Deer kissing

I guess everyone needs a kiss from time to time.

He's trying to think of something to say to her..

"What lovely ears you have my deer,.. They're so soft and fluffy.." he says,. "Is that musk you're wearing?" she askes as she moistens her lips..


And then they kiss..

The last ski race

My friend Reinhard who is a really good ski racer, talked me into doing a giant slalom this weekend at Lookout. Well sort of... I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't as he had a flu and cough due to cold. We had to get up very early to travel and get there on time to register for the race. In a Giant Slalom there there are two runs and the lowest combined time wins.

Looking up the course from the bottom. The snow was frozen solid and perfect for racing.

Looking down from the top of the course. It's steeper than it looks even though this one is easier than usual.

That's Reinhard off in the distance in the blue. They are checking the timing and getting ready for the race.

I won my catagory and got the "gold" medal. There were only two people in my catagory and the other guy was a better skier, but he fell in the first run and had to hike back up to the gate where he fell. He coudln't make up that time in the second run so I won.. (I don't think it's really gold,..) but I'll take it!

That will be the end of my ski racing this year. A nice way to go out on. Still a few days of free skiing left.

Idaho skiing pictures

Had another ski day in north Idaho today. Got to get them in while I they are still running the lifts. It was pretty nice out, cold air and warm sun above the clouds. Perfect for cruising.

This is what I looked like riding the lift. I know,.. I've taken this shot before but I can't help it... Those Atomic race skis are really fun for me to cruise on, and I might be racing this weekend, if I can get out of bed early enough...

These people are dropping down into the backside bowl. It's really steep down there, but you can't really tell in this picture. They are good skiers to go down in there.

Skiing pictures

Another beautiful day in the mountains. The wet heavy snow of yesterday gave way to soft fluffy snow today. Here are some Cyber Trees from today. I had to crop it in a little to give it that Sunday go to church feeling... I'm really going to miss ski season when it ends..

This person stuck their arm out at just the right time! :) I almost didn't take my camera with me after lunch. I realized I didn't have it and walked back to the car to get it. There's always something to take a picture of, I thought as I walked back to the car in the mud. And I NEVER go anywhere without my camera.. I don't even go to Walmart without my camera..

Shark attack of skiing

When you go surfing you have to watch out for shark attacks. But when you go skiing it's much worse. Wild turkey attacks are on the rise. And they single out people in Hyundais. If you drive a Hyundai, try to make it look like you're drving a Honda. The wild turkey has spotted me and is charging!

He's singled me out.. They get in front of your Hyundai and won't let you go. "Whatcha gonna do don!" The wild turkey taunts me... He wants my bird feed, credit cards and cell phone... If this happens, lock the doors and roll up the windows. Whatever you do, don't get out!

He has me right where he wants me!

The last thing you see before they peck is that eye...

Wild Turkey

What's that song?...

Wild wild turkeys,
Couldn't drag me away..

But this one tried to pick a fight with my Hyundai. I really need to get a bigger car... But it was me he really wanted.. He got in front of my car and wasn't about to let me leave. I honked and he just gobbeled back at me. I tried to get away once and he chased me down. I was afraid I'd run over him and really be the bad guy. I finally had to get out and shoo him away and he still chased me as I drove away.

I was attacked by an EVIL GROUSE back in 2008. That was bad enough, and now this..

I'm just not in harmony with nature, that's all.. This is a bad sign anyway. You know it's gotten pretty bad when even the turkeys are against you.

Skiing in the sunshine

Today was a nice day to be skiing in the mountains. Not many people and the snow was great. All of the people were happy. Well I didn't run into any unhappy ones anyway..

Here's a don's eye view picture I took of my shadow while I was skiing. I fell and hurt my arm last week so I told the doctor to just remove it. (I'm kidding,..) It looks like I'm skiing with one arm missing but I'm holding the camera.

Squirrel

This squirrel checked me out yesterday as I made my way through its forest home. We were both enjoying the morning sunshine. The forest is starting to come alive due to a short warm winter.

Wild Horse Island picture

On the subject of trees,..I was looking at my cyber tree photos and started to miss Montana and Wild Horse Island. I took this picture two years ago from a boat trip to Wild Horse Island. I've been going there my whole life and I still go there every chance I get. My gosh.. How my life is slipping away from me. I remember composing this shot like it was yesterday. I pretty much remember my exact footsteps. I kept moving around to get a nice shot as the sun went down. I remember how into it I was.

Trees in the fog

Here's a picture I took skiing down into the fog. Eventually the fog burned off and it was nice and sunny on the mountain.

***
One time I was talking to my grandfather. He was a ranger for the Forest Service. He was telling me about going in and out of the fog on a mountain. I can't really remember exactly what he said, but I always think about him when I go in and out of the fog like this.

