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Ok.. now that I only have two states in the union (North and South Dakota) to visit to have visited all 50… I’m already thinking about the next roadtrip… Blanchard, North Dakota.. What’s in Blanchard? The tallest man-made structure in the world, of course!

It’s almost equidistant from San Francisco and from New York… (ok, 8 hours more from SF, but you New Yorkers can go through Canada to tack on some mileage).. So I say we have a little SF-NY reunion BBQ there.

Come on.. who’s with me?

Since I love making movies, here’s the august roadtrip movie (45mb download) from my latest trip for your viewing pleasure.. enjoy.

So.. my new akimbo player arrived yesterday.. The Akimbo is a set top box that downloads video content from the Internet.. whoohoo!

The akimbo looks at home in my stack of gear underneath the tv.. It matches almost perfectly with my dvd player and Sony TiVo (which I got over the philips TiVo way back when because it was prettier). It’s as if all of these set top box designers went to the same sleek silver design school or something. The TiVo remote and the Akimbo remote seemed like they’re related… funny. The Akimbo currently hooks up with S-Video — no component video or HD yet, but that’s coming soon.. It would be awesome to have more HD content right now, since I’m getting sick of watching “Beavers” over and over and over again on INHD. That’s beavers of the animal variety, you pervs.

Upon setup, I did run into a vexing problem with my Netgear router.. For some reason, the router interfered with my access to the akimbo site, and I switch to a different router… Supposedly a firmware upgrade will fix that problem, but it seems strange that it would affect access to the servers at all, when other sites worked fine…

Anyway, once I solved my network problems, setup was a breeze.. I started adding content to the download queue.. whoohoo! Akimbo has a bunch of channels that you’d typically recognize… the History Channel, National Geographic, etc.. as well as a bunch of channels that I’ve never heard of, but look interesting.. Just last week, they’ve signed a deal with MLB to get compressed games, so that’ll be cool when that starts showing up on the Akimbo.. You’re able to add downloads to your queue really easily through their web interface, so that’s pretty cool to be able to control the box that way… I sure do wish there was some way to load my own video content on to the Akimbo though..

So far so good.. I’ll report more as I use the Akimbo more, but so far it looks pretty sweet…

Days: 8.
Total miles travelled: 3,199
Number of tires blown: 0.
States visited: 7.
National Parks visited: 3.
Money lost in Vegas: $221.
Money lost in Winnemuca: $1.
Money invested in California Lottery: $1.
Number of Walmarts visited: 2.
Number of times lost in suburbs of Brigham, UT: 1.
Number of times God brought up in conversation by strangers: 2.
Number of McDonalds visited: 0.
Number of Roadfood places visited: 2.
Number of Roadfood places dined at: 1.
Number of Bison spotted: 27.
Number of Jablows spotted: 2.
Number of Sinclair Dinosaurs spotted: 2.
Number of Marshmallows roasted: 11.
Number of Rocks collected: 5.
Number of Geologic features identified: 271.
Number of Aspen pictures taken: 6.
Number of Rainbows seen: 2.

I also made a google map representation of the roadtrip, if you have google earth installed, check it out, it’s kind of neat.. ok, geeky.

And.. so yah, that’s basically the trip…

From Yellowstone, we drove north up through Montana since I wanted to see the Big Sky country and all… Granted, I’m easily swayed by advertising slogans and all, but I swear the sky really is bigger up in Montana. I mean, the skies in Idaho were cool, but those would be more like “Rather Large Sky” country rather than the “Big Sky” country you get up in Montana. Right at the border between Montana and Idaho, you can feel the sky shrink a little bit. Really!

We stayed the night in Twin Falls, Idaho — which bills itself as “The World’s Most Overlooked Place”. Now, what the hell kind of slogan is that.. that’s second only to Kalamazoo, Michigan’s slogan, “Yes, there really IS a Kalamazoo.” Ugh… Nothing will ever come close to my favorite town slogan.. “Ithaca is Gorges.” Anyway, Twin Falls should really be renamed No Falls, Idaho. Apparently, due to seven years of drought, they’ve turned OFF the falls so that the farmers can irrigate their crops. So there’s really nothing to look at (maybe that’s why it’s overlooked). I mean, at least rename it Twin Cliffs, Idaho or something. Sheesh. Then again, Twin Falls wasn’t all that bad.. we were treated to an encore presentation of the sunset and rainbow that we saw the night before in Yellowstone (my wise friend Doug once told me.. “sunsets happen every day”).

And that’s it… Natalie and I made it home safely.. I think the trip was about 3,000 miles in total… Natalie earned herself a silver medal in roadtripping on her inaugural performance on a classic american roadtrip (she earned extra points for the geology lessons). And no flat tires this time.. Hmm.. come to think of it, this is my ONLY major roadtrip without a blown out tire… Alaska trip.. blown out tire.. Southwest trip, blown out tire.. hmm.. Maybe I’ve learned something after all of these miles..

And.. here we are… the “reason” for this roadtrip.. Yellowstone.

