Well, I Hope You Like Trees

It's a shame that when I'm presented with some really awesome and beautiful scenery to take pictures of, I tend to get so excited that I forget to actually compose my shots. I take pictures and am only seeing the blazing glory of a golden aspen, and I miss the branches, shadows, and whatnot that are obscuring things or throwing off the composition. Regardless of this, I managed to get some good shots recently.

This weekend Jen and I went up into the mountains with Gavin and Sarah and hiked through the aspens. It was a gorgeous trek along the Hell's Hole trail in the Chicago Creek area. It's much nicer than the name implies. We topped that with a drive by Mount Evans and down to Beau Jo's creekside in Evergreen. That is a good way to do a weekend.

I also have some pictures of some recent spectacular sunsets and our trip along the Peak to Peak Highway for some more aspen viewing. I've put them all up (just for you!) in my gallery. So take a look ... unless of course you don't like trees.

That Takes Some Gall (or Gaul)

Has anyone else been disturbed by the news coming out of France lately? I'm thinking here of the expulsion of Roma from the country, and the slow erosion of religious freedom with an emphasis on Muslims. When did Western democracies start condoning this stuff? You would think that France own experience with Nazi Germany would make them more sensitive to the persecution of or discrimination of ethnic and religious minorities. Yet the French government seems to be leading a xenophobic charge in Europe.

The ban on religious dress in schools shows that the French government is losing respect for individual rights and basic freedoms across the board, and not just against unpopular groups, such as the Roma or Muslims. I'm heartened to at least hear that there are protests in Europe against such policies. However, I think if similar actions were being taken in dictatorships, there would be denunciations on the floor of the United Nations. It's unsettling how little condemnation I have heard from our government or American groups. It's disturbing to see the freedom many fought to give France being denied to those who live there.

Now That's Procrastination

Well, it's been more than 13 months since I put this task on my to-do list. And tonight, I finally got it done. And now I'm not sure it was such a great idea.

See, for my graduate program, I had to make a big project. For mine, I made a website to help seniors learn how to use computers and the Internet. I've had it in my portfolio, but for a long while it was mildly broken. Then the idiots at Uplink Earth (who finally after a month plus of nagging canceled my account) made it really broken. I moved over to GoDaddy, but it took me a long time and some customer support to get the database set up with them. Now, I finally have gotten the site back up and running.

Boy, is it awful.

On one hand, it is nice to see how much I've progressed in my design ability, sense of good user interface, and general competency, but it is painful to look back and see how bad something that was supposed to be my capstone project really is. There are things that are unfriendly to everyone, not just seniors. The size of the site changes from page to page, making for visual distractions. I have navigation that requires both use of the keyboard and mouse. It can't be navigated by mouse alone. What the heck was I thinking?

Right now I am thinking about hiding this site ... which would be a shame after the work I've put into getting it running again. However, I noticed last week that my coolest project from my graduate studies, a multi-player strategy game, is not working. Time to put getting that up and running on my to-do list.

There Goes the Sun

It's not news, but the sun is setting earlier. That's, uh, that's normal, I hear. So anyhow it's spurring me on to get some things done. This weekend saw a lot of yard work, cutting down the dead landscaping and the like. Then today Jen and I went along the Peak-to-Peak Highway to check out the aspen changing color. We made a caramel apple run into Estes Park and did crossword puzzles along the stretches that were not sparkling with gold and orange.

We're planning on taking another trip to see them next weekend with some friends of ours. I guess we're making up for missing them last year when a big windstorm took the leaves out before we could see them. The weather today was fantastic; even a little warm. Pictures will go up after next week's trip.

When not touring the aspen, we played a lot of Lego Harry Potter. Jen got me that for my birthday and we've been playing through. It is fun, though not as competitive as previous ones. It mainly is exploration and puzzle solving. It is fun and has an innovative split screen view. How the screen splits is based on your position relative to the other player. The screen also can split diagonally, vertically, or horizontally. It can be confusing at first, but is pretty cool. I just need to lay off it a bit, as I am seeing it when I close my eyes.

World Explorer

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy back when, I had been working on a little project of my own. It was step one in an idea for a game. I never got around to putting the finishing touches on it, until now. I took advantage of Jen being gone for the weekend and put some work in on it. It now is almost entirely complete. I can think of some functionality that should be added in, but I'm just pleased to have gotten to this point.

If you'd like to take a look at it, it is the newest item in my portfolio: World Explorer. Check it out. It isn't anything "playable" as such, nor is it pretty, but it is the groundwork for something that I would love to complete, and possibly could if I was sequestered in a Chilean coal mine for 4 months (or more).

Last Weekend And This Weekend

Huh. It's taking me a week to write about weekends. This weekend, I guess I'll cover in advance. Jen's off on a retreat, leaving me alone for the first time since we've been married. I knew I would miss her, but I am surprised at how much and how soon. I'm glad it is only for a couple of days. So, that means I'll be doing chores, crossing things off of my to-do list that have languished on the back burner, possibly buying some toys, and of course, sprawling across the bed.

Last weekend however, I saw some interesting things.

Way to send mixed messages, King Soopers.

Outside in the parking lot, I saw this beauty:

I'm not not much for 2-wheeled motorized transport, but that is a pretty darn sweet helmet.

My parents were with us for the weekend. We walked around CU and Pearl Street on Saturday with them and Jen's parents. Then on Sunday we went to church and relaxed. On Monday I was baking a pie (New Mexican Apple Pie) for dinner with Jen's parents. I looked out and saw the clouds looked rather weird. Then we took a closer look and saw this:

It was smoke from the wild fire in Four Mile Canyon that has since made national news, destroyed more than 160 homes, and burnt more than 6,000 acres. It looked like from our perspective that the horizon was on fire. We couldn't see the flames, but that's how thick and wide the smoke was. That night we could see the actual flames from Jen's parents' house. We watched slurry bombers going back and forth from the Rocky Mountain Airport to the fire. The glow from the fire lit up the smoke above it as we peered through binoculars. The fire is a long ways away from anyone I know, but Jen knows some folks who have had to evacuate.

It's been weird to hear the reports recently of the fire still raging. I know it is burning and dangerous, but after the initial wall of smoke we saw on Labor Day, when I look up and see a mild haze over the foothills, it sounds weird to say "raging" now. Still, I have to contemplate what it would mean to have my house burn. I am grateful for our firefighters and that we are far removed from those burning embers and fiery tongues.

And Now It's September

August has departed in a flurry of birthdays, and here we find ourselves in September. My parents are here visiting for a week. Originally they were going to be at a campground up in Longmont, but their RV need some time-intensive repairs, so they are staying with us. So far, so good. We have been having a lot of meals with Jen's parents and spent yesterday wandering around the CU campus and Pearl Street.

Tomato #5 has been harvested. I see #6 on the vine, but I don't think we'll be getting #7 any time soon. It has not been the bountiful harvest we had when we moved in nearly a year ago. Well, I guess next time we'll fertilize and actually tend to our garden rather than throw some seeds in the ground and cross our fingers.