Series 4

For all you that didn't know, I passed my series 4 so I am now a registered option principal. Which means I am responsible for supervising options' exposure and the trading activities on options within client accounts. Its very exciting.

Zion National Park

Last weekend I went to Zion with my ward. It was lots of fun, I don't have a lot of stories about it but I do have some pictures that I will add as I am typing and try to comment on them as I go. I was planning on hiking the Narrows on this trip but I figured it wouldn't be a good idea since I had missed a week and a half of work because I had a bad reaction to some medication that my doctor put me on. Anyway, I went on two shorter hikes instead. The first was Emerald Pools, I was glad to not be hiking alone, my friend Marshall had hurt his foot so he came with me and Kathy, Stephanie (note the alternate spelling or this trip could become confusing really fast), and Mary Ann went on the short hike, while most everyone else went for the Narrows. So the picture that should be to the left is Marshall, Stephanie, Kathy, and May Ann. I am taking this one so I am not in it. The next one is of Marshall and me. I am scrunching down a lot since Marshall is about 5 inches shorter than me, but we're excited to go hiking.

The trail led us under a very cool waterfall so these are my best pictures that I took there. I love taking pictures and I'm excited that my camera will up load now so that I can share with my vast audience.

Marshall always takes a journal with him every where so he can write his thoughts and about the people he meets. We had just met a family from Illinois, the Dad's name was Ried I don't remember the mom or son's name, but we kept meeting up with them on the trail so we were pretty good friends by the end of the day.

The pools were not as cool as I thought they should have been and the Algae that was supposed to make them emeral was missing, but there were a lot of other awesome things to see. The red rock against the blue sky was amazing! And the squirrels would come right up to you. One of them stole an apple.

This is the view from the top, Marshall was good to be the subject of my picture, it's not great but it documents the top... probably should have taken a picture of myself here but I guess there is always next time.

And this one is just to mess with my mom, I'd say "I'm not that close to the edge..." but Marshall would say that's a lie, so... I'm pretty close to the edge. But the shot needed perspective, otherwise it would just be a nature shot with no subject and you know how I feel about that.

The sign was just too ironic to pass up.

Alright here are the next day hike pictures, we hiked Angel's Landing, it's about 5 miles round trip, but its pretty steep, I definately need to do this one again when I am feeling better, because I was just miserable by this point of the trip and I still had to drive home.

This is a view looking up at the first set of switch backs... if you are wondering if there are pictures of the second set... no.

This is a view from the top of the first switchback, at this point the hike moves into a sort of canyon going to the north side of Angel's Landing so you can hike to the summit.

I keep trying this shot, I just really like this erosion pattern in the sandstone, it's never as cool in picture as it is in real life.

I also like pictures that I can title, "me on a rock"

And this is my artistic picture for the hike, its Kathy in a rock with a very long aperture and both of us are moving. I just really like how it turned out.

So the one drama story to tell for this trip comes after this hike. I need to back up momentarily and say I drove down to Zion and my car pool buddies were Kathy, Stephanie and Kristen. Now keep in mind that I have not felt well for a couple weeks, my allergies were all flared up (I blame the sage brush), like allergy shiners bad, and I'm on my 3rd round with my fast acting inhaler for the day. Kathy's back yard flooded a couple days before and she was needing to get back to take care of some sod that was coming that day. Stephanie, Kathy and I are the first to get down but Kristen wanted to get to the summit, which is fine, that puts her about 40 minutes behind us. But really we were ready to go. We watched the rest of our group come down, I had arranged to Caravan back with Marshall and his car but we had to wait for Kristen... and she still wasn't down the mountain. Well, Marshall was overridden, and his car had to leave... people were still coming down the mountain and leaving... one of the last people down was Sam, and talking to him he didnt' drive but he figured he could get the driver of his car to wait for us down at the visitors center. After waiting for Kristen for 2 1/2 hours, we're ready to send out a search party and barring her death we were pretty ticked at that point. Kristen saunters down the mountain and informs us that after she goes to the rest room we can go. I told her we were getting on the next shuttle with or with out her. She made it back in time, but no one is talking to her, and we were the last ones out of the canyon, I'm still not feeling great, and I'm thinking that I am the last car to leave with a bunch of girls and somehow I have to get home.

Luckily that wasn't the case, Sam came through for me and got Nicole (the driver of his car) to wait for us. Initially she started leading but after missing 3 out of 3 turns between Zion and Cedar City she lost the right to lead. Also in Cedar City, we voted Kristen out of the car... we didn't tell her that but in actuality that's what happened and swapped her for Sam who was pretty fed up with his car full of estrogen and happy to switch over to a new car full of estrogen. So he kept me company, I kept losing Nicole on the interstate, which shouldn't have happened as I was using cruise control and staying in the same lane... but what can you do? I was just happy when I wasn't being tailgated.

Oh, and I'm totally crushing on Sam. Sorry I don't have a picture.

Road Trip

Ok so I have been on a couple trips in the past few months, but I lost the usb port to my camera. So I now have a new connection to my computer so here's my update.

Over memorial day my room mate Jodi and I drove to San Francisco, but I have always been told that if I am going to bother going to San Francisco I should drive the coastal highway, and if I am going to drive on the coastal highway I have to come from the north. So clearly with all the information there is no point in going to San Francisco if you're not coming at it from Oregon.

On this Premise, Jodi and I drove to Oregon, which is a state I have only every driven through... I think... its possible that this was my very first trip to the state. Important things I saw here include the northern extent of the Great Basin, and some boats. I did not see any volcanoes though I did stop in the cascades and try. It was foggy I have pictures of me in front of Mt. Washington and you can't see a damn thing. Don't worry those pictures will be attached at some point but as is evidenced by my previous attempts the pictures show up where ever they want to.

So we drove from Utah to Eugene Oregon in a day, that is a freaking long drive especially since we were in the middle of no where and realized we were running low on gas and had to turn around and drive the wrong direction for a 1/2 hour so we could make it to the hotel, where we slept for about 5 hours.

The second day was even longer, we drove from Eugene to San Francisco. On the way I saw a light house and some big ass trees. I tried to hug one and got a face full of an attacking spider instead, they seriously need to do some bug control in those forests! you don't know where they've been! We almost hit a deer in Muir Woods, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge around midnight, got in a wreck in downtown San Francisco around 2:00 am, and made it to the hotel by 3:00.

The third day we didn't drive any where, but I did see Pier 39, Alcatraz (from a distance) and got up close and personal with some sea lions and the Bay Bridge. Oh, and I also ate sour dough which was really good with the soup I was eating at the time. So it was a successful day.

Day four we drove home, and that felt like the longest day because after week took a picture at Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevadas we just wanted to get home and Nevada is just ugly, its like we would drive for hours and hadn't gone anywhere. The only place worse was once we crossed the state line and realized we hit the salt flats. So maybe Nevada isn't the ugliest place ever.

It was a good time, nothing like a whirl wind trip to cross one of those items on the "100 things to do before you die" list. Enjoy the pictures.