What I did on my Summer Vac

I just looked at the last time I actually posted something and realized it was before summer vacation. And it reminded me of when I was a kid and had just gone back to school in the fall and the teacher had us write the essay, what did you do on your summer vacation. Being a kid who lived on a farm it was milked the cows, made hay, cultivated corn, weeded corn, vacation bible school, and swimming lessons.

This summer as you can see started out with another hike up Half Dome in Yosemite. I did it with my old Navy buddy his wife and a close friend of his wife. For me it was the third time I had done the hike so I knew what to prepare for. It was a good hike and we all had fun.

After returning from Yosemite it was get ready for our first real road trip since I retired. WB was done for the summer so we loaded the Camry up with all our stuff and headed out. The main goal of the trip was Banff National Park in Canada. We started the trip by going to Glacier National Park in the US. A must see place if you have not been there. There was still lots of snow so we could not take the going to the Sun highway across the park. But the waterfalls, wildlife were out in full force. After three days of camping it was off to Canada and the town of Banff. The Canadian Rockies again are a must see. We stayed in Canada for seven days and did all of the tourist stuff. Took the Ice field tour on the big bus that drive on the Glacier. Drove the full length of the Ice fields parkway like three times. Stayed in Jasper at the North end of the Park. Lots and lots of stuff to see. In total we took almost 700 pictures. Much more than I could ever upload.
There was lots of animals to see, Elk, black Bears, Grizzly bears, Big Horn Sheep, Mountain Goats, Moose, and even a Wolverine. A very rare event. The guy standing next to us told us after seeing it he had lived and worked in the woods in the Canadian Rockies for 20 years and had only seen one other Wolverine. But the photo that best describes what happens when someone sees and animal along the drive is the one of of the folks taking photos. Almost more entertaining than the animal itself. I don't think in the 1800's people would have taken the same approach to see a bear, elk, etc.

With so many pictures, it is now time for a new computer. Stay tuned for what I get. I think I will try to post once a week with a review of the previous week of what a retired guy does.

23.3 OZ

After much thinking and help from Mrs H. on seam selection my new backpacking tent is done. Well almost I still have one small piece of netting to put in by the door. And it is a tent with no floor so I have to find a small piece of Tyvek house wrap. I found the drawings on line and made the pattern out of newspaper. The material came from Seattle Fabrics the only place I could find the material I wanted. I did not pick the lightest nylon called for since my cheap side kicked in and could not cough up the extra $5.oo per yard to save 0.7 ounces. It turned out a little longer than I like. The person who designed it made it long so you would have some shelter to eat inside and not get in the way of your sleeping area. It takes six stakes and uses my hiking poles for poles. I might make a couple of additions like a sewn in floor and maybe a couple of side pull outs. If I made it over I would make it two feet shorter.

Next step try it out. And keep the total weight with floor and stakes under 32 ounces. A savings of almost two pounds from the tent I used before.

Raw

I wanted to post a picture taken with my new camera. But the files are bigger than this site allows. So hence the photo of my latest idea. A clothes line for drying clothes. WB got the line for $.50 at garage sale so I thought I would try it out. In Southern Ca we always used a clothes line.

Last week WB and I went to Yosemite for four days of camping. While we were there I decided to take a few pictures using the RAW file format with my new camera. I took about 10 using the RAW format and about 80 using the JPEG format. Using the RAW format you get every pixel just like when using film nothing is deleted when the file is saved. When I got home and was done downloading into Photoshop I could not find the RAW files. I had thought Photoshop would convert them. I checked the camera and they were still there. So I loaded the software that came with the camera which can download and open the files. After about 30 minutes of downloading, registering, and rebooting the computer I hooked up the camera and started. I had 10 pictures using the RAW format. The 80 JPEG files downloaded like in 2 minutes or less. After 5 Min's of work I finally had 10 RAW photos downloaded. And my hard drive space was noticeably smaller. But everything is there. The other thing I learned was that I cannot run any other program while it is converting the files. I usually stay on-line and maybe had a Spreadsheet or two open. But when working with those files I found if I am running anything else just go away and have a cup of coffee while the computer grinds away computing all those little pixel changes you just made. So now I just run the one program and it works OK. Still I have only gotten one file to Photoshop. I guess today I go into help section and see what I am doing wrong. Last thing 80 more RAW files and my hard drive is full. Next stop a new machine with 500 G of hard drive vs 40 and a faster engine.

After much thinking...

