PCC Stone Substitution

I played in another Bonspiel this weekend. We sorta. I Subbed for a Philly team that went to the PCC (Plainfield Curling Club) Stone Men's Bonspiel. We were a bit out matched in our first draw. We happened to play a team who's skip has the highest attendance number (25 years I think). But honestly we kind of held out own. We ended up getting 3 points over 2 ends and all in all I felt that we were curling quite well.

The second draw was much more exciting. We gave up 3 points in the first end managed to steal a point in the second and gave up 3 more in the 3rd. It was looking rather bad for us at the beginning of the 4th end. We were facing a pretty large point gap and the other team seemed to be getting a ton of breaks. There were a number of times in the first 3 ends where we just barely missed a shot which then allowed the other team a chance at a double take out (which they made).

But things started looking up during the second half of the game. We took the 4th, 5th, and 6th ends and going into the 7th we were tied. Not only were we curling well but our skip was playing a winning strategy that was beginning to get into the head of our opponents. on 2 occasions we kept putting up targets for the other team to take out all along planning on using out last stone to knock a point in from the other side of the house. Both time this worked the other team never attempted to guard this shot. Of course this type of strategy requires the skip to also make the shot but fortunately we were able to make the shot as well.

We ended up giving up a point in the 7th, but this wasn't to bad because this also left us with the hammer in the 8th which gave us a much better chance to end up with 2 points. The 8th end was going pretty well until finally our opponents got a break and ended up with a stone close to the button and guarded well. By the time the skips stones game we had only one opportunity to come away with a point and force an extra end. We had to make a double raise (the shooting stone hits once stone which in turn hits another) and drop our stone in on the button. It seemed as if it were going to be out night. Our skip made the shot and we were able to sweep the stone an inch or two closer to the button leaving us shot. The opposing skip who had missed a number takeouts and raises earlier was forced to raise one of their stones into ours and not knock theirs out as well. He ended up making the shot taking our stone out of play but he also moved their stone as well. We had once last chance to draw to the out side curling around a number of guards to land in th eighth foot for a point. Apparently victory wasn't in the cards for us last night as we came up about 4 feet short and the stone came to rest just out side the 12'.

All in all it was a great match and I had a very good time. As always the teams we played were great to hang out with after the game and we had some great food to boot.

Of course it is near 50 degrees today.... the curling season is quickly coming to and close.

Philly Curling Club Brings the MACA Trophy home!

It couldn't have been a better day. Well the day could have started a bit later. Mary and I arose before the crack of dawn to pick up Troy and head to the Potomac Curling Club for the last Mid-Atlantic Curling Association (MACA) event of the season. Unfortunately Christa was ill and would not be joining us for what would be CPK's biggest win yet.

So I was a bit nervous about getting to the event on time. I wasn't sure how this ran. I didn't know if we should plan go getting there an hour before hand (for registration, and what not) or 15 minutes. I decided to play it safe. Well things ended up going smoother than we imagined. I had built in about an hour of lag time so we could all move slowly in the AM, hit some traffic and still be a bit early. As it turns out we were all ready to go and ended up at the club by 8:30!! Thanks in Part to Nuvi not getting us lost at all!

So we decided to see what Nuvi had listed in the area. In searching for nearby shopping we came upon Costa-Rica Laptops. And figured why not check it out, they probably weren't open at this hour, but it might be interesting to window shop. Well window shopping for this company would be more like being a peeping Tom. Apparently Costa-Rica Laptops (I could not find a web page for this company) is a home business, or was a home business. Nuvi led us to an apartment complex and got us as far as a building. We decided to end our shopping trip with out window shopping.

By the time we got back to the Club it was near 9 Am and we figured we would go in and see what was going on. The club is attached to a hockey rink so in the worst case we could watch a few minutes of hockey practice or something. It turns out that there were people there setting up. We offered to help, but they had pretty much finished up. Se we registered and just hung out for a bit. People started arriving shortly so we figured we should get changed. Troy needed to "Get his curling pants on.", as did I.

The MACA events are designed to be ultra social events between a small group of "close" clubs. The idea is different from a normal bonspieal where you enter a team of 4 to compete against other teams. This is a random format where each club send 8 curlers (or is supposed to) for a total of 32 curlers or 8 teams. The teams are made up by a random draw. So team are comprised of curlers of all levels and from different clubs. This is a great way to meet a number of people form different clubs and learn alot as well. Aside from the random draw each player switches positions after 2 ends, so you get to curl at every position.

