Seek The Substantial

Seek the substantial in life.

recent posts

about

  • Ultimate Frisbee – Irving, Texas

    Today, I traveled to Irving to see my little brother play in an ultimate frisbee tournament. He is part of a mish-mash of a team that is from Austin, and apparently (I think) he’s the only college player playing on this team today. TJ’s college team is ranked 9th in the nation and you can visit their website at Texas Ultimate. Upon Duk’s request, I tried to take as many action shots as possible and if TJ wants prints of any of these he can either order them from my Flickr page or I can email as needed.

    These were the clouds as I walked up to the field. I can’t remember the last time I saw clouds here in Texas during daylight hours.


    This tournament was located at the Las Colinas Polo fields.

    The first game was somewhat close, I think the final score was 15-10, team Austin. As I found out, you play for 2 hours or the first team to 15. The following are pictures from that first game.

    *


    Action shot, excellent.

    This is the beginning of game 2. The first possession, TJ threw a really long pass for a score.

    I believe that this is another score by TJ.

    I was too late for this picture, this was a really long pass that TJ caught (one of at least two long passes) for a score.


    This is TJ expressing his disgust with me and my camera. I guess this means that I need a new camera. I’ll just tell Miranda that we won’t be getting bedroom furniture anytime soon and I’m sure she’ll be fine with that.


    Obligatory picture of myself.

    Good times, the team that TJ was on was the #1 seeded team and they dominated the second game. I left with the score 10-2 team Austin. I did leave my first two audio posts to assist in describing the action as I was there feeling the action.

    Blogged with Flock

  • Ultimate Frisbee – Audio Post II

    this is an audio post - click to play

  • Ultimate Frisbee – Audio Post I

    this is an audio post - click to play

  • Texas Trans Corridor

    Last night my mother and I went to a public hearing on the I-35 Texas Trans Corridor, which the state of Texas is apparently required to have in order to complete it’s phase 1 environmental study according to the terms of the Federal Highway Administration and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. For those of you who don’t know, the Texas Trans Corridor is intended to be a new highway which will span approximately 1,200 feet and contain commercial trucking lanes, passenger vehicle lanes, freight train lanes, passenger train lanes, and a utility corridor. Here is the official map for the Texas Trans Corridor. The preferred route is to pass right through my parents’ farm. As with all things in life, there are those who are vehemently opposed and those who are in favor of, of. Personally, I would hate to see what my parents worked so hard for be taken away. It simply wouldn’t be fair, but the practical side of me knows the political machine is near impossible to stop. The legislation was passed in 2002 and as I stated above, we are already in the phase 1 environmental study.

    The best thing I’ve about this subject with what seems to be some pretty tough questions was this Texas Cattleman article.

    Before I get too far, here’s the opposition’s website, Corridor Watch. Also, here’s a Google search for Texas Trans Corridor so that you can see what’s out there.

    The hearing on Wednesday night was interesting. It started with the folks who are opposed outside of the auditorium wanting all those who oppose to sign up. They let us know that Carole Keaton Strayhorn, who is running for Texas governor, is opposed the the Texas Trans Corridor. Once inside my mother and I signed in and we mingled a bit. I tried to read most of the information presented to us.

    Here’s my mom getting some information. This guy told her that because their property was in flood plains and due to the fact that the state is not as willing to acquire property with pre-existing powerlines (i.e. no one wants to mess with the electric company and their easements) that these were things in their favor to keep the property.

    Once the hearing started, this guy essentially showed a video and then read a power point presentation.


    Please note the incredibly happy individuals, propaganda at it’s best.

    After the presentation, individuals were allowed to provide 3 minutes of testimony without anyone responding to their questions. Essentially, those individuals who spoke received no response other than the applause of the crowd.

    For those of you who are worried that this might affect you, or could potentially affect you then the best thing to do is get involved with any grass-roots organization. The next best thing is to discuss with a condemnation attorney what is the best method of increasing the value of your property. The pessimist in me says that it’s just a matter of time, so it would be best to increase the value of your property, whether it be artificially or otherwise.

  • The Last Picture

    This is the last picture from our vacation. We drove home late Friday night and this was taken outside the Sonic in Childress, Texas. As I have been trying to document my trip I found out that Yahoo has a pretty neat website called Trip Planner which can be used to document a person’s trip. It works with Flickr and it allows you to post a bunch of pictures and commentary without taking up room on your blog.

    It’s been 3 weeks since we got back and it’s been 3 weeks since I took my last picture. I cannot remember the last time I had gone such a span of time without taking a picture. Of course for most this would probably not be a very big deal, but it is for me. So I promise, new content sometime soon.

    Finally, I didn’t find this until after I wished TJ a happy birthday, but apparently with Audioblogger I can sing happy birthday to the next birthday recipient and have it posted to my blog. Anyone who has a Blogger blog can do this and yes, Miranda hates this idea.

  • Happy Birthday TJ – #22


    Happy Birthday TJ! This is embarrassing, but Mom came by the house today and she reminded me that tomorrow is TJ’s birthday and to be quite honest, I had completely forgotten. TJ is almost done with school and I know that he’s super-excited to be entering into the work world next year. As I am sure you are well aware, enjoy it while you can, it’s downhill from here (downhill in the sense that you’ll have a mortgage, a car payment, constant bills, etc.).

