Jamie and I ventured off last weekend for a few days’ camping up Glacier Park.  It is just over 3 hours’ drive north of Missoula and there are various campsites and hiking trails throughout.  Below are a few photos of our adventure.  I may post more as time permits.

Jamie and I on a turnout off Going To The Sun Road from West Glacier

View from Going To The Sun Road (West Glacier) just after Weeping Wall

Our campsite in Rising Sun (Lake Mary - East Glacier).

Snow covered our day hike trail to Lake Otokomi (5.2 mi; 1900 ft elevation increase).  Plan for a 6-hour affair; it’s a long hike and bring plenty of food and water.

We undestimated the length of the hike and didn’t pack enough water.  Thankfully there were waterfalls and streams from the top of the mountain so we took our chances with one and replenished our supplies.

Jamie in a field of beargrass.  Many portions of our hike seemed like a “fantasy land”.  The hike alone was well worth it, including the workout.

Scenery during the drive to E. Glacier towards our campsite.

Goomzee “cameo”.  I have a few of these at various sites.  Shameless! 

This afternoon I hiked “the M” (Mount Sentinel) with a friend and his two dogs.  The University of Montana sits at the base of Mount Sentinel and along the Clark Fork River.  Just a few days ago I posted photos of a freak snowstorm but since Friday it’s been beautiful, mid to high 70-degree weather and sunny.  Below are some photos (panorama) of the Missoula valley.  Facing right while on the mountain is North and up Rattlesnake Creek.  As I pan left, you can see Interstate 90, the Clark Fork River and the bridges crossing the river heading downtown.  You can then see the valley which stretches approx 6-10 miles in each direction, surrounded by mountains on all sides.  To the left is the Bitterroot valley and Lolo peak.  Two main rivers converge in Missoula, the Clark Fork and Bitterroot rivers, each with other tributaries flowing into them, including Lolo Creek, Rattlesnake Creek, Blackfoot River and Rock Creek; world-renowned fly fishing.

Facing north looking up the Rattlesnake.

Interstate 90, Clark Fork River and Washington-Grizzly football stadium (UM Campus)

The University of Montana Campus, bridges crossing the Clark Fork to downtown Missoula.

Missoula valley with U of M campus at the base of Mount Sentinel (directly below)

Missoula Valley south looking toward the Bitterroot Valley and Lolo Peak.

We had a freak weather system and we actually saw snow, in JUNE!  Here is a photo taken of snow on Mount Sentinel here in Missoula, taken by my wife’s mobile phone this evening.

Snow in Missoula Montana in June.  This is not common, I promise. 

Jamie and I hung out with friends at their family ranch in Victor, MT.  It is about 30 minutes south of Missoula and the views were so cool I thought I’d share.

Jamie and I in Victor Montana at friend’s ranch.

My wife, Jamie, is an avid equestrian who competes in the sport of dressage.  It is all about the connection of horse and rider and she trains horses up through the levels.  Her last horse competed at Prix St. Georges and her baby, Aden (6 yrs), is getting ready to start competing this year.

Jamie on her horse, Aden.  Picture taken with LG flip phone at JMG Stables in Clinton, Montana.

Since last year my friend has been raving over Redbox, $1 DVD rentals, in our local Albertsons grocery stores. Given I usually buy all my DVDs (avid collector), I didn’t try the service. Tonight I tried for the first time. You can either choose from the onscreen menu on the machine or order online in advance. I chose the latter. It was very cool because I ordered two movies, showed up at Albertsons, swiped my credit card and out popped my 2 DVDs within less than a minute.

I’d recommend Redbox.  No subscriptions, no waiting for the mail, $1 rentals, no lines and no hassles.

I was surfing Facebook as I had some friend posts and requests left unanswered.  Some random browsing to a friend’s page and some other buddies must’ve posted some questionable material.  I thought this notice was kind of funny and definitely a “hip” way to deal w/ censored content.

As we roll on towards Thanksgiving holiday, we are looking to update the holiday graphic for goomzee.com and found this funny turkey photo.  We won’t be using it but I thought it was still worth sharing.

There used to be a deer crossing sign down the road but they took it down because people kept hitting the deer. 

