Monthly Archives: February 2010

Interesting Links, February 2010

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Here are links I found interesting in February 2010:

  • Atheism Is A Religion Like… – “Atheism is a religion like clear is a color.” Read more on the Godless Blogger’s blog. Thanks to @almightygod on Twitter for sharing the link.
  • Are You Spamming Comments Inadvertently? – Some food for thought for bloggers about comments, comment moderation, and comment spam. On Weblog Tools Collection.
  • Atheist vs. agnostic – The two terms defined and contrasted. On Iron Chariots Wiki.
  • Why Vaccines Matter – Providing greater access to existing vaccines and making new vaccines available quickly could save 8 million lives by 2020. With a 10-year, $10 billion commitment, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting immunization programs designed to reach children in the world’s poorest countries. Read more by Bill Gates on The Gates Notes. Thanks to @DrRachie for sharing the link.
  • YouTube – The world’s most generic news report – Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe – A hilarious parody of lazily edited news reports from Series 2, Episode 2 of Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. Thanks to @dcolanduno for sharing the link.
  • In their words: Experts weigh in on Mac vs. PC security – Informal survey of security experts on Mac vs. PC security issues. On CNET News. Thanks to @EstherSchindler for sharing the link.
  • Leonardo da Vinci’s Resume Explains Why He’s The Renaissance Man For the Job – An interesting read on Gizmodo.
  • The General Medical Council to Andrew Wakefield: “The panel is satisfied that your conduct was irresponsible and dishonest” – A summary of the whole thing. On Science Based Medicine. Thanks to @DerekCBart for sharing the link.
  • Rare Photos of Famous People – 125 rare photos of famous people. On CrackTwo.com. Thanks to @BorrowLenses for retweeting the link.
  • Think or Thwim » How To Hide An Airplane Factory – During World War II the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it from a Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting and trompe l’oeil to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air. See the photos on thinkorthwim.com. Thanks to @Daniel_Loxton for sharing the link.
  • All The Many Ways Amazon So Very Failed the Weekend – An excellent, entertaining, and truthful read by John Scalzi. Thanks to @Jodene on Twitter for sharing the link.
  • Dragons Den-Bruce’s Juice? SLEAZIEST Pitch Ever – Snake oil salesman gets what’s due to him. Many thanks to the folks who produce this show and made the video. It’s about time REASON makes an appearance on television. Thanks also to @DrRachie for sharing the link.
  • Sarah Palin Uses PAC to Buy Her Own Book – Sarah Palin has been using her political action committee to buy up thousands of copies of her book, “Going Rogue,” in order to mail copies of the memoir to her donors, newly filed campaign records show. Read more on ABC News.
  • 20 Years of Adobe Photoshop – A great summary of the history of Photoshop, which is 20 years old this month. On Webdesigner Depot. Thanks to @estherschindler for sharing the link.
  • Stopping Self Content Theft – “Feeding Google’s insatiable appetite for content is on of the main reasons why infringers scrape and plagiarize content and also one of the biggest reasons why it is important to monitor and, in many cases, defend against it.” Read more on PlagiarismToday.com.
  • AVN may be closing doors; Meryl Dorey stepping down – At least the Australians know how to put up a good fight. On Bad Astronomy.
  • Time Lapse Video of Guy Driving Across the Country – Absolutely EXCELLENT time-lapse video of a cross country drive. Thanks to @BWJones for sharing the link.
  • We’re turning comments off for a bit — Engadget – Engadget realizes (belatedly) the problems that ensue when you fail to tightly moderate comments on a blog. Thanks to @MikeTRose for sharing the link.
  • Why You Should Never Consider Buying A Used Kindle – Another great post about Amazon’s long reach into their customer’s lives. Thanks to @Jodene for sharing the link.
  • 15 Design Tips to Learn From Apple – 15 practical ways to follow Apple’s example in creating beautiful interfaces. On Design Shack.
  • Why Amazon Cannot Afford To Lose The eBook Wars To Apple – “The Apple iPad isn’t even available yet, but already it is forcing Amazon to respond in a variety of ways to protect its competing Kindle eBook business.” Read more on TechCrunch. Thanks to @alanpringle for sharing the link.
  • Are Aggregators Really The Problem? – “Are aggregators really the problem many in the mainstream media want to believe?” Read about it on PlagiarismToday.com.
  • YouTube – High Quality JPEG Recompression Artifacts – 500 saves – Interesting video shows the degradation of an image saved as JPEG over and over. Thanks to @BorrowLenses for the link.
  • WordPress for BlackBerry Version 1.0 – Information and a video about the new WordPress for BlackBerry app. On WordPress.org.
  • 40 wild birds play a Gibson Les Paul guitar – Funny and interesting video with commentary of wild birds (they look like finches) “playing” a guitar. Thanks to @estherschindler for sharing the link. On BBC.
