Daily Archives: May 29, 2006

Dodging flying mud and bison (oh, and FU-Camp)


You knew I couldn't stay away a week, right? Well, I had to send pictures. We took two days off (funeral and cremation is tomorrow) to go to Jackson Hole with my mom's sister, Wilhelmina.

When I saw this sign, I thought of the blogosphere. Funny that! :-) The sign was guarding the Artists' Paintpots in Yellowstone National Park. What is it? It's a mudpit. A clay pit, actually. Through the clay would pop up bubbles of gas. That caused the mud to get thrown up to five feet away. It's nature's way of blogging. The latest news bubbles up. Phhlllurbt. Phhlllurbt. Phhlllurbt.

Heh, nature owns a new word. Phhlllurbt. That's the sound that the bubbles make as they pass through the mud and escape. (Google and Live.com don't have any results if you search for that word). Here's a photo of what the mud looks like as the bubbles come up:

Mud pots in Yellowstone National Park

Anyway, I just uploaded our best pictures. Page One. Page Two.

Oh, I just saw Dave Winer saying that security will be extra tight at FU-Camp this summer. Dave's such a joker! Hey, Dave, I think we'll have FU-Camp at my mom's house this summer sometime. Maybe in August after all the conferences are finished.

You'll just have to watch for the flying mud.

Anyway, I'm still taking off until this weekend. I didn't even sign on my laptop the past few days. Maryam couldn't believe that I didn't take it with us to Jackson Hole.

Oh, speaking of Jackson, WY, I had the best food I've had this year in Burke's Chop House in Jackson. What made it best? The small things. The way they cut the apples and strawberries that adorned my salad. The wine they picked. The setting. The staff.

But, they don't have a Web site.

That's just weird to me. I guess I wouldn't mind so much, but the restaurant was only half full. Interesting that the management does everything else right but isn't spending any time on marketing to people who'll visit Jackson. Remember that almost all of the potential customers will come from outside Jackson. So, having a presence on the Web makes a lot of sense to me.

Anyway, see ya this weekend. We have two days of driving ahead of us after the funeral. Maryam made us keep the BMW at home, too, which really bummed me out. We rented a Jeep. What a cruddy car. It only has 11,000 miles on it and it sounds worse than her Toyota did after 65,000.

A few other things before I sign off again. It's nice to see my recent blogging has had a positive impact on people. Jeff, my boss, decided to start blogging personal stuff again.

Oh, and when we went to Chico Hot Springs the other night there were two beautiful women (Bridget and Jen) who were waving at me and giggling, but I'll let Maryam write that story. Let's just say I can't escape from bloggers, even in small-town Montana. And I didn't mind that at all! :-)

Endless Walkway at Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone

Update: sometimes a photo is worth freezing your behind off for. This is one of those photos. It took a 20 minute walk in freezing wind/snow/rain (sometimes all three together). And the image just happened for a few seconds as steam from the Grand Prismatic Spring floated over the walkway making it look like the walkway was endless. In reality there are some kids on the other side of the steam. Another 15 seconds and they'd reappear. Damn it was cold, though. Too bad the photo can't communicate that!

One last thing. A few people have asked where my mom's house is. That caused me to plug "Emigrant, Montana" into Google Maps and Virtual Earth (er, Windows Local Live). I learned that my mom's street doesn't exist in Google, but does in Windows Live (she lives on Capricorn Drive). Here, take a look for yourself: Google search for Emigrant, Montana. Local Live search for Emigrant, Montana. Google isn't even close to as good a quality a map for Montana. Interesting.