So I ended up on a team with one person from Philly and 2 from other clubs. And we did pretty well. We ended up winning both of our games. Game one was 9 - 6, and we all had some very good shots. Game two was against Mary's team and the score was fairly lop sided. I think the final was 17 - 1. The score came down mostly to personalities on the opposing team.

Ultimately Mary's team had a member who played a different game than we had been working on. In our short time at curling one of the pieces of advise that have been given to us over and over again was to not try and throw heavy take outs. Ultimately we aren't accurate enough to make them and since we miss we just end up sending potential points out of play leaving the competition with a change to guard their points. Well this teammate was a new curlier who liked to throw heavy takeouts, and call for them when it was his turn to skip. So we were able to take advantage of a few missed shots and stack some points up in the house.

Fortunately, Mary played an excellent game she made all the shots that she was called to make and at then end of the day we all had a very fun time. The only unfortunate thing is that the warm weather in Potomac signaled the fast approaching end of the curling season.
br> The scoring of the event is complex and took the event coordinator about a half an hour to work out. Basically the scoring favors attendance. Fortunately for us the team we were in second place to at the start of this MACA had an event at their club and didn't send any one down. It made finishing second place almost impossible. So of course we ended up taking 1st place in the event this year and returning the trophy to Philly for the first time since 1994!

The trip home was rather interesting. We all recognized the need for dinner and Mary was Jones'n for some BBQ ( a pulled pork sandwich to be exact). So we figured we would hit a local BBQ joint. apparently the 'burbs of Philly is not the place to get BBQ. and as expected M$ data was insanely wrong. So troy brought up the internet on his phone and searched M$ live for BBQ places near KOP. He found a Smoky Bones restaurant sorta near the curling club (according to M$). So we called some friends had told them to meet us there. We get a call a little while later.... "um there isn't a Smokey Bones in Frazer, PA" so we look again and look at a map... "sure there is, it is right by the intersection of PA 29 and PA 30". So we give Kate the phone number (strange Area code that we don't recognize) and she calls them. a few minutes later we get a call back from Kate, this Smokey Bones is in Frazer County out near Pittsburgh (about 6 hours from us!) So we again look for BBQ places and every one we call is out of business. We ended up at the Sly Fox, which is a brew pub that has a great pulled pork sandwich. So if you are in the KOP area and looking for BBQ check out the Sly Fox.

No HDTV? No Problem

So I have been considering purchasing an HDTV and because I am easily influenced by advertising I figured I should get one "Before 'The Big Game'!" as all of the commercials have been telling me to do. Well things came up, mainly some new TVs announced which may be better and if not may drop the price of the existing models. In addition to the new TVs I realized that I am probably going to spend more money than I really want to on this item.

See my parents bought a new TV for somewhere around $1500. and I was thinking to myself cool I can swing that. Well then I start doing the research and I find out that really I want a $4-$5K TV... so I decided to wait until after "The Big Game".

This was compounded by the fact that I really wasn't interested in the game this year. Mainly because I had a deep feeling that the Colts "Horsey Team From Indianapolis" would win, but really didn't want them to. So I watched the game, and I have to say I am very glad I didn't purchase a TV just for this event. Now of course I would be able to use the TV the rest of the year as well and it really wouldn't have been a waste. However, I would have been pretty upset if I went through all the trouble to upgrade my TV just to be able to see the High Definition rain drops on the camera lens. Or the High Definition fog on the wide shots.

I was surprised that the cameras weren't more protected. We noticed from the beginning that the cameras had lots of moisture on the lenses but we figured this was because they were field cameras and hard to protect. It seems that even the fix position cameras had lots of moisture on them. This seemed to be compounded by the fact that it looks like a few camera operators used a dirty rag to wipe the lenses off. The result was a great many shots with huge rain drops on the screen or shots where everything was out of focus.

In short I am still in the market for a new TV. But I am glad I waited. Watching "The Big Game" in HD would have been a real disappointment.

2/13/07
Edited based on Troy's comment

For those unaware of the reference. The NFL"Company that operates professional American football in the United States" sent a letter to a church somewhere informing them they were not allowed to advertise for or hold a Super Bowl"Big Game" party. The church was only requesting that people chip in some money for the snacks provided.

