My Summer Vacation

Do you remember in elementary school, after summer break when your teacher would have you stand up in front of the class and explain what you did over the summer? Me either frankly, but its so cliché I couldn’t avoid brining it up since it leads right into my post today.

I want to actually start this off by saying I’d love to get some input back on this, tell me what you did over the summer. A lot of the people I’ve grown up with are just getting their families started while others aren’t done exploring the world. I’d like to know where life’s path has lead you.

As much as it irks me to admit it, Facebook is great for keeping tabs on old friends, but it lack any personality, its nothing more than a list of milestones. Facebook lacks the telling of a complete story. And I know this sort of thing is often left to a letter in a Christmas card, but frankly the Holiday’s have enough things going on, I think its time to go back to elementary school when we updated our friends at the end of the summer. So without further adieu, My Summer Vacation, a report by Kyle Klaus:

I’ll admit, 2009 started out on a bit of a sour note. But I ended up having a great new years with Matt Lockyer, his girlfriend Kelly and brother Travis in Oakland. It was a bit of a foreshadowing event, but more on that later.

2009 marks the fifth year of this blog (through various forms) . While its not much of anything to celebrate, and to say its been constant would be a lie, I’ve still enjoyed putting my musings, ramblings and ravings to ‘paper’ and I hope to continue. This post actually makes number 316 over those five years for anybody who is counting.

In February Kerry and I (as well as the rest of her family) made the long drive down to San Diego to watch the 2009 Rugby Seven’s tournament. It was only the second time I had ever been to a rugby game, and this was on a whole different level. I had a great time and took a ridiculous number of photos of the event. Also, before we left to San Diego we spent a brief amount of time enjoying the very very rare snowfall in Cameron Park.

In April though, Kerry and I split up. Without trying to be too much of a downer, there wasn’t much love left there and it was just simply time to move on. Unfortunately, our lease wasn’t up until the end of September, so we stuck it out and continued to live together until the end of our lease (not really something I would recommend, but we managed it OK).

On a better note though, I started taking tests towards my MCSE certification. The link does a better job of explaining fully what that means than I will here, but basically its a Microsoft certification that says I know what I’m doing when it comes to managing computer systems and, bottom line, is a meal ticket to higher pay. I still have 5 more tests to take to finish my certification, but with the tests I’ve done so far I can officially call myself a “Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).

I also was able to spend a brief time with the Hoffman’s at Cody’s parents cabin. We went for two reasons, one because the place is awesome and a great way to spend a weekend, but more importantly Cody and Becca wanted some portraits of the very beginning of their new family.

In September I moved out on my own! This is somewhat of a highlight to the year for me. I’m living on my own now in Downtown Sacramento. Its only a studio apartment, but its comfortable and makes me feel très chic. Keith (my brother) only lives a few blocks away, so we’ve been able to work more closely on a small project of ours called Flublub (more on that when its closer to finished). Being able to walk to family, friends and the downtown life has been a gift I don’t plan on wasting.

In case you thought I forgot to mention work; I’ve been working for Airtop Technology Group since February ‘08 as a Technology Consultant. Its a small company (only four of us) but we have some big plans. Most of my time is spent with clients providing proactive service on their servers and workstations to make sure they continue operating 24/7. Its sometimes a thankless job, and that can wear but if I’ve done a good job, nobody knows I was there in the first place, so in a way its a complement.

So that brings us to about now, where I’m enjoying the cool crisp air of the night, listening to my eclectic collection of music and composing overly lengthy posts. Now its your turn, tell me what you’ve been up to. You can email it, post it in a comment below, or put it on Facebook somehow.

Until next summer my friends.

Portrait Perfection

In good tradition, this post is a bit of a read (although not as bad as some), so get yourself a cup of coffee and prepare to read every mundane detail of my weekend.

Update! I’ve uploaded all the pictures for your viewing pleasure. Check them out here.

I’ve known Cody and Becca since January 2006 (wow, has it really been more than three years!?). They were our Neighbors when I lived in Elk Grove and came over to see what was going on the night we got a little crazy with some rum. From that night began the summer of nightly BBQ, wonderful weekends and perpetual tom-foolery (see examples here and here).

Since then they have been able to buy a home in Elk Grove, and start their family and while I was over for Dinner about a month ago they asked me if I would take some portraits. I was flattered and shortly we made plans to go up to the Hoffman cabin at Donner Lake for a weekend to have some fun and take the pictures.

I took all of Friday off so I would have time to get all my stuff together and take care of a few other nagging things around the house. I ended up  on the phone, going through emails and taking care of some paperwork though so I still worked part of the day. I made a trip up to my parents house as well to pickup my Camera (which Chadd had borrowed) and to show my Mom the Blog I setup for her (http://tracysnotes.com, more to come on that later though). and left from there straight to Cody and Becca’s house.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t what we hoped for when we planned the trip a month ago and it rained the entire drive up, we even had a few miles of light snow as we crested Donner Summit (~7,200 ft). Once we got to the cabin, and were settled, Cody and I passed time playing some board games and I did some reading before we turned in for the night.

