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Adventures on Lake Ouachita (Sunday, July 31, 2005 - 6:33:07 PM)
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We went down past Hot Springs this weekend to visit family on Lake Ouachita. Carolaina's sister and her kids were visiting, and Carolaina's and MeLisa's dad decided to take them camping out on one of the islands. We got to ride around quite a bit in a borrowed party barge. They camped for the night while Carolaina and I stayed at her Dad's trailer on the other side of Hwy 270.
This morning, I actually remembered to bring the digital camera out to the campsite. With all the photos in this entry, you can click on them to get the full-size, uncropped image from the camera.
They camped on one side of a rather huge island. In the first photo, the kids used the shoreline on the left for their swimming area. If you look closely at the second image, you can see the tent in the trees just to the left of the run-off area. You can probably pick it out easier in the large version of the photo.
At one point yesterday afternoon, the kids were just being kids, but they annoyed me to the point where I just had to get away. So, I had the bright idea of trying to circumnavigate the island by walking along the shoreline. After about an hour and a half, I was defeated--that island is HUGE!! I don't think I even got close to halfway around. I must have hurt myself while stumbling along some of the uneven rocks, because I woke up this morning with an excruciating pain deep in the top of my left leg. After two asprin and a tylenol, I got to the point where I could function. Tomorrow morning we'll be going to see Dr. Six, the chiropractor.
That afternoon, Carolaina's dad took us for a trip on the lake in the party barge. I found out later that he took us all the way around the island that they are camping on. I would need a whole day and be in very good physical condition to attempt a trek around the full length of it.
[UPDATE 8/1/2005 12:31 PM] Out of curiosity, I tracked down a map of Lake Ouachita to see the size of the island and to see how far I actually got. I severly underestimated the size of it.It seems I had only gone a fraction of the distance around the island. How embarassing.
Because of the drought this year, the water level around the lake is rather low. It's so low that a lot of small islands are popping up. We saw one such island covered with a group of people partying away. The one pictured here was taken this morning before too many people were out on the lake.
Speaking of which, the lake was PACKED yesterday. You could have spit in any direction and would've had a good chance of hitting at least one or more people. Despite that, it was really neat to see a few sailboats like this one:
Back at the trailer yesterday evening, I played a bit more of Dungeon Siege--levelling up is so hard to do. Someone must have been telling me it was time for bed when the game crashed hard on me.
The next morning, we got to take one last boat ride around the lake. Carolaina's dad is the on-call mechanic for his friend's houseboat business: Dreamcatcher Houseboats. They got a call from some renters on boat #3 on the other side of the lake. It seems they were smelling gasoline and noticed the boat was trailing a glistening line of gas. Carl took us with him out there and he quickly figured out that they had just overfilled the gas tank, which caused excess gas to bubble out of the engine.
It's been long known by the people who work on the lake that ZZ Top has a boat stored in one of the docks. As we neared the harbor, we got to see it. :) I saw the boat, but thought nothing of it until someone mentioned that it was theirs. Sure enough, Carolaina saw one of the band members on it--she said his white beard reached down to his waist. He only had a woman with him on the boat. If I had known it was them earlier, I would have gotten photos while we were closer. As it is, I had to use the digital zoom on the camera to get these two pictures. In the second one, you can see the ZZ on the side.
It would have been the perfect weekend had I not hurt myself, but we all had a great time.
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Take a look at the world's smallest MP3 player:
Review on AnythingButiPod.com
It's slightly smaller than a one-inch square! It also comes with an FM tuner and voice recording capability.
I WANT!! :) According to what I've read, they have them at Wal-Mart. With my recent experiences, I shouldn't buy stuff from Wallyworld, but (other than online) it may be that's the only place I can find it. I'll have to look for it next time I'm there.
UPDATE [9:15 PM]: I've done more reading about this neat product, and it's a good thing I have. It seems the model offered at Wal-Mart has a shorter battery life, a much worse FM tuner, and (the deal-breaker) horrid evil DRM features. Luckily, you can get the origional version on eBay. Since each individual "auction" can end quickly, just go to the seller's page.
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interesting weekend (Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 12:37:50 PM)
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My interesting weekend started on Friday evening. Carolaina, me and some of our friends went to play cards at Midnight Oil until they closed. It was a lot of fun, and our new friend David Harvey showed me his new Dell PDA/handheld computer--it has wireless internet functionality!!! I want one!
David was planning on going to Hastings after midnight to pick up the latest Harry Potter book, so we went with him. Carolaina let me get a new anime movie that I've come across recently: The Place Promised in Our Early Days. It's awesome, moving and highly recommended. I watched it twice on Sunday.
