I'm Totally Pocahontas

Allison did this on her blog, so I just had to see what disney princess I was. It seemed so accurate for Allison, I thought it could do the same for me. But maybe I should have found the disney hero quiz or something. Oh well.

Free-spirited and wise. You have a strong passionate spirit that touches and changes all who know you. The wisdom and common sense that you have is really what guides you through life. Even so, you also have a very playful side that loves adventure and excitement.

Do Polar Bears Really Hate Jesus?

Many months ago, I was completely disinterested in seeing the Golden Compass movie. I saw the preview on TV and thought to myself, "Ooh, them polar bears seem surly", but that was the extent of it. Then, Allison and I got a forwarded email that warned us to avoid this movie at all cost. The reason being that it was written by an atheist and was designed to trick children into thinking that religion is stupid. Being my defiant self, I suddenly became interest in seeing this movie. I just had to see what kind of trick these polar bears had up their sleeve that could powerfully alter the minds of unsuspecting christian children. I had a bunch of laughs about the movie boycott with my friend at work who has his own issues with organized religion in general. His take on the matter was, "It's just polar bears..fighting".

So we made plans to see it to figure out what all the hubub was about. We never got around to it, but recently it was netflixed to my house and so I watched it as I did some crocheting for my new baby girl. As I watched it, I couldn't see anything dangerous about it at all. It's just a story about a girl in an alternate universe who goes on a little adventure to the frozen north, meets some polar bears, saves some kids, bingo bango, the end. Sure, I could try to read into the overall meaning and message, but kids aren't going to do that, so why all the boycotting. Is it becuase atheist don't deserve to get paid for sharing thier talent through literature. If you don't want to see a movie for any reason, just don't see it. You have that choice. In this case, let the rest of us have the same freedom. For me, it seems like making and forwarding emails like the one I got was just a sign of insecurity. Are you hoping that everyone you send it to will see you as a super great christian soldier. Sorry, didn't work for me.

Overall however, it's still a lame movie.

-Zip`

Cleaning out my Virtual Closet

I posted some of these a few years back. Then as I was organizing my files last week, I noticed that there was a few that never got posted to the ole' blog. So here are the rest of them. Who knows, maybe I'll even make some more someday.

Web Albums

If you're a fellow blogger, you might find this review worth your while.

I was just finding it very annoying to upload all my picts that I want to share onto this blog thing. However, I know that it must happen to keep the blog worth looking at. It also helps for those Looky-Lews who choose not to read and just look at pictures. It takes a long time becuase the pictures are generally large and upload slowly(about 10-15 seconds per pic). My other option was to shrink them all down one by one but that took a while also.

Now there's a solution (commercialism). Google's new Web Albums allow me to upload a whole mess o' pictures all at once into a nice organized album that can be viewed by anyone. So instead of uploading them one by one and trying to write captions I can just put a link on a blog post and those who click it can view all the pictures I have there. So I no longer have to post a select few. When one goes to my web album, they can veiw the pictures one by one or watch a slide show. I can also put captions on each picture quickly and easily. The captions even show up on the slide show unless the viewer opts to remove them. The veiwer can even download any picture they want and get their own prints. Since the image is still a good size, the prints should be quality and free of pixeliness or graininess (although I haven't tried that yet).
I can create as many different albums as I want, too. For example, my first album was all my Utah pictures. Now I can make another Albums for our new baby's pictures to link to a post later.

Drawbacks: The only problem I've experienced is that sometimes a few pictures will have trouble being veiwed in the slide show. They might show up with super-sized boxy pixels or not show up at all. Sometimes, you will have to start it over again or just veiw the screwed up pictures seperately. Also, anyone who wants to make their own web albums will have to have installed Google's Picasa picture organizer. It's not a major problem since Picasa is the most user friendly picture organizer I've used and it's free. There is a limited amount of space that anyone can use on their Google account but it's a lot of space and it gets bigger all the time. There also seems to be a way to upgrade your space.

So overall, I've found it very useful. I really didn't want to use my blog as a recap of my life through pictures. Allison already takes care of that for us both on her blog. If I did the same thing, it would get redundant. Now I can do simple posts with links to albums when I want to share pictures and spend the rest of my time rambling about other stuff. Not that I've really figured out my format yet. I've been hoping that it will develop itself. Product and service reviews already seem to be a part of it. Anyway, I guess I should start with my Utah Album. You can view all of my Utah pictures by....
Clicking Here.

