Black Canyon Vultures

Julie and I took a quick overnight trip down to Black Canyon of the Gunnison last weekend. The aspens were changing and we happened to see big congregation of Turkey Vultures hanging out. Isn't that red hairless head attractive? With a 6 foot wing span it was really cool to see them gliding around the canyon.

mrs. art teacher (or so they say)

I wanted to share some of the class work I have done with my 3rd-6th graders in Arts After School at the Art Center. It's fun but EXHAUSTING!

frisbee golf

Joel and I played 36 holes of disc golf last Saturday. What a great sport. I also had to include the shot of our friend Erik. Such an intense throw.

What's the deal with the blog? It's slowing down big time. C'mon!

A DECK AGAINST TIME

There have been a couple of requests for a blog update on the deck. (Thanks for sending the most recent photos Carol).  I found a shot from July 2004 of the old deck before we had completed the retaining wall to the west or before we were really using that as a walking path to the boat dock.  I'll upload a couple batches of photos.

 I did a bit of photo retouching in the last two photos to show how I think the bench will look once all of the posts are cut short, and how the landings might look on the east side when that is completed next summer.

my buddy came to town

My friend and old roommate Andrew came into town this past weekend. He's currently working as a computer programmer back near his home near Ohio. He came in Friday, and we cooked some lasagna and had some other friends bring some salad and dessert (brownies). The meal was delcious and we spent the evening playing Settlers of Catan. I'd be surprised if anyone knew about this game. Let's just say it's a strategy game that lasts longer than Risk. hahaha.


Saturday was pretty awesome because we went north to Tellico Plains (about 1.5 hrs away). We enjoyed some cliff jumping and waterfalls.

This is the spot we went cliff jumping. The waterfall is on the right side, and you could actually sit down in the river and slide down the waterfall into the pool below. This spot is called Baby Falls.

We got there in the morning so after some sliding and cliff jumping, we grabbed the lunches we had and headed down the road to the 4th biggest waterfall in TN: Bald River Falls. (see below)

As you can see the weather was gorgeous. After lunch we ended up climbing up and standing underneath the gushing water. It was pretty incredible. We found a cove where we could stand behind some of the falls. It was loud

Toilets

Ordinarily I would not be blogging about toilets, but we had some requests for photos of the completed bathroom project at the lake. Our friend Larry Glasser gave us a remnant of vinyl flooring, Mom had a flooring guy tear out the old carpet and install the vinyl on Thursday, and this weekend Tom and Austin put it the new low-flush, "comfort height" toilets. New rugs on sale at Kohl's complete the upgrade. It looks very nice, should be easier to clean, and will make time spent in there so much more enjoyable!

On a related note, Tom also installed the new toilet in Mom's lower level bathroom in town last night. This gives him a PR of three toilets in one weekend. Not a record he's planning to break any time soon!

Birthday 14er

OK, here's some more pics from our epic climb with Amy. Note, another shot of my "clam diggers" Wildflowers were incredible.

Keegan and Finley

Keegan loves his uncle Michael. "where's Michael, Michael coming too?'

#2

Just got back from Denver, and I now have two 14ers under my belt. Dave now has 40 total. Hats off to you sir. That was the highlight, but overall it was a super swell time with Dave and Julie. Here are some pictures from the hike (notice Dave's nice pants). Dave has some nice pictures as well, so expect those soon.

Logic Pro Studio...It has come.

After starting out with "garageband," then switching to a incomplete pirated version of Logic, it just didn't make the cut. So me and my audio production buddy, Blake, decided it was time to get the real deal... "Logic Pro Studio 8" containing 40GB of content including 18,000 royalty-free sound loops, 2400 effects, 1300 sampled instruments, 40 virtual instruments (synthesizers-drum kits). The 5 user manuals required a whole tree to provide enough paper, and 17 octopi for ink. I will tell you all about it when it finishes installing by next year. But for now, here are some photos from our "install party" we had.

We really worked the system by getting 2 for the price of one. Instead of buying 2 for $500 dollars each, we bought the "express version" for really cheap, which contains 2 serial codes. We upgraded to "pro" and got 2 upgrades. And all topped off with an educational discount! So it only ended up being $225 each. My shoulders still hurt from carrying it home from the store.