CPK win streak stops a 2

So CPK as officially entered another slump. Well, slump is probably not the right term. We managed to pull off another win during our novice league game just over a week ago (You can read Troy's Blog for the gory details). But the 2 wins in the novice league were just enough to get out confidence up for the Schenectady 100th anniversary Bonspiel we attended list past weekend.

The Bonspiel was great. The team had a good time, we got to visit with family (M's) and see a bit of snow. We even got to curl. The only unfortunate thing about the weekend was the condensed draw times. Since this was the 100 year event they had a very nice party at a near by country club. In order to ensure that every one could attend the last game was at 3:15 on Saturday. This meant that our first game would be at 10 PM Thursday night and if we didn't win any games we would be done curling by 5ish on Friday (less than 24 hours after we had arrived!) Of course that is about how the weekend played out. We lost Thursday night to a very good team from Canada. We played well, but they just played better. Then we dropped our second game to a mixed team from Canada/Schenectady. I will have to say that while I don't think we would have actually won that game either I feel we played well. We lost or final game to an Albany team which also was close (aside from a few bad ends).

The curling weekend also almost ended in tragedy for CPK. During the last end of the last game we almost gave up all 8 points. A feet that I could most closely associate to getting a hole in one in golf or shooting the moon in the card game Hearts. Although I get the feeling that an 8-ender occurs less than either of these 2 events. Fortunately 2 things happened to prevent this. One, the other team missed a double takeout which left us with one stone in the house. All we (and by we I mean Troy) had to do was to draw down to the 4 foot to cut them from 6 or 7 points to 3 or 4. We had already lost the game so giving up the points didn't really matter, but we needed to make this shot so the people viewing the gallery didn't get too rowdy. Our only real danger was being wide off the broom and heavy (something I did 2 stones earlier to promote one of their stones into the house). Fortunately Troy made his shot and we recovered rather well from what could have been a pretty bad end.

More important than whether we won or lost games was the number of people we met and acquaintances we made. Curlers in general are very friendly and welcoming, one of the best things about the sport(at least the non-competitive leagues) is that it is very social. We meet a girl from Colorado who gets to curl a few times a year (she came dressed to the decade party very similarly to M and Christa {80's}). We also had a great time with the teams we did play against.

So this was slated to be our last Bonspiel for the season, but it is possible that we will make an attempt at one or possibly even two more before the ice melts away. We do feel as if we are getting better with each game and it would be ashame to loose forget everything during the summer.

Lets hope we can win a few novice games before the end of the season!

Since we were done curling by Friday afternoon we got a chance to spend some time Saturday with M's family. Troy and Christa got to meet all of M's Uncles as well has her grandparents. I gave Troy and Christa the cold weather (15th street) tour of RPI. And we got to take it easy a bit. The one downside to actually winning games is you have to play more. Not that this wouldn't be fun, because that is what we were in town to do. But, we are getting trough our 3 and out Bonspiels. We will have to work up our stamina to play the 5 to 8 games required to win the 1st event.

CPK Wins but someone else doesn't

So I'm not claiming that we stole the Patriots thunder or anything. But I find it odd that the Patriots end up loosing on the same night we win our first curling match. Well okay I guess I can't really pretend that the two are related.

First the Curling match: We had a great game. We were evenly matched which I think was a mixture of us all getting better and playing a team that was short a person. There were a few ends where some amazing shots were made. Including a point where the other team had 2 stones sitting right over the button (the center of the target at end of the ice) and the front of the house was well guarded. Troy and I cam up with this wild plan to tap one of our guards back into the house and at least knock an opposing stone out. Well Troy made his shot perfectly and we actually ended up sitting one point with a stone directly over the button!

Unfortunately the other team had the hammer and they managed to curl down directly to our stone and knock it out. I would not have expected to see 2 shots like that in a novice league game.

Later in the game we had snuck a stone into the house. We had 2 options with our last rock. One, guard the other teams rock. It was sitting just in front of the house and could have easily been tapped back for a point. Or draw around the outside and hope they missed the tape up. Well since we were in a good position and (for the first time) were in the lead we decided to put up a guard and play conservatively. Troy mad his shot and put up a real nice guard so the tap up was now impossible. The other teams only option was to curl from the outside. Well they ended up making their shot and got a nice roll, which took out our shot rock out and left them barely sitting 2!

I don't want to get over confident, because I am sure we will meet still competition in Schenectady, But I am feeling really good about how our team is coming along.

