OregonCurtis

Yesterday i conquered the longest hike/walk I've ever been on. I walked about 4.5 miles to bald hill from my apartment and then hiked 1-1.5 miles up to the top of bald hill. The hike there wasn't bad. I did have my day pack with me, but i was only carrying a sweater, coat, hat, gloves, a couple sandwiches, a tripod, a couple bottles of water, and my camera. Not very heavy. I was also listening to some podcasts on the way to the park, i'm pretty far behind on them all so i'm trying to catch up. Once i got to the bottom of the hill i wasn't even exhausted. I climbed up and sat on a bench at the top, yet to be very tired. Snapped some pictures and just relaxed for 45 minutes or so. It was awesome up top, the view would be even better at night so i plan to do that trip soon. After i was done up top i began my trip down. The slope and doing the little downhill shuffle type walk (you know what i'm talking about if your a hiker) killed my feet. I wasn't physically tired yet, but my feet began to burn and i still had 4+ miles left on the pavement! I was about 3/4 of the way back when the exhaustion set in. I was in the "put your feet in front of each other and keep moving" mode. It was terrible, I've never experienced anything like it before. Once i got home i took a shower and just laid around. That damn hike was one of the craziest, but most satisfying thing i've ever done. I'll go on a long hike again, but i'm not sure how soon.

Oh yeah the photo was taken at the top facing south west toward Philomath (fill-low-muth). If you head to my flickr you can see another photo which is my first attempt at HDR.

Peace-Curtis

For today's walk i went down to a local school. It was a short walk compared to yesterday's 9 miles and blisters. Tomorrow i'm planning a 10-11 mile walk so i deserved a bit of rest. Anyway i went to the school with the intention of getting a cool moving clouds at night shot. I did get one indeed. I like the shot, it's not awesome, but i'm satisfied. Well until tomorrow that's all.

Peace-Curtis

Today i walked to school like I've been doing so lately. I took the camera along hoping to catch something. There were lots of flowers out because it's spring obviously. But i saw some street art which i think is a little more interesting for today. Too many flowers lately. Anywy i really enjoy street art even though it's against the law and damages peoples property. I dunno what do you think? Do you like street art? I think it's more impressive for me because of the risk that is being taken and the speed that is required. That's it for now.

-Curtis

Something awful is happening here at OSU. The university has proposed budget cuts to the already in debt foreign language department. This really pisses me off and I've already sent out a letter to the president of OSU. Here's a copy of what i sent:

"Dear President,

I'm writing this letter to express my extreme dissatisfaction with the university for making budget cuts to the foreign language department. I'm currently majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Minoring in Japanese. I've realized in the past year that I've learned more in my Japanese classes than my engineering classes. How could a program with so much information be cut?
A foreign language is not some useless thing you learn in college, a foreign language CAN be used on a day to day basis. Will i be constantly solving integrals when i'm an engineer? I doubt it, my computer will do it for me, but when a company needs to collaborate with another company in japan i can be of great help.
Oregon State University is suppose to be the best university in the state. How could we call ourselves that if we lose such a useful program? I'll make sure i spread the word about this budget cut, i won't let it go unnoticed. I hope you and the people who make budget decisions realize what your doing. Your only hurting our great institution and our state. I ask that you please lobby for the repeal of the proposed budget cuts and fight for a budget increase. If this doesn't happen and the program slips away i could be forced to attend University of Oregon or some other institution. I hope it never comes to that.
Please forward this e-mail to any faculty member of interest in this budget cut fiasco. I'm looking forward to a reply.

Sincerely,

Curtis Barnard"

I've also created a face book group containing the e-mail address of some people to e-mail. If your a student at OSU then please contact the president and others and tell them how you fell. I also went to a mock funeral the other day. The budget cuts would completely wipe out Italian and during the funeral they had a casket to put Italian to rest. To the right you can see the casket along with an Italian instructor.

I just don't understand how they could cut true educational courses, but leave other shit course and increase funding to athletic programs. I understand that athletics is a big part in encouraging people to attend your school, but it's a SCHOOL for Christs sake. Academics should always come before sports no matter what some may say. That's all for my rant now, but know that i'm really pissed of at you OSU. For more information on this fiasco please click on the link below:

The Daily Barometer

-Curtis

Yesterday I walked to school instead of my usual biking or driving. It took around 28 minutes which isn't bad at all and it allows me to listen to the podcast that i follow. Right now i'm following TokyoCalling which isn't updated too often, but i'm listening to the back episodes. I'm on 82 of 119, so i'm getting close to catching up. It's not the type of podcast that i expected, but i really enjoy Scott's voice and he usually talks about interesting things. So go give it a listen and see what you think. After classes my girlfriend came over to campus on her bike and we were going to walk around. I'd been wanting to head to Fairbanks hall and check out the art gallery so we headed that way. Unfortunately the exhibit i wanted to see had just been taken down and they were preparing for the next exhibit. As i sulked away i noticed these pine cones which I've never seen before. I liked them a lot and decided to snap a picture. So while one door was closed another was open. Do you like the pine cones?

