More pics

I put up pictures from Santa Barbara, CA when I attended a research conference. Afterwards Jarom and I went hiking in Santa Barbara and visited Hollywood. Later I'll put captions o all the pictures.

Photo page

I decided to put up all the photo galleries that I have posted online so far. This'll make it a little easier to find them all.
Spring break
Bill Baggs Park
Fairchild Garden
Christmas 2007
Ellsworth family reunion 2007
Cody and Emilee's wedding
Cody and Emilee's wedding reception

Tire woes

We forgot to put on the blog about our tire experience when Joe and Dad came to town. While we are going down to Bahia Honda, I noticed that my car was vibrating a little bit and slightly pulling to one side. It wasn't that bad, so I decided to just wait till after spring break to fix it. However, it got worse on by the time we returned home from the Keys. It was so bad that the steering wheel was noticeably shaking. I was getting really worried about it, but it appeared that I was the only one. So on Monday we decided to go to Fakahatchee State Park to find wild orchids. My car was shaking the entire time, and I was getting really concerned. It didn't seem to matter what speed I was going it always shook.

Finally on the way back from Loop Road, I decided to pull over and just do something (I didn't know what but do something). Not knowing what else to do, we decided to rotate the tires to see if that would help. While changing one of the front tires, Joe noticed that the tire had a bulge in its tread. We put the spare, which is only a doughnut, to get back into town. The next morning I needed to take Dad and Joe to the airport in my car. I was so worried about driving 50 miles using a doughnut, thast I asked Patricia to drive us to the airport instead. However, not all the luggage would fit in Patricia's car, so we decided to take my car after all. I was not at all happy about it, but we had no choice. About one third of the way to the airport, another tire went flat! I couldn't believe our luck. We had a flat, a tire with a bulge, and we were still using the spare! Now we had to put on the tire with a bulge in the tread again and go extra slow to not cause any more damage. We made it another 10 miles, and the spare went flat. Now we are on the side of the freeway without any more spares. I have never been in a situation where three tires go flat on one trip! Dad and Joe had planes to catch, so they took a taxi to the airport, abandoning us on the side of the road. Thankfully our colleague was able to come and take us and two tires to a repair shop to get them replaced. Then we had to return with the two new tires, put them back on the car, and take the rest of the tires to have them replaced. In the end we took three hours longer than the expected and spent a lot more more money than we expected.

Moral of story: Don't buy tires from a Cuban on the side the road!

The Blog is Back!!!!!!

I decided to continue writing in my blog because I now have Dragon Naturally Speaking. It's a program that allows me to type without having to touch the keyboard. All I do is talk into the microphone, and the program automatically writes what I am saying. It is the coolest thing ever. I cannot believe how fast I can type because I don't have to worry about looking at the keyboard while I’m typing. All I have to do is talk as fast as I want, and it types as I'm talking. So now will have long, rambling, and boring blogs, instead of short, rambling, and boring blogs. We’ll see how it works. This is the first time I have used the program, so I am not good at it yet.

We will write blog entries but never seem to be able to post them, and so the last six blog entries are brand-new. Most of them have pictures, so just follow the delaying to my Picasa website and my homepage. if you have some time, check them out.

Research conference in Santa Barbara

Few weeks ago I was in Santa Barbara for research conference called Isoscapes 2008 where we learned about GIS and isotope-based models. It was at hotel on the beach. I got to see seveal of my old colleagues from Arizona and Wyoming. Also, I got a lot of good advice on my Colorado project where I am developing a model to calculate the isotopic composition of soil-respired CO₂.

After the conference was over, Jarom came up to visit me in Santa Barbara. We went to the beach, then we took a little hike through the hills surrounding Santa Barbara. It was your typical California hike, in that there was several people and surrounded by houses. However, the area was pretty and I saw three new species of birds. That night we went to Hollywood to see the Chinese theater where the Academy Awards are held. It was pretty cool because I have never been to Hollywood before.

Photos are coming!

Spring Break

I guess I can say a little bit about spring break now. Dad arrived the day before Joe, so we went to look for manatees in the canals near the university. I have only seen four manatees in Florida, but I thought that we could at least go and try to find one. To my surprise, we actually found three manatees, two cows and one calf. It was so easy to find these manatees that Dad thought that it was simply an every day occurrence. Also, just by turn of good luck I found a camping spot at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys (Pictures on my webpage and on Picasa). It is really difficult to find a camping spot at any time of the year there, but it appears that someone canceled their reservation, and I happened to be online at the same time and reserved the spot. I was excited to go back because I had not gone there since September when Patricia went with me. We went to the same beach we had gone to before, but this time the water was choppy instead of the usual calm and beach was covered with seagrass, which was about 2 feet thick and probably 150 feet wide. I had never seen the beach like this before, so I guess everything is not perfect in paradise.

Of course, none of us except for Dad wore any sunscreen, so everyone was burned especially Joe. Joe was so excited to be in the sun after being in Seattle with no sun for several months that he wanted to soak as much sun as possible. He was burned from his head all the way down to his feet.

