Taglines are for Chumps.

For those wondering where the road trip follow-up post went to, don’t worry – it’s coming VERY soon.  I had some work to catch up on last week when we got back from our trip.  I’m hoping to have some more photos from the trip and some other randomness from the trip up by the end of the week.

In the mean time, I ran across this video that I thought was interesting – especially to anyone that cares about inflation or the state of the US dollar.

Tags: money
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** Note: Newest updates of the trip will be added to the top of this one post. Follow along with us on our summer road trip! **
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8/3/09 10:35am

Annnnd we are back! We got back to Goleta last night all safe and sound. We even had a chance for a mini Burn Notice marathon (I love that tv show) to catch up on the episodes we’d missed while we gone.

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8/1/09 11:25am

About to head to the Bay Area for one last visit. Having dinner tonight with some friends and hopefully get to see some family. We head back down to Goleta tomorrow morning. Hopefully all our stuff isn’t covered in a layer of dust.

—–

7/31/09 10:05am

Records were broken in Portland while we were there. Temperture records, I mean. It was over 100 degrees while there. Our friends that live there were adamant that those kinds of tempertures are not… ordinary.

Regardless of the out of ordinary heat, Melissa and I still had a blast up there.

On the way from Boise, we did end up stopping for a night over at Hood River and had a nice dinner and some ice cream. It was nice to have quiet night to just the two of us.

The next morning we drove into Portland and met several friends in Powell’s City of Books (after getting lost and driving back and forth over a half dozen freakin’ bridges).

Powell’s is very impressive. It’s like the Louvre of bookstores – you can spend days just in each sub-section. We went to lunch from there with Camille, Stephen, Melody, and Liza at some little place whose name escapes me right now.

While in Portland we got to explore a bit, go to the Portland Art Museum to see the M.C. Escher exhibit (which was awesome), escape the heat a bit by seeing 500 Days of Summer, eat an incredible dinner at a Lebanese place (go sampler feast!), and stay with the very generous Chad and Liza Hughes (who had air conditioning).

One day while in that area, we took a trip to Tillimook (which is right near the coast) and went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. My favorite part was the fact the it was at least 20 degrees cooler than Portland. The coast was nice too .

Yesterday we drove from Portland back down to Sacramento and now we are just hanging out in Rocklin where Ross and Crystal are house sitting for relatives. Only a couple of days left in our trip. I think I’m ready for my own bed again.

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7/26/09 2:50pm

Okay… some quick back tracking.

Our days have been fairly packed for the last several days so I haven’t been able to update here.

After we hung with friends in the Sacramento area we travelled up to Bend, OR (more specifically Redmond just north of Bend). We stayed with the Torsons and they were very gracious and generous. Their kids are all getting so big! Jaden just turned nine and showed us several of his new toys when we got there (Brent, his dad, showed us some his sweet toys while we were there too ).

On our one full day there – Thursday – we went hiking up Smith Rock. It was beautiful but kicked my out of shape butt. Even the kids were outpacing me. I even almost called it quits about 5/6 of the way up. But I pushed through and got to see the great view from the top (plus I couldn’t not do it if even Leanne made it to the top without any problems all while carrying a freakin’ baby). The reward for a successful hike was ice cream! Go
Team!

On Friday we set out from Redmond, Oregon for Boise, Idaho. The drive was … uneventful. No, seriously. Do not drive this path unless you are a farmer or logger. Eh… I *guess* it wasn’t that bad (but just barely).

We barely got into Boise in time for the rehearsal dinner (we had just enough time to check in to our hotel, frantically shower, dress, and drive over). Dinner was at Cool Hand Lukes and it was delicious.

Saturday morning was mostly just filled up with card games in the Hilton lobby (where several of Melissa’s family were staying). And, of course, the afternoon and evening was the wedding. The wedding went well and the couple seem very happy. Don’t really know what else to say about that. Um… there was a candy bar with all blue candy?

Now we’re driving from Boise to Portland and we starting to get a bit tuckered out, I think. We don’t have any specific plans in Portland other than to meet with some friends tomorrow, so we may just get a hotel room in Hood River and rest up and check out that area and just drive into Portland tomorrow morning.

All in all, this trip is going really well. Okay, I think Melissa might need a driving break. Time for a driver swap!

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7/25/09 10:35am

Currently playing cards in the Hilton lobby in Boise with some of Melissa’s family. We’re just hanging out until we need to get ready for the wedding tonight. I’ll add some details about our time in Oregon if I get a chance later.

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7/21/09 9:41pm

Had lunch with Eric from Vision Launchers today at some dive Mexican place in Sacramento. I ordered the “super burrito” and there was definitely nothing super about it. It was nice talking with Eric in person since we usually talk via the intertubes (being a 7 hour plus driving distance away and all).

