Thursday, January 22, 2009

National Geographic Photo Contest Winners

Some great photos from National Geographic's Photo Contest.

The second last picture of the squid is amazing, and it's amusing how the photographer had to push her husband out of the way to get the picture.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Baby Chameleon

I think chameleons are cool regardless, but this baby one is amazing.

These pictures are from Gorilla.cd. A park in the Congo having their own web site and frequently updated blog is also pretty cool. They've had a lot of troubles lately with the fighting there, so it's nice to see something positive.



Monday, January 19, 2009

Thursday, January 01, 2009

An Amazing 2008

2008 was an amazing year for me. I can't believe how fortunate I am.

Shelley and I spent a month in Ecuador and Galapagos - a fantastic trip.

The WestJet in-flight magazine published an article about adventurous couples that included Shelley and I.

I spent a week in San Diego at ETech and then three weeks in Baja Mexico in Loreto. Shelley joined me for the first week in Mexico. I got my advanced open water diving certification while I was there. Just living in a different place (albeit only for three weeks) was a first for me.

Shelley overcame her fear of the water and got her scuba diving certification. If you'd seen how nervous she was around water only a few years ago you'd know how impressive this is!

We spent a week in and around Portland, Oregon in conjunction with RailsConf, another computer conference.

I organized the Prairie Pitch Adventure Race for the third year, including five trips to the race area totaling 14 days.

We spent a month in Australia, a new country for me, and another wonderful trip. Shelley and I did our first scuba dives together.

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

We spent a week diving in Cuba (another new country) bringing me to a total of 45 dives. I no longer feel quite so much like a beginner.

Adding up all the travel gives roughly 17 weeks or about 4 months! Wow, I knew I'd traveled a lot, but I didn't realize how much it added up to. Like I said, I'm amazingly fortunate. Here's a map.


View Larger Map

I bought my first digital SLR at the end of 2007 and took roughly 15,000 photographs in 2008. I even think a few of them are half decent.

I wrote 75 posts on this blog and another 110 on my computer blog.

I read about 140 books, coincidentally, the same number as my sister Penny. At first I thought I had read less (eek!), but then I realized I wasn't counting the computer books.

Quite a year.