Veteran's Day

Today we celebrate the remembrance of our veterans.

I'd like to honor my dad, Capt. Ken Jaworski.  He served in the Cold War as a pilot flying the F-111.  His story is not one of tragedy or misfortune.  When presented with a choice in the late 60's and impending draft to Vietnam he chose to forgo his citizenship to another nation (Canada) and join the service of his choosing - the US Air Force- as an officer.  He chose to honor and serve his adopted homeland rather then take a gamble and put his young bride and child (my sister) at risk of loosing their loved one (himself).  His choice to serve took his young family (and eventually me) to states like Texas and Idaho and to an overseas location - England.

Dad, thank you.

The F-111 was a feared terrain hugging mock 2.5 nuclear ready fighter-bomber. It was more apt as a light weight bomber then fighter.
F-111 on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111_Aardvark

No More Zen...

For the last couple of years I've hung out on Zenfolio as my main website of choice to post images and to sell them there.  The time has come with frustration of sorts that Zenfolio is no longer meeting my needs.  I like to post quickly and simply.  They have a rather trite uploader that takes either a bit of navigation to get to or a bit of programming ingenuity to add to Lightroom 3, don't even think about trying to get the Open Source DigiKam of KDE to integrate with it.  As one pages through my images do be aware of the blank spaces.  These were links into Zenfolio.  Hopefully in the cache of GOOGLE the links will still be active from the archives.

Updating

I recognize I don't log into blogger as often as I should.  I am updating and re-arranging things on-line and off.

One of the biggest areas I am re-arranging is my hiking pictures.  I do hike a lot.  Right now I've logged over 400 miles of hiking since January 1st of this year which means I have a lot of photos not posted or processed and a few pages filled in the log book.  I am also studying log distance hiking.  One of the items on my life goals (bucket list) is to hike the Appalachian Trail.  I'll dedicate a post strictly to the AT at a later date.  What I am learning from this study in the intern is life is a series of short term goals played out over the long haul.

Second place of re-arranging is where I am keeping my images. http://preyingjaws.zenfolio.com/ is were I've posted most of my images since my 'pro flickr' account expired.  Zenfolio allows me to host event photos for private viewing and for general audiences.

Enjoy.

SkiLink

This is my letter of petition concerning the SkiLink proposal set up by Rep Rob Bishop.

June 17, 2012

Dear Representative,

I've been following the SkiLink initiative on the news and on the Save Our Canyons website. I do think this is a bold initiative for the development of the Greater Salt Lake/Summit County Region. In the theory that is expressed by the proposal H.R. 3452 and S.1883, yes it will work (for a select few). However, looking at the principles by which this initiative came about violates the very constitution that sets up due process in protecting the governance of the State of Utah, the people of Utah, and the resources of Utah.

I am one who stands for a government for the people and by the people. When a government meets the needs of the people by the set forth process then, yes, the initiatives need to proceed. With SkiLink the process was not followed. It was by passed by representative Rob Bishop acting out of his region and actively promoted as being good for the people with no input by the people. If SkiLink is so good for the people, why wasn't it promoted by the people? If it were good for the people why was is promoted by a foreign entity, Talisker Development Company, and not brought up by the US Forest Service that manages the region SkiLink will cross?

Save Our Canyons has been working with a large number of groups that promote outdoor recreation in developing a plan that will protect our diminishing resources of the Greater Salt Lake/Summit County Region while actively encouraging outdoor usage. These groups working together over the last few years is due process, multiple public hearing were held and proposals going out to the respected groups constituents. The increase usage through preservation of our canyons will bring about a greater economic boost to Utah's economy then by promoting a select few points of interest.

If you want to develop the resource of transportation between the ski resorts of Salt Lake and Summit Counties please look at developing the bus infrastructure and or paving Guardsman's Pass with an emphasis on year round bus shuttles. By developing the bus transportation this will allow for greater flexibility between points of interests which in turn means more people are likely to spend more time enjoying the region either in private resorts or by using public lands.

Sincerely,

Brian K Jaworski

An active user of the Wasatch Range.

Ref: http://www.SaveOurCanyons.org

GOYA

As the Presidential race begins to heat up, I want to express my political stance here amongst my hiking references. I am part of a movement I hope will catch on.  I call it GOYA.

GOYA is simply Get Off Your Ass.  I like to think of this as all people included: voter or not; Democrats to Republicans to Indies to Un-named etc; US citizen to Visitors; etc etc. If you call this or any country your home YOU have the right to participate & are encouraged to do so in the political arenas of where YOU reside.

If you doubt the power of your one vote or expression of concern just look at the race between Bush Jr & Al Gore especially for the state of Florida a few races ago.  Also examine the local races. One vote makes a difference, because together they add up.

In my local area the last local election drew an amazingly small 10% of the voter population. It's estimated that less then 3% of the overall population took part in choosing the next leaders. 

With this small of numbers it's no wonder why people bitch about things not getting done & about why people think we have so many professional politicians.  It's easy to become a professional politician, all one needs to do is run in any race where the incumbent is looking to get out or is no longer popular. Once in all one needs to do is learn to work the system and BANG instant PP.

If you want to bitch, Get Off Your Ass.  Do something, write a politician about one of your concerns, write a fact supported commentary, VOTE.

As the United States of America begins to race for electing or re-electing her leaders & for the office known as 'the most powerful man in the world' remember YOU have a guaranteed Constitutional right to voice your opinion, gather together peacefully, & VOTE.

PARTICIPATE

VOTE

Be the voice & voter that makes a difference in this & all elections.

GOYA

Invitations to charity events are always fun.  I enjoy getting out to see what is capturing the hearts of people.

Miles for Water is a University of Utah student charity.  They want to promote and raise awareness for access to clean water in the horn of Africa.  Though I visited and worked in West Africa with Mercy Ships, I find the continent always tugging at my heart.

I took the time to head out on a breezy afternoon to join a few dozen runners.  After the event I hung a kite in the sky for a while.

Sugarhouse Park is the first place I ever shot a running event close to 5 years ago.  I learned that it's beneficial to shoot people shots in RAW format while shooting high quality JPG's for the run.  This balances out performance with details.  

The D-90 shoots 4 frames per second but can only take 3 seconds worth of images into the buffer when shooting RAW before it has to dump into the memory card.  The dump can take 20 odd seconds which in sports can mean the lost 'money' image.  Shooting JPG's allow for smaller file sizes and thus more seconds of shooting with faster dumps.

If you use any of the provided images please give credit to PreyingJaws.com and send me the link or a copy of the publication, thanks.

SoJo's St Paddy's 5K Run

A couple of friends invited me out to South Jordan's St Patrick's Day 5K run.  I'm an outdoor's kind of person but not a runner.  I came anyways to support them and to chill for a while.

I met the friends of my friends and since I couldn't remember their faces I decided to take pictures of everyone as they neared the finish line.  There are over 750 images so please don't expect to see all of them in the few seconds you are taking to read this post.

Enjoy.

Just a little hiking adventures, this slideshow does not encompass all of the hiking I've done lately. It covers just a few of my favorite places.