Proposition 8

Banjo can't vote, so he has to express his position on Prop 8 in other ways.

(Note - questionably humorous/disrespectful stunt orchestrated by Tom, not Kate. So don't think less of her for it.)

YTVotD

Last post may have been a little too heavy. Here's a YTVotD for you to lighten things up again. British comedians come through again.

"I'd Like To Have Been In That Meeting: Harry Potter"



And on a totally unrelated note, Go Rays!

Powell's Endorsement

If you have not yet done so, I encourage you to listen to/watch/read Colin Powell's explanation of his recent endorsement of Barack Obama. I know I'm not alone in my respect for and admiration of Powell for reasons beyond his political affiliation - his personal story, career accomplishments, and service to our country are all very impressive. Coming from someone with his degree of foreign policy experience, I believe Powell's backing of Obama - in particular over McCain - says volumes about his ability to lead on a world stage, despite the McCain campaign's efforts to propogate an image of inexperience and naivete. Hopefully Powell's message will reach some of the people out there that still think Obama is a Muslim (but as Powell says, "So what if he was?") who cavorts with terrorists. Then they would at least be making a more informed decision on Nov. 4.


Also, it's nice to hear Colin Powell speak without the shock collar of the Bush administration tight around his neck.

Mt. Price - Desolation Wilderness Trip

Spurred by friend Alex Price out here, a group of us - mostly from work and some of Alex's other friends - took a trip up to the Desolation Wilderness the other weekend to climb Alex's namesake peak, Mt. Price. At 9,975' it is the 2nd tallest of the peaks in Desolation, and while it doesn't have any real maintained trails up it, in general it's just a rocky scramble up from some alpine lakes in the area. We camped at Lover's Leap, a really nice walk-in campground near the big rock outcrop/cliff that makes the campground popular with climbers (and whose perpetual shadow makes Google maps think there is a cliff-side lake there, apparently). It snowed on us a little Friday night, making for a beautiful dusting (or up high a couple inches or more) of white along our hike. Pretty cold too. On to the pictures...


Here's our group heading up.


Abbey Road, Desolation-Style.


Lunchtime! We found a spot as much out of the wind as possible. The weather was pretty ominous at this point.


The cheese was no match for Mikey's new knife.


Time to climb.


Neat picture of frozen lakes above Island Lake, by Alex.


I think the caption for this one should be "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."


Getting higher up the slopes of Mt. Price, picking our way across the boulders.


Starting to get snowy.


Still higher... this is probably near where the final couloir starts. You can follow my tracks in the picture.


Looking up the final couloir to the summit ridge.


On the summit! Looking S towards Agassiz (the one that looks like a cresting wave) and Pyramid Peak (the tallest of the Desolation peaks at 9,983)...


And North, down towards Island Lake and the route up.


East over Lake Aloha towards Lake Tahoe, with more snow rolling in.


This is one Alex took from a different approach, where he ultimately got turned back by a cliffband along the ridge. You can see me standing on the top, as well as the path up. Mikey and I got to the summit ridge via the couloir just beyond the really steep snowy part at the far right of the frame. If you zoom in you can see footprints.


Mikey and me on the summit.


Mikey and I took a different route down, which unfortunately took us over this house-sized boulderfield. Phew! Exhausting. The cliffs at the top left are the ones that turned Alex around at the saddle.


The Yaktrax helped immensely in the snow higher up - thanks Steve! They also completely tore up the bottoms of my old old boots. RIP Dartmouth Raichles.


In addition to enormous boulders there was this particular tricky part. Picture is not mine, annotations are. Imagine it covered in more snow, just not enough to cushion your fall into pointy rocks.


We were a little slow getting down due, but that let us enjoy a beautiful sunset over Smith Lake! By the way, Smith Lake looks like a prime place to come back in the summer for cliff-jumping into the water.


With the help of a near-full moon (when not blocked by the blizzarding clouds) and a headlamp, we made out out after a full day of hiking! Desolation is always a beautiful place to go hiking, and this was no exception. Any more trips this year and we might need to bring the snowshoes, though.