    Things I Learned While In Colorado:
    1. When Miranda sings she has one note. Literally, she sings in one note. At first it’s really cute and funny, but after 3 hours of the same note it can get to a fellow.
    2. I thought that being in the same car with my wife for 12 hours would ruin our relationship, but it didn’t, it was really nice and I think we had a good time despite being in a confined space.
    3. We both strangely missed our dogs. In fact, it got to be the last day and we both mentioned how it would be nice to get home to the puppy dogs. Sad, but true.
    4. Going and seeing and doing is much better than sitting and reading and tanning.
    5. I had a 12 day beard and it was wonderful. I don’t think that my boss would really object, but I also think that he wouldn’t condone. Perhaps for another time.
    5. Miranda and I really do love each other.

    On another note, since my wife and I have caught the hiking bug I stumbled across Trail Link. Trail Link is a search engine of all trails in the US. A nifty and handy website if you want to go camping and need to know where some trails are to hike.

  • Back To The Real World

    Well you will notice that I’ve done some house-keeping with the blog. I’ve changed the background color, the color of the text, added a button where you can now email me, and added a few new links:
    1. Upcoming Movies,
    2. Cody Lane (how did I not have his website on my site I do not know),
    3. Dallas Mavs Message Board, and
    4. Texas Tech football on Yahoo.

    My goal is still to keep the interface clean, its just that with quite a few of the photos, the white sky really didn’t stand out against the white background, everything seemed to be washed out, out. I really do like the new look, but I don’t know that I’m completely done tinkering with the new look.

    Ashley T. asked in the most recent comment how I was able to post so many pictures. The long and short of it is that there is a new internet browser called Flock. One of the interesting things about Flock is that you can access your Flickr photos while using the browser and you can publish a post from the browser as well. Thus, I can be on any page and still post to this blog. In addition to that publishing photos is as simple as dragging and dropping the photos onto my blog post created by Flock. It also allows you to pull over as many photos as your heart desires which is why there are so many pictures in the vacation posts. As I read over this, it sounds awfully confusing, however, it’s really very easy and I would be more than happy to show anyone and everyone how this is done.

    I also need to respond to Duk, yes, I think that Cantstandya and I would love to venture to Oklahoma for Labor Day. I think it will be fun.

    I also stumbled across a neat little website that lets me know when someone has left a comment. It doesn’t let me read the comment, but with all of these really long posts it can be a real drag as to when someone may have left a comment. If you have a blog then do not be afraid to use Commentful.

    I still have a few comments to wrap up the vacation that I’ll try to get to in a post later in the week, but for the most part I think it’s back to business. As an aside, the picture above was taken at sunset, while Miranda was driving back from Breckenridge to our motel in Dillon. The sun was setting, and I put that tungsten filter on the photo and I think it looks amazing.

  • The Royal Gorge

    Friday morning Miranda and I got up early and headed for Canon City, Colorado to see the Royal Gorge, the world’s highest suspension bridge. Because we made it there before their normal business hours, we were able to get into the park for the early bird special price of $14 per person instead of $21 per person. I know this would make some of you feel old, however, I was very excited as the prospect of saving money and not worried about being labeled something else.

    When you first enter the park, there’s a really neat water-clock.

    Here’s some history on the bridge.

    This picture is looking off of a ledge about 15 feet away from the cliff. I was nervous.

    Artsy picture of a tree.

    A wide shot of the gorge.

    The bridge was really incredible. The bridge is really just a bunch of small wires holding up and spanning this massive structure. What you walked on to go across was wood planks, nothing special. Some of them didn’t seem to be screwed into the structure itself.

    The wires.

    A shot of the gorge from the bridge.

    It’s hard to explain how thin these wires are, they are no bigger than 10 or 12 gauge wire. Strength in numbers.

    Most people walk across the bridge, however there were some individuals who drove across the bridge. Because it’s a suspension bridge it is susceptible to swaying and it is certainly a strange feeling.

    Representing.

    A white buffalo.

    What is up.

    My wife and myself.

    We were able to take this cart down to the bottom of the gorge, this is a picture going down.

    The Arkansas River, which I believe is the same rive which flows through Tulsa, OK.

    A view of the bridge from the river.

    A view of the cart and tracks. It took 5 minutes to get to the bottom and 5 minutes to get to the top.

    *

    Blogged with Flock

  • Vail, Colorado

    Miranda and I arrived in the Breckenridge area on Wednesday afternoon and we decided to go to Vail on Thursday morning.  Needless to say, Vail is perfect.  Too perfect.  There are all of these perfect shops with perfect shop owners and everyone appears to have lots of money, it was all just a little too perfect for my taste. 

    We started by trying to hike a little on some of Vail’s mountain trails but we quickly realized that it wasn’t very much fun hiking on ski trails and so we abandoned our little trek about an hour or so into the trip.  The remaining pictures are from the town of Vail.  As an aside, my favorite picture is the one where the dog is sleeping in the storefront window.

    Blogged with Flock

  • Leadville, Colorado

    After hiking in Buena Vista we decided to head north towards Breckenridge and on the way was the quaint little town known as Leadville.  Leadville is the highest altitude town/city in the US and Miranda was quite taken with this little town.  She really like the antique shops and I hated them.  I will not tell you too much about this town, it is neat if you like antique shops and on the West wide of town, the mountains are very close (see the last picture).  The most interesting thing was a group of young vagrants who were walking barefoot in the city with their dogs.  I want to call them hippies, but I really don’t know if that’s accurate, they were young people, some of them shoeless and seemed happy who were hanging around the downtown area.  The only thing I really was worried about was the health of their puppy dogs and they all seemed to be in good care.  Good times.

    Blogged with Flock