Northern Exposure

Finally…the epic story will be told.

Okay, maybe that’s selling it a little too much (alright, WAY too much).  But still, given the daunting task of switching photo sites, organizing far too many photos (and reducing them down to a reasonable number for a photo album), figuring out my camcorder, and pulling out the electroshock paddles for my computer on three separate occasions, I finally have the Northern Exposure blog, photo albums, AND video snippets completed.  Before I begin, a word about the photos and videos.

• Not only did I include two albums for Glacier-Waterton National Park, I also threw in a bonus photo album from my trip to D.C. in July 2008.  Never got those photos up until now.  You can read about that trip by using the posting calendar on the left and going to July 15, 2008.
• Until yesterday, I didn’t realize I could post videos to this new site on Shutterfly.  Also until yesterday, I didn’t know how to get videos from my camcorder to my computer without sending my computer into Code Red.  The videos on the website play just a little choppy and with a little bit lower resolution, but still get the gist across.  I even included my Bear Grylls impersonation; hope you find them entertaining.
• Finally, most of the photos in the albums were taken with my camera, but in some situations I had to use my camcorder, which doesn’t provide as crisp a picture.  Sorry about that, but I only tried to use them when necessary.  For each of the albums, just click on the album name, then “Slideshow,” crank it up to full screen if so desired, and pause or go forward/backward as you like (I’ve included captions on many photos…full-service photography here).

Having said all that, you can read on below for the details about the trip, or you can just go to my new Shutterfly share site, titled Random Travels, by clicking on the following link:

http://randomtravels1.shutterfly.com/

And now, without further ado…

Saturday, August 29^th

Our flight to Kalispell, Montana left bright and early that morning from DFW.  We had a stopover through Salt Lake City.  Through the use of CGI, the airline safety video showed a sparkle on Safety Man’s smile when he told us how to use our seat floatation device should we somehow crash.  On our flight from DFW, we were seated next to some yoga instructor who was flying to a big conference in Billings, Montana.  I decided to strike up a conversation with her, and she mentioned that Baron Baptiste would be teaching this conference.  I smiled and nodded my head as if I knew who Baron Baptiste was.  She also told me the conference was at some park in Montana called Featherpipe that was a haven for environmentalists—Featherpipe…draw your own conclusions.  While hearing this, I was holding a book I was reading by political satirist P.J. O’Rourke called All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty.  I was on the chapter about the environment…so I’m sure that went over well.

In Salt Lake City, our plane left just a few minutes late, but the pilot promised us “we’ll be flying fast.”  Translation: “We’re gonna spin the tires on the runway pavement, and we won’t be stopping for bathroom breaks or to check for directions.  We’re NW bound and down, baby.”  True to his word, we got there on time.

Somehow, our mid-size SUV turned out to be a gigantic Cadillac Escalade with a sunroof and DVD player, so I christened it, “The Pimpdaddy Mobile.”  Took off toward the park, and within about 20 miles, we saw about 200 signs for huckleberry shakes, pies, ice cream, tea, coffee, chocolate, and just about every other form of consumption.  So at lunch, we naturally ordered some huckleberry pie and ice cream and got the scoop on huckleberries.  I’d never seen them before, but they’re a lot like blueberries, only a little smaller and colored purple.  They grow wild in Montana, which is one of the only places in the world where they do, so they’re proud of them around there.

After lunch, we jumped on the Going-to-the-Sun highway through the park.  Trust me, it’s one of the most beautiful roads you could ever travel.  Crosses over the continental divide through the mountains.  We went from the west side of Glacier to the east side, and then headed north to Canada for our first two nights in the park. 

In Canada, we stayed at the Prince of Wales hotel, a stately old hotel built in the 1920s to attract tourists to the west.  The hotel employees all wear kilts—really cool—and the hotel looks like it came from The Shining.  Very old plumbing and furniture, but it had some truly great views. 

