2014 – Page 7 – Ryan's Journal

In the Beginning

Posted from Istanbul, Turkey at 6:04 am, July 17th, 2014

Yesterday’s plan to avoid jet lag despite sixteen hours of flying and a ten hour time change was simple – get up to catch the plane at 4:30 AM (Los Angeles time) and then stay awake until I was somewhere over the Atlantic and it was the equivalent of evening time in Istanbul. A brilliant plan, had it worked, but instead I never fell asleep on the plane and arrived in a state resembling the walking dead. On a positive note, I finally got to see Captain America 2, Thor 2, and the Hobbit Part 2 (Air Canada is really into sequels).

After landing and fetching luggage I arrived at the hotel in Istanbul at noon local time (2AM Los Angeles time), and fearing that it might not be a good idea to see some of the world’s most amazing landmarks while hallucinating, took a three hour nap before heading out. Once off, my hotel was only a couple of blocks from the Hagia Sophia, so I got to spend the remainder of the day in one of the most remarkable buildings ever built by humans. The place is old – it was built in 537 AD, and is the kind of old where you look at a marble block at the entrance and notice that it has been worn down two inches in the center from people walking on it. In addition to its age, the building is an architectural marvel that, like the pyramids or Stonehenge, makes you wonder how societies of that time could possibly have built it. The central dome alone is 101 feet across and 160 feet high, creating an absolutely immense enclosed space. I stayed well past closing, allowing the crowds to thin out, and got to enjoy the place as it got quieter and stiller; not a bad way to kick off this adventure.

The Blue Mosque faces the Hagia Sophia from across a park, so I ventured over to it as the sun was setting. It was too late to go inside, but standing in the courtyards finally gave me that electric shock feeling that yep, I’m far from home on the opposite side of the world. Hearing people speaking Turkish, not knowing what the customs were, navigating narrow cobblestone streets, wading through the touts in the park (“My friend! My best friend! You want Bosphorus cruise?”), and being awed by a sight I’ve wanted to witness for decades was just the right combination to let it sink in that I am most definitely on an amazing adventure.

Hagia Sophia mosaic detail

Detail of a mosaic of JC from the Hagia Sophia’s walls. The Byzantines apparently knew a thing or two about arranging tiny colored tiles.

Hagia Sophia interior domes

Unfortunately half of the interior of the Hagia Sophia was filled with scaffolding, so this is the best attempt I had at capturing the amazing domed ceiling. You obviously can’t tell from this botched effort at a photo, but it was the kind of awe-inspiring that makes you want to go to church on Sunday.

Hagia Sophia interior hall

Torn between waiting for a break in the steady stream of people, or of using some of them for scale, I chose secret option three, which is either turning them into ghosts or accelerating them up to warp factor five. Whatever your preferred explanation, it made for a cool shot of the halls along the side of the main sanctuary.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Posted from Los Angeles International Airport, California at 6:33 am, July 15th, 2014

This will be the last entry written on US soil for quite some time – I’m sitting at the Air Canada gate at LAX watching the sun rise, and will most likely be writing the next entry from Istanbul (Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople). In the next two weeks I’ll be setting foot on four different continents, which is one of the most awesome things I’ve ever been able to write in this journal. With that ahead, however, a quick recap of the fun times over the past couple of weeks still needs to be recorded for posterity.

For the Fourth of July Audrey arranged another group trip to the amazing Hollywood Bowl to see Steve Martin, Edie Brickell and the Steep Canyon Rangers. The show this year was with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and included post-show fireworks, and while I preferred the version without the accompanying orchestra (more banjo and fiddle, less French horn), it was still pretty damn fun. As an added bonus, Paul Simon made an appearance to join his wife onstage for one number, and my thought at finally seeing a musical legend whose songs I’ve heard thousands of times was “Wow, that guy is SMALL”. Big talent in a tiny package, apparently.

The following days were filled with many errands as I made a valiant effort to verify travel arrangements and acquire appropriate gear for the trip – Audrey was displeased when I suggested I might take only two pairs of pants on a three month trip, so the pants quota was increased fifty percent, among other last-minute changes. In the midst of the packing extravaganza I made a two day journey up to the Bay Area to visit younger Holliday. A day spent hiking on the Peninsula in search of banana slugs was followed by an evening of adventure, gyros, and albino alligators at the California Academy of Sciences, followed by a day of beer, ping pong, and giant breakfasts, and there was much rejoicing.