Here's our approximate route.

See - all my cold-weather gear doesn't go entirely to waste out here in California! With luck we'll get back to Desolation for some snowshoeing this winter/spring. There are a bunch more pictures, including some of Alex's nice shots, on my Picasa page. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any of the large bear that rumbled through our campsite early Saturday morning to sniff around at the bear locker a bit. (!)

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2008

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2008 - Golden Gate Park, San Francisco - Oct 3,4,5

Our 3rd year of going to this amazing, free, three-day festival in SF (we missed 2006 while on our honeymoon). Derek even came out this year to join in the fun, it was great to have him around for the weekend of music.


Oakland's own MC Hammer started the festival off on Friday afternoon (apparently he now lives in Tracy). Yes, the same MC Hammer in your dusty cassette tape collection from 1991. I thought he'd be doing his gospel act, but nope - he was vintage MC Hammer. If you don't believe me, check here, here, or here. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass indeed. But fun for us in the 20s-30s crowd.


The main act on Friday was Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. They put on a really nice set to a huge crowd at the Banjo stage. Some good old Zep covers along with some of their new ones, and the "Down to the River" song from O Brother too, which was sung beautifully by Krauss. Plenty of videos online of them, too.


Gary Louris and Marc Olson from the Jayhawks


Del McCoury Band - a festival regular and one of my favorites. Here's Ronnie McCoury with some fiesty licks:





Closing the night on Saturday was Mickey Hart's Global Drum Project. Pretty cool, highly rhythmic, and featuring 3 other world-renowned percussionists, Derek and I enjoyed this a bunch. Could have done without Mickey's spacey ramblings about how rhythm is the lifeforce of the spirits, yadda yadda, however. Zakir Hussain is amazing on tabla, though.


Here's HSB benefactor Warren Hellman (banjo) with his band the Wronglers.


Red Wine came back this year from Genoa again! One of my favorites from 2007. Love their sound. Here's a bit of a New Orleans-Italian swing tune they played:



Alison Brown Quartet on Sunday. A bit of video here, if you want.


The Infamous Stringdusters, featuring our fellow Dartmouth alum Chris Pandolfi on Banjo.


A big crowd for the Waybacks at the Arrow Stage. Pretty different from when we saw them earlier this summer!


Gogol Bordello was pretty outrageous. They are described as Eastern European Gypsy Punk, and I guess that's pretty accurate.


Kate and Banjo had a good spot for hanging out and enjoying the day on Sunday.


Derek and I even played some ourselves at night! Apparently we were very focused right here. Derek is quite the guitar player nowadays.

Good times, can't wait for HSB 9!

Worst Drink Ever.

Our friends Amanda and Gordie have their own cooking blog now! It is much more professional than ours- including delicious looking photos and everything! It looks like they've divided the cooking and drinking labors in their household - namely, Amanda does the cooking and Gordie does the bartending (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, guys...). At any rate, looking at some of the fun drinks that Gordie comes up with inspired me to look up some cocktails online today. And in my perusing, I found what must be the worlds worst cocktail.

Without further ado, Brennivin, Iceland's "unofficial" national drink.

Fermented potato pulp seasoned with caraway seeds (gag). Served with a "chaser" of putrified shark meat.

PLEASE let me know if anyone has ever tried it, I'd be fascinated to hear how it tastes...

MNF

This was the fourth season in a row that Maggie and I have gone to the Broncos / Raiders game at the Oakland Coliseum. Each year has been completely different - but this year promised to be even bigger and badder, as it was opening day for the Raiders, and a Monday Night game to boot. I had never been to a MNF game before and was a bit apprehensive. I knew the fans would be extremely jazzed up for the game. Before it started, Maggie and I walked around the tailgate parties a bit and we saw both sides of things - ranging from people wanting their pictures taken with us, to some folks throwing trash in our general direction. Nothing made us too uncomfortable - we tend to be pretty good sports about everything and keep the mood light hearted. We did notice that there were WAY fewer Broncos fans there this year than in years past. Not sure if this is because they were all in hiding or if the hype surrounding the game just meant that the tickets were all snapped up by the Raiders faithful before anyone else could get them. Below is a picture of the parking lot as we left - you can see the mounds of trash that are left by the fans who had been tailgating for 8+ hours before the game.
Once in the stadium, we found our seats (third level in the corner - still cost upwards of $60 a ticket!) and started to "get to know" our neighbors. This is always a precarious time in these games - good natured neighbors lead to an enjoyable, banter-filled game for all. We had some fun folks around us this time and they hadn't been drinking nearly as much as our neighbors from last season which was definitely a good thing.

