Wishing you all a happy, safe, fun, prosperous, exciting, relaxing, fruitful, stimulating, dry, wet, snowy, sunny, lucky 2008! May it be the year you want it to be.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Happy New Year!
Wishing you all a happy, safe, fun, prosperous, exciting, relaxing, fruitful, stimulating, dry, wet, snowy, sunny, lucky 2008! May it be the year you want it to be.
South Beach
A quick note about my visit a couple days back to the infamous South Miami Beach. I just walked around for a coupe hours and took a lot of photos of all the crazy colored building and the very fine beach. I was really quite warm, even at this time of year. The beach is really a sight, because it seems to stretch endlessly, and is packed with people. It's small percentage that seem to use the beach to play, though. The vast majority may as well be taking a nap.
Not much else to say really- it would have been nice to have more time and talked my way in to a volleyball game, but oh well - another time, I guess. Enjoy the pics..
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Dos dias en los Cayos
After getting out of the Everglades, I bounced into a car with my parents, sister, bro-in-law and two cousins to head to the Florida Keys for a couple days. There, we met up with another Columbian cousin that I have not seen for 14 years! It was a good couple days.The highlight for me was going snorkeling. The snorkeling itself was not all that great, since it turned a bit cloudy and the water was very choppy. Thus the reef was a little dim and the swimming was a bit difficult. I think the most gratifyng thing to me was simply that I made it. Fifteen or twenty years ago, my family was in Key West, and we went on a snorkeling trip. I got very seasick, but eventually mustered the energy to get in the water, but then chickened out at swimming across the blackness to the reef by myself. Thus, gratifying that this time around, everything went much better.
The boat was pretty neat also. We were on a 30-40ft catamaran, and around sunset, they cut the motor and actually sailed the thing for a while. I like the cruisy, easy feeling of a sailboat, so I really enjoyed that part.
The Keys are not quite what I remember. There are not as many beaches as I recall, the water is absolutely flat. Like a pool out there on both sides. I think if I came back here, it would be fun to bike the 100 miles from Florida to Key West. Or sail it - I did not see that many sailboats out there, but it seems like a great place for it.
Update: A couple pictures of the sunset at sea...
Out of the business
I am officially out of the alpaca business. A deal to sell the remaining animals was completed last Wednesday, Dec. 19th. It is good that we got some money for them, they went to a good home, and that is one more continuing expense I don't have to worry about. But still, it mostly makes me sad. I do really like those animals. I guess, in the end, they were just too smart for us. It is hard to treat them as commodities when they all clearly have personalities, emotions and intelligence. They'll never replace the family dog, mind you, but I think it's much the same as people who get attached to horses.
I know it is the right decision, though. To have those animals as a business venture was not a lifestyle that was good for us, or for me by myself. The business-work: marketing ,networking, bookkeeping and planning - was all rather unpleasant and extremely time-consuming. To afford a place to accomodate them required us to live a distance from our peers that made it hard to develop good friendships. It seems people really won't/can't travel 30 minutes to see friends on a regular basis. I made the effort, but getting home at 8 or later several times a week was taking its toll.
Anyway, those days are over now. I'm sad about it, but also relieved. And the alpaca money will allow me to pay the mortgage and extend my travels a little longer. I feel like a poetic quote or saying would be appropriate here, but my mind is coming up empty. Well, okay - that's it then. Here's some of the better pictures taken over the years...
I know it is the right decision, though. To have those animals as a business venture was not a lifestyle that was good for us, or for me by myself. The business-work: marketing ,networking, bookkeeping and planning - was all rather unpleasant and extremely time-consuming. To afford a place to accomodate them required us to live a distance from our peers that made it hard to develop good friendships. It seems people really won't/can't travel 30 minutes to see friends on a regular basis. I made the effort, but getting home at 8 or later several times a week was taking its toll.
Anyway, those days are over now. I'm sad about it, but also relieved. And the alpaca money will allow me to pay the mortgage and extend my travels a little longer. I feel like a poetic quote or saying would be appropriate here, but my mind is coming up empty. Well, okay - that's it then. Here's some of the better pictures taken over the years...