Sunday, August 30^th

Started this morning with a 4-hour horseback ride outside the little township of Mountain View.  Our guide was named Chanta (pronounced “SHON-tay”), and she was the lead guide for the company.  Along the trip we learned that we were her very last trail ride, as she was heading off to university soon.  We felt honored; not sure if she did.  But we had a great time, and even saw a young black bear on the ride back to the ranch!  Unfortunately, it scampered away before I could get my camcorder out. 

That afternoon, we grabbed some pizza for lunch, then headed out for a hike around Cameron Lake, hunting for grizzlies and Sasquatch.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see either, but we did find a chipmunk.  Not only that, but in the township of Waterton (just below the Prince of Wales hotel), the deer are so comfortable with humans that they just walk around on lawns and in the parking lots.  I even got close enough to touch one of them.  At one point I counted five deer lying on the lawn at the civic center.

Monday, August 31^st

Got up early this morning to catch video and photos of the sunrise over Waterton.  Josh took pics from atop the hill, while I went down for some photos and video along the lake’s beach.  Afterwards, we drove out to Redrocks Canyon for a couple more great hikes, then visited the buffalo paddock outside Waterton, before heading east towards Cardston, Canada.  In Waterton, we had each picked up some Canadian whiskey just to sample the local liquor.  The liquor store, by the way, was right next to the office of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Go figure.  We also found out in Waterston that Cardston was a predominantly Mormon community.  Nevertheless, at a restaurant in Cardston, Josh felt the need to ask the waiter about any duty charges for getting liquor back over the border.  The waiter happened to be the son-in-law of the town mayor…who happened to come in for lunch that day and sit in the booth right behind us.  Yet Josh managed to engage the mayor in a conversation about real estate.  He is a lawyer after all.

Back in Montana, we re-entered the park on the east side through the Many Glacier area, which provides some of the best views in the park.  We took a very steep hike up to Appekunny Falls (Native American spelling is “Apikuni”; I bet it means “very steep.”)  Then we hiked to Bullhead Lake that night and got back around nightfall. 

Tuesday, September 1^st

About mid-morning we headed out of Many Glacier and took the Going-to-the-Sun road in Saint Mary, heading west back over the mountains to West Glacier.  More incredible photo opportunities, but thanks to construction delays and a notoriously slow driver at the front of the line who wouldn’t let anyone pass him, the drive took about an hour longer than intended, and we barely made it to West Glacier for our kayaking adventure.  Along with three group rafts, we each got an inflatable kayak for a 4-hour trip down the Flathead River (the water was very cold, by the way).  The first half of the trip was kinda boring, but the last half had five good sets of rapids to navigate, and I’m proud to say that both Josh and I both made it through unscathed.  By the end of the trip, it was already dinnertime, so we ate at a local restaurant and called it a night.

Wednesday, September 2^nd

Our last morning in Glacier, Josh went ahead and rented a fly-fishing pole for some quality time on Lake McDonald.  Since I consider fishing a chore rather than a good time, I opted for one more hike up around the lake.  However, on driving to the trailhead, I got mixed up on the directions (not exactly a lot of signs up there) and ended up on some one-lane logging road going to the middle of nowhere.  I finally found a place to turn around and recovered in time to make the hike.  I then picked up Josh and we headed for the airport for an early-afternoon departure.  We flew back through Minnesota, where I picked up a souvenir shot glass with a little plastic duck floating in it.  (I love collecting shot glasses to memorialize my trips.)

So in summary, I learned a few things:

1)      You can add huckleberries to just about anything.

2)      An iPod and adaptor are great to have on any vacation with lots of traveling involved.

3)      Baron Baptiste is apparently a big deal in yoga circles.

4)      Sasquatch isn’t gonna make finding him very easy.

5)      Glacier National Park (and its sister-park of Waterton in Canada) is a great place to visit.  Doing so made me realize I need to get to at least one national park a year.  We’ve got over a hundred of them; that’s a lot of beautiful outdoors to see.

Hope you enjoy the pics and videos.

