Friday, July 15, 2011

Bastille Day Fireworks in Paris

We spent a couple of weeks in France, starting with Bastille Day, July 14th, in Paris. French national pride is incredibly evident in the day's activities. The start is a parade down the Champs Elysee displaying France's military, police and firefighter prowess. Very impressive and well done. Even some art with an ending ballet involving firefighters and ladders. The evening was a not to be missed display of fireworks with the Eiffel tower as background. I was all set to take some photographs of the event, but was tough to get an unimpeded view with over a million people at the event. Got a few good shots but with a building and a tree in my way. To see more, check out the set on my Flickr. Anyway, if you get a chance to be in Paris on Bastille day, don't miss the celebration. Its fantastic.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Have and Have Not

Call this a rant. The future of media is digital online access. It's already here in many ways. Newspapers are largely online today as the print versions have declined in advertising revenue. Check out the NYT. It is much more accessible online and frankly, a better experience if you have the right environment. The right environment has two factors. The device you use to access media and the bandwidth available. Both if these factors are highly dependent on the type of media you want to access and the viewing occasion. Back to my NYT example. If I want to read the morning news, any device will work; PC, laptop, tablet, or phone. The tablet is probably the most preferred today. Also, just about any bandwidth will work. Free wifi at the coffee shop, OTA 3G access all do just fine for reading the news. Now lets go to the other extreme. I want to watch a streaming video over Netflix with my family. So now, my preferred device is my home TV. No problem. I have bought enough devices that allow for that. I have an Xbox that streams Netflix through my home theater system. I have a TIVO that will do the same. Now what about bandwidth? Well, if you live in the Bay area, or probably any major city, no problem. I get 15-20 mb here which will deliver an HD experience quickly. Now, lets try the same thing at our vacation home in Chester Ca. I am provisioned there at a max bandwidth of 1.34mb, which means I get about 1mb on average. Try streaming media at that rate. Forget it. You are better off getting a DVD. One of two things has to happen to make streaming in places like Chester happen. One is better bandwidth. My guess is a minimum of 3mb is really what is needed. Don't make me wait for the service providers to add bandwidth. That is pure economics and probably not like to happen in Chester for quite awhile. Or the software and device people have to come up with better or smarter buffering methods. Really, my Xbox has 250gb of drive space. I'll keep trying things to make it work better, but so far its very frustrating to consume digital media in a place like Chester.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Yellow Creek Trout

Yellow Creek Trout by dlnwelch
Yellow Creek Trout, a photo by dlnwelch on Flickr.
I have always wanted to fish Yellow Creek. It is a small spring creek in the beautiful Humbug valley in Plumas County. Yellow Creek is a renowned fly fishing stream restored by CalTrout 10 or so years ago. It is notoriously difficult to fish as it is small, crystal clear, and the fish are wary. I caught this little guy, a 5 in brook trout on a #18 e/c caddis. I know you are thinking, wow, that is a really small fish. It is typical for what is caught there. Didn't have a whole lot of time to fish, but definitely whetted my appetite for another trip.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Baby Robin

Baby Robin by dlnwelch
Baby Robin, a photo by dlnwelch on Flickr.
It's been about a week now since we discovered baby robins in a nest at our house in Lake Almanor. The nest was built when we were not here in a spot way too obvious. It is in a evergreen bush right next to the walk in to the front door. The nest is at eye height. I have been like a nervous parent monitoring their progress on a daily basis, and trying not to interrupt the visits from Mom with food for her chicks. There are now two as one didn't make it and was removed from the nest, assuming by the Mom. I hear them peeping every morning at around daybreak. It is a reassuring sign that all is well. I am hoping that Mom will take good care of them and they will be out of their nest and on their own soon.

Ouch

DSCN0404.jpg by dlnwelch
DSCN0404.jpg, a photo by dlnwelch on Flickr.
Lydia and I were driving to Reno for a day of "shopping" at Cabelas. We didn't get very far as a deer decided to run in front of our car on rte 36 just outside Westwood. He was a good size. I counted 4 points on the antlers, which were still covered with fuzz. We were traveling at about 60mph in our Sequoia. I literally had no time to react other than grip the wheel and prepare for the impact. We hit him square on with a thud. He disappeared off to the right side and into the woods. No idea what kind of shape he was in, but obviously still moving. We made it up the road about a mile to a gas station to inspect the damage. Bad. Besides the broken bumper, lights, etc. the radiator was leaking fluid on to the ground in a slow steady stream. Parked the car in the shade and called AAA. Lake Almanor towing showed up in about an hr and were very courteous and helpful. The car is at their yard in Chester and I will arrange to get it towed to a body shop near home in Los Gatos. All in all, we were very lucky. Hitting a big deer like that at the speed we were going could have been much more serious. We are fine and that's what counts.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Lake Almanor Fishing

P7010077.jpg by dlnwelch
P7010077.jpg, a photo by dlnwelch on Flickr.

The first segment of my sabbatical is being spent at our place in Lake Almanor. My friend Monte came up with his boat and we tried our luck trolling for trout in the lake. It was slower than expected, but we managed to catch a couple of good size fish. Monte has a cool new boat, outfitted to the gills with trolling gear. Lots of fun just learning to use all the downriggers and electronics. Fish were definitely not in their summer patterns yet. Much more scattered and shallow in the lake.

Monte and I both used to work for HP. We remembered a discussion once from Dave Packard re fishing. He said that you only get so many days on this earth, but days spent fishing don't count in the final tally. Words to live by.

Via Flickr:
Monte with 17+in rainbow trout