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Everglades
"I urge every discontented man to take a trip through the Everglades. If it does not kill him, it will surely cure him" - unnamed, 1800s Everglades explorer
I spent three days exploring the southern portion of the Everglades. One day by car, and two in a canoe. It is not the place TV led me to believe over the years. For one, is is mostly marsh, not swamp. For another, a huge section of the park is a shallow bay, riddled with mangrove islands (hammocks) and serpentine channels.
The Everglades is not a terribly picturesque place, because vast swaths are relatively homogeneous. By my looking at it, sawgrass and mangrove constitute 99% of the biomass in the park. And for animals, if you like insects, fish, and birds - this is a great place for you. But still, I wound up with a lot of pictures, and the canoe trip was pretty neat.
I paddled 7 miles through mangrove swamp and interior bays to Hell's Bay chickee. The beginning part was very tight, involving a lot of caroming off the sides of the channel and ducking overhanging branches. It's a real maze in there, with over 160 markers in just 4 miles. That actually went pretty quick though, and I made it to the chickee pretty early in the day. So of course, I got back in the canoe and set off-trail to the west, looking for a passage to whitewater bay. My only map made it look possible, but there were no markers now, just a tiny 1" square section of the park service brochure, my GPS and compass. I did not make it to Whitewater Bay before I had to turn around to make it back to camp before dark, but I felt pretty confident I had found the trail. This assurance cost me 2.5 hours of paddling and added 5 more miles to the trip log...
The night was uneventful. Beautiful and a bit windy, but very calm and quiet. The moon was super-bright, I did not need a flashlight. And after it went down, it was so clear that even starlight was enough to make out the important features. Sometimes, when the wind would gust strongly, I could feel the chickee shudder, but this was the most unnerrving thing to happen. No alligators climbing on the deck, no canoe drifting away.
Come morning, I felt re-energized and confident, so I decided to take the alternate route back that I found, even though it invloved a decent hike to the car at the staritng point. I did find Whitewater Bay, less than 0.5 mile from where I turned around the day before. Then the trip got more dificult. The route back involved finding two small passages from larger bays to smaller ones. My map and GPS check me roughly on track, but the mangrove forest all looks the same and distances aross the bay are really hard to judge. So seeing the passages from far away is almost impossible. For example, the passage from Coop Bay to Coop Pond I did not see until I was 20 yards away. It is maybe 10 yards in width, and Coop Bay is 2 miles in diameter!
Furthermore, it was windy, which made the open water parts a bit choppy, which also makes paddling harder. Fortunately, I did not have to paddle upwind much. I learned this trip that when by yourself in a canoe, you are travelling in a big wind vane, and it can be really diffiuclt to turn into the wind, or paddle a course that is not downwind. But everything worked out well, with no more than 1 miles of wrong turns and search patterns. Of couse, there was an alligator sitting right where I intended to beach the canoe, but I found a close-by alternate landing. A quick lunch, then I hiked the 6 miles back to the car and returned to the hostel.
I thought it was a good adventure, and a decent accomplishment, since I haven't paddled a canoe in 15 years, only for an hour, and only the one time in my life. Next time though, I think I definitely should bring the fishing pole...
I spent three days exploring the southern portion of the Everglades. One day by car, and two in a canoe. It is not the place TV led me to believe over the years. For one, is is mostly marsh, not swamp. For another, a huge section of the park is a shallow bay, riddled with mangrove islands (hammocks) and serpentine channels.
The Everglades is not a terribly picturesque place, because vast swaths are relatively homogeneous. By my looking at it, sawgrass and mangrove constitute 99% of the biomass in the park. And for animals, if you like insects, fish, and birds - this is a great place for you. But still, I wound up with a lot of pictures, and the canoe trip was pretty neat.
I paddled 7 miles through mangrove swamp and interior bays to Hell's Bay chickee. The beginning part was very tight, involving a lot of caroming off the sides of the channel and ducking overhanging branches. It's a real maze in there, with over 160 markers in just 4 miles. That actually went pretty quick though, and I made it to the chickee pretty early in the day. So of course, I got back in the canoe and set off-trail to the west, looking for a passage to whitewater bay. My only map made it look possible, but there were no markers now, just a tiny 1" square section of the park service brochure, my GPS and compass. I did not make it to Whitewater Bay before I had to turn around to make it back to camp before dark, but I felt pretty confident I had found the trail. This assurance cost me 2.5 hours of paddling and added 5 more miles to the trip log...