Tragedy at Ft. Hood

When I first heard the news of the shootings at Ft. Hood last week, I almost immediately thought back to the time when I was riding back from a high school basketball playoff game in Killeen with some friends of mine, and we inadvertently drove through the middle of the military base.  Two more thoughts crossed through my mind afterwards.

1)      Ft. Hood’s close to home, and

2)      A lot has changed in the nearly 15 years since that trip.

I have no idea, but my guess is civilians probably can’t drive the roads through a military base anymore.  Probably not since 9/11.  Even if they can, I’m sure there’s more security involved. 

All of us can agree the news is tragic.  It’s hard enough knowing the danger those soldiers face every time they’re called upon to defend our country; it’s even worse to know something like this could happen on home soil.

As everyone knows, the instigator of this tragedy was a Muslim, which no doubt sent chills through the Islamic community in this country.  I certainly do not advocate violence or any sort of retaliatory backlash against the Islamic community.  It does frustrate me, though, to think of how many attacks in the past twenty years have some Islamic ties.  The 1993 World Trade Center bombing…the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole…the 9/11 attacks…now this guy shooting people at a military base on U.S. soil.

Again, I don’t advocate retaliation against Islam, but at what point is tolerance of a faith with such extremist groups supposed to end?  A few days before the shooting, I read an article about the latest end-of-the-world movie coming out, 2012, in which director Roland Emmerich happily blew up just about every sacred site of every major faith, except for Islam.  He feared how some radical Islamic extremist might act.

My heart goes out to those impacted by the tragedy at Ft. Hood.  Say a prayer for the loved ones of the victims.  

Random Thoughts - Volume 42

I know, I know.  Lately I’ve been as dependable as Punxsutawney Phil’s track record for predicting the end of winter…actually, that’s probably an insult to the little groundhog, but it’s all I could come up with in a moment’s time.

But I’ve been incognito for a couple reasons.  First, I promised somewhere awhile back that my next blog would be about my trip to Glacier.  I had no idea it would be so hard to post a blog about my trip to Glacier, but the problem is that I didn’t take into account 1) my tendencies to be a perfectionist, and 2) how busy October would get for me.  Regarding perfectionism, I want my blog to actually be worth reading, and on that one I wanted to include a link to pictures.  Well, I’ve changed picture websites and spent too much time downloading and sifting through over 700 available photos.  I’m still not done…the joys of perfectionism.  Aside from that, I just simply haven’t had time lately, for numerous reasons, and when time gets squeezed, priorities tend to surface.  Or at least they should.  So anyway, there’s my excuse.  Glacier will happen eventually…just not today.

But as for today, Happy Halloween!  Earlier this week I watched an old History Channel documentary about the history of the holiday, which turned out to be rather interesting.  Apparently, Halloween’s roots begin with a 3,000-year-old Celtic festival called Samhain (pronounced “sow-an”), which celebrated the end of the summer, or lighter half of the year.  At this time, all those souls that had died during the year were believed to come out for one last round of fun, and people would leave “treats” outside of the town to distract the spirits from any “tricks” they might want to play on the living.  The Roman festival of Pomona (goddess of fruits and seeds) was celebrated around the same time (one of the things they did was bob for apples), and when the Romans conquered Britain, these festivals got commingled.  Later, when the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, the church didn’t take too kindly to this glorification of evil spirits and pagan goddesses.  They still marked the time of year for festival, though, so November 1 became “All Saints’ Day” and October 31 became “All Saints’ Eve.”  Since the saints were also hallowed (revered), it was also called “All Hallows’ Eve” which eventually got shortened into Halloween.  Now you’ll have something to impress people with at parties tonight when you’re dressed like Michael Jackson or Octomom.

