Trip to the Big Island

Last October, I visited the Big Island of Hawaii. Some highlights from the trip included hiking in Waipio and Polulu Valleys, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and a round of golf at the Mauna Kea golf course. I compiled some of my photos and videos from the trip in the video below. I hope you enjoy it. (I’ll publish photos from the trip and, perhaps, a more in-depth article sometime later.)

Four 311 Shows in Five Days

There’s nothing particularly superlative about seeing four 311 shows in five days. There are fans that follow bands to every tour stop. I know of one 311 fan who has been to hundreds of shows. I’ve been to a lot of shows over the years, but, for me, seeing 311 four times in five days is still noteworthy.

This opportunity came to me more via circumstance than a dedicated effort on my part. Early in 2016, 311 announced a two-show Fourth of July weekend event in Las Vegas. At that point, I wasn’t sure if 311 would add Salt Lake City as a tour stop this summer, so I went ahead and bought tickets to the Las Vegas shows when they went on sale. A few weeks later, 311 announced more summer tour dates, including two shows at The Depot—a small club-style venue in Salt Lake City—immediately before the Las Vegas show dates (with a travel day in-between). Thus, four shows in five days became a reality!

Head to the 311 section for the show setlists, or keep reading for more details.

Read MoreFour 311 Shows in Five Days

Build a Ski Boot Spreader Board

Ski Boot Spreader Board

To make it easier to do work on my ski boots, I needed to build a ski boot spreader board. A boot spreader board provides solutions for a couple problems:

  1. The ski binding attached to the board secures the boot in place while doing work.
  2. The board provides a way to hold open the boot flaps, which is useful for checking fit and getting equipment in place before executing shell stretches.

A boot spreader board is not always necessary when doing work on your ski boots, but it is nice to have available, and it is easy to build one at home. Here’s how I built and use my boot spreader board:

Read MoreBuild a Ski Boot Spreader Board

Review: Canon PowerShot G9 X

Canon PowerShot G9 X

My goal with this purchase was to upgrade my point-and-shoot camera. I take a lot of photos while hiking or skiing, so size and weight were important considerations. I have a Canon EOS M mirrorless interchangeable lens camera with an APS-C size sensor that takes great photos, but I prefer to carry a smaller camera when I’m skiing or hiking locally. With that said, I don’t want to have to give up so much image quality when I carry a smaller camera.

The Canon PowerShot G9 X meets my most important requirements (small form factor and improved image quality). The G9 X is a bit thicker and heavier than my Canon PowerShot ELPH 110 HS, but it’s roughly the same size in other aspects. The G9 X’s 1-inch sensor has approximately four times the surface area of the sensor in my ELPH camera, so the image quality is, indeed, much improved. Although the G9 X’s sensor is only about half as large as my EOS M’s sensor, the drop-off in image quality is much less pronounced than with the ELPH.

Read MoreReview: Canon PowerShot G9 X

Baseball is Back!

Today is baseball’s opening day. I used to play baseball a lot when I was younger. I don’t play anymore (besides the occasional game of catch or trip to the batting cages), but I still love watching.

MLB.tv is the perfect companion for baseball fans. For the price of about one month of cable, you can watch almost every Major League Baseball game live (or on re-play) in HD, all season, on all kinds of devices (PC, Mac, Apple TV, iPhone, Android, etc.). (Blackouts still apply.) You can also choose which team’s broadcast you’d like to watch.

Toronto Blue Jays logoMy favorite team is the Toronto Blue Jays. They should be pretty good this year if they stay healthy and get a better-than-average performance from at least one of their starting pitchers. Their starting rotation is pretty average, but their offense should be one of the best in baseball again this season. Their defense should also be above average. Up the middle, the Jays have solid defenders at catcher (Russell Martin), shortstop (Troy Tulowitzki), second base (Ryan Goins), and center field (Kevin Pillar). Josh Donaldson at third base is also an above average defender.

Needless to say, I’m excited for the season. Also, if you do subscribe to MLB.tv, try to listen to Vin Scully as much as possible. It’s his 67th and final season broadcasting Dodgers games. He is one of the all-time greatest baseball broadcasters, and he’s still an absolute pleasure to listen to call a ballgame.

Snowbird Tour

I took the day off work to go skiing at Snowbird. My goals for today were to ski the Upper Cirque and to film the view from atop some of the Upper Cirque chutes. I succeeded on both accounts, but I didn’t ski my run very well. The conditions weren’t great, and it had been a long time since I last skied anything that challenging, but I figured I could put it all together for one run. I did not, but that’s OK. I also accidentally passed the chute I had planned to ski. It’s one of my favorites, so I cut back across the next chute to get to it, which didn’t make for great footage, but I wanted to ski that chute because it was more familiar.