I think that's a Grand Fir tree in the middle there. The pointy one on the right is an Alpine Fir. The bare one in the distance farther to the right is a Tamarack.

Waiting to ski race

Anyone who has ever ski raced knows that there is a lot of waiting around for a minute or so of extreme excitement when it's finally your turn to go. This lady waits for the the race to get underway as does the guy in the distance.

Harmony Rocket

I took a picture of my Harmony Rocket today as it was in the sunshine. Probably not the best for it. It's an H53 1 pickup probably made between 1959 and 1962. I found it in a good will type store and got it for $12 if I remember. The bridge and pickup were missing. I bought a bridge but still need the pickup. I don't know what else to say about it other than I like having it around.

Skiing and the Olympics

Sorry I've been so abscent lately. I've been skiing and of course watching the Olympics. (our US coverage of the Olympics is really lame BTW.) I thought this year it would be different but actually it still sucks. More about this later..

When I got on the mountain today I rode the bunny hill chair as usual to get to the other chairs. The ski school instructor hooked me up with a four year old girl to ride the chair with. I enjoy riding the chair with these little kids but I don't like the responsibility. There's no restraints on the chair so I put my poles infront of her and hung onto her hood/ coat from behind. Heaven forbid that a little four year old fall off of my chair... This girl was a little wiggle worm too. She was a talker too. We talked about the weather, cats dogs and also rabbits. She asked me if I had a rabbit. :) Well yes I do actually!.. How I wish I had a little kid of my own..

Here's a picture of me at the top of the ski hill taken by my friend Reinhard. He rocks a Nikon like I do.. He was rocking my Nikon in this pic actually.. He got the exposure exactly right, and that isn't easy when it's so bright out like it was today. I like this picture. You'd never know I weight almost 200 lbs.. :)

click on picture to see bigger..

And here's a good photography tip.. Make sure the horizon is level. I don't know how many people screw this up.. I see a lot of good photographers get this wrong. Honestly,..If you do nothing else in your pictures,. get the horizon level. It isn't that easy to do actually but that's why they call it the horizon,.. it's horizontal. Some cameras have lines you can impose on the screen if you don't have a good feel for it.

Some rules are good. :)

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

Winter Olympic tickets

Let the games begin!,.. without me.. Well it's a long story, but I won a company vacation last year. It was money towards a vacation. So I thought I'd go to the winter olympics and watch a few ski races as it's so close to Washington State. But my winter olympic dream was soon put on ice.

I pre-registered with co-sport, and then waited and waited for months for tickets to become available to people in the states. When they did I was on the ready. I soon had two good ski racing tickets in my computer shopping cart. Women's combined and one men's race, I want to say it was GS but I can't remember now. While I had those tickets and before I checked out, I went on another computer to see about lodging. It soon became obvious that I couldn't afford lodging. What was available was totally out of reach for me even with the extra trip money I'd won. They weren't releasing hotels anywhere. What you could get was like $600 a night with 3 and 5 night minimums, and also a big lodging tax added on, not to mention I'd have to travel there and eat.

So I decided to forget going to the olympics and just go skiing instead. I'm still a little bitter about that. I guess the Olympics aren't for guys like me. I guess they've postponed the women's combined now do to rain and fog. So I wouldn't have gotten to see it anyway. I always knew that was a possiblilty.

I guess I'll be skiing in the fog myself this weekend,. Outside of the bubble..

Snowboarder picture

It was such a nice weekend for skiing and um,. in this case riding. Of course that's what snowboarders do, they ride. As a life long skier I have no problem with snowboarders. (even though one of them did paste out Samantha one time) The more I'm around them the more I like them. Some of the cutest girls on the mountain are snowboarders. I might even try it myself one day.

But only for one day... :)

Superbowl Sunday is one of the best days in the year to ski... and ride.. You heard it hear first.
(click on the picture to see it big.. go big!)

May peace prevail on earth

In fairness, here's another bumper sticker from North Idaho. I can't say for sure but I would suspect that this car belongs to an evil "liberal". Someone who would be P_'d off if you bought a gun.

Buy a gun

Easterm Washington and North Idaho is a beautiul place to live, but there are a lot small minded people who live here. The odd thing is that the people who grew up here don't think anything of it. They think it's just normal or just blow it off, but I find it really disgusting and shameful.

This is the sort of person who is likely to go to his or her work place and shoot former co-workers.. after getting fired for being such a creep.

Hate crimes are on the rise here and there's little wonder why.

Ski bum

I've been skiing a lot lately so I've gone back through some recent pictures and decided I should post one. I get used to this view looking east with Montana off in the distance.

(click on the picture to get the don's eye view)

Skiing is getting so expensive that it's kind of hard to be a ski bum anymore. That's kind of sad. I'd like to just drop out of everything and be a ski bum but I can't afford to..