And that’s it for my time in the US – future updates involving attempts to avoid accidentally causing international incidents, being chased by dangerous animals, and barfing in foreign countries to follow.

The Holliday Brothers in Half Moon Bay

No one understands what mutated gene in the Holliday DNA is the cause, but taking pictures with wooden people will never, ever stop being fun for us.

Parrots

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:17 pm, June 30th, 2014

This entry is one to file under “weird and wonderful facts about California” (see also: Salton Sea). And that fact is: there are flocks of wild parrots here. They are all descendants from escaped pets or other birds that were brought to California from other places, but the climate suits them and there is plenty to eat, so as you wander around Los Angeles or San Francisco it’s possible to hear loud squawking and see a flock of green flying by. The group that lives in our neighborhood passes over the house a couple of times each day, although they are surprisingly adept at preventing me from getting a decent photo. The shot below is a crop from a larger group of about twelve that has been making a regular stop at the tree across the street each day at 4:30.

More info (and proof that I’m not making this stuff up) at the California Parrot Project.

Wild parrots in Culver City

Not the greatest picture, but clearly wild parrots. Not quite as cool as the peacock that showed up at my uncle’s house in Pennsylvania, but still weird enough to warrant a journal entry.

Trip Planning

Posted from Culver City, California at 8:15 pm, June 29th, 2014

With most of the logistics for the trip now in place, the trip-planning has moved into its final stages. For anyone who wonders what else has gone into setting up this three-month odyssey across two continents and five countries, here are some notes:

It only recently occurred to me that the visa-on-arrival option for Tanzania and Kenya might not be a good idea, particularly since I’m entering Kenya through a land border. A brief panic ensued after I discovered that obtaining visas in advance for both countries required mailing my passport to the embassies and an expected 1-3 week turnaround for each. Luckily both Tanzania and Kenya are far more efficient in their visa processing than the US; one week after mailing it I had my Tanzanian visa, and literally 48 hours after sending my passport to the Kenya consulate in LA it arrived back at my doorstep with the required stamp in place. Disaster averted.
While I do love my current Canon 100-400mm lens, there is a new Tamron 150-600mm lens that has gotten great reviews and will get me 50% closer than the current bird nostril lens (i.e. new lens = bird boogers). Unfortunately, the lens is sold out everywhere, so I’ve got it on backorder from B&H. With luck it will be back in stock in time to get here before I leave, and there will be pictures of rhino eyeballs to show off when I return. I also got a used Canon 60D as a backup in case my camera breaks or is stolen, since I’m guessing camera shops may be few and far between in the African bush. Last of all I picked up a GoPro for scuba and shark diving, so that I can have video to forever remember the moment when a great white swims by and I soil myself.
Clothing-wise, it has been all about avoiding the bugs and not coming home with malaria, yellow fever, or five point exploding heart disease. ExOfficio insect repellent clothing seems to be the recommended way to go in the “don’t die from mosquito bites” department, and while expensive it’s supposed to work well and is super comfortable. Whether or not two pairs of pants and five shirts is sufficient for a three month trip is still a subject of discussion and potential modification, although I have already acquiesced to carrying multiple pairs of boxers.
Other acquisitions include bottles of Deet, sunscreen, medicines, toiletries, and every other thing one might need over three months when the nearest Rite-Aid is 11,000 miles away. No doubt many items will be forgotten, and I may find myself treating some ailment with whatever the local Masai witch doctor is able to mix up using plants, animal dung, and black magic.

Four more days of work, and sixteen more days until I board a plane for Istanbul. Adventure is out there.

Meet the Parents

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:08 pm, June 28th, 2014

Three days left in June and a three-journal-entries-a-month goal, but as the saying goes “if it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.” Here’s the quick recap of the month:

Ma and Pa came to LA for a visit over Father’s Day weekend. The Skipper wanted to see fossils, so we went to the La Brea Tar Pits so that he could pretend to be a paleontologist while taking in all of the dire wolves, mastodons, and saber tooth tigers (RAWR!). Lunch was from a truck serving lobster rolls, and then it was off to dinner at the Saddle Peak Lodge. Ma got to enjoy the fancy settings, Pa got to enjoy elk and venison, and I think everyone went home happy.
I’m down to my last four days of work with bodybuilding.com before taking a break for the great African adventure. My last trip out to Boise happened a couple of weeks ago, and beers were drunk, board games were played, and Grant very nearly landed a front flip on the trampoline. Vintage arcade games at Grinkers rounded out a fun work visit.
Prior to the visit from the parents there was a disco bowling birthday bash that involved many shenanigans. Watching the (drunk) birthday boy go through an entire dance routine prior to releasing the ball directly into the gutter is an experience that one does not easily forget; John Travolta has nothing on Brett McDermid.

