Summer-Fall 2009 Pictures (Reverse Order)

Melissa, Matt, and Ben just before the Big Lick Triathlon. Team Name: Inside Joke. What's the joke? Not sure we ever figured that one out.

At the San Francisco Intercontinental Hotel with the Nicaragua delegation. September 2009

View of Lake Atitlan (from San Pedro)

Just after sunset in San Pedro (surrounded by volcanoes)

Thinking "Is that burning rubber I smell? Probably just my shoes...."

Tough hike up Volcano Pacaya

Regulator in Guatemala actually did topography work on this temple ground years ago. He also helped build about 40 chapels in Guatemala.

Visiting the Momotombo Geothermal Plant (with colleague from the Nicaraguan Energy Institute - Aura)

Church in Pretoria -July 09

Nothing like an Air Supply concert with energy regulators Nicaragua. I happened to sit next to the sound engineer for the concert on my flight to Nicaragua and he got us in for free.

Petra - Jordan (May 2009) - Hiked all day (10+ miles) in my flip flops. Definitely recommend (not the flip flop part)

San Francisco with Marco and Paul from Nicaragua - Sept 2009

A Little Gardening...

With a short lull in my travel schedule I've decided to start a small garden. Hopefully I can stay on top of it with my busy Spring/Summer schedule. I'll have to see if I can find someone to babysit the garden while I'm away. We have some good garden space, which has been calling my name since I moved to this house back in September. I've always lived in apartments in Virginia, so I'm excited to have a yard for once. Let's see if the garden can survive my next 6 weeks where I'll have back to back to back trips.....Nicaragua, Jordan, and South Africa. I better start calling around for gardensitters quick.

About a month ago I decided to chop up my desk and make a compost bin. Now I just need to learn some of the finer details about composting. I'm getting some green material from the kitchen (vegetable and fruit scraps), but it's probably not enough to get the compost bin really going. I'll have to see what I can do to raise the temp (ideally 110 degrees F, if I recall correctly).

Three to four weeks ago I planted seeds indoors to get things started. The tomatoes were the first to germinate. I also have some sweet peppers, artichoke, and canteloupe. The artichoke are an experiment....can take from 180-360 days to harvest....apparently its a perrenial. I may have been a bit overzealous starting the cantaloupe so early. It's growing fast and will probably outgrow it's new pot in the next week or two. Things were pretty cold today, so I'm guessing we're past the last frost for another few weeks.

My star tomato plant. I have cherry and better boy tomatoes....although I've lost track which ones are which.

Snow peas just starting to sprout. They took about 14 points to germinate, and I'm a little worried about the soil I put them in. I've also planted onions, radishes, spinach, lettuce, and carrots outside.

Here are the sweet peppers. I think they need a lot of sun and have been slow to get going. Our window sill gets some sunlight, but they will probably do much better once it's a little warmer and our outdoors.

I watch these almost as much as the stock market these days....although the plants make me feel much more optimistic.