Hm,.. I never thought I woudln't be able to afford to be a bum.

What kind of salad dressing do you like?

"What kind of salad dressing do you like?" I asked a woman I met online, "if that isn't to personal.." I added. "What kind of salad dressing do you like in men?.. I'm attracted to women who like Italian salad dressing for instance.. but a woman who likes roquefort,.. Well that's totally hot!"

I told her I might use this line on my blog. Her computer isn't working so I thought I'd sneak it in.

US Figure Skating Championship photos

I went to Ice Dancing at the US Figure Skating Championships today. This time I took a better camera. It's still a difficult thing to take pictures of. The ice is bright and yet you have to use high ISO speeds and fast shutter speeds and they don't want you to use flash, not that it woudln't help anyway. You need a lens that gathers a lot of light wich I don't have so the pictures turn out noisy but they tell my story. Anway I loved this girls hair.

Here they are dancing. They ended up 2nd in Juniors.

There was one couple who were dressed up like Holocaust inmates or perhaps Jews during the Nazi occupation. I just finished a book written by a woman my mom knows who is a Holocaust surviver of Dachau. She was living in Kiev Ukraine as an 8 year old when the Nazis invaded. She and her mom were deported to a camp in Poland and then on to Dachau where she barely survived. The book was both heartbreaking and heartwarming. These outfits seemed a little odd to me in this context having just read that book, but this pair was really good. They danced to the theme from Schindler's List.

Here is one final spin to end this post with. If you ever get a chance to see figure skating in person don't pass up the chance. It's really worth it.

Dog photo contest

So we've entered this picture of Jake the dog (my header dog) in a dog photo contest at Jake's master's bank. You could win dog treats and stuff. I've taken a lot of pictures, but I've never entered any in a photo contest.. So how cool would it be if the first "contest" I enter a photo in wins dog treats!.. :) That would be perfect for my resume...

Well ok,.. it's not exactly a very high level photo contest, but you gotta start somewhere right?.. And if I don't win anything, I can say, I entered a dog picture in a bank dog photo contest and didn't win anything. And that's almost as good as winning dog treats!

US Figure Skating Championships

I got tickets again to the US Figure Skating Championships through our company which treated us. It's really great. Today I saw the pairs short program and tomorrow I'm going to see the Pairs Final. I like the pairs because you get to see both men and women, and I like seeing those lifts and throws.

It was hard for me to get good results with the little camera, so I might take my regular camera tomorrow. Anyway it it's great to watch. I think just about anyone would enjoy it. There are still tickets left so if you are near Spokane you should take it in.

That doggie in the window

Notice the doggie in the window. Good boy.. Good boy.. He's a good ski dog...

Rocking out

I took the day off today and went skiing. I called in to my dentist and had them move up my cleaning a day to Wednesday as I knew Thursday was going to be a clear, calm and sunny.

It was the best day skiing for me this year as the snow is now deep enough, groomed and no crowds so I could go as fast as I wanted all day with nobody in the way. All of my other days so far have been snow, fog, and you name it. But today was perfect. I'm really getting back in the groove again now and feeling the center of the skis. I was rocking out with my new MP3 player.

Click on the picture to see it bigger.

Spaces

Where am I today I wish that I knew,
Cause looking around there's no sign of you.
I don't remember one jump or one leap,
Just quiet steps away from your lead.

Nickel Creek, Reasons Why

So now it works!

Ice fishing

Who says ice fishing isn't a form of self-expression like fly fishing?.. This guy reminds me of a conductor I once had in orchestra, and that's pretty much the same view I had from the back of the second violin section too.

I think it takes a special person to really get into ice fishing. My dad used to be into it and would drag me out of a warm bed in the morning and in the winter to stand out on a frozen lake. I always froze to death.

And what did he do with the fish we caught?.. He froze them..

***
On the subject of self-expression, blogger isn't letting me make this text look the way I want (like I used to be able to.) It's adding spaces where I don't want and I can't seem to remove them. That really sucks for song lyrics.. I'm sure it's me not understanding the code, but as a result I just won't write what I want.

It reminds me of how bad Word got. If I don't put in a space, then I don't want a space. When it comes to text, I just want it to look like how I type it. Is that too much to ask?

I'm surprised they're letting me use more than one period.... I'm ranting.... I'm really not crazy about rant blogs. Honestly. I don't want to be that blogger.

outside of the bubble

What do you want for Christmas?.. You don't have to get me anything mom, I already have everything I want.. Well if you don't tell me something soon you'll get something you don't want. Well alright then,. get me an MP3 player. What does it do? she asked. Well it records music and stuff.

It also trys to record all of my pictures every time I copy music to it despite my efforts to turn that feature off. That's really a pain. I'd be happy to have one that didn't bother with pictures, or at least let you turn it off. What am I going to do with a thing like this that has my pictures on it?

