BruteForce

Charlton Heston couldn't state my position better. Watch:

Oath Keepers in Albany NY, speaking out strongly about preserving the 2nd Amendment. Powerful!

 

GPS Tracks: WhiteSandsWash.gdb

In October, my brother-in-law Ken and I departed for the Green River, Utah area. Our destination was the White Sands wash area - approximately 15 miles South/East of Green River. Our intent was to stay almost two weeks while boondock camping and ride/explore all the nearby trails and areas.

 

I was told that due to the size of my 5th wheel (43'), that it would be best if I came in via Blue Hills Road, just south of the Moab airport and HWY191; what a mistake. The wash-outs and dips on that graded dirt road caused the rear-end of my 5th wheel to make contact at least 12 times during the ~25 mile drive in. The easier route would have been Floy Wash road, just off I-70. Floy Wash road was only 10 miles to White Sands, with only 3-4 deep wash-outs.

 

At any rate, after a grueling 2 hours running the ~25 miles down Blue Hills, I finally arrived in advance of my brother-in-law, drove to the top of a mesa overlooking the sand dunes and set up camp.

 

The weather, other than some wind was holding up quite nicely. I dug a nice deep fire pit, surrounded it with rocks found on the mesa and got my first fire underway.

 

The following morning, it was clear that a decent breakfast with grill made bacon was in order, so I prepared everything and ate breakfast as the sun came up.

 

 

By the next day, many in our group were starting to arrive, including a dually towing a monster Jeep rock-crawler. Sadly, I never got to see the rock crawler leave the trailer or head into the dunes. The others that joined were locals from Moab and knew these trails and the trails around Moab very well.

That afternoon, we saw in the distance a large and very fast moving vehicle. As it turned out, it was a couple from Austria in a global expeditionary vehicle; they were travelling through from Canada to South America on a year-long adventure.

 

 

They were so intrigued with Utah, that most of our discussions in German and some broken English revolved around how they could possibly relocate from Austria to Moab and open a German themed restaurant. Fast forward to late December 2012 and I received an email from the couple indicating how much they dislike Mexico and want to come back to Utah.

Day 3 (or 4, I don't recall) and our group loads up to ride the trails to the South of White Sands. In our group are 2x Jeeps, a SxS, a few motorcycles and a few ATV's. We travel about 40 miles that day before returning to camp.

 

 

The following morning, we pack up again with our destination being "The Pickle" with the trailhead starting at N 38 42.606 W 109 47.675

 

According to Traildamage.com, the trail is rated an 8 out of 10 for technical challenge and is a favorite for extreme rock crawlers, which made it even more interesting for a short wheel based ATV (mine!).

 

Just as we entered the trail head, we noticed two guys on ATV following us in. It was apparent they were in above their pay grade the minute we hit our first descent. We helped them as much as possible until the last HUGE drop-off, at which point, we helped them "walk" their ATV's down the descent.

 

 

A brief video showing the walk-down..

 

 

Shortly after returning from this ride, most of our party departed to head back to Moab or their respective homes, leaving Ken (my brother-in-law) and I on the mesa. By this time, winds were approaching 40-60mph sustained, eliminating further potential for fires or outdoor BBQ'ing. Our plan for the following day was to head north, explore the Green River, then see if we could find the Green River Missile Complex and the "Crystal Geyser" along the Green River.

We took off late morning and found many trails that took us to the Green River, but no option to cross. We then decided to find the Missile Complex (which we did). What an interesting relic from the 60's and 70's and the cold war.

 

 

 

After riding to the edge of the Green River, it was off to the Missile Complex:

 

 

 

 

After thoroughly checking this location out, we took off to the West to find the Geyser. Sadly, the Geyser never erupted during our ~30 minute visit.

 

 

We contemplated riding into Green River for a beer and snacks, but thought perhaps our non-street legal machines would get us in trouble, so instead we turned around and made the ~15 mile ride back to camp.

The following morning, despite the winds and rapidly dropping temperatures, we decided to ride into 10 Mile Wash toward the Green River. The wash is narrow and deep, with the walls towering overhead in some spots as high as 100+ feet.

About 3/4 of the way through the wash, we came to a deep "pond" that we decided to traverse. Little did we know just how deep this "pond" was. Ken went in first on his Yamaha and laid it down for a fraction of a second.. just long enough to allow the bike to ingest over a gallon of water; his machine was flooded out.

