Furlough - week one

Hey all. For those of you who don't know, my dad and I are hauling a trailer load of stuff from Spokane to Louisiana. I drove to Spokane last Thursday night/Friday morning and spent the day finishing up the last few things that needed to be done (like air in the tires - lubing the trailer axles, etc.)
We headed south from Spokane in pretty decent weather on Saturday, but things got much worse in Idaho. Blowing snow - rutted ice on the road - you name it. It sucked through Southern Utah. We spent a little time sight-seeing, but for the most part we have been tag-team driving. Pops drives the AM shift, I take over after noon. We are about 1700 miles into the trip now, holed up in a hotel in New Mexico. Very tired of driving! Only about 800 miles to go...

Cute dog pics

OK, so I have been transferring data - including my digital pics - over to my new laptop. Here are a few great dog pics I have found along the way.
Tucker and Hunter - showing the flexibility of a bulldog's face.

Thomas' dog Ginger - gnawing on her buddy the bear.

New computer, old computer

Well, as you may have noticed, I have finally added a few new photos to the blog. This has been mostly a product not only of my general laziness, but of the fact that I have been switching computers for the past couple of months.

Since ArcGIS version 9.2 would not run on Vista I have been stuck using both laptops, but after three agonizing days of ftp download I finally have version 9.3 and I can let the old laptop go on to a new life with my sis. (I'm hoping she will part with her old one, which happens to be my old, old one, so we can have a new "outside" laptop for backyard parties.

It amazes me just how much digital baggage I have accumulated. I now own a computer with a couple hundred gig, two 160 gig external hard drives, and a whopper of a 750 gig external drive. My first computer was an Apple MacIntosh with a 16 megabyte hard drive and a 4 inch screen. Progress...?

Jackson Pics

The crew at breakfast and beautiful light over the Tetons

Jackson, Wyoming

So it has been a busy few weeks. Lots of work, but I am getting out "into the field" (leaving the office) so it's been nice. Weather is getting colder - had to scrape the windshield this morning!
Well, I'm down in Jackson for the week at the International Association of Wildland Fire conference. It is also the Biennial Yellowstone Science conference. It's all about the 20 year anniversary of the fires of '88.
Been very interesting - I have been focusing on the GIS/Remote Sensing aspects and got to go to a great workshop on mobile mapping from ESRI (GIS software folks). I definitely have ideas for how we can do things better.
I am listed as a co-presenter with Roy Renkin and Don Despain (heady company indeed) on a presentation titled "Wildland Fire Legacies: Temporal and Spatial Constraints of Historic Fires to Current Fire Behavior" Honestly, I just helped Roy out with the data setup and analysis, but it was nice of him to list me on it anyway. The paper will follow over the next months. The presentation is tomorrow so we are making a relatively early night of it.
The best (?) thing that happened so far is that I was rushing to meet a group for lunch today along the pseudo-western boardwalk sidewalks in Jackson and took a header on a small step. It had to be pretty funny for the folks sitting outside "Thai me up" to see me catch my sandal on the wood step and flail madly as I launched forward. My left knee took the brunt and I am limping around. Stupid. Should be some great bruises, though.
I am rooming in a townhouse with four other gals from Yellowstone and we have been having a good time. So busy I haven't had time to download photos, but I'll get to it soon.
Gotta run for tonight, plenary sessions start at 0800 (ouch).
Later all.

Looking for a dog

So I decided to finally get a dog. It's been many years since I had my own dog and even though I threaten to come down to Louisian and abduct Hunter-Eddie, there's really no way Aimee will let me steal him from the family. (cry)
I like the English Bulldoggie temperment, so I'm looking for a mix kinda like Hunter. I keep searching Petfinder.com and have signed up on the American Bulldog Rescue website, but I don't really want a purebred. So probably the new member of the family will be coming from a shelter rather than a rescue. It's a tough find around here, though. So I'll just keep on lookin'

Refocusing my energy

OK, so fall is a wonderful time (unless you talk to Heidi, but I digress)
Seems that every fall I get a recharge of energy that makes me want to study. I think it's genetic. When you are a student for a long time, every fall comes with studying anxiety.
So, it's time to hit the books once again. I have slacked off this summer - mostly because I've been playing World of Warcraft with the boys in my off hours. But I'm a bit bored with it now so it's time to move on to important things.
Now all my friends can rejoice.
Yipee
That said, it's a chilly wet day in Yellowstone on this Labor day. I spent the wee hours reading "Three Cups of Tea" and slept in late. So late that my friends were banging on the door to have our "House" party. Season 4 of House came out on DVD so we have been waiting for a nasty day to have a marathon. Anyway, once the gates were open I couldn't close it. 5 of the crew showed up - we cooked, knitted, ate, and laughed. In the words of Wilson, "good times"
Later all.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH NO UPDATES!!!!

