This second photo is from my iphone 3g camera + camerabag app.  I really like the feel of it.

We flew back to Texas for Christmas and some change.  Good times with the family, immediate, extended, and further extended with all these first cousins once removed (or are they called second cousins) running around now.  It’s quite confusing.  What do you call the children of your first cousins?  Wikipedia says you call them first cousins once removed but several dictionaries call them second cousins.  This whole time I’ve been calling them my nieces and nephews.

I was able to sneak in a Chick-Fil-A run while I was out car shopping with my moms.  It was as good as I remembered.

Car shopping was really strange this time around.  It wasn’t my first time but this time it felt especially awkward and uncomfortable.  We went to three different dealerships and all 4 salespeople that we spoke to used to same exact line on us:

“What can I do to earn your business today?”

Are they all reading from the same script?  Car dealerships are sort of one of those places that feel so out of place, like stepping through a time warp.  I get the same feeling when I step into a laundromat or a shoe repair place.  Most service industries have changed but there are a few who have hardly changed at all.  What’s especially awkward is when the salesperson slips out of the picture to get the sales manager and he/she comes to try to break it down to you and close the deal.  It feels strangely like an intimidation play but it’s so hokey and unbelievable that I don’t know why they do it except that I have to believe that it works quite often which is why they still do it and haven’t changed the way they do things.  I wonder if the car sales industry will change in the next ten years.  Like a Redfin but for cars?

I’ve been batting around the idea of starting a separate photoblog but I think I’ve decided to just intermingle the photoposts with this content.  We’ll see how it goes.

We spent a few days in Reno/Tahoe when we got back from Texas and that was really nice and relaxing.  We skiied at Mt. Rose which was ridiculously close to Reno.  It’s a pretty small resort but because of that there were zero lines and we went up the lift right when we wanted to.  It was snowing most of that day and now I know why powder is so prized by skiers and snowboaders.  I only fell twice (as opposed to the fifty times I fell when snowboarding) and both times were pretty painless as the snow was fluffy and soft.  I like skiing a lot more than snowboarding.  I’ll admit a big part of the reason is because it’s a lot easier to pick up and the boots don’t feel as heavy and clunky so I’m not tired so quickly.  And I like that you can ski right after you get off the lift since you don’t need to strap your boot back in.  And I feel much more in control so I’m not endangering others on the slopes.  All good reasons to pick skiing over snowboarding.  I think the only thing snowboarding has over skiing is that it looks a bit cooler.  I’m willing to give that up.  Haha seriously.

Ski resorts have the monopoly on laid back effortless cool.  It’s like a tropical beach resort without the sleaze.  What a cool part time job for a teenager.  Where else can you put your expensive ski equipment unattended and not worry about it getting stolen?

We went snowshoeing at North Star the next day.  It was really exhausting but a cool experience.  North Star is super nice, we’ll probably try to go there again MLK weekend.  I love that it’s only a 3 hour drive away from where we live.  That’s got to be one of the biggest perks of living over here.  It’s also nice to use our 4runner’s 4WD to its potential.  The husband was really excited that we were finally going to drive through snow in it.

Yesterday we played 3 hours of tennis in which the husband beat me 20 games in a row.  He’s a good coach.  I’m making improvements, slowly but surely.  I spotted a girl wearing a burnt orange t-shirt and excitedly asked her if she was from Texas.  She looked confused and explained that her tshirt was from some local Alameda league that she was in.  I don’t know, I thought we had exclusive rights to burnt orange?

We went to this showing tonight of ten different short films from the 2009 Sundance Festival at the San Rafael Film Center and my favorites were:

• John and Karen – Matthew Walker
• Omelette – Nadejda Koseva
• Countertransference – Madeleine Olnek

Picking up the camera from the UPS station on Monday.  More photos coming to you soon.

I’d like to offer a summary of topics discussed:

