I went back to California to share in celebrating my Grandmother's 95th birthday. Then found out my buddy, Soop, was headed to Moab, Utah for a week and last-minute changed my flight so that I could ride along and share the adventure.

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Like any great road trip, we started ours A) Late (almost 6 instead of almost 1) and B) looking for some electronic gizmo so that we could listen to music. Road trip without music? Are you crazy?	The first morning "on the road" we awoke at my sister's place in Nevada. Great mountain views from that neighborhood. Curious absence of photos of the people in the house, Brian and I were exhausted after 4 hours sleep.	My Sister's home in Sparks, NV. She was kind enough to let us roll in at some ungodly hour (1am? 2am?) and sleep.	Hwy 50. Desolate.
This is a "major landmark" on Hwy 50 according to the sign. So major that they named it.... "Sand Hill". Lots of imagination those Nevada explorers.	Shoe Tree.	Not sure what an L is. Or why it has its own sign. But there is one out there, somewhere, apparently.	Quaint little towns pepper Hwy 50. Ok, maybe not "pepper". More like, once in a great while, a little town pops up.
Mom's Cafe. Looked like a good place for coffee and pie. It was.	Morning 3. Our campsite in BLM. I'll call it Camp1	The first of many, many photos of rocks	There were also wildflowers, really beautiful ones, not infrequently.
More rocks. These were stacked by someone to create a little cave in a natural crevice.	rocks, sky. Lots of that out in Moab.	This is the view to the west from Camp1	Camp1 was pretty much on the trailhead for Kane Creek Canyon. So instead of driving back into town to run a trail with a bunch of folk, we just started driving eastward.
This is just before we started out, the two cameras that I used weren't synched to the same timezone, so there will be occasional chronometric anomalies here.			stopping for a beverage and for the dogs to frolic in the cool water
	I don't know what makes the black face on some of the rocks, I assume minerals, but it was really beautiful and refracted the light into an almost oily-looking sheen.	The predominant feature of Kane Creek Canyon, not surprisingly, is Kane Creek	Thus the trail involves many crossings of the creek
Soop is kind enough to frame the naturally ocurring S in the rock face	If you look carefully, you can make out the upper trail, it is at about the 2/3 height on this image. The lower trail is where you fall if you fall off of the upper trail (and an alternate route). Long ways down.	One of the toughest spots on the trail, big stair step.	More amazing geology
Waiting for some folks to get through the tough spot	Seth. Waiting.	Another time problem... this actually came after the next few shots. A pretty creek.
Here you get a better perspective on the size of the stair steps.	Soop went first. Two tries and he was through.	Requires a little articulation from the truck. Those are 35" tires, by the way, it wasn't small bumps. There was also a dropoff to the right that went about 400 feet down.	We finished off the evening in downtown Moab, decent meal at Slickrock Cafe, then back to camp.

Labels: 4wd, california, camping, landcruiser, travel, utah, vacation

Here's a recap from several months ago (should have been posted end of April, 2008).
As Steve was up in California for a day, Marty suggested we sail (good practice for the BVI trip coming up). We couldn't have asked for better weather in which to go sailing on the Bay. It was one of those days that is so perfect it almost hurts.

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Steve's Maiden Voyage with Marty in SF	Marty at the helm	Sailing under the Golden Gate, a fun first. Note the helicopter which had just flown under the bridge.
Alcatraz Island. Note the guy heeled over in front of it. Pretty decent wind blowing.	Excellent post-sailing margaritas with the family. Delicous meal with great company.	Steve, Austin, Marty

Labels: california, day trip, sailing

For those of you in the boutique biz, you can check out Jocelyn Broyles Jewelry at the WSA show in Vegas next week. She'll be at the Venetian, suite 6136 from the 28th through the 31st. You do need a pass to attend, so follow up via email to jb (at) jocelynbroyles.com for more info. She is on the road in the states right now, so her response may be slow.

You can find out more about this sort of thing by going to Jocelyn Broyles Jewelry Blog

Labels: jewelry

Lest readers think that I'm endorsing the Pope without reservation, I thought I'd include a link to the essay Losing Sight of Progress which includes a persuasive lay argument against that absurd philosophy "Intelligent Design".

In essence, the author uses the case of blind salamanders to underscore some of the shortcomings in creationist theory that should be obvious to... even a blind salamander.

