We got off to a rocky start when at 2 a.m. Chan and I picked up our friend John at his house. We forgot the bike rack and left the trailer behind on purpose so we strapped his bike to the roof of Chan’s Suburban. When we got back to Chan’s house to load up the trailer we pulled into the garage and forgot about John’s bike! His bike (and Chan’s roof rack) were, needless to say, toast! Not a great way to start a biking adventure at all. We decided to make the best of it and take the broken bike along in the event we could make some repairs, but John would have to purchase new front shocks at the very least. His Boxxer shocks were a twisted mess and would no longer be useful.

Matt, the fourth and final participant of this great event, arrived at Chan’s house at 4:30 a.m. We packed up the trailer and left ON TIME at 5 a.m. That has NEVER happened before with this group. I was surprised and impressed.

My wife always teases me that I never tell her what we talk about on these long trips. I seriously always forget what we talk about! With that in mind I decided to keep a log of the conversation of the trip on day 1. It’s quite random, but here are some “highlights”.

John tells us about the power of magnesium.

Discussion: Are germs mobile?

Tyler and Matt discuss the merits of Windows Vista as well as the drawbacks. Both are happy about the release of Windows 7.

Driving up Spanish Fork Canyon. Chan mentions how much he hates this road. We could die on this trip if we fall asleep at the wheel. Other ways we could die: Spontaneous combustion – Matt explains, if you dove into a stream or pond that had been contaminated with potassium…upon drying you would auto ignite. It happened once to Matt’s lab coat.

Matt talks about an $8 tool that will straighten out your rear breaks.

Chan let’s us know that it’s only 44 degrees in Spanish Fork Canyon.

We reminisced about the time that John called in a fire that a train had started in Spanish Fork canyon.

John is surprised about how many entries Tyler is making in this log. The log is reviewed by Tyler. (laughter) Matt predicts the next entry will be four days from now and that it will read, “I’m so sick of this trip! John’s bike is broken and we can’t find a part to fix it!”

Chan suggests that Tyler get a buzz on this trip. He is the only one that doesn’t have one.

Tyler discusses the reason he goes to Sports Clips for his haircuts, despite the $25 cost (including tip).

John talks about his trip to California to replace stained glass windows in the NewPort Beach Temple.

Matt washes Chan’s window with his hat. It’s 33 degrees! Matt begins to wash Chan’s side of the window.

Chan is drowsy. We take turns telling stories about falling asleep at the wheel.

John says, “If I could choose a death I think I’d rather die instantly in a head-on car accident than drown.” John told a story about how he felt like he almost drowned, which is one of his worst fears. Chan related a story about how he felt close to death in Moab and Matt came to his rescue. It had something to do with falling off a rock while climbing or something.

Brother Matt believes his beard makes him a better driver. The skill level has risen. His beard resembles the beard of Mose, Dwight Schrute’s cousin on The Office.

John starts calling around to different bike shops to find himself a replacement shock for his broken bike. “Hi, I have an odd question for you. Do you have a pair of used boxer shorts?” (He meant to ask if they had a used pair of Boxxer Shocks. It was pretty funny, but maybe you had to be there.

Grass Roots Cycle hooks us up with a used shock and only charges us $20 for installation, including all the cabling that was needed after the garage incident.

John preaches to us about Magnesium some more. He reads from a pamphlet he picked up in Grand Junction while waiting for his bike to get fixed.

So, that’s a sampling of our meanderings in conversation. It’s usually quite interesting, although it’s probably not very evident. Anyhow, we got John a used front end shock ($200 cash), a new wheel and disc ($190 and $20 labor). What a freakin’ deal! $410 for a bike made new again. Crappy way to start a trip, though.

We drove to Vail, Colorado and walked around for a while. We decided to go drive South to Buena Vista, CO. We shopped at City Market and drove west of Buena Vista to find a campground to camp in. We found a campground called Collegiate Peaks Campground and pulled in at around 9pm. We set up the tent and ate dinner and got to bed at around 11:45pm. Matt, Chan and Tyler took Tylenol PM to aid in their sleep. It wasn’t the start we planned on, but we still had fun getting started.

