Interesting Find

Recently I bought some NPS visitor pamphlets with maps of Mt. Rainier NP. I have some other brochures and pamphlets about the NP produced by organizations and writers, most by the Mount Rainier National History Association from the 1940's and 1950's. These new ones originated as annual reports on the NP in agency publications (pre-NPS) and visitor's brochures (post-NPS).

I bought a selection of 1914, 1918, 1925, 1932, 1936 and 1940. I'm working on a Web pages about these so visitors can understand what visitors long ago experienced when visiting the NP in the years about the time of the creation of the NPS (1916) to World War II. In the 1936 pamphlet, just inside the cover, I found this visitor's pass (above) along with a parking ticket for a Seattle parking garage, which I assume is from the same visit, meaning they stayed in Seattle before or after visiting the NP.

I don't know what more I'll do about but it would be interesting to find the owner (Oregon vehicle license 190-110 in 1936), but that's on the later list of things to do. I just thought it was interesting.

Update.--Folks at the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles said that all vehicle records prior to 1960 were destroyed in the 1960's after the state converted to their new vehicle license and records system. In short, they threw away all the records which would have been a great asset for vehicle historians. What a waste when they could have simply archived all of the records in a warehouse.

New Computer II

While I've written about my new computer, and it's not related to Mt. Rainier NP, but to the Webisite and the photo guide, I can say it's fully up and running with everything seemingly working. I haven't walked through everything, I know I will encounter small problems over the following weeks and months as I use more of the applications again.

But that said, I'm a happy camper. A little less rich financially, but with years of a great computer, it will easily repay itself. I will be sending my early 2006 G5 back to Apple to be recycled once I clean the hard drives. I have to say it was a good computer, never failed, rarely had problems, and mostly third party software. But the reality that no one, not even Apple supported it anymore, short of occasional security updates, it was overdue for a new one which will go well into the future.

And I can get back to the Mt. Rainer NP photo guide and history projects work starting sometime the last week of this month. I will be working on the paper side of things and doing some minor work preparing for several new Web pages, such as the two undone area guides, glaciers, placenames, and early history (1880-1920), among others.

I've been gather some more historic material, one of which I plan to scan (it's a government, public domain document) into a PDF. It's a description of the NP by the pre-NPS Superintendent of the NP in 1914, complete with map. It's cool to see 96 years of changes from then to now. And there have been many.

That's it for now. I'm back working, if only in between holiday life and some medical tests right now, but then it's winter there and not much changes except more snow.

Snowplay Area Opens

The snowplay area at Paradise will open this Saturday (Dec. 18, 2010), as reported in the Tacoma News Tribune,

"Good news for the fans of the snowplay area at Paradise. Conditions are good enough that the sledding area should open as planned on Saturday. “Yesterday we measured about 7 feet of snow at Paradise,” said Mount Rainier National Park district ranger Uwe Nehring. Park officials like to have at least 5 feet of snow on the ground to protect the small trees, brushes and sensitive plants in the area."

The rules for the snowplay area are as follows.

"Snowplay - Sledding and Sliding
The snowplay area at Paradise is generally open late December through mid-March, depending on snow. Sledding and sliding are permitted only in the designated snow play area at Paradise. Trees, tree wells, and cliffs make other areas dangerous. For everyone’s safety, use "soft" sliding devices—flexible sleds, inner tubes, and saucers. No hard toboggans or runner sleds."

While this isn't photography related, it's still fun if that's your pleasure. And it is snow.

New Computer

Well, the new Apple Mac Pro is up and running with all of the applications folders and files transferred. Well, almost all, I haven't wandered through every directory to compare contents (the old G5 currently sits along side the new Pro). It's clearly overkill for my uses but it will last at least 5 years and will be able to do anything I want with memory and disks to spare. I can ugrade the memory (currently just 8 of 32 MB's) but have all four hard drives used.

While it wasn't a hard thing, since I bought it from Apple's on-line store and they configured it minus the applications which I transferred, upgraded and added. There were some frustrating times which required some work to find a solution, but some friends with Mac Pro's helped a lot.

I discovered Migration Assistant (MA) program only transfers stuff from the primary hard drive, all the other ones are ignored. And the Time Machine backups for the old Mac aren't recognized by the MA program or the Pro either. So, you're left with putting in the old hard drives and copying folders and files to the new hard drives. This was, in the end, the easiest method except the finder settings didn't copy to arrange the files correctly.

Oh well, there's always something, like a set of Murphy's Law for computers. I also found some applications had to be reactivated, some with the serial number. Only one won't run until I find the original serial number (in a box in storage, I think). Some didn't work at all and had to be downloaded. And some I haven't tested yet as I have to connect all the hardware and test the applications for them.

So why do this when the old computer was working fine, although it is now frozen with no Apple support and no new Apple, Adobe or third party applications available for it? Well, it's the nature of the world and the Internet. You can't keep the old computers unless you don't have the need to keep current, but then you're risking your computer when you use the Internet.

For one you can't keep up with the changes in Web standards and design features. And you will, if you haven't already, found some Websites don't work on your older computer because the browser and plug-ins won't work and new ones aren't available, like Flash on the iPad and iPhone. Good luck navigating the world now.

And so I gave myself a very big and expensive Christmas present, but one which I'll enjoy for a long time now with just updates and upgrades, like the old one which lasted almost 5 years (4 years of good support and service). That's not a bad return these days for technology. The trade-off we face and buy now.

There still is some more work, testing the remaining applications, connecting and testing the hardware (will work, just not done yet), and walking through some of the new applications. What surprised me a little was that all the previous Adobe applications (CS2, CS3 and CS4 Suites) still work, at least the ones I routinely use.

I expect to get the remaining work done this week and return to my normal life again. With the medical issues and tests, I won't be back on the Website right away (ok, minus my blog to rant at politics in Washington D.C.), but will return the last week of December to get ready for the new year.

That's it from here. I hope you're finding this blog and the Mt. Rainier NP photo guide useful and helpful, and you can always send me your comments, questions or suggestions.

Website and Computer

I wrote that I ordered a new computer (Mac Pro) and will be replacing the old one (Mac PPC G5) the week of the 13th. That's been moved up to this weekend after the telephone company resolves the problems with the DSL I have to the (home) office. That means while the Website is up and was updated from earlier this week, it won't be updated again while I get the new Mac updated with software and the files transferred.

Also, I'll be out for medical tests the week of Christmas so updates will be minimal for the latest information if anything is important or interesting to note. I wrote about the heart problems they discovered. And I'll be on drugs for 4 months and longer if nothing improves.

Well the next test are for the bacterial infection I have going back decades and more recently the last three years which became worse this year and more so this fall. These tests should find the culprit, and the only question is if a treatment is available, and if so, what it is and what side effects there (always) are with me.

Such is life sometimes. Start something and everything else happens around it to distract your attention. I'm not good at balancing more than 2 things, 3 tops, at a time, and adding this with other issues, it's sometimes a little overwhelming. For me at least. But there isn't much choice with these.

And so, as I noted before, it's time to get it done. So, expect only a few updates until after Christmas.