My Neck Hurts from Rock Music

It's been awhile since I've coherently updated. Looking back, I promised pictures from graduation, posted a 2am rant, and then went on to advertise something based on an entirely different site. Not the way to win readers' hearts. But, I figure, if I'm going to stay up this late on a work-night, I might as well get something useful done tonight so that I can feel good about it.

It's a strange thing, really. I didn't really notice my high school graduation. I was so busy, so stressed by the immenent death of the school, so focused on getting those last good grades, that when the moment came, I really didn't notice it. Summer, since then, has been going by rather fast, too. When I'm in an office for eight hours a day, I'm focusing more on that night than the time that I'm in, and when I'm home at night, I'm more focused on getting to the weekend, and stuffing as much fun as I can into the four hours between when I get home and when I have to go to sleep (which was, incedentially, two hours ago). During the school year I want it to be summer, and during the summer I want it to be the weekend.

Changing topics now.

At the beginning of the summer, my parents, my friend Sam, and I all went and stayed at the Jersey Jim fire tower in Mancos, CO. It's a fire lookout tower from before they had fancy satellites to track smoke and infrared - rangers would hang out in the tower and watch for smoke all day.

A picture (alebeit stylized) of the tower:

While I was there, I also took some other pictures of the surrounding area - some from the tower, some while I was on a walk in the woods. My favorites:

A picture of some trees about a mile from the tower. I liked the combination of backlit and frontlit leaves.

My personal favorite, a sunset from (I think) the second day:

At the top of the tower were hummingbirds, sipping sugar water from the feeder at the top of the tower and zipping around peoples heads like little green meteors. They seemed to know what they were doing. Becasue the sunlight was pouring down, I managed to grab a few shots of the little creatures in flight, only to find their wings captured as an unrecognizable blur. This placid fellow, however, I snapped a photo of, moments before it buzzed off to find more unsuspecting flowers.

My friend Sam Golon came with me on the trip, since my sister opted out. Here he is (Sam, not my sister :) \)

We found a strange structure in the forest. Actually, my family and I had found it years before (We've been to the firetower a fair many times), but this time Sam and I explored it (and I had a camera with me). There are no electronics inside, and the best guess is that it's a strange sculpture for geocachers or the like. Around the sculpture is a large patch of strange cabbage-like leafy plants, that grow in all the bogs surrounding the area.

My parents, at the foot of the firetower:

As a parting shot, the front and back of my rock (tradition: Seniors place a rock on campus bearing their name and a [usually inspirational] word):

It's right outside the admin wing.

--Erty