Please, please, don't comment in favor of ID. I won't approve the comment anyway as I don't want to get embroiled in a debate about it here. Your chances of convincing me that evolution doesn't happen are right up there with my chances of mastering transcendent meditation while eating dinner tonight.

Don't comment about the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, I won't approve it and it'll only make me hungry.

Labels: news

After a long and muggy day of fixing the wheel situation on my Cruisers, I was torn between wanting to get in a surf and wanting to hold down the couch. In the end, I rationalized with myself that I would at least go to the beach and paddle out, for a minute or two. It I was tired/uninspired, I'd let myself be a couch potato.

Two hours later, with a huge smile on my face and the lingering memory of a technicolor sunset, I drove home a new man- relaxed, happy, and feeling wonderful.

Paradoxically, I almost always feel that great feeling when I go surfing, and yet I still only make it out about half as often as I could go.

In light of all the minor annoyances that we endure living in Tamarindo, I've got to try harder to enjoy the luxury of paddling out in chest to head-high waves, hanging with three of four buddies (and a few tourists, but just a few) and riding a really fun wave in a beautiful setting.

Labels: Costa Rica, sunset, surf

It isn't very often that I find myself saying, "I sure do agree with what the Pope said". In fact, this is probably the first time I've had that notion.

But he recently gave a speech in which he did make a great point:

The concerns for nonviolence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity     - Pope Benedict XVI

Sustainable development and environmentalism aren't topics that I usually associate with organized religions, but if Catholicism is going to push that agenda forward, I welcome the shift in ideology with open arms.

Labels: news, sustainability

I posted some more BVI photos.

One of the very few bummers on our BVI trip was that my Olympus "waterproof" camera died. Again. This is the third time. They've covered it under warranty twice, which is almost fine. But to get warranty coverage is about $20 in postage to send the darn thing back to Olympus (UPS only) and then a 3 to 5 week wait to get it returned. Then of course we have to wait until Bb goes north or someone else comes south in order to get the camera back to us (which isn't Olympus's fault, but annoying just the same).

It appears that this particular camera has some problem with the little door on the bottom where you change out the card & battery. Which is important because sooner or later, you're going to *have* to change the battery! The design on said door doesn't look much like a waterproof seal other than that it has a flimsy gasket. Hopefully they've improved that design on future cameras.

So it leaked and stopped working on day two of a week long "Boy, a waterproof camera sure would be fun on this trip!" trip.

So I had forgotten that we did get a few fun photos.

Hopefully, the extended warranty that I purchased will finally cover the camera- they have a "no-lemon clause" and I hope this qualifies. Which should result in us having a new underwater camera sometime soon.

Labels: photo, sailing, vacation

Bad news today, a good friend to us had his cruiser stolen last night.
It's hard for me to express my frustration over this without a long stream of expletives, so I'll just refer you to this link for a photo and description. The California license 4XTS869.

If you see this awesome looking truck on the road- call 911. Please.

Someone stealing someone else's vehicle gives me black thoughts. I'm not usually a proponent or advocate of violence, but I actually frighten myself when I think of what I would do if I came upon somebody stealing a vehicle.

Labels: california, landcruiser, stolen

Steve is now a great big muckety muck. Of sorts. But not really.
I'm now on the Board of Directors for the Asociacion Pro Mejoras de Tamarindo. Roughly translated, that is the board for improving Tamarindo. An almost completely volunteer organization that was founded 10 or 12 years ago to provide continuous beach cleanup, the APMT is now involved in several very important programs and acts as a de-facto local government.

APMT helps organize the lifeguards, was largely responsible for paving the main road in Tamarindo, continues to clean the beaches (with much help from the local Surfrider Chapter), and paid the rent at the police station for the last six months. Incidentally, the municipality is now committed to paying the police station's rent, which is fantastic as Tamarindo now has one of the best police stations/presences in the country.

And speaking of police, I was very pleased to learn yesterday that in 2007 the number of reported "incidents" was nearly 180. In the first six months of 2008, there have been only 10 "incidents" reported. That is a tremendous decrease and almost certainly the most important factor has been getting our police station organized and drawing attention from the local municipality. Please do keep in mind that there is no way that we have had only 10 "incidents" in the last six months. That's a little ludicrous. The good news is that the number of reported incidents has dropped, from that we can infer that the number of actual crimes has also dropped, or at the very least the severity of the crimes is far less (people invariably report more serious theft so that they can later file insurance claims, for example).

