So yesterday I woke up with a crick in my neck, the kind you just really want a chiropractor or pro wrestler to grab hold of your skull and yank until things pop back into place. But instead I started rolling my head back and forth, trying to work it out but I stopped because —literally— I thought I'd break my own neck and drop to the floor. After some moments to consider this possibility I decided to proceed carefully but moved to the living room from where it would be easier to haul my carcass out of the house.
 
Then I was driving to work, listening to NPR on the radio. Our signal comes thru a repeater out in the badlands, up from Laramie and of course they get it from NPR in Washington DC. So I'm driving along and the signal goes out and immediately —zero hesitation at all— I assumed there'd been a holocaust in Washington. Nuclear bomb. Kafoom. Gone. The ONLY POSSIBLE explanation for the radio to go out. Oh! It's ...

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A couple of times a year, for the last few years now, I've taken Augusta on a hike up Heart Mountain. Usually, we make it less than halfway to the top, which is still a pretty good day. Charlie sometimes comes along too but he's all about the snacks and once they're gone, it's time to head for home. But yesterday we got more than halfway up, after much grumbling, and I said "this trail sign is as far as we've ever been. Let's go just a little bit more so we can say we went further today than we ever have." Well the trail stayed level for a few hundred yards, left the desert sun and into a grassy meadow then a nice dark (cool) forest. We met some friends on their way down who were impressed with how high up they'd gotten and asked incredulously "are you going to the top?" This fueled their fire and with a few more rest breaks, they made it all the way! The trail on the top part was ...

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Today I rode shotgun in the shuttle that the ski area uses to run employees from town up to the hill, about 40 miles. I have to get up at 5, make coffee and drive to Cody to meet up with the crew in the Walmart parking lot. After grunting good mornings to each other, we piled in the van and started on our way. The road winds through a narrow canyon, runs a few miles alongside Buffalo Bill Reservoir, then opens into the beautiful Wapiti Valley. The sun lit up the red-rock mountain tops and deer threatened to cross the road, but for the first half of the drive, we rode up in silence except for an occasional comment made about work or the weather, then back to quiet.

Chris: I'm thinking about getting a hedgehog.
Blair: What do they eat?
Chris: I don't know. Hedges, I guess.
Morgan: You have to be careful when you pet them.
Chris: Why? ...

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A few days ago I found out that Augusta wouldn't have school today (but Charlie would), so her mom and I quietly made plans for me to take a day off so I could whisk Augusta up to the ski hill (edit: For her first-ever time on skis). That tortured sentence notwithstanding, it was a great day out. We got up there at about 10 a.m., rented her some skis and hit the "magic carpet" people-mover ski lift thing. Instructor Dad was a little rusty on the basics so we both foundered a bit and frustration was mounting, so I sagely called for a retreat to the lodge for some hot cocoa. Learned that in the summer you have "hot chocolate" but  in winter it's "hot cocoa." I asked what's the difference but only got a mutter.
 
After a while she started to get antsy and finally said, "Come on, Dad!" since I was having coffee and hobnobbing with Arlan from Meeteetse. We went back out and promptly resumed the mildly frustrating part where the skis slowly ...

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Just a document of what the four-year-old was doing on this day.

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Holidays are here; the kids don't have school tomorrow so I let them lollygag a while before shooing them off to bed. Charlie brushed his teeth, we got his pajamas on and went in to read books. As he climbed into bed he says, "Dad, I need something. Hmm. Oh! I know! Juice!" I told him since he'd just brushed his teeth, maybe a glass of water would be better. "Juice," he says again. I said I'd get him a drink of water and headed off to the kitchen. When I came back with a small glass of water, he took a sip, gave me the hairy eyeball and said, "Dad. I told you juice!" I said he could have juice in the morning, but just water now.
"You ruined my LIFE!" he blurted.
"Excuse me?" I needed some clarification.
"You ruined my life! I'm so disappointed! It's not fair!" *tears* *real rivers of tears*
 
I sat on Augusta's bed and read her a couple ...

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This is an incomplete accounting but I wanted to post this part of it for Gary.

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A guy came into our coffeehouse one morning and looked around. Big and gruff, the sort of oilfield that you don't ever get in an espresso bar. He asked "is there smoking in here?" I said no. He said "is there coffee?" I said yep. Gave him a cup and showed him the choices. He says "My name's Dave, out there's my dog, Jiggs. The doctor says I can't  be down at the Hamilton House with the farmers anymore because of the smoke. I said yup, haven't been in there in years.
 
Dave became an everyday guy, and always got a mocha—an old retired oilfield guy spending $3 or $5 a day if he got a bagel too. We talked about a lot of things and at some point I came to know he had been a engineer for 40 years and had worked in the oil & gas business here, in Venezuela, Africa... Dave never married. For some reason he only had one testicle (I told ...

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We just took a long weekend to drive up into Montana. On Thursday, we met Xeric and Muzik for a gourmet dinner (pizza at Costco), then headed out for White Sulphur Springs. Why? Well it's July and we thought sitting in a hot spring sounded smart!

So anyway I didn't get any pictures of the drive but get out your googlemap and look at where it is. The actual town of White Sulphur Springs is kind of cool in a dilapidated-but-trying kind of way, but the drive there at sunset in the summer is beautiful. Oh my. But we were running late so no stopping for photo ops, plus the skeeters were hitting the windshield about 400 per minute. Seriously. *pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip*

The Spa Motel, not the least bit photogenic, went for $70 a night and has an outdoor pool that runs about 105 to 110 degrees, and an indoor that's a little warmer. Nice soak after a long drive, and again in the crisp morning it was even better.

We went downtown and took a look ...


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This belongs in an existing forum thread but hey.