• He described his landscaping/construction business in great detail and the variety of clients he has.  He has completed several projects for multi-family buildings, apartment complexes, dormitories at the University of Texas.  Although he does not do interior work, he does occasionally install a granite counter for a family member or for personal use.  “Usually the architect will tell us what they want and we will execute it.  If the architect knows what he wants and tells us where he wants us to start and end, then we can do that.  And if the architect doesn’t know what he wants, then we’ll tell them what to do.  That’s how it usually works.”  He then explained that most of the Mormon temples in Salt Lake City use granite exclusively and the most recent temple construction he knows about flew in granite from Italy.  “Although granite and other construction both have the same basic principles, it’s really just another beast.  It’s real precise.”
• He then talked about the stock market in 1990s and that his wife kept telling him to take his money out of it because they were losing so much but he was glad they didn’t because they ended up making millions off of the stock market.  He whispered the word “millions”.
• When he couldn’t find a good way to transition into his next topic, he made his own.  ” You know golf?  I love golf.  You know, years ago, when companies made golf clubs, they would send their design ideas to all of the physics research departments at the major universities like Stanford, Harvard and the University of Chicago where they would test how adjustments to a golf club could make it better.  This whole process could take from 9 to 12 months before the design could go into production.  But then this guy went to China to see what they could do there.  They showed their designs to the people in China and the manufacturer said that they would make a prototype for it.  The guy asked how long it would take and the manufacturer said Tuesday.  Isn’t that something?  They’d have it ready in a few days!  But that’s not the kicker.  The real kicker is that when they met on Tuesday, the manufacturer said that they were able to do some testing and they made some modifications to the original design because when they put it in a wind tunnel, they found out that if it had a lower center of gravity, it would hit the ball better.  In three days, they had already made improvements to the new design.  And when they asked how long it would take to make 10,000 golf clubs, the manufacturer said about 1 to 2 months.  And the real kicker is that it turns out that each golf club was about 1/120 of the price that they had originally anticipated.”
• I guess China reminded him of poor places because then he started talking about all the people he knew who went on missions to impoverished places.  “I knew a guy who was called on a mission to go to Nigeria, and he was telling me about the corruption and debauchery of the government there.  They literally siphon all the money from the funds that other countries give them.  They do that on the Ivory Coast as well.  I knew a guy who went to some other place in Africa to help them develop their electrical system and give them power so they could have light at night.  He would describe it to them as the magic of light.  Isn’t that a fantastic term: magic of light!”
• Then he talked about the Mormon gospel and how there were red Indians and white Indians but the white Indians all died off first.  But that they were really smart people and there were skulls that were found that had holes in them and the reason there were holes was because they were performing complex brain surgery.  “They were really smart folks.  They were able to control cerebral pressure… we didn’t start doing that until 1954!”
• When the flight attendant announced that we were starting our descent, he launched into a full mormon pitch.  “I was really mixed up because I was raised Methodist and I didn’t know about all of this Mormon stuff they were telling me.  But then I asked God if this church was true, and one day I heard a voice that said, ‘My son, you asked if this church is true.  It is.’  And that was it.  That was in 1970 so it was 39 years ago and I don’t regret it.  My brothers and sisters, they see the goodness to it, but they refuse to give up their smoking and drinking.  And their kids see them drinking and smoking, so they do the same.  But there’s more to this life than this life.  It’s like how the Lord’s prayer says it, ‘as it is on earth, it will be in heaven.’  Except they won’t have their alcohol and tobacco and the other things they’re attached to.”

Haha I’m actually missing a lot of the good quotes but I’m exhausted from writing this.  What a guy.

I just have to make a heartbreaking disclaimer that almost 4 GB of photos are missing.  Well, I usually delete half of what I take (maybe more) so it’s not like I really lost a full 4 GB but what happened was that I thought I had downloaded the photos to my computer and I went ahead and formatted all of my memory cards before our quick trip out to Rocky Mountain National Park.  (I love run-on sentences; they feel so much more conversational.)  It still makes me a little sick to my stomach to think about it.  Ugh.  And it’s worse seeing all of these mediocre photos of Rocky Mountain National Park knowing that I could have breathtaking photos of Machu Picchu instead.  I did try photo recovery software and even talked to a few specialists (thanks Carlos for helping me research) but most people said the chances of recovering photos after you format and then write over until the card is full again is slim to zilch and even if you could, “a recovery like that would cost several hundred dollars.”

So, I took a deep breath and decided to stop being such a baby with my pathetic mini-tragedies that don’t even register a blip on the world radar of real life tragedies.  I’m actually embarrassed to admit that I was upset as I was.  My eyes were uncontrollably tearing up.  It was really weird.  I never thought I had any possessions that I would cry over but now I know I do.  My photos.  (I really need to get a Time Capsule!)

So anyway, the husband gently (I use this term loosely) reminded me that we were lucky to have even gone and we were lucky that we were both there to take in the sights with our own eyes and that alone should be rewarding enough.  So I’m moving on.  All this to say, Machu Picchu is even prettier and more outrageously breathtaking than my photos convey.  Okay sorry, I’ll stop rambling like Governor Sanford.  (Wait one more thing, can I just say that I’m pretty sure that adultery is a bigger threat to the sanctity of marriage and the family unit than gay marriage will ever be?  Get it together, folks.  Okay I’ll stop.)

