Weblog

I finally got around to moving my site to a real web host. It should be significantly faster now, as it's no longer running on a meager 1mbps connection. I've got plenty of disk space for my tens of thousands of photos, and plenty of bandwidth as well, so be sure to check out anything and everything. It should be much less painful now.

As you can probably tell, the new web site is up. It took a little bit longer than expected, primarily due to the reasons mentioned in my previous post, but it's now done. There are still a few very minor tweaks left for me to do, but it is very usable in the meantime. As in the previous version of the site, I have a weblog, and also all of my pictures. Rather than having the pictures in albums, however, I've moved them over to a tag/category system like the weblog posts have been for some time. By default, all blog posts and photos are retrieved, and you then have the ability to filter the results by choosing one or more tags. You can also search for text, though many of my pictures still don't have proper titles, as I haven't gotten around to it yet.

In addition to the blog and photos, my movie list has made a return, and I have added my music collection as well. I have also added a list of wines that I have tasted since taking Wines, Vines and You in college, which gives my own take on the wines.

I'd also like to note that although I've finally posted my pictures from Las Vegas and California up through two weeks ago, I haven't quite finished the photos from Crater Lake and Redwood. I'm hoping to finish them by this coming weekend.

This past weekend, I made the trek from Vacaville, California up to Crater Lake. On the way back, I also visited Redwood National Park, and drove the northern section of the pacific coast highway. I began by driving to Medford, Oregon after work on Friday. The following morning, I drove the eighty miles to Crater Lake. The lake is truly a remarkable place. Even though it's now April, the park is still a frozen wonderland, covered in foot upon foot of snow. Approaching the park, the plowed snow is piled ever higher along highway 62. The park itself is mostly deserted; the main drive around the lake isn't even plowed yet, and the snow is deep enough that most of the buildings are still snowed in. All that is plowed is a single roadway up to the rim, but at the top, one must climb twenty feet of snow to see the lake. The long drive and brief climb are rewarded with a fantastic sight. The lake is large, but not gigantic. The nearby mountains are not gigantic. The true beauty comes from the seclusion the park provides. The lake has no inlets or outlets; it is sustained almost purely by the enormous amount of snowmelt. The lake's azure blue contrasts beautifully with the elegant white snow. In short, it is stunning.

After visiting Crater Lake, I made my way to Grant's Pass, and then headed south to mingle amongst the gigantic Sequoia sempervirens, the Coastal Redwood. It is truly humbling to stumble upon 300-foot-tall trees while driving down the road. The trees are large enough to blot out most of the sun, allowing only the occasional ray of light through the canopy. There is also the occasional fallen redwood, opening a gaping hole, but overall, it's dark enough that it's necessary to drive with headlights on even in the middle of the day.

The final leg of my journey was driving down the coast on California Highway 1, the Shoreline Highway. After leaving the 101, I was met with over twenty miles of the windiest road I have ever driven, curving around mountains until finally arriving at the coast. Although foggy conditions hampered some of my efforts, I was able to see most of the coast along the highway. After driving over ninety miles on the two-laned road, however, I was more than ready to call it quits and head back to Vacaville. Unfortunately, hundreds of other people were in the process of leaving the area as well, and I was stuck driving behind them all. Finally, though, I did make it out of the rat's maze.

In total, I came away from the trip with nearly 1,500 pictures. I already had over 600 pictures in my queue to post, but I'm hoping to get them all up this coming weekend. There is even a slight chance that the new version of my web site will be up as well.