So on to the Patriots game..... not much to say here. I actually missed most of it. But I did hear that the Pats gave up a pretty good lead and just couldn't hold it together for the last 2 minutes of the game. They had a good season, I just really wish they hadn't lost to the Colts, and really mainly to Manning. There is too much press about how he is the best QB in the NFL and all of that crap. And he is so annoying on TV (it seems like every 10 seconds there is another Manning commercial), like he needs more money. I am all for sports figures making some extra money on the side, but really with his commercial filming schedule I'm surprised he has time to practice.

Well enough about that. I guess we will have to wait until next year. For the Pats any way, I curl tomorrow!

The Cracked Bell (Our Inaugural Bonspiel)

M, Troy, Christa and I participated in our first Bonspiel this weekend. The event was held at the Philadelphia Curling Club which is our home club. We were pretty much destroyed this weekend. But since we have about 3 months of total curling experience I think we did pretty well.

Our first event was Friday night. At first we were all a little bit excited because we realized that the team we were playing was a family consisting of a 12 year old, 2 college age girls and a father. Being new to the club we figured that this was a family out to have fun and we would at least be able to hold our own......

It turns out that the Father is the coach of the Club Juniors teams and his daughters have all been to or are starting to go to Nationals. Needless to say we got our stones handed to us. The final score was 17 to 2. But as a team we choose to look on the bright side of this. 1. We scored 2 points against a very good team who throughout the rest of the weekend made a number of very good shots and ended up finishing 3rd in the event. 2. We actually got out on the ice and made a great effort to learn the sport knowing we probably wouldn't do that well.

Each match we learned a bit more, scoring a few more points and allowing other teams to score less. We played 2 more games that weekend (each team entering is guaranteed 3 matches). And curled against 2 other clubs which was great because it also let us see the other side to club curling, which is the social side. We kept asking for advice and taking that advice to heart.

By the end of the weekend we had a chance to finally combine our lessons learned in our first Novice league game as a team. Again we scored more points and allowed our competition to score less. Still loosing, due in part to the fact that we were all pretty tired from having curled all weekend.

So we are off to Schenectady in a few weeks and that will be in interesting event. I am sure the out come will be similar. One of the best things about or team is the attitude we take with us. We would all love to win and eventually we will probably take a game or two. But until then we need to learn as much as possible and get as much practice as possible. Oh, and have more fun than anyone else there!

Nuvi Saves the Day

So we were in Boston for New Years, which I have stated already. Of course the one bad thing about going to Boston (or any where for that matter) for a holiday is that you have to come home (with everyone else in the world who went where you did). Usually we can time things so that we don't get stuck in too much traffic, but there is almost always some traffic.

I have to say that the Nuvi performed wonderfully again for this trip. We hit a little bit of traffic at the I-90/I-84 Interchange where there is usually traffic on heavy holiday travels. This is due mainly to the number of people without EZ-Pass or Fast Lane. On a side note it amazes me that people still don't have EZ-Pass or Fast Lane or what ever. No I can understand people who live in places out side the system, but if you have MA, NY, NJ, or PA Plates and no EZ-Pass you should be forced to drive backwards to your destination on secondary roads. It really doesn't matter how infrequently you use it, it just makes everything easier. As this traffic wasn't too bad and I can blow by almost everyone because I DO have EZ-Pass there was really no need to explore an alternate option.

The rest of it was pretty smooth sailing until the dreaded merge. For those of you unfamiliar with the merge just think of two 3-4 lane highways coming together into one 3 lane road. This almost always spells disaster whenever there is heavy volume. This is compounded a bit by the fact that maybe a mile after the merge there is a rest area so people try to get from the far left to the right to exit for the rest area.

At the first rest stop on the Garden State Parkway I decided to finally enter in my traffic subscription. I had the number but entering the code is laborious task, perfect for taking up time at a full service station in NJ. Am I glad I entered the number. I will admit that Nuvi didn't tell me anything I couldn't already have guessed, but it was good to know to expect it.

As we approached the NJ Turnpike Nuvi told us that the car lane (Nuvi usually recommends that we take the car lane) was backed up and I could avoid this. Now from experience I know that usually the car lane backs up a lot more than the Truck lane. I think this has to do with the fact that the Truck lane drops to 2 lanes before it enters the merge and then only one of those 2 lase actually merge. This allows trucks to sort of glide through the merge without having to actually merge. It also tends to keep the truck lane moving a bit.

