Pictures Below

Sorry about the weird format. I must have done something to the blog to cause it to come up all weird. Anyway, we are having floods all around town and including our yard and street. Couple feet of water almost to the house. We had to dig trenches in a dike separating the street and a large canal next to our house to try and drain some of the water. It seems to have done the trick as far as stabalizing the levels. Downtown Carson became flooded by Kings Canyon Creek and they diverted all the water our way (or at least a lot of it) to save the downtown area. I was out looking at the highwaters of the canal when I heard a funny sound and looked up the street to see a 10 inch high wall of brown water coming down it. I ran back to the house and watched the water levels continue to rise. After a while I saw my cool Irish neighbor, Dennis, standing and looking at it and we agreed we needed to try and divert some of it. So, that's what we did. Enjoy the pics, I'll post more when the flooding slows down. I'm cold and tired right now after two hours of standing in knee deep freezing water digging out mud filled trenches. Yuck.

New Orleans? Nope our house!

River flowing down our street and flooding the place.

Winter and Boredom

There has been one storm after another recently hitting the Sierras. This has shut down a lot of the possibilities as far as things to do. Skiing has been bad due to the lack of decent snow and the high winds. The rain and wind has limited the places to go hiking and biking. Debra and I were pretty bored on Monday afternoon so we decided to go drive and explore around the Sweetwater Mountains north of Bridgeport, California. With not much of anything better to do we grabbed our camera and headed off down 395 to the turnoff for Smith Valley. As we went over the Sweetwater Pass and dropped down into Bridgeport Valley we stopped for a few minutes at Bridgeport Reservoir on the Walker River. The reservoir was partially covered in ice and surrounded by a thin layer of snow. I thought the Sierra's looked pretty incredible as yet another storm was beginning to roar in behind them. We took these pictures just as the sun was beginning to set. The wind was roaring, the temperatures were freezing, and the lake was empty of any life but us.

Riding into Virginia City

Decided to do a pre-Christmas ride up into Virginia City to do some photography work and take a look at the old buildings and stuff. The ride was a little crazy as it climbs 1400 feet in six miles at a 15% grade. Oh well, I needed the exercise. Had a dog try to take my leg off but managed to dive behind my bike and avoided his teeth. Stupid, meth-head owner just stood there yelling at him. Frickin' meth-heads are so common around here that you tend to ignore them until their damn mut trys to attack you. Well, here's wishing them all their teeth rotting out and their peter staying as soft as a pretzel in water. Jerks.

The House is Born

Well, we put down a deposit on a new home being built in South Reno off of the Virginia City Highway. It won't be ready until late summer or early fall but we're in no hurry as we still have to finish the landscaping in the house we're currently living in. We're pretty excited about getting the new place and finally having enough room to put all of our hobby related stuff. The biggest issue is going to be the severe shortage of furniture we're going to have. Oh well, Chantel's (sister) fiance Dave should get some good business from us at the furniture store where he works. The pictures show the house on Christmas Eve day. Not much to see yet.

Happy Birthday Bro!

Happy Birthday Eric. Another year closer to the end. Ha ha. Have a beer, enjoy, and take some pics of your moose. Alex and his wife want to see them. And Sasha says hi!

First real snow of the season or at least was.

The first real snow of the season fell on Sunday. We got ten inches of fresh, beautiful white powder that covered everything. It was great at first but by noon heavy rain was falling and turning everything into frozen slush that plugged up the drains and created minor flooding. I ended up digging out the drains as my neighbors stood around watching the water rising up into their yards. Reminds me of Noah's flood. They probably would have watched it rise up until it hit their doors and would have then run around like headless chickens. Oh well, me and my trusty snow shovel saved my section of the neighborhood. Of course my back is out of wack and strained something furious from lifting fifty pounds of slush per scoop. Ugh.

Oh yeah, the cats really loved the snow also. They seemed to go into a kind of shock when I threw them out into it. I think they're still planning a coup-de-etate and my death. I better watch by back.

The other great and fun thing has been our taking up skiing. I've so far learned that I can fall in ways I never thought possible. I can get down the begginner slopes but have a tendency to become the human snow plow. Oh well, at least there's a nice fire and beer bar at the lodge. Go Snow! If you look into the background of the ski lodge shot of me and my wife you can see an ocean of clouds. Reno was fogged in completely and only 38 degrees. Up at the ski slopes it was 45 and sunny and gorgeous. Made for a great effect like we were on top of the world.

Night Riding

One thing that really kinda sucks about this time of year is the lack of sunlight and the fact that it is often dark by the time I get off of work. Makes it hard to do anything outdoors. I decided to try a change of pace and put two fairly powerful bike lights on the front of my mountain bike and a couple of red tail lights on the rear. Night riding on Carson City's streets brings a whole new experience to the idea of being a target. People either stop in shock to watch you ride by or just pull in front of you and cut you off. Oh well, the night is still cool and the city looks and sounds completely different. The capital is also really cool to run around in and photograph.