So I saw this movie on the Discovery channel a few months back called “Supervolcano” — it basically talked about how the Yellowstone caldera is the largest caldera in the world, and when it erupts, it will wreak havoc on the world by erupting enough ash to put us into nuclear-winter for years to come. Whoohoo.. Now that I wanna check out. Turns out, you can’t really see the caldera, cuz it’s like miles under the earth, but with that much magma that close to the surface, it makes for some really neat geologic features to check out. And since it erupted before, most of the rock and bits around yellowstone are volcanically formed and stuff. All around Yellowstone are stinky, steamy holes (which geologists call fumaroles).. so cool. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is tinged yellow with the sulfur from the guts of our earth, which makes for one hell of a scenic Kodak moment. But..honestly, why call it the “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone”? Like, “Grand Canyon” is already taken, I think they should call it the “Great Canyon” or something like that so that it can stand on its own naming merit.. Every time you say “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone” you’re reminded of the OTHER grand canyon, and it’s pretty damn cool on its own. Hmm.. maybe I call it “Pretty Damn Cool Canyon” from now on.

Now, the volcano-y and geothermal bits of yellowstone are what I was expecting to see… What I was also pleasantly surprised about in Yellowstone were the incredibly beautiful forests that had been burnt in forest fires in years past.. When a forest fire rips through a region in Yellowstone, it leaves a gorgeous swath of burnt spindly trees in its wake. Supposedly the lodgepole pines won’t release their seeds unless there’s heat from a forest fire, so fires are an integral part of their life cycle. After the fire, the landscape is left barren, though life quickly starts to inhabit the rich fire-burnt soil. Since different parts of the park burn throughout the year, it’s almost as if you’re walking through a timeline of what happens in each year after a burn..

Anyway… since we were being touristy, we headed over to good old faithful to hang out with all of the European tourists. There sure were a lot of Europeans checking out our country. We met Italians, Dutch, Germans, and even people from Iowa. We got to old faithful right about 2 minutes after it erupted, so we had to wait for another 92 minutes or so before it erupted again. When it finally did erupt, it was really very exciting. really. honest. for real. whoopee!!! Nothing like some geothermally superheated water to get the adrenaline going.. I’m thinking that I will build myself a geyser right in downtown San Francisco. I’ll charge tourists like a buck to get a good look. I’ll be bigger than the mystery spot.

After old faithful did its thing, we ventured on to take a look at some more geothermal springs and such when a mad super crazy thunderstorm blew in outta nowhere. We were walking towards some gurgly spouty thing when all of a sudden like a dozen Italians come running out of nowhere shouting something about “storm!” “storm!” (in italian, of course) and pointing at the huge looming storm cloud that was shooting lightning every which way. Pretty damn exciting. Armed with my half broken hello kitty umbrella, we ventured onward to get a better look at the storm.. I haven’t been in a good thunderstorm since the summer of 1996 when I was making toilet paper in Mehoopany, PA, so I was really jazzed to be in a real, live summer storm once again. It had everything.. lightning strikes, enormous claps of thunder, hail, and the torrential downpour of buckets rain… So fun!! Man, living in San Francisco has really made me miss crazy weather like this. The storm made for some fantastic photos though… the sun was still peeking out from under the clouds low on the horizon which meant.. rainbow!!

Of course, this was the one night that we decided to camp.. lucky for us though, right as we pulled into our campsite, it stopped raining long enough for us to roast a bunch of marshmallows over our campfire…

After one wild and crazy night in Salt Lake, we hightailed it out of Utah, heading for Yellowstone. After spending a few days in Utah, it’s funny to see how many devil-based names of things are in Idaho.. Devil’s Lake, Hell’s Mouth, Bezelbub’s Lagoon… it seems like everything in Idaho is named to scare the poor Mormons back in to Utah. We made it to Yellowstone in the early afternoon, through the West Yellowstone, MT gate.. I had heard that there was a night rodeo in Cody, WY, so we zipped through the park quickly (ok, we did stop for a little bit at some bubbling geologic features, and did see some bison and elk).

Cody, Wyoming claims to be the rodeo capital of the world, and has a rodeo every night at 8:30pm during the summer. It was all I ever wanted from a rodeo and more… The rodeo consists of various incarnations of lasso’ing something or riding some sort of bucking animal. As the night progressed, the animals being lasso’ed or ridden got progressively bigger (as did their riders). So, starting with the 12 year old cowboys riding little calfs, the night ended with the professional cowboys riding big badass Bulls. In the middle, there was a crazy event where all of the kids in the audience got to run around the stadium and chase a poor calf (with a ribbon tied to it) — all for a free dairy queen sunday. Ahh.. good ol’ clean American fun.

Yeeehaaa.

