I tried to make it through Green Hills of Africa but just couldn’t get interested so this book was suggested to me by a good friend and so I gave Hemingway another shot. I was glad I did and ended up loving this book. It was slow for me at first but I don’t think I understood how he writes until much later into the book and now I really like his style.

While I read I envisioned a world in the past that can never be again. Such elegant destinations that I can only assume have long been overrun by the hordes of travelers since. It only makes sense that with so many tourists in every nook and cranny many or all of the places mentioned in the book are now spoiled. But maybe this is a pessimistic view and I should actually visit Paris or Pamplona.

I do have a relative that is from Madrid, who has told me many things about her home but I don’t think I ever understood the romantic view of the country until reading this book. I may even try reading another Hemingway.

A couple of us from work decided to take off for Moab late Saturday afternoon. We took a co-worker who was here visiting from India and I think he really liked it.

We got to a camp spot late in the evening, had a fire and some great conversation then got up early and headed around to show off our desert to Praneeth. We didn’t have much time but covered a lot of ground anyway. We drove up the river road to Castle Dale, then did Arches and Dead Horse Point on the way out. We also went into town a couple times for coffee and what not.

Overall I think it was a fantastic trip and it was really great to show Moab to someone who has never seen it!

Okay, so I have had to do this about ten times now and every time I have had to go look this up so I figure I’ll just add it here so I can at least know where to look it up.

While working on some rest services

You can list what is in your current keystore using the keytool and the -list option.

C:\jdk1.6.0_17\jre\lib\security>keytool list -keystore cacerts

Here is a summary of all the other stuff you can do with -list
-list {-alias alias} {-storetype storetype} {-keystore keystore} [-storepass storepass] {-providerName provider_name} {-providerClass provider_class_name {-providerArg provider_arg}} {-v | -rfc} {-protected} {-Jjavaoption}

Export the certificate
Using a web browser (I used Firefox) you want to export the certificate as a .cer file.

Import the servers certificate
keytool -importcert -alias abc -file ABCCA.cer

More information can be found here: Sun Help

Last weekend Levi jr and myself decided to take a trip to Moab. It ended up being a great weekend with the weather pretty much perfect, warm but not too warm and not too cold at night.

We did the hike to Delicate arch, which is about six miles round trip I think, then a couple other small hikes. Including one that led us past several old mines. One of which was still in use? At least it had some modern attachments near the entrance. Or maybe a meth lab… yikes. Anyway we saw some cool stuff and had a great trip.

I’m hoping to get back soon but with homework duties overflowing for Ang and Levi Jr, it looks like I will have to go alone if I want to go again this weekend.

On my way to get some coffee on Friday before work the radio was tuned in to KRCL and heard some pretty cool music. I was only half way awake as I had been stuck at work the night before and wasn’t really paying attention cause they were talking, not playing music, which I hate. Anyway, after a minute or two the interviewer asked the women being interviewed to perform a song.

It only took a second or two before I was mesmerized. This artist was playing cello while singing and it was really good. Not your standard cello but it was all funky and mixed up. Her voice was cool too, I guess she doesn’t consider herself a song writer at all but you can tell she has quite a bit of classical music theory under her belt. Anyway after she finished she said she was playing in SLC Friday and Saturday so I figured I would surpise Ang and go out to see her on Saturday.

I couldn’t remember where or when she was playing, again I was half asleep, but I did remember her name. So I got on her wordpress site and left her a message hoping I would hear back before the show. Well sure enough, she was cool enough to send me an email about the show and off we went. It was a great night, we stopped at the Bayou and had some expensive beer and food then sat through a wonderful show.

I don’t really know how to explain her performance but I can tell you I was really blown away. I was very interesting with all sorts of different sounds and techniques, a lot seemed pretty experimental to me. Being a huge Bjork fan, she really reminded me a lot of her, especially how she would compose some of her songs from sounds we are not at all used to, like slamming her cello with her hand as hard as she could or dragging a needle across a record by hand, all the while carefully crafting her song on the fly using loops. Way cool stuff.

To my delight she finished her encore by covering a Bjork song! If you get a chance check her out, she is from Salt Lake but lives full time in NYC now. I’m sure she will be back and I would recommend the show if you can make it.

Angela and I decided to get up on Saturday morning before sunrise and go drive around a bit. We grabbed our cameras in case the sunrise was good or whatever but with the clouds and storms blowing in we never really saw the sun. Instead we got some great shots of the storms coming across the valley. This particular picture is looking back into Utah County from Cedar Fort.

I just finished reading this book last weekend and was really impressed. I actually bought this book over a year ago but it has just been sitting there. So I dusted it off and gave it a read. I think when I tried to read it the first time I just didn’t know enough to get through it but this time it made more sense. Although, it really makes me realize how much I don’t know, the photos in this book are really amazing.

In general I thought the book was excellent and the author Tim Fitzharris obviously knows what he is doing. The book had several sections with a great tips you would only know from doing it professionally for many years and the photos had details about how and what they where shot. One negative was the equipment he uses is way out of my league, which makes me wonder if a person can create images on that level or even close with lesser gear. We’ll see.