We as almost always choose the truck lane no matter what the traffic situation is. Nuvi some times picks up on this (this time it did) and after a little bit Nuvi tells us that the truck lane has building volume as well. We have also discovered from experience that usually once traffic gets bunched at the merger it take a few miles for it to recover as well. so usually just about the time we are ready to get off at the PA turnpike traffic is moving well again. So we asked Nuvi to avoid the traffic.

Ass we approach the first wall of traffic Nuvi has us get off at the next exit (about 1/4 mile ahead. We take a NJ State highway (speed limit was 45-50 most of the way) with a few traffic lights but the stops weren't worse than what we probably would have experienced on the Turnpike. We end up on 195 headed to Trenton then, after a brief user error, ended up on route 1 South towards the PA turnpike. We were seated for dinner near our house by about 8 PM. Great Job Nuvi!

Of course I can't say this way was faster or slower but it felt faster, which is important. And I was not contributing to the traffic jam buy getting off the highway. I can't wait until we have smart vehicles that know where we are going and can correlate our destination with the destinations of the other cars on the road to pick the best route (heck I would even let it drive me there).

Sam Adams Brewery Tour

M, Troy, Christa and I decided to extend the 2nd annual New Years visit to Boston this year and take part in some of the winter activities. Noting says winter like staying in side and drinking beer. We journeyed out to the Samuel Adams Brewer to learn how the Best Beer in America is made.
Mary and Christa enjoying FREE BEER at the Samuel Adams Brewery

Troy contemplating the importance of Free Beer and what effect it has on our society. Or maybe he is just wondering if he likes the Cherry Wheat.

I would recommend the earliest tour possible. At 11 AM on a Saturday there weren't many people there. By the time we left out tour at 12:15 or so the lobby was packed with waiting tour goers. After the Brewery tour we went to the Cactus Club for lunch, which was surprisingly not crowded, but the food there is excellent. Then on the the Mary Baker Eddy Museum to see the Mapparium. This is a very interesting picture/map of the world around 1935. It is amazing to see what has and hasn't changed.

Having grown up in Boston it was amazing to me that I had never heard of this place. I had been to the Christian Scientist campus a number of times, but didn't know that this room existed. A truly amazing place to spend a few minutes of your day.

Happy New Year!!!!

-Edit 01/04/2007-
I should mention that the picture above is provided courtsy of Troy's Blog. Thanks Troy!
-End Edit-

We went up to Boston for New Years again. That offically makes this the second annual Boston New Years Trip. We didn't get snow this year, but the weather was good. Cold enough to remind us that it was winter, but warm enough that walking around wasn't a problem. This year despite our best efforts we caught the fireworks at midnight. They were interesting. As you can see for the picture Christa had her drinking hat (and glasses, and noise maker, and new years beads) on.

Aside from M and I, Troy and Christa, we were again joined by cousins Sara and Roy, with new additions of cousins Chrissy and Doug and My High School Friend Rachel and her husband Sudir (Last year they were off getting engaged, Happy Engageaversary). After last year we decided there was entirely too much walking so we headed straight to the Red Hat for the evening. On the way we made a pit stop at Hong Kong (the bar not the city) for some chicken on a stick and Scorpion Bowls (I refrained because I over indulged the night before).

This year the Red Hat hired a DJ, who in our opionion ran hot and cold. When we got there he was playing some great 80's music, he played a request or two from the group. But he quickly changed his format to hip hop, which bad but wasn't what we were in the mood for. He made up for it by closing the night (at least our night) with a splash back to the 80's for some AC/Dc, Def Lepord and Van Halen.

So Happy New Year to all! Maybe we will see you in Boston next year!

Broadway Birthday

So I was surprised for my birthday with tickets to see Monty Python's Spamalot. What a wonderful show. On a different level than Evil Dead but in many ways the same. Of course the story was hilarious, and in true Monty Python fashion the show takes many diversions from anything resembling the true story.

All of the famous mini scenes are there, the one notable sections being Sir Bedevere, who's part has changed dramatically from the movie. They have removed the entire witch burning sketch from the musical. I guess they just couldn't come up with a good song featuring a witch (although a good place to maybe make fun of Wicked). They have added the lady of the lake as a character, because (to steal an idea) you won't succeed on Broadway if you don't have a leading lady.

This is a very visual show. I also received the soundtrack for my birthday and while some of the songs were amusing the picture isn't complete until you see they choreography on stage. They whole show just works together.