Here we go:

Bus ride from airport to our hotel in Cusco

Courtyard at El Balcon Inn

The streets of Cusco

Cusco, a city full of interesting doors

Fantastic Five

Convenience Store, buying water and bonbons

24 Hour Free Coca Tea at our Hotel

Minimarket

Macaws (at the zoo for animals rescued from the black market)

Condor with its crazy wingspan (there were pumas too! but we weren’t allowed in their cage, for obvious reasons)

Sandra makes a new avian friend

Giant corn served with quark

Tony is forced to try on a hat made from baby alpaca (llama) wool

Peruvian kolaches (with a side of roasted cuy aka guinea pig)

Happy shoppers at the famous Sunday Pisac Market

Meat market

A little patch of wheat

Spotlight on the sacred valley

Terrace farming

Tight squeeze

On the Pisac Ruins (who took this one for us? viaTheAvocadoProject)

Patchwork Quilt

Foreshadowing

Jin being Jin

Overdone but still fun

Sacsayhuamán

Nice view of the city

Photo taken by the Japanese tourists who kept speaking Spanish to us (via The AvocadoProject)

Wide angle doing what it does best

Jin and the Giant Peach

Tony, human GPS, helping us navigate San Blas

Windows

Architecture

Granja Heidi, a must visit restaurant if you’re ever in Cusco (get the Nelson Mandela Cake!)

The Church of La Compañia

By the Urubama River, before our whitewater rafting trip

Wetsuits

Bankside (photo taken by TheAvocadoProject)

The start of the Inca Trail! (via TheAvocadoProject)

Jin and Tony

Pretty easy beginning to the hike

We encountered a lot of people & animals along the trail

Beautiful scenery to hike in

Snowcapped mountains in the background

Our sleeping arrangements

Our whole group (via TheAvocadoProject)

Warmiwanusca a.k.a. Dead Woman’s Pass a.k.a. The worst part of the entire Inca Trail a.k.a. One of the greatest physical accomplishments of my life (4,200 meters above sea level, a ridiculous gain of 900 meters in about 2-3 hours)

Here we are, happy that we made it to the top!

Reflections in the mountains

Lots of steps

And more steps

Here’s our group overlooking Machu Picchu!  Yes, my hair is slicked back with sweat.  (via TheAvocadoProject)

Another group shot in front of Machu Picchu (via TheAvocadoProject)

Machu Picchu!

Quiet morning at Machu Picchu

Condor Temple (as demonstrated by Jin)

The Incas modeled their architecture after the natural landscape

The Temple of Three Windows

Beautiful

Amphitheater

Running out of adjectives

Stairway to nowhere

Team Machu Picchu

Since I didn’t get any classic photos of Machu Picchu, this is probably my favorite photo from the trip

My first time in a VIP lounge! Bogota, Colombia

I adopted that song for myself and have spent more time washing my hands these past few weeks than ever before.

Per wikipedia, the song “This Little Light of Mine” was written in the 1920′s by Harry Dixon Loes (1895-1965).  Since then, there have been several cool versions done by a wide variety of artists including “The Boss”:

And Carlos recently shared a pretty cool new Honda Insight commercial that also uses the song.

So yeah, it’s obviously a great song.

Anyway, this morning, NPR posted the following tweet:

“ISO hand-washing jingle/ditty to prevent flu. Kids sing the ABC’s to hand-wash for 20 secs. What should adults sing? Tag replies #FluSong.”

Are you one of those people who still don’t get what the big hype is about Twitter?  Well, here’s an example.  Go to TwitterSearch, search for “#FluSong” and you’ll see a ton of different song recommendations for hand-washing.  I like the suggestion of the Jeopardy theme.  Adds a sense of urgency.  Okay here, I’ll link you to it and save you a few clicks — go here.

Want to see something funny?  Here are the results for #swinefluhatesyou.

Okay, I’ll admit, those are really trivial uses for Twitter.  But when you get a chance, play around with TwitterSearch, it’s pretty interesting to read what people are talking about.

Okay folks, remember to wash your hands thoroughly for 15-20 seconds and get your song picked out!