The night was uneventful. Beautiful and a bit windy, but very calm and quiet. The moon was super-bright, I did not need a flashlight. And after it went down, it was so clear that even starlight was enough to make out the important features. Sometimes, when the wind would gust strongly, I could feel the chickee shudder, but this was the most unnerrving thing to happen. No alligators climbing on the deck, no canoe drifting away.
Come morning, I felt re-energized and confident, so I decided to take the alternate route back that I found, even though it invloved a decent hike to the car at the staritng point. I did find Whitewater Bay, less than 0.5 mile from where I turned around the day before. Then the trip got more dificult. The route back involved finding two small passages from larger bays to smaller ones. My map and GPS check me roughly on track, but the mangrove forest all looks the same and distances aross the bay are really hard to judge. So seeing the passages from far away is almost impossible. For example, the passage from Coop Bay to Coop Pond I did not see until I was 20 yards away. It is maybe 10 yards in width, and Coop Bay is 2 miles in diameter!
Furthermore, it was windy, which made the open water parts a bit choppy, which also makes paddling harder. Fortunately, I did not have to paddle upwind much. I learned this trip that when by yourself in a canoe, you are travelling in a big wind vane, and it can be really diffiuclt to turn into the wind, or paddle a course that is not downwind. But everything worked out well, with no more than 1 miles of wrong turns and search patterns. Of couse, there was an alligator sitting right where I intended to beach the canoe, but I found a close-by alternate landing. A quick lunch, then I hiked the 6 miles back to the car and returned to the hostel.
I thought it was a good adventure, and a decent accomplishment, since I haven't paddled a canoe in 15 years, only for an hour, and only the one time in my life. Next time though, I think I definitely should bring the fishing pole...
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Cooling off . . . in a swamp.
siiggggh.. OKay - I'm quite a bit calmer now about the mess in CO. Non-ideal situation, but we've done all we can at this point. New eviction date is Jan. 2 now, so if there are no more surprises, we can live with that..
I've traveled to south Florida, and will stay at the Everglades Hostel for a couple days. Then, I'll rent a canoe and paddle into the swamp for an overnight trip - hopefully staying at a chickee. Back out the night of the 19th! Hopefully with a good story and some cool pictures...
What's a chickee? From the Everglade NPS website:
"Chickees are located along interior rivers and bays where no dry land exists. They are elevated 10 foot x 12 foot / 3 m x 3.7 m wooden platforms with roofs, usually constructed on open water, well away from mangrove trees. A narrow walkway leads to a self-contained toilet. You'll need a free-standing tent, since stakes or nails are not allowed."
I've traveled to south Florida, and will stay at the Everglades Hostel for a couple days. Then, I'll rent a canoe and paddle into the swamp for an overnight trip - hopefully staying at a chickee. Back out the night of the 19th! Hopefully with a good story and some cool pictures...
What's a chickee? From the Everglade NPS website:
"Chickees are located along interior rivers and bays where no dry land exists. They are elevated 10 foot x 12 foot / 3 m x 3.7 m wooden platforms with roofs, usually constructed on open water, well away from mangrove trees. A narrow walkway leads to a self-contained toilet. You'll need a free-standing tent, since stakes or nails are not allowed."
Thursday, December 13, 2007
oh, Bloody 'ell...
It's ON, now!!!
So far I have not ranted about the fact that my tenants have been complete deadbeats! Not a dime since they signed the lease and moved in, in mid October! Well, we thought eviction was going along, despite some delays and bureaucratic nonsense. Well, eviction day arrives, and it turns out the property manager has not done her job and made all the necessary arrangements. So the sheriff cannot evict tenants, and won't come back until Jan. 9!