Roaming Through Thanksgiving

Well, I survived the Thanksgiving Holidays - barely. Made the best of it by doing a couple of long bike rides to try and keep the cholesterol and fat from sinking in too deeply. The best ride was down along the American River in Sacramento where we ended up riding in the dark. That was fun and exciting. Lots of deer, rabbits, and feral cats to dodge on the dark trail. Ate at a good Mexican restaurant in Auburn afterward. Freakin' freezing cold in the place though. They had the doors to the back rooms open and the wind was blowing right on in. Also had my first wine margarita, or wingarita. Pretty good stuff but not as good as tequilla.

Also, my brother and his wife have their first baby. Congratulations to the two of them.

Out of Control Editing

Well, if there is one thing I'm not is a programmer. One thing I am. . .is a programming time bomb. I know just enough to cause a catastrophic collapse of anything HTML or related. Well, I found out about the template editor and have been playing around. I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing and have had to correct many a change I've made to try and get things back to normal. Yikes. As you can see by the dumb image of the tank in the sidebar I sometimes do things and don't know how to back out of it. Anyway, I think I've figured it out but my break here at work is over so I'll have to go and remove the picture later. At least it's "Powered by Beans"! If this blog looks really messed up in your computer let me know with some details on what you're seeing and I'll try to improve it. Or at least attempt to. Now where's that dynamite again?

Some Good Things About Carson City

One of the great things about Carson City is the proximity to Lake Tahoe. Twenty minutes and you can be hiking up in the some of the prettier granite country around the area. On Sunday afternoon my Debra, myself, and our friends Alex and Sara headed up to Emerald Bay to hike the Bayview Trail to Cascade falls. This is a relatively short hike (about a 1/2 hour) over a rough but easy trail. I didn't include any pics of the waterfalls because of how small they are this time of year. The weather was perfect and warm enough to not need a jacket. It doesn't get much better than this around here. Still missing the snow but I wasn't complaining on Sunday.

Groundhog Day Weather

It's Groundhog day here in Carson City right now. Same ol' thing day after day after day. Cold as hell in the morning and 60 degrees in the afternoon. Freakin' sun is setting below the mountains at 3:30 here. I feel like I'm reliving the same day over and over again. Get up, eat breakfast, go to work, bore myself to death, go to gym, go home, eat dinner, go to bed. Ugh. Make it stop! Where's the snow?! At least that would be different.



We were in Hawaii last month and boy do I wish we could be there again. It's Ground Hog day there as far as the weather goes but who cares when you're sitting on a beach with a cooler full of Coronas and an empty beach with nothing to bother you but the occasional sand crab. Well, at least I can stare at my screen saver and dream.

At least tomorrow will be a little different. Supposed to go sign for a new home. Sure hope it all goes well.

Weird Things in the Desert

I often find the lost corners of Nevada to be rather interesting. This one even caught me by surprise. While riding through the desert in my 4x4 truck my friend Alex and I came across a bunch of abandoned tanks scattered across the landscape. Lots of fun. Old M48's, Sgt. Yorks, and Sheridans for the most part. Also a lot of M113 APC's which were rather torn up but fun to crawl around in nonetheless. I guess the military uses them for recon or spotting practice during flyovers. Not really sure but no one was within 50 miles of us. Made for some great explorations.

Got a new Camera

I recently got a new camera for my birthday. My wife bought me a Sony DSC-W7. I don't usually like to plug products but so far this camera has been awesome. Good quality, compact, 7mp, and fully manual operation if desired. Anyway, I think the pictures are pretty impressive so here are some examples. Eventually I will get my website working so people can see more of them at www.crowleysworld.com, but I still have to build it first!

Road Bike Madness

One of my new and favorite past times around these parts is combining road biking and photography. It's amazing to me how much distance someone can cover in a day of riding a bike around. And it's even cooler to see how many things there are to photograph as you ride along. Most of the time I think people are just driving along and only get a glance at the many things along the roads they are driving. Being on the bike gives you a lot more time to contemplate the many things you see as you're pedaling along. Things like "Why did they throw out that perfectly good hat?" or more likely around these parts "How can so many people drink Red Wolf Vodka, pitch out the bottles, and still make it home without killing someone or themselves in the process". But really, there are a lot of cool things to take the time to take pictures of. I highly recommend the roadbiking if you can deal with the traffic. Fantastic workout (I lost 15 pounds over this summer), lots to see, and 50 to a 100 miles a day without thinking about anything more than where to eat lunch. Totally awesome!

Alive and Well in Carson City

Well, here's my first attempt at making a blog work in a way that people can actually understand it. Just to let people know a little about me. I live in Carson City, Nevada with my wife, two fat cats, and a job in the government. I've long sense made the grand realization that I'll probably live here for the rest of my life and really am attempting to make the best of it and hoping I can show people that, yes, there is life here. Even beyond the scarey, strange people I often see standing in line ahead of me at Safeway. I'm pretty sure these people aren't too lively, but someone has to fill that role I guess.