So now I'm involved in trying to help make Tamarindo a better place, in an official sense. I hope to be posting all manner of information in the near future about the vast strides that we've taken. Because no politically-oriented news would be complete without a request for money, I'll include my request here:

If you spend time in Tamarindo and/or have investments here, please consider donating something to the APMT. The Banco Nacional account is 200-02-145-000762-7, the ID#: 3-101-150173, the SINPE #: 151145200200007624

The BAC- San Jose account is:
id: 3-002-150173, Account: 907345920, SINPE: 102000009073459205

If there is a particular cause that you consider most important, make a note of it with your deposit and all of the money will be dedicated specifically to that cause. Examples include: Beach Cleanup, Green Zone Maintenance, Police & Security, Roads and Walkways, Lifeguards, etc.

Labels: tamarindo, travel

Costa Rica has an interesting police division called the Tourist Police. They are specifically trained to help tourists, speak multiple languages (at least a little bit) and they are concentrated in Costa Rica's tourist destinations, but are moved about frequently to avoid potential corruption or habituation. Being the number one tourist destination in Guanacaste (northwestern province of Costa Rica)* Tamarindo is fortunate enough to have a handful of these tourist police present. They are easy to spot- usually on bicycles, wearing yellow shirts.

*Tamarindo is occasionally called the number 1 tourist destination in Costa Rica, but that is hard to quantify. The "in Guanacaste" part is easy.

Anyway, I'm a big fan. They seem to have made a noticeable difference in our crime rate and I often see them stopping to ask distressed-looking tourists if "everything is ok?". Nice.

They sent out a flyer recently with some travel safety tips. These are pretty basic and apply to many areas, but it never hurts to remind people.

Labels: news

Had a very frustrating experience working on the old Landcruiser last night. It has been sitting long enough that the battery is flat. Not just a tad low, but 3volt flat. Which, for a 12v battery, means it is probably dead beyond repair. Great.

After trying to charge it for a while I decided to just roll-start the rig and drive around a little. All the things that need oil and grease benefit by a periodic warmup, and the alternator could add some juice to the battery in the process.

I rolled forward about 2 inches and stopped. At first I figured that the rear brakes were bound up (the shoes and drums can oxidize to one-another over time) so I tried pushing it manually. No dice. So then I figured a little, very gentle tug from the other cruiser would get it moving. Nope. Nada.

After a closer inspection, I realized that the dang wheels from the 80, which I had so recently moved over to the 60, are about 1/4" too little offset. That means that the steering arms contact the inner edge of the wheel and the whole thing doesn't go anywhere.

In this particular case, it also means that as the 60 was poking out of the garage, I had the pleasure of pulling the two front tires off of the 60, then swapping on the spare from the 80 as well as one of the front wheels from the 80, then roll-starting the 60, driving around for a while, parking, then swapping the front wheel back onto the 80 so that it would be functional for life today.

All this at dusk, with some mosquitos helping out, in a light rain.

Doesn't sound like such a trial now that I write it out, but last night all I wanted to do was test out a fix on a silly little relay and instead ended up doing a bunch of crawling around on wet ground. I've really got to get our garage covered and concreted. Working in gravel is the pits.

Take home message: early fj80 wheels don't fit fj60 front axles. Which is a surprising move by Toyota as wheel and axle combinations were totally interchangeable from about 1950 through 1991. And there aren't any particular benefits to the "new" type of wheel. Oh well. It's juuuuust time and money.

Labels: landcruiser

Well, it finally happened. I gave in and created my very own little shelf in cyberspace. I've always loved the idea of a commonplace book, but never had the organizational skills to actually have the darn thing with me when I wanted to press a flower in it, draw a sketch in it, write a quote in it, or any of the other fabulous things one can keep and remember in a convenient, always accessible place. And then it dawned on me! I could have it all, not have to carry anything around with me, AND I could bore others at the same time. Two birds with one stone and all that! So I now have myself my very own blogspot

It'll mostly be about jewelry, living in Costa Rica, gorgeous sunsets, friends who are visiting, books I've read and quotes I like, good photographs and whatever else strikes my fancy and would otherwise go in a paperbound, compact storage space with a pretty cover that would inevitably be left sitting somewhere I wasn't.

My jewelry site is still up and running and is still where you go to buy gorgeous jewelry (even if I do say so myself).

Labels: blog, jewelry