On Saturday, I ran some errands and went down to a little used bookstore down in Beebe. I remembered seeing a role-playing book there called Earthdawn that I found out Anthony liked. Thankfully it was still there after seeing it two weeks ago. When I see him next, I'll give to him as a belated birthday present. (Don't worry, he doesn't have internet access and likely won't see this blog entry for some time.) It appears to be the first edition, and may even be an early printing of the book as well!
After that, Erastos and I managed to play an internet game of Dungeon Siege for about an hour or so. We went into an area on the multiplayer map that was waaaaay too tough for my poor little level-58 fighter, but as long as he survived, I had the advantage of leveling up quickly. My character managed to gain two levels while we were there. Oddly enough, after getting disconnected, we couldn't connect to play again. I suspect it was a setting in my DSL router, though. Hopefully we'll get to try again this Saturday.
Also on Saturday, Carolaina and I went to buy me some new clothes. I've lost enough weight now (down to 215) that my jeans were becoming extremely baggy. I hadn't realized how bad they were until I tried on the new ones. I now wear size 38 x 30, but I'll stay on the extreme part of the diet until I reach my goal of 180 pounds. I've also restarted walking on the treadmill every morning while going through the episodes of Cowboy Bebop. Tommorrow morning's episode will be the awesome "Ballad of Fallen Angels".
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A few months ago, I came across the OtherPower.com site. These guys live waaaay up near the northern border of Colorado--far from any power lines. So, they have to use whatever means they can of generating their own power (solar panels, windmills, watermills, generators). Because of that, they've become VERY skilled at conserving the power they use.
Inspired by this, Carolaina and I began following some of the advice on their site and began unplugging stuff while we weren't using it. Things like DVD players and TVs will continue to draw power, even while turned off, waiting for you to hit the power button on the remote. We started doing that almost immediately and since have noticed our electric bill went down (on average) about $10. Now, the VCR will never tell the correct time, but it's worth it. I just don't watch TV anymore, anyway.
This weekend, we finally got around to buying a bunch of compact flourescent light bulbs. These kinds of bulbs use FAR less power, are much more efficient, produce a LOT less pollution, and last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs. We initially picked up 4 at Wal-Mart while we were there. Later, I went to Lowes and picked up quite a few more. All told, we spent around $60 on these things, but they should pay for themselves eventually. The ones from Lowes cost more, but are of much higher quality. They range from 11 to 13 watts, but the light they put out looks like and is roughly equivalent to regular 60-watt incandescent bulbs. The ones from Wal-Mart are a slightly higher wattage and give out a much less pleasing, harsh blue light. I am once again reminded to not buy anything of consequence from Wal-Mart. >:[ Did you know that regular bulbs are extremely inefficient? Most of the energy they put out is heat--only a small percentage of the electricity used comes out as light. Incandescents also put out a LOT of carbon dioxide and some sulpher dioxide. So, we've been poisoning ourselves all this time just to get a bit of light. What else do we have in our homes that constantly poisons us?
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On a similar note, I've finally gotten a start on my LED lamp project. If you don't know, LEDs = Light Emitting Diodes. These things are tiny little light "bulbs" that give bright, focused light when the proper amount of power is fed to them. Most that give white light take 3.6 volts, and red ones take around 1.7 volts. Other color LEDs fall somewhere within that voltage range. Carolaina had gone to Sonic the other day, and got a kid's meal with a light toy. We strongly suspect that it has a red LED inside it. Once the toy's battery runs out, I'll open it up and see. :) It makes a great little flashlight when all the lights are out overnight and I have to stumble to the bathroom. Best of all, the dim, red light doesn't disturb Carolaina from her sleep.
Anyway, my plan is to take an old, small lamp and gut it, then replace the bulb with 10 LEDs and hook them to (4) 9-volt batteries though a switch. The 24 LEDs I had ordered finally arrived yesterday and I had a little fun playing with them last night. I had trouble converting my little Mini-Maglight flashlight over to using one of the LEDs, but I suspect it just wasn't getting enough current out of the one AAA 1.5 volt battery to even light up at all. Once I replace it with the right size & amount of batteries needed, it should work fine.
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I came across this quote on one of my favorite online stores and wanted to share it.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) Indeed. I've seen people who've gotten a college education that really weren't "educated", according to Aristotle. They would even go so far as to dislike or even hate a person who presented ideas that they found offensive.
Here's another good quote I came across today."The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
-- Bertrand Russell Some of the people to be truly feared are the ones who think they have a corner on truth.
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