Driggs: Stars, Snow and Such (12/1-12)

A little late, but I wanted to catch up on my blogging.  I went to Portland last weekend for a Baha'i conference so I didn't have time to blog for the past whenever. 

But I'll save the Portland conference for another blog.  This one will be about the last week or so in Driggs.  But not in any particular order.

Stars

First, I was really amazed at the clarity of stars in the sky here in Idaho.  Especially 2 weeks ago when the moon was new and it was really dark out.  I went outside with my camera, zoom lens and tripod and set the shutter to stay open for 30 seconds.  Amazingly, I was able to get some decent photos of stars.  Here is the shot as I took it:

But if I zoom in a bit you can see some more ...

Pretty neat.  You can even see some spiraling.  Not sure if those are galaxies or not, but I'm going to pretend they are because that is way cooler than having a smudge on my lens.  Here is a super close up:

The really cool thing is that every star is a different color.  With the naked eye you don't see it -- everything looks white -- but actually every star is giving off different parts of the light spectrum.  Pretty neat.  And that spiral thing totally looks like a galaxy, doesn't it? 

It's also neat that you can see the stars moving across the sky.  The shutter was open for 30 seconds, so you can see 30 seconds of movement across the sky.  They all have just a slight bit of movement with them.  I took several different shots with a timer and tripod so it was definitely not me bumping the camera or the wind or something.

Anyway, I thought that was pretty cool.

Snow

The other thing that happened was that it has started to snow a bit here in Idaho.  We had a decent snow fall and accumulation during the weekend.  It hasn't snowed since then, 4 days ago, and some has gone away, but we're supposed to get another system in this weekend.

Anyway, while it was snowing last week I took a few pictures.  Here you go ...

fast shutter speed so you can see the flakes Slower shutter speed so they are a bit more blurry

Such

For the most part my week, with the exception of the Conference in Portland, has been pretty much business-as-usual.  I've been working hard on the site for the Chamber (which is coming along quite well), and this week I've started training one of the staff at the Chamber on the CMS system for the site.

I try to contribute by helping out a bit and cooking a few meals here and there.  Here is one I made last week: Kim Chee Fried Rice, Spicy Tomato Beef and Spinach Salad.

doesn't it look yummy?  (doesn't it?)

Today there were a few things going on that Reid and the Chamber have been preparing for, mainly to do with developments and projects in the Teton Valley Region. Lots of stuff going on here and even though there is a bit of a reccesion, that doesn't seem to be slowing down progress on a lot of the cool things going on around here. 

So, I took a bunch of photos from today's events.  First there was an Economic Development Forum at City Hall, then there was a presentation by a representative from BYU-Idaho about their internship and research program, followed by another meeting on Grant Writing.

reid talking to the attendees

he's not a cowboy.  this is just normal attire in idaho.

In the evening the Chamber had their community X-mas party down at Drawknife Biliards.  Drawknife is a manufacturing facility that makes custom Billiard and pool tables, as well as a few other gaming tables.  Sort of like going to Racks in Hong Kong, but without the pollution and excessive drunkeness.

It was nice because I helped my mom roll the makizushi (roll sushi), and there was lots of other delicious food there too.

hungry dogs

a pretty good spread

This weekend I'm going to be heading over to Idaho Falls for a Baha'i Ruhi class and devotionals.  Then I'm staying overnight and have a meeting there on Monday for a potential job opportunity.  Not sure what it is about yet, but we'll see what happens.

I'll try to get the Portland Conference blog and photos up in the next few days too.

Don't forget to check out my gallery, where I've been putting up all my Driggs photos.

my mom at home after a tiring day