Our friend Michelle is a geologist, and she has an amazing rock collection. I’ve always enjoyed rocks and gems, and fancied myself a bit of a collector when I was a kid (although my collection was generally just pretty stones I found on the ground). Today she showed me a sample of iron pyrite, popularly known as “fool’s gold”.
This isn’t an ordinary sample, though. It includes two massive cubic crystals, which is really unusual… and probably won’t really fool anyone into thinking it’s gold. Typical deposits of iron pyrite have thousands of crystals like this, but much much smaller and crowded together, making them at least a little more believable as gold.
For many, many years, Thom and I have had a tradition of going out on backpacking trips that doubled as photography expeditions. One of the things I enjoy about our time together is that either one of us can suddenly say to the other, “Hey, let’s stop here– I see a good shot.” And we’ll pull over to the side of the road (if we’re driving), or stop on the trail for a few minutes, or hike over to a viewpoint, or whatever, because there might be an interesting angle for a photo. Sometimes it works out, and the photo is pretty cool; other times it turns out the angle isn’t really that interesting. But it’s fun to have the opportunity to experiment.
Anyway, a few weeks ago my friend Woody said he occasionally drives out “into the Valley” to take photos. He has an old Canon EOS DSLR and enjoys watching birds and just looking for those “good shots”. I told him I’d love to join him sometime, and yesterday he asked if I had some time today. I did, and we grabbed our cameras and headed out together.
My “real” camera is a beautiful Canon R6 that I absolutely love. Last year I decided not to bring it on our mission, because I didn’t think I’d have a lot of opportunities to really use it. We wouldn’t be backpacking, and in fact we haven’t even hiked much. Since then, I’ve had several times when I kick myself for that decision… it wouldn’t have taken much space in the car, and it would’ve come in handy. Bother all. But I picked up a used Canon Powershot S110 on eBay, since it has manual controls, raw capability, and is a nice little portable camera that I’d owned many years ago. It’s not quite the same, of course, but in a pinch it’ll do.
We spent three or four hours driving all over the Imperial Valley, passing fields and power plants and even bird sanctuaries. Since Woody enjoys the birds, we made several stops so he could photograph flocks. And, just like my trips with Thom, several times I asked him to pull over because I saw something interesting. It was a lot of fun, and admist all the driving and shooting we had a chance to talk about all sorts of stuff.
Interestingly, when I looked at the results, many of them had a sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland vibe. There are plenty of fields full of crops– this is, after all, one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the world– but pictures of crops didn’t seem compelling so I’d taken pictures of other things. Here are the results.
Yeah, these aren’t going to win any contests, but I really enjoyed time with my friend.
A few months ago, I bought a keyboard. I play nearly every day, although honestly I don’t really seem to be improving.
Lately I’ve been messing around with some of the “voices” (also known as instruments). I’ve also been tinkering with chords, despite knowing virtually nothing about music theory. Still, despite my profound lack of musical talent, it’s fun to play.
Our latest group of missionaries arrived a week before Christmas, and they’re already leaving!
Some have been here for quite a while, but others just arrived. It seems a shame to have them for such a short time. Still, they pack their bags every time and head out to a new area and new adventures. And as always we’re excited to welcome the new group.
Although we always take new missionaries out to lunch, every now and then we invite them over to our apartment to make some dinner. Of course the fan favorite is homemade pizza.
Last night we had the guys…
… and tonight it was the ladies’ turn.
It’s always a party when we have a roomful of missionaries!
I’ve been told I “talk with my hands”. Well, tonight I was teaching a class and Pepper was sitting off to the side, and she decided to snap some pictures of me during the discussion. I think they demonstrate my hand-talking pretty well…
During our mission, Pepper and I haven’t had many opportunities to hike… something both of us enjoy. When we heard there’s a slot canyon not too far from us, we were enthusiastic about going. It turns out it’s called simply The Slot, and that’s how you find it on a map. Go figure.
We packed a snack and headed out. Despite its boring name, the canyon was quite fun. The walls are very sheer, and at points they’re narrow enough that a particularly large person literally wouldn’t fit.
The hike wasn’t very long– perhaps a mile each way– but we enjoyed it.
I’ve heard there are a few other slot canyons in the San Diego area, and we plan to check them out as well…
