Teton County, Wyoming 2011 Flood Season: Per WYDOT and Teton County Sheriff's Office Dispatch, S Hwy 89/Snake River Canyon is now open with two lanes of travel over a gravel surface. Falling rock advisory is still in effect. Original Facebook Status: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=215968925095106&v=wall&story_fbid=215918825096932 Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)

svi: NEW: Slide meeting in Alpine http://www.starvalleyindependent.com/2011/05/slide-meeting-in-alpine/ Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/svi/status/71332482259226624 Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)

Harrison likes the table I scored at the library auction

We are officially on lockdown.

Harrison can now open all the lever doors in our house, which is all but one.

No more dinner, time for hockey!

Patiently waiting behind the scenes.

I think a tumble weed just rolled by this standoff.

Thumbs up for the cutter races!

Hang in there!

Thumbs up for the cutter races!

This was impressive.

Harrison taking some first bites by himself

This is how you make friends at the airport!

All right, that's enough Diaspora.

I've heard of kids that like the touch screens, looks like Harrison's going to be more of a keyboard guy.

Getting better with the water bottle

Solving the puzzle

Didn't take him long to get it to a point where he could play with the handles of the stove.

I wish dogs and babies understood daylight saving

Any kids that brave the hail may just get all our candy; they'll probably be the only ones. Plus we already ate most of it.

First skate of the season this morning, first game this Sunday. Feels great to be back on skates. Great but tiring.

Beautiful fall evening

The force is strong in this one

Patient dog

"Why won't this kid stop messing with me?"

Just chowed down at Taste of the Tetons!

Hangin on the deck

And for her next trick Lucy will make YOUR dinner disappear.

Can't blame her, who doesn't like a couple of ribeyes...

Beautiful evening

Rainy day, beautiful evening

Attention fellow dorks: Just heard Civilization V will be coming out soon. Get all your chores done now.

Back from a great weekend road trip to Missoula. Little man did pretty well in the car, got to go camping and help team Jackson kill it in zoo town!

Less than 3 months as a father and I'm already wearing black socks and tennis shoes

Damn global warming

Damn global warming

Boxee for Windows

Boxee for windows was released last night.

Doesn't look like Netflix support has made it yet, but the iphone/ipod touch app seems to work pretty well. You can add local media sources, which is a little easier in the light of day without a few cocktails in me, though it didn't automatically scan those folders for content and add it in the 'browse' area. I'm sure a little time reading the forums will help out a bunch.

If you have any boxee tips, let me know.

Can you dig it??

The garden is ready for planting!!

Top picture was taken day before yesterday when I was just about done digging rocks.
The bottom picture was taken today after peat moss & manure were roto-tilled in.

Good Party

Lucy hosted a little party for my birthday and it wore here out!!

Avoiding the swine flu

Don't do this:

Jackson Hole Daily | U.S. Bank buys failed First Bank of Tetons

Jackson Hole Daily | U.S. Bank buys failed First Bank of Tetons

Netflix Watch it now

Just wanted to point out that Seasons 1-9 of South Park are available to watch at Netflix Watch Instantly.

Okay, just did a Hulu search to see if this was totally after the fact, and it turns out that there's a beta South Park Studios Player that has what appears to be Seasons 1-13 available. Sweeeeet.

Downtown Jackson getting a meat and fish shop

Interesting news that the former Choice Meats folks are opening a new meat shop in town.

Downtown Jackson getting a meat and fish shop

A new meat and fish store opening in downtown Jackson should please at least a few downtown residents who complain about driving to get groceries.

Start of the Garden

Todd helped me pick up some railroad ties yesterday and we got a garden bed started for Jennifer while she was in Jackson. Now just to get the rest of the rocks out and mix in the Peat & Manure.

They've moved past squirrel suits

Ivanpah trip

Jennifer, Lucy & I took a little road trip down to the desert with Todd, Wendi & Penny last week.

The big draw for Todd & me was checking out the Ivanpah Dry Lake bed, which has been set aside for non-motorized vehicle use. This keeps the surface relatively flat and rut-free. This Playa is perfect for land sailing, kite buggying and the like.

