Hello world.

Well, I admit it. I completely forgot that I even had a blog until yesterday. This lapse of memory has apparently lasted for quite a while... over a year actually.

Maybe I can try to talk about some of my adventures, and lessons learned. I've been doing a lot of trekking about the great state of Colorado recently, enjoying God's beautiful creation. I've learned a couple things about photography in particular.

1) Morning sunrise is magic.

2) Take lots of pictures. You never know when you'll accidentally take a picture you really like.

3) I don't really have a good example for this, but use a high f-stop when doing big picture landscapes.

4) Use a tripod whenever you can - it makes you think about composition, and lets you take pictures that you couldn't without it.

5) Filters are very useful! You can see the difference between the two below... the first one without the graduated ND filter, the second with it. The camera settings were basically the same for the two pictures.

6) Don't always follow the "rules" of photography. You know what kind of picture you want, so you create it. Everyone says never to take pictures in the harsh afternoon sunlight... I do once in a while, usually because I want to convey a harsh or gritty subject - like an abandoned mine.

7) Have fun!

More Nevada

So there I was... still in Nevada. The next weekend, me and a new buddy from AFROTC headed out to Red Rock Canyon. This guy was more adventurous, so we wound up doing a lot more hiking, climbing, and even sort of some bouldering.

Once we got close to the top, we found a little pond of stored water. I'm not sure whether it was rainwater, ground water, or both, but there was definitely water, and it was cold.

Then, we climbed even higher. Once we reached the top, we could see almost the entire basin. It was a pretty awesome view.

We then decided to find the La Madre Springs, which were higher up in the mountains. We hiked for a while on the gravel road, and then some more on a hiking trail.

(The Springs were up on the distant mountain, and to the right.)

We finally reached the springs, which turned out to be a little dam which created a pond for bighorn sheep to drink from.

We took a breather, then decided to find the source up in the mountains. We followed a path, which seemed to turn into a bighorn sheep path, and found some more water.

We kept climbing until we reached a little rock cabin. Once we reached the cabin, we realized that enough was enough, and we needed to head back to our truck before we wore out feet off.

(It's kind of hard to see, but the cabin is in the left foreground. It had a little wreath on a stick too.)

Once we made it back to the truck, we finished the scenic drive from the road, and then headed back to Nellis, having enjoyed another beautiful day in God's amazing creation.

Nevada

So there I was... at Nellis AFB, Nevada. I'm not a big fan of Vegas, or of the Strip - one visit was more than enough for me. Nonetheless, there was some pretty interesting stuff there. For example, this McDonald's was accessed via an escalator. It was the first I'd ever seen. And of course, the water shows in front of the Bellagio are pretty sweet too.

The next weekend was more along my line. I drove out the Valley of Fire National Park with a good friend of mine from the Academy, and we spent the day exploring the wonders of God's creation. It was amazing! Plus, part of Transformers was filmed on the very stretches of road which we drove on.

Chuckwallas

A little cavern carved into the sandstone

An arch - it fell down a week after I took this picture

There were some pretty abrupt changes in color

The moon and red sanstone

Elephant Rock

A panorama of the park entrance.

Needless to say, I had a great time. It's a very easy park to get around - I think that the longest trail was about two miles long, and pretty much everything can be reached by cars on roads.

Photography

As you may or may not know, I have greatly enjoyed foraying into the realm of digital SLR photography. I use an Olympus E-500 dSLR, and love it!

Traditionally, I consider myself a non-editor. I don't own Photoshop and don't plan on spending the money for it. I figure that photographers didn't use to have it, and they did fine, so I'm not going to use it either.

However, I have started editing copies of some of my favorite shots using a free program called Paint.NET, which is pretty good. While it definitely doesn't have all the cool tools that Photoshop has, it can do a pretty decent job at photo editing.

So, here goes! Here are a couple of my favorite shots - edited. :)

Flashlights at night

Morning dew on the grass

Frosty dirt

Winter rocks at USAFA

Autumn afternoon sun on the grass

Reminisces of a past doolie

So, now that the dust has settled, and freshman year is over, I have some time to look back on it. Everyone has heard horror stories about the doolie year at service academies – mindless hazing, brutal upperclassmen, sleep deprivation, and all sorts of other inventions all with the sole purpose of making the cadet’s first year at the Academy as miserable as possible. However, I have not had that experience.
Sure, there were times (especially during Basic Training) when I questioned my sanity, questioned why I had come. One of the phrases I used often was, “And I WORKED to get here??” Teamwork and perseverance were the key.

I couldn’t tell you what we did each day during Basic, but I remember many isolated incidents, most of them funny – at least looking back on them. I remember one of my classmates getting a singing card in the mail for his birthday – ohh, the cadre loved that one. Cadet Prater walked around the hallway the rest of that evening, playing that card non-stop. I remember waiting in a hallway for three hours one afternoon to get our fingerprints taken for security clearances – of course, we didn’t just wait… we wound up getting a lot of exercise that afternoon. Well, at least for about two hours… then our cadre got tired of it and left us alone. I remember trying to fill out a security form that asked for the names, ages, and birthdates of all my siblings… yeah, I sure didn’t get them all correct. I remember going on a run with our rifles in Jacks Valley and seeing the guy next to me, who had injured his knee earlier, pass out while running. I also remember a similar run, where one of the doolies tried to get out of it part way through by complaining that the doctor said he couldn’t run without his insoles… yep, we ran back, got them, and then we did the run again.

