Fun with Photo Booth

Who says babysitting isn't fun?  Anything is fun when you have Photobooth and an uncle as cool as me!

Me and my PS3

As you may know, a few months ago I became the proud owner of a PS3 Metal Gear Solid Edition. In plain English, that means I got the last model that supports PS2 backwards-compatibility. Still lost? It plays PS2 games too. Moving on...

I'm actually glad I got that particular model. I've read things from Sony saying most people don't utilize the backwards compatibility, but MOST people that own a PS3 also own a PS2. I however came from the dark side, so all I have is an dusty Xbox that only works sometimes.

Recently I got a couple games for my Playstation, the first being an older PS2 game that has a large following, Shadow of the Colossus. My brother is addicted to this game and found a copy for me this year for Christmas. I'm going to say this is one of the better games I've played on any console or computer. It's a surprisingly simplistic, easy to follow, and highly addictive RPG. I'm normally not a RPG fan, but this is a rare exception. Bottom line, if you've never played this game then you definitely should!

Tonight I started another game, Call of Duty: World at War. This is a continuing series of a very popular FPS. I played one of them a few years ago, but I never played past the first level. I played through around 4 levels tonight and I was highly impressed with the gameplay. It seemed like a good balance of action and strategy. Again, a game I would recommend to anyone looking for a good FPS. The best part of this game is it's the ONLY PS3 game that supports 4 person co-op play (that I know of at least).

Taking a Deep Breath

As of yesterday, I took the final for my Nursing class and wrapped up my 2nd semester of Nursing school.  Whew...I'm half way through.  I don't think I realized how exhausted I had become this semester until this week.  For some reason our mind seems to hide from us our emotions and feelings when we're in a situation where we have to perform to the best of our ability.

Since starting Nuring school, I've become friends with several people in my class.  Never before have I EVER felt that I really needed other people's support to make it through something.  It's not that I couldn't make it on my own, but the support of other people makes life's struggles (school) much more manageable.  A shout out to all my classmates!

Since I don't normally work on Wednesdays, and I didn't have to be at school today, I decided to take the day off.  Man, was it nice!  I got some things done that have been looming for a few months, and also had a few minutes to sit down and relax as well.  It's been a while since I really felt that I NEEDED a day off.  I always WANT a day off, but I think if my classes had gone one more week I would have cracked.

Smokin' it up

When we bought our house, the people before left us a smoker out in the back yard, but until recently I hadn't used it. I suppose the reason I hadn't used it was because I was scared for some reason. Scared of failure I guess.

As you may have read on my sister's blog, we split half a cow last month and I had some beef short ribs that were screaming my name. So I looked up a recipe online and away I went. Did I mention I did all this while Jerilyn was out of town so I could have them all to myself?

The verdict: pretty tasty, I smoked them for 2 1/2 hours and then transfered them to the crockpot slathered in barbecue sause to finish them off and render some of the fat off of them. As you can see, I smoked 4 slabs and 2 of them were really good, while the other two were still tasty, but there was really too much fat on them to be worth it. I still have a package or two in the freezer, so I'll probably be doing these again.

OH...did I mention?

Feast your eyes on my latest toy. Yes, it's the MGS4 bundle, and yes it's all mine!!! Yes I have beat the game, and yes it was awesome!

I'll have to write a little about switching platforms. Back about 5 years ago I bought an Xbox mainly because of the whole Halo craze, and for the most part I loved it. Great multiplayer games, easy to use, and easily "modded" (thanks Justin!) When Xbox360 was released I was extremely close to buying one but couldn't fine one to be bought. My desire waned, and eventually turned to a slight bit of relief after I heard of the horrible problems with the first generation models. Then Sony released the PS3, and I'll have to admit, I balked when it first came out. I guess I was just against it because I had always been an Xbox type of guy and I didn't want to give it a chance, but after we bought an HDTV last year I've had the itch for a Blu-Ray player and I just couldn't pass this sweet baby up when my mother-in-law gave us $500 smackaroos to spend on "something fun". This was 3 weeks ago and I haven't looked back. I'll have to say, switching gaming platforms is very similar to switching policital parties. Some people really don't care, and enjoy the best of both worlds, some people welcome you with open arms, and others talk to you like you're crazy and couldn't imagine uprooting your loyalties and giving your money to a company like SONY...like it's worse than giving money to Microsoft???