This post describes the mundane, normal occurrences of our trip, which you may or may not find interesting. The following days are much more exciting, I promise! Enjoy the pictures.

• Gooseberry Memories Make Me Want Spring!  March 7, 2008
• Flying High in Moab, Utah!  April 1, 2006
• Commencing Epic Adventure!  August 10, 2009
• More Gooseberry Mesa Adventures  March 12, 2008
• Let the Yard Work Begin  April 8, 2006

I was banking on the weather clearing, but when I paid my $9 entrance fee to enter Antelope Island State Park and heard the two rangers tell me that there was no hope of the weather clearing up today, my heart sank.  Nothing to do but hike the peak, no matter what the conditions.  It rained on me the entire way up the mountain.  The winds got pretty strong and the rain stung my face.  Despite the weather, it was one of the easiest peaks I’ve ever climbed.  The trail was great all the way up, despite the muddiness, and there were only a couple of exposed areas.

Upon reaching the top I took some pictures (not too much to look at when you’re in a cloud) and was about to head back down after only 15 minutes, but as I reached for my pack I noticed a flash of sky and a mountain off in the west.  As quickly as I saw it it disappeared.  But it gave me a glimmer of hope that the storm was about to clear.  Another flash, and another!  Sure enough, the clouds started to clear out.

I ended up staying on top for an hour and a half and by the time I headed down I had a clear view all the way to the Wasatch mountains to the east. It was awesome! I can’t wait for the next peak!

Similar Posts:

• Biking Video Among Google's “Now Free” Vids  June 26, 2006
• Commencing Epic Adventure!  August 10, 2009
• U2 Cosmic Light Show = Crap  March 16, 2008
• A Great Poem by Matt Fisher (1995)  February 23, 2007
• More Gooseberry Mesa Adventures  March 12, 2008

Look at the first picture below and you can see where this guy broke through the guard rail and left the road, traveling from right to left. He flipped across the end of the culvert and landed on the left side of it.

Look at the second picture and you can see how lucky he was.

Click on the pics to see larger versions.Similar Posts:

• Rose in Full Bloom at Grandma's  June 9, 2006
• Tsunami Revisited in STUNNING Photo Essay  March 22, 2006
• Photosynth is here and very impressive!  November 9, 2006
• Commencing Epic Adventure!  August 10, 2009
• WordPress “Writing by Email” Feature  February 18, 2006

At the moment you’ll need to fire up IE6 or IE7 in order for the software to work properly (doesn’t work in Firefox, although they’re working on it) and you’ll also need XP with Service Pack 2 or Vista.

Some tips as you move around in the pictures; don’t forget to make use of the zooming features. You can zoom by clicking the plus and the minus symbols, or use the scroll wheel on you mouse. It’s fun to see some of the detail in the high resolution pictures (especially in the art gallery collection) and it helps to get your bearings by zooming out and seeing all the tiny dots that make up the points of reference. Another fun thing to do is to see where the camera was when the photo was taken. This can be toggled on and off by clicking the camera icon. Little red triangles appear and when you mouse over one it projects the angle and crops the area of the virtual scene that makes up the photo from that angle.  Lastly, don’t forget that you can close the informational column on the left by clicking on the divider line in the middle.  This will maxmize your 3D model world and make cruising around experience even better.
Give it a try. Can you imagine when they give us the ability to upload are own collections? It’s coming soon, but for now we’ll have to pacify ourselves with the collections they’ve given us.

