New and news

Hello! Well we're at t-minus a week before I leave for Korea to be teaching English! I need to make a trip back to the Korean Consulate again tomorrow to, hopefully, receive my visa. Barring nothing unexpected there, then by this time next week I'll be headed to the north pacific, maybe even angling southward at this point. (think "great circles"). The flight will be thirteen hours.

The process has been a really interesting so far and I'm excited and nervous about being an excellent teacher to the kids, as well as a "good foreigner" who is quick to learn and gracious in the face of confusion. ^^I've packed one of the two check-in luggage and it is full of books, electronics, and a neat camping hammock. According to gma and gpa's scale, it is still within the 50lb weight limit. Books are really heavy, especially if there's a worthwhile amount of them. Heh. I'm taking some great textbooks from last semester's TESOL class as well as other learning material.

This past weekend a group of us guys went out to Red Rocks Canyon, north of Edwards Air Force Base. We had a blast even though I came down with a bad headache (which was the harbinger of the wretched cough/cold I have now). There are a lot of pictures up, and most of you on Facebook have probably already seen them. Here's a link to the set on my flickr account. If nothing else, it's worth visiting the site just to see the pretty scenery. (c: We also went to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, so there are a few nice pictures of poppies there too.

Here's the desert group.

We had fun playing with brother Peter's projector lens.

Here's a photo of some of the Joshua trees in the area.

More lens play. Added a fun photographic element.

Here is a shot of the interesting formations near our campsite.
On the far right of the photo is where we were camped.

I recently acquired a neato camera and a couple lenses to compliment it. I've high hopes of documenting interesting parts of the trip and experience in Korea. There are a lot of "crazy" ideas I have for photo projects, but expect nothing dear readers, and you might not be disappointed. (c: I'll try to pull a few together.

Other things of note, I've changed my phone number. As of this coming Friday or so, the old number simply won't work anymore. Fear not! For Google has come through with yet another opportunistic service. I'll be using my "gvoice" number linked with my skype account (it is already linked). If you need/want the number, it is on facebook/buzz or just leave a comment and I'll send it to you. (c: The service can handle text/picture messages as well, so don't worry.

I'll wrap up with a couple more photos from the camp trip. I love hearing from you and I'm looking forward to updating on "more exciting" stuff in the near future. ^^

Here the sunlight was coming at a lower angle and the wind started picking up a lot.

Poppies!