An odd coincidence

When I first created the starlightmaze username, it was unique, with no web references at all. The uniqueness of the name has allowed me to easily track references to my blog on the web. Yesterday, I went to register the starlightmaze@gmail.com account with Google (previously available), and found that the name was taken. So I did a little digging, and found that the name is no longer unique. Not only is someone using it for their gmail account, but a woman (possibly the same person) is using it as her Twitter handle. It makes me curious as to how these people chose the user name for themselves...

Celebrating the Fourth

I had a pretty decent Fourth of July holiday weekend, and it's too bad that the weekend is already over. On Friday, the weather was remarkably cool for July in DC. Most of the day, the temperature was in the high seventies, and the thermometer peaked at a mere eighty degrees. I took advantage of the lovely day to go for a long bike ride on the western edge of Loudon County. I biked a forty-two mile route from Purcellville to Middleburg, up Snickersville Pike to Bluemont, and then back to the start. This part of Loudon is far from the DC sprawl, and consists of farms, horse farms, and old country estates, and makes for beautiful environment for cycling.

On Saturday, I decided to go on another long bike ride, and biked from Arlington out to Herndon on the W&OD Trail. Arlington, of course, is the essence of the DC sprawl. However, once past Vienna, the area around the W&OD Trail is a lot less developed, and much more fun to ride on. In the afternoon, I joined some of my neighbors for a BBQ, and in the evening, watched the fireworks from the roof of a friend's coop complex in southwest DC.

Zion photos online

I have finally posted the photos from my trip to Zion National Park online. I still need to work on my Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon photo sets, as well as my recent photos from the Outer Banks.

Some random photos

I still have not had time to arrange my photos from Zion, Grand Canyon, Bryce, and the Outer Banks. So here are a few random photos in the interim...


Waterfall at the Lower Emerald Pool in Zion


The trail to Hidden Canyon in Zion - trail is a few feet wide


The moon rises in Zion


These hoodoos in Bryce made me think of the Three Stooges


Hatteras Village

A quick vacation

I took Thursday and Friday off this week in order to have a quick vacation at the Outer Banks. My trip consisted of a mix of swimming, reading on the beach, biking, walking around the beaches, and camping. Most of my time was spent on Cape Hatteras, with one night spent on Ocracoke Island. I had a pretty good time, although I got cooked like a lobster. Moral of the story: apply sunscreen underneath the mesh bike jersey too!


Waves crashing onto the beach


Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Loving Arlington County - not!

Parking on my neighborhood in Arlington is terrible. Arlington did a poor job planning the parking zones here, so it is extremely difficult to find parking in zone #4, while two blocks over in zone #5, there is ample available parking. Worse, Arlington keeps removing available spots in my neighborhood. I'm guessing it is part of their ongoing campaign to get people to stop driving, as if that was realistic. Plus, they get quite the revenue stream from forcing people into metered spots. So if I get home late, I end up in metered parking (free on weekends), or parked a ten minute walk away. On Saturday night, there was no parking available at midnight, so I ended up parking in a metered spot. I didn't drive anywhere on Sunday, and forgot that I was in a metered spot, so this morning there was a lovely $25 ticket. Part of the cost of living in Arlington, I guess. It really makes me miss my driveway at home in Michigan.

Of course, Arlington County vehicles are the among the most blatant violators of the parking laws around here. Not only do they park illegally, but they often park in unsafe locations too. And as luck would have it, tonight someone left an Arlington County vehicle parked illegally, unattended, in front of a fire hydrant. I'm glad that nobody in the area had a fire.



Many people call the County the People's Republic of Arlington. I think the name fits.

Some random photos

Here are some random photos from my vacation.


The view from Angel's Landing


The Watchman


Grand Canyon

Back to reality

My vacation is almost over, and I'm back in the land of civilization and the Internet. Provo seems to be the technology capital of Utah (Novell's building is two blocks from here), and it's interesting being in a city where the billboards advertise co-location solutions, high-speed Internet, and other technology services. Even the Dulles Corridor doesn't have quite this level of geek factor. Not surprisingly, the Internet service at my hotel is pretty decent.

My vacation went well, although it was much a week of exercise as anything else. Nothing reminds one that he is out of shape like hiking up canyons, scrambling across boulders, and venturing miles into the unknown. Utah and Arizona are beautiful. I spent two days at Zion National Park, about a day at the Grand Canyon, and dropped by Bryce Canyon on my way back up to Provo. It will be at least a week before I have my pictures all sorted and put online, but here are a couple of ones to start with.

The following picture is the view from my campsite at Zion. It's a great view to see first thing in the morning.



The moon over the canyon walls was beautiful. This was the best I could manage with my 6" tripod.



This picture shows the Roaring Springs Canyon running into the Grand Canyon.