After installing the new thermocouple, the hot water heater worked and heated the water in the tank. Thereafter, the pilot went out yet again. I contacted the retailer and they warrantied the gas valve but would have to charge me for labor to install. I decided to remove and replace the part myself and learned a few tricks along the way.

(more…)

While I was traveling last week, my wife ran into issues with our 15-month-old hot water heater; the pilot light would not stay lit. She managed to re-light it and got hot water for a single use but it went out again. Upon my return, we once again faced cold water. We turned to the Internet to try and diagnose the issue and found that if a pilot would light, but not stay lit, it could be 3 potential issues:

(more…)

We were invited to attend the Austin Board of Realty annual tradeshow, the Realty Round Up. Goomzee Connect was VERY well received and we have some partners interested in working with us to promote our services throughout Texas. Here is a photo of our booth the day before the show (without all the table props).

My fortune from lunch yesterday.  I’ve never seen one like this and ironically, I’m a computer guy. I had to share - enjoy!

Jamie and I had to pose for photos at her parents’ house the other day and we really liked one.  Given we don’t take too many photos, I decided to publish.

I’m not the most photogenic person so have to take advantage when they turn out okay. 

I visited iStock Photo today and it was inaccessible but their error message was pleasantly humorous.  I reckon if every system had error messages like this, people would be a much better mood when calling tech support.  Enjoy!

Ahhh… the application made a boo boo. 

Mine was fantastic, obviously!    Have a great day and remember, things could be worse.

My friends Sumit and Ana had their second child, a son named Shyan. See one of the photos they shared and the note about their new bundle of joy. CONGRATULATIONS!

Ashyana poking her little brother on the nose. “Is he real?”

Message from Sumit to Friends/Family:

Friends,
I am very happy to announce the birth of our baby boy, Shyan Callan Guha. He came into the world on Thursday August 16th at 3:21 am at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, weighing in at 6 lbs 9 oz and measuring 19 inches long. He is already very adept at mind-control and seems to be the only one able to calm down his big sister when everything else has failed. For those who are interested, the name Shyan (pronounced ‘s h a r n’) is an Indian name meaning ‘exhilaration’.

Mother and son are doing great. Father and daughter are ecstatic and running on adrenalin.

Here are a few pictures of the little one. More pics will be published on http://www.anaraja.com shortly, so stay tuned.
We would love to hear from you and, if in SF, please drop by.

Take care,
Ana, Sumit, and Ashyana

I wanted to vent about the silly high-definition DVD format wars as it’s a pain for consumers. I liken the HDDVD and BluRay battle to having 3-4 phone books in a city. Of course competition is supposed to be great for the consumer, but imagine how many titles will have to be replaced once the studios and manufacturers decide on a single format. In the end, the consumer loses so not all competition is good.

The BluRay disc holds 50 GB of data compared with the HDDVD’s 30 GB and it seems they are winning over more studios and titles. I had considered buying a BluRay player but then see press noting that the movie Bourne Ultimatum will only be available on HDDVD. My only recourse is to wait it all out, or buy a multi-player by LG. At $1200 retail (although reducing to $999 given Samsung will introduce their dual format player soon), this is a steep price to pay.

The reason I liken the war to having multiple phone books is because of how they hurt businesses and ultimately, consumers. For many years in my hometown, the USWest (now DEX) was the only phonebook. Businesses would advertise in the Yellow Pages and consumers knew how to find them. Then another publisher decides to come into town and dropping books on doorsteps. Now salesmen are hitting up businesses twice, spending twice the budget to reach the same amount of consumers. There are now 4 phone books in Missoula and if businesses choose to advertise in all 4, their prices will rise to cover the costs and this ultimately hurts the consumer. I personally advise consumers to throw out all other books and all businesses to advertise in only one.

Consumers should also take control in the high-definition DVD battle and only purchase one format of disc. This will end the war, bring the equipment prices down and ultimately benefit the consumers. It looks like Toshiba might lose this time (they beat Sony during their last format war).

One of our baby girls, Nikki, decided to take a cat nap and dream about Met Life’s new 9 lives insurance program - or she just likes Snoopy.