Only a few more days left in California before Beth & I make the treck back to Goshen and we’re once again submersed in the “real world.” Regardless, with what little free time I’ve got left I wanted to pass on some fun finds.

First off, if you haven’t seen An Inconvenient Truth then GO! Or at least rent it once it comes out. I have to admit that at first I really wasn’t interested in going. I’ve heard about the dangers of global warming for years, now Al Gore has just put the information in a marketable package, right? Well, not exactly. I appreciated this movie for two main reasons. First off, it gives me access to scientific data so when I’m arguing the topic I don’t have to say “if global warming is true.” Secondly, it really is an issue that we can’t let die. Global warming is scary and aims to be a devastating problem for my generation. Funny how I was already getting some great conservation ideas from SST and now I have even more reason to use them

I’ve also decided it’s high time for another round of random links. I actually found Ball of Dirt before going on SST, but because I like plugging kuhnsfam so much I didn’t end up using it. This was probably my loss because Ball of Dirt is a great way to put your travel journal and photos online. My favorite feature is the map automatically created as you make entries from new locations.

Of course Google went an released some great new tools while I was on SST. My favorites are Google Trends (see what time of year skiing and swimming are in) and Google Transit. Even tho it currently only works in Portland, Oregon the fact that Google is promoting public transportation is awesome!

Finally, I decided it was high time that I learned how to make my own Google maps. So as a case study I’ve created the official kuhnsfam.com 14er checklist. While it’s not 100% done yet I’ve made good progress. So now you can even stalk my mountain climbing habits Have a great week everyone!

The summer goes on and I just keep running out of time before work starts, lol. Not that I dread work, but I will miss my school summer vacations like crazy! I realized that It’s been three weeks since I got back from SST and I still haven’t mentioned anything that I’ve been up to here in the US. A definite highlight was climbing Longs Peak with my dad and several friends from church. This wasn’t the tallest 14er I’ve climbed, but it was definitely the most challenging. The last mile of the hike involves hiking through the “narrows,” a ledge of rock that deserves it’s name. Regardless, we all made it to the top and I finally got in my mountain-top view for the summer. To top it all off, we also camped with my mom and Beth, so once my dad and I got off the mountain we all hit the hot-tub, it was awesome!

But actually that’s old news because as we speak I’m in Rancho Cucamonga! Beth and I flew out here to CA about a week ago to spend time with her family and friends. So we’ve been hanging with Sharon, eating Lebanese food and swimming a lot On an unrelated note, I also just bought a Linksys WRT54G Wireless router and with a little tutorial I found I plan to hack my $60 router into a $600 one. Oh yeah, and I saw M. Nights’ Lady in the Water too. I didn’t like it as much as The Village but it’s still worth a watch. He’s a great story teller and he does a good job of bringing this particular bed-time story to life. Ok enough rambling, I’ve got a full day of relaxing to do so I’d better go! Ciao.

Coming back from Peru there are, of course, entirely too many memories to share. I mean, I could try to re-tell everything here on the blog but of course that would get tedious pretty quick. Well, the same goes for my photos. I love looking through them! I’ve really enjoyed seeing some other SSTer’s shots… however if I were to slap all 1,200 of my Peru photos online I imagine that you would get bored pretty quick. So with that in mind I’ve crafted three galleries of Peruvian photos for you to browse. La Gente: talking about the people I got to know on SST, the Best: some of my personal favorite shots, and Peruvian Sunsets: I’ll let you puzzle that one out on your own So check head over to the photo section and check ‘em out!

On a mostly related note, while on SST I studied spanish and was lucky enough to have Cesar La Rosa as my prof. Aside from being a good teacher and cool guy Cesar also takes some really nice photos! He especially enjoys taking photos of flowers and nearly everyone in our class ended up buying some of his work; I ended up getting four. So yeah, I would highly recommend checking out his online gallery if you have a minute or two. Or better yet, next time you’re passing through Lima try to get in touch and check out his photos in real life, It’s worth your while