Another thing that was really cool about this book is the locations of many of the photos are really close to where I live so going out and trying to replicate some of these scenes will be really cool. Just for fun I marked the locations of the photos in the book using Google maps. You can check it out here.

Ken invited us down to Moab this weekend for some campfire and hiking. Ang had tons of homework to do and said she would rather stay home and hang with the pups so Levi jr. and myself headed out early Saturday morning. The drive was easy with only a small amount traffic and soon enough we were pulling in to Moab. As we drove down the main street I realized Levi jr had never been there before. I was shocked an a little ashamed that my own son had never been to one of my favorite spots on earth. I think he was pretty impressed with the area though and I’m sure we will be heading back soon.

We met up with Ken and Cooper and almost immediately took off on a hike. Kens friend Rick has a place just outside of town we stayed at and is located almost right at a major trail-head. Anyway, we hiked for a couple of hours then had some dinner over a campfire and went to bed. I forgot the tent poles so Levi and I decided to just sleep in the Scion, what a mistake. That thing is just to small to sleep in, ever. I woke up in the morning and felt like I had been in a kick fight for six hours.

Wanting to get some pictures and explore a bit me and Levi jr. headed up river a few miles and got some good shots. Then headed back into town for some food and coffee. After that we met up with the rest of the crew and took off for Arches. It was great fun, not too many people and not too hot we easily hiked out to Landscape Arch. We wanted to keep going but ran out of time and headed home in the early afternoon.

One really simple thing we have done this last year is to stop using so many plastic bags. I used to notice on an average trip to the store we would sometimes have thirty or forty bags sitting on the counter after putting everything away. This always seemed like such a waste considering it takes quite a bit of energy to make a plastic bag and them a lot more to get rid of it after.

I didn’t realize we used that many plastic bags until we stopped using them. We use plastic bags for almost everything. At the grocery store we have some need to wrap each kind of fruit and vegetable in a separate plastic bag, some people double wrap them. If you buy bulk items, deli items, any kind of meat, you probably put them all in plastic bags. Then finally everything gets put into even more plastic bags at the checkout. Then since the bags are so thin the store clerk will use more than one with just a couple items in each one.

Do we need so many? I don’t think so. An easy to solution to this is to buy about ten re-usable bags and take them to the store instead. They last a long time and many stored will give you money back for each one they use. For the items purchased in the store, just put them in the cart instead of a bag first. After getting rid of the impulse to put everything in a bag, it’s really easy to see things like apples and oranges are already wrapped

It’s weird at first but just put it in the cart, even if it’s a little wet. I remember feeling kind of strange doing this but I promise no one will care. This will save hundreds of bags every year from ending up in the landfill, or blowing around wherever.

Every once in a while we will forget to take our re-usable bags to the store, which is fine because we get the paper ones and use them in our kitchen trash as a liner bag. This eliminates our need for trash bags as well. Wow, really? We don’t need to wrap our plastic trash with more plastic? Nope, another big waste. Besides, our trash can lasts a month now since we started recycling. Sandwich bags, just use wax paper. Plastic wrap, don’t need it. Plastic water bottles, tons of trash and bad for you too. Now, don’t get me wrong. Plastic is very handy and I don’t think we can totally eliminate it but I just don’t really like the needless waste.

Also if you end up with a little plastic that is headed for the trash, recycle it instead! You can drop it off in Orem at Dunn recycling on Geneva road between 8th north and 4th north. You just pull up and they will tell you what pile to throw it in. It’s free and will make you feel like you’re a real hippie.

Years ago we went over to a friends house for a barbecue and noticed their yard was sort of odd. It didn’t look at all like the plastic manicured yards all over the place but instead it was natural looking with imperfections and inconsistencies that added to the overall look in a positive way. After talking about it we found our friends didn’t use any pesticides at all. Instead they had found techniques and other means to achieve the same results without using any harmful chemicals. Now we have a fairly large yard with lots of grass and I have taken a similar approach, mostly as a result of an almost no knowledge of lawn care and a dash of laziness and the results have been great.

Sure we mow and keep our yard trimmed in general but we don’t in any sense go overboard. And our yard looks fine. We spend lots of time in the backyard and playing on the grass, the difference to me is when you sit down or lay on the lawn you don’t think about all the chemicals seeping into your skin. Instead its just grass. Yes, there are bugs and yes there are imperfections but I like them both and am glad to have a natural yard.

There are plenty of fertilizers you can use, if you have to, that do not create a health hazard. And while I am out enjoying my grass I see my neighbors spraying crap all over the place. Instead of just a little elbow grease they will all pour gallons of poison trying to disperse weeds here and there. Where the hell do they think all this poison goes? Why do we have to keep pouring chemicals all over everything?

Poisons are absorbed through the skin, by the mouth, or by breathing sprays, dusts, or vapors. You or your children can be poisoned if: you apply or are present during application of the chemical. Also if you touch contaminated grass, shoes, clothing, lawn furniture, etc., or put contaminated objects (toys, golf tees, blades of grass etc.) or fingers in the mouth. A recent government report states, until new guidelines for conducting exposure studies are developed, the E.P.A. will not know how much exposure is associated with lawn care pesticides and associated health risks, especially for children.