  • 10 Things You Should Know Before Going On The Daily Show – The Rumpus.net – A fun blog post by Ethan watters. Thanks to @estherschindler for sharing the link. On TheRumpus.Net.
  • Macmillan gets standing ovation from American booksellers | theBookseller.com – “US publisher Macmillan received a standing ovation at an America Booksellers Association meeting, according to various tweets from the event, picked up by GalleyCat.” Read more on TheBookSeller.com. Thanks to @publishingtalk for sharing the link.
  • The Autism Vaccine Lie that Won’t Die – The media trumpeted an irresponsible study, ensuring that its nasty legacy thrives. Read about it in Salon.
  • The damage of the anti-vaccination movement – latimes.com – “Childhood diseases once mostly eradicated are making a comeback. And children are dying.” Read more in the LA Times. Thanks to @derekcbart for sharing the link.
  • ISS Tour – Welcome To The International Space Station! – A closer look at the International Space Station. Thanks to @jenniferwhitley for sharing the link.
  • Sarah Palin’s Storm at the Tea Party – Why haven’t responsible Republicans spoken out against her? On Slate.com.
  • 8 Types of People That Belong on Twitter | Inc.com – Fun article summarizing the kinds of people on Twitter. On Inc.com. Thanks to @cofrenchy on Twitter for sharing the link.
  • mea culpa – One of the best and most honest things I’ve read about Apple in a long time. By Rick LePage. Thanks to @BWJones on Twitter for sharing the link.
  • Free Speech and Freedom of Information: Advice for Bloggers – “The information bloggers choose to put out there often has a huge impact on how they’re perceived and what others online think about them. And what many bloggers don’t realize is that information they put on their blogs can have a direct legal impact.” Read more on WebDesignerDepot.com. Thanks to @yaksierra and @flyingwithfish for sharing the link on Twitter.
  • Ten rules for writing fiction | Books | guardian.co.uk – Great article about writing fiction. In Guardian.co.uk. Thanks to @publishingtalk for sharing the link.
  • Keeping watch over private planes difficult – General aviation security tighter, but preventing ‘deranged’ acts hard to do. In the Statesman. Surprisingly balanced coverage, probably because AOPA was interviewed. Thanks to @JenniferWhitley for sharing the link.
  • Ignore bad science: Vaccinate your child – It’s time for the fear-mongering about childhood vaccines to end. Read more on the Chicago Sun Times. Thank to @derekcbart for sharing this link.
  • The Not-Invented-Anywhere Syndrome – “A teenage literary sensation who lifted large parts of her debut hit novel from the Web, without giving credit, says she’s justified because ‘there’s no such thing as originality’.” Read more on theregister.co.uk. This attitude really pisses me off. Thanks to @estherschindler on Twitter for sharing the link.
  • Privacy, complexity seen as Google blind spots – “The recent privacy backlash over Google Buzz, the company’s new social-networking service, is the latest in a series of launch fumbles that some argue reveal troubling blind spots within the Internet giant.” Read more on SFGate.com. Thanks to @jodene for sharing this link.
  • Evocative book follows U.S. 89 – The Salt Lake Tribune reviews @anntorrence’s book about Highway 89.
  • MPs’ damning verdict: Homeopathy is useless and unethical – “Today the Science and Technology Select Committee delivered its verdict on homeopathy and it was devastating. The committee has called for the complete withdrawal of NHS funding and official licensing of homeopathy.” Read more on Guardian.co.uk. Thanks to @factually for sharing the link. Apparently, the Brits have seen the light. When will we?
  • The World’s 18 Strangest Airports – Great summary of some really unusual airports all over the world. In Popular Mechanics. Be sure to watch the videos — some of them are really great!
  • Banks Using Social Media Sites For Mining Personal Information – “Banks and other financial organizations are collecting and archiving information such as status updates that users post on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to a recent ABC News article.” Read more on SocialTimes.com. Thanks to @jodene for sharing this link.
  • A Camera That Can See Straight Through You – Fine art photography via X-Ray. On NPR.org. Thanks to @BWJones for sharing this link.
  • Regen Traynor Paranormal Challenge – Results – An interesting look at the workings of the IIG during a recent paranormal challenge. On TurboFool.
  • A Buddhist moment in America – “The world’s most famous athlete, through the prism of another faith, told a largely Christian nation how he would seek redemption. And as he talked about craving and the misery that inevitably follows, he provided everyone in our bigger-faster-higher society something to think about.” Read more by Stephen Prothero in USATODAY. Thanks to @DJGrothe for sharing the link. So refreshing to see a moral standard that doesn’t rely on the same old Christian/Jesus standards.
