[ Login
-
Register ]
Latest forum activity was 3 Hours 19 Minutes ago.
[ View all recent forum posts ]
Latest forum activity was 3 Hours 19 Minutes ago.
[ View all recent forum posts ]
|
For all you dog lovers Idiot puppy is an idiot.
Hiking Journal - Big Basin - 1/31/2010 This was a much nicer day than last time. The sun had a difficult time penetrating the redwood cover (leaving considerable moisture on the ground despite having no rain for 48 hours) but it wasn't too cold. I may miss snow, but I do enjoy being able to hike in January. The full gallery (complete with full-sized images!) can be found below: http://photos.nick.johnson.name/view...ods/Jan312010/ We took the Shadowbrook trail this time, ~5 miles round-trip. The first half of the trail sadly follows the paved road to a fairly nice campground (closed in Winter) at the base of Sempervirens Falls. I dislike following roads. The trail itself was nice enough. A bit bland, but not bad. Note that we didn't hike on the road. Unseen in these pictures is an actual trail around 20ft away from the road itself. While the road takes a nice even climb through the mountain, the trail yo-yo's in elevation above and below it. We considered shifting to hike on the road instead but decided we'd prefer the better workout of the trail ;) In any case, the road was nearly always visible, which irked me.   The waterfall itself was quite nice. The water is fairly muddy at its base due to how shallow it was. I wish we could have approached the base itself (or squeezed in behind it!)--alas there were tons of "access restricted" signs everywhere and we didn't feel like angering the rangers that day.  
Tax Advice Fail
Armatrix SmartGun disables itself so you don't have to http://www.gizmag.com/armatrix-wrist...andguns/14044/
This is a fucking brilliant idea. Now all I gotta do is bring a jamming device that can interfere with whatever wireless signal they're using (bluetooth? wifi? doesn't matter...don't need to decrypt it, just jam it) and...piggy can't shoot back. Fucking. Retarded.
Glowing Forest First full painting ;) (As opposed to coloring)
Link Soup for January 2010 This is the Link Soup for January 2010
My respect for Obama is lower than ever I'd call him a monkey if only he weren't black. Seriously, that's what his actions remind me of. He's swinging wildly through the forest of politics without any consideration of the creatures below him or clear vision of where he's going. And now he wants to axe manned space travel? Idiot. Asshole. Those are just the more polite words I'd use. http://science.slashdot.org/story/10...=Google+Reader He's obviously not an intellectual, no matter how much the far right likes using this word. Obama is nothing more than a populist beauty queen. And that's downright sad.
Hiking Journal - Big Basin - 1/23/2010 It's been raining pretty much non-stop in the Bay Area, which really sucks as we've been somewhat antsy to try out LiQUiD's new camera/laptop backpack. We're willing to suffer the rain--just not so willing to ask our electronics to do the same. Saturday was the only day (for over a week on either side of it) that had any significant period of dryness. The morning was raining, but the afternoon looked clear. Thus a short hike was decided upon as we didn't want to be out much past sunset. Just in case, I loaded my iPod with both Dvorak's and Mozart's requiem. If I'm going to be stuck in the wilderness at night I'm damned well going to listen to the right music. The road to Big Basin is incredibly fun to drive. Most of it is one-lane with a turn every twenty feet or so. It's a slow but fun drive over the mountain, worth it even if you don't intend to camp or hike. We didn't get started until around 2:30 so didn't have much day left. A forest rains long after the sky clears. The trees were covered with water, dripping slowly onto us. Water poured down the trails in ad-hoc streams. At times we second-guessed the trail, not sure if it was just temporarily a stream or if we'd missed a turn somewhere. I carried Liquid's tripod in my pack. The tripod is too tall so sticks out like a pole. The wind over the past week knocked over several trees, creating hazards. I'm fairly certain I resembled a giant lobster crab-walking under these, trying (but failing) to keep the tripod from catching overhead branches. As trite as it sounds, I listened to Dvorak's New World Symphony as we hiked. My ears were sore when it finished so didn't bother with an encore. Besides, the streams and falling water were pleasant enough as they were. In the end we opted not to even use the tripod--the ground was too muddy. The sky was also urgently pushing us for time. We really didn't want to be out much past sunset and were making slower progress than desired. Turns out swapping lenses whilst protecting them from the raining trees is a time-consuming process ;) A forest grows dark long before sunset. The ground will be cast in shadow while the sky glows vibrantly. This worked to our disadvantage as, without the tripod, it's difficult to hold the camera steady enough to facilitate a slow shutter. Many of the nicer shots blurred due to this. We stopped for a snack around 4:20 on a fire road and took the opportunity to refresh our buzz (weed and hiking go together wonderfully, I should add.) In addition to the camera, lenses, laptop, tripod, flashlights, snacks and other miscellaneous gadgets we carry a pair of fold-up chairs. Like the tripod these are too tall to fit in a backpack. They can be slung over the shoulder or carried by hand, however. These chairs are a slight extra burden to carry, however more than pay off when you set them up. The comfort of being able to stop wherever you like and sit in comfort is beyond my ability to properly express. We turned back shortly after this (well, diverted to a trail leading back to park HQ rather) due to the setting sun. I think we took some of the best pictures during this time. It started to rain again, although the same canopy that had been dripping on us all morning now protected us from the onslaught. Indeed, it was only slightly more wet with this light rain than it was without. The rain clouds floating through the towering redwoods provided some amazing views. Sadly, the increased moisture also prevented Liquid from switching to a better lens. It was growing dark, anyway. Well, darker--the trail had been in deep shadow since we finished our snack. We hiked down a different stream we hiked up. The flashlights helped, but this was still the longest 0.9 miles of the trek. The darkness increased the difficulty of distinguishing trail from creek, making for a fairly slow descent. Still a very fun, if short, afternoon. Hopefully Liquid can get some more pictures posted soon. We're anxious for the weather to clear to try out the new photo equipment properly. Alas, rain seems to be the perpetual forecast. Fucking rain.
|  Categories All posts (2214 posts)Video (162 posts) Humor (18 posts) Review (21 posts) Image (512 posts) Rant (41 posts) Recent Page Views Recent Articles Tag Cloud Wow Russia Video Simon's cat Animated Sketch Teddy bear Finance Robot Humor Car Interesting Photography Cat Monkey Walking House Japan Anime Dog Food Heart Halloween Holiday Easter Religion Art Socialism Cute Fail Funny Dumb Idiot Awesome Review Dranok Thought Education Linux Government Libertarian Photoshop Terrible Internet Picdump Cats Paint Image Colors Fish Wsj Creepy Gay Killua Draw Lineart Drawing Painting D gray-man Allen walker Music video Song Economy Opinion Cctv Big brother Squirrel Amv News Rant Article Story Link Technology Politics Shys Smokeherb cs:s match Intermediate Beginner Advanced Random Image  Recent Members |
