Greeting all! I have a hodgepodge of photos for your viewing. Basically I have been too busy to get these up over the past few weeks, so I decided to just throw them up and move on. Ashley and I have been in Bend, Breckenridge and Seattle over the past three weekends. It will be nice just to stay home for a while.

Beer:

Hank and I just brewed our second batch of beer. These photos were taken two weeks ago when we bottled it. It should be getting close to being ready to drink; I’m thinking we will probably open one soon to try it out. We are hoping for hoppy pale ale, but I will be happy with anything consumable. Let me rephrase that, anything consumable that won’t put me on the toilet with an IV in my arm.

Breckenridge:

As promised here are a couple of other photos from the trip to Colorado. My brother’s poor dog was subject to animal cruelty when we discovered the dog boots in a dog store downtown. To accurately picture the scene, imagine a rodeo where the bulls were twice as angry and also forced to wear Converse High-tops. Oh, and it was on ice.   I always feel a little guilty because I never just snap photos of the town just to remember it. I guess that’s what postcards are for. Never-the-less, I do have one point and click photo of a little shopping area downtown. The whole town has this feeling to it. You almost expect a family of bears to walk out of one of the shops, baking cinnamon bread and awaiting the arrival of the candy cane train to the North Pole. I’m not talking about an acid trip, it just has a “story book” feel.

Seattle:

Ashley, Elliott and I went to Seattle last weekend for the Microsoft Alumni Conference. My work was one of the sponsors so; I guess you could call it a business trip? It was held at the Pacific Science Center under the Space Needle; which I have come to conclude was designed after a 1970’s lamp. We stayed at the Hotel Monaco, a pet friendly hotel downtown. They were very friendly and even watched the dog for free. I was expecting for them to have a facility to do this in, but to my surprise they just let her roam around behind the front desk. Not everyone can say their dog has peed on the lobby floor of a 5 star hotel. I awoke early the next morning and walked down to Pikes Place market to shoot some photos. This is probably one of the better ones from that morning. I enjoy photos that have one item in focus, but tell a story with the background.
         

I just got back from relaxing and snowboarding in Breckenridge, Colorado. I’m accustomed to my petite Mt Hood Ski territory where you can get from one side to the other in just a couple of runs. This place was HUGE! This picture only represents a ¼ of the total resort. There are a total of four peaks and around 20 lifts. Peak 8 is on the right side of this photo and peak 9 is on the left. They both tower to nearly 14,000 feet. Peaks 7 and 10 would be outside of the frame. To complicate things I was attempting to navigate Ashley and myself with a Keystone Trail map. A big thanks goes out to the lady in the lift ticket office for handing me a map of the mountain 20 miles down the road. Saturday’s high was 7 degrees with a 15 mph wind. Not the conditions I would prefer, but tolerable with multiple layers and my flask. I will post more photos of the town later.

About the photo:

This was taken from the deck of our cabin that we rented. I combined two photos, one of the mountains and one of the sky to get the final image. Typically it would be at two different exposures, but they were both at 2.5 seconds. However, there was a 20 min gap between the two shots to allow for the sun to fully set. Also, there were power lines in the shot that I removed in Photoshop. Overall I’m pleased with the photo.