Todd has a buggy, and I was able to pick up a landboard and a ram air foil style kite more suited to land activities.

We made it out to the lake bed 3 times. The first 2 days the wind was almost too strong, and if we had even smaller kites we would have used them. We were able to (slowly) ride the landboard behind a little stunt kite Todd has. Those days were good to get the hang of my new kite, and I got to buggy a little bit as well. The third day the wind was suitable for landboarding. After a shaky start, I started to get a feel for it. Only one wipeout. The board I got has a pretty springy suspension, which I think will be good for the rockier areas we have in Wyoming, but it could get squirrely at higher speeds on the flats; sudden movements not an option.

National Weather Service - NWS Spokane

Torsten spotted this and I thought it was pretty cool.

National Weather Service - NWS Spokane

Jennifer @ Evergreen Farm CSA

Jennifer made the most recent blog post from EverGreen Farm, the CSA in Smoot.

Fire in Downtown Bozeman

Torsten posted some photos on Facebook about a natural gas explosion and fire that took place at a restaurant in Bozeman called Boodles.

Bozeman Talks has a good list of information about it.

Here's some footage someone caught & put on youtube.



and some pictures

Good Wind Last weekend

Last weekend we had great S/SE wind for kiteskiing. I went out solo Saturday (well, Lucy came too) and Todd came out on Sunday. Jennifer & Lucy also came for a bit to take some pictures on Sunday.

Earthquake in WY

Check out this link for information on the earthquake that hit not too far from our house tonight.
Jennifer & I thought it was the snow finally sliding from the valley on our roof, but then we got a call from Todd & Wendi.
It seems as if it was a magnitude 3.7, and it looks to be centered about 10 miles from our house.

Fairy/Ferry Peak

The hike yesterday was pretty much straight up and down the peak that our house is oriented towards, Ferry peak.

Lots of false summits along the way, but also some mountain goats.

Fairy Peak

Sleeping Indian

Dutch & I took a little stroll up the Sleeping Indian last Friday.
The weather has been beautiful for the last week and should be for a few more days.

Sleeping Indian

Murray Spam

Just an apology out there to anyone that was in The Murray's contact list that got spammed by a Chinese electronics wholesaler.

We're not sure if it was a bot or the account was compromised, but we're working to address the issue.

If anyone has experienced this type of thing before, we'd love any insight to the problem.

Recessions aren't thirst-quenching

A little article from the SF Examiner reminding us that smaller isn't always better (though in a vacuum we always try and choose it).

Give some of the larger wineries a chance with a blind tasting and you might find wines upon which you can ride out these difficult economic times.

Also, ever since the Grand Canyon we've been less afraid of 'the box.'

Some of the better ones:
-Fish Eye Pinot Grigio
-La Vielle Ferme is putting their Rhone blend in a bag, not too shabby
-The Black Box is a ubiquitous go-to, with Cabs from different regions in CA, amongst other varietals

http://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/27834089.html

Settling in

Jennifer & I have been settling in to Alpine over the last week and a half.

All our 'stuff' is on the premises and for the first time in week we were able to park both cars in the garage.

All we have left to unpack/organize are the many boxes stacked in the office/project room.

Jennifer got some pictures before we moved in, hopefully we'll post them soon.

Car Adventure

Okay, so throughout our adventure we have had tremendous luck with our vehicles.
Until today.

Near Lexington, Nebraska, we had what we thought was an alternator belt failure. Some of the dashboard warning lights like the battery, emergency brake & ABS lights were flickering.
Turning off the radio and AC kept those lights from flickering, but we knew something was up with the alternator/power system.
We looked up auto places on the GPS, but there weren't too many options near where we were.
When the speed and RPM gauges wouldn't work anymore I decided that we should pull off in Lexington even if we didn't have our choice of repair shops.
We made it to the Advance Auto Parts and tried to buy a belt. Rich had one size above and below, so grabbed some tools to see which one might work. Upon closer inspection it turned out not to be the belt, but the belt tensioner, which had sheared itself off.

