Check them out here.

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Canal Winchester, Ohio. I’m a little more than half-way through my trip, which has thus far included hay rides, apple orchards, pumpkin patches, haunted houses, hiking, and lots of Fall color photography.

I’m basically reliving my childhood (I grew up in Worthington, Ohio) and have been meaning for several years now to come back during what is probably my favorite season. I’ve lived out West most of my adult life, and sometimes miss the Fall colors. (Yes, the leaves change color in the Fall everywhere, but it’s just not the same as those vibrant colors back East.)

After I get back to Nevada, I’ll sift through the hundreds of photos I’ve shot and put together a link with photos. For now, I’m still having fun!

Got them all sorted finally, and picked out the ones I liked the most.

Check them out in the Bahamas gallery on my photos page here.

The company I work for, Insomniac Games, just celebrated their 15 year anniversary. They took the company on a cruise to the Bahamas. I just got back today, and had a great time. We went to CocoCay Island the first day and did some snorkeling…saw lots of cool fish and some rays, then walked around the island taking pics and just soaking up the warmth. (It was about 30 degrees when we left Elko, so the weather was a nice change!). Next day was Nassau. We wanted to avoid the more touristy spots, so just walked around on the back streets to see how people lived there in the city and what it was like. Jackie had no interest in seeing Atlantis since it’s about the most touristy thing you can do there, but I got curious about an hour before the cruise ship left Nassau, so we split up and I grabbed a cab to go there and get a few pictures before we left.

After the cruise, I continued with my wife Jackie and son Casey for a few days in Southern Florida to check out a couple of the parks there. We saw Biscayne National Park, Everglades National Park, and then cut across Florida to Naples on the Gulf coast side of the state to see the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. We then met up with my sister Toni and her husband Bill, and stayed a night with them in Venice Florida. Also got to visit with my nephew Tony, who I hadn’t seen for years. Then we checked out the awesome Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.

The parks were great. We saw alligators, all kinds of herons, egrets, lizards, turtles, and lots of wild trees, bromeliads, ferns, air plants,  and unusual flowers. It was a real whirlwind of a trip and like most vacations was over too soon.

Then it was back to Ft. Lauderdale and the return flight. I took a boatload of photos, and will need to go through them and exercise my delete key to get rid of the crap and whittle it down to my favorites.

Will post photos soon!

Ok, maybe that’s stretching things a bit. After all, I haven’t stayed at all of the KOA’s (Kampgrounds of America for those of you that have never heard of them) so I can’t really say whether or not it’s the absolute worst.

We did a little family camping for a couple of weeks, mainly driving through Washington and Oregon and doing the usual sightseeing/photography/camping type stuff. Some of the campgrounds were state parks, and a couple were KOA’s. Forrest Gump springs to mind, with the old “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” The same could be said of KOA’s…it’s basically a crap shoot. Some are nice, some suck.

As we approached the KOA in Cascade Locks, Oregon, our first indication  that something was amiss was when we first pulled up to the campground entrance. It was odd because well, we were in a neighborhood. I don’t know about you, but when I go camping, I want to go camping. Which means out in the woods, or the prairie, or by the ocean, you know, away from everything and everybody, or at least as much as possible. Instead, the campground entrance was across the street from houses, with well-manicured front lawns and cars parked in driveways. And I’m like, “What the hell is this?” and the wife doesn’t look pleased either.

We pull into the campground and check in at the front office. We find our Kabin (what is with these people and the need to intentionally misspell things? I guess KOA Cabin isn’t as Kute as Kabin.) We’re getting set up, and I hear this rumbling sound. I start to feel a vibration, and all of a sudden I hear a deafening “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK” as the kindly engineer lays on the horn of the freight train, which is now careening down the tracks which are about ten feet from the campground.

Yes, there’s a freight line, that runs past the campground every few hours or so and ALL NIGHT LONG. Every time the train came through and woke me up, again, I couldn’t help think “What kind of an idiot builds a campground next to train tracks?” Then I thought about all the thousands of poor bastards that end up here each year, thinking they’ve found a nice quiet camping getaway, but instead have entered Kamper’s Hell. Avoid this place at all costs.

NOTE TO SELF:

From now on when planning camping trips, use google maps to check out an aerial photo of the site and make sure there are no train tracks (or neighborhoods) anywhere near the campsite.

These are great for art reference, both for seeing how things collapse over time as well as for textures. I’m fascinated by old buildings anyway, and the history of them.

You can see the photos at my gallery site, here.

I realize that you can get good deals on eBay for used games (and I frequently do), but there’s something extra-cool about standing in a store this large that specializes in video games.

So I would be remiss to not share said location with my fellow gaming geeks and geekettes. Here’s the rack near the front door that has all the price lists:

There are lists for new and used Nintendo 64, Playstation 1, 2 and 3, Xbox and Xbox 360, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Saturn, Neo Geo, Game Gear, Wii, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance. Plus they’ve got used DVD’s. Here’s just one of the aisles:

And here’s the Xbox section:

Anyway, if you’re a game freak and you like checking out used games, check this place out. I was there a few weeks back, and picked up Bully and Disgaea for PS2, and Exit and Crush for PSP. I just got a Nintendo DS for Christmas, so next time I go I’ll be looking for some DS games too. The best part is that when you check out, they open each case to make sure the game is actually in it, and they show you the underside of the CD so you can see the quality of the disk surface. Most excellent.

Check out their site here.