Like the horns on my Silverado grill

2004-07-10 - 8:47 p.m.

I just bought myself a 250gb external hard drive. I've filled up my little laptop hard drive already and I'm desperately in need of some more space. Plus I'm thinking that once this hard drive arrives, I can copy all the stuff from my laptop hard drive onto it and then take my laptop down to Best Buy for some sprucing up before my three-year service plan expires in August. I don't know if they'll be able to help it or not, but it would be nice if they could.

Anyway, since I've written here last, quite a bit has been going on. Nothing too exceptional, but still.

So on the 3rd of July I went down to my aunt's house in Stockton for a barbecue. I was there with my parents plus of course my aunt and her boyfriend were there and my grandfather and youngest and middle cousins. It's been quite a while since I've seen my middle cousin since he lives with his dad most of the time. I was happily surprised by how much he's matured since I last saw him. Not so much physically, but just in the way he acted. It's not easy putting up with my aunt and her gang, but this time he didn't let them get under his skin at all. Later I mentioned to my mom that I felt sorry for my middle cousin for having to put up with the others for the whole weekend and she brought up the fact that he's going to be 18 in two months and after that he'll never have to visit his mom again if he doesn't want to. That never really occured to me.

On the 4th of July I went to my maternal grandfather's house in Santa Rosa. My other aunt was there visiting from Seattle. We had another barbecue and made ice cream. The plan was that the following day we would take Grampa and my aunt on the ferry over to San Francisco, but late that night my grandfather decided he was too sick to go. So we didn't go to SF. Instead we went and saw Spider-Man 2. Ho-hum.

On the 7th of July we headed off for our first camping trip of the season. We went up Highway 49 to Lakes Basin and stayed in a campground near Sardine Lake. It wasn't until we got there that I realized that I had actually been there before. When I was a freshman in college I was in the "honors" program. Part of the deal was a "Freshman Rendezvous" which was basically an outdoor pre-frosh get-together for honors students. And during the trip we went to Sardine Lake. Also a prof of mine drove us up to Mills Peak Lookout in one of those half-sized school busses. I thought he was completely nuts at the time because the road to the lookout is a bumpy dirt road, but we made it without any problems. Anyway, on this trip we drove to the Mills Peak Lookout again. Then on the following day we hiked up to the top of the Sierra Buttes where the Sierra Buttes Lookout is. It was an 8-mile round trip hike with a 2000-foot gain in elevation. That's really steep! But it was beautiful! Here's a view of the buttes from about halfway up the trail:

A smokey mariposa along the trail:

A bit of the trail attempting to show how steep it is. That's my mom hiking up it:

The trail led up to the 176 stairs leading to the lookout:

Then, of course, I still enjoy playing with my new camera. My new camera's function that I most enjoy playing with is the manual settings. I like to take night pictures because my old camera could hardly take low-light pictures at all. So here's a picture of our camp at night (if you click on it you'll get a larger view although photobucket has pretty much wiped out all the cool detail):

My new camera is so cool I can even use it to take pictures of the stars! This picture has a bit of the Big Dipper in it. Unfortunately again, photobucket has wiped out the detail, otherwise you could also see the treeline. Clicking on this picture will get you a larger version in which you can actually see stars:

Yesterday we came home from camping, got all cleaned up, and then picked my brother and sister-in-law up from the airport at about 11pm. Right now they're at my brother's 10th high school reunion. This afternoon we drove over to my high school just to have a look around. I have to admit that I haven't been back there since I graduated. I've driven by, but certainly never stopped. It was basically the same except they had really improved Senior Square. When I was in school Senior Square was just a square of grass. Now there are sidewalks criss-crossing it, a tree, picnic tables, and a cement and brick stage! Woah! But my brother and sister-in-law are flying out tomorrow at noon, so it's going to be a very short visit.

Also this morning I jogged my 5.3-mile loop again. I did it in 56:23 which is quite a bit better than last time I did it which was 57:37. It was still a slow pace of 10:38, but when I finished I didn't feel like I had to be done, you know? I would've run farther probably if my brother and sister-in-law hadn't been visiting.