July 31, 2006
Hank's Place
A diner in Red Lodge, Montana. We stopped in for breakfast here and were very pleased w/the food, even if the service left something to be desired in terms of speed. Life just moves more slowly in Montana, I think, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It can be frustrating sometimes when you forget to take off your “rush rush rush” city hat, but otherwise it can be quite refreshing.
July 30, 2006
Overexposed Deere
A line of John Deere tractors just outside Deer Lodge, Montana. Or should that be “Deere” Lodge?
I had my camera set wrong so the shot was overexposed to begin w/so I just blew it out a lot farther for the effect. iPhoto won't let you get too extreme, but interesting, nonetheless, I thought.
July 29, 2006
July 28, 2006
Huffy Rack
A rack of identical Huffy Santa Fe bicycles on the U of M campus. This rack just appeared one afternoon on the lawn on my way home from class. Very strange...
July 27, 2006
Missoula Nightfall
The remains of a sunset over the Lewis & Clark Apartments in Missoula. I thought this was a fitting image for my last day in Missoula...
July 26, 2006
Bubble Filled Hell
My bubble answer sheet from a practice MBE. Today I will spend six hours filling in 200 more little circles, only this time I hope to get a helluva lot more of them right!
July 25, 2006
DoubleTree of Doom
The DoubleTree hotel in Missoula, MT, the site of the July 2006 MT Bar Exam. Good: It has AC. Bad: It doesn't have enough outlets for us all to use laptops. The bar examiners don't allow the use of laptops, anyway, but it's only a matter of time before they do. I might just have something to do with that....
July 24, 2006
Grizz
The preeminent grizzly statue on the University of Montana campus. This one sits in the focal point of the main quad with what I would call “old main” in the background, and Mt. Sentinel behind that. It's actually very picturesque, even if you can't tell from this photo. ;-)
July 23, 2006
Pinecone Purple
Same photo as yesterday, just tripped out a little. The bar exam is tomorrow and I'm feeling a little ... how should we say? Green around the gills? Freaked? Purple? There's no great word to describe it but I really really really wish I had not wasted so much time in the last few weeks! I also wish I'd had more than three days since BarBri classes finished. Of course, would I have really used it? I'd like to think I would have. I'd like to rewind at least two weeks and do them differently so that now, the day before the exam, I would not feel so....
The tree has turned purple, but the fat lady has not yet sung. I'm still going to pass. I have to!
p.s.: Of course, the real and true reason this wacky, inverted purple pinecone is appearing today is that I just haven't been taking enough pics recently to have anything better to post. I hope this doesn't become common, but...
July 22, 2006
Pinecone Green
Really green pinecones on some kind of pine tree. I was once able to distinguish between several different kinds of pine trees based on things like cone shape; needle shape, size, and configuration (some trees have needles that grow in pairs, some in triples, some singly); height and fullness, etc. But I don't remember what's what anymore—lodgepole, spruce, ponderosa, pinion... um.... what else is there? I guess this will just have to be a pine tree for now...
July 21, 2006
Crooked Trail, Crazy Canyon
A sign along the Mt. Sentinel fire road points hikers, bikers, and other travelers toward two of the mountain's delightfully-named hiking options. Hiking this road I learned it could take me to the “M” and/or the summit of Mt. Sentinel. Does anyone know what happens if you just keep going, say, to the Crazy Canyon Trailhead? How far can you go? I'm sure I could learn more about my Missoula hiking options online (e.g. from the Missoulian's Uncover Missoula for starters), but sadly I don't really have the time to go exploring like I'd like to. Or maybe I'd do better on the bar exam if I just chucked the books and cleared my head with a good, long, hike. It's tempting....
July 20, 2006
Mt. Sentinel Fire Road
The Mt. Sentinel fire road as seen from a little ways up the mountain and looking down toward the U of M campus.
July 19, 2006
Hangin' High
A hang-glider circles in for a landing over the University of Montana soccer fields in Missoula. I've seen several gliders in the sky on recent evenings. It looks like incredible fun!
July 18, 2006
ASUM Gardens
The community gardens of the Associated Students of the University of Montana. (At least I think that's what ASUM stands for.) Mt. Sentinel rises in the background. This is a wonderful place to go for a run or an evening stroll...
July 17, 2006
Backyard Stream
The stream feeding the pond in the “backyard” of my Missoula apartment. The water level has dropped several inches from the time I first saw it to the last few days—a function of the fact that it was raining about every day in my first week or two here but it now hasn't rained for quite some time.
July 16, 2006
Montana Hall
A view of the East side (I think) of Montana Hall on the Montana State University campus. This was one of the coolest buildings on campus but unfortunately it was all fenced off for reroofing and maybe other repairs.
July 15, 2006
MSU
The Montana State University logo above the sign for Strand Union in Bozeman. I was on the campus for a couple of days of training. My short stay suggested that Bozeman would be a pretty cool place to live and definitely a nice place to be an undergrad.
July 14, 2006
Stumpy Bear
A bear sculpture on the University of Montana campus. As you can see from the pic at right, this bear has been carved out of a tree stump. Or maybe it was just set on a tree stump, but I'd like to think it was carved out of the tree itself. Whatever. The Grizzly is the mascot of the University of Montana so there are bears all over the place here. Specifically, I've seen at least three bear carvings like this that look like they were carved out of the trees on whose stumps they stand.