Usually, for about a week in the Fall and the Spring, I come down with a rough case of a head cold or allergies.  Don’t really know which, but it generally coincides with the changing of the weather.  At any rate, it hit this week.  Woke up around 5 am on Wednesday morning unable to breathe, so I took some medicine and finally started to fall asleep right about the time the alarm went off.  I’ve been drugged up the last couple days, and everyone I work with has given me a hard time.  I joke they may get “allergies” next week, but I know I’m not sick or contagious.  I even played in the CPA league basketball game on Thursday night and may have had my best game of the season.  Didn’t bother to do my Saturday morning bike ride today, though, but that’s mostly because it was 45 degrees outside.

So Miles Austin…doesn’t everyone agree he’s much more fun to cheer for than Terrell?  Gonna toot my own horn here for a minute.  Six months ago when all the local media talking heads were scared to death that losing Terrell would be the end of our passing game, I strongly argued we need to give Miles and Sam Hurd a chance.  And look what’s happened.  This ranks right up there on my greatest sports predictions list with picking the Broncos over the Packers in Superbowl XXXII by a score of 28-24 (they won 31-24), and with my picking the ’96 Longhorns to upset the heavily-favored Cornhuskers in the first Big XII title game.  Of course, I also thought the Colts made a big mistake picking Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf.  Oops.  Let’s not talk about those missed predictions.

Rather than my bike ride this morning, I watched the two most recent episodes of Law & Order.  After an astounding twenty years, this season will likely be the show’s swan song, but lemme tell you, they’re going out on top.  Love the current cast, and the stories this year have been just riveting.  One of the episodes I watched today concerned the murder of an abortion doctor, only with 2-3 interesting twists to the case.  Nevertheless, the show did a great job of presenting both sides of the argument for the motive of the defendant.  If this is the last season, and both Law & Order and LOST end this year, I’m not sure what I’m gonna do…maybe I’ll finally get that Glacier blog done.

Being a CPA, I have to renew my license annually in my birth month, and the state requires we complete an average of 40 hours of continuing professional education (CPE) a year.  Well, I was born in the month of October; I joke that “all the great ones are born in October,” but only people born in October believe me.  At any rate, I say all this because I was up at work until 8 pm last night trying to wrap up my CPE and renew my license.  Every year I tell myself that I’ll finish all my CPE early, yet every year I find myself wrapping things up at the last minute on this.  One of these days…

In other news, over the past couple weeks I’ve come across a few good links online worth sharing.  First, in case you missed it, Rush Limbaugh was kicked out of a potential group looking to buy the St. Louis Rams.  They kicked him out for the political backlash his presence and previous comments have caused, yet here a writer I don’t even like that much, a writer who doesn’t like Rush Limbaugh even, actually came to his defense in this article.  I was especially intrigued about the mention of Jay-Z’s speech and the fact that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton didn’t find the need for an apology from him.

Second, regarding President Obama, I saw this article regarding the media's treatment of Obama and Bush.  Hmmm….  And by the way, why is it that everyone says Obama is black?  His mother was white; does this not count for anything?  Does only the man’s race count in a child?  Aren’t we being sexist here?

Finally, on the fun side, these optical illusions freaked me out.  Some wild, wild stuff.

Need to wrap this puppy up.  Thankfully, tonight is Daylight Savings Time, the good one where we get an extra hour of sleep!  Really need the time to go ahead and change, because right now it’s dark when my alarm goes off at 7 am, and every morning my body says, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”  So we need this to happen.

Until next time…and hopefully I’ll be a little more reliable about that next time J

Unsolved Mysteries

Approximately three weeks ago, Adam Smith brashly proclaimed on his blog that he would post about his trip to Glacier National Park back at the start of September.  He even claimed he would include a link to photo albums.

That was three weeks ago…I like repeating myself…yet since then there hasn’t been one peep on his blog about anything.  What could have caused this?

1)      Did he just get too busy?

2)      Did he just get lazy?

3)      Did he get captured by aliens?

Though it’s likely Option 1 or 2, we won’t rule out Option 3 just yet.  In the meantime, cryptic rumors are spreading that he plans to post the Glacier trip blog next week.  Seems like we’ve heard this before.  Will he follow the same path of these celebrities?

1)      George Lucas, who took 14 years to produce the Star Wars prequels?