  • Is This Any Way to Run an App Store? – “Apple seems more concerned with its excessive control over the iPhone and its App Store than providing its customers with the best possible apps.” Read more from Ted Landau on recent App Store removals. THIS is one reason I’m a bit leery about buying an iPad. I don’t like the idea of Apple controlling what I can and can’t run on my device. Thanks to @MikeTRose on Twitter for sharing the link.
  • Unstressed Syllables › What Should You Write About? – Interesting blog post for writers looking for direction. On Unstressed Syllables. Thanks to @alanpringle for sharing the link.
  • The Bloom Box: a power plant for the home – Another possible green power source? Article and video on Engadget. Thanks to @BWJones for sharing the link.
  • New Study Links Religion to Immoral Behavior – MSNBC News report about a study linking religion to immorality. On YouTube. Thanks to @dcolanduno for sharing the link.
  • A Win For Publishers – Inside Higher Ed – “In what publishers are calling a significant copyright victory, a German court has approved an injunction filed by six academic publishers — including four founding members of the electronic textbook consortium CourseSmart — against the file-sharing company RapidShare AG. The injunction prohibits the company from giving away digital copies of dozens of scholarly titles.” Read more on insidehighered.com. Thanks to @plagiarismtoday.com for sharing the link.
  • Absolutely Hilarious Bathroom Mirror Prank Video – Funny and harmless practical joke involving a mirror that isn’t. Thanks to @DonPerreault for sharing the link.
  • The Secular Coalition for America’s Briefing with the Obama Administration – “Friday morning, surrounded by representatives from various national atheist organizations as part of the Secular Coalition for America, we will be meeting with White House officials about issues that matter to us.” Read more on Friendly Athiest. Thanks to @factually for retweeting this link.
  • The Sandpit – A really great time-lapse video of New York City, using tilt-shift photography. Thanks to @SzymonNiemczura for sharing the link.
  • What Happens After I Die? – This pretty much explains it. Thanks to @factually for sharing the link.
  • The gathering storm – “The GOP has been captured by a far-right movement that places its abstract ideology above practical needs and concerns in the real world.” Read more in Roger Ebert’s Journal. Thanks to @BWJones on Twitter for sharing the link.
  • Haiti Disaster Relief: A Global Effort – “The earthquake in Haiti may be one of the world’s most tragic disasters, but the rapid response and financial munificence across the globe has shown us the best of humanity. Still, looking closely at the numbers reveals some unexpected trends.” Read more on Life360. Thanks to @giaghani for sharing the link.
  • Liberals and atheists smarter? Intelligent people have values novel in human evolutionary history, study finds – “More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history.” Read more in Science Daily. Thanks to @samharrisorg for sharing the link on Twitter.
  • The Cost of Care – “The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones.” Read more on National Geographic. This is the blog post that goes with the graphic I also linked to.
  • Health Spending, Doctor’s Visits, and Life Expectancy Charted – If I’m reading this right — which I think I am — people in the U.S. spend nearly twice as much on health care as the next biggest spender, get very few doctor’s visits, and have a lower than average life expectancy. And people are saying the system doesn’t mean fixing? Thanks to @BWJones for sharing this sobering link.
  • This week in crazy: Jenny McCarthy – Yes, Jenny McCarthy is still crazy…and potentially dangerous. In Salon.com. Thanks to @factually for sharing the link.
  • Kurt Vonnegut explains drama | Derek Sivers – Derek Silvers reviews Kurt Vonnegut’s explanation of drama, with graphs. This really does make sense. Thanks to @aprilmains for sharing the link.
  • We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change – Al Gore writes an opinion piece for the New York Times. Too bad it’ll fall on deaf ears. Thanks to @PattyHankins for sharing the link.
  • Max Headroom Finally Coming To DVD! – This is good news for me. I really LIKED this show — even wrote a letter to the network when they cancelled it. I just hope it’s everything I remember about it…. Thanks to @derekcbart for sharing the link. Read more on io9.com.
  • Study: Are Liberals Smarter Than Conservatives? – “A libertarian (and, as such, nonpartisan) researcher, Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has just written a paper that is set to be published in March by the journal Social Psychology Quarterly. The paper investigates not only whether conservatives are dumber than liberals but also why that might be so.” Read more on Time.com. What’s interesting is not whether they’re smarter but WHY they might be. Thanks to @DJGrothe for sharing this link.
  • Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage – “For all these years the anti-choice movement has said ‘we want to outlaw abortion, not put women in jail, but what this law says is ‘no, we really want to put women in jail.’” Read more on RHRealityCheck.org. When will they stop trying to push their religious agenda on the rest of us? Thanks to @jodene for sharing this link.