I don't care...I love it!

I call it "scheduled" procrastination

In the spirit of procrastination, I'm sitting here at my computer at nearly 11 p.m. with a test looming at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning but I'm doing everything but studying. Instead I'm going to entertain you for a bit and throw together a compilation of some of the PhotoBooth pics I've taken on my computer since somewhere around late last year. Hope you enjoy them, and if you're viewing this between 8 and 9 tomorrow morning please be thinking of me.

Back to the "Real" World

After a week of riding my bicycle through the wilderness of the Great Allegheny Passage and the historic C&O Canal trail it's kind of weird to come back to the "real" world. The funny thing to me, is the 335 miles my cyclocomputer clocked over 6 days seemed pretty "real" to me. I saw things over the past week that I honestly didn't thing I would ever see, nor did I even know exist. I saw towns where battles that shaped our country were fought, I saw one of the biggest wonders of the modern world, I saw some of the most beautiful areas in the country, and I saw the nation's capital with my own two eyes. Now I'm trying to swallow the idea of driving back to Springfield and going back to work and school. Sometimes there just isn't enough time to soak it all in.

**Update, if you would like to see some more pics of the trip you can go here.

Panoramas

Here's a few panorama shots I took on our trip out west in early June. I'm not sure what to do with them, so I thought I'd share them, enjoy.

Snake River - Grand Teton NP

Many Glacier - Glacier NP

Little Missour River - Theodore Roosevelt NP

Theodore Roosevelt NP

Waterton Lakes National Park - Alberta Canada

The Katy Trail

This weekend my friend Tyler and I set out on the Katy Trail.  The Katy is a rail trail that traverses 220 miles of missouri, most of which follow the Missouri River.  We didn't ride the entire trail due to time constraints, but we did manage to pack in almost 160 miles in 2 days.  Our starting point was Boonville, MO which is slightly west of Columbia, and our ending point was St. Charles, MO.  This is our big training ride for the Allegheny Trail and C&O towpath we plan to ride in August.

**Update - I just added my little bro's blog on the right hand column, be sure to check it out.  Or go to http://natesdarkroom.blogspot.com he's usually got some cool stuff and also some good music.  Sorry it took me so long to add you Nate!  OH..I would also like to point out that just recently, my blog recieved it's 3000th hit.  So that officially puts me into the category of, "Blogs that Almost Nobody Reads", but I don't care.  Friday is also the 1 year anniversary of my very first post...if you don't remember it, then go back and read it!

Painful Memories

One thing I have found to be true of any vacation, adventure, or any other life experience is that whatever it is, it's always more memorable when there's some sort of pain or struggle involved. Things that you must overcome to accomplish what you're set out to do, or something that makes your goal just a little more difficult to reach.

A couple weeks ago I bought a new bicycle to hopefully help me accomplish a 340 mile-long bicycle trail. In August we're planning on riding the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal Towpath trail which connect to one another to form a complete passage from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington DC.

I'll have to admit, even I was a bit skeptical when my friend Tyler proposed the idea to me. I'll have to admit again, that I still have my doubts, but I'm going to give it my best shot anyway.

Yesterday we did our first "training" ride from Springfield to Boliver and back on the Frisco Highline Trail. The Frisco is a 35 mile rail-trail that was completed a few years ago by Ozark Greenways. 70 miles is the longest ride I have ever done in my life and I really didn't know how well I would fare, but I made it and I'm still here the next day (albeit I'm a little sore.)

Here's some of our stats from my trusty Cateye cyclocomputer:
Total Riding Time: 7 hrs 55 min 55 sec
Total Distance: 72.75 miles (this includes some riding around in bolivar)
Average Speed: 9.1 mph
Max Speed: 19.1 mph

Total Distance ridden on my "new" bike: 127.3 miles (in 2 weeks), I'm pretty proud of myself!

It's almost that time...

In exactly 6 days I embark with my wife and 2 friends on what I hope will be one of my best adventures yet. We will be spending 8 days in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and South Dakota. I know, it's not a enough time to even scratch the surface on any one of those states, but I've never been to any of them, and it's darn near time! Besides, if I don't go, I may not be able to afford it later if gas keeps going up!

