dan flies

Another great TED talk that I think about all the time.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

So I won an auction on Thursday night, for a condo. I won it at $128k, which is quite a bit off list, but still lower than their reserve price. SO now they want me to up to $144k (their reserve), but I don’t know if the market is there. So I think I’m going to stick to my guns.

The advice so far has been to stick with my winning bid, until it is rejected, then see what is available next. Any thoughts?

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Here is a comment from the TED site:

This one’s a classic. Hans has directed his passion for public health education to the fundamental problem of information accessibility. His efforts (with his students) have been successful enough to drive change throughout the public sector, and serve as an example across disciplines.

His enthusiasm is palpable. This one has earned its place in the top 10.

I’m starting my own election guide and posting articles that I think make good factual arguments about the case why either John McCain or Barak Obama should be elected president.

David Brooks On Experience
He summarizes nicely the growing contradictions of the conservative movement away from ideals of classical education and sound judgement to instinct and bravado.

Sorry for not sending out any photos from the trip so far, but It’s ben a pretty busy week including the tractor ride and the Watermelon Festival in Kellogg.

Click through to the link to see a few hundred (over 600) photos of tractors.

Well I made it back.

I’m sitting ok my deck typing my last offical blog entry of the trip on my iPhone. I’ll add photos from my “real” camera as I process them over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for those photos. Hopefully I’ll be able expand on the stories from the road and add some goegraphical context.

The last two days I spent with Joe and his in-laws at their beautiful cabin near Detroit Lakes, MN. It was great to spend time with Joe and Toni and catch up with latest developments out of Fargo. Business is still going strong for Joe, he as hired another employee for OnSharp (that’s 9 total now) and he has moved to half time for Western Products. It is always great to hear how well they are doing and how the hard work is paying off.

You may or may not have noticed that the blog was unavailable Friday evening and most of Saturday. This unfortunatly put Joe to work for part of the weekend. Now the problems were for all the websites the Joe hosts including OnSharp and their clients. But the final problems were solved from the fishing boat this afternoon with the help of the iPhone. Go Apple!

I reallynappreciate all of the hospitality I received from my cousins their families and the Bullingers. It was nice to sleep in a bed use a real hot shower and nothave to sit in my car for the day.

It is time to start the process of downloading 500+ raw images to my Mac and start reviewing them on the full screen. Have a good night and thanks form reading.

It was a crazy night last night If you see my Facebook updates you may have seen that I spent the night in my car after a 20 mile round trip in the wrong direction. But it was with it I ended up sleeping in a parking spot along the highway next to Grand Teton mountains.

I took some great pictures of the mountains at sunrise. I then again missed a turn but realized it quickly and pulled a u-turn. What I didn’t realize was that I was entering the actual Teton-Yellowstone National Parks. It wasn’t on my plan but I took a few photos of lakes and hot springs. Trying to get out of the park I made another wrong turn, actually I didn’t make the turn I was supposed to. But this was a much costlier mistake because of the park speeds and getting stuck behind a bus it took over 40 minutes to get back to the same spot.

I nearly made it with out incident, but I was captivated by the drive through Big Horn National Forest (pictured). I totally forgot to check my distance and how much gas I had left in the tank. Luckily the clb up the mountain that killed the tank also provided the more than 10 mile coasting and gas saving excersice.

Now I’m in South Dakota heading north to trek across the other Dakota tomorrow to visit Joe. Again thanks to Budget Rent a Car for the free XM, I’m listening to the Twins-Angels game.

Another Thursday another messed up night. In my rush to get to Wyoming by the end of the day I missed a turn and went almost 20 miles in the wrong direction. The only good news is that I’ve been able to listen to an was extra innings Twins game.

As you can see from my photos today I enjoyed the drive through Idaho. It was another great day. The only bad weather was in Portland on Wednesday when it was raining all the way to Bend, OR.

I’m not going to let the screw up get me down. The moon is out so I’ll get the telephoto lens and tripod out for the first time on the trip. I may try to get a nice picture of the stars. It will me my first attempt at astro-photography.

A great drive on I-20 through the Sawtooth Mts. and Crater of the Moon. I’ll hopefully make it too Wyoming tonite.

Well I survived the night. It actually didn’t get that cold, but I didn’t sleep long. I was up and out of Burns by 6am. I’m back on the road and made it into Idaho at 9:23 Pacific and now it is Mointian time so I’ve lost the first of two hours on my return.

My stats for the first tank back: 408.6 miles, 13.67 gal., 29.9 MPGs. The computer said 31.7 MPGs, but I didn’t restart the counter until I was half way up Mount Hood.

Have a good day.