OK, so I've been a total slacker. For crying out loud. It's been a busy summer. But now my sister is mocking me. Cripes.
Well, just to keep you all up on the situation, the most important "count" of the summer is not the US/China medal count in the Olympics, but rather the party count. You see at the beginning of the summer, Jessi put up as a goal to have a minimum of 10 parties this summer.
The official* number is now 9.
(*there is some contention, as the garage sale was counted as a party - but hey, we had the Wii set up and a keg in the backyard AND half of Gardiner showed up - so it stands)
Party number nine was a spectacular affair, if I do say so myself. Jessi did her usual FABULOUS job of hosting. We were celebrating Troy's safe return from Belize and somehow the conversation got around to cold war movies. Well, we decided that we needed to celebrate the end of the cold war, so we showed the always entertaining movie "Red Dawn" on the backyard screen. The painful viewing was tempered by a constant stream of commentary from the crowd. A total success.

How can it be August already?

Hey everyone. It's been such a busy summer already and I don't feel like I have done much of anything.

Well, to get you all caught up, here's a synopsis for the month of July.

I got a random email a few months ago from my third cousin Thord and his wife Kerstin. Thord and my dad used to be pen pals in th '60's and visited Spokane back in the '70's (I was about 3 at the time). So 31 years later they were visiting Seattle and Portland on a singing tour and called my parents in Spokane to arrange a visit. My folks gave them my sister & my emails so I said hey, as long as you are going to Spokane why don't you just continue down I-90 a few hundred miles down the road and visit Yellowstone? As always, my persuasive skills won out. They had a short but eventful visit - even though the first day and a half we had no major animal sightings (I had trouble convincing Thord and Kerstin that there actually are a ton of bison, elk, deer, bears, etc. in the park) They were all hanging out on the northern range, though, so we saw plenty on day three. The bears were along the Mammoth to Tower corridor - we saw half a dozen black and grizzly bears so we were redeemed in the end. On the last day we drove up to the top of the Beartooths.

We ended up having a bbq at Jessi's place - a thoroughly international crowd of the Swedes, our Italian interns, our Chinese volunteers, and an Austrian just to round things out.

I think Thord & Kerstin enjoyed themselves all around.

Today is my birthday

I'm 34 today. Wowzers. I remember my parents when they were 34, and I thought they were REALLY OLD...

Ah well, no big celebration for me today. Gotta go out and show some folks around the upper terraces. Big BBQ this weekend, though.

Helena Car Show

Car show in Helena, MT - pops wanted to take the hot rod, RV (Sunny), and the new trailer (Clifford) out for their first trip. I was headed back to Yellowstone, so Tuck and I drove my car (Ellie) and met dad in Helena. We camped out in the RV and had a good time. Tuck asked about a million questions on the road trip - I think we covered everything from gold mining to diesel engines. Miss that boy already.
Tucker stuck in the back of Ellie - with a BBQ, tomato and herb plants, and all the other crap I manage to bring with me from Spokane. What a trooper!
The boys in Shangri-la. Enjoying some down time at the car show in the RV.
Poppa's hot rod in Clifford the big red trailer. Ellie providing 270 watts of Beach Boys tunes early in the morning.
Tucker hits the climbing wall - he was not sure he was going to make it at first, but once he hit the top he wanted to go back about every 15 minutes for the rest of the weekend...

Medical Results

OK, so got the CT scan in Spokane - GREAT NEWS!!!!
No cancer found, and they are putting me on a once-a-year schedule for CT scans (great for the pocketbook!)
Little bad news - my thyroid finally bit the dust (from the radiation treatment) so I will have to be on thyroid-replacement for the rest of my days. Small price to pay.

Everyone raise your glasses and toast me! Hooray!

Catching up - JUNE

OK, so it's been a busy summer. No fires as of yet (well, two tiny ones) so can't blame that. Many new employees and Carrie is out for 2 weeks in June. Tra-la-la

So, pics - we've got the exciting Gardiner rodeo & parade - a very tiny child on a large horse and the great combo of horse crap and candy all over the streets. Then for me it was off to Spokane for yet another CAT scan. While there Dad finally got his wish - a big car-hauling trailer. So new trailer on the left, old utility trailer on the right (the tiny black thing).