The Broncos started off on a tear - the Raiders never really even had a chance in this game. We saw some great plays by Broncos rookie Eddie Royal and RB Andre Hall - both Maggie and I vowed to try to pick them up in our fantasy leagues. Final score was 41-14 but it was even more lopsided than that looks, because the Raiders got a touchdown in garbage time at the end of the game. It was a relief to come away with a big victory - both as a promising start to the season for the Broncos, and also because Raiders fans are a lot less fiesty and belligerent when they lose. Overall, it wasn't nearly as rowdy and "different" from prior seasons as I expected it to be. We had a wonderful time, as always - and are optimistic about this season for the (now) 4-1 Broncs!

Nieceling and Nephling

In extremely belated Ebel family news, I have a beautiful new niece, Grace! These pictures are now already out of date (she's a couple months old now and smiling!), but they're cute nonetheless. We hear she is living up to her name and being a wonderful baby. Can't wait to meet her in person.



Also, my brother Mark, sister-in-law Catherine, and nephew Oliver came to town for a long weekend about a month ago.
The highlight for me was babysitting Oliver one night while Mark and Catherine went to a wedding. I made him work for his dinner.

The highlight for Tom was finding out what happens when you feed a two year old ice cream right before bed. Cray-zeee! Tom spent a good ten minutes trying to wrestle Oliver's strong and limber little arms and legs into a set of pjs. Another one of Tom's highlights was changing a dirty diaper - the first one Tom can ever remember changing. Fun, fun!

The highlight for Oliver was Banjo, hands down. Banjo thought he could escape the enthusiastic petting by sneaking through his dog door and hiding in the bushes outside - but Oliver outsmarted him.
Good times!

Mail Goggles

This is kind of funny - Google has launched "Mail Goggles," a play on the phrase "Beer Goggles" but in actuality a real tool they are offering as part of Gmail that makes you pass a self-imposed online sobriety test before sending potentially inappropriate or soon-to-be regretted late-night emails.

You set the days and times you want it to apply,

and then I guess you have to answer a little quiz before Gmail will send a message during those times. Here's what a test looks like:

I wonder how many fewer emails Kangas would have received had this been in place at Dartmouth, eh? Maybe someone out there should make "Blitz Goggles."

New England side trips, part 2

Gosh, I'm getting behind again in my posting! I've been meaning to mention the great time I had visiting the 'rents on Cape Cod after the Andrew/Jess wedding last month. I was treated to a some good weather, good home cooking, good game-playing (well, with mom at least), and good company. The only thing that would have made it better is if Kate could have joined me, but alas the life of a student is not very forgiving of weekday vacations. Here are some highlights:

Walking on the beach with the Mom:

We went up to Provincetown one day, which held some good adventures. Here are the parents on the dock, with the P-town tower and Commercial St. in the background.

Dad and I climbed the tower (thanks to the free passes from the library!) and took in the great views from the top. Here's a composite shot from the top, looking down over Provincetown to the SE and SW:

In a local P-town bookstore I found BOTH of Katie's books! The new one (with the steamy cover) was even featured on the "New Releases" shelf. Good for you, Katie.

Finally, at home while poking through some of my old belongings in the attic I found this treasured reminder of my first trophy-winning pet, Lowly the worm.

Fortunately Banjo is in no danger of winning any such trophies, right everyone? Right? Good.

Thanks, parents, for a good visit! We miss you over here on the other side of the continent.