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.