Moab 2008

I managed to go down to Moab while I was in Utah. I've always liked to scenery down there as well as the recreational activities. Moab is world famous for it's Bike Trials and I likes me some bike trails.


I took Pink to see Arches. Pink had never been to Moab (or Utah) and Arches is one of the must-see destinations.
This is one of the windows in Arches. We found out quickly that there's no point in trying to wait for people to get out of the picture. However, all the foreigners had no problem with using their broken English to tell us to get out of their pictures. I don't think I heard anyone speaking English, now that I think about it.

"Ding Dong!" Did somebody here a doorbell?

This picture of Double Arch was taken with Pink's camera. It kinda sucked in color quality but my camera ran out of battery and I didn't have 3 hours to charge it.

That's me inside one of the Double Arch windows.

We were able to leave while the sun was setting and caught this cool picture of Park Avenue.

The delicate Arch is one of the iconic Utah formations. It's also one of the longest hikes in the Park (Actually only a 3 mile round trip). As you approach the arch on the trail, you have the opportunity to peek at it through this small window.

This picture is what my dad calls "Artsy Fartsy". It's hard to tell, but I got the moon sitting right on top of the Arch. Hopefully you can click on the image to see it larger. I've had problems with that in previous posts.

Balanced Rock one of the coolest formation plus it's one you can drive right up to. So anyone who goes to Arches should have a picture. I liked this one because it looks like a mushroom cloud exploding behind me.
Against much opposition and budget complaints from Pink, I was able to get out on the Slickrock bike trail. I've never been on this particular trail but it's the most well known trail in Moab. People come from all over the world to ride it. Needless to say, it's very challenging. I had to go it alone because Pink didn't want to spend the money, plus he would have died.

The trail is made up of miles and miles of petrified sand dunes so the climbs and drops are ridiculously steep. All in all it wasn't too technical for my skills but it was way too strenuous for what I wanted to do. Slickrock style trails sound fun, but I really prefer some good old fashion single track. I rode about 8 miles of the trail before I called it quits.

-Zip

The Timp Hike

Here's some pictures from the Timp Hike during my vacation this year. The above picture is of the three of us with Timp in the background. It was from our 2005 trip. We didn't get to hike Timp that year becuase of the snow.

Mount Timpanogos is the second highest peak in the Wasatch Range, standing at 11,750 feet. To contrast, the highest point in the state of NC is Mt. Mitchell at less than 7,000 ft. I used to live near the base of Timp in Pleasant Grove, but was too lazy to get out and hike it. After 10 years, I returned to conquer it. It's about a 7.5 mile hike straight up the mountain with an elevation gain of about 4500 ft. Little kids do it all the time, but we had full packs so it was a little harder. Here I am at the trailhead, pointing to where I'm going. I really like to point in pictures.

As we zigzagged up the face of the mountain, we must of crossed this small waterfall about 10 times. At one point, the actual trail was the small stream. Good thing I had my waterproof boots.
As we climbed and caught more and more spectacular views, I often paused to comtemplate the vast wilderness. Actually, I might have just passed gas. I can't remember

This was our first good view of Timp's summit as we entered the Timpanogos Basin.

After scaling the cliffs along the Basin, we came to our campsite directly below the summit. This shelter was built like 50 years ago for the annual Timp hike that was discontinued in the 70's because it was harmful to the environment along the trail. This shelter came in handy to get out of the rain.

Our campsite already seemed to be occupied by some Mountain Goats. There looked to be about 100 of them. Click on the picture to see a larger view.
Here's a good shot of a large male. The really showed no fear in approaching us. I originally thought they were threatened and were trying to act tough, but we finally realized they were just hoping that we would feed them. I'm sure people have fed them in the past which is a terrible idea.
The next day we set out for the summit. This was our first view of the Wasatch Valley when we came over the ridge. Adam quit on us here, due to some poop issues he was having but me and Pink carried on for the summit.

The terrain began to get really steap at this point. We were scaling a rock cliff face from this point.
Finally we made it to the top and set the camera to take this terrible picture. Well, I guess it's not that bad.

There's a small metal building at the summit that used to be used for surveying. We signed our names to the book that was inside. "King Kong aint got sh*# on me!"

Timpanogos Basin

For my 28th birthday this year, Allison let me go to Utah to have some fun with Adam Arellano. I took along my friend, Pink, from work and we all had a great time. One of the things we did on the trip was hike Timp. This is a great video of the what the Timp Basin looks like in August. Unfortunately, the video quality does not do the flowers justice. The colors were much more vivid when you're actually there. I'll make another post with more pictures, but I just wanted to practice posting a video.