After much thinking like more than a year I finally bought a DSLR. I read all the reviews for the Sony Alpha 100 which did quite well but had a few short comings. I waited for Sony to release there Pro model the 700 which also came with a Pro price. I watched as they came out with live view for their next generation DSLR's. But in the end the 200 seemed to fit my needs. I saved enough money by not buying the 700 to buy a nice lens soon. Digital Camera Review just completed a review of the kit lenses which comes with my purchase which said good lens to learn with, than upgrade. Something I plan on doing. So off to open the box to make sure there really is a camera in their. Later....

Spring is coming

Spring is here which means the REI dividend check arrived in the mail last week. With the great 20% off coupon and my dividend it only cost $14.00 to get the new day pack I have had my eye on for at least six months. The weather is also been getting warmer lately meaning no more winter bike riding gear. And the trees in the neighborhood are starting to bloom. Still working on that new DSLR. I thought Best Buy had a great price on the one I have been thinking about but turned out it was no better than the price at Sony.com. I think now I will wait until the Sony Alpha 300 with live view is available and than buy.

Off for a bike ride:)

It Snooooooowed...

This last weekend I went to Yosemite to ski to Glacier Point with some old MDT friends and stay in the lodge for two nights. As you can tell by the pictures it snowed. Driving in at zero dark thirty on Friday I think I was the second car over Highway 120 through the park to the valley. It was snowing and about six inches of snow was on the road and no plow in sight. Needless to say the WRX with all wheel drive did great. We all meet at 9:00 at the Cross Country shop at Badger pass. By 9:30 everyone was ready to go and it was snowing very hard. Our guide Rick said it normally would take about 5 hours to ski the 10.25 miles to Glacier Point. Boy was he wrong. The last three people came in about 6:15 pm. Or almost 9 hours. In the summer Glacier Point is a zoo. Lots of people looking at the view of Half Dome and down into the valley. As you can see we had it to ourselves just 8 people, most of Saturday. Saturday morning was clear and cold when I got up. Only one other person got up as early as me. Rick our guide said he usually gets up and breaks a trail to the overlook but Kathy and I beat him to it. He did warn us that to not to get too close to the edge since he usually marked the line of death as he called it. In the winter there is a cornice on the point. As he told us go to far and the next stop is Curry village. But once we snow shoed out there you could see a faint line where the snow settled by the stone wall that in the summer is jammed with people.

Food was good and the other group that came up Saturday was nice so we had 17 in the lodge for Saturday. It snowed all night and when we got up Rick and the other guide were not sure we could get out. Highway 41 and the road to Badger pass were closed due to snow. But around 8:30 he got a call that they were going to groom the road to Glacier and that 41 was going to open in a couple of hours. So, off we went. Once the trail was groomed we had some perfect skiing until the storm filled in the track. A couple of us just put our heads down and pushed hard. Only 4 1/2 hours to ski out. Only to find the car buried up to the door handles with snow. About 1 1/4 hours later it was dug out with some help from a park ranger, a couple of guys from the ski area, and the snow cat with its nice big blade to move snow. We even got the other peoples cars dug out who were still on the trail. Hopefully I can stay in good shape etc so in 10 to 12 years I can do a Grandpa and Granddaughter trip. Time will tell.

The falls will be great come spring. I am headed back with WB on Mar 26 for some camping. Guests welcome.

Photos and Computers

I try and write on my Blog once a week but it seems to work out to once a month. Anyway this year I decided to organize my photos. I finally completed loading all the photo CD's I had into Photoshop. I now have almost 6,000 picutres on my hard drive. And they are all backed up on an external drive. WB was nice enough to let me use the dinning room table to short out the boxes of photos, negatives etc that I have. Still not sure how best to arange and store everything. This does not include 20 plus years of taking slides that are in slide boxes and those round trays for showing. That will be another day.

On to computers. Over Christmas I know three families who got new I-Macs for presents. Including Mr and Mrs H. Now that it has been a couple of months I have had a chance to use Mrs H's I-Mac and talk with the other users. It has been and interesting conversation. I think everyone including myself was taken in by the adds that I-Mac's are easy to use. But when I ask they all start with there is a learning curve. But once you learn it is nice. And than they say except for example the key board could be better (three comments), internet browser, loading drivers. For me I noticed there are no slots for your camera memory cards. A feature I really wanted.

So, is it really better? This weekend I went Sking with a couple who were one of the three. The Husband said yes some learning but great, the wife said Ok but a little hard to get used to. And when she commented that Turbo Tax did not work as well as on a Windows system I think that made up my mind that I will stick with Microsoft. I use Turbo Tax and it's brother Quciken. And if Turbo Tax does not work well Quicken will be a problem I fear. Plus being a really cheap guy I had a hard time coughing up an extra $500 to $700 to get a smaller hard drive and less memory the two things you really need these days. So it is off to Costco to look at a machine that is rated one of the top five by by cnet.com. And it has TV included.

Stay tuned a new machine is not in the budget for another month. Which is when I need to buy Quicken 2008, since they no longer will support Quicken 2005 and I will not beable to download to that old program. Something I do every week.

A new Year

Last year I rode my bike 6,278 miles or a little over 17 miles a day. I rode more miles than I drove my WRX. I think I can say I did my part to help Global Warming. At the beginning of each year I drive WB crazy by doing the annual budget. We are fairly cheap as anyone would tell you but WB hates thinking that we should budget things. So this year I decided I would budget some things I had been wanting. My bike had something like 15,000 miles on it since it's last really good tune up. So I went all out. When I went to pay my annual Gym bill I asked if I could save some money by coming at off peak hours. I pay once a year and you get 12 months for the price of 11 months. She said sure you can only come between 11:00am and 4:00pm. for a savings of $200.00 per year. Everything else stayed the same even the free coffee. I get a cup each time I go. At Starbucks that would be $1.35 I think. When I checked on how my bike was going the mechanic showed me the completely worn out bearing races on the old front wheel. He thought maybe he could still find those parts but not sure. Having just saved $200.00 I said how about a whole new wheel. $154.00. But it is soooo nice. I had been riding on the REI special $13.00 tires not bad but they are sized small and when installed they are not quite round so it made for a bumpy ride all the time. But I got over 4,000 miles on them. Still having some extra cash I opted for new tires the most expensive I have ever bought $39.95 each. It is so nice to have wheels that are now round and trued perfectly. Last but not least I wanted a new stem and bars. All the new bikes have black bars. I went to the Ritchey web site and picked out a ergonomically designed bar and new stem. Now that everything is installed and paid for today was my first ride with all the new parts, tune up including a new chain and brake pads. Rode like a brand new bike. The bars are great they are angled back to match the angle of your wrist when you ride with your hands on top, and the drops have an extra curve to match your palm to help relieve pressure. Oh so sweet.

I also budgeted for a new I-Mac. Mrs H received one from Santa and my two good friends that I still see got I-Mac's for Christmas. Now I need to decide which one. I know it will be the 20" screen but not sure if I want the $1,100 or the $1,400 one. Any suggestions? The main difference seems to be in the clock speed of the chip that runs the thing and some extra memory that I think runs the screen. Lastly I am going to get a good Digital SLR, I have finally decided on the Sony Alpha 700 body and have just started researching which lens to buy with it. And knowing me it will take a while. Given the melt down of the stock market mainly my good old employer MDT things could change.

Visiting Yosemite every month of the year was also on the list. So far that one is not being meet.

Enough for now off to fix dinner for WB.

Thirty Eight and counting...

Thirty eight years and counting. That is how long as of today WB and I have been married. Last year at year 37 I took in the paper to WB as I do each morning so she can read it in bed when she awakes. Last year when she woke up she looked at the paper and did not mention anything. So I took her card and present and than she realized she had completely forgotten our anniversary. This year she mentioned last week that she had a surprise for us on the Saturday before our anniversary and to not plan anything. Well we ended up having Biscuit and Mrs H visit. So WB said we would do our little trip on Sunday. On Sunday the weather was bad so we postponed our event until after Christmas. So this year I was sure WB would remember our anniversary. I even asked her if she wanted the good gift on our anniversary or at Christmas. As usual no answer. So when this morning arrived I got up first, got the paper put it on the pillow next to a sleeping WB. Found my card and gift and put it on the floor next to the bed. About an hour later I heard the sound of the paper being read so I went in to the bedroom. WB proceeded to say good morning and tell me about something in the paper. I made light conversation awaiting my happy anniversary and card. After a couple of minutes I produced my card and present. And WB looked puzzled for a moment and than realized she had forgotten for the second year in a row. I did get taken out for breakfast and we are going to a movies at the end of the day. We will see how next year goes.

Never to Old....

Now that the rainy season is here it is nice to have the window washer on the car to work. Just after the last rain the car ahead of me drove through a puddle and splashed dirt etc on my windshield. As you can see the little control arm says Pull Mist. I pulled, the wiper worked no mist. So when I got home I cleaned the windshield. And thought must be bad fuse. I checked all the fuses and they were good. So I came inside and went to www.Kragen.com knowing the the local Subaru dealer would get a small fortune for a washer pump. When I checked it asked do you need the pump for the rear or front wiper. Oh did not know there were two. Went out to the car and lifted the hood and looked. Low and behold two pumps. So I thought does the back washer work. So I got my keys turned the ignition to ACC. and pushed on the button at the end of the control arm. See the little symbol that looks like a wiper and says rear. And what happens the front washer sprays the window and the wipers wipe and clean off the water. So now I look in the glove box and check the owners manual. Never to Old to learn.