When dad went to get the trailer, a little kid was at the house who had known the trailer all his life - he said, sadly, "Clifford go bye-bye" So in the grand tradition of giving every vehicle in our family a name, the new trailer is "Clifford the big red trailer" Bet the neighbors are loving it.

Tiny utility trailer has a new home with Thomas, so all is well.

Guiles' Sad Little Blog

Hey all -
Well, looks like I misnamed Jessi's blog - mine has turned into the sad one. The trouble is I have had a lot of company over, and I am spending way too much time playing online computer games with the nephews. Otherwise, all is well. Hope the same is true with all of you.

Poppa visits Yellowstone, Part 2

Sorry about some of the pics - had the camera on a funky setting.

So, pops had the best and probably most memorable time up in the fancy town of Jardine, MT. We were actually just driving around, sightseeing, when a glint of chrome caught his eye. Turns out that the Bear Creek gulch area is a dumping ground for old cars. Pops was like a kid in a candy store. We roamed the hills for hours and found at least 20 mangled cars scattered around. Looks like more are buried - like someone ran over part of it with a bulldozer at some time. He was very excited to find an old Ford tailgate, which will be hanging in his garage soon.

So the day poking around Jardine was probably the best, but we did end up getting ticks crawling on us. Oh well.

The last day we drove along the Northern Range out to Cooke City, MT. We were looking for wolves, but unfortunately didn't see any. Saw a couple of griz WAY up on a mountain through the scope. Sleeping bear. Oh, head up bear. Oh, sleeping bear again. Not very exciting action. Had lunch in Cooke, man, that road is still torn up. Beartooth pass closed due to avalanches, so we turned around and drove back.

All in all, not a bad trip! Pops got to see baby elk, moose, bears, bison, and quite a few adults. Didn't make it too far into the park - missed the whole lower loop - but that left more for the next trip. I am making him come out during the rut this year (either elk or bison) so that should be fun.

Later.

Poppa Visits Yellowstone! (finally!)

[Poppa scoping for grizzly - Dunraven Pass]

Well, he had been threatening to visit for months, but finally made it out of Spokane for a visit! Mom stayed behind to tend her plants and work on some landscaping jobs, so it was just me and poppa for a few days. My boss was nice enough to let me off work for a few days - and we had a great time. From the photos, it doesn't look like we spent much time in the park, but we actually did.

We hit the Northern Range first - heading out to Tower Falls. Saw the pass was open, so we went on to Canyon for dinner. Saw a black bear at Tower, watched a boar Grizzly through the scope on the north side of Dunraven Pass. Then as we were driving to Canyon, saw a sow and cubs right on the road.

The water is running high - so the view of Lower Falls was quite impressive.

Made it back to Gardiner and enjoyed an evening in my flat.

More later...

More photos from the trip.

Aims and Jessi in Capitol Reef, Ellie ges camping at Bryce Canyon, and "eamiller blue ribbon beef" (that's for you Urk!)

Road Tripping through the spring

OK, so my sister has guilted me into actually updating this blog (well, starting it, really...)

So far it has been a very busy year - hard to believe it's half over already! The past two months I have been on two major trips, both for work. The first was to Ft. Collins, CO for a week of schmoozing with other GIS folks and talking about data. We got stuck in a bad snowstorm in Rawlings, WY and had to scramble for hotel rooms, but it all worked out in the end. Met Dick Butkus at the hotel as well. Great yarn store in Ft. Collins - Lambspun. Headed over there with a couple of conference attendees one evening - very cool place! Also found a great knit shop mapping mashup - http://www.knitmap.com/ that everyone should check out.

The second was for 2 weeks of training at Grand Canyon NP. Decided to extend the trip an extra week when I convinced Aimee to fly in to Salt Lake and drive to Vegas beforehand. Jessi decided to go along once she heard about the trip.

So Jessi and I took off from Gardiner early (relatively) in the morning 4/16 - got to the McD's in West Yellowstone to discover snow berms taller than Ellie!

We made it to SLC in time to pick up Aims at the airport, hit the motel, and head to IKEA for a super shopping trip and lunch. From SLC we headed south through Utah, visiting Capitol Reef, Escalante-Grand Staircase, Brice, and Zion, finally ending up in Las Vegas.

Only 2 nights in Vegas

:-(

Didn't have time to do all we wanted to, but drank free drinks, ate, gambled, and experienced The Star Trek Experience. Sent Jessi and Aims home on planes while Ellie (aka the TARDIS) and I drove on to the Grand Canyon for a couple weeks of NPS training. More on that later.