This is just too much. selfish liars, laziness, incompetence, maybe some craziness. We've been nice guys to the tenants and the PM - everybody has had multiple chances and lots of time to deal with the reality of life and be responsible, but it's time to kick some a$$ and take some names. We can't be having this, and if people won't be responsible and live up to their agreements, then we've no choice but to basically tell them exactly what to do and when and stand over their shoulder to make sure they do it. I hate doing this, I really don't like to have to go into this mode. Everywhere I go though, it seems the world makes me do it. My last two jobs forced me to do it on a routine basis, my business on the side made me do it, now being a landlord is making me do it.
Why the heck doesn't anybody do things with respect and responsibility? I always have to be yelling or standing in people's faces to get them to do what they said they would, or answer my questions, or otherwise give me some regard. And I always ask nicely first. My default is still to trust people until they do me harm in some way.
Fine. Alright then, have it your way, punk ba$&#%ds! You want to play that way, then bring it. I didn't start this fight, I don't want it, but I'll finish it.
BTW - Thanks to all my friends and family for NOT being this way. The fact that I can trust you to be stand-up, reasonable people makes you exceptional, in my experience.
So far I have not ranted about the fact that my tenants have been complete deadbeats! Not a dime since they signed the lease and moved in, in mid October! Well, we thought eviction was going along, despite some delays and bureaucratic nonsense. Well, eviction day arrives, and it turns out the property manager has not done her job and made all the necessary arrangements. So the sheriff cannot evict tenants, and won't come back until Jan. 9!
This is just too much. selfish liars, laziness, incompetence, maybe some craziness. We've been nice guys to the tenants and the PM - everybody has had multiple chances and lots of time to deal with the reality of life and be responsible, but it's time to kick some a$$ and take some names. We can't be having this, and if people won't be responsible and live up to their agreements, then we've no choice but to basically tell them exactly what to do and when and stand over their shoulder to make sure they do it. I hate doing this, I really don't like to have to go into this mode. Everywhere I go though, it seems the world makes me do it. My last two jobs forced me to do it on a routine basis, my business on the side made me do it, now being a landlord is making me do it.
Why the heck doesn't anybody do things with respect and responsibility? I always have to be yelling or standing in people's faces to get them to do what they said they would, or answer my questions, or otherwise give me some regard. And I always ask nicely first. My default is still to trust people until they do me harm in some way.
Fine. Alright then, have it your way, punk ba$&#%ds! You want to play that way, then bring it. I didn't start this fight, I don't want it, but I'll finish it.
BTW - Thanks to all my friends and family for NOT being this way. The fact that I can trust you to be stand-up, reasonable people makes you exceptional, in my experience.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Kayak adventure! (a short story)
After a few days of bookkeeping and chores (yes, even a tramp still has to work once in a while), I set out with my friend Dan for a 2 night camping trip in coastal NC. First stop was Bear Island (this was originally a typo, there have never been bears there) in Hammock Beach State Park. This time of year, the only way to get there is by canoe/kayak. So we rented a tandem kayak and paddled over. Thanks to the folks back in CO for the loan of dry-bags and a life jacket!
Well, it was low tide, so nothing looked like the map, we got stuck on sand bars 3 times, probably paddled 2 extra miles, and did not make it to the intended campsite. But we still made it there before dark and we had the entire uninhabited island to ourselves (not counting the animals). The sunset was gorgeous! Pics to come soon...
After a "late" night of double solitare (pretty complex game, actually), we got up the next morning and paddled the rest of the way to our original campsite. We could make it in now because it was high tide. After some exploring, shell and trash collecting (Dan was a bit annoyed, I think, at all the litter), we made a bit of a hasty exit, since the tide was going out and we did not want to get stuck again.
Before heading back to return the kayak, we decided to paddle out around the bend and into the Atlantic a short ways. Well, we did not get too far before the swells picked up and the waves were getting choppy and unprectable. Not big, but the is no better way to ruin a trip than by capsizing a river kayak in the ocean, even if it is only 50 yards to the beach. We turned back.
Well, now we were in for it. It turns out that the Bouge inlet that drains the waterways between the mainland and the islands here develops a non-trivial current while the tide is shifting. Enough so that one person paddling alone is only enough to hold position. Gluttons for punishment, we still decided on a longer course back to the kayak launch, and then regretted it for the next 3 hours. Man, that was hard work! But eventually we got far enough away from the inlet and enough time went by that the current subsided and we pulled into the launch beach tired, but happy and satisfied.
