Morning Photos

IMG_6344_a
Originally uploaded by joneiche

Got up early this morning to go get a couple of sunrise landscape photos at the Greenland Open Space. This location give a little different perspective of Pike's Peak than usual, which is nice.

Except for the trains passing by every 10 minutes, it was very peaceful morning.

Note to self: remember your gloves stoopid...It was pretty cold and I had a hard time handling the camera because my hands were numb!

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Too Funny!!

Gave me enough of a laugh that I thought it worth sharing......enjoy!

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Sunrise en-route to Long's Peak

Another hair-brained idea of mine. How about a sunrise shot of Long's Peak, in February.

Charmy decided that she wanted to come along, which I am greatful she did. A cold, dark morning hike is always better spent with some company. 2:00 am rolls around and my phone starts buzzing. Time to get up so I roll over and start blowing in my wife's ear to break her restful slumber. I should have been kicked for that, I know I would have kicked for that.

We roll out of sack, let the dogs out to pee, grab our gear and jump in the truck for the two hour drive to the trail head. It is snowing a little during the drive but I figure whatever clouds there are will break and give us a great shot of Long's from Chasm Lake.

We're right on time and start hiking at 4:30, which will give us 2 hours to get to Chasm Lake. At about 5:30 we pass some guys that are coming down. They let us know that the wind is howling and there are white out conditions at timberline. Not to worry, the wind will stop and the clouds will part and I will get my photo! We keep going, onward and upward.

So, they were right. The wind is gusting up to 60 mph and visibility is 300 feet, at best. We end up stopping just below the lake because we are not prepared for this weather. We wait 30 minutes to see if things will clear. They don't, so we turn tail and run, slowly so we don't kill ourselves. As we are fleeing the sting of the spindrift ,a bit of sun peaks over the horizon, so we hurriedly scramble and get the tripod set up and the camera and filters out. We have enough time to take 5 or 6 shots...and this is what we got.


Not really what I was looking for, but not all together bad. We'll have to give it another go some other time. Maybe in April or May!









Sunrise en-route to Long's Peak
Originally uploaded by joneiche

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Liestal Fasnacht

Liestal Fasnacht
Originally uploaded by joneiche
I was looking over some older pictures and came across some photos from our trip to Basel Switzerland. Charmy and I had planned this trip with my cousin. We were super fortunate, my cousin's wife, Debbie, had lived in Basel when she was in high school, and still had local friends.

The trip was great. We flew into Frankfurt and took to the train to a small town in SE Germany call Staufen. We got to Staufen in the afternoon, had a great walk up to the ruins of Staufen Castle, ate a delicious dinner and closed the day off with a peaceful nights rest.


Staufen at night

The next day we hopped the train to Basel to meet up with my cousin, Debbie, and her friend Anna. What an experience! Fasnacht is "Wild West Switzerland" from what I hear. People up all night wearing crazy costumes and playing fifes or drums. We thought it a little...that is until we made it Liestal. Freak'n Crazy.

We think we are free in the US. Tell you what, this would never happen here. Lawyers would be lined up behind lawyers suing lawyers to represent the victims of this thing. Switzerland on the other hand, they don't care. Drink Gluhwein until your are drunk then go watch this event.

Wagons are loaded full of wood, then are lit on fire and pulled down the hill.. This comes behind guys who are carrying burning baskets of wood on their backs. And guess what, you get to stand right next to it all and bask in its hot, fiery goodness!! The wagon's start out small, only 5 or so feet tall, and get progressively bigger throughout the parade, until the grand finale! I'm not sure how big the last wagon is, just rest assured, it is REALLY BIG, and has a REALLY BIG fire. The explosive power of this last wagon is no joke. You can feel your eyebrows singeing while it is still at least ten yards away.


People covering their face to avoid the fire

Seriously, this is something you should see at least once. It is totally out of control, and a heck of a good time.

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Prosciutto and Melon

Proscuitto and Melon
Originally uploaded by joneiche
The thing that I am most grateful about with respect to traveling is the wonderful things that you get to eat. Only in Italy would someone put salt cured ham and melon together...or cheese and honey, or, or.

We love trying to recreate everything that our palette's savor. Sometimes we are successful, others, not so much. Fortunately on this night, the melon called to us. The selection at Sprouts was pretty lack luster........except for this bad boy. His label said "The Perfect Melon" and it was right!

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Two Down, Two to Go

I haven't done this in a while. When I decided to apply for grad school I figured it would be a breeze. Apparently I forgot what a rigamaroll it actually is.  It has been 12 years since the last time I applied for anything acedemic and now I'm back at it. 

