Twilight Criterium

On Saturday evening we went to the Twilight Criterium downtown. For those who have never seen one, it is a bicycle race 90 times around a couple of city blocks with about 20,000 people watching. The pace is very quick, and the riders bunch up unbelievably tight going around the corners, so it is pretty exciting to watch. It was hot down there too. Here's a couple of pics.

Beyond Hot

For some inexplicable reason, last weekend we went to The Hottest Place on Earth on The Hottest Day of the Century. I forgot the camera so I have zero pics - probably doesn't matter because I bet it would have melted like one of Mia's crayons anyway.
We stayed at Lake Owyhee on Friday night with Karl and Lori. It is a nice campground with a bunch of paved and grass RV and tent spots, showers and electricity. The power is great for people with A/C in their RV's. As in not us. I was seriously about to have heat stroke at 3am in the tent. It was the only time in recent history that I 1) drank a liter of water in the middle of the night and 2) DIDN'T have to go peepee in the morning as a result. When we got home Saturday afternoon, the high in Boise had been 107. Generally, Lake Owyhee runs 8 degrees hotter than Boise. You do the math.
But we did have a great time swimming on Friday and Saturday. Mia is getting used to her life jacket, so now she jumps out and swims around whenever, wherever. Cooper on the other hand wades in up to his knees and calls it good. The fish were biting pretty well, and Shanna landed a 5.5lb catfish much to her disgust. Partly cause she was wishin it was a bass and partly cause it was so stinking ugly. I threw it back before Cooper could do any major damage (he likes to poka the eyes with the pliers).

Panoramic

I am testing out some stitching software called Panorama Factory. If you take a sequence of photos, it (supposedly) puts them all together and corrects the exposure to make one seamless panoramic picture. It would have helped if I had a tripod and a real camera, but I didn't so I figured I'd see how much the software could help correct my shortcomings. I tried it first in auto mode, and the results were less than splendid. So I did it manually, then adjusted the exposure in Photoshop, which seemed to turn out a lot better. With exposure lock and a tripod I think I could fix most of the 'seam' effect. Click the pic above to see the big one. Just for reference, this picture of Banff was done by a pro, and is one of my all time favorites. Let me know what you think!

Pucky Leak Thrilla of the Grilla

We went to Lucky Peak on Sunday evening at the spur of the moment with Zayne and Sheryl. Had some bratwurst to use up and what better spot than our own little picnic/dock area. A very nice evening after a very hot day.
I forgot the briquettes, so we stopped by Fred Meyer on the way to pick some up. Somehow I managed to exit the store with a WeberQ portable grill instead. Couldn't be more pleased with the impulse purchase. Shanna on the other hand was somewhat suspicious.

Chocolatte

Well, the camera dried out and it still works fine. Pretty disappointing because I really wanted a new one!
Our espresso machine has been malfunctioning since Joel and Cheryl were here (coincidence? - I think not!) so I cracked it open to have a look.

Come to find out, the water pump activation microswitch on the steam wand bypass port was being tripped by a misaligned rotary cam. So I deftly gave it The Wiggle and viola!!!....out pops this pretty Mocha in no time flat.

All's well with the Barista. Now I can resume full morning mocha production without having to stop at a drive thru, which is why I'm late to work most of the time. And other stuff.

Good thing it wasn't The Big One

The camera got wet. Now it takes pictures like this.

Good thing I didn't need to submit that photo to the world record books for 'smallest fish caught by whitest man' or something because they would have thought I took it back in '72.

We had an absolutely beautiful evening at Lake Lowell, and I would have taken a picture of the sunset but the camera wasn't working real good.

I think I would like to buy the Canon Powershot S3 IS next. But I've been dying for a digital SLR like the Canon Rebel XT for quite a while so I'm not sure what's gonna happen. The disadvantage of the d-slr is the size. We may not take it with us as much as we bring our little camera. But the pictures are SO nice.

