San Antonio

Bird along the riverwalk

Before heading out on the Pre-ICS field trip “Giant caves of Northern Mexico” I had a couple of days to spend in San Antonio.  I visited the beautiful riverwalk, toured the historic remains of the Almo and viewed the entire city from the top of the Tower of the Americas. The riverwalk was especially nice- even in the heat of the day it seemed quite a bit cooler down in the shade alongside the water, making it a great place to stroll along site seeing.

The river walk at night

Touring the Alamo

The Alamo at night

Giant Caves of Mexico

The International congress of Speleology in Kerrville Texas is almost over.  I’m still working on my pictures from the awsome pre-congress trip to Mexico but I’ve posted a lot of them already at captnemo’s pictures

Aimee Beveridge in Palmito cave

I’ll be adding a lot more when I get home in a couple of days.

Bob lights the way with an exploding flash bulb!

Cactus V4 Flash trigger

I thought I’d write about my latest photography tool- Cactus V4 radio triggers.  I recently purchased several recievers and a couple of transmiters from MPEX.  The transmiter fits on the hotshoe of my canon slr or G9 cameras, the recievers are attached to my flash units either to the hot shoe of my vivitar flashes or via pc cable connection to my sunpak 622.

Nick and I tested them as working well at a distance of around 100 feet with no problem. Then for the real test- how would they perform for cave photography? Well all the shots I took this last weekend in rippled cave were taken using the cactus triggers and I was quite pleased with the results.

For a more detailed look at the cactus V4’s check out http://akikorhonen.org/articles.php?action=view&id=667

Rippled cave

Aubree in Papkes room

We headed to Rippled cave for a beginners trip. Well only two beginers made it and there were over five MLG members so the ratio of beginers was a little small but we had a good trip. Matt and Maryann got a little survey done I got some good pictures and the new folks got to see some of the cave and even try out some vertical work getting in and out of the big room. Geo spotted an interesting fungus that had glistening black droplets on it’s surface that made it look like a blackberry. We also found a wolf spider, lot’s of cave adapted millipedes and a few snails.

Strange fungus

wolf spider and millipede

Ice cream and kite flying

There's still pheasant in Antelope

Well, it was actually frozen yogurt but close enough. James Emily and Michael came to Sacramento to take Michael to the dentist as he had tried to knock out yet another tooth. We went out in the evening for some delicious frozen yogurt.  After they left  a pretty strong wind blew up, so Nick, Aubrey and I went out to fly a kite. On the way we spotted a pheasant! We had fun flying the kite at the the park- a pretty good weekend.

Enjoying a frozen treat on a warm evening.

Nick and Aubrey flying the kite

Forest Glen

campsite visitor

Last weekend we headed up to Trinity county to see some of the caves in the Forest Glen area.  It’s a bit of a drive but Ric and I were able to squeeze in the truck with Tom and Karole so that saved some gas and helped make the time go by quicker. We stopped at Los Mariachis in Redbluff where Tom and I ordered molcajete’s. This time though I had a seafood one with scallops in it!

On the way to the campground it was raining pretty hard but it cleared up before we got there, so Ric and I could set up our tents.  The next day we visited a couple caves and had a great time. Then as it was raining pretty hard we headed to Hayfork for dinner. The diner had a  surprisingly large menu so everyone found something they liked. Sunday we headed out to see natural bridge which was quite impressive. All in all a good MLG weekend.

Admiring formations

We had fun can you tell?

a pleasant evening round the fire

An impressive natural bridge

See the rest of the pictures I took here.

Filipino Fiesta 2009

I headed down to Southern Sacramento for this years Filipino Fiesta. Once more there was lots to see, All sorts of things for sale, good food, and performances with singing and dancing.  Sadly I seem to be affected by allergies this year and as a constant cool breeze made the weather perfect for an outdoor festival,  it gave me a pretty bad sinus headache so I left a little early but not before getting a few pictures.

Parade at the start of Activities

Performers ready for the stage

Mmm. Lechon (roast pork)

Pacific Island Dancers

Makefair 2009

I happened to be browsing on Gizmodo and spotted a post that Makefair was taking place in San Mateo so I headed down to see what all the fuss was about. I had a wonderful time. My only complaint was there was too much to see! There was no way to check out everything in a single day. Next year I have to plan ahead, get some friends together and spend two days there.

Dancing Girls, Curtesy of the Boiler Bar

The whole crew from the Boiler Bar Theatre did a wonderful performance.

It’s electric- tesla coil generates big sparks

There was a lot of electricity in the air- Pacemakes beware.

Giant Robotic hand

And it was a bad day to be a 50 gallon drum- This thing crushes them with ease.

Still playing, Quakelive

So even after a few months I’m still playing quakelive, It’s really amazing that a game released so long ago (quake3 is ten years old this year). The stats tracking ability is fun- Check out my quakelive profile Now I’m hoping to learn how to customize my setup a little more.
They keep releasing maps and it’s fun when one I played a lot in the past pops up- brings back memories. If you’ve got a sign on let me know and I’ll keep an eye out for you in-game. Keep Fraggin!

Captnemos quake live stats

CaptNemo's Stats

Quakelive stats for Captnemo

Pacific rim festival

This weekend was the Pacific Rim festival in old Sacramento. I always enjoy this event- Lot’s of good food and interesting dances, the colorful costumes make for some interesting pictures. The heat was a little daunting but it wasn’t quite as hot as last year.

Dragons

Laos Dancer

Lao Dancer

Colorful Fans

Hmong Dancers