the bucks are working hard to claim and keep their harems. That's not an easy task. I kept running across a dozen or so doe's with one buck. A hundred yards away would be another buck, constantly trying to move in a grab a few ladies for himself. The worst case was a buck who had two aggressors, one on each side of his harem. As he would chase one buck off, the other would come closer. He would move to chase that one off and the first would return. As best I could tell, this never ends.

I like Julie's idea: just give each male one to leave him alone and keep the other females in peace.

This is a beautiful Bald Eagle. He chose to fly right overhead while my camera was tightly gripped by a tripod aimed at some distant scenery. By the time I realized what he was, unhitched the camera, zoomed, found him in the lens, focused and shot, he was on his way past. I sure would have appreciated a second fly by but it wasn't going to happen.

There are bison scattered around the park, but they are steadily heading south now. One afternoon I was driving around looking for places to shoot during the next sunrise and sunset. The car in front of me stopped and I noticed that the reason was a herd of bison, about 50 strong. You probably need to double-click on this picture to see it large enough, but check out the bison in front of this car. To paraphrase from the movie Jaws: "Honey, I think we are going to need to rent a bigger car."

The bison were very interesting to watch. They moved along at a grueling pace of less than a mile per hour, eating as they went. It was like watching fifty large, slow, noisy lawn mowers. I wanted to get out of the truck to get better pictures, but didn't dare given how close they were. I ended up rolling down the window and climbing on the roof of my Honda Pilot. I sat on the roof for about 20 minutes watching them.

This guy was one of my favorites. He clearly had an itch to scratch. He moved at the same slow pace as all the others, but instead of munching grass, he moved from fence pole to fence pole, scratching on each one. You have to have a sturdy fence to withstand a bad itch from a big bison.

At some point I finally stopped whining about the smoke and started shooting the morning steam. This was at one of the active barns on Mormon Row.

And my favorite was in a secluded area just north of Oxbow Bend. The light breeze was making the wisps of morning steam dance across the river.

The shots that got away...

The biggest bull elk I have ever seen, with a monstrous rack. However, it was too dark for a photo.
The owl the I startled. He swept along the creek bed, about 15 feet from me. No way I could possibly react in time for a photo.
The pronghorn that sprung in front of my 45 mph truck at 6:15 in the morning (still pitch black out). He missed becoming a hood ornament by about 3 feet.
The bull moose that came down to the steaming river at sunrise, swam across and walked out into the woods. This could have been a spectacular picture, but I was set up for a wide angle sunrise at Oxbow Bend and my big lens was packed in the truck. By the time I could move and switch everything, he was gone. This one hurts to have missed.

It was a good trip and I feel I know the park a lot better. I would like to try again in the fall, perhaps with some different weather. An early snow on the fall foliage would be impressive. A storm rolling in across the mountains? Wildlife that cooperates more?A big rain before I go that puts out all the fires?

I think to really get the most out of the park, you just have to keep visiting it and maximizing whatever it has to offer then. Of course, I guess that logic works for almost anywhere.

Here in the Tetons

2011-09-28T21:11:00.001-06:00

The weather is wonderfully warm and sunny, but between wildfires and prescribed burns, there is a smokey haze everywhere. Poop!

The first batch of fall colors

2011-09-24T10:16:00.000-06:00

The maples are always the first to go. Julie and I went for a walk this morning and you could see large patches of color. The maples, aspens, and oaks seem to go in waves and even those waves are separated by elevation and direction of the slope.

Not spectacular, but it really makes it feel like fall. Thankfully, our temperatures are still hitting the 70's every day and it doesn't look like it will change for at least another week. No snow yet!

We did run across a few trees that were just spectacular. I'm hoping to get some nice color this week up in the Tetons. I hope their aspens are ahead of ours.

Back to Antelope Island

2011-09-22T20:24:00.002-06:00

My photography assistant Jasper joined me for another trip to Antelope Island. It started off with an interesting twist. I saw a handful of birds and then noticed something bigger out on the mud flats. As I got closer I saw it was a big fluffy coyote. He stared us down for a minute before heading off to find breakfast.

I have to leave home around 6:00 to get to Antelope Island by sunrise, but it's worth it. The flat water and soft light make such a difference.

A lot of the birds were the same as I saw last trip.

But there were thousands of little shore birds.

I watched this bird for quite a while. Instead of efficiently poking for food like everyone else, he seemed to be half flying, half walking the entire time.