After the matinee showing we went to dinner at Virgil's and decided while we were in the City we should stop by a few other places and see if we could get tickets. We walked over to The Producers and were in luck they had some center Orchestra seats available. We figured why not, another trip back into the city would just tack on another $100 + bucks to the day so were were in effect saving money by seeing 2 shows in one day. besides we were very energized after seeing Spamalot.

I would like to be able to give the Producers as glowing a review as Spamalot, but I can't. The show was excellent and the actors were very good. But the first act seemed a bit slow. The second act picked up and was much more entertaining. M and I very much enjoyed the show and we are glad we saw it. I'm just not sure we would go see it again. We both commented the for Both Evil dead and Spamalot we would totally be willing to go again Even if we purchased the cheapest seats in the house it would be entertaining to watch both shows again. The Producers while very entertaining didn't strike us as something we would go to again.

The theater was fairly empty, we were surprised when we got there that we were able to get such good seats, but after the show started and the entire row in front of us was empty were were no longer surprised with our "good fortune". During intermission a few people moved around to get better seats so a few chairs in front of us filled in, fortunately no basketball players relocated to directly in front of us.

All in all it was a great second Birthday! Mary and I also took some time in between shows to walk up to see the Christmas tree, and while interesting it seemed as if everyone in NY had teh same idea we did. It was totally packed and that may have hindered our enjoyment.

The good thing is after this trip we both realized thatw e need to get into NY more often to see shows. It is almost too convenient to get there.

Evil Dead: The Musical

I went to see Evil Dead: The Musical this weekend. What a wonderful show. The music was upbeat and catching. The actors were great and all looked like they were having fun. Evil Dead is playing at the New world Stage which is an under ground (literally) theater. They seem to have about 5 shows running at once, and the theaters are small which makes the show relatively intimate.

This is one of the better shows I have seen in NYC. The idea is to basically take the first 2 Evil Dead movies and cram them into an musical. Those unfamiliar with Evil Dead may remember Army of Darkness, which was the 3rd installment of the trilogy. Needless to say Evil Dead 1 & 2 while amusing to watch have become popular because of how bad they were not for how good they were. Well Evil Dead: The Musical takes all of that badness and creates something that is amazingly entertaining.

The entertainment value isn't hurt by the ticket price. It is amazing how expensive theater in New York has gotten over the years. With a Play Bill promotion the tickets were only $35. We elected not to sit in the splatter zone(tickets were a bit cheaper).

"Splatter Zone" is a bit of an understatement. At intermission trash bags and ponchos are handed out to audience members who weren't expecting to get moistened. Many of the people in attendance knew exactly what they were getting in to. During act II the blood flowed freely and the first 2 rows got a pretty good dowsing. There were a few people who left the theater completely covered in stage blood. It seemed like everyone there was having a great time. There were some older people in front of us who didn't stay for the second act, I guess the were surprised by the content. Although I have to say it seems like you shouldn't buy tickets for any show without doing at least a little research. But I and the rest of the audience enjoyed the production a great deal.

If you are in New York, before this show closes and this is your type of thing I highly recommend you check it out.

Curling at the mall

Ice skating and curling in the mall!

Below is a closer shot of 2 of the 4 Sheets

Malls in PA, at least around Philly, don't designate this much internal space for non-commercial use. Now I am sure that the rink gets rented out for lessons and events, but I can't imagine that this rink makes as much money as say a Super GAP, or a Cartier.

iPod Vending Machine

An iPod vending machine!

I was on my way back to my hotel from dinner last night and I had to cut through Macy*s to get out of the mall and what do i see at the bottom of the escalator? An iPod Vending machine. At first I thought this was just a fancy case used to prevent theft, you know go get the clerk to unlock the case and walk this to the nearest register for you. But the machine takes care of it all. There is a handy credit card/keypad to the right of the display case. Unfortunately I didn't have occasion to use the machine, but other people walking through the mall seemed to be equally amazed.

Mount Hood At Sun Rise

I was greeted this morning by an awesome site. The sun rising just to the south of Mount Hood in Portland. I was very glad to be on a east coast schedule or I may never have seen this amazing view. Too bad my phone only takes so so pictures. But for anyone who has seen the sun rise, use your imagination to fill in the detail.

As and update this was one of the only sunny mornings I encountered while in Portland so this was truly a rare event for me. The rest of the week was overcast and the clouds blocked the view of the entire mountain let alone the sun rise.

Curling season has begun!