2)      Axl Rose, who promised GnR’s Chinese Democracy for over 10 years before finally delivering it?

3)      President Obama, who has yet to deliver on any of his campaign promises?

Only time will tell…

Okay, fine.  It was Option 1, and he really doesn’t want to be compared to Axl Rose.

Random Thoughts - Volume 41

We could call this one “the work edition,” seeing as how I’m still in the office…only I’m not actually working, so that may defeat the purpose.

Then again, I bet there are plenty of people who go to the office but don’t get any work done, but that would not be me, because we’re putting the finishing touches on a few projects for one of my clients, and since 6 pm I’ve been slowly draining away the mental exhaustion from a pretty difficult week.  Thank God it’s almost Friday.

But I’m not up at work for mental draining purposes—I could do that at home.  Nope, instead I’m up here because tonight, the boys and I from the office have our 2^nd game in the local accounting basketball league…just think about how sexy that sounds…don’t worry, just take your time, I know it sounds too good to be true…we probably don’t even need a scoreboard, we’re so good at counting…

All mental images aside, it’s still a lot of fun, and believe it or not, pretty competitive.  We’re new to the league this year, and unfortunately lost our first game, but it was a close-fought battle at least.  Though we have a couple of very good players, a couple more good shooters, and 3-4 all-around athletic guys, we do have one big problem: we’re short.  Other than 1-2 guys around 6’3’’ to 6’5”, the rest of us are lucky to scrape six feet.  At any rate, the game’s at 9 pm downtown, so there’s not much point in me heading home at 6 pm, when I can just as easily type up here.

In other news, the “Northern Exposure” post AND photo album is gonna get posted next week.  I’m not sure how it’ll get done—haven’t had more than a few seconds to think the past few weeks—but by golly it’ll get done.  If I wait much longer I may forget I went to Montana, or else the opposite could happen and I suddenly “remember” I saw Sasquatch; just forgot to take a picture.

I read today that a woman in Indonesia gave birth to a 19.2 pound baby …almost feel the need to send her a sympathy card.

Tonight ABC runs the pilot episode of FlashForward, a new show from one of the creators of LOST, which as I’ve blogged several times before is the greatest show in the history of television.  Needless to say, I’m a little bit excited about the prospects for FF.

My office building actually has two towers, with an enclosed atrium in between them that contains shops, restaurants, and an ice rink.  Around about this time of night (when I’ve actually been working late), and on a few occasions even during the day, loads of aspiring young skaters take to the ice to practice/perform various routines.  Tonight I’m listening to “Part of Your World,” which I’m pretty sure came from The Little Mermaid…and I’m pretty scared I know that.

Of course, since my office looks into the atrium at a certain angle, I have to be careful when changing into my basketball clothes while in my office, otherwise I may give loads of aspiring young skaters and everyone else in the atrium a rather unwelcome performance.

And finally, I’d like to go ahead and thank God for the cooler weather this week.  It’s like manna from heaven.  We’re getting into autumn, my favorite part of the year!  Cooler weather and football.  Good times.

Gotta wrap this up; need to take care of a couple more things before I get my gameface on.

*******

REPOST ALERT!

Had to repost this one for two reasons.  First, since I posted from work, it wouldn’t allow me to simultaneously post to Facebook, since the office obviously doesn’t want us to do any social networking while at work.

Also, I forgot to mention in the above basketball discussion that considering we have 11-12 guys on our basketball team in the League of Dorks, we had to make a decision about whether we would “Play to Win” and thus designate starters and only use three subs a game on a rotational basis, or “Play to Have Fun” and let everyone play.  Hardwired as we are, we overwhelmingly voted to “Play to Win.”  Ask any competitor about the “we’re just here to have fun” route and watch them turn visibly angry.  That sort of attitude flies in the face of the whole point of competition; there is nothing “fun” about voluntarily refusing to compete.  I voted for “Play to Win” without a second thought, and I’m not even a starter.  

And as for the game?  We won.  Fear us.