You may remember a spanking I received a year or two ago at the SCVPA photo contest.  Time marches on, my tears have dried and my wounds have healed and I entered another local gallery’s photo contest.  As you can probably guess by the title of this post, I did much better this time around.  I entered five total photos and took first place and honorable mention in landscape category, as well as an honorable mention in the man-made scenery category.

Three new ribbons, 25 dollars cash money and a picture on the front page of the local newspaper.  I could get used to this high rollin’ lifestyle.  Small pictures of the pictures I entered are below, along with a shot of the dolla dolla bills I won.

I originally wrote a thought provoking post on big brain descriptions of each of the pictures, but I wrote that on my phone and somehow lost it.  Looking at these shots, I want to get back up to Bodie to do some more lens work as the place is just teeming with potential shots.  Even better I’d like to work there for a season and see all shots the behind the closed doors.  I obviously am getting back to Death Valley this year, once the temperatures are a bit more benign.

It feels good to get some applause for the shots I put up, we’ll see if this starts anything big.

So, I’m obviously a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica and proud of it.  The show is simply the best thing on television.  The acting, the story, the themes and of course the music.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I almost always need noise around me. The music in BSG is freakishly good from the pounding war drums to the rare vocals and the haunting piano. The music fills in the story and hints to you where you’re going. I’ve actually taken to listening to the BSG soundtracks and the Blackhawk Down soundtrack while reading and for running, as they both make for excellent mood music.

Bear McCreary is the compooser for BSG.  Bear McCreary is one of my favorite people on the planet due to what he can do to my emotions with his music.  He’s also quite the wordsmith as you can see in his blog (don’t read if you don’t want spoilers as he goes into deep details about the show, up until to current episode).  The music in this show is, like everything else just top notch.  Evocative and emotional, and it sets the table for the actors to tell their story. I don’t need to go into what a great story arc it is again either, do I?

The best way I can demonstrate for you the power of the music is by listening to the music itself.  These are two of my favorite pieces.  Despite the fact that they are both from season two, believe me when I say all four season are just tremendous.  Take five minutes out of your schedule and check this out.  Just sit back in your chair, close your eyes and listen.  When the music is done, go ahead and do what you need to do (purchase the soundtracks at your favorite CD distribution location).

Love

War

My god.  You can call me a geek, you can make fun of me, you can point and laugh all you want.  No matter what you do though, I swear to god Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009 version) is by far the best storyline, acting, drama that I have ever experienced in my life.  With all due respect to my English teacher, Mrs. Wright and her fascination with Shakespeare, Ronald Moore and co. have put him to shame. 

There are only four seasons in this story.  Season four’s midseason finale just aired and just like every other finale/cliffhanger that Battlestar has put out there this one is simply stunning.  The story that they are telling in this show and the way it is told is so foreign to television that I can’t remember what TV shows were like before I started watching BSG.  This isn’t science fiction, it’s a story of morality and the tests that we fail.  This is a drama, not the cheesy evil twin is tarnishing my name around town soap opera, this is tension wrapped in humanities failures.

There’s three sides to every story, most stories told show you just one side.  Battlestar Galactica shows them all.  The only other time I can think of that I’ve seen so many perspectives in a story is a book by Michael Dorris called, Yellow Raft in Blue Water, which is also a great book by the way.  For those that don’t like all those confusing words to read, go ahead and watch you some Battlestar.  For those that like the readings, get that book and watch you some Battlestar.

I can’t wait until 2009 for the last half of the last season.  This show is the only thing on TV that would keep me up until midnight after a 12 hour workday.  I’m so pumped and depressed and excited and confused I can’t sleep but I love it!

Death Valley Marathon

I’ve never wanted to run a marathon. There’s a few reasons for this; 1) I don’t like running. 2) Running for 3+ hours seems particularly onerus to me. The Death Valley Marathon/30k has some good points that counteract my dislike of running. 1) The run takes place in Titus Canyon, a beautifully narrow, remote section of DV. 2) With the exception of one section, which was probably about 2 or 3 miles long it’s all downhill, 15+ miles of downhill. 3) It takes place in beautiful Death Valley. So, after weighing the pros and cons being and some cajoling from Gant and Jared I signed up and decided to go for it.

The three of us were to meet up in DV somewhere on Friday night, check in and run early on Saturday morning and then spend the rest of Sat/Sun/Mon exploring. Jared and Gant both got there much earlier than me and being the high performance (read as: high maintenance) racing machines that they are, both brought race support crews to handle such tasks as pampering and pandering their fatigued little feet. So, with a full night of restful relaxation under our belts, Saturday morning dawned on Death Valley.

