Here's some pictures I took on a trip to Ouray, CO in early June, 2004. My Uncle John and Aunt Vivian have a house in Ouray. The San Juans are the coolest mountains you've probably never heard of. They are high--several peaks over 14,000 feet--but are so far south that they get incredibly temperate weather and the snow melts off of them relatively early in the season. Some of these pictures were taken from well over 10,000 feet in early June. You're lucky to get above 6,000 feet in Montana that early without the snowshoes. Ouray is nice because the slopes around it are too rugged for a ski hill, so it has remained un-Tellurided/Vailed.
A collection of Coachella pictures. Coachella is a two day music and arts festival held at a huge polo field complex in the desert near Palm Springs, CA. We went in 05 and 06 and saw too many good bands to count. About 70-80 bands play each year. The reason we went in the first place was to see Sharon's favorite band, New Order. It's rare that they play in the US, so when they were posted as the headliner in 05 we went.
Here's some pictures of Christmas at Cathy's house, and one of me assembling a crib. Christmas was good--the 5 of us mananged to eat the better part of a 7 pound roast and the casseroles were all very yummy. What more is there?
The next time some legislator starts making noises about 'activist' judges and how their power should be limited, or there is a ballot initiative in your state to lower the bar on impeaching judges, or Congress limits the federal courts' jurisdiction (ability to hear cases) on a certain subject matter such as habeas corpus (a motion to find out why the hell am I incarcerated), take a close look at a place like Russia where the judiciary is a tool of the executive branch at the moment. An independent judiciary is essential to a properly functioning democracy.
The dismantling of Yukos is a prime example of what happens when the executive branch wields all the power.
Check out http://www.khodorkovskytrial.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khodorkovsky
It often happens that when you learn something new, that thing, be it a word, song, phrase, idea, etc., seems to pop up everywhere. There is actually a reference to hairshirt in an article I read the other day on breast pumps. Yes, I am reading up on breast pumps. http://www.slate.com/id/2138639/
This is a photo of my grandparents on the day of their wedding. I really love this photo. My grandmother emailed it to me a while ago and it was saved in a format I couldn't put on the blog and I just figured out how to do it. The picture was taken the afternoon of their wedding day. My grandmother's brother in law had driven them in his car shown in the picture to Visalia, the county seat, to get their marriage license. The date was Sept. 14, 1943.
Regarding having said the baby looks like it has Sharon's lips...I also said it looked like a monkey. I think the ultrasound is like one of those inkblot tests. Half the time you have no idea what you are seeing and can see anything you want in it. The woman who was doing it was pointing out all kinds of stuff on the screen while she was doing it, like the aorta, the kidneys, the spine, the toes, etc. I told her I'd just have to trust her on all that stuff. At one point it also looked like Don Rickles.
Here the ultrasound picture of the baby. The printer was having trouble that day, so we only got a couple of shots. This is the baby's head with one leg on the left. They estimated based on its current size that it will be 7.5 lbs, slightly above average. Greg says it has my lips!
5.5 months pregnant.
The ultrasound image of the fetus is coming soon.
This is the reason I started this blog, after all.
Hairshirt is a REM song. That's not what I had in mind when I did the post though. I was thinking of the song What a Good Boy by Barenaked Ladies. I think Barenaked Ladies would made good kids music. My uncle John also cited a song by the Waitresses.
Most of the pictures on the blog would make one think its beautiful all the time in Montana. Well it's not. Especially if your favorite thing to do is mountain bike. So on the left is what biking looks like in the winter in Montana. It sucks--I have my road bike set up on an indoor trainer--a torture chamber. It makes me feel better though, and will ensure that I don't suck too much wind when the snow does melt off of the trails come spring. The rest of the pictures are what it looks like to mountain bike in Moab in the winter. I went there in November and spent 3 days mountain biking and one day visiting my Grandparents in nearby Grand Junction.
Halloween 2004 was also both Dave and Sharon's 30th birthdays, so we rented an inflatable boxing ring with oversized gloves and had a Dukes of Hazzard theme birthday/Halloween party.