July 13, 2006
Western Bird Column
A sculpture on the Univeristy of Montana campus just outside the business school. The steel into which those birds are cut is about 3-4 inches thick. At right is a shot of the sculpture looking up from the base. I like the latter perspective better but it doesn't show the bird silhouettes as clearly. I regret that I didn't write down the title of the sculpture and its artist, but it's pretty cool, don't you think?
July 12, 2006
Falling Star Flower
A bloom on my sister's cool plant. I can't remember what kind of plan it is (perhaps she can remind me?), but it kind of looks like a falling star to me...
July 11, 2006
July 10, 2006
Tree Slugger
A bumper sticker on a vehicle in my apartment complex parking lot. What do you think it means?
July 09, 2006
Milkweed Flower
A large milkweed “bloom” from my mom's yard. Yes, it's a weed, but it's kind of pretty, too, don't you think?
July 08, 2006
July 07, 2006
Inked Out
The ink cartridge for the pen I'm using to take notes while studying for the bar. I just bought this pen a couple of weeks ago when I arrived in Missoula and have used it for nothing but bar study so I was surprised to find it already running dry the other day. I wish that meant that I had been working very hard, but sadly I think it just means that this pen uses a lot of ink. ;-(
Oh well. I bought it b/c I need something that writes easily w/minmum pressure or effort from my hand. I'll need every advantage I can get for the hours and hours of handwriting required for the bar exam.
July 06, 2006
Continental Divide
The sign marking the Continental Divide heading East on I-90 just past Butte. Along with the Great Basin, the Divide is one of the great geographic landmarks of the western U.S.
July 05, 2006
Three-Point Plug
The plug for our “new” dryer. We found a Frigidaire washer and dryer set at an estate sale for $200—a great deal when you consider that you can easily pay $400 for each piece if you buy new. When we bought them I didn't pay much attention to whether the dryer was gas or electric, but was happy to later discover that it was electric and that our house was wired for an electric dryer. So far so good. But when we got the dryer moved in and I tried to plug it in, I discovered a small problem—our basement was wired for a 220-volt dryer with a four-prong plug (pictured at right), but our dryer was a 110-volt dryer with a three-prong plug. What to do?
A quick trip to Ace Hardware and about an hour later, the problem was solved. I simply pulled the wires out of the 220-outlet and wired 3 of them (positive, negative, and ground) up to a new 110-outlet. The extra wire from the 220 line I just cut and capped with a wire nut so it's not being used. Everything seems to work fine now and if we ever do get a 220-volt dryer it won't be a big deal to wire up the 220 outlet again.
Homeownership. Isn't it fun?
July 04, 2006
Moving Tip #68
Advice on our Budget truck keychain. Smart idea, except that if you lose your keys, you won't have access to this advice, now will you?
We used the 4th of July holiday to move into our new house. Thanks so much to my hardworking family for making the move so fast and easy!
July 03, 2006
Baby Grill
Freshly-lit charcoal in our little tiny Weber grill. I got a super-sweet, huge, auto-ignition, 4-burner, stainless-steel gas grill (see image at right) as an incredibly generous graduation present from L's kind siblings, but sadly at the time we wanted to grill something we had moved the grill to our new house while all the food remained at my mom's house. So we used the little Weber and it worked fine. Not as simple, but still tasty.
My new grill is super-sweet, though. I've only been able to use it once for burgers and hot dogs, but that one time was a joy. It lights like magic and cooks like a, um, charm. According to this comment thread, recent models have had some problems, but it sounds like those have been fixed so we should have no problems. Now if I only had about 40 friends to invite over for a cookout... ;-)
July 02, 2006
Deep Sea Basement
Our basement in the middle of its makeover. The basement on our house was added sometime after the house was built so it has a deep concrete shelf all the way around it about halfway up the wall. When we bought the house this was covered in dirt and grime, but it did have three sets of study shelves on it. We decided to paint the horizontal surfaces a dark color that would be less likely to show dirt, and paint the horizontal surfaces the brightest color we could find to try to make the basement seem brighter. The image at right shows the final efffect, more or less— our basement after we finished painting and moved in a few things. I'm happy with how it turned out—much brighter!—but we might have to cover the paint on the floor at least with some sort of sealant (like this, maybe?) to keep it from scratching and give it a nice gloss.
July 01, 2006
Resurfacing
Our freshly-sanded floor getting its first coat of finish. The strip of floor on the right side of this image has been coated with finish, while the rest is just the bare wood.
Our floor refinishing was an experiment that didn't fully succeed. The sanding went ok, although we didn't get a fully flat and even surface because parts of the floor were already too uneven from previous sandings or other things, plus I'm no expert drum sander. (That machine is the real monster sander. Leave it in one place for 5 seconds and you'll have a nice little groove in your floor. Not good.) But we did get a nice smooth finish on the wood, I thought. Then we swept, vacuumed, and tacked the floor using mineral spirits to get all the sawdust off and leave a nice smooth, clean surface for finishing. Then we waited about 12 hours and put on the first layer of finish. For the finish we used a product called Hillyard Uphold b/c experienced floor refinishers recommended it as especially good. It cost nearly three times what standard polyurethane costs, so we figured it must be good, right? I'm sure the product is fine, but for some reason, after four coats we still didn't have a smooth floor. It seems that the first coat raised the grain of the wood, making the floor very rough. Each subsequent coat of finish smoothed things out a bit, but it's still far from how it should be. We were in a hurry to get moved in so we just decided to leave it for now and deal with it later.
So what did we do wrong? Why did the first coat of finish raise the grain of the wood? Did we put it on too thick, or should we have done something different?