Author: cosmo

Today was a beautiful sunny day, and we finished all of our chores, so we decided to head out to the lake. I grabbed my paddleboard, and Pepper and Kyra took the jet skis out in search of boat wakes to jump. It was nice to stand, sit, and even lie down on the board while the waves gently rocked it.

Definitely a great spot for a nap! I watched the beautiful azure sky above.

After a while, Kyra found me and we traded. I rode the jet ski for a while, trying to learn some new tricks, while she laid on the board. She had a brilliant idea: tether the board to a weather station out in the lake, so she wouldn’t drift with the current!

After jumping wakes and working on tricks, we decided to head in. Kyra was feeling a little lazy and didn’t want to paddle back to shore, so I towed her. Nice!

“Raking the driveway” isn’t a household chore you hear about very often. But that’s exactly what I did today.

Our half-mile-long switchbacked driveway gets terrible ruts from running water after storms. It makes it tricky to drive in places, and isn’t kind to the jet ski trailer.

I decided to smooth out some of the ruts by raking rocks and dirt into them. We could really use some more erosion preventers, but that’s a project for another day. Good times.

Last night, just before heading to bed, I stepped outside and looked up at the night sky. It was absolutely amazing. I went back inside, grabbed my camera and a tripod, and spent ten minutes taking some pictures of the stars overhead.

I cleaned out my wallet today, and sandwiched between my REI card and my Safeway card, I found this ancient gem:

The back of the (laminated!) card says it was issued in Rolla, Missouri. That was my college town– I got the card in fall 1990. Yes, thirty years ago. And that means it’s been in my wallet that long. I never thought of myself as a hoarder, but sheesh.

One memory about this card: in 1995 I traveled to Toronto for a physics conference, where I presented a paper about the optical properties of atomic energy transitions. I got to the conference without any problems, but when I was returning home I was stopped at the airport customs desk by a large, gruff woman. She asked me for a passport (which I didn’t have) and then said it would be okay to present a valid U.S. driver’s license (which I also didn’t have). I protested that I’d been allowed into Canada without any issues or ID, but she said sternly “Well, this isn’t Canada. We don’t let just anyone into the United States.”

I dug through my wallet and pulled out my Selective Service card. Surely that would prove I’m a U.S. citizen, since they’re only issued to citizens? Nope. Finally, in a bit of desperation, I showed her my Blockbuster Video card from Rolla, Missouri. If that didn’t prove I was an American, I was out of ideas and apparently doomed to live out my days in Canada.

Fortunately she let me through, and I was able to return to the United States. Whew! Thanks, Blockbuster!

Seen on the internet:

If you ask Rick Astley for his copy of the movie Up, he cannot give it to you as he will never give you up. However, in doing so he lets you down. Thus creating the Astley Paradox.

I have a lot of ebooks. 329 of them, to be exact. And when I open the ebook app on my tablet to settle down for a good read, I’m bothered (more than I probably should be) that some of my books are listed with an author of Alastair Reynolds while others by him are under Reynolds, Alastair. There are many instances of that, where the same author is listed two ways. It’s maddening.

Yes, it’s a First World problem. Yes, there are more important things I could concern myself with. But hey, it’s a problem I can fix.

So this afternoon I sat down and read the documentation about the epub format. It’s not so much a “standard” as a “recommendation”, which means all of those pesky epub files are formatted slightly differently. But with some research and experimentation, I was able to find the appropriate places to modify the files and update the authors’ names. While I was at it, I tinkered with the book titles, too.

Now my ebook app shows all of Alastair’s books together, in a well-formatted list, and I’m a happy guy.

I feel like I should start getting to know the rangers at Glacier National Park, since we visit so often. Now that Kurt and Megan are here, of course we had to take them on the tour. It was another “moody” day, with clouds looming overhead.

That didn’t stop us from having fun and nearly falling off a dock at Lake McDonald.

Here’s the gang.

The Trail of the Cedars was… green.

Since we’re getting to know the west side of the park really well (the east side is still closed), we know which places to stop at, and which we can blow past. One of our favorites is a spot near the south end of Lake McDonald, where you can skip stones. And yes, the rocks are really as colorful as legends say.

Pepper showed Megan proper skipping technique.

It didn’t really help. I think Megan’s record number of skips was… two?

No matter– it was still a really fun time.

Like many areas of the country, most towns in the area cancelled their Fourth of July fireworks displays. We talked with Kurt and Megan about whether to drive somewhere to see them, but since the closest display didn’t even start until 11pm (it’s still dusk then), we didn’t think the kids would make it. Indeed, they were all dead tired and in bed by 10pm.

I was the only one to stay up, so I went out to our front porch and watched fireworks launching around the lake. I could see larger displays in Lakeside and Woods Bay, as well as explosions up and down the west lake shore. It was pretty cool.

Tonight (the fifth), Kurt fired off some of the fireworks he’d picked up in Wyoming on the drive to Montana. (Colorado has very tight restrictions on fireworks, so you can’t buy anything “fun” there. Wyoming is where it’s at.) We launched them around 10:30, when it was finally getting dark.

It’s pretty tricky to catch fireworks in such dim lighting, but I managed to get a couple of good pictures.

The “big finale” was something called “100 Shots” that was pretty sweet.

The kids loved it, which of course was the whole point.

I’ve taken a ton of sunset photos from our house, but all of them have a bunch of trees blocking part of the view. Sure, I love living in the forest, and the trees add some interest to the shots, but I was thinking it would be cool to catch a sunset from the shore of Flathead Lake.

So, when the sun was setting this evening, Kurt and I hopped into the car and drove a couple miles up the highway to Bear Dance Trail, then hiked down to the shoreline. We caught the horizon just after the sun had set.

He and I both snapped some pictures.

Sadly, there weren’t a lot of clouds to catch the light, and the colors were a bit muted. But another day, when it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful sunset, I think I’ll head down there again…

Back in March we hiked into Jewel Basin. We could only drive partway up the road, because it was snow-covered, and then we could only hike part of a trail because, again, we ran into snow and couldn’t continue. But now that it’s summer, everything is different. We went up with the von Niederhauserns, who are visiting from Colorado for the week.

I can see why the area is named Jewel Basin… it’s absolutely magnificent. So many trees, green hillsides, and a commanding view of the Flathead Valley.

We couldn’t resist a couple of family photos.

Much to our surprise, as we neared the top of the trail, we ran into snow. In July!

Sure, it looks pretty, but as we continued to forge along the trail, we found that it was getting deeper. Aaron, who is four, was struggling. And the rest of us were sliding around as we attempted to keep our footing on the slopes. As a result, we couldn’t actually get down to Twin Lakes and had to settle for a view of the emerald water from high above.

Even though we couldn’t quite reach our goal, the trail was fabulous. We’ll be back… maybe in a few weeks, when the snow has finally melted?