We woke up fairly early Saturday to cloudy skies without rain and made a point to get out and start taking some pictures. We did have some very light rain (almost a mist) to deal with, and snow on the ground but I think overall we were able to get a lot of great shots in. I did a preliminary processing job on the photos so far, but they aren’t ready for prime-time yet, so I’ll save all that for a later post.

After we wrapped up our multi-location photo shoot we headed into Truckee to get groceries for the rest of the weekend. Cody and I stopped in the local bookstore and did some quick perusing, but didn’t end up finding anything interesting. We all headed back to the cabin for one last set of pictures (indoors) and lunch. Becca made fabulous sandwiches while Cody and I played a game of Arkham Horror. I did some more reading, and played more games. Cody and I even managed to play one round of Axis and Allies before dinner. Again, Becca made a delicious Pesto Ravioli meal while Cody and I played (noticing a trend here?). We all played Coloretto, Yahtzee and watched SNL before going back to bed with the rain pouring outside.

I got up Sunday morning around 8am and intended to make a pot of coffee, but all I could find was decaf and a bag of Peet’s coffee dated Aug 2007 so I gave up, and decided to read some more of my book. When Becca got up a little later she ended up making some of the Decaf (turned out to be all there was) and scrambled eggs with toast for breakfast (by the end of the trip Cody and I were feeling pretty guilty that she kept doing all the work while we played). Cody and I played a few more games and after lunch we packed everything up to head home.

All-in-all it was a great trip in spite of the rain. We were able to get the portraits done that we wanted to do and I read a few chapters in my book but mostly I had a great time relaxing with friends.

Rugby Sevens

Here is the full report on my vacation. I do have to warn you that it gets a little bit long winded, but it does after all cover three days. I will split the post up into some pages and there are plenty of pictures for those who don’t like to read. So click on the “Read More” link and join me for a recount of rugby, beer, nachos, snow and very long drives.
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To San Diego

So I mentioned in my last post about the snow that Kerry and I were headed somewhere, but I didn’t say where. Every year around this time is the USA Sevens tournament and this year Kerry and I are joining the rest of her family to go to San Diego and watch the tournament.
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Snow!

Kerry and I woke up early this morning to get a jump start on our drive down to San Diego. We had planned to leave around 7am, however not to long before we had planned on leaving Kerry got a call from her parents to let her know it was snowing in Cameron Park. For anybody who doesn’t know the area, Cameron Park gets snow maybe once every 10 years, so its pretty rare. Needless to say, with Kerry’s addiction to snow we made a detour.

Welcome, 2009

8 … 7 … 6 … 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Backing up though, my new year celebrations didn’t start out all that great when Kerry changed our plans at the last miniute. Candice had been talking about celebrating down in Long Beach at the South African Bar thats down there but neither Kerry nor I had the money to make the trip. I was also talking with Keith and Matt about celebrating in the Bay Area (where Matt lives) so when Kerry finally told Candice that we wouldn’t be going I made arangements for us to spend the night at Matt’s place.

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Backpacking Checklist

This list is put together by my buddy Chris, but there have been many times when I wanted to have a sanity checklist to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything so I thought I would post it up so that you can maybe use it in the future, and so I can come back to it on other occasions. Don’t be surprised if I make comments or edit the post as I realize things do and don’t work for me, etc.

I recommend keeping all of the “smelly stuff” (sun block, toothpaste, small snacks… anything sweet smelling) in a single small bag. It makes it easier to find your stuff in the bear bag.

Try to stay away from cotton at all costs. Compared to its synthetic brethren, cotton takes forever to dry out and can suck away important heat from your body. Not a big deal in the dry, hot locations. However, wet cotton turns a peaceful rain storm into a life threatening situation. Synthetics may not absorb smell very well, but every body else is going to smell just as bad as you.

I’ve updated the list to include some group gear, as it was pointed out to be missing

Checklist
___ Comfortable Backpack
___ Sleeping Bag
___ Sleeping Pad
___ Bivy-sack or tent
___ Clothes to sleep in
___ Tooth Brush
___ Tooth Paste (Travel Size)
___ Small Towel
___ Sun Block (can be shared)
___ Bug Spray (can be shared)
___ Two pairs of thick socks (Minimum)
___ Two Paris of liner socks (Minimum)
___ Comfortable hiking shoes/boots (Very important)
___ Camp shoes (athletic shoes, flip-flops, Just keep it lightweight)
___ One pair of shorts
___ One pair of pants (if you have zip-off pants, forget the shorts)
___ One pair of long underwear type bottoms (in case it gets cold)
___ Underwear (the quantity is your discretion)
___ Rain Pants
___ Two T-shirts (more if you want)
___ One long sleeve shirt
___ One insulating Jacket
___ One Rain Jacket with hood
___ Bowl
___ Spoon
___ Water Bottle
___ Hydration Bladder/Camel Back
___ Headlamp with spare batteries
___ Pack Cover or Empty large trash bag (to cover pack in case it rains)

