As Random As It Gets

This might be the most random blog I have published to date, but then again, that means I have a lot of random news so I might as well blog it.

First off, you might have noticed the new header at the top of the page..? You did? Well good, it took me awhile to get that thing put together so I am glad it hasn't gone unnoticed. That picture is one I have blogged before - it is a panoramic picture that I took while hunting with Laura in the Bitterroot Valley this season. A guy from Bozeman is actually using the photo as an inspiration for a painting - well, actually we has my permission to use the photo for his painting and I am looking forward to see what becomes of it. I have been wanting to put some sort of header photo at the top of my blog for at least a year now, but I just didn't know how to write the html script for it. Two nights ago I had a restless night (thinking of adding a header to the blog) and I decided to just see what I could do. By 2:00 a.m. I had things put together; not bad for basically teaching myself how to do everything. I don't know if I will stick with just one photo or perhaps place a different header every few months - I do like the look of it.

Hopefully I will survive long enough to blog another month or more. Turns out, by living in Missoula, Montana that my chances of being injured or killed are significantly higher. I have mentioned the ridiculously high number of drunk drivers and that Montana has the highest incidents of drunk driving accidents in the U.S.. To go along with that, last week the state Department of Transportation released a study of the most dangerous intersections in the state. Turns out Missoula had three of the most dangerous intersections in the state, and they all happen to be on one of the most dangerous roads in the state! Oh yeah, if you have been to Missoula then you know what street I am talking about. I complain about it all the time when I am driving and I let it be known that it is a joke. In 2005 Reserve Street had over 2500 traffic accidents - that is 6-7 accidents per day. I have had my fair share of close calls on Reserve and the way people drive around here reminds me of being in high school and taking drivers education wherever I drive. The great thing about our Christmas vacation to Wyoming and Nebraska is the fact that drivers are rather nice and even though I have seen a lot of bad drivers in Nebraska, I don't fear that I am going to get T-boned or rear-ended at every intersection. If they want to hit the Canubaru then I might not complain as much, as long as they actually have some insurance and can pay for my next car, but that might be unlikely as well, so I just drive extra defensively and honk a lot!

As if the traffic were not enough, another study released last week showed that Missoula has some of the most polluted air in the United States. I found that hard to believe, not the fact the air was polluted, but that it was one of the highest ranking cities. On the other hand, Cheyenne, Wyoming had some of the cleanest air so it's nice to know I can breath freely when I am visiting the in-laws.

Here is some of the work I have been doing on a new program I downloaded. The program is Google Sketch Up 6. It is designed to be a free program to design building in 3D. This is a model I created a few days ago. Laura and I are starting to brainstorm some ideas for our house we are hoping to start building in the next five years - once we can afford to build a house without a loan. This is a very rough idea for our den or 'library' room but we have some ideas we wanted to look at and see what we could come up with. While we were shopping in Cheyenne, we came across a bookstore that had a rolling ladder and thought it would be neat to have a tall bookshelf and a rolling ladder to get to the books at the top. However, after doing some research on the internet, I have found these ladders run well over $500 and suddenly I think a 'custom built homemade ladder' would be a nice touch to the room. Don't you think? For $500 that ladder better get my books for me and maybe even read a little of the book too! OH! Don't take the colors in my model as the colors we want, I just wanted some color to show the walls and the bookshelf, along with the floor and how the room would look. We've got a long way to go.

Gas prices have finally dropped below $2.00 a gallon. Prices around Missoula are at $1.99/gallon. However, if you watched the State of the Union address given on Tuesday evening then you know that The President is pushing to increase the nations strategic oil reserve by 2 million gallons, which means that the price of gas will increase to at least $2.50 a gallon to compensate for the reduction of oil available to the consumers (you and I).

The new Google Earth 4 has made it's way to the internet for download. I would recommend downloading it if you like Google Earth 3. Although there isn't much change from the previous version, the new interface is pretty cool and I prefer it over the older program. One of the cool things about Google Earth is that when we are looking up geocaches, we can look them up in Google Earth and see how many are around. When we travel I usually follow the route we will be taking on Google Earth and find the caches that look like we will be able to find near the highway. The above picture is looking at the South Hills in Missoula. Our house is nearly in the middle of the picture. Another cool thing with Google Earth is the terrain modeling - as you can see the mountains in the background and the mountain we live on.

This morning we had an inversion in the valley and it was still dark about an hour after sunrise. Right now, for me up on the mountain, the sun is shining and I can see some blue sky up above, but when Talk of the Town is over I am going to venture out and see what the valley looks like - it might be quite a sight.

My last random news snippet comes from Nebraska. Stapleton, Nebraska to be exact. I received a letter from my grandma who keeps an eye on the news around town. She came upon an interesting little article and sent it to me. Don't worry grandma, I saved the stamp! Here's what the paper said:

Received a report of suspicious circumstances in Stapleton. Upon a tip from Village Officials, investigation led to finding a small capsule hidden in Stapleton. Further investigation showed that the capsule was part of a nationwide geocache "treasure hunt." People with GPS devices log onto the site, get clues, and stop, find the object, sign the guest or "finders" list and move on. The web site showed that people from all over the United States had been visiting Stapleton since April of 2005 just to find the object and sign the list. The object was replaced for the next person to find.

Well imagine that! The geocache that Laura and I hide along with my cousin, made the local newspaper. The great thing is that they replaced the geocache for the next people to find. That there is small town Nebraska and you can't beat that!

That about does it for me today. Was that random enough? I am going to go see what can be seen of the inversion. Until again

-=Nolan=-