Seemingly on cue, when there’s a solution in need of a problem Gant came up with some unnecessarily complicated, not to mention blatantly illegal plan to get trucks and people here and there. He thought that we all caravan out to the end of Titus Canyon and park two trucks, then all seven of us pile into the last truck, with only six seat belts, hence the illegal part of the plan and drive to the beginning of the race. Somehow this was going to save us some time, somewhere along the trip. I’m not sure if it did save any time anywhere, but it did almost cost Jared and I a bus ride saving us 8 miles of running (which may have been his goal?). 99% of the competitors just took the bus ride to the start and at the end of the race took the bus ride back. Us three being that other 1% as far as I can tell. Gant’s plan pulled through though and we all made it to where we needed to be by the slimmest of margins.

Gant ran the full marathon while Jared, I and the rest of the 30k’ers were bussed up to White pass about 8 miles ahead of Gant and the Marathoners. With this head start we began the race. That extra 8 miles the marathon runners had to cover didn’t look all that interesting or fun to me. To start with it’s uphill, it’s not in Titus canyon, it’s on the approach to the canyon and it just looked drab to me, so I was personally glad I didn’t have to run it. Starting on White pass we started off downhill for about a mile or so and then began the only climb up to Red pass.

That climb was a bitch. There was snow on the ground, as we were topping out above 5,000 feet and it was cold as balls out there for the first hour or so. On the climb up to Red pass Jared left me in the dirt and I ran alone until the end of the race, 15 miles later. Once downhill on the backside of Red the entire race is a downhill or downslope. The snack tables were well placed and well stocked. The canyon was breathtaking. The requirement not to wear headphones while at first seemingly an arbitrary assholish move by management turned out to be quite nice. The canyon is so narrow at points you can hear the echo of your breath and your footsteps on the canyon walls.

This was the farthest either I or Jared had ever run. Our longest training run was 14 miles and it was rough. 18 miles went much smoother than I thought it would. When the canyon abruptly ended and we were on the final 3 miles I got my second wind. Jared was no more than 100 yards in front of me and I was flying to catch him. We ran together again for a few minutes and then I took off for the finish line. I came across the line so fast that Liz didn’t even get a picture of me doing it.

2 hours and 41 minutes after starting I was done. I felt great. Jared finished 1 minute behind me. I was 37th overall and 3rd in my age group. I am happy as hell about those results. When Gant finished at a brisk 4 hour and 10 minutes we sat around and waited for the racers to clear out the way so we could go get to the trucks that we had parked earlier, at this point I’m sure that Gant’s plan was as well thought out as my decision to enlist in the Corps.

Cut to acouple of hours later and we finally got our trucks and got out of Dodge. We went to spend the night at the Mesquite springs campground.

Here are the results.

Ubehebe crater, Teakettle Junction and the Racetrack

Sunday morning came too early, a bit too cold and with some light rain. This makes three years in a row that it’s precipitated on us in some form when visiting DV, from a snow storm on Telescope peak to snow at the Racetrack. Either way, it smelled like wet sagebrush and a new day. After another lengthy and laborious decision making process we decided to go to Scotty’s castle for the tour and then decide where to go from there after the tour.

The tour at Scotty’s castle was interesting. The castle itself was amazing and the guide did a nice job of passing along his knowledge to us. The only warning I would give is that the little deli there only takes cash, which is odd since the gift shop that shares the same building takes any kind of card.

At the Castle while Jared was trying to impress some random Rangers with his marathon exploits, without bothering them with the relatively inconsequential details like the fact that he ran the 30k, not the marathon. During this whole conversation he somehow worked some strange Palmdale desert magic and got some great information on an unpublicized canyon with the greatest collection of petroglyphs in the park.

I’m not going into details here, but we did scout the approach later that day and took a picture from afar. It’s an obscure little canyon, hardly looks like much but from what it was described as I wanted to make the hike despite the pain coming from my legs. I was outvoted and we went to Ubehebe crater and the Racetrack.

So, Ubehebe was cool. Scouted out little Hebe crater for the first time. Then after everyone got a good look at the crater and saw the location of Gant’s death defyingly dramatic descent and accompanying asinine ascent, some of us were caught napping. When everyone awoke we continued on the horrible, horrible road to the Racetrack .

Some of us climbed the grandstand , while others looked for moving rocks, and of course there was that 1% that stood around showing off medals to anyone and everyone that was looking, which I believe led us all to eventually split up. I took pictures.

Jared, Liz and I left after all that and journeyed back to a snowy Gorman. Gant and his crew stayed late into the night with raging bonfires, alcohol and hot dogs. I’m slightly jealous of them.

We are already planning a trip back to XXXXXX Canyon, in the next month or two. All in all, I loved the run and will be returning next year for it and would reccomend it to absolutely anyone, even if you don’t like running.

Album of pictures from trip

PS. I would be remiss if I did not mention the abundance of awesome that Gant produced in his Burrito Bar.

Welcome to the world, Attia.  You share your birthday with another great American.