Well curling season officially began last week. Troy, Christa, M, and I wet to the put-in-the-plug party (I wonder what kind of search hits that last phrase will get me). We had a really good time. The people at the club were very welcoming to new members. It seemed like there was always a new face comming over to introduce themselves to us.

It was interesting, after the PITP party we went to a gathering of theater people and they were much more closed. We knew quite a few people at the party and deffinatly got to catch up with some theater friends from the area, but many of the peopl were off in their own circles having what looked like closed conversations.

Of course this thater event was at a bar with live music which was pretty loud so that may have contributed to the smaller conversations.

Anyhow, I guess I got a little off topic. I was intending to report on my first game, sort of. I was up in Albany on business so I missed the game but M went and reported back that she had a really good time. Our team should be fun. The only unfortunate thing is M and I won't play together for another week. M will be out of town this weekend so I will have to hold down the fort.

Now all we need is for our gear to arrive so we can step it up a notch!

Off To Portland

I am currently on my way to Portland, OR. This will be another new city for me, if not a new state. Product training is what brings me to the lovely city. I will have to admit I am looking forward to the trip.

Portland has always been on my short list of places to visit. I have read a great deal about the city and surrounding area. I am looking forward to experiencing the city for my self.

Of couurse this is a work trip. So sight seeing will be limited. Since I will be in training most of the day I may get a chance to experience some of the night life, but not really much else.

I will deffinatly try and post some pictures of the area.

Standing at the bottom of a waterfall

So I got distracted by my new toy and never got to write the last vacation article I had meant to. Before we went to the Volcano we decided that the Waipi'o Valley would be interesting place to check out. When we were at the Big Island for our Honeymoon we had flown through the valley in a Helicopter. The view from above was amazing. The place looked like something from Jurassic park, or any other jungle themed remote location.

M and I decided that we would drive over and check it out. The guide books all say driving to the bottom is a bad idea. We did have a 4x4 Jeep Wrangler and I am certain that the jeep would have made it down and up again. But we decided that the hike would be more worth while. I mean we are on vacation and didn't have anything else to do. So why not attempt to slow things down for a bit.

We get to the top of the Valley and the view from above is amazing! Around 900 feet below us is the incredible black sand beach that looks completely unpopulated. There are a number of small houses visible throughout the valley, but in general it is very unpopulated. The cliff walls are so steep it is almost as is if we have the same view from here as we did from our helicopter 2 years ago. At the top there is a small viewing area where people can just stop and take in the amazing view. It seems that there are a lot of locals driving down and a few ill advised tourists. Then there are the gawkers at the top who have no intention of going to the bottom.

We gather our gear and head down. The first thing we notice is that the guide books are right. We don't think we have ever seen a steeper road. We are used to steep roads along the Hudson Valley but these don't come close to the rode we are walking down. The road follows the edge of the cliff "straight" to the bottom of the valley. It is a 900 foot drop in about a mile. At the bottom you enter a very lush, dense Forrest. The setting is very peaceful, every once in a while you get passed by a 4x4, usually local, some times tourists. From the bottom of the road it is a short hike to the actual beach. Before you get to the beach you can see this amazing waterfall off to the right.

M and I decided to head over to the water fall before we went to the beach. the water coming off the cliff falls almost directly into the ocean. It is really an amazing place to be. You can see the falls behind in this picture.

After checking out the falls M and I decided lunch was in order. We headed over to the beach and grabbed a rock. Amazingly the beach was much larger than we expected. from above it looks like a rather small strip of sand, but being down there the beach is probably a mile to a mile and a half in length. And there were more people than we expected. From above you don't actually see the area where most people use the beach. There were families surfing and playing in the water and a few who had driven down just to sit in their cars.

Mary and I ate then spent a few minutes wading in the water and exploring the beach. After sitting for a few more minutes we decided to head back to the top. While we were enjoying the valley we had discussed how we were glad we hiked down to the bottom. It was much more fulfilling to be standing under the waterfall and waling along a beach that we had hiked down to. We would soon discover that we may have been wrong.

The hike out is, in a word, steep. I have done lots of hiking, much of it in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and I have come across some steep trails. This has to be one of the steepest. Not to mention since it is a rode on the side of a cliff it is very exposed to the Sun. The first hundred feet wasn't too bad because we were still excited about the wonderful valley we had just been in. The last 800 feet were a challenge. We passed a few people walking down with in flip-flops, with out water. We had to wonder how they planned on making it out. M and I had packed water and saved a quart for the hike out. But we quickly finished that and wished we had brought another. It seemed amazing that people were planning on spending time in the valley and getting out with out any hydration.