A friend of mine is now responsible for creating a newsletter (I don't know how many pages) on a PC. He's fed up with Word and wonders what application is less irritating to use for this. Assume money is no object, I think if InDesign is the consensus, then he can get it. However I think the learning curve on ID might be too much... too many tools he'll never use and the tools he needs are all over the place. This guy is okay with computers but his job is on the North Slope Alaskan oilfields.

I hesitate to say it but I think Publisher might be a good choice, but I've never used it so I don't know. It could have all the annoyances of Word and none of the Power.

Suggestions?

edit: Thanks in advance. I will send along your comments here in a few days.

Seeing Pod's tutorial, I think that may be what he needs: Not more software, but more knowledge. He has Word already and I've seen some ...


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I got a few blurry shots of the recent eclipse and composited them into one:



But: Bozeman, Montana photographer Chad Trettin did it right. We had clouds off and on... looks like it was mostly clear up in Bozeman. He said this took 3-1/2 hours total.

The policemen were gathered in the alley, relaxing after the arrest. Someone had reported a suspicious person behind the High School auditorium. The suspect left a trail of clothes behind in his short sprint for freedom, and one officer gathered the things to put in the cruiser’s trunk: A jacket, a pair of gloves. Not unusual for an early spring evening and the cop held them out for the handcuffed young man to identify.

“These yours?”

A shake of the head, no.

“No? Whose are they?” The officer pressed.

“Oh! Yes--I mean yes, they’re mine.” A reflexive glance to the roofline and quickly back to the ground.

The policeman rolled his eyes and got the others’ attention. He jabbed a finger toward the building. The brick wall had a rain spout leading from the roof, a window with heavy louvers and a few other footholds, but only one of the group was actually younger than the building. Being a cop in this town was a good second-life job. ...


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So I was at some peoples' house this one time? Yeah. I didn't really know them but my aunt did and she said why don't you come to dinner at Kimiko's with me? So I did and Kimiko and Joe had this swell postwar bungalow in Berkeley and invited my aunt and me, some other people and some other people who brought their two kids, ages like 9 and 13? Yeah. So Kimiko prepared really frackin' nice sushi, sashimi whatever that I really didn't care for but you can just look at it and see it's hard work to make. Some of it was vegi which was better than raw fish but I like sushi okay now but then not so much and I didn't like vegetables either but I tried very very hard to clean my plate and protested that I'd had to eat a late lunch at work so I probably wouldn't be eating much tonight (that would be a first) so anyway I gave it all I had. The dinner went on and the conversation went on about the one guy who made solar ovens and how he could get a sustained 275 using ...


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There's a forum for discussion , this Journal is only for Info.

Coyote tracks in the algae, Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Justine and Scott from Wyoming are officially giving notice: There will be an RP Meetup just outside Yellowstone National Park. Date is firm: August 11, 2007.

Ironically, we are thinking the best place to have our shindig would be Red Lodge, Montana. It's at the foot of the Beartooth Mountains, a spectacularly scenic drive into the Park, and an hour from BIL, Billings' airport. Billings is usually the least expensive option for flying in, but COD, Cody, Wyoming is handy and sometimes competitive. Rental cars out of Cody ding you for mileage sometimes, and you'll put on a lot of miles.

Red ...


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This is a Q&A/FAQ Journal from the Phine Phound Photos phorum. I'll post new photos there, but link back to this journal to explain what's going on... Everything below was originally posted in the forum.

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I'm scanning the negatives from the vaults of a local photographer dating back to before Powell was incorporated. The current batch is a mystery box with no names or dates. But I'll post a few that are sort of interesting now and then...

katzendogs wrote:

The original photographer (fairly sure these are all his so far) was a guy named Lucier who set up shop in about 1910. He sold to (I forget) who then sold to Laing. Laing looked for a buyer for quite a long time and several people were interested in buying the building, but without the building, the photo equipment ...


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Agnes Rocks!



And they arrived on my birthday!

We arrived in California before Christmas, and have been pretty quiet, hanging out at Grandma's and just relaxing. But why go all this way and not go to the ocean? The kids were feeling a little puny for most of our time here, and Augusta still has a little cough, but we decided that we could make a quick trip over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of our favorite places in California and Charlie's at an age that he'd be able to have a little fun--Augusta's been there before and was thrilled by the place. So we mentioned it to OlderThanDirt, who quickly offered us a spare bedroom and took a day off to run around town with us. His wife joined us too, she's a schoolteacher and school's out 'til Monday. Boosiewolf then saw me online and asked if we had any plans... she happened to have the same days off as our trip to the aquarium, so she made the drive up and met us for lunch, then we descended on the aquarium. After a good 4 hours there, we went back to the ...


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I'm going to be scanning a ton of old photos soon. I have two broad concerns I'd appreciate some advice on.

1. Very old (ca. 1910) film negs and glass plates. Handling concerns now (is this stuff subject to vinegaring etc?), scanning advice for B&W negs, and handling/archiving for continued survival. Also digital archiving methods (DNG vs. everything else)

2. Cataloging methods. Best tools for writing metadata, any tips on how to document subjects, whether to print a hard copy index (I think a web-based index makes most sense) etc.

I have to worry that I'll get halfway thru this and find out there's a better way! If there are sites you recommend, I'll read 'em. Thanks!

This lawn chair is older than I am. Check it out: Wood arms, plus it's a rocking chair. I re-webbed it every so often (this time in UWyo Cowboys colors) and took it everywhere. I remember it at grandma's house, and it would bite kids occasionally. I think it knew it was grandpa's first and foremost. So I parked my carcass in it last night to enjoy a quite large G&T and the bar across the front there broke clean in two, where a screw holds the webbing. What a grim disaster!