So, I have one more backpedaling blog post that I wanted to write.  This is what happens when you are out of touch with technology for a week.  It felt pretty good to do that, but then when you come back and realize that you are behind on things, well, it never really balances out.  At least I can try.

So, upon my return from Ithaca I met my brother in the Salt Lake City airport as he just flew in for the week.  The idea for the week was to do some backpacking in the wilderness around here.  the original plan was to head up to Grand Teton National Park but the weather outlook up there was not so great.  This was a little unfortunate as we had made some pretty good plans for heading up to GTNP, but in the name of safety and such we decided to make a change.

We spent the better part of a day over at REI looking at books and maps and trying to plan a new location and route to hike.  We decided to head up to the High Uintas in the northeast part of Utah.  The weather was supposed to be better there and it is a lot closer to home, so less driving.  We picked up some additional gear and food, and rented some warmer sleeping bags and then went back home to pack for the adventure.

With our packs loaded into the car we headed off into the mountains.  We got off the highway in a small town in Wyoming whose name I don’t remember.  Then we drove out into the middle of nowhere.  We followed a dirt road for quite a while, back across the state line into Utah finally ending up in a snow covered campground.  We passed maybe one car on the way in, probably hunters.  The campground was totally empty, though there were some old tire tracks in the snow.

We set up camp for the first night in the campground.  For both my brother and I, this was our first winter camping experience.  Pitching camp in the snow and cold takes a little more effort than sumer camping.  We packed out an area for the tent with our snowshoes and then pitched the tent.  Cooking in the cold is not much different than other backpacking cooking, it is just cold sitting out in the snow.

Even in long underwear, ski pants, and the zero degree sleeping bag it still got pretty cold cold at night.  We even had two of us in a pretty small tent.  It wasn’t unbearable, but it was cold.  It also snowed for the better part of the night which was a very interesting sound on the tent.  Amazingly, I slept pretty well and the morning brought a fresh blanket of snow and a beautiful sunrise.  It was truly a spectacular morning.

Sunrise over the China Meadows Campground

After making breakfast we broke camp, packed our bags and started our trek off into the wilderness.  Hiking in snowshoes is significantly more difficult and slower than a normal hike.  It certainly was beautiful out.  Right sun, and white snow, and no one else in in sight, not even tracks.  Over the day we hiked  about four miles and towards the end of the day I think that pulled a muscle or something in my leg.  So we found a suitable location to make camp and set up for the night.

The location we found was in a beautiful field broken up by a frozen river.  We decided to play it safe and bear-camp, so we cooked dinner away from the tent and hung all our food out off a tree.  We didn’t really know if it was bear territory or not, but we figured better safe than sorry.  The night was colder than the last, probably due to the fact that there was no cloud cover.

While it might have been cold, I still slept well, the real problem was that I woke up still very achy.  It was very strange, because I do a good bit of hiking and I am pretty active, I suppose it just happens sometimes.  So we decided that the best course of action was to hike back out instead of continuing the trek because we didn’t want to get in any serious trouble.  So we spent the day hiking back to the car.  Overall, aside from my going gimpy, we had a great hike and a lot of fun.

After we got back to the car we decided to call my uncle to see if we could stay at his place in Park City.  With his OK we made our way to the condo.  It was nice to be there, but after taking showers, making dinner and running some laundry, one of the hot water heaters decided to burst.  We were sitting watching a movie and I thought I heard water running and when i went into the utility room I had to wade through an inch or so of water and get under a geyser of water to find the shut off valve.

So, the rest of the night was spent on the phone with my uncle and then trying to get maintenance in to take care of things.  There was a lot of water, it had made it ways down through the floor into the crawl space where the furnace is and even seeped out into the common hallway of the condo complex.  Luckily there was no water in the house, it was pretty confined.  So the late night maintenance people came in and did a lot of vacuuming and cleaning.  The next day they got the plumber in to look at things and figure out what to do.  A real adventure.  All thins considered, according to the plumber, the disaster was inevitable, so it was a good thing we were there.

While the flood was not part of the plan for my brother’s vacation, it didn’t dampen spirits too much.  He went out and hiked on Saturday while I dealt with the plumber and such and then the next day we headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon for one last hike before he had to leave on Sunday.  So, we did get in a bunch of what we had planned, the hiking and camping, interspersed with other adventures.  It was a fun bit of time off.

