News...

Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq closed this month. The 3,000 prisoners were transferred to other jails. Link.

Check out this photo. This was taken by the Landsat 7 Satellite on September 11, 2001. What an amazing photo. Really gives you a sense of scale.

Wisdom Teeth

I had my wisdom teeth removed today. I remember going into the office after taking the pill they gave me, watching my heart rate and blood pressure on the monitor, and then not much else for about 4 hours. Apparently I was doing a Godfather impression in the recovery room, something Harry was telling me about doing when he got his out a couple weeks ago. "I'm gonna make ya an offer ya can't refuse."

Another Cool photo

Check out this photo from our ascent of Mt. Triumph. On the descent, we were looking to the NE, and saw these ominous formations building. We made it down fine, and the weather stayed good until we went to bed. The next morning we woke up inside a cloud, so thick we couldn't see more than 30 ft. and with the wind tearing through the col. We packed up, ate breakfast, and booked out of there fast! Photo credit to Tom Unger.

NZ Planning

I've been doing alot of planning in the last couple of weeks for my trip. So far, my plan is to fly into Auckland around October 10th, spend about a week touring the city, then start making my way south. The capital, Wellington, is on the southern tip of the north island, in a huge harbor. There is a ferry that makes the crossing to Picton in 3 hours, and its supposed to be gorgeous. I got into contact with an American woman who has lived in NZ for 3 years, in a town called Takaka (known for its wine, surfing, and national parks), and she invited me to stay with her for a couple days, so I may head a couple hours up the road and stay there for a while.

After that, I'm going to head down to Christchurch, on the east coast. I'm gonna hang around there for a while, doing parkour and exploring, then head to Castle Hill (previous post) for bouldering for a week or so! Then, I'm going to spend the last part of my trip exploring the Southern Alps, Milford Sound (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), and the glaciated slopes of Mt. Cook and her neighbors. There is a pretty decent exchange rate ($1 US=$1.59 NZ), so I'm on track financially. Plane ticket is about 1200 though, ouch. Yahoo!

PK from eastern Europe

This is the video that started it all...

Bainbridge II

This is the beginning of the breakfast we had at Charles'. It was an amazing feast!

This second shot is Brendan, as we're all sitting around on saturday afternoon.


This is Ko, poleing out to the raft (which had floated away) this morning.
Nick caught a big Rainbow trout after about 15 minutes. We wanted to let it go, but the hook got in the gills and it died, so people ate it for lunch. They said it was delicious. That evening, though, David threw a cast out and caught a smaller fish in, literally, 15 seconds.

Bainbridge I

These are the first of the pictures I took this weekend. We spent the first night on Bainbridge at the State Park, had dinner in town, and sat out on the beach until late. We were even able to see some of the fireworks from seafair over Seattle.

The first picture is from sunday morning. We were all invited to breakfast at our friend Charles Lewis' cabin, and here are Bree, Claire, and Siena looking out over the pond on Charles' property.
I stayed the next night at Charles' with Ko, David, and Declan, and we built a big floating raft out of wood and styrofoam. It took us about 4 hours of work, but it is cool. Supposedly each of those styrofoam planks has 750 lbs of floatation.

This last shot is from the ferry on the way home, this morning. Everyone forgot to set an alarm, so Ko and Charles were late for work.

Amazing sunset!

I snapped these pictures off my roof two weeks ago. I don't know how many of you spotted it (July 21st), but I think it was the most spectacular seattle sunset I've seen in a long, long time. I'm headed off for the weekend, I'll have more pictures when I get back.

The Warriors

I took these pictures last winter, when I coached a basketball team of 10 year olds. Will is on the right, Conner making the face, and Calin is the other. The other shot is Calin defending Robert. This is during a practice at Miller Community Center.