We decided that since I had ample tools that we'd dismantle the bike and get as much water out as possible, then figure out next steps. After over an hour of wrenching, we got as much water out as possible and limped the bike out another mile or so, before reaching dry trail. The decision was made that I'd drive the ~20 miles back to camp and return with a gallon of oil and other supplies to do an in-the-field oil change. Sadly, even after putting a full gallon of oil through the machine, the oil was still white and milky. We still decided to ride the machine out and wildly, the machine survived the trek. Just after getting out of the wash, the sky went dark, rain started and the winds whipped up to at least 60mph. What a day!

 

 

So now with my Kawasaki broken and Ken's bike no longer rideable, we decided the next morning, we'd pack up and head for home. We will be back..

For the entire 2nd half of September and first half of October, I was fortunate enough to get in some camping, fishing, hiking and ATV'ing.

 

GPSr tracks found here:

5Mile-to-Eureka-via-BlackRock.gdb

Koosharem-to-Richfield.gdb

Kanosh-to-Marysvale.gdb

05 Oct 2012-Jacob City-Soldier Creek Ride.gdb

 

 

I spent the first 7 days between Koosharem, Utah and Marysvale, Utah. My goal was to ride as many "new-to-me" trails as possible while in those areas, with an emphasis on filming and riding the much-touted Barney Lake trail.

 

The first four days were spent at the Koosharem RV park; a small park that can host approximately 10 RV's. I was quite surprised that I was able to get my massive rolling Marriot into their park.

 

Day 1, I found myself wanting to go fishing at Otter Creek reservoir. Sadly, the lake was at 50% of its normal water capacity, and I was able to drive my truck across a sand bar that placed me about where the middle of the lake used to be.

 

 

With the water as low as it was, I was unsuccessful, but I did still manage to net about a dozen crayfish and boiled them up for dinner that evening (along with a great steak!).

 

Day 2, and my friend Gary Elias (and wife) arrived to join me. After getting his camp setup, we thought we'd make the ~80 mile round trip to Otter Creek and back. Unfortunately, Gary's diabetes were acting up and we changed course, instead heading toward Monroe.

 

 

While leaving Monroe and heading back toward the trails, we saw a couple towing the most interesting camper (with their ATV) that I've ever seen.

 

 

Day 3, we decided that we'd make a run at the Barney Lake trail. This trail was known for being brutally steep, rock covered and for advanced riders; it really didn't seem to be any of those (to me), but did have a few decent technical sections.

 

 

My favorite trail though had to be the PST65 coming off Monroe Mountain and into the town of Monroe. This trail had tight switchbacks, some interesting terrain and a descent of over 7000' in elevation.

 

 

On Day 4, I said my goodbyes to Gary and his wife and departed for Marysvale. I had already phoned ahead and reserved a spot at Lizzie -n- Charlies RV park (easily my favorite RV park in central Utah).

 

From this location, I rode the Deer Creek 74 trail, the 606, Barney Lake (yet again) and the PST 65 (yet again).

 

 

After ~7 days, it was time to return home. Fortunately, for me, another friend contacted me and asked if I wanted to join him in riding from Kanosh to Marysvale (as a day trip). This ride is easily my annual favorite, so I gladly accepted and we departed for the Adelaide campground.

 

 

The PST97 "Al Gay" trail and Paiute 01 were our primary destination trails, and neither disappointed.

 

 

 

What a great time on the Paiute in September!

 

So, I'm back home, interviewing for new jobs and trying to find additional trails to ride. Again, the phone rings and my brother-in-law is wondering if I'd take him and his wife riding from Five Mile Pass to Eureka. Sure, I reply - so we head off to the Five Mile Pass area and enjoy a day of riding. Sadly, somewhere en route to / from Eureka, I managed to lose the keys to my truck. Fortunately, I have an awesome wife and she agreed to drive the 45 minutes to drop off my spare (and only remaining) set of keys.

 

 

A week or so passes and I again get invited to ride the Jacob City Loop (Ophir, Utah area) with a new friend. We stage on Mercur Canyon road and depart for my secret trail on the south side of Ophir Canyon.

 

 

Now, its almost mid-October and again I meet up with another new friend and we ride Little Moab to Eureka. We ride through (from East to West) Black Rock Canyon, then through Chilius Pass and into Eureka for lunch at the HWY6 Deli.

 

 

The best section of trail riding in this area is the Dry Lake, Mill Canyon trail. This trail is easily the most technical ride in the entire area.

 

 

So, its now the 12th of October and I'm prepping for 10 days in the San Rafael Swell, White Sands and Moab. That trip report will be posted later.

Yesterday (7 Oct 2012), I was asked to ride with my brother-in-law and his wife, and lead them on a run from 5Mile Pass to Eureka, Utah.

We agreed to meet at 10am at the far South/West staging area. Morning temperatures were easily 38F with a light breeze. To say it was brisk would be an understatement.