Our first destination is Glacier NP in NW Montana where we will spend 2 or 3 days. Hopefully we'll get to visit the Canadian side of the park as well. Then we make our way down through Idaho where we will then enter the W side of Yellowstone, where we will spend another 3 or 4 days. Then we'll be on our way back where we'll make our way through South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore, and possibly the new Crazyhorse monument. If I'm lucky maybe I'll even see Wall Drug! I think the best part of the whole trip is we have absolutely NO plans whatsoever! That means we go where we want to go, and see what we want to see!

I thought air transit was supposed to be easy.

OK, so here I sit in Washington Dulles airport, someplace I'd rather not be, and also some place that I wasn't supposed to be today. Where do I start, oh let's see, last night we drove to KC to spend the night in order to be ready for our 0600 flight to Chicago O'Hare, which had been delayed to 1030 as soon as we checked in at 0445. Because of the delay we were going to miss our connection in Chicago to Norfolk, so our other option was to try to get on a jet to Washington (where I am now) as long as there were 3 openings, which there were. We were told when we left KC that there was a flight at 1230 that left Washington for Norfolk that we may be able to get on if there was room, otherwise we would have to take the plane that left Washington at 1541. As soon as we arrived here in Washington we checked on it. Guess what, the flight for 1230 had been delayed until 1600, but the flight we're actually booked on is still on-time for 1541.

I must interject a bit of positive feedback to the Washington Dulles Airport, this pizza place we ate at called "Famous Famiglia" was FABULOUS! I had a Pepperoni Stromboli and some garlic knots and it was probably the best pizza I'd had in a while! They also have these shuttle vehicles that look like something from Star Wars, it was quite a ride I must say! I was wondering where the blaster cannons were to shoot the snow speeders as they whizzed by!

It really doesn't matter to me when we get there, but we're supposed to be at a wedding in Norfolk at 1900, so I hope for everyone else's sake we show up on time.

I guess I might understand why it's so difficult to run an airline from the perspective of scheduling hundreds of flights per day, mandatory pilot rest hours, Federal regulations, etc., but man it's sure frustrating when good money has been spent to get somewhere. It seems to me that you must put ALL faith in the airline, there is absolutely NO guarantee on arrival times, and you really have NO options as a measly passenger in a ginormous airport (or any airport for that matter). I'm all for less regulations, letting private industry manage themselves, and making nothing "mandatory," but like I already said, "man it's frustrating."

No time for adventures

As I sit here in my man room, otherwise knows as the second bedroom, I look around at my cool things like my wake skate that I only use a couple times a year, my shotgun, my 2 way radios, and my cool new water pump and I loathe studying. I wish I could be out doing something cooler than studying the urogenital system and why people have chronic respiratory diseases. Why does everything so urgently consume my precious time? I look down at my dog and realize that he really doesn't have any agenda, no plans other than eating, playing and sleeping, and sometimes I wish I was the dog.

Goodnight.

Swan Creek Float

As you may have expected from my last post, we did a float trip this weekend that turned out to be pretty fun, uncomfortable (for some), and best of all memorable.

We floated Swan Creek here in southwest Missouri. We started in Garrison and ended in Forsyth which by the way of the river is about 18 miles. We got on the water around 3 p.m. Friday afternoon and made it about 6 miles that afternoon before we found a nice place to set up camp. We had heard of the possibility of strong thunderstorms that night, so we found a place to set the tent that was high enough we would have no chance of getting swamped if the river level came up quickly overnight. Much to our delight, we only received a few light showers and some pretty spectacular thunder and lightning.

