Yeah for Video!

A test to see if video works for everybody. There should be sound so make sure that your speakers are on. Let us know what you think and if it works. It is pretty easy to put video up so let me know if anyone is interested in doing it. Tchau!

Homecoming 2005

Hillary Miller came up to BYU to experience a little bit of the college life. Between the Homecoming Spectacular, hiking to the illuminated "Y", having a tailgate party, going to the homecoming parade, and watching BYU take care of business on the field, we had a pretty complete weekend.



This is "True Blue Football". Two weeks later our toes are still blue from our intense football match against the BYU cheerleaders.

Free Knowledge

Here is a link that lists some schools that offer free podcasts of lectures. There are courses ranging from Personal Finance (at Purdue) to Understanding Technology (at Harvard). If you are really feeling gutsy you can try a BioChem course :) This is a great way to increase your knowledge during a commute or on the treadmill. You will need a podcatcher to do this. iTunes is a nice free one to use. Happy learning!

In Honor of Halloween

I thought this was pretty cool. It is an optical illusion that really plays with you mind. What you are going to do is click on the picture. Then look at it from where you are sitting and then start to walk away from the screen. The scary man and the woman will "switch" places. When you walk closer they will go back to normal. Sweet.

This past weekend, we went to visit Allison at Cal Poly. It was wonderful to see her and she loved staying at the Morro Bay house. It gave her a chance to get off campus for a little while. We had some of her friends over for dinner on Saturday evening - these kids are either from her high school or youth group. Allison is in charge of the hike on Thanksgiving Day - either to the "P" on the hill or up Poly Canyon. 

Allison at Cal Poly

 

The Spartan Game

Megan and James went to the football game on Saturday. It was fun to go and feel the energy there, but that energy was sucked out pretty fast once Northwestern scored 49 unanswered points. Did I mention this was the Homecoming game? I am guessing that season ticket sales are going to drop through the floor after that performance. A 64 million dollar addition to the stadium was opened this year with 3,000 more seats and a bunch of suites. Maybe it will pay off next year.

Allison moving into Sequoia Hall

Even though Allison has been at CalPoly for about a month, this is a picture of her on move in day. Stop by to see her when you visit Morro Bay. Alli would love to show you around campus! 

Helicopter pilot Jeannie

Jeannie and Annette pretending to fly a helicopter. They look like they're having fun - hang on tight, girls!! 

Jeannie sitting in helicopter at the Academy

There were a couple of helicopters that landed at the Coast Guard Academy and Jeannie and her friend, Annette, decided to investigate. Obviously they were able to explore inside and pretend to be real pilots - just give it a couple of years after graduation and they could be there. 

Trip to San Diego

This past weekend, Margaret had a conference in San Diego so Brad and Evan went also. It was great to be able to stay on the bay and ride bikes on the bike path there. This picture was taken aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Midway. We took a tour of it and learned a lot about the planes on it and how it differs from carriers today.

Bike Trip with Ed and Helen in Alsace-Lorraine

These are some pictures from our wonderful bike/barge experience. We rode approximately 30 miles every day and then met the barge at an appointed place for dinner and happy hour. We were 7 days on the barge and 3 days in Strasbourgh, France. There were 22 of us altogether. Six of us were from Southern California and had ridden on bike trips together before. One of the most interesting parts of the trips was when our barge went down the slide lock, which took the place of 17 locks, and dropped our barge 147 feet. There are only 3 of these types of locks in the world.

Picasa 2.1

For those of you who are posting on the blog here, it just got even easier. There is a new verson of Picasa (ver. 2.1) that simplifies the whole process. When you download the new version and instlall it all that you have to do is choose a picture (or many) and click the "Blog This" button and you are good to go. Very slick. Get it here

Pictures from the Crumps

Hi folks,

This is Helen. Here are some pictures of Parent's Weekend at the Coast Guard Academy. We had a great time meeting Jeannie's friends and their parents. We attended classes with her, saw a women's volleyball game and also their football game. Ne was able to join us from NYC which made it special. Doesn't Jeannie look official in her uniform? Also, we thought you might enjoy seeing Allison moving into her new dorm at SLO in September. She lives in Sequoia Hall which is very centrally located on campus. Stop by to visit her when you are staying at Morro Bay.

Trip to San Francisco

I had a conference up in San Francisco this past weekend. Evan flew up to join me and Helen came down from Sacramento. It was also Fleet Week up there and since the weather was beautiful, we were able to watch the Red Bull Air Race (small airplances perform acrobatic skills between pylons out in the Bay) and also see the Blue Angels. . .very impressive. The Bay was filled with different types of boats, including an aircraft carrier, Coast Guard ship (go Jeannie) and other ships. On Saturday afternoon, we met Natalie Costanzo (our cousin Katie's daughter - she works in Palo Alto) and took the ferry over to Angel Island out in the Bay. We hiked around the perimeter of the island, a 5-mile walk, and watched the Blue Angels when they flew over the island. Have a good week.

The Detroit Temple

Megan and James took a trip to the Detroit temple today. We arrived just as the sun was setting, so it made for some great pictures. It was fun to see one of the smaller temples. It took about 1.5 hours each way to drive. Not quite like living in Orem, but nothing like living in Brazil!

Great Way to Back Up Your Data

For those of you who are seeking to back up all your pics, music and documents Microsoft has a great tool for it. I am pretty sure that is only available if you are running Windows XP. Basically it keeps two drives (your hard drive and an external hard drive for example) in sync. So if you save a picture on your computer it will automatically save it to the external drive as well. Pretty neat stuff. Get it here.

A Neat Feature

Google made a really neat tool for Firefox. I don't find any of the other tools all that useful, but the Autolink feature is fantastic. Basically it will transform a street address into a map link on Google Maps. It saves you a couple of clicks. It is not always perfect at finding the address on a page, but it works fairly well. Click here.

General Conference Trip for our Youth

This past weekend, we took 23 members of our youth up to Utah (yes, 10 hours each way in vans with these kids. . .they were actually pretty good) for General Conference. Some of the youth had never been to Utah and many had never seen the changing of the aspen. We saw several sessions of conference in the Conference Center. We also met with Elder Coleman of the Seventy, who was the mission president in Arcadia at the time that we were baptized. We met with Ster's Dad, Roger, and sisters, Nicki, Cori and Ashlie, and it was great to see all of them. We took the youth to Cove Fort, the Beehive House, the Museum of Church History, for a brunch up Provo Canyon, had pizza with the Winegar's at their Gateway Mall apartment, and then had dinner with former ward members in Cedar City on the way home. It was a great trip and the youth loved Utah.

San Fran might be in for a Treat

It is possible that the wonderful city of San Francisco will be wrapped in a cozy wi-fi blanket provided by none other than Google. They have a plan to cover 95% of the city with free wi-fi. So how is Google going to pay for this? Some speculate (and I agree) that there will be ads specific to your location in the city. So basically the ads that are on the side of a page are specific not only to your likes but also your specific location. Pretty cool I think. Take a look at the article.