Fnord.

A great game, especially in SoCal were the weather suits it so well.

It’s also a good place to test sport and outdoor watches:

Casio PAG240

Grey Rock, outside Ft Collins:

The hike (2.9 miles each way to the top)

Near the top

As far as we go

We didn’t make it the last .75mi, where you see the massif in the second picture. The altitude was really getting to me after the hike from 5100′ or so. Good hike regardless, and really nice to get outside and up a mountain.

If you’re like me, you spend significant amounts of time digesting PDFs. Papers, articles, documentation and the like. On OSX, the default Preview application does a good job of displaying files, but several things from the dead-tree experience are lacking:

• I like to, if I’m really diving into a paper, mark it up: highlighter, underline, questions in the margin and scribbles galore.
• Like a printout, how would I convey notes and such to someone else? If I’ve printed it and scribbled, I can just give it to them, but if I use another program to take notes (e.g. Voodoo pad) then it’s a pain to share.

A while ago I found (via Cool OSX Apps) the solution, a free program called Skim. Here’s an example screenshot, where I’ve used most all of the annotation tools on a single page to show the possibilities:

(Click for fullsize)

As you can see, you have highlighter, box, yellow post-it, side notes, freehand doodles, elliptical mark, and lines. I’m pretty sure there’s even more I haven’t found yet.

What’s more, any annotations are saved as part of the file, (see below, I was wrong on this) so they can be shared, saved and reopened later when you’ve forgotten that key insight. S’wonderful.

Highly recommended. Consider setting it to be the default program for PDF files as I have, and spend 30 minutes learning how to use it. For me, this was one of the last real reasons to print stuff out, now vanquished. Bravo.

Update 3/28: Commenter JRF points out that I hadn’t read the Skim FAQ, which explains that the annotations are stored in extended attributes and not the file itself. This makes them more fragile and hard to send via email, svn or the like. Skim is still useful, but read the FAQ if you want to share the results.

I was browsing iPhoto and found this from our Chicago days, one day on the waterfront. Lousy 2.1Mpixel image, but I like how the composition and balance came out.

(Click for fullsize)

Good memories

Despair has a great poster about the difficulty of recognizing one’s own lack of sanity:

Yeah, that’s bonkers. However, check this out. Image is from Suunto PR:

(Click for 1280×800 or so image, original was a crazy 36MB at 7000pix wide!)

Check out the vertical below him/her, and the narrowness of the landing zone. If I had ever tried this, they’d mail my remains home in a sandwich bag. Wow.

I’m guessing that this is a brand spokesperson for Suunto and therefore survived, which impresses me even more. Somehow, ski and snowboarding isn’t as impressive as two wheels on an unyielding rock face.

I was walking down the hill from the gym back to the office, and had to pause and admire the view. There are nice things about living here, that’s for sure.

An unusually haze-free day, courtesy of the offshore Santa Ana winds.

Click the image for or here for the pictures, a superfast 4-day trip to La Selva Biological Reserve in Costa Rica. Supercool, incredibly hot & humid, and not nearly long enough to enjoy.

So I’m reading this article and this article and this post and this article and that review, and mourning the loss of the current-model Merrell I’m wearing (out) right now, and thus enthused try to do some online shoe shopping. Maybe I can find a comfortable pair of shoes!

Nope. None of them are large enough to fit my flappin’ feet. Even Zappos disappoints. Maybe someone else will be helped, sigh.

Update: Mike suggests Eccos, as does my sister. We have a candidate! Thanks, Interweb.

Pictures from Karen and Terri:

From HPWREN, a new set of cameras capturing 20-megapixel (!!) images of the city and view:

Wow. For those of you still in the depths of winter, feel free to click through and see the awful conditions here.