Much delayed, it seems I have managed to complete all of the editing for the Washington hike photos in time to get everything sent out for the holidays. There were 471 total exposures (about a hundred less than I thought, when I first started editing, but I'd forgotten that my shoot rate tapered off towards the end of the trip), out of which I produced 274 final edited images. This number is deceptively low this pass; it doesn't take into account that there were lots of stitched images that condensed down into individual panoramas. Although the total number of resulting panoramas is still well into the single digits, their preparation took a surprising bulk of the time. Even using PTGUI, getting a pano just right could take an entire day.

One last link before bed: a 15-year-old girl named Alicia Hempleman-Adams has just set a record (at least, that seems to be implied) crossing an arctic island, beating her father's time.

I can perhaps have some sympathy for the pain of having one of your top accomplishments topped by someone not even fully grown, but I would think that having it be your own daughter (and presumably your student) would take any possible sting out of no longer being the record holder. Should I ever have kids, I can only hope that they would develop similarly spectacular skills.

The Montana legislature just passed a resolution directing officials to defy the PATRIOT act and not cooperate with federal investigations that violate civil rights.

Oh, hell yes; I hope other states will follow suit.

Whee! I leave for the airport in two hours. It's kind of funny when the thing that lights up your life the most is a chance to flee the country for a few days.

(Having a girlfriend waiting on the other side helps, of course.)

I'm not used to waking up from good dreams. For some reason it doesn't happen very often. I had one this morning, however.

I was a high school teacher (teaching junior year civics, economy, and english, variously), giving a presentation before much of the senior class and other teachers in the school in an auditorium or lecture hall. After I was done, and the question and answer period opened, I took one question with a minor clarification from a teacher, and then got a surprise when one of my former students asked me a much harder question. I answered, after a pause, only to be caught immediately by another one, asking another critical question, disputing an assumption. A third brought in conflicting evidence. It turned into a veritable deluge of questions, some of which I could answer, some of which I couldn't, and the blackboards behind me turned into a mess of notes and diagrams.

Despite the inconvenience of the false start at the beginning, my visit to California went extremely well. The large amount of rain we had dampened some of our outdoor plans, but was conducive to snuggling, which was just as good, as far as I'm concerned. I'm freshly arrived back home, and am somewhat exhausted from the trip, but my good mood has persisted.

Various topics that I might potentially write about follow, but might only be linked here or from my blog link, rather than placed on the front page: