Well, I figured I would post a little tree picture on my blog, I had a wonderful dinner for the holidays and I was with a great group of friends. We even did the white elephant gift giving, stealing game , which I was shafted on. I was number one to pick from the pile of gifts and eventually people took my gifts from me a few times. Oh well, all is fair in love an war esp around the holidays. I did end up with this crazy puzzle that is nearly impossible to put back together with out cheating

I hope everyone is having a great holiday and enjoying some time off and to all those crazy people out their leave me alone (inside joke)

My new house,
originally uploaded by Gate-Way.

Well I finally broke down and bought a house, its not the one I wanted but well as far as housing prices in Marin California go this was a good deal. It only cost me $299k but its well worth it, parking is a bit of a bitch but I manage. My underwater James Bond car which you cant seen is parked on the right side.

Where Am I,
originally uploaded by Gate-Way.

I was lost for days and I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, luckily my trusty head lamp didn’t give out after being stuck in this coal mine for what seemed like 20 minutes

This picture was taken in the Prospect Tunnel in Somersville, CA a coal mine community back in the 1860′s.

“From the 1860s through the turn of the last century, five coal mining towns thrived in the Black Diamond area: Nortonville, Somersville, Stewartville, West Hartley and Judsonville. As the location of California’s largest coal mining operation, nearly four million tons of coal (“black diamonds”) were removed from the earth. The residents of the mining towns were from all over the world, and their life was characterized by hard work and long hours. Occasional celebrations and a variety of organizations and social activities served to alleviate the drudgery of daily existence.

The coal mines had a significant impact on California’s economy. By the time operations ceased due to rising production costs and the exploitation of new energy sources, much of California’s economy had been transformed from a rural to an industrial base.” – ebparks.com

The Stewartville Hike goes by this section and the whole hike is about 7 miles long. If your in the East Bay I would defiantly recommend this hike but in the fall because it would be way to hot in the summer.  You can download a pdf map from here.

Budweiser – Budvar,

I just created a flickr group that focuses on pictures of beers from around the world. My buddies and I have a habit of taking cell phone snaps of our drinks and sending them to each other, It kinda gets you in the mood if your buddy send yous a nice margarita at noon and gives you something to look forward to when you leave work.

If you want to join my group head on over to Beers around the World and feel free to contribute.

A few weeks back, a few friends and I went up to our regular place in the mountains for some nice R&R, Hiking, Drinking and a game of Mensch argere Dich nicht (The Board game “Sorry” for US folks). While we did our battle of Sorry the guy who never seems to loose that game won again. Oh well we all know he cheated.

We did some really nice Hikes both days in Tahoe. The first one was a 6-7 mile hike to Ellis Peak and the other one Barker Pass into Tahoe city where we ended right up at the bridge tender for a few pints of beer before catching a cab back to the cabin.

If you would like to see the trails we did and pictures taken load these files into the Free Google Earth viewer.

• Ellis Peak Trail Tahoe
• Barker Pass to Tahoe City

If you don’t have Google Earth Installed check out the hikes in Google Maps.

• Barker Pass to Tahoe City
• Ellis Park Trail Tahoe

Enjoy…. Can’t wait till the snow starts falling for some snowboarding.

I’t looks like the Crysis demo has been pushed back, originally it was going to be released on Halo 3 day, but looking this morning for any info on the demo I found this in the EA Forums.

I’m waiting for this game, looks like it will hit stores November 16th, 2007.

Check out my previous post about Crysis vs Reality

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Saline Warm Springs

A week or so ago, we went on a trip to Death Valley, yes you read this right. In the midst of the summer with 122 degree weather during the day and prob 90-100 at night. The first day was a drive down from the San Francisco Bay area though some various small towns stopping on the way at Happy Burger in Mariposa. I have to say by that time I we where all pretty hungry and well lets just say Happy Burger made our stomachs very happy After Mariposa we headed though to Yosemite National Park, took some candid tourist shots and headed to our hotel in Bishop, CA for a good nights rest before heading into Death Valley (Saline Valley). The next day we headed into the desert, 2 jeeps and one truck with 15 gallons of water and more of gas. Our first stop was at some random location to check out these odd looking tree’s which my friend quickly pointed out they where Joshua tree’s.

Ok enough of these tree’s onto our next stop Eureka Dunes which is quite an oddity to see in this area of the world. Its almost like the Sahara desert but in the middle of Saline Valley. A big sand dune was created over thousands and thousands of years in this middle of this valley.

After what seems like thousands of miles driving in the warm 122 Fahrenheit weather, we came across this oddity the Saline Warm Springs which is pictured above. After stepping into this hot tub and realizing it was cooler in the hot tub than outside we decided to make this our camping spot for the rest of the day and the evening…. Did we ever make it out of Death Valley? Tune in next time to see what happens to 5 guys, 2 jeeps and one truck.