-Curtis

Aren't they just too cute? This is a photo from my walk two days ago. It wasn't just a walk for walks sake like i planned to do, but my girlfriend and i walked to the theater to see the new Indiana Jones movie. The movie was good, but not awesome. Definitely doesn't stick with the typical Indiana Jones style of plot. Anyway after the movie we began to walk home, but decided to walk over to a little pond/storm water runoff area where the ducks hang out. Well the babies were out and were a great photo subject. They remind me of my chickens that i got a year ago. Baby birds are just so cute. That's the photo of the day, i hope you enjoyed it.

    A couple days ago i decided to go on a walk or bike ride once a day and take my camera. Then i would upload my favorite photo from the excursion to here and talk about it. Well I've done everything, but upload the photos for the past couple days so I'll try to post a few pictures today.

    I'll give you guys more than one photo today though as an apology for not uploading a couple days ago. First my girlfriend and i went out to eat at Tommy's 4th Street Bar & Grill. I wrote a it of a review for them over at yelp. If you click their name above it'll take you to their review page. Here's a little excerpt from my review:

"Cajun fries where pretty good. I've never had fries like them before. Prices where about $2-3 more than what i think the food was worth."

    After that we walked around downtown a little bit. We went to the top of the Corvallis Towers, which are 6 stories tall! ha ha anyway it was a nice view so i think we might go to the restaurant sometime this summer. I'll take my camera and get some nice night shots of the city.

    We then started to head back home, but stopped by a Central park downtown. We had a good time with all the other little kid there. We slid down the slide, swung on the swings, and rocked on the spring rocker thingies. I've always loved going to parks, there's just something about letting all inhibitions go and being a kid again. So while my girlfriend was swinging i took out the Sigma 10-20mm and snapped a photo of her. Looks like good fun doesn't it? Man already this post is taking a while to type what with all the alignment of photos and such.

    After the park we continued our journey onward. While walking we had been looking at plants in peoples yards and i was looking out for a good plant to photograph. We finally came across some stunning Iris's. I decided to use the 50mm f/1.4 and tried to get the detail in focus and let everything else just fade out. What do you think? Does it work? I think it's my favorite photo of the day. I really love the colors, even though it's a sort of dark blueish/purplish and should give off a depressing feel it makes me happy!

    WOW! i need to be a little more descriptive because it's fairly hard to write enough so the photos line up well. This would be far easier with one photo, i guess this can be my motivation to make a post a day with one photo. Back to the story at hand. After wandering through peoples front yard looking around for good photo opportunities we went to Borders to have a nice read. I don't know what you guys are like, but i love going to book stores and just browsing around. I'm a HUGE book guy and i own a fair amount of books, but i can always have more. I always want more information and books are a great source. Another reason book stores are fun is to watch people. You can look at people and guess what books they will read and they might surprise you by reading something totally random. Well this guy was reading what i would expect him to read. Manga. I'm not a huge mange fan, i do own a couple, but they are real Japanese versions for my own study i guess. I don't know manga has never really captured me the way anime has. I think this guy would beg to differ though. Plenty of other kids and adults roam about borders reading manga too. It's surprising to see how popular it is now.

    Finally i'm on the home stretch! I can see the finish. Let's see i guess i should tell ya'll I'm a big drug advocate. I believe all drugs should be legal. I'm not just some young punk that wants to get wasted all the time. I just think drugs should be legal to use in the privacy of your own home on your own body. Drugs do not hurt anyone, but the user and in the "land of the free" citizens ought to have the right to use drugs. One of the sections i regularly visit when at a book store is the drug section. This visit i was reading Cannabible 3 By Jason King, which by the way was very interesting. While i was reading the book though i realized i was one isle from the kids section. I couldn't believe they would put the sections so close together. I mean i don't really think it's a bad thing, but i would assume a company like borders would realize their book placement. At least some complainer would come along and yell at Borders for doing such an irresponsible thing, alas the books still remain though. I snapped the photo of the Cannabible one top of some kids books, but i used too much bokeh. Oh well i could have done better on the photo, but i still like it. Well folks that's were this story ends. I hope you enjoyed the journey and please watch your step when exiting this blog.

Peace-Curtis