The nearest dealership was in Lincoln, 160 miles east, but the service dept. was closed already so they couldn't even tell if they had one in stock.
There were also shops in in Salinas & Lawrence, Kansas and Cheyenne, Wyoming, but none of these had anyone working that could say whether or not they had the part we needed.

The shop in Boulder (330 miles!) had what we needed, but compared to a 160 mile tow in the wrong direction to a shop we wouldn't even know if they had the part until Monday, it actually seemed like a reasonable option.

We made the call.

A few minutes later a guy named Hector wanders over. Turns out he has the part we need, but for the 2.5 liter engine.

Dang.

Well, he says, we could see if we could put a different pulley on there, you want to come look with me?

So we climb into his mini-van.
He unlocks the Napa auto parts store down the road and picks out a pulley and some bolts.

Half an hour later he has the pulley on and things are looking up. The harder part was getting the belt back on.

I feel like it's the last day of Summer Break

I just packed the car for the last time of our adventure. We have some clothes and camping gear accessible, but after tonight in Saginaw we are on the road towards Wyoming!!

We meet the movers in Detroit tomorrow to pick up everything left in the storage unit, say hello to my grandmother Tini, then hit the road for Wyoming - and begin a new adventure!!

It's true

Okay, so we haven't necessarily talked too much about this, but we're moving to Alpine, Wy.

When we were at Janice & Bernie's wedding celebration in July, we found a house we liked and have it under contract.

It looks like all is going to go well with the closing, so we're getting movers ready to pick up our belongings in Michigan and Montana.

You can actually see it over my right shoulder in the picture from wakeboarding with Todd and Wendi. (it's the one with the red roof)

Packing Up

Sorting through a storage unit that you've never seen before to get it ready to be picked up by a moving company to take it across the country doesn't have to be boring.

Twitter

Okay, so I always thought Twitter was a little silly. No one really needs to know what you're doing all the time.

However, a nice little tool Jott is switching to a pay service and there are a couple things that you can do with Twitter to replace some functions (for free).

Anyhow, I signed up to play around, so if you want to check it out you can look at our (well, my - we all know Jennifer isn't going to be into this) Twitter Page, or you can get it via RSS feed from that page or here.

Anyway, if you check it out let me know and I'll follow your tweets, to use the jargon of our time.

P.S. - Jott has left a couple functions on its free version, among them a feature that will read you your RSS feeds over the phone if you're bored. You can even have it read you a feed of your Gmail inbox.

Clean Slate

Okay, I haven't posted in a while & I'm sorry not to have kept people in the loop. Unfortunately we got a little behind in a couple places that didn't have easy internet access, and of course I wanted to keep going sequentially, but never had the time to catch all the way up.

So now I'll just start where we are, and once we get some pictures uploaded I'll try and go back and fill in some details.

We're in Tawas to see my grandmother Tini for one more night and to pick up sister Jen who was watching Lucy for us for a couple days. From here we think she'll take the Prizm for us so that we can be back down to one car and she can have some wheels.

Sorry we've been out of touch, but hopefully we'll be better in the future.

Cheers,

John

Google Maps

Okay, so Jennifer and I haven't had this experience with our GPS, but a couple not too far off:

Google Maps

via xkcd.com on 8/10/08

Back in Contact

We just made it to Wyoming after our week in the U.P.
We'll try and catch up with some pictures from our time there, but I thought I would post this time lapse video we took at Tom & Kathy's 'Before Al's Fire Party.' Al starts building his bonfire on July 6th, and lights it the following year. Needless to say, it's a doozy. This video is actually both the party and the lighting of the bonfire, taken with Tom & Kathy's webcam & the YAWcam software. The only drawback is that the software wouldn't use the camera's full resolution, so it's not as clear as I would like. Also, it was very bright that day. We had to darken the pics so much that as soon as the sun went down it got really dark (I didn't adjust as it went, which would have been a good idea).

Al's Fire

Does anyone have any extra carbon credits we can borrow?
'Cause this was one hell of a bonfire.