The Skipper at the La Brea Tar Pits

A saber-toothed tiger, a giant sloth, and a happy Skipper.

Mastodon at the La Brea Tar Pits

I would totally ride a mastodon if I could.

Hollywood Nights

Posted from Culver City, California at 6:52 pm, May 31st, 2014

During breakfast this morning with Audrey, the realization that I’ve now been living in LA for about ten years hit. I arrived permanently in August 2005, but was doing contract work at Warner Brothers on and off from December 2002 onwards. That means that I’ve spent more of my life in LA than in any other place besides ~~the Mistake by the Lake~~ Cleveland.

LA is a city that I never would have picked to be the place I would settle down, but I’m tremendously lucky to get to live here. What other city has something that compares to the Hollywood Bowl? Or contains the world’s largest known deposit of Ice Age fossils? While living here I can walk to the ocean to see all manner of sea critters, and enjoy a seemingly inexhaustible number of cool restaurants and cultural activities. LA isn’t without its downsides, but it’s also a town with far more unique and exciting places to discover than almost anywhere else in the world.

Not to say that I’ll be here forever, but so long as Audrey and I do live here there is plenty to appreciate and be grateful for.

The Shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center

I get to share a city with the coolest machine ever built by man. SPACESHIPS ARE AWESOME AND I LOVE THEM AND THEY GO TO SPACE AND ROCKET SHIPS RULE!!!!

Red-shouldered hawk

While it’s obviously not a hotspot for wildlife, we still get to count everything from hawks to sea lions to mountain lions as our neighbors.

Ryan and mastodons at the La Brea Tar Pits

Yeah, that’s right, mastodons and tar pits. It’s OK to be jealous. Photo by Audrey.

Headlines

Posted from Culver City, California at 10:54 pm, May 29th, 2014

Four headlines of note this week:

SpaceX announced version two of their Dragon space capsule, this one capable of carrying astronauts. They are on track to be carrying people into space by 2017, and this new capsule is both reusable and capable of landing almost anywhere using maneuvering thrusters. The goal is to be able to fly it back to the launch pad, refuel it, strap it to a rocket, and send it into space again, thus greatly reducing costs and putting all of us space nerds one step closer to a trip into orbit. For anyone still reading who isn’t an engineering geek, this announcement may be considered one of the big moments in the advancement of technology in a few decades.
A $1 billion restoration of the Los Angeles River (yes, there is one) was announced today. LA’s preferred restoration option was approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, and eleven miles of concrete will soon be removed and returned to a more natural state. I’m torn on this one – any time we can keep something natural, or fix damage that has been done, I’m a fan, but $1 billion could have been used to restore vastly larger and more important wetlands elsewhere (example). That said, bringing some nature back to the concrete jungle of LA will be a welcome change.
In more controversial news, the EPA is about to unveil serious efforts to combat climate change by setting CO₂ limits on power plants. It’s highly doubtful that the EPA’s proposals are the best solution to the issue of climate change, but since the Senate killed the Cap & Trade bill in 2010, direct executive action has become the only viable option for addressing a very serious problem. With any luck, once these rules go into effect it will spur Congress to debate a better solution that does more to address the problem while producing less chaos in the marketplace, much like what was originally intended with the 2009 Cap & Trade bill.
Apple holds their Worldwide Developer Conference next week, where they are expected to announce a framework for integrating iPads and iPhones with home devices like lights, security systems, etc. They may also announce their rumored health-related watch, and while I’m skeptical about it, if anyone can make a device that promotes healthy living it’s Apple, and the thought of people having something on their wrist that encourages exercise, good eating, and other good behavior while also notifying them of serious health issues, that seems like a big win.