Our route was fairly easy since my sister-in-law isn't an experienced rider. Normally, I'd hit some of the tough climbs just south of 5Mile. For this route, we simply paralleled the mountains until with hit Black Rock Canyon, cut through the canyon, rode a bit of Allen Ranch road, then hit Chilius Pass where we came into Eureka from the West side of town.

Garmin track for yesterday's run can be found here:  5Mile-to-Eureka-via-BlackRock.gdb

A video of the ride through Black Rock Canyon:

Blatantly "borrowed" via Bogley.com:

This will discuss:

• Importing your GoPro MP4 footage into Windows Live Movie Maker
• Editing your GoPro footage using Windows Live Movie Maker
• Settings and profiles to get the best HD quality
• How to grab single frames from your footage and save as images

I really like filming in mode 3 on the GoPro; 720 and 60 frames per second. Some like mode 4 at the taller 960, or mode 5 at 1080 but these are only at 30 frames per second so you really lose a lot of that "HD pop" if you know what I mean. It all comes down to what you are filming and where you choose to share, I guess. But I changed to mode 3 about 2 years ago and I never looked back.

SD Card... a big size is nice, but it's the "Class" that is most important. The higher the class, the better the buffer is on the card. The current trophy SD card is a 32GB Class 10. I would try to avoid going with a Micro SD card and adapter, just to avoid any contact issues.

So you've got footage that is going to change the world, go viral, and win 9 internets. You just need to cut out the scene where somebody is picking their nose before you share it.

If you are on Windows 7 or Vista, download Windows Live Movie Maker here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...er-get-started - Skip the other optional junk like Live Writer and all that...

Copy your footage from your SD card to your computer. DO NOT edit this footage ON the card, edit it only once you've put it on the computer. Import your footage into Windows Live Movie Maker. The footage will need to process before you can begin editing. This may take a while depending on size. Sometimes after my rides I've got maybe 6GB and I'll let it process for an hour or so before it's ready to edit. You'll see the progress bar at the bottom.



You can even begin editing each clip that has been processed, or just come back after a while after it's complete.

To avoid the black bars, set your project dimensions to Widescreen, since YouTube's player is in widescreen and you've filmed in widescreen, unless you went with mode 4.

Examples:

Widescreen


Standard


If you use the Chesty mount for the GoPro, or even the seatpost mount, you may have flipped your camera upside down to get the best angle. You could either flip it in the settings on the GoPro before filming, or you can rotate it like I do in WLMM, up in the top bar



Now it's time to begin editing. In the Edit tab you have the Split (or hit the M key) to chop up a clip and trash unwanted segments. You can speed up or slow down a clip, edit the volume, have the volume fade in or out...



Put some transitions between the clips to show your mad skillz. I don't bother with the fancy stuff, I just use the cross fade. My purpose is not to show off variety in transitions, but the footage itself. Try to avoid getting lost in making sure you have covered every transition type. Keep in mind that when you add transitions, it overlaps each clip into the other so your timeline will be reduced by default of 1.5 seconds on each split. So if you're trying to perfectly time this to music, this may be a point of interest.



Once you've got it all chopped up, maybe a soundtrack is in order. Set it to begin anywhere on the timeline, adjust the volume for the music separately from the video track, have it fade in or out to avoid any abruptness...



And the MOST IMPORTANT setting of all in my opinion, is your production profile. If I took great care in filming something in 60 frames per second, I want all 60 frames to remain after production! So instead of saving the movie in the "recommended" settings, create a custom profile that provides 60 frames per second instead of the default 30.

At the dropdown under Save Movie, select Create Custom Settings:



Then create a profile to your dimensions and frame rate



Save, and Save again, and close.

Now your 60 frames per second profile is available to save in.



Produce your video, and upload to YouTube


For more: http://www.youtube.com/bogleydotcom

I also get asked how I grab the still frames from my videos, saving them as images. For that I use VLC Media Player:
www.videolan.org

While playing your footage through VLC, pause at the desired spot (maybe even slow down the playback to get the exact spot). Go up to Video, and then Snapshot, depending on what update you have of VLC.



This will save that image to your Pictures folder by default, producing some cool freeze frame moments like:







Let's say you'd like to just watch some of your raw footage that was filmed upside down and you don't want to go through the hassle of flipping it in WLMM, or rotating your monitor with the keyboard shortcut. You can rotate the footage in VLC by going up to Tools, Effects, and in the popup box click the Video Effects tab, check the Transform box, and you can select Rotate by 180 degrees.

A few months prior to resigning my position with Nelson Labs, I agreed to come into the office at 7am to participate in another "Film Fest" video before heading out for a weekend of camping.

