Blog Terminated

This blog is no longer updated. Please see www.qcowboyphoto.com for photography, www.avthespians.org for theatre, and www.hartogsden.blogspot.com for everything else.

Hiking, Photos have moved.

My hiking and photography have moved to www.qcowboyphoto.blogspot.com, though the occasional life update and political rant will still appear here.

Evolution warnings don't stick - Los Angeles Times

Evolution warnings don't stick - Los Angeles Times: "ATLANTA — A suburban school board has abandoned its four-year legal fight to place stickers in high school biology textbooks that say 'evolution is a theory, not a fact.'

In a settlement announced Tuesday in federal court, the Cobb County Board of Education agreed never to use any similar 'stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions or other warnings,' or to undermine the teaching of evolution in science classes."

Reality check: 95 percent of Americans had premarital sex - CNN.com

Reality check: 95 percent of Americans had premarital sex - CNN.com: "'The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds,' Finer said.

Under the Bush administration, such programs have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

'It would be more effective,' Finer said, 'to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active -- which nearly everyone eventually will.'"

Autumn Leaves.....

I've forgotten how much I love fall. Cold, crisp air... colorful leaves.... the smell of heaters, leaf-piles, and pies. You just don't get this kind of thing in Arizona. The downside is that I leave my place before the sun is up and return almost as its going down these days. Oh well, the sunrises and sunsets on my commute are fabulous, so I suppose I can't complain too much.

Life has been pretty good, though the job is keeping me very busy. Weeknights are pretty much shot as far as doing anything but cooking, eating, cleaning, and maybe occasionally the odd movie or two from Netflix. Weekends have been nice though; without any more homework (by far the best part of graduating) weekends are generally completely free, so I've been getting more into hiking, photography, and cooking, which is nice.

Em is coming out here in a couple of weeks to look at USC and UCLA... it would be nice if she came nearby for law school, but I don't want to make her feel like she has to come to SoCal just because I'm here. I wouldn't like it were the tables turned. If she ends up going to that other coast I guess I'll have to make a decision on whether or not 3 more years apart is going to be doable. (sigh)...

Ryan says that's at least a three-pint problem, and unfortunately its a weeknight, so looks like I'm going to have to wait for this weekend to do some heavy thinking.

I now serve the emperor once more...

Gamers of the early 90's will undoubtedly remember the LucasArts classic starfighter action game, TIE Fighter. They may, on occassion, have found themselves reminiscing about the good ol' days of the 486 processor and the 10 MHz PC's. Mine of course was one of the fancy ones with the "Turbo!" button on the side, injecting digital nitro into my CPU and sending it screaming to a blazing 33 MHz. Whoa.

After several hours of effort, I feel like some kind of mad scientist... ITS ALIVE! Yes, the above screenshot is TIE Fighter Gold running like butter on my 2.0 GHz Athlon64 WinXP machine. Bwahaha.

Thanks to a DOS emulator and some system tweaking, my laptop is now able to emulate the ancient operating system as well as its sound and input ports. The above window is cubic-scaled from the original 640 x 480 to 1024 x 760 using OpenGL. I'd crank it up to 1200x800 but my processor starts to smoke at that point.

I was surprised at how much processor it takes to emulate a computing environment that is so mindnumbingly simple. It's totally worth it though, I think I'll install Doom or Wolf3D next.... If anyone needs me I'll be hunting Nazis, aliens, and those pesky other 2D tanks encroaching on my patch of 2D land. Damn wind gusts.....

On the Trail: Temescal Canyon / Temescal Ridge

Temescal Canyon and Ridge; Photo by Dan Edwards, September 2006

I left early Saturday morning with work buddies Dan and Darin and headed down to the Santa Monica mountains near... well, Santa Monica. Stupid me forgot my camera, and Darin's apparently had no batteries, but fortunately Dan managed to both remember his and have it charged. Way to go Dan.

At that early hour there was a thick ocean fog covering most of the Valley, which we hit on the way down as for north as Acton. The fog persisted as we started our hike down through the canyon bottom, climbing slowly over about 2.5 miles to the ridgeline within the bounds of Topango State Park. While the lack of sun made it a bit cool, it did give the riparian, forested canyon floor a peaceful aura as we trekked along a stream still flowing in late summer. Even for this late month, I would still have to use the adjective "lush" to describe the canyon bottom, as captured ocean mists, a small amount of rainfall, and the perennial boost of snowmelt have all combined to make this area a year-round wild forest.


Cacti near Temescal Ridge; Photo by Dan Edwards, September 2006

The climb to the top of the ridge from the canyon is an experience in at least three different ecosystems. From the wetter, lush climate below we transitioned into some more hardy species
, mostly chapparral, some wildflowers, holly, and the like. The climate near the top of the ridge is decidedly drier, sporting mainly sage, tough shrubs, and even the occasional, rare cactus. By the time we reached the top, the sun had at least half emerged, revealing a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean in the distance. Continuing inward on the ridge, we reached "Skull Rock" an interesting landform which of course we had to climb.


Skull Rock; Photo by Dan Edwards, September 2006.

If you squint, you might see a speck named Darin in the "eye," and myself scaling the left side of the rock (scale is a bit deceiving in that shot). From the top of the rock, spectacular panoramic views of the valley, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and the ocean. We followed the ridgeline back instead of taking the canyon route, and decended back to the trailhead through a grove of hollies. Fantastic!

TRAIL STATS:
Mileage: 5
Elevation delta: ~1,000 ft (trailhead to top of Skull Rock)
Time on trail: 3 hrs.
Nearest highway: CA-1 (Pacific Coast Highway)