Really the whole process has been a challenge.  I haven't had to think like a student in a long time.  Take the GMAT for instance....what in the heck is a standardized test.....oh yeah I took something like this once.   I haven't studied for a test in a long time.  The last one I took that even closely resembled this thing was when I got my Series 7 securities license.  The big difference was that I only needed a 70% to pass.  I really didn't care beyond passing the thing.  The GMAT was very different.  I cared!  I needed to.  So taking the advice of all of those who had previously marched off to slaughter I studied the verbal section because I figured it was my weakest.  I have always been good at math.  No problem then, math is easy, back to sentence correction.  The night before the real test I took my last practice...640...Not what I wanted, but I figured I was tired.  My math was strong and like everyone said, the verbal got me.  I did rush through it a bit so I figured I would slow it down.

Day of the test and I'm am feeling strong.  Slam through the two essays.  The math problems felt hard so I must be getting them right.  Cruise the verbal!!  Then the score...Verbal - 87th percentile, Quantitative - 53rd percentile.  WTF!  My cumulative score 640.  So goes it.  I guess I should have spent more time on the math. I plan on retaking it, just don't know when yet.

The rest of the app process has been hard simply in putting together the content to submit.  I have never written so many essays in such a short period of time.  Seriously?  Here is the list from one school...

1. CV - I have my resume so this isn't too bad.  Only 1 more page to add.
2. High school transcript - Not so sure why HS counts, but okay
3. College transcript - good to go!
4. Essay #1 - 1,500 words done.
5. Essay #2 - 1,500 words, new subject, done
6. Essay #3 - 1,500 words, again a new subject, done
7. Proof of professional experience - No idea?? skip
8. Copy of College Graduation Certificate - But you have my transcript? skip...
9. Vocational school certificate - Really, but I didn't go. skip
10. Letter of recommendation - Whew!  got it and done
11. Letter of recommendation #2 - Check!
12. Professional picture of me - You really don't want to see it, and oh yeah, I don't have it...so a photo shoot at the house at 7:00 am....Done!
13. GMAT Score - Isn't what I had expected, but it should work, and will have to do.
14. Application fee - What do you mean, you didn't do any work!  Look at all the crap I had to put together...you should be paying ME!

First application is now done, and time to move on to #2 then #3 and maybe #4 

I think the key is to limit the number of times you are going to do this.  I will only be applying at 3 or 4 schools.  Any more and I would have to hire an assistant and quit working.

Wall St. Jon!

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A Little Bit of Why

So, I suppose that it makes the most sense to give a little why behind me and mine. First, I never thought of myself as the "Blogging" type. Generally I thought is was a bit stoopid (yes, oop is right). I thought the same of Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and generally any other social networking concept. I think I am still pessimistic, but I guess you have to try things out to really be able to justify your opinion. I hate it when people say "I don't like ...." when they have never tried it. Case in point, Rocky Mountain Oysters. Yeah they sound awful, but they really are pretty good. If you live in the Denver area, check out Duke's Steak House in Castle Rock. Best balls around!!

So here I am. I sort of like Facebook, it keeps me in touch with a lot of people I would have otherwise lost track of a long time ago. This really does make it invaluable to me. Myspace has always seemed like junk...I think it fits a younger crowd. I like my internet interactions to be streamlined. Myspace just doesn't do that. Too much freedom for people to make it unique. I have a Twitter account, but it is pretty unused. I'm not so opposed to Tweeting, but fail to understand the value of 1) letting people know that I am brushing my teeth, and 2) me following @United Airlines. Don't worry, my teeth will eventually be brushed, and United, really, I like your airline, but never have any intention of following your Tweet, unless I get more miles or some other freebee out of the deal. I am a Flickr junkie. It makes my day.

So that leaves the Bloggosphere. There are so many people out writing that it is hard to dig through everything to find what you really like. Also with my old work schedule, it never seemed worth the time. I really enjoyed my time away from the computer, and to spend hours typing away telling my story seemed not nearly as fun as living it. Well, thanks to the economy (no politics yet, but something will eventually come out) I am fortunate to have a little more free time. It seems worthwhile, at least for longevity's sake, to keep track of what I have been up to. It should make my memoirs easier!!

Here it is... The Blog. I tried ILikeEich, but it was taken. The next best option, keeping to my original intent, Call Me Eich. We'll see how well I keep it up. This really may prove to become a nice outlet for me. I'll wait and see - keeping my mind open.

Having never done this, I guess it is going to be an experiment. I'm not really sure where to start, and have no idea where it is going to go, but heck, life is an adventure, so we'll see.

Houston










Houston traffic is pretty close to what my thoughts are, where are we and what do we do from here?

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