So that is why I was so out of touch with the nets last week.  It was worth it, an adventure!

This post is inspired by the number one prompt this week from Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop: “Write about an experience you have had with a celebrity.”

My father works in broadcast television.  Something like 17 years ago, he and one of his friends founded a company called VideoLink.  VideoLink provides satellite and fiber-optic transmission services for live TV production (that is a gross over-simplification, but it is not important to the post).  They started with one little, hole-in-the-wall studio in Watertown, MA (just outside of Boston) and have now grown to having facilities in Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia along with four satellite trucks.  In the early days, I used to work for my father almost every weekend, then as the company grew I got replaced more and more.  Then I got old enough that I was useful again every now and then.  In any event, working for my father allowed me to meet some pretty interesting people.

This story is from 2001.  If my memory and wikipedia are correct, it was March 6 to be exact.  Well, it all really started the day before.  It was a relatively normal day except that my father was staying a little late at the office.  He called me and asked me to find him a nice photo of a beach.  So I hopped on the computer (I don’t remember if we were still on dial-up or not at that point) and started searching for beach photos.  At the same time it was snowing like crazy outside.  I had no idea what the photo was for, but when I found one I emailed it off to him and that was that.

When my father finally got home that night I think we had already known that there was not going to be any school the next day.  My father got in and asked if I would come to work with him the next day to take some still photos of the shoot that they would be doing.  He also told me what was going on, Aerosmith was going to be in the studio doing promotion for the release of their album: Just Push Play.  They were scheduled to be live on TRL on MTV with Carson Daily, but the snow storm closed the airports and they couldn’t fly out of Boston.

Since the band was stuck in Boston they would still go live on TRL but  from boston.  The beach photo was going to be green screened in behind the band and they lounged around and then Carson would ask them about the release of the album.  At this point they ran outside and got on a dogsled and sledded to a record store to deliver the albums.

Well, for starters, Boston is under quite a bit of snow now so everything is closed.  They had to call all over the city to find a record store that was willing to open to do the shoot.  Then we had to call as many people as we could so that there would be a crowd of fans at the record store and at the studio for when they left on the dogsled.  Of course they also needed to find a dogsled as well.  It is quite amazing what you can do on short notice.  It was all organized by the morning!

So, I spent the day following Aerosmith around and dogsledding with them.  The photos I took do exist somewhere, probably in the archives at VideoLink.  At the time I was shooting on film, so I don’t have access to files right now.  While we were shooting one of the dogsled scenes I actually got to talk to Steven Tyler.  I don’t really remember what he said to me.  after that though, they almost ran over my dad with the dogsled and he ended up with a pretty good gash in his leg.

In all, it was probably one of the best snow days that I have ever had.  I mean, I got to meet Aerosmith.  I know that I have an autographed CD back at my parent’s house.  Pretty cool.

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver Opening Ceremonies

I am writing this while watching the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, however I won’t post it until the morning.  It will probably take that long to really put my amazement into words.  I love watching the Winter Olympics no matter what, but this year the opening ceremonies are amazing.  This production is amazingly beautiful and it is technically spectacular.

What really takes the cake here are the projections.  Turning the entire stadium into a projection surface was just beautiful.  From the floor of the stadium to every audience member who was given a white poncho it was a truly all inclusive and all encompassing performance.  The integration of imagery and acting and dance  was incredible.  The special effects that gave three-dimensionality to the 2D elements like the whales were beautiful.

Projected Whales with 3D elements like steam from their blowholes

The use of various fabrics and shapes as projection surfaces was pretty wild.  When was the last time you grew trees in the middle of an indoor stadium?  Not only were they trees but totem poles as well.

Fabric "trees" provide an amazing projection surface.

Of course how can we forget that they kicked the whole thing off with one man rapping the floor with his staff and rings of “electricity” emanated out along the floor.

Kicking off the celebration and the amazing effects!

It really amazes me that, given the state of the world today we are still capable of coming together as friends in competition.  Sure there are some countries that seem to still hold grudges against eachother, but they seem to put most of that aside to come and compete in the Olympics.  It is so great that we can come together as a global community, even if it only for sixteen days.  Good luck to all the athletes.

Citius, Altius, Fortius. – Swifter, Higher, Stronger.