And the runner up:

On the one hand, beer bottles are a somewhat boring subject. On the other, it’s a great excuse to buy good beers, and it’s a chance to try and make a bottle look interesting. It is clearly possible: This guy has done an awesome job with a heineken bottle.

Most of the time, on a bright sunny day, the world looks a lot better when you remove the polarized light glaring from reflective surfaces and the atmosphere. If you’ve ever worn polarized sunglasses, you probably know what I mean. A few months ago, I spent the $100 or so and bought a Hoya HMC PL-CIR filter for my most oft-used lens, and it pretty much does for the camera everything the polarized glasses do for your eyes. It does wonders for mid-day, bright sunlight photos, or shooting through glass or other reflective surfaces like water. Choosing between dark foreground and blown-out, highlighted sky is also a lot less of a problem. I figured I’d share some example shots showing what a polarizer can do:

I should disclose the details of the experimental setup here: I did not actually remove the filter in any of these shots. In the “polarized” shots, it is simply rotated to block the polarization of the sun glare, and in the other rotated away so that it does not (in which case, it should behave like an ND filter, just making the whole image darker). The camera is in Aperture Priority mode, so the exposure varied between the shots according to the incoming light. It is important to rotate the filter to the right place before each shot, as the required angle depends on the angle of the camera as well as the location of the sun.

After the first mile or so, we hit the snow. It was a surprisingly sudden switch. The bottom of the trail is 95% clear, just the occasional patch of snow under a tree or something. Then all of a sudden, there is a line of snow, and from then on 95% of the ground is covered. Sometimes DEEP. I was very glad to have a GPS with a map of the trail, because following the trail was nearly impossible without it. Sometimes there were foot steps to follow, but they often split apart and disappeared, and I think most of them had about as good an idea of where they were going as we did. For every mile of trail we covered, I think we must have walked at least 1.5 miles hunting around for the right direction. Several times we found ourselves climbing up steep hills covered in snow drifts, when I’m fairly sure the trail would have taken a less difficult route.

View Lodgepole to Cahoon Gap in a larger map

We made it to camp well before sunset, and even found a dry spot to set up our tent. The “meadow” had not quite become a meadow yet. Large parts of it were still snow covered, and the parts that weren’t were flooded with water. There were new grass shoots beginning to pop up out of the water though, so it will no doubt be a meadow again before long.

The next day we set off for Twin Lake. Three hours later, we made it to Cahoon Gap, barely over a mile a way. We still had over two miles and another big climb to get up to the lakes. I’m pretty sure we would have made it by dark; but just barely, and we would have had a long day back out on Monday, hopefully in time to return the bear canister we rented from the ranger station. Plus, We still wanted to see some of the main parts of the park as well. There are some big trees around there! So, it wasn’t all that difficult of a decision to turn around when we reached the gap and spend another night at the meadow. We were content to just wander around a snowy forest which we had almost entirely to ourselves. There was one other couple from LA at Cahoon Meadow the first night, and the second night a solo hiker who we never made contact with setup camp across the way.

Gps track and waypoints available here.

On Monday we got out around noon, grabbed some lunch at Lodgepole, and then headed over to see General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world. However, the trail to general sherman was closed due to ice (though we had already spent the last two days slip’n and sliding around the mountains, I think we could have survived), and there were about 3 million people waiting to get onto shuttles to take you from the parking lot to the closer trailhead. So we bailed on that, and instead went to the giant forest area and went for a stroll, which turned out to be an amazingly fortunate decision.

We had actually stopped, were sitting on a bench eating a summer sausage and enjoying the sights, when a little boy walking by with his family came up to us very shyly and said, “Excuse me…there’s a black bear.” pointing off across the meadow. Sure enough, there was a bear! We took off down the trail to go to the other side of the meadow to watch and photograph! While we were watching the bear forage around, Mary says she “thinks there’s something big in the tree”. Amazingly, I look up, and sure enough, there are not one, but TWO bear cubs peering down at us from the tree right above us! It was pretty sweet! We finished off the day by heading out of the park to the north, stopping off at Grant Grove to walk through a whole new set of giant trees. They are pretty incredible.

Full screen slideshow.

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Full screen version is here, or right-click to open a particular image in the show..

One of every 300 shuttle missions to the space station could expect to be destroyed by space debris, Shannon said. By contrast, Atlantis faces a 1-in-185 risk of fatal damage, he said.

Wow. That’s scary odds, if you ask me.

Good names? Experts weigh in on Brangelina’s picks for twins.

This was one of today’s “Top Picks” news items. It went along with “Michigan city investigates manhole cover caper”, and “Family sitcoms in sad state”. Woohoo!

Note to Asian Gamblers: Stick to those tables!