That’s a lot going on all at once, and even without a pressing deadline to get in three journal entries before the end of the month, they seemed significant enough to record for posterity. Ten years from now I’ll either read this while looking at my Apple health-monitoring device and watching the latest space tourist launch into orbit, or I’ll do neither of those things and wonder how I could have ever thought these announcements were significant 🙂

Squirrels

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:18 pm, May 27th, 2014

In addition to the birds we’ve got at least three squirrels that have made themselves at home in the backyard. One is recognizable for his acrobatics – if I ever get a video of him doing handsprings, twirls and rolls across the lawn I’m pretty sure it will be a Youtube sensation – while the other two are notable mainly for their spirited wrestling matches on the roof of Audrey’s office.

For Christmas my mom gave me a seed wreath that I’ve only just gotten around to hanging, and while the birds have ignored it completely, the little grey guys are the happiest they’ve ever been. I initially had it in a spot that they couldn’t quite get to (their attempts rivaled Wile E. Coyote for daring and creativity), but after it became clear that the birds weren’t interested I moved it to be slightly more accessible to the furry fellows, and now squirrels hanging vertically from their hind legs is a regular site in our backyard.

Grey squirrel

I made a deal with the squirrels that they could eat as much as they wanted from the wreath made of nuts, but only if they did Batman impersonations; they complied.

Grey squirrel

After eating insanely large quantities, the ability to move is apparently temporarily lost and the squirrel’s only option is the post-meal catatonic belly flop.

Planning the Odyssey

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 6:39 pm, April 30th, 2014

It’s a very old adage that you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone, and planning the trip to Madagascar has reinforced that dictum as most of the internet planning tools we now take for granted are of no use, making things significantly more challenging. I’ve instead found myself working with middlemen, wiring money via Western Union, navigating various bank transfers, and doing my best to email in French, despite twenty years having passed since I last used it during high school language classes (note: those classes ended with my teacher taking me aside to tell me that I was an embarrassment as a language student, and she was not incorrect).

Luckily most of the places we want to visit in Madagascar at least have a web site or a mention on Tripadvisor, so while it sometimes takes several days of contacting the hotel owner and a variety of travel agencies in order to get someone to finally respond with information about price and availability, after countless hours of research, emails, phone calls, etc, we’ve managed to ensure that we have transportation and lodging for most of our time in Madagascar. “Ensure” is of course a relative term – in several cases I’ve wired not-insignificant sums of money to a person I’ve never met, and while I’m not too worried, it’s still an act of faith that they’ll be there with a car, boat, or hotel room at the place and time we’ve arranged. Travel is always an adventure, and this one may be far more unpredictable than most. In addition, I’ve quickly learned that any time you try to send money to someone in Madagascar, whether via bank transfer, credit card, or Western Union, alarm bells and flashing red lights go off in the fraud departments, so I’ve now become quite well-versed in talking to the bank and credit card folks when they follow-up to alert me to all of the dubious activities taking place on my accounts.

With most of the planning now complete, the final itinerary looks like it will be Turkey for two weeks, Tanzania and Kenya for almost four weeks (with the Cheesemans, so at least for that part of the trip there won’t be any worries about travel arrangements), a week in Kruger National Park in South Africa (Etosha National Park in Namibia didn’t work out, unfortunately), ten days in Cape Town with Audrey, then we’ll be spending four weeks in Madagascar. All told I’ll be gone for just shy of three months, so this will be the longest adventure I’ve ever been fortunate enough to undertake. In six months I will no longer be able to say that I haven’t seen the Blue Mosque, a wild lion, the sunset over the Serengeti, or a dancing lemur, and life will definitely be better as a result.

Carry On

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 8:07 pm, April 29th, 2014

Here’s a riveting recap of the life of Ryan over the past two months:

At the end of February / beginning of March I made a quick pilgrimage up to the Bay Area to see Aaron and the folks. Good times were had as always, with much ping pong, the Napa Valley regional cornhole championships (which I officially lost, although there were some questionable circumstances), delicious prawn tacos, and a chance to enjoy Aaron’s new casa in Livermore.
Earlier this month Audrey, her LA Times and fellow-Alto friend Martha, Meghen (another Alto), and I visited the Queen Mary in Long Beach for a performance by the Christ Church Cathedral Choir. I thought the music was OK, but getting to see it on a historic 1930s passenger liner was pretty awesome. Before the show started I had an hour to roam around, re-enacting scenes from Titanic, although sadly the bow was roped off so I had to forgo “I’m the king of the world!” and instead settle for “You jump, I jump” at the stern, and “Full speed ahead Mr. Murdoch” in the bridge. The Queen Mary is another addition to the list of good things about LA™.
In medical news, after more than two years of waiting for Obamacare’s rules against declining coverage due to pre-existing conditions, I finally switched insurance and visited an actual sports medicine doctor at UCLA. Two weeks later I was inside of an MRI medicine-tube-spaceship-time-machine getting 3-D pictures of the inside of my knee taken; we totally live in the future. I’m meeting a physical therapist this weekend and have a follow-up with the doctor in a couple of weeks, so hopefully soon it will be clear what exactly causes my knee to throw a tantrum and swell up to impressive size whenever I try to run, and with luck I’ll be able to resume the one sport I’m good at again some time in the near future. I know it’s a touchy issue with some people, but for a self-employed person like myself Obamacare has proven to be a massive, massive improvement over the former system.
In other news Audrey and I continue planning the grand adventure for this July-October; more details will likely follow in the next journal entry.
Last of all, we’ve now lived a mile from the Marina for over two years, and this past weekend we finally went sailing. Audrey’s friend has a decent-sized boat and invited us to join him, his wife, and their friend for a short afternoon on the water, which was a great way to spend a few hours. At one point he told me to take the wheel and just drive around the Marina for a bit, either not realizing or not caring that nearly all of my boat navigating experience was done holding a paddle. Luckily, despite some tight turns and various individuals in kayaks or other rentals criss-crossing all over the place with no realization that a novice captain was doing his best to avoid running them down, everyone emerged alive and well. After Adam again took over we raised the sail for a short jaunt outside of the breakwall to enjoy some decent-sized surf and the company of dolphins.

Ryan sailing in Marina del Rey

I dominated at sailing straight, but turns in the tight confines of the Marina were terrifying. Photo by Audrey.

Blood Moon!!!!

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:31 pm, April 16th, 2014

The natural world is astounding. If there is a Creator, the fact that we encounter mind-blowing phenomenon on a daily basis reflects an infinite intelligence and master artist who set the universe in motion. The recent blood moon is yet another example – who knew that the already-amazing full moon would turn red during an eclipse? The cosmos is awesome.

Full moon, pre-eclipse

The full moon, before the evil had yet begun.

Full moon, partial eclipse

A scene very similar to this one took place during 2010: The Odyssey Continues, after which Jupiter exploded and aliens took over. That did not happen during this lunar eclipse.

Blood moon

Blood moon!!!!

Adventure

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:26 pm, March 31st, 2014

“Boredom, Tyler. Boredom, that’s what’s wrong. And how do you beat boredom? Adventure, Tyler. Adventure!” — Never Cry Wolf

This journal started in 2002 as a way to chronicle an epic, three month adventure through Alaska and Northern Canada. Since then there have been additional amazing trips captured on these pages – Antarctica on an ice breaker, South Georgia island on a 90 foot yacht, the Galapagos on a motor yacht, and even some trips that didn’t involve boats. Some of these journeys were done on my own, others with friends and family, but all had a profound impact.

The next odyssey is scheduled to start in late July and last through early October, with Audrey joining for the latter half. The route is still being fully fleshed out, but the trail looks like it’s going to lead through Turkey, Tanzania, Kenya and Namibia, with Audrey then joining for ten days in South Africa followed by a month in Madagascar.

I’m fortunate to be in a position to be able to break from the day-to-day routine and head out to experience the world, and can’t wait to see what insights this next journey brings. Three-and-a-half months and counting.

Legos for Grown-ups

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:41 pm, March 30th, 2014

While the East Span of the Bay Bridge is finally operational, there are a bunch of other projects going on in California that the engineer in me continually follows up on. While I may be the only one interested, it’s fun to re-read these entries a few years later, so here’s a status report on a few of them:

Transbay Center – This San Francisco project is essentially building the Grand Central Station of the West Coast, a $4.5 billion development that will bring together eleven different transit agencies and eventually include Caltrain service in downtown, and (theoretically) high-speed rail. Shockingly the project is mostly on schedule, with most of the below-ground work done and the above ground work set to start this summer. Completion is scheduled for Summer 2017.
Subway to the Sea & Exposition Line – Despite Beverly Hills doing its best to derail the $4 billion subway project, one of LA’s busiest traffic corridors might soon have a subway, and people on the West Side will actually be able to get to the rest of the city without spending an hour in traffic. As a bonus, subway excavations are unearthing huge caches of Ice Age fossils. Meanwhile, the first phase of the Exposition light rail line has already exceeded its 2020 ridership projections, with the second phase to Santa Monica on schedule for a 2015 opening. It’s ridiculous that America’s second-largest city has such terrible mass transit, but things are improving rapidly.
California High Speed Rail – Caveat: high speed rail is something that should absolutely be built to connect America’s cities, as is done throughout the rest of the world. However, the $68 billion California high speed rail project has missed every deadline so far and has no viable solution for moving forward. I don’t envy the people trying to make it work – they are saddled with a set of difficult and often conflicting constraints that are set by law, a political environment in which financing is uncertain, and everyone from Congress members to farmers trying to use whatever legal options are available to delay or kill the project – but more than five years after approval there is absolutely no excuse for not having a workable plan. Killing the project now probably means it will be another decade before anything new could be proposed, but that might be better than building it poorly, and in the interim it might be possible for a less ambitious (and probably more profitable) route from LA to San Diego, or LA to Las Vegas, to be built and prove the viability of such a system.
Farmer’s Field – If anyone could bring an NFL team to Los Angeles and redevelop a huge section of downtown with a stadium and other venues it would be AEG, and most of the approval for this $1.2 billion project is in place. However, with no NFL team ready to move, the continued redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles is on indefinite hold, and in the interim parking lots and unused office buildings fill an area that should be a centerpiece of the LA area.

I’ve always been a big nerd when it comes to huge construction projects, and these four projects are particularly exciting ones since they all have the potential to dramatically change the regions in which they are built.

Kraftwerk

Posted from Culver City, California at 8:59 pm, March 24th, 2014

As part of my ongoing arts and culture education, Audrey took me to see Kraftwerk at Disney Hall last week. I know nothing about electronic music, but apparently for someone who is a fan of the genre seeing Kraftwerk is like an engineer meeting Nikola Tesla or Wernher von Braun, i.e. you bow down while chanting “we’re not worthy” when they appear. The band was doing eight shows over four nights, each show featuring a different album played in full along with a “best of” set, and tickets had sold out in a matter of minutes.

I went in knowing nothing about what was going to happen, beyond the fact that it might be weird. Those suspicions were confirmed after my ticket was taken and I was handed a pair of 3-D glasses, and I settled in for a fun evening. The lights went down, the curtain dropped, and there on the stage were four 60-something Germans, each standing at a lighted console, all in front of a giant screen, with nothing else on stage. Also, they were wearing unitards, because when you’re a 67 year old German electronica legend, why not?

The show was bizarre in a very fun way. The girl was extraordinarily happy, I was entertained, the Germans were very German, and – surprisingly – I thought the music was all right; I even grabbed a copy of Autobahn from iTunes to add to the music collection. Even better, afterwards I read a bit about the band and discovered the following fun tidbit:

The band is notoriously reclusive, providing rare and enigmatic interviews, using life-size mannequins and robots to conduct official photo shoots, refusing to accept mail and not allowing visitors at Kling Klang Studio, whose precise location they used to keep secret. Another notable example of this eccentric behavior was reported to Johnny Marr of the Smiths by Karl Bartos, who explained that anyone trying to contact the band for collaboration would be told the studio telephone did not have a ringer, since during recording, the band did not like to hear any kind of noise pollution. Instead, callers were instructed to phone the studio precisely at a certain time, whereupon the phone would be answered by Ralf Hütter, despite never hearing the phone ring.

Good times, although I will never again be able to go to a concert without feeling slightly let down when I don’t get a pair of 3-D glasses after passing through the gates.

Kraftwerk on stage at Disney Hall. Photo from the LA Weekly.

Photographic Slides on the Interwebs

Posted from Livermore, California at 9:16 pm, February 28th, 2014

Here are a handful of photos that haven’t shown up in the journal before, all discovered while looking for images to put in the new digital picture frame. Each of these was scanned from a slide taken more than a decade ago, back in the pre-digital days when you’d shoot perhaps three rolls of film during an entire trip and then perform various voodoo rituals to hopefully ensure that maybe one or two of the pictures didn’t completely suck.

Half Dome from Yosemite Valley, 1998. Fall color is pretty.

Buddha in Angkor Wat, 2001. I might be the only person on the planet who loves this shot, but it was a great moment sitting in Angkor Wat with the light hitting this Buddha in just the right way to light up the orange robes.

Pyramid of Khafre in Giza, 2002. Bucket list, check.

mountaininterval.org - Ryan's Journal

Year: 2014