A Great Photographer Takes a Great Photo

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Some more good comes from a bunch of bad.

Back in October 2008, I embarked on one of Flying M Air‘s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventures. But rather than paying passengers along for the six-day/five-night trip, I had a video team and a writer from Arizona Highways magazine. The trip itself went great. Good weather, great flying conditions, most accommodations right in line with my usual offerings.

It wasn’t until months afterwards that I realized what a mistake I’d made.

The video company, which I’d contracted to produce three television quality documentaries with footage taken, in part, during the trip, was in way over its head. A visit to the video editing guy’s “state of the art studio” — a partially refinished garage right off his kitchen — was the wake-up call. He’d never bothered to catalog any of the hours of video he and his companion had shot on my dime, using equipment I’d probably purchased with my prepayment. He was attempting to create a “trailer” video with footage shot solely with the POV camera that had been attached, at an off angle, to my helicopter’s nose. His “audio recording facility” picked up the noise from his fan-cooled computers and barking dogs. He didn’t understand the concept of matching music changes to scene changes. In other words, he had no clue.

I won’t go into more details than that. My lawyers are dealing with it. Let’s just say I got ripped off badly and have nothing to show for it but a hard disk full of mediocre video in about a dozen different formats, none of which is organized or cataloged to make scenes easy to find.

But often it takes a bunch of crap (think fertilizer) to make something good grow (think flowers). And the good thing that came from the outrageous expense of the trip was the article written by Keridwen Cornelius, the Arizona Highways writer who came along and sat taking notes for most of the trip.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Before the article came out in the May 2009 issue of Arizona Highways, I was contacted by Jeff Kida, Photography Editor at Arizona Highways. I was familiar with Jeff’s work from the magazine. If you’ve never seen Arizona Highways, you should pick up a copy. It is, by far, the most impressive look at Arizona that you’re likely to see. The photography is beautiful, beyond description, and each issue of the magazine provides an in-depth look at the state that simply isn’t available elsewhere. Landscape photographers — amateur or professional — should use it as a standard to achieve in their own work.

Jeff said they needed a portrait of me and my helicopter for the article. We tossed around some ideas. I mentioned that near sunset, the late afternoon light often made the Weaver Mountains north of Wickenburg turn copper colored. I suggested that we put my helicopter out on the ramp at Wickenburg Municipal Airport with those mountains as a backdrop and stick me in front of it. He seemed to like the idea and made a date to do the shoot.

Jeff arrived early that day. So early that I figured I’d take him up for a aerial shoot of Wickenburg. I still had hopes about at least one of my videos and my husband, Mike, would shoot some HD footage with our Sony Handycam to use as B-roll. I pulled another door off in back for Jeff. We flew around town. He seemed to enjoy the flight, but he didn’t take many photos. It wasn’t until later that I realized he was an on-the-ground kind of photographer who liked to get up-close-and-personal with his subject matter. Aerial photography — especially in less than perfect conditions — didn’t interest him much.