There was a couple near the summit of the hike that was taking a million photos of each other.  The man asked if we could take a photo of the two of them together and then offered to take a photo of us.  He took at least ten photos of us and his girlfriend/wife had to tell him to give us our camera back.  He then said that she had taken photos while he lay on the edge of the rock and it made it look like he was at the edge of the world.  He paused, almost as if he expected us to pose for more photos.  But then he said he was going to take one more with a different background and then handed our camera back to us.

We then drove along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive and walked around Tuff Canyon.  Tuff Canyon was hot, dry, and boring. I don’t recommend it.

And that was our trip!

Day 2 of our Big Bend National Park trip (click here for Day 1) started with a pretty drive to the Rio Grande Village.

At the visitor center near Rio Grande, they had a little area where they had samplings of all the different plant life in the park.  I thought these cacti were really cute!

We brought our bikes on the trip and the husband had read about the different areas in the park that were best for biking.

So we decided to bike 4 miles from the Rio Grande Village to the Boquillas Canyon Overlook.  4 miles?  Easy, right?  Well, not if you consider all the hills!  It was pretty easy for the husband but I had to walk my bike up most of the hills.

Even though it was difficult and blazing hot, it was an incredible experience.  It’s just a crazy feeling to be biking in such a harsh environment.  The sheer size of the spread of the land around you and your little bike on your little road — it was just unreal.  It really felt like I was dreaming.  I was so tired by the time we arrived at Boquillas Canyon Overlook that I waited in the shade until the husband biked back to the visitor center to bring the car.

While I was waiting in the shade I took these photos:

When the husband came back with the car, we hiked up the short but hot Boquillas Canyon Trail.

Yep, that’s the Rio Grande.

Can you see our 4Runner in the parking lot with the bikes on our roof rack?

Then we went off-roading on Glenn Spring Road in our 4Runner to get to Pine Canyon Trail.

Pine Canyon Trail is easy and boring for several miles and you start to wonder why it’s called Pine Canyon because it’s pretty flat and tree-less.  And then when you least expect it, it becomes this:

Crazy, right?  We sat right there on the rocks and had a delicious beef jerky break.

Then we went offroading on Grapevine Hills Road to get to the Grapevine Hills Trail and the famous Balanced Rock.  I was pretty tired at this point and was skeptical about the hype surrounding the Balanced Rock.  Boy, am I glad we didn’t skip it!

Again, weird landscape change.

It’s really easy to lose the trail here because it’s pretty sandy.

We didn’t see a single other person while we were here, the quiet and the strange landscape made the hike feel a bit eerie.

The sun was starting to set and it cast a soft and pretty glow on the rocks.

The Balanced Rock!  It’s not really that spectacular until you get up close to it.

Amazing view, ain’t it?

When we hiked back to our car the sun almost all the way down.  It was peaceful and beautiful out there.  If I were to camp in a tent, I’d probably camp somewhere along this road.

We started our road trip right after the husband got off work on Wednesday night.  Packing is a lousy chore when you know you’re going to be sleeping in the car.  We’ve done it once before, when we went to Guadalupe Mountain National Park, but it had been awhile and we had to make sure we had all of our supplies.  We ended up forgetting our lantern but it didn’t make too much of a difference because we had a flashlight.

We recently purchased a Yakima bike rack for our roof rack and it was a bit nerve wracking to drive such a long distance with it.  It was also weird to have to pay attention to all the bride and overhang clearances.  Needless to say, we didn’t go through any fast food drive thrus.

We drove about 500 miles from Houston to Fort Stockton.  This is always the best leg of the drive because we’re pumped, listening to good music, catching up on everything we’ve been putting off discussing, reminiscing about our college road trips, and most importantly, this is when I’m most awake.  The drive was a little bit stressful because there were a ton of deer on the side of the highway and I was really nervous about the possibility that they might jump out in front of the car.  It was kind of ridiculous how much deer we saw just calmly grazing on the side of the highway.  We probably saw at least 50 deer.  I’m not exaggerating.  I had to force myself to stop looking to the side of the road.

It’s been awhile since I’ve driven around San Antonio but it’s gotten pretty nice!  They have a ton of brand new shopping centers and restaurants everywhere.  They’re really building up the city — I was taken aback by it.

We got to Fort Stockton at around 1:30 and checked into a nice little hotel.  Fort Stockton is a nice, sleepy town.  Felt like Friday Night Lights.