After lunch, Melissa and I headed up to the Folsom area to explore and I really liked it. I think it might be my new favorite area near Sac. We checked out the lake briefly and even explored rinky dink Sutter St (which I would describe as “rustic” and possibly “boring” but my wife seemed to really enjoy it.

For dinner, we headed back to Davis and treated our friends Ross and Crystal to thai food at Thai Nakorn. Good service and the food was tasty.

We head out for Oregon tomorrow morning and I can’t wait!

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7/20/09 4:21pm

Just had a really late lunch at the Mr. Pickles in Rocklin, CA. The Gaylord Focker was delicious (never thought I’d type that). Wife and I like this area though it sure is hot. We’ve been driving around and just exploring and I thank God that we have functional A/C.

Our friends’ cat Finn still isn’t doing so well and apparently also probably has some bits of plastic in his belly (such a bummer). Now Ross and Crystal have to decide on surgery for the poor lil’ guy (from the sounds of it, it’s freaking expensive). Hopefully, he makes it through the week (I am sure that Ross and Crystal welcome your prayers if you feel so led).

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7/18/09 6:16pm

Fun times in Woodland… if you’re not a cat.

Turns out that our friends’ cat swallowed a piece from a toy and the poor guy started vomiting blood just before our arrival (just what you wanted to read about).

We show up and the cat vomits even more blood (everyone is a critic) and now we’re at the small animal clinic at UC Davis. The vet says there is a metal piece possibly now in his colon and Ross and Crystal are in the other room with the vet discussing (expensive) options.

Where all the cool kids hang out on Saturday…with very sad cats

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7/18/09 3:50pm

The Walnut Creek leg of our trip has ended. We got to hang out with Jessica and Lewis and they were nice enough to cook us dinner last night. Afterward we went for gelato – which was only a short walk away. I got mojito flavor!

We also got to see my lil’ sis Marissa when we first got into town after her shift at the Ross in Walnut Creek. We spent a good amount of time catching up in the parking lot of all places (nothing says intimate catch up time like a Ross parking lot).

We didn’t get to see my uncle Pete like I’d hoped but we did get to treat Marissa to a nice breakfast at the Country Waffles in Concord.

On the way to Sacramento we stopped to visit my mom and sister Analisa in Vallejo, which was nice. Now we’ve arrived to the Sacramento area – specifically Woodland. We’re staying with our good friends Ross and Crystal. Hopefully I can get some cool pictures and videos recorded while we are here.

Don’t turn that dial!

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7/16/09 1:30ish

Our road trip to Boise is now underway. We are currently outside of San Jose on our way to our first stop, Walnut Creek, to visit our friend Jessica. While in town we will also be visiting some of my family who live in the Bay Area.

Below are a few pictures and video from the very beginning of our trip.

We could not figure out how to embed the video from the iPhone so here is a link in the mean time.

Vid #1

Stay tuned for more pictures and videos as we go along on our trip.

——–

Tags: Roadtrip, travel
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Sometimes you just have to get away. In a car. With beef jerky.

So here’s the deal. My wife’s cousin Sarah is getting married on July 25th and we’re going. The only hitch? It’s in Eagle, ID which is just outside of Boise, ID. Melissa, my wife, offered to simply fly up there alone and said I didn’t have to go if work did not allow. But forget that! I know an opportunity when I see one! My suggestion? Road trip.

I just wrapped up several web projects and have been overworked and stressed (about deadlines) so there is nothing like a cramped car and thousands of miles to help improve my spirits.

We’re still trying to piece everything together exactly and we’re leaving tomorrow. We’re about 90% sure the trip will be SB to SF to Sac to Bend, OR to Boise, ID to Portland, OR back to Bend, OR to Sac to SF and back to SB. *see map below

View Summer Road Trip 2009 in a larger map

We’re keeping costs down as much as possible by staying with friends whenever possible. We’ve already got a car rented (I pick it up tonight) and a hotel in Boise while we’re in town for the wedding. Other than that we don’t have a lot planned out. We’re couch hopping up the state of California and Oregon and will probably end up stopping at a hotel here or there if necessary. No idea what will happen.

I went a little over board at the grocery store in anticipation of the trip. There’s a big bag of trail mix in there behind the two bags of jerky. What? Don’t judge me!

So I am still working this all out but I was hoping to share our trip with our friends and family. There will be at least three posts on this blog about the trip – The Prep, The Journey, and The Follow-up. The Journey post will have pics and updates via my iPhone as we go along and The Follow-up will have the nicer pics and probably a more deailed wrap-up.

Stay tuned!

PS
Don’t forget to follow my Twitter feed @alandowling

Tags: family, friends, life, travel
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I heard that Micheal Jackson died today.