Tyler and I sampled a few select dehydrated meals from Backpacker's Pantry and Mountain House. We both had the Beef Stroganoff for dinner which was suprisingly good. For dessert I went the simple route with a Mocha Mousse Pie while Tyler had the Hot Apple Cobbler which required a bit more work but turned out really good! For breakfast I had the Scrambled Eggs with Bacon and Tyler had the Huevos Rancheros. Now that I have told you all the things we had I'll review them all. The Beef Stroganoff tasted great and the best part was you just add hot water, stir and let it sit for 8-9 minutes. I had the single serving serving (14 oz), and Tyler had the 2 serving (20 oz) with was only 6 ounces more. I thought the single portion was plenty, but had I been REALLY hungry I would have wished for the larger size. As far as desserts go, the Mousse was pretty much like a thick pudding with a gram cracker topping. I think you were supposed to mix it in a bowl, but I just mixed it in the pouch. Tyler had to put his Apple Cobbler in a pan and cook it on the camp burner which was a little more work. For breakfast, the eggs and bacon were about as good as dehydrated scrambled eggs and bacon can be, but the best part is you can also cook them in the bag. Tyler's Huevos Rancheros had to be cooked on the stove in the pan. Again, if you're looking for something that can be cleaned up easily, make sure it can be cooked in the bag, that way you just throw away the bag and you don't have to wash your pot. I did get a chance to try out my new Katadyn Vario water filter I mentioned last week. I pumped around 4 litres of water through it and it worked great! Most of it was used for cooking but I did drink about half a liter and it tasted fine (still much like river water but fine).

Now that I'm done reviewing our cuisine I'll talk more about the float itself. No more than 2 minutes into our morning departure Daniel somehow managed to dump his kayak on a shallow set of rapids marking the first memorable part of the day. The next 20 minutes or so were spent ringing out his winter coat and backpack, emptying out his kayak and changing clothes. For the next 2 miles or so, Daniel was undoubtedly freezing as the water was no doubt in the 50's and the air wasn't much warmer. Then he dumped his kayak again, sending his kayak floating downstream upside down and loose items floating away. As Tyler and I quickly paddled to recover Daniel's belongings floating downstream, he stumbled on to a sandbar wet and freezing. Fortunately this was the last time Daniel would flip his kayak since he had now exhausted his own supply of dry clothes and was now tapping into my supply. The next 9 miles were pretty uneventful, but there were some very nice sets of rapids one after another. We did scrape on the shallow rapids quite a bit which made me wish for more rain the night before as the river could have used an extra several inches of water. If the river had another foot or two we would have been in store for a REALLY good ride! We pulled out of the water around 3 p.m. Saturday after putting in a little after 10 a.m. All in all, we were on the water around 6 1/2 to 7 hours so we would have averaged almost 3 mph.

I would probably only recommend this float to someone who has a kayak as you would probably be dragging a canoe on several sections. I have heard that the Swan is a really good ride after a good rain because there are some class III spots which would then be floatable in a canoe but just be prepared to get a little wet. To end this post, the absolute best part of the river was the water clarity which we were all impressed by.

Motorbike ride

Yesterday, Tyler and I went for a motorbike ride to check out the Swan Creek since that is the river we're considering floating this weekend. We went down Hwy 125 through Chadwick and the first place we stopped was Garrison, MO where 125 crosses the Swan, then we got out the Gazeteer (if you don't have a Gazeteer, GET ONE!) and found a back road to connect over to AA Hwy and then to H. I go through this whole story just to tell you that when we got to H Hwy we went by a house that looked JUST LIKE Justin and Kasie Fisher's house (I saw the picture on her blog). So we turned around and I went up and knocked on the door to see, much to my delight it was and not some hillbilly with a shotgun. Although Kasie does have a pellet gun by the door! That's really the only interesting part of the story, other than I was freezing by the time we got back to Springfield because it was only 42 degrees. It sure felt good to take a ride on the motorbike though!

My brand new toy!

So I splurged the other day and bought a backcountry water filter. It's the Katadyn Vario. I haven't used it yet, but I'm sure a review is in the works in the next couple weeks. Here's some pics for you to oogle at. As you will no doubt notice, it screws directly onto your trusy nalgene bottle so you don't have to fiddle with another hose (unless you want to). Here are some of the other highlights: double action pump handle, 2 stage filter system including a ceramic disk and glass fiber filter with activated charcoal to remove weird tastes, 2 pumping modes (high volume, or longer life), 500 gallon filter life (under ideal conditions).