I love the long bills on these guys.

This one was walking a bit before flying.

Of course, it isn't just about birds. This pronghorn was hanging with some bison not too far from the visitors center.

Later on a found the rest of the herd. There were about 100 of them.

When I was photographing the bison, I noticed some movement in the background. Out came a pair of coyotes, wandering through the bison herd.

And after mom and dad came through, a younger coyote followed them. This was the first time I have seen coyotes out on Antelope Island. This family wasn't as healthy and fluffy as the first one I saw.

My biggest success for the day was also my biggest failure. I have been hunting high and low for a Burrowing Owl. I know they are on the island, but they are fairly rare. I finally found one, sitting on the edge of his burrow. Before I could stop the truck and get a picture, he was gone. I waited for 20 minutes, but he didn't come back. I checked later and he still wasn't back. Very sad, but I will check when I go back next time. Here is a picture so you can see what I'm hunting for.

Houses around the neighborhood

2011-09-20T13:49:00.000-06:00

This house is being built about half way between our house and Old Town. The owner is seriously indecisive, which is leading to a VERY long building process. They started this 15 months ago and it doesn't have the siding done or the roof shingled. I talked to the builder and he guessed there was another year to go.

It's a very odd floor plan. The house is over 7500 square feet and has six bedrooms, but it has a two car garage and a tiny kitchen. Weird.

At the bottom of our hill is an attached pair of condos, both of which are for sale. They should be a great place for vacationers. Nice finishes, gourmet kitchens, cherry floors, 5 bedrooms, a bus stop out front and a 3 minute walk into town. Oh yeah, and a never ending series of building problems.

I'm not a real estate agent, but I am pretty sure you don't want to be selling your house at the same time they are ripping all the stone off the facade. These places are about two years old and they have been in a constant state of rebuilding.I've never heard all the details, but they must have a lot of leaks. I've seen dry wall guys, flooring, and now stone work. Maybe they could just rent the places out to a good handyman and call it quits.

In stark contrast is the little cabin/shack next door. I was mocking the decision to rebuild this little building in a post here. To their credit, they have done a wonderful job rebuilding the place. It looks nice and even has some pretty landscaping. I still question the sanity of paying to rebuild something that must be about 400 square feet, but they have done some very nice work.

This picture is from up on the hill, looking across the street from the little shack and the two catastrophic condos. As you can see, it is a mix of very large houses and a handful of old historic shacks.I heard rumor that the reason the shacks aren't purchased, torn down and replaced, is that the historical records of ownership are so convoluted that it isn't clear that you would really own the final result. I'm sure you couldn't get title insurance if that was the case.

There is a noticeable pickup in housing construction now. It is way off the peak, but it sure beats the complete lack of housing work going on last year.

Up in our neighborhood (April Mountain), we went from having 6 of 39 condos on the market to none on the market. In fact, realtors were sending out inquiries a few weeks ago. They had a buyer who wanted something in April Mountain, but there were no listings. Yeah! Now make the prices go back up!

Tour de Suds 2011

2011-09-18T19:59:00.000-06:00

This morning Jasper and I took a walk down to City Park to catch the beginning of the Tour de Suds mountain bike race. It's held every year as a way to mark the transition from summer to fall.

Jasper was jealous when we arrived and he saw this little dog catching a ride in a back pack. He was complete happy getting to effortlessly cruise along. The person providing the transportation was not competing in the race, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

The race is short and steep, 7 miles long with 2700 feet of vertical gain. It starts on the city streets but switches over to single track.

But this isn't just a bike race. It's an opportunity to get silly and ride with friends. This guy was lucky we were in the high 40s. Otherwise this would have been a toasty costume.

These folks were all dressed up, but the thing that impressed me most was the fact that the guy was going to do the race on his unicycle.

A different way to get one wheel per rider is to use a tandem. I can't imagine how hard it is to navigate something this long up the switchbacks. We really do have mountain biking unicyclists here.

A few bananas, a gorilla (on the left), a gladiator and something that looks like a lime green sperm.

Coordinated bees. Dress together and ride together. I wonder if they finished this way.

One of my favorites is the guy on the left. I didn't get a great shot, but he is dressed like a farmer and he has an inflatable sheep in a garter on his back.

Captain Marvel was in the middle of the pack. Seems like he would be right up front.

And my winner: an inflatable sumo outfit with a pink ballet outfit. He made riding look a lot easier than it should have been. Could be interesting once he gets into the trees on the single track.

