BOY you guys are gonna love this story.

On Tuesday I drove out to the Foresthill Bridge in Auburn, CA. This is the 3rd highest bridge in the US, and the 9th highest in the world. It also has a story behind it. Back in the 70s, the plan was to build the Auburn Dam, and along with that plan, they were going to flood a canyon. They built this bridge across the canyon with the anticipation of the dam. Water would have flooded the canyon, and the bridge would only be about 100 feet above it.

Well, the dam never happened. In the meantime, you now have a 730-foot-high bridge that spans a half-mile, only 16 feet shorter than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Mainly I went out there for location scouting, for a potential ad for the company I work for. "Bridging the Logistics Gap" is what I'm calling it.

These pictures really don't show the scope of the bridge. The thing's a monster.

On either side of the bridge and in the middle are those little phone kiosks, like the ones you see on the side of the road when your car breaks down. These, however, are set up to dial directly to Suicide Prevention. The sign in this one reads, "CRISIS COUNSELING, THERE IS HOPE, MAKE THE CALL 1. OPEN PHONE BOX, 2. LIFT THE HANDSET, 3. PUSH THE BUTTON".

Now for the fun part.

At the end of my time at the bridge, I decided to walk across it and walk back. As I got a little ways in, my phone rang, so I put my tripod on the ledge. It's a good thing I hadn't walked very far across.

The arrow is pointing to the part of the bridge where I knocked the tripod off the ledge. It's a good thing the camera wasn't attached, because it fell maybe 150 to 200 feet down. I ended up climbing down that hill for the third time to retrieve it, and luckily it still works. A bit of plastic is now broken off, and there's dirt lodged in places I can't get to. Battle scars.

Hi guys,

Just did a hike with a couple guys from my church this morning. This is a picture of Bald Rock, a lava formation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains about 30 miles outside Oroville, CA. The trail is called Bald Rock Dome Trail, and you would THINK it led up to the top of Bald Rock dome!  Instead, it leads to the bottom of the canyon, where you can see views such as this. We didn't go all the way to the bottom, we needed to get back home at a decent hour.



We're still looking for a trail that leads to the top.  No luck on the Internet, but maybe we'll have some looking at other resources.

At work we're evaluating a GPS unit that's "stealth", designed to not look like much of anything. They want to place these inside packing boxes to track high-value freight as it moves across the country.

My boss had the idea that we should take pictures of the unit for use in our promotional materials. Therefore, I give you... interesting photos of an uninteresting subject! At least, I think.

It's completely black with no labels anywhere. I guess you'd call it a "thing".



It's the old "buy posterboard at Wal-Mart" trick! Shhh! Nobody will know.



He also wanted some shots of the inside of the unit, with the cover taken off. I turned the batteries so it doesn't look like we're trying to advertise the batteries themselves.



Finally, I did a few macro shots, but I guarantee, he won't like them.



He hasn't seen these yet, but I can predict what he's going to say. "Why are they so close up?"



That's about all.

My wife's in the hospital for one more day, so I got some more shots there.  Got a little more artsy and spent a bit more time than just PJ in the delivery room.  I also got some shots for the mandatory baby parts collage.


The out of focus thing (probably a blanket) in the lower-left bothers me, I may clone it out later.

This one's probably been overdone but I don't care.  Those are my fingers btw.  Yes, I was shooting handheld, while holding Joy's foot in my fingers.

Finally, I just love baby wrinkles.

Thanks again for looking.