After Vegas, Natalie and I drove north to Utah to Zion National Park.. Zion’s pretty cool, with big rocks and stuff and we had time to do one quick hike to the weeping rock. Natalie’s a geologist, so all along the trip she was able to point out the cool geologic features and stuff… Which basically meant that we’d stop at the side of the road and she’d excitedly run off to look at some rocks or something.. My college roommate Jon was a geologist too, and I remember him telling me that geologists were really bad drivers since they were always paying attention to the rocks along the side of the road.. I can see why now. But it sure was cool to have a geologist along on the roadtrip, I learned a whole lot.. Now I am well versed in schist formation, metamorphic rocks, and all sorts of neat sounding things.. Science is fun!

The next day, we drove to Bryce Canyon.. Bryce Canyon ROCKS. I think it’s cooler looking than the Grand Canyon.. I mean, the Grand Canyon is cool and all, but it’s just cool cuz it’s really, really big. Bryce Canyon is sooo pretty, and the size of the features seem more accessible than Grand Canyon. We did the Peekaboo Loop Hike, which took us away from most of the crowds. Though it was rainy and overcast throughout most of the day, the beauty of Bryce Canyon was still able to shine through. In the middle of the hike, I sat down on a bench to get a bit of rest and spotted a cute little bird hopping about. I took a picture of it. Then it pooped on me. They say it’s good luck, but I think they just tell that to people to make them feel better after they’ve been pooped on by a bird. Yuck.

After Bryce, we headed out on highway 12.. which is designated as a national scenic byway. It’s damn scenic and definitely makes it on to dennis’ “official list of damn scenic drives”. The scenery drastically changes from the reddish rock of Bryce to a more tannish variety which Natalie found more interesting.. The two-laned driving was twisty, hilly, and slow-going and going the whole way from Bryce to Boulder (about 100 miles) took over 3 hours… The drive from Boulder to Salt Lake City (about 200 miles) was much, much faster…

When we got near SLC, I gave dipasquo a call since he’s spent a lot of time in Salt Lake on business…

me: hey dan, we’re about to get to Salt Lake..
dan: uh huh.
me: so, does Salt Lake have a night life or anything?
dan: hahahahahahaha. no.

Yah.. so I guess the mormon’s don’t party hard or anything… and considering it was a Tuesday night when we pulled into SLC, it was quieter than mime in a library.

Well.. I just got back from yet another roadtrip. Unlike my last roadtrip, which I was able to document in a very, very detailed fashion, I had only minimal Internet access.. And, unlike the last roadtrip, this time I wasn’t alone — Natalie joined me, which was a welcome addition. Natalie’s from England, and this would be her roadtrip — and considering that Europeans don’t really drive nearly as far as we American’s do, I don’t quite think she was prepared for how much driving an American roadtrip involves (or at least, a roadtrip with crazy me).

Our first leg was the longest haul of the trip.. San Francisco to Vegas. The drive from SF to Vegas is quite a trek through California’s central valley.. Notable stops along the way were Pea Soup Andersen’s in Santa Nella, CA for the pea soup (what else??) and The Mad Greek in Baker, CA for the strawberry shakes…

Upon our arrival in Las Vegas, we joined up with the Jerks for the celebration of Jablow’s 30th birthday. By the time we got to Vegas the Jerks had already been drinking for quite some time, especially Tom Kim who apparently didn’t realize that Friday night was the “calm” night out in preparation for glorious Saturday shenanigans. After brunch at Mandalay Saturday morning, I set out to give Natalie a grand tour of Vegas.. The plan was to start with the Big Shot at the stratosphere, then to Circus Circus, then to see the new Wynn, then to the Mirage to see the rainforest, then to the Venetian, Bellagio, Paris, and New York, New York… But.. it turns out that I’m a bit too optimistic in my time estimates.. Turns out, doing anything in Vegas takes like 3 hours, so we only got to hit up the Stratosphere before it was time for dinner.. Ooops.

Saturday night was the biiiig celebration for Jablow.. Jo has some great photos of the night.. We went to The Mix which is on the top floor of TheHOTEL at Mandalay Bay.. For a Saturday night it was actually pretty uncrowded and we had no trouble getting in even at midnight, so that was a pleasant surprise to not have to wait in line for something in Vegas.. Needless to say, most everyone did a good job celebrating Jablow’s 30th year, and a good percentage of us ended up on assorted bathroom floors cursing sin city… But, I won’t elaborate since.. what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and all, right?

But man.. good times.. good times…

Anyway.. happy birthday Jablow!! (and Pius too, and the Kaibash too, man.. three Jerks born on the same date.. insane)

Um.. ok, here’s an example of the random stuff I wonder sometimes..

Ok.. so I think for US currency, the penny (1 cent) is the best deal at 2.5 grams.. So that works out to $1.81 a pound. Bills are a much worse deal US $1 bills are about $490 per pound.

So — my question is… what currency out there is the best deal by weight? It’d probably have to be modern currencies, since any old or collectible currency would probably be worth more than the actual currency.. For example, I’ve been looking around and an Iranian 2-rial coin (at an exchange rate of 8,998 rials to 1 USD) is selling for $2.50….

This question is so vexing, that I’ve asked metafilter.