Packaged Media vs. Digital Downloads

Now that the Blu Ray/HDDVD war is over, the Blu Ray people are probably wanting me to rush out and buy that set top box I've been eyeing. But wait a minute...I'm a cheapskate...those things are $400 bucks and I don't really see myself spending $30 each on the discs (I got suckered it to buying a few $30 dollar DVD's when they were hot). I'm also a bit cynical and I have to believe there is something out there that will eventually overtake Blu-Ray. Oh wait, there is...it's called Digital Downloads! I know some of you out there are probably saying yea right, there's no way digital copies will ever outsell hard copies of movies, but I beg to differ. Just look at the music industry, Album sales dropped 9.5% in 2007 and digital sales surged 45% according to an article on the NY Times website. Do we really thing the same won't happen for movies? Apple just revamped the Apple TV to include movie rentals directly from your TV, meaning you don't have to download them to your computer first, you just click on your remote and you watch the movie without ever leaving your recliner. Several other companies are doing the same types of things. Netflix has all ready instituted a download service in an attempt to get a share of the downloaded media market. Amazon is supposedly starting up it's own service called "Amazon Unbox" for movie purchases and rentals.

So now what do I do, purchase a Digital Download set top box, just use my MacBook to play back movies to my TV, or just pony up the cash for a Blu-Ray player that is going to go obsolete in a few years anyway? Let's just all remember that I'm a cheapskate that fully believes someone should make the perfect piece of hardware at an unbelievably cheap price for me to use for years to come without going completely out of date...am I living in disillusion?? probably! If someone would make a set top box that had a Blu-Ray drive in it so I could play Blu-Ray movies if I wanted to, AND a digital download feature that would download movies over the internet I would probably consider it. But I said the same thing about set top boxes that played Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs, and those turned out to be $800 bucks! Ooh, I have another idea...maybe we should put the government in control of deciding the whole mess! Maybe I need to just be content with my trusty standard definition DVD's. That government part was heavily sarcastic just in case nobody caught that.

The real reason I write this is so that you all understand the options out there and you don't go out and spend your hard earned money on something that may be obsolete in a few years. I'm not saying not to, I'm just saying buyer beware. Please feel free to post any comments you have about the whole situation.

Microfilm

I know what you're thinking, this is an adventure blog, so why is he writing about microfilm? Well, let me explain, I was at the library today doing some research on the City Flag for a video at work when I ran across the front page of the newspaper the day I was born. Maybe that doesn't constitute an adventure, but it's kind of cool anyway.

Everyone always told me that it snowed on my birthday (April 14, 1980), but somehow it just didn't seem real. So it was interesting to see the front page describe an irregular snow in mid-April. I scanned the article so everyone could see it too. Also, notice the very top...Cards Falter. You don't know how happy it makes me to read that!

When the women are away the boys will....cook?

Since Jerilyn is gone until Tuesday I thought it would be proper to cook up some "man food" around here. So I broke out the deep fryer and cooked me up some buffalo wings and fries. It's not very often that I use the deep fryer cause it sinks up the house so much, but I figured I'm the only one that will have to suffer. Once again I used the all knowing Joy of Cooking cookbook. They had the original recipe from the bar that actually invented buffalo wings in Buffalo, New York. The only thing that I could tell that was different was you use 2 Tbps red wine vinegar with the sauce mixture.

While I was at it, I sliced up a couple potatoes and made some fries to go along with the wings. Not too bad if I say so myself.

I'll leave you with a picture of something else us boys have been doing a lot of this weekend, sleeping.

OK...seriously...this isn't fun anymore!

Sorry to all of you who read this...I've been complaining a lot lately. I'm so tired of ice I could scream, I had classes canceled today AFTER I was all ready at school, and the dog won't go out to pee! Most of the time weather doesn't bother me, but for some reason obscene amounts of ice seem to affect the daily living a bit more (and for a bit longer) than some weather patterns.

Our area has been cursed this year with some of the worst ice I've seen in my entire life living in Springfield. Just over a year ago we had the worst ice storm our area had seen in more than 50 years, and this winter so far we've had 3 more less severe (but almost equally frustrating) ice storms. Here's some of my pics for today. My favorite is Oliver being a wienie walking on the icy grass, he looked disabled walking around (I almost felt sorry for him, he went from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. without peeing). I surely couldn't hold it for that long.