After about 300 feet or so we were offered a ride to the top from a nice local. We decided that we would be able to make it out no problem, we just needed to take it slow. We thanks the man and up he went. I guess that is how most people get out of the valley.

We finally arrived back at the car a little tired and without water. It turned out that the hike out wasn't as bad as I had imagined. It was steep and exposed, but at one point I told some people that they were almost at the bottom, believing we had made it about half way up. Only to have turned a corner and realized we were very close to the top. (Sorry guys)

When we finished we stopped at the top to look back on the valley one more time. We talked with a few people who were considering going to the bottom. Headed back to the car and downed the remaining quart of water we had saved for the ride home.

My New Toy a Nuvi 660

My new toy arrived yesterday. So far I am impressed with the Nuvi 660. I have yet to use it for navigation, but I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly and easily it paired with my Treo. When I started looking for a GPS device I quickly learned that there are tons out there. Each with pros and cons. There good thing is there seem to be a ton of very good devices on the market.

I had narrowed my choice down before vacation to the Nuvi 360 and the C550 from Garmin and the TomTom 510 or 910. Aside from the navigation features I really wanted something that would work with the Bluetooth on my phone. I have a Bluetooth headset, but I hate driving with it in my ear. It is comfortable enough, I just don't like having on my head the entire time. I was marginally attracted to the mp3 capabilities of the devices.

Fast forward to my return from vacation. I find out that while I was away Garmin had announced a new Nuvi. While away I spent many hours agonizing over which device to get. I finally made my wife to convince me to get the Nuvi. The other devices had similar feature sets, but the nuvi had a better form factor. The nuvi was more portable and I do travel a lot.

I do some more price checking to see if the prices on the 360's have dropped and low and behold, both TomTom and Garmin have announced new devices. TomTom released the ONE, which was interesting, but didn't have the phone capability I was looking for. Garmin had released the Nuvi 660 it had all of the features of the 360, but it included an integrated FM traffic receiver to get live traffic info. This was actually the feature the made it a tough call between the C550 and the Nuvi 360. I had chosen form-factor over traffic. But here was my chance to have my cake and eat it too.

So lets hope my new toy doesn't lead me astray. Now that I have a navigation device telling me how to get places I wonder if I will directions will be come like phone numbers. I can't for the life of me remember the phone numbers of my closest friends. I can barely get out my home and cell phone number when asked. I wonder how long it will be before we all just hop in the card and tell it where we want to go with out any real idea of where we are actually going?

Crazy Shark Water Sports - Inflatable Iceberg

Crazy Shark Water Sports Online Shop - Inflatable Iceberg Wow an inflatable Iceberg.... Titanic watch out. If only I owned a pool or even better a lake. The only downside I can see to this item is being the one stuck blowing it up. That would probably put you out of commission for a week or two.

Standing on top of a Volcano

Mary and I just got back from vacation we had a great time. I will try and update all of the things we did here, but I will start with the most awe inspiring event first. We actually hiked to the back of an erupting volcano!

The above picture is a panoramic view of the Pu'u O'o Vent of The Kiluea Volcano on the Island of Hawaii. It was a truly amazing place to be. The hike is a 4.2 mile stroll through a sort of interesting rain forest. The trail is relatively flat and very wet. It isn't much different than a hike through a wet New Englad forest. While the vegetation is slightly different the ground cover is mostly dense fern type plants.

The thing I found most interesting about the hike was the lava we were walking over. Rather than the hard granite I am used to it was neat to see the relatively new lava flows beneath my feet. There were a few places where the lava looked like tree roots and I had to double take when I stepped on it.

The Back of the Vent was amazing. We didn't dare get much closer then the edge of the forest, which was maybe a mile away from the actual vent. From a distance the 500 foot vent looks rather small, but it was amazing to know that on the other side of a small rock wall was an active volcano.

Mary and I made to the edge of the forest for lunch and spent about an hour just watching the vent steam. We saw a few helicopter tours come by and at least one fixed wing aircraft fly by. We probably could have spent all day watching the vent just pour out clouds of gas.

We have, in the past, watched the lava flow into the ocean which is also an experience not to be missed. But being at the top of the volcano will hold a special place in my memory.