Welcome to the modern world, a co-worker said..

the Stockmans Bar

The Stockmans Bar in Missoula Montana. Licquor up front, and Poker in the rear. That's a little crude for bicyclelog, but some things just rise above.

Bitterroot Valley picture

A picture from the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. A little peace on Earth I guess you could say.

Flathead River picture

I've added this picture of the Flathead River in Montana and a couple of others I like to my Favorite Photos link on the side bar as well as removing others. I think it works better now as a group. Click on the picture to see bigger.

I've been wanting to do some house keeping on my side bar. I'm reading blogs that I'm not listing and blogs are listed that aren't active that I can't bring myself to remove, not that anyone uses those links but they do look at the pictures so I'm going to focus on that. I'm still going to list blogs I read. It's just helpful.

I would like to get things sorted out. I don't want my blog to end up like my basement.. a bunch of stuff that nobody uses.

The rabbit lives

I thought someone might have done in the rabbit but it looks like it lives. I found its tracks in the snow this morning.

Clark Fork River rocks

Last week I stopped and wandered along the Clark Fork River in western montana looking for rocks and taking pictures. I was looking for that one special rock that I needed for my project. Click on the photo if you really want to rock out man!

It was misty, quiet and kind of eerie along the river that morning. I parked my car at a fishing access and started to roam along the river taking pictures and looking for rocks. I went through a muddy section and and saw some cat tracks. It wasn't a bobcat or anything like that due to the size and the stride. It was a mountain lion/ cougar. A mountain cat. I've seen a lot of cougar tracks in this area along the river and saw one run across the road infront of my car not too far from here. My mom saw a great big one as did one of my friends. The one my mom saw sounded like it was really big from what she described. The one I saw was medium sized.

Anyway it put me on edge a little while I was out of the car. I don't mind bears so much. They are kind of la de da about things, but not moutain lions. If they take an interest in you they don't just let it go. These weren't the biggest cat tracks I've seen but they were big enough.

Gift exchange ideas

Today on bicycle log we are going to talk about eyes and eyewear... Hm, that sounds pretty official.

Anyway. We have have this gift exchange at work. and we each draw a name out of a bowl. They are typed on a piece of paper and then cut apart. You reach into the bowl and pick one out. I really hate stuff like this, but I go along with it. You can opt out but then there you are with no gift, and everyone is looking at you like what's up with you scrooge? So it's easier just to go along with it, and pretend you like your gift and this sort of thing. Sometimes I actually do like my gift. There's a $10. limit but I always go over that. I mean, what can you really get for $10 these days?

So anyway I put my hand in the bowl and got my name of a person to buy a gift for. It was the same person I had last year, so I got to draw again. Heaven forbid you get a person you aren't getting along with or can't stand, or something like that. But I know a way out of that,. just say you got that person last year... On my second draw I got one of the women as there are lots of them where I work. So I decided to get this gal some cheap sunglasses. I've done that before when I drew a male co-worker who ended up getting them ripped off when he left the company truck running and someone took the sunglasses (along with the truck), but that's a whole different story. We got the truck back, but they kept the sunglasses.

Ok,. So instead of me actually going out and buying sun glasses, I decided to ask another female co-worker who is 21 years old and always has cool shades, to go and do my shopping for me as I knew she'd come up with the goods. Plus I woudln't have to shop. Those are the sunglasses in the picture above. She got them at Target and I think they are really cool! I wouldn't mind keeping them just because I like cool things. Not that I'd wear them or anythign like that... I'm not a cross-glasser if that's what you're thinking.

Now the eye part of the post. Today I went to the eye doctor. I need new glasses. Plus I wanted to make sure my eyes are ok which they are. I tend to use them so I thought it would be a good idea.

So the first girl takes me into the test room and does a bunch of tests on me with the equipment. Then I go into the exam room and wait for the eye doctor to come in. While I'm sitting in there waiting I look at the computer screen with my profile on it, and there's a section called "Patient Disposition" or something like that and it says I'm "pleasant and sociable". I'm like, What?! What does this have to do with my eyes?.. What if it said something like "insane sociopath" or even "angry old man"..? I mean I'm sitting there and they've got to know I can read it.. Or maybe they think I can't read it because my eyes are so bad?..

Anway the eye doctor came in and she was into cycling so we ended up talking about trainers and cold weather cycling. So that was cool. Now my profile will probably say something like "know it all"..

My eyes are fine by the way,.. except that I can't see anything without glasses.

Clear and cold

I came across this picture that I took last year so I thought I'd post it again. The weather has been much the same lately. Clear and cold, except the moon has been full. I live off to the left of this shot in the distance. I can hear the train that goes on these tracks at night.

There isn't really enough snow to ski yet even though they have it open. I'm more than ready for my first turns. It's been snowing so perhaps I'll be on my skis soon.