The Family Letter

Last Tuesday I took a helo ride from Hilo over the active volcano sites, some waterfalls, and that sort of thing. It was incredible, especially since the pilot also acted as guide, giving us some facts and history to go along with what we were seeing.

We had the option of buying a DVD of the flight (the helo was equipped with cameras), so I did. And I've uploaded the video to my web site so you can all watch it too. Right now the movie is in MP4 format, and is pretty big (over 400 MB). I can't figure out if I can set it up as streaming, so what you want to do is right-click (or control-click in the Macintosh world) the link below and chose to Save As… or Download As… and then watch it after it downloads. If you click the link it will sit there in your browser until the whole movie has loaded, which will likely take 20-30 minutes. So trust me and download it. It is worth it.

Sunday's link is all about toast. Yep, toast. Ref+ can make your pancakes more exciting, but when you're ready to liven up the toast, this is the site you want to visit.

Today (Monday's) link is to a site that will help you learn science through song. It's a collection of songs about science, a perfect way to memorize facts like, oh, the sun is 93 million miles away. (Yes, that's one of the songs!)

The Flickr site now contains the last two days worth of photos, including snow and some amazing sunsets. I haven't started the weeding and labeling process though.

I know I'll be coming home today, but by the time I land and get back to the house it will be Sunday for most of my faithful readers. So I am advance-posting this one, too.

Here's what today's calendar page has to say: "Tell all your atheist friends that God not only exists, but is available 24/7 on the Internet." That should be fun.

And yes, if you were wondering, I did cheat and look ahead at each day's site before posting it last Saturday afternoon. I didn't anticipate having time to catch up later, really.

Now… If only I had a sermon…

Some of these links are getting out of hand length-wise. But at least I do all the typing for you… Have fun with this geographical challenge. And please, don't get Hawaii wrong!

Today I go horseback riding on a ranch on the north side of the island. I was hoping to do a ride in a rainforest, but this looks like fun, too. And it isn't a trail ride. They advertise rambling through the range, not nose-to-tail riding. And no, Heather, I am not packing a helmet.

Tonight is the sunset stargazing tour. I hope the weather works out for that, and I can get some amazing photos.

Speaking of which, when I get time over the week or when I get back, here's where you can find them. (The one that's there now is a placeholder I moved on Saturday because it wouldn't let me create an empty set.)

That went faster than anticipated. So here they are.

Just a reminder, they're small (640×480), some are not processed. Some aren't even worth the disk space they're taking up. Many appear to be duplicates, because in a lot of cases I shot a rapid series of photos in hopes one might be steady and clear. Some are a deliberate series, like the progression of smoke billowing or waves crashing. That takes us up to this afternoon (Thursday). More to come tomorrow and Saturday, I'm sure.

Oh, and they're also unlabeled. That's the worst part. But if you see something and wonder what it is, pop back over here and leave the photo's number in comments on this post, and I'll reply, I promise.

Next week I'll try to weed these out some more, and create a new and smaller set with higher res photos. You can also request larger res images now by number. Please consider making a donation… I'm going to have to pay for Adobe Lightroom when the trial is up somehow!