I Can See For Miles...

Fred and I took a hike up Cowels Mountain on Monday. Cowels is the tallest point in San Diego. The front side of the mountain had dozens of people hiking up and down. We hiked to the top and took a picture next to a plaque. Once we walked past the antenna structure (I took that photo from the web) we hiked over to Piles Peak. It was another 1.4 miles but we only came across three other groups...very relaxing. We could see Point Loma behind the San Diego skyline and all the way south to Mexico and the Coronado Islands.  I think I'll bring our Canon camera next time so I can take some really nice photos of the San Diego skyline.

I threw in a photo of Charlie chilling on the couch....just for fun.

Hey You Stepped Out Of Line!

I've been fascinated with North Korea's "discipline" for years. I once read an article from a Russian who visited the country and was impressed with how clean the streets were. He asked his tour guide what would happen if someone "graffitied" or littered and the guide said that doesn't happen. When he pushed for a response by asking what would the police do if someone was caught, the guide couldn't understand the question. The bottom line is you conform to the rules...period.

One of the most public examples of the culture of conformity is the Arirang Mass Games. A yearly show put on by the North Korean government in honor of the president. The performance displays HUNDREDS of people dancing together. Check out the video below. Keep a close eye on the background. The "billboard" consists of hundreds of people holding up individual cards which change in unison. I included a couple close ups of the "card turners" as well.

Want to know more? A State of Mind is a documentary that covers the lives of two North Korean girls who basically take a one year break from school to practice and prepare for participation in the performance (the punch line in this story is the President didn't show up for their performance).


Check out the journal from a westerner who visited North Korea. Here is a link to another person's travels to the country. Both have interesting photos.


North Korea Arirang Mass Games September 2010 from travelling the face of the globe on Vimeo.

Torrey Pines Has Clean Water

I surfed the Jetty yesterday morning. It was pretty good but very dirty. The barrels were yellow and brown....yum...and by the end of the day the "beach closed to sewage" signs were up.

Today Michelle and I drove north to Torrey Pines State Beach. We met up with a friend named Noel and surfed some small but fun waves.

I took the "Sarape" board out for a few waves.

Michelle chilled out on the beach reading and taking photos of birds...

I had fun catching a few waves...

Noel borrowed the board for a few waves...

It was a nice mellow day at Torrey Pines!

Once at home, Jack fell asleep on my lap while I edited and uploaded the photos :)

Hitting The Window....

I woke up this morning to rain hitting our eastern window. Its not too often that happens...usually during a rainstorm I hear the rain landing on the roof but not the window. I checked the weather radar and saw this...

...which roughly translates into "its going to rain a lot for the next few hours." My weather prediction from last week was off by one day.

So what's to come? I say that it rains most of today then clears up on Thursday until Saturday when the next storm comes in Saturday night / Sunday morning. It won't rain as much as this one...and the wind should be more out of the southwest. We'll see...

I'm Pretty Sure Thats Not How It Works...

I don't know everything about track and field but I have a feeling this guy would be disqualified...

It Is Going To Rain....

It is going to be a rainy winter vacation.....at least that is what we are predicting. I have been playing around with GRIB files. GRIB is a technology that allows major meteorological organizations such as NOAA to send detailed weather information in a condensed format. The primary audience is the crew of yachts who are sailing in the open ocean. I found a free GRIB viewer program called zygrib. I installed it and started playing with interpreting weather predictions.GRIB files contain computer generated data but not human predictions. I combine this information with data found on shortwave radio faxes to try to make predictions.  

It should rain all weekend into next week with a real heavy dose of rain coming next Thursday....or so I predict. We will see...

Chocolate Bunny

Skim boarding is one of those things where I couldn't understand why someone would want to do it until I saw a video of someone who was REALLY good at it. Bill Bryan pretty much has the shove-it down. Check this out an imagine  how much water must go up his nose every day. Now I know why the skim boarders I knew in high school always seemed to have a broken forearm.

Crashed Out....

The sun is coming out but it has been cloudy and rainy all day. Everyone is kicking back indoors...including Jack who I found chillin' the sink.

Vintage Religion

After breakfast, Michelle and I took a trip to Vintage Religion. Vintage Religion is a store in San Diego that specializes on a variety of artifacts / artwork with a religious vibe. We have quite a few pieces already in our house.

Michelle and I found a cool cross to hang over the front door and a funky old wooden "angel skeleton" that we hung from our ceiling lights. Unlike other "distressed" pieces we have in the house, the angel was sold on consignment and is actually as old as it looks.

Breakfast at Nicks

Michelle and I enjoyed huevos rancheros for breakfast this morning while checking the surf at Nicks. Its pretty small and stormy out there. More rain predicted. Time to watch some football.

Time To Burn

Apparently people like to troll Google looking for  bizarre photos captured as part of their Google Street View project. Some guy built a blog containing a few of them. Below is an example....enjoy.

BMX

Pretty cool video of a 15 year old who loves rollers at the local track. I'm not a fan of the music so put your own on and watch someone who can manual (i.e. wheelie) through jumps.

Sunday Morning Surf

Michelle took some photos of me surfing this morning. The waves were OK...a little crowded  but there were a couple fun ones. I'm going to get something to eat and go out later this afternoon...

Fall in Colorado

Wayne and Marti sent us some photos recently taken in Fort Collins, Colorado. Looks like the fall colors are out!

Action...

Here is a video from the same session...

Skatepark Sunday

Michelle tried out our new camera at the skatepark today. See below for some photos. Hopefully we can take it to the beach later...

More Jesse

You are going to get a lot of these photos simply because we have been hanging out with Jesse and we have a new camera...... Amy took this photo at our house. Jesse and I are wearing matching sweaters :)

Fun With Photos

Its amazing how much fun taking photos can be once you have a camera that shoots a decent photo. Today we experimented with a variety of features on our new camera. Below are some of our favorites....

By the way....I have no idea who was in the surfing photo. This was our surf photo experiment...

Chillin'

Hanging out with Jesse :)

Lets Shoot

Michelle and I just purchased a Canon T1i DSLR camera. There are a ton of options to explore....but we spent 20 minutes reading the quick-start guide then went out in the backyard and shot a few photos. See below for samples of our first photo shoot.