Off to arrange the new tricycle addition for Biscuit. We now have four trikes...

The Christmas Letter...

The Fall leaves are gone and in the compost pile in the backyard. Which means it is about time to start the annual Christmas Letter. Since I retired I have been assigned this task for the last couple of years. I have spent part of the day sorting through all the photos I took during the last year and putting them in one collection. I needed to do this so WB could select the best one or two photos to put on the top of the letter. The next task will be to make the first rough draft. I need to insure that all the highlights of the year are covered and that nothing important is omitted. Than comes the reviews by WB and a couple of rewrites. And than off to the kids for a final edit and comments. And than hopefully I can publish. Than comes the big decision should we include a sheet of pictures showing what we did all year. Usually that is omitted but each year we think about it. And finally the big, who gets the letter. It goes to all brothers and sisters, kids, cousins, and some selected friends. A couple of copies are always held in reserve to send to that person who sent us their letter so off goes our letter. Each year I hear comments from folks who do not like the annual Christmas letter since it is mostly about look at what we did. But it is kind of fun to see what other folks do and to keep up on things.

Next on the agenda is the Christmas wish list. WB said only two presents per person. We will see how long that lasts.

My Wish list:
Bike Gloves, Med My old ones are becoming mostly holes.
Bike inner tubes 25*700c Presta value, short. Used my last one last Saturday.
Picture Mat making kit. maybe some mat board also.
Steamer for cooking vegetables etc.
Fabric cutter thing that looks like a pizza cutter.
Sony Alpha 700 DSLR with 18-70mm zoom. If MDT does better I may get this one from Santa. (or me)

I just new...

This weekend we went over to Mrs H's and helped clean the Craft Room. I just knew when I saw it. That when I was done helping I would find 5 yards of orange 1.3 oz sil nylon somewhere in there. But after being assigned color sorting and folding I came up empty handed. Oh well. I an fairly good at organizing and cleaning and we did make a great difference. The youngest will have a place to sleep when she goes over on Wed for Turkey day at Mr and Mrs H's. And Grandma and Grandpa had a good time with Biscuit.

As you can see the leaves on the tree are almost gone. I found this tractor for sale while on one of my rides last week. If Mr and Mrs H had more land it would make a great fun thing to drive around with Biscuit. I could teach her how to plow. I did ride by and old barn being torn down. I told Mr and Mrs H that I could load up Mr H's truck with some fine old barn boards. I did not find too much interest there.

MDT reports earnings today I hope it is good. Later

Battle of the Hats

In my effort to post at least once a week here goes. I have two favorite hats. One is a UC Davis hat, and the other is a Cal Poly SLO hat. So each day I have to think about which one to wear when I go out. The reason is I have one daughter who went to one school and one who went to the other. When I am only visiting one daughter I wear their school hat. The problem comes when both are home or we are together somewhere else. Which hat do I wear. Do I bring both and split the time. Or do I wear one one time and than at the next get together the other. Such a problem. Oh well yesterday I wore the Cal Poly hat to the Gym so today it is the UC Davis hat when I go to lunch with some old work friends.

The tree is turning a nice color of red.

More often

Mrs H said it was national write in your Blog month. Since I have not posted anything for like two months. I thought I would try once a week as a good place to start over.

Mrs H suggested taking a picture each day and post it. I decided I would take a picture of the Maple tree out front once a week and post. As you can see it is changing color quite nicely.

I might also take a picture of the new stuff that grows in the garage from WB's garage sale adventures. We now have a baby cooler, and a new tall trash can full of stuff. I am not sure what is all in there. And I had just cleaned the garage last week for my sisters visit and could finally get to my weed whacker and blower without having to climb over stuff. Oh well.

My sister and brother-in-law from Florida visited and it was a good time. Mr an Mrs H, Biscuit and the youngest were home for a Sat of wine tasting and dinner. WB watched Biscuit during the outing and I cooked. I think a good time was had by all.

Was rather surprised how far my sister was to the right in the Republican party. Must be the water in Florida. Enough for this week.

I did it...

I did it as Biscuit says. I finished my camping quilt. The seams are not as nice and straight as Mrs H could do but they worked. Here I am trying it out on the floor of the living room. I must say I think it will work very well. It also fits in with the time of the year being orange with black ties for the quilting part. Now I think I can make my tarp tent. Off to see how much the materials will cost.