We went back to the airport and I landed on the spot I’d envisioned. We put the doors back on. I went into the restroom to fix my hair a bit. I’d already put on makeup and a Flying M Air shirt. The sun crept lower into the horizon. The light started getting good.

The airport was deserted, which is (1) nothing unusual and (2) a good thing. Jeff had me stand at least 50 feet in front of the helicopter while he set up his tripod at least 50 feet from me. He used a long lens to frame me and the helicopter.

This is the difference between a photographer who knows what he’s doing and one who doesn’t. Sure, I could have stood closer to the helicopter and Jeff could have stood right in front of me. But instead, he’d decided to take advantage of the distance-compressing capabilities of a telephoto lens. By lining up his two subjects (me and the helicopter) in front of a distant background (the mountains 10 miles away) and framing us in a telephoto lens, he made everything appear much closer together. At the same time, he was able to sharply focus on me and leave the helicopter and mountains in a much softer focus.

Maria LangerThe result, as you can see here, is likely the best portrait of me that I’ll ever see.

What I like about this photo — other than the simple fact that I look happy and alive and even a wee bit attractive in it — is that it tells a story about me. I’m the subject, the helicopter is the topic, and the desert mountains in the distance is the setting. It can be rewritten as a sentence: “Maria is a helicopter pilot who flies in the desert mountains.” And I think that’s what a good portrait should be. More than just a picture of a face. A description of that person.

Arizona HighwaysAnyway, I didn’t see the photo until the May 2009 issue of the magazine came out. I was thrilled with it. I wrote to Jeff to ask if I could have a copy to use elsewhere. I also asked a few other questions. He answered the other questions, but didn’t send the photo. I thought perhaps the magazine had said no, so I let it go.

The article did great things for my business. I sold more excursions last year than I had in all the years I’d been offering it. While I didn’t net enough to cover the cost of my huge mistake with the videographers, it was great to get out there and share the trip with other folks.

This month I started a new project and really needed a good “author photo” to go with it. I remembered the photo from the Arizona Highways article. I contacted Jeff again. He apologized, saying he’d meant to send it to me the last time I’d asked but had forgotten. And he sent a high resolution image with permission to use it anywhere I wanted to.

I’m thrilled.

So now I have a good portrait that I can use on my blog (you’ll find it formatted as you see here on my Bio page) and on Flying M Air’s Owner/Chief Pilot Background page. And I’m sure you’ll see it elsewhere, too.

So that’s two good things that came from the ill-fated trip: the great article by Keridwen Cornelius in Arizona Highways‘ May 2009 issue and the great photo taken by Jeff Kida for that article. Thanks again, both of you!

Glass Replacement FAIL in Wickenburg

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How does anyone get anything done in this town?

The old guy Mike called to give us an estimate for replacing two windows refused to take driving directions to our house. Instead, I had to drop everything and go out to meet him.

He wasn’t at the corner where he was supposed to be. Instead, he’d driven his unmarked truck past me and was waiting two blocks from our home. He used his cell phone to call me. I tracked him down and he followed me to my house.

Upstairs Windows

The window on the right is the one that needs replacing.

The windows are upstairs. He followed me up the stairs. I pointed out the 4 foot by 8 foot double-pane glass panel that needed replacement. The seal between the two panes had failed and moisture had slipped in. Each day, the window would fog up in a way that couldn’t be wiped clean. Since the window is one of two that offer the best view in the house, we wanted it fixed quickly.

He walked up to the window and looked at the garage roof outside. “How do I get out there?” he asked.

“On a ladder,” I replied.

“We can’t do that. The glass is big and heavy.”

“You did it twelve years ago when we first bought the house,” I told him. I pointed at the identical panel of glass beside it. “You replaced that one right after we moved in.”

“How did we get up there?” he asked.

“On a ladder.”

Bathroom Window

The bathroom window is broken.

