Summer Vacation, '07!

For one week of our two week summer vacation, yolanda and I travelled up to bellingham, WA and Vancouver, BC in a semi-repeat of last year's vacation. This time we did no camping. I took some pictures using yolanda's lomo lc-a, which i forgot about until i tried to nab some pictures of elk, and which I enjoy using. Here's some of my favorites from the trip.

This one's not from the vacation, but taken with the same camera.

Lots more here:

Lomo

laaaaaaaaaazy day.

it's nearly 4 and I sm still in my pajamas. I was trying to beat "shadow of the colossus" for the PS2 so that I could return it before 5 days and just hold onto the credit until there was something that I really wanted, but after the 10th or so colossus, it gets sort of boring, so i will have no problem returning it this afternoon. It's always basically the same battle. While beautiful, like Ico, I kind of just want to look around the world and not fight the battles and solve the puzzles that they want me too.



You get to climb up those guys and hack away at their vital spots. Most of the time though you are just holding R1, which is the "hang-on" button. Still, the game is pretty fun.

I found a flea on me so Beatrice got some advantage. Also, our pumpkin vines have flowers on them so I cross pollinated them with a q-tip this morning. We are hoping for at least some small pumpkins by halloween, but some in november would not be bad.

no elk pictures. the people at fred meyer one hour photo said that the roll was blank. that also means that the photo of the giraffe drinking another giraffe's pee that we thought we had is gone too. I shall never forget it, though I am sorry that I can't share it with you all. 
Yolanda got off to CA fine today. My watches came in the mail, after about 3 weeks of waiting. They were sent from Kiev in the ukraine, and i was told it would take a month. One has a picture of Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space) on it, the other has a picture of Belka and Strelka, the first dogs to make it into orbit and back alive. They are both manual watches, so i have to remember to wind them. 

OSU called me back today and although the Entomological Society of America says that ISU was offering an entomology minor in 2007, as well as online classes, OSU says they are not. That is disappointing news to me as it would have been loads easier to go there then North Carolina, which is my top choice right now. I think that I will still apply to OSU for the fall 2008 semester in case something changes. I would like to stay in the pacific northwest if I could. 

here's sara lewis at her wedding this afternoon:



It was a nice wedding at a place called arrington apples. They told us not to take the apples off of the tree (since they sell them in the gift shop) but on the way out I grabbed 2 that were hanging about my car. I ate one on the way home and it was sour.

Highway 199 in Oregon and California is awesome. I think I may want to live in one of the teency weency towns that are along it. Not because they had any charm, particularly, but because it's in of the redwood nat'l forest and the hills are just covered in thick forest. The Illinois River area also seemed cool. I haven't any idea what property costs around there but if i lived in a trailer there are lots of places I could live, it seems.

i got back from eureka/arcata about 10 minutes ago. the drive to arcata took around 7 hours, the drive back took almost 9. I took a mild detour, driving 10 mph on a dirt road, because I had pulled off to see some elk. A guy looking at the info plaque told me that at fern valley there were two gigantic bucks as well as the rest of the herd. He also said that fern valley was "jurassic park-like" so I was sold.

I headed up the dirt road which was very much like driving in rally-racing style video games, but not nearly as fun since our car's shocks are struts are totally shot. It was an 8 mile drive to fern valley. At 4 miles there was a small booth where I not only had to pay money, I also realized it had taken me nearly 25 minutes to drive 4 miles. So I turned around, not wanted to spend another hour and a half on a dirt road. When I got back to the entrance, not only were there two giant bucks, one was threaening a woman on crutches and the ranger was yelling at her to back away. A lot of people got pictures of that. Since i was the next closest and she could sort of see me, I paid her the respects of not capturing her humiliation on film. I did get pictures of the elks, but they are on real film that has to be developed.

My legs are tired and it's hot here. Arcata and the wedding we nice. John and his roomates were SUPER nice and upon his arrival home, John made me very spicy chicken tacos with a glass of club soda. Homemade tortillas and everything, which I made after some direction. I'm sending them a thank you gift of trader joe's pepitas (john's favorite) and some stumptown coffee tomorrow.

A woman who has a twin sister in new mexico told me that her husband spends more time out of the year there then in oregon. She is also not allowed to go there. It seemed like her husband was having an affair with her twin sister and she was aware but she played it off like it was funny. It was awkward. She even sasid at one point "that's my story and I am sticking to it!" which was not funny and made everything more awkward. EDIT: I forgot to mention that one of the customers i was ringing me up was telling me about HER husband and HER twin sister.

Everything is set with Dan's friend John tomorrow in Arcata. I am leaving right after work and hopefully getting into CA around 9pm or a little earlier. John seems incredibly nice to let a friend of a friend stay overnight on such short notice. Out experience with the lads from new zealand was a very postive one, and was pretty similar, so hopefully this will go just as smoothly. I with that I was going to be driving through redwood national forest in the daylight, but unfortunately I think it will be dark both times. I am going to try to leave the wedding as soon as I can since i have to be back in PDX sunday night before yolanda leaves for CA. Luckily, with all that driving, I can finish the last audiobook in the His Dark Materials series, the Amber Spyglass.

Dax on the radio

My friend Dax has a radio show on mondays at 3pm from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He features antique recordings and promises music from the first half of the 20th century. Have a listen, will you? Archived shows after he gets some. 

http://lemondrop.freeradiosaic.org/

caught a bug, other updates

I decided i need to post something in my blog since i hadn't in a long  time, and now the widget works again for me so I will be more inclined to do updates. 

I caught a seed bug on the max today that had stowed away in a woman's hair. i saw it on her hair and then it flew to the window. after they got off the train, I nabbed it. 

Erica at work said she could take my midday shift so i can leave for eureka for sara's wedding the day before. I can even stay at dan and dana's house so I don't have to get a hotel. I am very happy about these things, though yolanda leaves for the bay area the instant I get back into town, which is sad. We are planning on heading up to bellingham and vancouver immediately upon her return, so that should be fun. 

during my week off of school I plan on building a small solar powered robot from the pages of Make, as well as finishing super paper mario and possibly renting shadow of the colossus for ps2 because I have wanted to play through that game for a while. From the makers of Ico. 

I would also like to photodocument my insect collection and do a little research on the insects that I have. I have to label them all quickly before I forget all of the details. I have been very lazy in that respect. 

I got an A in chem this term. I have my Calc I final tomorrow. I think unless i get 101.6% i can't get an A in the class. That's dependant on what my attendance grade is, as well as what I got on the last homework assignment. I am thinking i will get a B in the class. I have to apply for NCSU very soon. The idea of moving to another state for school makes me nervous, especially because i will be doing it 1) alone and 2) with a dog. I hope the OSU decides to offer the minor in entomology that they may be planning on doing. It would be cheaper and easier and I could stay in the Pacific NW that I am lonving a great deal.