 

This video is the result:

 

28 Days Later, Zombie Apocalypse (339mb)

 

After leaving the company, this brief tribute was played before the entire company. In the almost 8 years in my role as CTO, I was mostly the only senior executive to participate in the fun company events, corporate games, etc. and this compilation was a tribute to the fun we had in the process.

 

PowerPoint Tribute to James King (24mb)

On 01 Sept 2012 - 03 Sept 2012 (over Labor Day weekend), I set out for Lizzie -n- Charlies RV Park in Marysvale, Utah.

GPSr tracks here: Marysvale-to-Panguitch-Loop.gdb

Our goal was to complete a full loop from Marysvale to Panguitch and back, staying overnight in Panguitch before returning back to Marysvale.

We departed Marysvale at 0930 Saturday morning, following the Paiute 02 trail until it connected to the Paiute 01 South. We climbed elevation until reaching about 11,600' near Delano Peak. The views were breath taking.

After bypassing the Beaver High Adventure Camp and Three Creeks, we started onto the Paiute 88 trail. This trail was a very narrow two-track surrounded on all sides by Aspen and Pine. As the kids soon discovered, the trail was also quite technical in sections, with tight switchbacks, loads of rocks and other obstacles.

The 88 trail seemed to last 50 miles, as it just went forever. Somewhere high above and West of Junction, East of Beaver, we finally connected to the Paiute 67 trail and continued out southbound journey.

Again, we continued southbound until reaching the 68 trail, which then took us out of the Paiute trail system and onto the Panguitch system. At this point, the trail was foreign and not on my GPSr tracks, so we relied on our compass to continue navigating us to the South and to the East.

 

Finally, at around 7pm, we could see in the distance Bryce Canyon and what looked to be Panguitch (albeit three mountains to our East).

We continued on. Butts were sore, kids (and I) were hungry and tired. At this point, we were about 90 miles into the days journey.

We pressed on and finally made it into the far South/West corner of Panguitch. We checked into the New Bryce Western Motel, cleaned up and walked over to the Cowboy Steakhouse. Steaks were awesome, but I forgot this place specializes in traditional smoked/BBQ and not in fire grilled steaks.

Day 2: We fuel up and start searching for a place to have breakfast. A local informs us that a truck stop 3 blocks away serves breakfast. We are the only customers. We eat, head back to the motel to pick up the last of our gear and head out.

With everyone being exausted after Day 1 and the 101 miles covered, we decide to skip Casto Canyon and instead, follow the Fremont 02 trail into Circleville. Most of the Fremont 02 is wide open roads, so our speeds were averaging 30-35 mph. We were making great time!

At Circleville, we turn East and catch the Paiute 01 and follow that North, stopping for a brief break just before crossing Kingston Canyon.

Again, the trail pretty much was wide open throttle until we again reached the junction of the 01 and 02 into Marysvale.

 

We arrived back at camp filthy, exhausted and glad to be back!

Today at 4:05pm, we sadly euthanized our long time dog Sasha. We brought Sasha home from the pound shortly after our son Alexander was born.

Sasha was my constant companion on virtually all my hunting and fishing trips. Even during the coldest weather, Sasha never feared to jump into a half frozen lake to pursue duck and geese. She was mild tempered, protective of the family and although smaller than our other dogs, easily the top-dog in the house.. so much so that both my male dogs learned to pee like her (squatting, not raising their legs).

A few photos from her life:

 

Sasha in 1999

Sasha in 2002

Sasha in 2004 with Ferris, our new black lab puppy (we had to put him down at 3 years old)

Sasha and Ferris in 2004.

Ottercreek camping in 2007.

Christmas, 2009

Flaming Gorge camping in 2009.

 

Sadly, in late 2011, Sasha's age started to catch up to her and she became totally inactive.

 

RIP to one of the best companion dogs my family and I have had the pleasure to have in our lives.

As of 5pm on 1 August 2012, Sasha is now resting peacefully in our backyard.

I am hosting an ATV overnight ride from the Panguitch KOA to Marysvale or the Castlerock Campground.

Date: Saturday 1 Sept. 2012
Stage: Panguitch KOA
Time: 0900am

What to wear/bring:

• Wet weather gear
  
• Jacket or sweat shirt (temps can drop quickly at elevation)
• Gloves, boots, helmet, goggles
• One change of clothes (for the overnight)
• Tent/sleeping bag/overnight gear (if we tent instead of stay in a cabin or other lodging in Marysvale)
• Snacks, water/drinks
• ATV w/extra 4gal of fuel (we can fuel up in Panguitch, Circleville and Marysvale)

Jim possible track logs.pdf