Just another odd day in Park City.

Return of the Mini-Donkeys

2011-09-16T16:28:00.000-06:00

If you have followed this blog at all, you know I enjoy stopping close to the Home Depot to allow Jasper to visit with the llamas.

Today he got a rare visit with the mini-donkeys. This was the first for 2011. I'm not sure where they live when they aren't in this field, but they only seem to join the llamas for a few weeks before heading off to their winter homes.

As for the "mini", you can see how much smaller they are than a llama. I would guess they are Jasper's height but a good bit thicker.The black one is a foal and what getting pushed in the butt by his mom whenever he slowed down.

Right across the street from the donkeys was a sign that summer is over. The first batch of leaves are starting to turn.

Confusing sign

2011-09-15T20:53:00.001-06:00

I am used to seeing signs in the public restrooms. The most common are from the health department reminding employees to wash their hands. Today wash a bit of a surprise.

I did go back outside and check the sign on the door.

I wonder what they think about the guys who eat at their restaurant.

The variables of a photography trip

2011-09-14T11:21:00.000-06:00

I have planned a trip up to Grand Teton National Park in two weeks to do some photography. For this kind of trip, I should be able to get some decent shots no matter what, but there are a lot of things that can come together to make it spectacular.

First is the fall foliage. When Julie and I visited the park five years ago, it was early-to-mid September and the leaves hadn't started changing. The end of the month has a much better chance, but every year is different. There are lots of aspens and even the meadows dry out and turn pretty.
Will it have snowed? Snow up on the 13,000 foot mountains can be great for pictures. Snow down in the valley can be cold, wet and miserable.
Will those damn fires get put out? There are wildfires burning all over the US right now, but it is the ones in the Pacific Northwest that I care about. They skank up the otherwise gorgeous scenery. I actually found a very helpful web site that covers this from the University of Maryland. They report on it, but of course, there's nothing you can do about it.
The size of the moon. At least this one is completely predictable. On September 27th, there is no moon, so even the days around it will be very dark. This makes for some really interesting star pictures away from all the city lights. I just have to drag my butt out at night in the cold, after long days of hiking around. I still regret having not done this at Bryce Canyon two winters ago.

Here's a picture I got in 2006, and we had the same problem with fires in Montana.

Should be fun and it's always a good learning experience.

Tonight's full moon

2011-09-12T21:23:00.002-06:00

Bill Benson and I were coming back from a delicious barbeque dinner at Bandits as the moon started coming up over the horizon. By the time I could get home, grab my camera, change lenses, and hook up the tripod, I had lost the interesting horizon and it was just moon and sky.

Then a set of clouds wandered under the moon, just above the horizon. The shapes and lighting were very interesting.

The fringes almost look like NASA's pictures you see of nebula. Very wispy with changing color.

Not thrilling, but it sure beats watching TV. While I was shooting, my associate photographer Jasper (the dog) was busy trying to see the large deer we could hear stomping around in the scrub oak about 50 yards above us.

Damn neighbor dogs

2011-09-10T19:59:00.001-06:00

I get so tired of the neighbor's dogs coming over to play with Jasper's balls in our yard. These even had the audacity to take a nap in our yard after they got done playing.

Oops. Perhaps those aren't the neighbor's dogs. Looks more like a mother moose and her two calves. Jasper found them when we came home from the grocery store. I sent him around to the back yard, but he stopped dead in his tracks. Good thing. Our neighborhood has already lost one dog to a moose, and nothing says "pissed" like a mom protecting the calves.

One of the calves woke up enough to pose.

The dog was ok with the moose, but the cat was quite ticked off. Her tail was puffed up and flicked back and forth. She tried staring them down, but they were not intimidated.

Finally they all got up and started munching on my trees. At least they were just shredding the leaves and not actually ripping the branches off.

Mom was always keeping a sharp eye out for any trouble, but she mostly just let the little ones do their own thing. Apparenlty this was appreciated because one came over and gave mom a kiss.

This calf decided he/she was full of my trees and laid down for the night. As I have seen before, laying down is not a graceful thing for a moose. You start by kneeling down and leaning forward.

Then it looks like you just fall down until gravity has had its way with you.

Right now they've all crashed for the night in the back yard. We'll see if they are around tomorrow, but if they are, the lawn sprinklers come on. They poop in giant piles and shred our plants. Enough is enough.

