Chris McDowell.net

And blam. Just like new again. This time with a case.

I have finally dropped my iPhone on the concrete. I was getting out of the car and forgot I had it between my legs so when I got out it not only fell but I stepped on it and dragged it a bit across the concrete. Luckily it was the back and only cracked around the edges. I think it would have survived if I had just dropped it. Oh well.

The lazy dogs.

I went over to San Carlos airport to the Vertical Challenge 2010. It was through the Hiller Aviation Museum. They had quite a few helicopters there and even had a C5 galaxy do a flyby along with 2 Harrier’s. Not too bad of a day. The museum was also open so I walked through that a bit though it was quite lame compared to what was parked out on the runway. The Coast Guard and PG&E did some helicopter demonstrations. PG&E had some IBEW (Matt) guys do some work on some mock power lines.

You can check them out at here…

I went up past Chico into the hills this weekend and hit up some trails. They were pretty steep. The videos don’t do them justice. They were like 45 degrees up in some spots… or down with 1.5-2 foot tall ledges to climb over or drop down off of. I had to have it in low 1 just to get up over them. The whole thing was pretty dry except for a big mud pit at the end.

If you don’t want to watch it all the red runner makes an appearance at 0:21-0:54 2:17-4:17 and 8:11 to the end. It was pretty fun and I was quite surprised what that 4runner could handle. I definitely didn’t think it could do half of what it did and it did it with ease.

This is a video some other guy made that came along.

These are some photos of when I went up to Yosemite a little while back. I think they came out fairly well. I went up and there was a bit of snow on the ground but nothing too crazy. Camped there and it started to rain during the night. The rain then turned into snow and by the morning there was a bit over 6 inches down. Made for some good photos for the way out. You can check out some of them here…
http://gallery.me.com/chrismcdowell25#100393

I took some pictures at the Kelley Park Bug Show this year. I forgot to use my polarizer but I think they came out pretty well none the less. You can check them out by going to…

http://gallery.me.com/chrismcdowell25#100385

I pulled the engine out of my BMW this weekend. A few buddies were over so I had them haul it out instead of getting an engine hoist. Hope to get it all rebuilt down the road but probably won’t be too soon.

Engine Hoist

I forgot to grab a picture of the 4Runner completely covered with snow. It had about 1 foot on the whole thing with icicles hanging off of the head lamps, bull bar and bumper.

This is the difference a day makes when it snows. There was about a foot or so of snow that fell over the night.