I did not know...

Two days ago before heading off to the gym I decided I needed to hard boil some eggs. I took a couple out of the container and put them in water and turned on the stove. I decided to go on line and read the news etc. I did that for a while and than started putting my stuff in my gym bag when I heard a muffled pop. I went into the kitchen and my hard boiled eggs had boiled dry. I did not know they could make such a mess when they pop from the heat. It took about an hour to clean the kitchen. I even mopped the floor. I guess I had always better set the timer.

Off to finish my project.

A new Project...

I started a new project making a camping quilt for backpacking. I also purchased the stuff bag kit for a project to do first. The stuff bag was fairly easy to do but the silicon coated nylon was really slick and a little hard to sew. But it came out OK and should function just fine. I have been going slow on the quilt so I don't goof up. I have only had to rip out one seam so far. Down to the last big step sewing it all together and turning it correct side out. I will do that later today.

I am looking forward to trying it out. The idea makes sense you crush the bottom part of the bag anyway and the pad insulates you from the ground. So why not do away with the bottom. Plus it gives you a little more wiggle room. Plus I like making my own stuff. My Pepsi can stove works great. Only weights 1/2 oz and the complete cook set only weights 7 oz. Over a pound saved off my old stove and cook set. If this project works well my next one is a tarp tent weighting in at about 12 oz.

Off to do some pinning and sewing:) I won't show any close up of my seams since I can't seem to sew as straight as Mrs H.

I can't every make up my mind...

I have been looking at the Sony Alpha 100 and the Nikon 40X for months just trying to get myself to buy one. I have after tooooooooo much thinking decided digital is the way to go.

But as my kids will tell you I take a long time to buy anything over $5.00. Went to Borders yesterday to get a magazine to help me decide on which camera. It was $6.95 so it is still at the store. Now today Sony now has a new DSLR the Alpha 700. It is soooooooo nice. And soooooooo pricey. Someday!!!! www.dpreview.com/ Click on link to see....

But on another note my next project arrived in the mail today. A little company called Ray-
Way has kits for ultralight backpackers. Well I decided to try his quilt kit as a replacement for a normal sleeping bag. Again I have been reading about this for, oh about a year and half. And finally decided to buy. So here it is still in kit form. I used to make Frostline kits all the time. They came with all the parts cut out. This came as a pattern, material, thread, and directions. With hand written corrections. Mrs H may get a few calls for advice.

In order to get to the sewing machine I had to clean out Biscuits room. I did not know she had that much stuff at our house. The hall way is full. Another project. She does have a nice little new bed. WB even found a new mattress for it a another garage sale. Along with a new kitchen batteries not included. And a neat trike with a push handle. Mrs and Mr H need to come and take home what you want......

I guess I was wrong...

I guess I was wrong about the garage starting to get cleaned out. On Saturday WB was off to her weekly garage sales. She is very good at finding things to buy at a good price. She had been gone about 30 minutes when she called and said she had found a great day bed for Biscuit. I told her I didn't think that we needed it. So an hour or so later she came home with the new trike. A good buy, I think Biscuit will enjoy riding it. A complete toy kitchen which needed batteries. In the trunk lots of plastic cooking, things and plastic food. Which we washed but I do not know where it is. For most of the day she kept telling me how great this bed was. Well around two I gave in and told her if if was still there to go get it. Well here it is. No mattress, the owner was keeping it for the $700.00 crib they had just bought. I would think for $700.00 you would get a mattress. Off to do some Biscuit room cleaning to make it all fit. Mr and Mrs H you are welcome to any of these great finds. We added the batteries and the kitchen works great even has sounds.

Don't try this at home....

Don't try this at home. You know those things that you see on TV when people do dumb things. Well two days ago after WB went to work and I was looking at all my files. I decided it was time to shred a few old things. So I made my pile which was quite large and started to shred away. The shredder I have is not known for doing large jobs so it slows down and and has to rest. It even stops if it gets to hot. Which did happen I let it cool while I cruised the Internet. After a while I thought that lube that I use on my bike cleats should help things run smoother. So I sprayed some in and it worked great. When the machine slowed down again I decided to spray some while it was going to spread the lube around better. I did and it worked much better but about a minute later flash, boom, and a large bit of hair on my forearm and leg disappeared in a flash. I thought just my luck now I have ruined the shredder. After having a car towed, now one more expense due to dumbness. But after pulling the machine apart finding nothing burnt, not even the shredded paper it came back to life. Now, I read the label on this great silicon based lube. Highly flammable!!!!! Don't try this at home.