Group Items
___ First Aid Kit
___ Stove & Fuel
___ Pot(s), Spoon & Handle
___ Water purifying system
___ Rope/Parachute Cord
___ At least two ways to start a fire
___ Map
___ Compass and/or GPS
___ Toilet paper & shovel

Optional
___ Cup
___ Other Hygiene products
___ Knife
___ Sun hat
___ Stocking cap
___ Clothes for Swimming
___ Book
___ Camera
___ Sunglasses
___ Chap Stick
___ Camping Chair
___ Deck of Cards

Fishn’ Trip

I’m a little late on this posting, but there were a lot of pictures and I wanted to make sure I got this up so I can explain some, and point out my favorites. Tom put this trip together and made all the aragements, which was a nice change (not having to plan anything beside myself). He did a great job too.

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Universal Studios, Hollywood

[fa:p:a=6-16-universal-studios,id=562488893,j=l,s=s,l=i]The last day of our trip. We got up in plenty of time to make it to the park when it opened, we even got front row parking. Kerry and I have both been to Universal Studios, but its been about 5 years for both of us, so it was still a lot of fun. As is customary with most people, we did the Backlot Tour first. Its changed a bit since the last time I went. The “Broken Bridge” isn’t used anymore (which is ok, since it was lame anyway). And a few new things are added. They kept the airplane crash set from War of the Worlds, and its pretty amazing to see it, since it was such a strong scene in the movie (you can see it here, as the background to the website). The other thing they added was a Fast and the Furious special Effects demo, in which they demonstrate how to blow up two cars. While the pictures I took are cool, they don’t really do the demonstration any justice, so check out this video that somebody else took on their trip:

Kerry and I rode and watched just about everything at the park, but we didn’t waste much time because we wanted to try to make it back to the Springbok bar again and get that meal we had been craving. So we left Universal and drove back up 101 to Van Nuys and this time we were able to get a nice table and some food. Kerry had a Boerewors Sandwich (pronoced Bord-a-vors, its a traditional South African all-beef sausage), and I had Freestate Braai Pack (Braai meaning BBQ) which was boerewors, two lamb chops and a 5 ounce Filet Mignon. I really enjoyed it, especially seeing the excitement on Kerry’s face to be able to have food and drink from home again (did I mention she drank 3 Savanna Dry’s and a Castle Lager, all made in SA).

[fa:p:a=6-16-universal-studios,id=562502483,j=r,s=s,l=p]We made a drive after eating to go see some of Hollywood, but we out of cash, and even change to park and the sun was setting so all we really did was drive around on Hollywood Blvd, and Sunset Blvd and then we explored the tiny roads that go up the mountain that the Hollywood sign is on (trying to get a closer look at the sign). We didn’t make it there before the sun set, and there are no lights on the Hollywood sign, so I had to expose the picture heavily for it to come out so excuse the grain (Yes, I took that picture while it was dark out… isn’t Photoshop wonderfull)

San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park

[fa:p:a=6-15-wild-animal-park,id=562009372,j=l,s=s,l=i]We had Dinner last night at an Applebees here in San Diego, and did some swimming before we went to bed. But we woke early this morning in order to make it out to the park as the gates opened. It wasn’t as cool as I was expecting for San Diego (although technically, we never were in the city limits), but it was still great weather compared to what we had been through for the rest of the trip. I was able to use my 70-300MM lens almost exclusively in the park, which was a blast. I love the lens, it allows me to get really intimate pictures without having to be close, like this, this or this.

I’m not sure there is a whole lot to say about the park though. Its a nice facility but its pretty much exclusively animals. I did quite enjoy that they have the large basin of non-predatory animals with a tour that goes around the outside stopping for people to take pictures and with a guide telling about the animals. I would have really loved to do one of their special tours, that puts you on the back of a truck and you drive out into the basin. It would have made for some really amazing pictures I’m sure, but since it cost more than the entire fee to get into the park (and Kerry and I unknowingly had 2-day passes) I just couldn’t bring myself to pay.
 
[fa:p:a=6-15-wild-animal-park,id=562421275,j=r,s=s,l=p]We toured just about everything there was to tour in the park, ate lunch (quite good hamburgers at a decent price for park food), did some perusing of the shops and eventually headed out of the park to get on the road again. We headed north, not to far, into Long Beach from the Wild Animal Park to make a quick stop at the Springbok bar, a South African bar. We didn’t stay long. Only long enough really for me to have a Coke, and Kerry to have a Savanna Dry (a SA hard cider). I convinced Kerry we would have dinner at the other Springbok bar near our hotel (a mistake in the end).

So after our short visit, we battled through LA traffic to get to Van Nuys, where our hotel and the other Springbok were located. We dropped off our stuff at the motel (a nice looking, but the sleaziest feeling Super 8 I’ve ever stayed in). I dilly-dallied for a bit, importing and processing the pictures from the park and by the time we made it to the Springbok bar, it was packed and we ended up not eating there, much to Kerry’s dismay. We stopped and got Carl’s Jr on the way back to the motel, and went to bed without our South African meal.