We left the next morning after taking advantage of the hotel’s complimentary breakfast and got to BBNP at 11:30AM to try our luck at snagging a good first-come, first-serve, campsite.  We were in luck!  We got a campsite in the Chisos Basin.  If you ever go to BBNP, you should aim to stay at Chisos Basin.  The biggest perk is that it’s a good ten to fifteen degrees cooler than the Rio Grande Village or Cottonwood (Castolon).  It stays in the 70′s in Chisos Basin during the day and dips down to the 50′s at night.  Perfect, basically.  That alone is convincing enough for me to want to stay in Chisos Basin, but some other perks are that it’s near the Chisos Mountain Lodge (where there’s a restaurant) and it’s close to a lot of the great hikes.  It’s also centrally located so if you want to explore the other areas of the park, you have a convenient home base to start at.  Aesthetically, I also think it’s prettier than the other campgrounds because you can see the mountains.  Oh, and this is only taking into consideration campsites with flush toilets.  What can I say, we’re city kids.

Here’s what our campsite area looked like:

We usually make a point to do our most difficult hike our first day when our legs are still fresh and our hearts still eager.  So we decided to tackle Emory Peak via Pinnacles Trail.  This was a fairly nice hike because the weather stayed pretty cool and breezy throughout since we were at a higher elevation but looking back, I don’t know if it’s worth the work compared to the other hikes we did.  It wasn’t too hard of a hike, there were a lot of flat and level breaks in between the steeper inclines.  I think the hardest aspect of the hike was the length of it.  It pushed my endurance to its limits.

Here are some photos:

I quit at the last mile.  I just couldn’t push my legs or my lungs any farther.  I was pretty disappointed in myself but I knew my limits.  The last mile is significantly steeper with some hot spots without any shade.  I found a shady spot to sit and convinced the husband to continue to the peak with the camera so that I could at least see what it looked like.

Here they are (he’s a pretty good photographer!):

It always feels really great to go back to your campsite and put your tired feet up!

Later that night we went to watch the sunset at “The Window”:

After a tasty dinner at the lodge, we headed back to our campsite.

We watched two episodes of The Wire on my MacbookPro before we finally called it a night and went to bed.  We really have a hard time leaving technology behind.  It’s actually a lot of fun, because we share earbuds and silently gasp and react to the show’s twists and turns to avoid disturbing others.

I am most regretful that I did not have time to learn to take photos of stars before the trip because the sky was breathtakingly beautiful.  I have never seen so many stars in my life.  They were blanketed over us in so many layers– it was so mesmerizing.  I actually fell asleep with my glasses on because I didn’t want to stop looking at them.  What a wonderful way to fall asleep.  I may be a city kid but I think I sort of get what the Dixie Chicks are singing about in “Cowboy, Take Me Away.”

“Propeller?!”

“Yeah, it was a small plane.”

I was in such disbelief that the husband finally linked me to a photo of the aircraft he flew in.

Meet the Bombardier Dash 8:

I don’t know if I’d be comfortable flying in this plane.

Lake Tahoe is a beautiful place.  A few years ago, if you had asked me if I’d rather live in the mountains or by the ocean, I would have picked ocean without any hesitation.  Nowadays, if you ask me, I really struggle.  Rocky Mountain National Park was gorgeous and Lake Tahoe was beautiful.  There’s something about being up high that really refreshes me.  The ocean is hypnotic and mesmerizing but more and more I find myself looking to my vacation to refresh and revive.

The flight to Tahoe was kind of lousy.  We had a layover in Phoenix.  The airport feels rundown.  I’m spoiled by Continental’s E Terminal at IAH.  I think I’m spoiled by Continental in general.  Free checked bags because we’re Elite.  And I can’t believe U.S. Airways charges $2 a soda on the plane.  What a rip.

The snowboarding was cool.  The boys went to Squaw for night boarding the first night, then we went to Kirkwood the next day and then Squaw again the day after.

So, the good news is, I had fun snowboarding and I didn’t get hurt.  The bad news is, I really don’t think snowboarding is the sport for me.  I mean, it’s fun and all, but the thrill is just not worth the work.  I’ve never had a need for speed — I don’t like roller coasters, water parks, jet skis, etc.  So going faster on the snowboard and going down steeper mountains just really doesn’t appeal to me.  But I’d definitely go to a ski resort again.  I love the environment and how cozy and friendly everyone is.  I’d be content with a book or my laptop.  I didn’t see a single unhappy person the whole time we were there!  The husband really loved snowboarding so I expect we’ll be back sometime.

I’m kind of hoping to use iMovie to put together a video of our trip but we’ll see how it goes.  Oh, and I really am not too fond of Lightroom.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to purchase Aperture after the trial is over.