The next night we camped and hiked in the Croatoan National Forest, but it was relatively unremarkable. Mostly we just talked and debated all sorts of things, including if we could finish a marathon without training, and within the allowed time. I think after the 12 mile hike today, we are pretty sure one would have to do at least a little bit of conditioning.
Well, it was low tide, so nothing looked like the map, we got stuck on sand bars 3 times, probably paddled 2 extra miles, and did not make it to the intended campsite. But we still made it there before dark and we had the entire uninhabited island to ourselves (not counting the animals). The sunset was gorgeous! Pics to come soon...
After a "late" night of double solitare (pretty complex game, actually), we got up the next morning and paddled the rest of the way to our original campsite. We could make it in now because it was high tide. After some exploring, shell and trash collecting (Dan was a bit annoyed, I think, at all the litter), we made a bit of a hasty exit, since the tide was going out and we did not want to get stuck again.
Before heading back to return the kayak, we decided to paddle out around the bend and into the Atlantic a short ways. Well, we did not get too far before the swells picked up and the waves were getting choppy and unprectable. Not big, but the is no better way to ruin a trip than by capsizing a river kayak in the ocean, even if it is only 50 yards to the beach. We turned back.
Well, now we were in for it. It turns out that the Bouge inlet that drains the waterways between the mainland and the islands here develops a non-trivial current while the tide is shifting. Enough so that one person paddling alone is only enough to hold position. Gluttons for punishment, we still decided on a longer course back to the kayak launch, and then regretted it for the next 3 hours. Man, that was hard work! But eventually we got far enough away from the inlet and enough time went by that the current subsided and we pulled into the launch beach tired, but happy and satisfied.
The next night we camped and hiked in the Croatoan National Forest, but it was relatively unremarkable. Mostly we just talked and debated all sorts of things, including if we could finish a marathon without training, and within the allowed time. I think after the 12 mile hike today, we are pretty sure one would have to do at least a little bit of conditioning.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Changing the scenery
Yesterday I packed up my truck again and headed south. Of course I forgot several non-essential items. I figure my absent-mindedness will just strip me of stuff until I am down to a small enough set of things that I really, truly need. I drove to Raleigh, NC to visit my friends Dan and Andie. Here I'll stay for a little bit, and plot my travel south to Florida for Christmas, as well as try to do some bookkeeping, repair, and other chores
Along the way I stopped in Colonial Williamsburg and the Great Dismal Swamp. In Williamsburg, I had heard there is really good beer, but it seems noon was too early for the tavern to be tapping the keg. I did see this really weird looking tree, where all the leaf-bearing branches seem to come from nodes at the end of the structural branches. Anybody know what it is? Between there and the swamp, I drove by some shipyards and a big coal field. I like the way the picture I snapped from the car came out.
Now, the Great Dismal Swamp did not really live up to any of it's names. In December of a drought year, at least, it is not particularly dismal, swampy, or impressively large. It's pretty dense and scrubby forest, with some very murky canals cut through it. In summer, when it is wet and hot, with flies and mosquitoes and snakes everywhere - okay, I can imagine how it got the name. I climbed a tree and took a panorama photo, then walked out and drove the rest of the way to Raleigh.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Geek Photography
A while back, I read of some advanced camera systems that would take data from a series of images to create a single image with extended dynamic range (think night scenes where the lights are not saturated or suffer from blooming). Yesterday, I learned from a Popular Science article that this technology is available to all digital photographers now, and some geeky types have written free software to do the image manipulation. Hooray! I don't have to write it myself - I just get to play! Posted below is my first
attempt at making a HDR (high dynamic range image) Actually, the 32-bit image file looks better, this photo is my best looking one from 10 minutes or so of trial and error. Also posted is my best conventional shot of the same frame. Some flaws, such as the leaves blurred due to motion between frames, but in principle it seems to work. The sky is blue - not white, and the detail in the shady yard can be seen also. Lemme know what you think.I also tried the technique on a fire last night, and got a neat result. See?:
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