Next day we went to other side of the key, which was rocky and full of grass beds (fortunately no sea grass was washed up on the shore). Along the side of the beach runs a deep channel (visible in the Picasa photos). I never liked this beach much because of the rocks and grass beds. Patricia and I went snorkeling in deeper water in the channel. We were looking for fish and rays because we saw 2 large eagle rays (6 to 8 feet wide and about 3 to 4 feet long). (I put pictures of the rays on Picaca.) The tide was going in the direction of the channel, so it was very easy to swim further into it. The whole time that I was swimming in the channel where the water was probably about 20 to 25 feet deep, I had the feeling that something was behind me. I have already seen 2 sharks while fishing on the other side of the island, so I know that they are around. In addition, several people had alreeady said that they have seen sharks in the channel. Finally the thought of sharks started to really bug me, so I decided to get Patricia and leave the channel. Afterwords, I thought: ‘Why am I so scared of sharks when there were no sharks around us?’ Once on shore the dive master said that the channel is so full of bull sharks that he would not swim there. The day before he was swimming close to the channel, and a bull shark came close to him to check him out. Now I know why I was thinking that there is something behind me because there probably was! Patricia said later that she has no fear of sharks and was purposely going there to look for them. I don't believe that for one second because she's scared to death of little bugs, let alone sharks.

Later Joe and I went snorkeling in the shallow water on the rocky beach that is full of seagrass with no expectations of seeing any animals. However, the rocky shallows were full of fish, lobsters, sponges, sea urchins, anenomes, and many other little creatures. I couldn't believe how many animals were in the shallow water of only about 2-3 feet deep. We saw so many beautiful reef fishes and about 20 lobsters. Now I have to go back during lobster season to catch lobsters to eat. We saw a black sea urchins that were over a foot in diameter, and sponges that were about 2 feet tall and 2 feet wide.

After leaving the beach, we decided to go to Key West. Key West is the the key furthest from mainland Florida and the largest city in the Keys. We didn't stay there very long because it is very touristy, and none of us were too excited about doing the tourist thing. We stayed just long enough for Joe to get some gifts for his kids and Sam. At least now Patricia, Dad, and Joe can say that they've been to Key West because there really isn't anything special, unless you like clubs and tourist traps.

The next day was Sunday so we went to church where everybody were so amazed at how tall Dad and Joe were. After church we decided to go to Crandon Park on Key Biscayne and where there are a lot of iguanas. Unfortunately, we arrived in the evening when the iguanas were already sleeping. We found a few of the iguanas sleeping in branches overhanging the water. Dad had the bright idea of scaring the iguanas out of the trees and into the water by climbing the tree and jumping on the branches, and the rest of us were supposed to take pictures of the iguanas as they jumped from the branches into the water. But we were too busy taking pictures of Dad jumping around in the trees. It was quite the sight.

The next day we went to Fakahatchee National Park and Loop Road in big Cypress National Forest. We were looking for wild orchids, but there weren’t any good trails to walk on. We couldn’t see off the trail for more than a few feet because of the dense vegetation. In the end, we saw two species of orchids (I put pictures of the vanilla orchid and African spotted orchid on Picaca). Because it was so difficult to see anything through the thick vegetation, I decided to take a them to Loop Road. I knew Loop Road would produce a lot of animals, especially alligators. And as I expected Loop Road did not disappoint us. We saw an otter catch and eat six fish in front of us, at least 20 alligators, numerous birds, and one whitetail.

We stopped at a small ponds along the road that had alligators. There were eight alligators between 5 and 9 feet long in this small pond of about 30' x 20' long. Dad started throwing crackers to the alligators to eat, and surprisingly the alligators came really close to where we were standing to eat the crackers. (To see pictures of the alligators that we were feeding just look at Joe's pictures on Picasa.) Even though it looks like we were really close to those alligators and that we were in a very dangerous position, it is not as dangerous and scary as it looks.

We had a lot of fun seeing animals, swimming, and spending time on the beach. Both Patricia and I enjoyed having Dad and Joe here. So the invitation is open for anyone else who wants to come and visit us. Just remember that there is no place like Florida in the United States. If you want to get a personal tour of South Florida and all the interesting things that are here, you have to come in the next few years.

Are you all ready for the Derby??

I hope you are all planning to watch the Kentucky Derby this year because Aunt Sandra has a horse in the Derby this year!! (if you want more information check out my webpage.) His name is Gayego and he has never placed worse than the second and his five career starts and has earned more than $725,000. He is one to stakes races including the $1 million Arkansas Derby G2, which has produced four champions in the last four winners. Recent winners include Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Lawyer Ron, and the last year's Horse of the Year, Curlin, so for good reason and we should be excited about the prospects of having a Kentucky Derby winner this year. Gayego is the son of a sprinter, so he has never been considered a serious prospect for a classic race. However, he keeps winning races, even though each race is longer than the previous, and the Arkansas Derby, which was his last race, was nine furlongs. I think he has shown that he is capable of outrunning his pedigree. This is Aunt Sandra's sixth Derby starter, but she is never had a horse place in the Derby. Everyone keep your fingers crossed!