This was Davy’s first night drinking in a bar in the United States. A pretty big deal if you ask me. It was also a very fun night full of people I wish I saw more often.

Hot off the presses folks. These are chronological and the ones at the end were taken mere hours ago . I am burning the midnight oil in the lounge of Davy’s building as I attempt to deprive myself of sleep in order to gain it back on the flight back to the states tomorrow. Apparently there was a substantial earthquake today north of Tokyo, Davy says he felt it in his class but I think I was still sleeping. There was also supposed to be a typhoon yesterday but the only thing I noticed was that it almost seemed less rainy than usual. I better get home before a volcano erupts .

It is late Thursday night in Tokyo. We just got back from a baseball game. It was a good time with quite an enthusiastic crowd. I was very impressed, the Japanese are serious about their baseball. The following pictures are in chronological order from a couple days ago up till tonight. Hope everyone is doing well.

Here are a couple pictures. Everything is going great. The city is a contstant mass of movement and lights. It is really quite amazing. I’ve only been here a few days but I feel like I’ve seen so much. I feel very fortunate to be able to spend two weeks here.

Tomorrow at this time I will be on my way to visit Davy in Tokyo. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing this trip, however the whole concept is a little surreal to me. I’m leaving Bozeman for the most populated city in the world. It will be fascinating though, I have no doubt. However, before I leave there are a few details I need to take care of today.

I woke up this morning and there was snow on the ground and snow falling rather rapidly. That was certainly a first, in Breckenridge it snowed a foot when we left on May 1st but up until now that was the latest snow I’d ever seen.

The town hosted the 22nd Bozofest this weekend, which is an Ultimate (frisbee) tournament. Technically it is just called “Ultimate” because the word “frisbee” is copyrighted. Teams came from places such as Salt Lake City, Portland, and Edmonton (in Canada), quite a drive for some people.

It was a exciting (and tiring) weekend of Ultimate and revelry in 2 days of warm and sunny weather. This was mildly astounding considering that the weather was cold and rainy all last week. It then proceeded to be about as nice as you could possibly want for exactly two days, then Memorial day was cold and rainy, and today it was snowing. Mother Nature must have wanted us to play some frisbee!

There was a fun party for the tournament (this an Ultimate tradition) about 30 minutes outside of town with kegs of beer, a bonfire, a live band, and spaghetti dinner. It was out in the country with horses and cows, and anyone that wanted to could camp in a nearby field. I managed to get my honda stuck in said field after I slightly overestimated its off-roading capabilities. But luckily thats what teammates are for isn’t it? Especially largish Ultimate players. Thanks to all the Bozos that assisted in unsticking me.

Mom and Dad are going to be here in a week. Also of note I now have a plane ticket to go visit Davy during the beginning of July.

After that I’m going to be back in Asheville during the first couple weeks of August. It should be a good summer.

Here are a couple of totally non Ultimate related pictures of a hike Kez and I did last week up to the top of Baldy Moutain. The last time I was up there was in September of last year, it is a tough hike towards the end but once you get up there it has some good views.

Here are a couple of shots from the climb Joe and I did Monday afternoon. The climb is called the Gallatin Tower and is located down Gallatin Canyon as you go towards Yellowstone NP and Big Sky ski resort. It was a great way to spend a relatively warm afternoon in Bozeman. I recognize the beard is getting a little out of hand. I’m going to do someting about that one of these days.

Its been a good week. Busy, but good. On Thursday I went rock climbing at one of the closest local areas, Practice Rock, with Joe and Luke. I had been there before but not since winter had arrived. I was quite proud of myself as I did my first 2 lead climbs using “traditional” protection. (You climb up with the rope trailing you, place protection in the rock, clip yourself to it, and keep climbing ) Leading a climb is more difficult (and scary) than being the 2nd person up. And trad climbing is another level of difficulty above just sport climbing (sport is where there are pre-placed bolts that you the clip the rope to as you climb)

It was a lot of fun and makes me look that much forward to summer where hopefully I’ll become familiar with all the local areas around here. I found out that the class I’m teaching is only 3 days a week. I did a fair amount of climbing when I was going to school in Chapel Hill, and not much since then. It has been a good to return to something I enjoyed so much.

There was also a “Pow Wow” here at MSU this weekend, about a block from my house in the basketball complex. I’d never been to one but I believe they are much more frequent in the western part of the country. It was really interesting, and I could go on for awhile about that as well. However, for the sake of brevity here are a couple of low-quality films shot by my camera and then sent through You Tube to make sure they end up looking extra cruddy.

Enjoy!

Got back into town Friday evening and have spent the weekend adjusting to being back. It has been warm in Bozeman, about 65-70F for the weekend. Most of the snow that was on the ground before Spring Break has melted. Its pretty spring-like here although I’m not getting my spring pants on just yet because I expect more snow.

There are some pictures on my Plogger gallery from the trip. Here’s the direct link to the new ones
Spring Break Pictures
The pictures from Zion have some captions located above the picture. None of the other’s do yet. I had done a bunch but I refreshed the page and they all went away. 🙁

Also, when you first come to a picture, you can click on it to get a bigger, nicer one. And depending on what browser you’re using, another click might make it even bigger! whoa!

It was an awesome trip. I’ll update more in a little while. Right now I’m back at school and there are some things I need to attend to.

The snow is melting and grass is coming out. This is a continuation of the pattern that has been relatively persistent over the past month or so of snowing quite a bit and then warming up. Its not all bad for us snow-sports enthusiasts because it makes me feel like I’m not missing as much as I spend my day off doing schoolwork in the office.

Spring Break is next week and I am planning to use it to travel down to the Grand Canyon and maybe Zion or the Moab area as well if there’s time. It will be my second time there and I’m extremely excited as it is one of my favorite places that I’ve ever been to. I’m hoping to be able to spend a couple days hiking and camping in it but that depends on the availability of permits. Either way it’ll be nice to have a week off and travel to a different climate.