Rack of bunny

2011-09-10T15:34:00.002-06:00

We joined some friends and went out to a local restaurant, Talisker on Main. They serve a fairly high end menu, with some interesting choices. This was Bobbie's rack of bunny after she had eaten all the good stuff. They listed it as rabbit, not rack of bunny, but it is what it is.

The good news is that most of the food served was raised or grown locally (the new fad), but I can't tell you where the bunny farmer was. I wonder if there is the equivalent of "Kobe Beef" for rabbits?

Why is it that the general population thinks that killing some animals to eat is just fine (cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, fish,...) while others are terrible (bunnies, deer, dogs, cats,...)? I can understand the ones we tend to think of as pets, but why is a deer or a horse different than a cow? Why is a rabbit worse than a chicken? And of course, each choice is very regional.

2011-09-05T19:50:00.003-06:00

I ran in a small 5k race this morning at our city park. It was nice weather, but I wasn't in a very motivated mood. I did ok and apparently finished in second place in my age group, but that may be because there were only two of us. I have no idea and they haven't posted the results online.

The amazing thing was my next door neighbors, Monty and Hannah Lutzker. About a week ago Monty thought about having Hannah run the 5k. She had been hiking a lot and competing in some short triathlons. Hannah is only six years old.

Hannah did amazingly well. After only a week of training, she ran the 3.1 miles in about 33 minutes, or less than 11 minutes per mile. I knew she was pretty, but now I know she's an athlete. I'm going to have to keep training to stay ahead of her.

Here's a leftover picture from my recent half marathon. I like the pictures from early in the race because I tend to look a lot happier and more comfortable. And yes, that is the same shirt.

Eating big for migration

2011-09-04T09:36:00.001-06:00

We don't seem to have had as many hummingbirds this year. I would guess it is because we had such a long, cold, snowy spring. The ones that are here have been hitting the feeders hard for the past few weeks, getting ready for their incredibly long migration. Just a few quick shots from the deck....

Elk Watch 2011

2011-08-31T21:25:00.002-06:00

Last September, I went with a friend, Chad Rexroad, to try and find elk before hunting season started. We saw six moose, but no elk.This year we went to a different area. It was quite hazy, so the mountains weren't quite as spectacular, but the view was still nice.

Chad, searching for elk on the far ridge. He has his elk bugle on his hip. He blew it several times, but got no responses. It's really too early for the rut, so too early for bugling.

I spotted the first elk, but it turned out to be a cow. These federal lands are pretty open for ranchers. There are cows and a lot of sheep. What we can't figure out is how they round up these wandering cows. There are tens of thousands of acres without fences and the cows just meander off wherever they choose.

Finally! An elk! He was a bull elk and looked to be about six points on each antler. The sad part is we think we stood watching us for about three minutes before we spotted him. The picture kind of stinks, but he was about 200 yards away.

A different view of his rack, and his butt. It turns out that he is living in part of Utah that would make it unlikely for him to get shot. This section primarily allows hunters to shoot spike elk, which are the young bucks with only one point. As long as this guy doesn't venture too far, or run across someone with a lottery permit, he's good to go. The idea is to maintain a healthy herd by having lots of fertile, happy cows and a few mature, healthy bucks.

I missed Chad's adventure looking for elk last night. He didn't find an elk, but he brought home a little starving Great Pyrenees puppy. The herders use them as sheep dogs and this one must have wandered off. She was thin, hungry and lonely. She was also one lucky dog. How would you like to be found by the husband of the woman who runs the area's largest dog adoption facility (Furburbia)? She will certainly be well cared for and find a wonderful new home.

Hoping to make at least one more elk searching trip this fall.

Help with some bird identification

2011-08-30T20:58:00.000-06:00

I posted some of my better photos from Antelope Island. Now for a few that aren't very good, but they are either odd, or contain birds I can't identify. You can double-click on any photo you want to see zoomed in.

This was fun to watch. I'm not sure how they communicate the excitement, but a group of Ibis's (Ibi?) found some yummy food out in the lake. They came from everywhere, piled in tight and joined the feeding frenzy.

I suck with hawks. What is this one? Here's a view from below.

And here's the same hawk from the top. Notice the seriously white butt.

In the middle is a little wren. He's far enough away that an id may be impossible.

One more view of him.

Grebe's of one form or another. They were quite small.

A tall, long-nosed brown bird.

Oops. I scared him off.

These were interesting. Out of hundreds of photos, they only appeared in one. Some serious eye brows.