I took him into the upstairs bathroom to see the other window that needed replacing. This was a small two-part window of white-smoked glass. One panel slid back and forth to open or close the window. The other panel remained stationery. The stationery panel had always had a bad seal that let moisture in, but we never bothered to replace it since you couldn’t see through it anyway. But during a recent storm, that panel’s outside pane had broken. We wanted it replaced.

He pulled off the panel that slid back and forth and set it down beside the toilet. He reached around, pushing the screen out a bit and mumbling about how he hoped nothing fell.

“How do you get up to this window?” he asked.

“On a ladder,” I replied yet again.

“What size ladder?”

“My husband uses an extension ladder. We have one you can use.”

He put the other panel back in place. “I don’t know why anyone would build a house like this,” he muttered as he led the way out of the bathroom.

My patience was stretching thin. “People don’t usually design houses just to make it convenient to replace windows,” I told him.

He went downstairs, outside, and around the side of the house. I followed. He looked up at the bathroom window, which had to be at least 20 feet off the ground. Then he looked at the comparatively short climb to the garage roof.

“Once you get up there,” I told him, you can walk on the garage roof pretty easily.

He looked at the situation for another moment, then suddenly said, “I can’t help you, lady.”

I don’t know if he was expecting me to argue or beg with him, but if he was, he was disappointed.

“Okay, thanks for your time,” I said quickly. “You can find your way out? Be careful backing up.”

And then I went into the house, leaving him find his way back to wherever it is he’d come from.

Of course, since the old guy is the only glass replacement option in Wickenburg — or at least the only one my husband could find — we’ll have to get someone up from Phoenix to do the job. But that’s typical here. No matter how much you try to spend money locally, you just can’t get what you need.

Health Care: How the U.S. Stacks Up

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Very disturbing info from National Geographic.

A Twitter friend of mine, @BWJones, tweeted a link to a graphic that clearly showed three disturbing things when comparing the U.S. to other developed nations:

  • People in the U.S. spend far more for health care than any other nation.
  • People in the U.S. visit doctors fewer times than many other nations.
  • People in the U.S. have a lower than average life expectancy.

As summarized in “The Cost of Care“:

The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year.

What does that say about America?

Click here to read the article and see the graphic.

What’s New Here is Something Old

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I finally get around to adding the rest of my original blog content to this blog.

I started blogging back in October 2003. Back then, I used a blogging software program called iBlog that created blog pages in plain old HTML. It worked okay but I soon outgrew it and switched to WordPress.

The trouble is, I used iBlog for more than two years, accumulating hundreds of posts. Although I was able to export those posts to XML, getting them properly formatted with their images and importing them into WordPress was extremely tedious and time-consuming. I worked on it periodically for months. And then I gave up.

This week, I’m prepping for a new book based on a collection of my blog posts. I realized that the best way to make sure I didn’t miss any of them was to get them all online on An Eclectic Mind. So I sat down and completed the tedious chore of importing the last bunch of posts, all of which have lots of photos and date from January 2004 to June 2005.

Here’s a list of what I added:

  • On Close Calls
    Why a control tower clearance is something to be taken with a grain of salt. October 9, 2004
  • Through the Magic of Photoshop…
    I get a photographic image of a helicopter that hasn’t been built yet. November 7, 2004
  • A Trip to California
    I take a trip to California with my family to see Zero-Mike-Lima. November 24, 2004
  • People are Pigs
    A tenant moves out and I am amazed by the way some people live. December 2, 2004
  • A Trip to Quartzsite
    I have a nice flight to Quartzsite and back with some pilot friends. January 17, 2005
  • Air-to-Air
    An air-to-air photo shoot gives mixed results. January 24, 2005
  • Exploring the Desert by Helicopter
    We wander through a mill site, fly over an open pit mine, get a hamburger in the middle of nowhere, and see the “land now” light four miles short of home. February 5, 2005
  • A Trip to Phantom Ranch
    We take a mule ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, spend two nights, and return to civilization. March 5, 2005
  • My Trip to Georgetown
    I take Zero-Mike-Lima on a long cross country trip to take care of business and visit some friends. May 8, 2005
  • Red Mountain
    We “walk inside a mountain” near Flagstaff. June 1, 2005
  • Could it be? A building at our place on Howard Mesa?
    Our soon-to-be cabin was finally delivered to Howard Mesa. June 5, 2005