Into the Wild....

While everyone was off at the beach, having babies or eating burgers over the fourth....we planned another crazy adventure into the wilderness. This time it was a 6 day trip into the Montana Wilderness (Glacier National Park).

The trip featured about 50 miles backpacking and another 30-40 miles dayhiking both before and after the backpacking! Crazy? Oh yeah...Fun? Absolutely! Wildlife included being 10 yards from a black bear, seeing grizzlies from a far, sleeping next to deer, and meeting marmots, groundsquirrels, and big-horn sheep. The most annoying animal (and I do mean animal) was the mosquito. I think they even snuck home in my luggage!

I won't bore you with pages and pages of stories and sagas, so in "Late Night" style, I will give you the top 10 from our trip!

Top 10 fun & exciting items from the Beahm's vs Montana adventure:
1. Backpacking & Hiking through snow drifts in July!
2. Having Melissa ask for the camera instead of the bear spray when we saw the bear
3. Constant rain for almost 36 hours while backpacking
4. Using the 40 degree water as a natural refrigerator
5. Watching and waiting as the Big-Horn Sheep stopped and redirected traffic
6. Sunrise: 4:23 AM, Sunset 9:43 PM. REALLY LONG DAYS!!
7. Huckleberries (yes, like in Yogi Bear Cartoons). Melissa loves the Huckleberry Icecream
8. Killing Mosquitoes in a hotel room we stayed in
9. Fording a waist deep river (did I say the water was 40 degrees?)
10. Enjoying glacier green colored lakes below beautiful snow and glacier covered mountains

There are 305 pictures (that's purged from 512) from the trip. Since no one would sit through a slide show like that, I've picked around the top 75. I'm embedding the pictures into the blog from picasa. You can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/cmbunc if you are having trouble seeing them with the flash slideshow.



Thanks and hope you enjoy the pictures!

That trip was "smoking..."

This last weekend I went on an "adventure" trip with some guys from my Church. It was a great time of fun and fellowship, but one thing stood out: the smoke. For those of you NOT located in middle or eastern NC, we have been tormented by smoke from wildfires in a wildlife refuge near the coast. You can read about in on WRAL. Our Kayaking trip started clear, but got worse through the morning and ended with very low visibility. We didn't get to see any alligators, but it did make for a once in a lifetime trip!

Check out this picture of us all in the "ominous" smoke.


Here are a few other pictures I took that were "blog-worthy" from the trip!

My Awesome Wife

So many of you may know that this weekend is our 5 year wedding anniversary! The years go by so fast! It's hard to believe that she has put up with me for that long, and I still wonder how I ended up getting a ring on her finger! I definitely married up!

A few things you may or may NOT know about my awesome wife:

1. She has backpacked above 13,000 feet and will be joining me on a 60 mile trek through the Montana Wilderness this summer! WOW!



2. She has a fascination for sheep! We have almost as many pictures of sheep as we of Bailey! Here's a shot of her with some baby sheep at the Biltmore Estate.



3. She has been in 2 advertisements: a TV commercial for Wakemed and a print ad for UNC Hospital. I am definitely married to a star!



So here's to many many more Anniversaries! I love you darling! Love, Chris

Nissan Rogue Iphone

Blog Warning: This entry is for the techies! You can ignore if you are looking for Bailey stories. ;)

Every once in a while, the creative juices get flowing and I decide to get out the tools and use that workbench that I created. This last weekend, I had the great idea to create a mount for my iphone in my Nissan Rogue. For everyone who has or had an Iphone in their car, they are familiar with the "Cupholder" approach. This method includes dropping the iphone in the cup holder and then it rattles around every time you hit the breaks. Also, it is a pain when trying to change songs...and you definitely do not get to enjoy the great "album art" that you you have on your songs!



This is what I wanted:
1. A nice holder that was custom fit for my iphone. I wanted it to NOT interfere with any Airbag deployment and I did not want it to sit on my dashboard. I learned this makes your iphone VERY hot in the summer months recently!
2. I wanted to be able to use my apple remote control. I mean...why not?!! I have a remote, it takes an extra reach everytime you want to change the song. It would be nice to be able to use the remote I have.
3. I wanted to be able to charge and play my iphone with only ONE cable. I didn't want to have to have a plug on the bottom and the top of the phone just to be able to play and charge my phone.

Here's what I had available:
1. Parts I purchased: $4.95 piece of Sheet metal from Lowes. $2.90 can of spray paint (non-gloss). $32 CableJive Dock Extender cable.
2. Parts I had: Old Ipod Dock & remote control.


The Final Product:
1. An Iphone Holder (took me 15 minutes to fabricate and design the sheet metal and paint it).
2. A single cable which runs to the dock that is mounted underneath my passenger dashboard. This means all the cables are hidden and it charges and plays with one cable. Also, the remote control works as long as I point it towards the front of the car. Also, I can pick up the iphone and check my mail whenever I want without interrupting my music (as can my wife, who is attached to the phone when we are in the car together!). ;)

Spoofing & April Fools

When Melissa and I get home from work, we usually trade stories about what we did that day at work! It typically involves lots of IT acronyms and medical terms, just to show how little we really know about what we each do! Lots of "pic-lines" and "heart caths" and "IV tubes" positioned against "VBScript," ".NET" and "WMI."

Today Melissa told me that she got an email saying she had won $200! "Really?!" I asked? She responded that all she had to do was put in her Debit Card, Pin Number, Security Code, and Expiration Date. Of Course she didn't give out our information and we all know that this email was "Spam" (or the technical term would be "spoofing")....but it just blew my mind to see how ridiculous the ploys have become to steal money and identities. I saved a picture for posterity of the crazy attempt to steal my life and $.

So this is kind of a "reverse" April fools...it is more like a reminder or warning! Phone, Email, Mail...it comes from everywhere. No, you didn't hit the lottery, the son of deposed king of Nigeria does not want to give you money (reference to The Office), and sending a certified check to someone will not return 100% profit!

One Giant Leap for Beagles

Today Bailey got a cookie to celebrate a huge step for beagles everywhere! Uno the beagle won "Best in Show" in the Wesminister Dog Show. It marks the first time ever that the Beagle has won best in show.

Snoopy, Underdog, Uno........Bailey!!! Bailey just wants to wish you all a happy Beagle Day!!