Click image for full-size view.Similar Posts:

• Tsunami Revisited in STUNNING Photo Essay  March 22, 2006
• Macro Setting Makes Grass Look Good!  June 6, 2006
• Rose in Full Bloom at Grandma's  June 9, 2006
• Cause and Effect with Japanese Jingle  November 10, 2006
• Real Time Weather and Webcam  January 20, 2006

It’s available by invitation, along with the latest downloadable version of Picasa, and offers:

• One-click web upload using Picasa’s new “Web Album” button
• Free storage space to post and share approximately 1000 photos, with the option to upgrade to more space
• High-quality photos, automatically resized and optimized to fill available screen space
• Pre-loaded images enable quick scrolling using arrow keys, and mimic a desktop experience of “flipping” through photos, even on the web
• End-to-end photo management that makes it easy to download uploaded photos back to your computer

Take a look at this public gallery to see what it’s like to share photos using Picasa Web Albums.

The new version of Picasa includes a ‘Web Album” button that when selected will upload pictures to your own Picasaweb page. This requires an account on Picasaweb.google.com using your Gmail address.

Here is my first album located at http://picasaweb.google.com/tslack

Flickr enthusiasts won’t give a dang about Google’s attempt to further spread their foothold on all things web and will likely ridicule it. I’m so new to both services that I won’t be as biased. As I use both services, I’ll report back and let you know what I think of each.

At first glance, however, it’s obvious that Flickr has a lot more feautures. But for simple uploading and sharing of pictures located on your computer, Google has them beat hands down. Of course, Flickr doesn’t require a program be installed on your computer, which is part of what makes it so easy with Google.

For those of you who are trying this service (it’s only available on an invitation basis), let me know what you think. I think it’s interesting that Google is trying to get away from the “Beta” label on this one. Calling it “Test” instead of “Beta” may be the first time that I’ve seen any company release something that’s in Beta and calling it anything different. We’ll see how their test goes.Similar Posts:

• Tsunami Revisited in STUNNING Photo Essay  March 22, 2006
• Extension Makes Google Notebook Useable  June 24, 2006
• Comparing Programming Languages  March 7, 2006
• Rose in Full Bloom at Grandma's  June 9, 2006
• Pageflakes Tempts Me, Again  May 6, 2006

I used my new macro skills that John clued me in on and took some pictures at Grandma’s house. Here is one of seven that I really thought turned out well.

View the others here and let me know which one is your favorite. (Hint: you can view the photos in full size and see the detail of the picture. Just click on “All Sizes” at the top left corner above the picture.)
I’m really loving the fact that I can take what seem to me to be awesome pictures just because of a simple camera setting. I’m in the market for a good digital camera now. The one I’m using doesn’t take pictures that I can print any bigger than 3×5. It would be so cool to print these out at 5×7 or 8×10 and frame them in our living room!

I took some pictures of the kids, too. I’ll upload that set of pictures when I feel like I’ve completed the set. My sister-in-law, Heather, has always taken great pictures of my kids. In fact, I have a couple of pictures that she took of Sami and her daughter Jaylee that I’m going to frame for my office. She’s another inspiration for me; she has a really good eye.Similar Posts:

• Photosynth is here and very impressive!  November 9, 2006
• Google Street View Makes it to SLC!  February 12, 2008
• Gifts from Heaven  January 9, 2006
• Macro Setting Makes Grass Look Good!  June 6, 2006
• Falling Through Roof Isn't as Much Fun as One Might Think  June 7, 2006

I’m by no means a photographer, although I think still photography has a way of invoking thought and inspiration in a way that video can’t. For that reason, I have always wanted to be a photographer and capture inspiring moments in time. I took a photography class in ninth grade and entered a photo in a contest that won a prize. I think that’s the last time I ever tried to take a photograph that was stunning or impressive. In light of my new found macro setting that was always there but never used, I’m inspired to try and capture some of those moments in time.Similar Posts:

• Rose in Full Bloom at Grandma's  June 9, 2006
• Tsunami Revisited in STUNNING Photo Essay  March 22, 2006
• Stardust Arrives Safely in Utah  January 15, 2006
• Photosynth is here and very impressive!  November 9, 2006
• Ryan Leech Rides Like No Other  April 26, 2006