CrackBack

I've been going to see Dr.P to try and fix a crink in my neck. I should have done it a long time ago - I feel like a new person when he gets done. I asked him what that popping noise was, he said 'it's the sound of bones breaking'. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to go back because, you know, that can't be good.

That family down the street

Tonight Mia decided she should ride the trike around the block while wearing the clown nose that she got at a birthday party today. I'm sure some neighbors think 'that poor girl, she has no daddy because no one has taught her to ride a bike' and others think ' that poor girl, she has no mommy because no one would let their pretty girl outside with a clown nose on.' Well we love that cute little bugger, regardless of who her parents are.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a limit of 5 fish over 12"

Earlier this year, Shanna and I decided to sign up for a Jack and Jill bass fishing tournament (husband and wife) with Klaus and Mary-Catherine. Today was the big day at Lake Owyhee, with a mind-numbing 4am start at Klaus's house. We had stayed the night at Grandma Linda's, so we just got up and left, and she baby-sat for the day.

We originally planned to take our boat because it sleeps better than the Bullet (M-C is known for snoozing, regardless of the situation at hand), which is important because this was supposed to be fun,...right? But I was concerned that the Lowe was too slow to run all the way up the lake if we needed to, so we ended up with the Bullet anyway. M-C still snoozed!

There were about 45 boats in the tournament. The basic premise is that each couple has from 5:45a to 2:00p to catch 5 fish over 12". If you catch more than 5 keeper fish, you start culling the little ones and keep the biggest ones. Turns out that we didn't have to worry about that minor technicality.... At 2:00, the boats return to a weigh-in and your total fish weight is your score, plus a seperate award for the biggest single fish of the day.

We had a great time trying to stir up some action, with the boys constantly changing lures, and the ladies patiently fishing their favorite color of lizard. But by 9a, we (Shanna and I) only had 2 little keepers so the tension began to mount and the high speed driving from spot to spot commenced. The goggles/mask are standard issue to keep your eyes from drying out and the bugs out of your teeth.

At 10a, Shanna nailed a nice 2 lb keeper to suddenly triple our weight total and then just after noon Klaus put the Jimmy Houston on a 2.5 pounder and things were looking up. Unfortunately, these were the last two keepers of the day as we were unable to find a spot that could produce more than one decent fish at a time.

At the weigh-in, it looked like about half of the couples had a similar day to ours (we ended up 33rd out of 52), with 10 even weighing nothing at all. We weighed only 3.46 lbs total, which is pathetic considering the amount of time we had and the acres we covered, but that's the way things go. The rest of couples had a solid day with 8 - 11 lb bags, and the top three weighing 12 - 19 lbs total. The big fish went to a gal that hooked a fat 6.4 pounder.

All-in-all we had an excellent time with good friends, hot sun and tough water. Maybe next time we'll get that sweet spot figured out and get those livewells packed!

July 4 Weekend - Arrowrock

Jacob, Ernie and myself decided we'd better go fishing at Arrowrock on the morning of the Fourth of July. Amazingly, lake was deserted all morning and the water was as calm as you could ask for. We had a good time fishing, in which we caught innumerable smallmouth that just couldn't seem to get over the 9oz mark, but we all agreed that it would have been a perfect morning to own a ski boat. I already own a boat, so that leaves Jacob or Ernie.....

July 4 Weekend - CJ Strike

Woke the crew up early to go fishing down at CJ Strike. With the blazing hot weather, we wanted to be on the water for just the morning and leave around noon, which worked out pretty good. Still got HOT! Had a pretty good time catching fish and driving around.
Here is the 'narrows' section where the Bruneau arm flows through a canyon to join the main portion of the lake in the Snake River arm.

We went upstream to the Cottonwood campground area where Shanna caught a fish on the first cast of her new fishing rod/reel combo. Now that's a good sign! On the way back, I somehow managed to catch a 5lb catfish on a crankbait. Had me going there for a minute thinking that I had mother hawg....

So the tally totaled 10 smallies, a nice 18" trout, a fat little perch, and one ugly catfish. C-ya, Sam