Another Grebe?

When I am taking pictures, I simply don't take the time to use my binoculars or scope to figure out what everything is.

Any help?

Another trip to Antelope Island

2011-08-30T13:37:00.000-06:00

I get around to this every two years or so. Antelope Island is a really cool Utah state park located out in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. It rises out of the lake like an eleven mile long mountain. There's a lot of interesting places to hike and things to see, but I came for the migratory birds, and mostly waterfowl.

The causeway that leads out to the island is several miles long and provides a wonderful place to watch birds and take their pictures. The park really empties out this time of year and I got there as it opened at 7:00. That meant I could drive down the causeway like a drunken sailor, using both sides of the road and both shoulders.

As you can tell from the sign, finding the birds wasn't that much of a challenge.

Photographing them was. This was one of my worst photography outings in a long time. Because birds are small and the distances tend to be long, I used my old, cheap Sigma 80-400 lens, and tried to use the 1.4 teleconverter. It's been a while since I have used this lens, and now I know why. While I thought I had some awesome shots, almost all of them came out soft, as if slightly out of focus. I got rid of the teleconverter and that helped, but I am bummed with my results.

On to the birds. I made my best guesses at what they are. Corrections are welcomed.

There were a gajillion black-necked stilts. They were easy to see standing still, but I liked how they looked flying, especially with the reflection.

Here is one standing with three fairly ugly birds. My guess is white faced Ibis.

The Ibis also looked prettier flying.

And even better coming in for a landing.

Avocets were everywhere. It took me a while to recognize them in their white-headed form.

All the long-legged birds look so beautiful and awkward at the same time.

Chukar's are an easy find on Antelope Island. I couldn't get a good picture, but this one was in a flock (covey?) of more than 10. This may be the only species of bird that I have seen that my mom hasn't.

Much easier to photograph: the peaceful Barn Swallow. There were huge flocks of swallows all over the island.

There were several different gulls. Franklins was easy to identify, but is this a Ring-billed or a California? How do you tell? I have tons of pictures of them.

I thought these were blackbirds, but now I'm not sure. Yellow chest, but not a yellow head.

They were excellent stunt performers. Thousands would take off at once and they would cruise around as though joined by a single brain. They were moving so fast, so close, there should have been hundreds of dead birds from in-flight collisions.

OK, not a bird, but you can't go to Antelope Island without seeing a few Bison. I saw a number of rogue males, but never did see the big herd. Maybe I'll try to catch the round-up next month.

And some Pronghorn came meandering along. Very considerate of them.

Tomorrow I will post some other birds that I need help identifying.

Next trip to Antelope Island will be in September. For that trip I will try my high-end Nikon 70-200 zoom with a 2x teleconverter. Hopefully that will produce better pictures. By the way, the nice long lenses start at about $5900 for a 300mm f2.8, up to about $12,000 for a 600mm f4. That won't be happening without a lottery win. That's even harder since Utah doesn't have a lottery.

A new web site and business

2011-08-30T09:44:00.000-06:00

Tim Huntley was one of the four founders of our company, Ganymede Software. When the company was purchased, Tim worked for NetIQ for a few years before becoming a semi-retired gentleman farmer. I've posted a number of blog entries about Tim's goats, cows, bees, barn building and such.

This week Tim started a new web site called My Athletic Life. Lots of great information about physical fitness, training, and healthy eating. Take a look. If the web site turns out to be like anything else Tim does, it will be excellent.

Party barge on the Jordanelle

2011-08-25T21:25:00.000-06:00

The summer is nearing its end and the local kids just started back to school. Rather than giving in, we joined a group of Wednesday Park City Mountain Hosts for a party barge rental on the local reservoir. A big thanks to Alison for pulling this together.

Julie enjoying the beautiful day.

Loris Benson and Alison Pierce (our trip coordinator). Now that we aren't near the coast, it is too easy to forget how peaceful it can be to just amble around in a boat.

Jim and JR just hanging out on the stern.

Steve Pierce was one of our captains. He looks very official.

We all went for a swim. It was chilly, but not cold. Cindy's little float noodles were popular.

We really got lucky with the weather. There were little thunderstorms occurring all around us, but we only got about 2 minutes of rain and four hours of wonderful.

After we returned the boat to the marina, we gathered in the campground for a big bonfire and making smores. Some of the ladies were camping for the night, but Julie and I headed home for the comfort of our beds.