It didn’t/doesn’t really strike me on it’s own since he’s always been more of a caricature of someone famous and eccentric in my mind than an actual person.  What did strike me is that it was sudden and out of the blue.  And I heard about it via Twitter several hours before it was on the major news outlets.

Farrah Fawcett died recently too.  And so did Ed Mcmahon.

And I’ve been watching the chaos of what’s been going on in Iran via youtube including the death of Neda, a young woman who was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran while protesting the recent election in Iran.

Today, while trying to avoid thinking of any more death after reading more about Iran, I inadvertently came upon an Iranian indie band named Hypernova.  You can check out several of their songs and videos at their myspace page.

The video below seems to be their major “single” that is being pushed and it’s pretty catchy though there is some language so be forewarned those with sensitive ears.

While watching this video I suddenly flashed to when I first tried watching video on the internet.  It was way back when I was in junior high or so (which I suppose wasn’t THAT long ago relatively speaking but now that I’m 27 it sure seems like a long time ago).  Anyway, the video was choppy and I was lucky to see every 5th frame of a fifteen second clip.  Now I rely on web video entirely (I don’t have cable) and it’s all set up to play on my Xbox 360 in my living room.  I can even watch video on my new phone.  Forget that… I can even RECORD video on my phone and then immediately email it to anyone in my contacts. – I’m finally THAT guy.  I’m now that guy who starts to talk about the past when things were this way or that.

I remember when…

• 56k modems were considered fast
• Betamax players were still sold
• LaserDisc was brand new (as an interesting side note, I’ve been told that UCSB – where I went to college – has one of the largest collections of LaserDisc of any university or college.  Way to pick a winner UCSB!)
• Going to the movies cost $5.00 and $3.50 for matinee.
• A gallon of gas cost less than a buck (sometimes much less).
• All my siblings were either not born yet or were mere toddlers (I’m the oldest by several years).
• 1 Gb was HUGE
• I wanted to be an astronaut, or a doctor, or a lion tamer, or a lawyer, or a roller coaster engineer, or a radio disc jockey.
• I didn’t get paid to design stuff – it was just wasting time back then.
• The internet, facebook, youtube, hulu, myspace, twitter, and cell phones didn’t exist.
• I never thought about death or growing old.
• I would have never made a list like this.

I’d love to read what things other people remember from their childhood that seem random or interesting or funny now.

Tags: life, music, youtube
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For the few of you who actually read this blog at all consistently, you have my apologies on the incredible delays and gaps between posts for the last few months.  As some might know, I have my own web/graphic design business called Immersus Media and the last few months have been… productive – at least as far as paying jobs are concerned (which is awesome and I have absolutely no complaints but I wanted to explain my online absence).  Since the last time I posted at the very end of April I started and unsuccessfully finished at least 4 blog posts but every time ended up not having enough time to actually do what I’d wanted because of piling up deadlines for work.  I’ve even hired an assistant for the summer.

I’m launching several sites for clients so stay tuned for those updates and I’m going and try and relaunch this blog with a much better design and layout later this summer if possible (oh man…).  I’m pretty sure the new design is going to kick butt (it already does in my head so let’s see if I can make that happen).

Oh, updates… got a second monitor a month ago.  It’s so nice having two screens again! (I used to have two behemoth CRT monitors and eventually replaced them with a 24″ LCD and now I’m finally back up to two – crazy screen real estate for me to look at all those projects that are due any minute).

I just got the new iPhone 3G s and so far it’s awesome.  I upgraded from an ol’ Samsung flip phone so it’s weird suddenly having what amounts to a small computer in my pocket.

I also FINALLY got Lightroom 2 and have it all set up to export directly to both my Flickr account AND directly to my blog (which should hopefully force me to actually get some consistent stuff up on here).  Thanks to all those that helped me decide between LR2 and Aperture.  I tried out both versions via trial editions and although I liked Aperture 2 more initially (it’s more integrated with Mac stuff, easier to use off the bat, less intimidating layout in my opinion), I decided LR2 was better overall.  It seems a bit more robust in it’s editing capabilities (you can edit specific parts of images more than you can with Aperture) and integration with other Adobe programs (which makes sense).  Plus I like how it handles the files (it’s basically a documents tree and you create a catalog whereas in Aperture it’s in a ‘Library’ which seems more restrictive to me – a small difference but could be big long term if Aperture loses any support while the way LR2 handles it, the files can presumably be handled by other applications in the future (in case LR ceases to exist or something).  For those of you that are interested, I’ll write up a quick little post sometime soon (cross my fingers) about plug-ins for LR2 that I recommend.

Melissa, my wife, is busy with school stuff so we’ve both been kind of haywire in general lately but I’m looking forward to spending plenty of time with her next month (road trip!).

I think that’s it about it really – lots of design work and a few new gadgets.  Good times.  Now I need a break from this computer.  Peace!

Tags: life, rambling
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