Once the academic year started, life changed. It was harder in some ways, easier in others. While we didn’t have the constant physical activity that we experienced during BCT, we now had academics. That first semester was a real adjustment time, trying to get used to balancing everything we had to – school, military, athletics, personal life. The upperclassmen didn’t really help us out with our adjustments, and instead tried to throw wrenches into our routines. Needless to say, that semester was verrry long. I lived from weekend to weekend, thinking of the week as merely some time between weekends. I had good roommates, one of them a golfer from San Antonio, Texas. He had a big black puppy back home, an older brother and sister, and was a constant comic relief. He would fall asleep on the floor while studying, sleep until at least noon every Saturday, and was amazing at telling stories.

Once the first semester was finished, we had an all-too-short Christmas Break, and then the second began. There were a lot of good times during the academic year too. Our antics during the first real snowfall, the reactions of some drunken upperclassmen to Obama’s election, and football games. We reached 100’s Night, where all the freshmen “redecorated” the seniors’ rooms in honor of their having 100 days until graduation. During this decoration party, we discovered a picture of our imposing and fearsome Training officer – wearing little earrings. Needless to say, we all lost a little bit of our fear of him then and there.

Our last big milestone of the year was Recognition, a three day experience like no other – leaving everyone feeling very sore afterwards. There are a lot of stories that could be told about it, but a couple instances stand out especially. During some sprints, our fearsome training officer challenged a couple of us to a race. He gave us a headstart, saying, “I’d better not catch you.” … needless to say, he caught one of us. When he reached Cadet Gormley, it is rumored that he hissed, “I’m going to eat your soul” into the poor guy’s ear. I don’t know if it made him run faster or not.

I’m glad I came. I’ve had a great experience, I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve made some great friendships. And, now that I’m a sophomore, life is looking up a bit more.

Training sessions...

Well, this is going to be VERY different from the typical fare you will get here... :) I had to write a creative/descriptive nonfiction piece for my English class. I never write like this otherwise, but, it is sort of an update on life here... I guess. :)

It is about training sessions. Let me know if you feel bad for me afterwards. If so, Mission accomplished. ;)

I lined up shoulder to shoulder with my classmates in the long hallway, waiting for the training session to begin. It was Monday, and my Training Officer had told me there would be a training session that afternoon. As I stood there with my back against the wall, waiting for the inevitable, I contemplated why I had come back to the hallway. Perhaps I did not want to leave my classmates to their fates alone, or perhaps it was also a little fear of reprisal. At any rate, I had decided to return to the squadron and take whatever was coming my way. I waited in silence for five minutes, but it seemed an eternity. Suddenly, the cadre came running from an adjacent hallway, seemingly appearing from out of nowhere right in front of me. Controlled chaos ensued as I and my classmates were broken up into small groups and hustled off to different parts of the long hallway.

As soon as I and my little group were alone, the cadre barked out a command to hit the ground in the front leaning rest. As I did pushups to his monotonous cadence, my back straight as a board, sweat began to bead on my forehead. Soon, there was a puddle right in front of me, formed as it dripped off my face. I could tell where I had been the minute before by merely looking for the splatter of sweat on the floor. The tile flooring felt cool, and as I continued to do pushups, it became ever more inviting. The temptation to collapse, to rest against the cool tiles, to take a break from the incessant physical exercise, was great. It seemed like a magnet, drawing me ever closer as my lower body began to sag towards it from exhaustion.

The cadre then decided to switch exercises to give my overworked upper body muscles a brief respite. He said that I could take a break and sit down in a chair. The seat was invisible, and its back was the wall. After a minute of “rest,” the muscles in my upper thighs began to protest, and as lactic acid was released, began to quiver and burn. However, I continued to sit there, legs involuntarily shaking, until instructed to stand up.

I was not done with the hallway yet though. I sprinted through the hallways, futilely chasing the cadre who constantly egged me to run faster. Up one, down another. The once familiar hallway seemed to have become an endless maze with no way out. Not until the training session was over did I see it again for what it really was, a mere corridor leading to wherever I needed to go.

And the end begins...

Ominous sounding title, no?

It refers to the fact that the infamous 40 days leading up to Recognition have begun. In 43 days, I will again be considered a human! However, the tunnel is going to get a lot darker before it gets brighter, so I will appreciate any and all prayer. As we head into this last stage of freshmen life, we will be tested physically and mentally beyond anything we have ever gone through before. Once we are finished with it though, we will be DONE with all the mindless rules imposed on us, as well as no longer being objects for the upperclassmen to exert their power over.

The Countdown Begins! 40... :)