I've been using Mozilla Firefox on-and-off for the last few weeks, but I've finally decided to use it exclusively from now on (switched from IE6). The only thing that's been keeping me from switching has been pure laziness. The only thing I don't like, so far, is that it doesn't keep a focus on that last link you clicked on like IE does. I like to browse through my daily reads quickly, so I usually click on the link at the top of the list, then use the ALT key plus the left arrow key to return to my website, then TAB and ENTER to quickly hit the next one, but Firefox won't allow me to do that. So instead, I've got to use the mouse to go back and forth between the Back button and the next link I want to go to, which is much slower.

The main reason that I switched is that a browser helper object automatically installed itself and hijacked IE on my machine last week, and it took me an hour of messing with it to restore everything to normal. Then, just a few days ago, an old family friend, who I hadn't seen in years, stopped by (quite surprisingly) and asked me for help fixing his machine, which he said was just running agonizingly slow. Using several different spyware removal applications (and two hours of my time), I got rid of about 150 different damned spyware and adware programs (some thanks go to Ty). I also had him switch browsers, so hopefully that'll keep him from having the same problems in the future.

I'm pooped. I hiked to the top of East Mountain today, and this hike was actually quite fun. It was only about 500 feet lower in elevation than South Tent Mountain, so I'm not sure I can blame my blah hike last time on that--maybe I just needed to get acclimated to the elevation (or the exertion). You can see from the aerial image of my route that there was a lot of zig-zagging. The climb was so steep, and through such thick brush and trees that it took me five hours to hike the entire 2.91 miles, and for more than half of that time I was stopped to rest.

I don't think I'm going to go on any more long hikes alone, not after what's happened the last couple of times. Each time, as I was hiking downhill, I fell at least a couple of times. I got scraped up pretty good today, and I even managed to get a thick sliver off a fallen log wedged under my fingernail about ¼ inch--it didn't hurt much then, just bled a bit, but it's killing me now. I just keep thinking that one of these times, I'll take a nasty spill like that and break something important (not just my skin). Not only that, but I'm scared to death of running into a bear or cougar--yeah, I know how very unlikely that is, and I am armed while I'm out there, but I know that if something purposely wanted to attack me (as opposed to being startled into a defensive posture), I wouldn't see it until it had its jaws around my throat. On my way up the mountain today, I spooked a sage grouse that was about eight feet in front of me (and slightly uphill), and when it flew off, it started off heading right for my head. I let out a pretty big yelp before I realized what it was, but by then it had turned and flew to my left for about ten yards before landing in some brush. My heart was beating really hard, because I thought I was about to get pounced on, and I had to sit for about five minutes before I'd settled down enough to continue on.

I don't know which mountain I'm going to hike next, but I'd like to get three or four more in before the snow sets in at the higher elevations. I could just start going after the easy ones--there are six county high points left in my High in Utah book that are rated as "easy" (one of them is actually rated "too easy" because you can drive right to it), but they're all so damned far away. I'm not sure I want to drive for several hours only to go on a short hike, at least not without something else to do in the area. I also want to get a trip to Nutty Putty Cave in pretty soon. Now that school has started, a weekday trip to the cave would be perfect.

I've still got more than half of my allotted vacation days left to take at work, and the year is two-thirds over, so I'm gonna have to start using them up quickly. I'm taking tomorrow and Monday off for starters, and I hope to get some hiking done, as well as get started on building the kids' playset (and possibly even finish it). All summer long, I kept thinking that I needed to get out and do these things before summer was over, but in reality this is the perfect time of year for hiking and doing yard work. I hope to keep hiking until the weather stops me, at which point I'll have to find something else to keep me occupied until spring.

Free Garmin eTrex Legend GPS receiver for anyone willing to do a little work for it.

This weekend has been surprisingly good--we went camping and boating at Huntington State Park with Traci's friends John and Julia. They brought their boat and slept in a tent, and we brought our trailer and cooked a few meals in there (including a load of crayfish that we caught). I wasn't looking forward to going, only because it's such a pain in the ass to load up the trailer and haul it around, especially for just one night, but this turned out being well worth it. My arms are really sore from skiing (and trying to slalom), and we all got a little sunburned--added to my burn from last weekend, and I'm hating it. Anyway, I'm glad we went and I'm looking forward to going again when we get the chance.

We planted some tomatoes in the back yard this year, and they're finally starting to ripen. There are so many that Traci gave a bunch of them to her parents today, and we made a lot of salsa this evening. Next year, I think I'm going to grow everything I need to make salsa without having to buy anything, except the lime juice, vinegar, and seasonings, of course. Oh yeah, Fritos are pretty hard to grow in the garden as well.

I met with Lieutenant Jack Topham of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources a little over an hour ago at the view area on top of Billie's Mountain, and he followed me down the road a ways to where I found the remains of that cougar a couple of weeks ago. We hiked over to where it was, and he sorta poked around a bit, looking at the scattered remains. He said that some lady had hit a cougar with her car in the area last year and believed that it was dead, but by the time he got there it was gone, and he just assumed that somebody had picked it up off the side of the road. He wrote out a receipt saying that the skull had been donated to me, and I went along on my merry way.

There was still a bit of skin and fur left on the skull, and it was a little smelly, but I removed what I could and I plan on boiling it to clean it the rest of the way. It's too bad it was sitting out in the elements for so long, because the teeth are cracked and don't look too great, but the rest of it is in good shape. I'll post some pictures when I get it all cleaned up--it'll be a nice addition to the usual clutter on my desk.

The hike to South Tent Mountain yesterday was just so-so, but by the time I got home afterwards I had a nasty migraine and ended up staying in bed the rest of the evening. It took me more than 2½ hours to drive from home to the trailhead. I'd forgotten how bad that stretch of Skyline Drive is--I hadn't driven it since I had my Subaru out there more than two years ago. I parked at the trailhead around 10:00 am, but the road/trail that was supposed to lead to the top of North Tent Mountain has been torn up by the Forest Service. I hiked along the side of the demolished trail until it started switching back and forth, then I headed straight for the north (and tallest) peak of North Tent Mountain. After resting there, I hiked down the small saddle to the south peak of North Tent Mountain, where there was a cairn and a register in a glass jar. I signed the register, then started down the big saddle on the way to South Tent Mountain. By that time I was already pretty exhausted, so the hike up South Tent took me a long time, with a lot of rest stops. I reached the top at 1:00 pm, then took another long rest before moving on. Instead of tracing my route back to the trailhead, I hiked straight down the side of the mountain and met up with a trail that took me back to the car.

Overall, the hike took me 4 hours and 45 minutes, though the book I was following listed the difficulty as easy and the time on the trail as 2.5 hours maximum. I hope it was the altitude that did me in (over 11,000 feet), because I'm pretty sure I could hike four miles in much less time at a lower elevation. Either way, I need to get out more and either hike more often or exercise regularly between hikes.

The drive home was pretty interesting, since I didn't take the same road as I'd come in on. When I got back to the car after the hike, there were some dark clouds moving in from the north, and I didn't dare chance driving that direction for 20 miles on a steep dirt road. If it had started raining, I would have been stuck there until the roads dried out, or else risk sliding hundreds of feet down the mountain to my death. So, I started driving south on Skyline Drive, not knowing exactly where the road would come out. I decided to follow the signs and head for the nearest paved road, no matter which side of the Wasatch mountains I ended up on. After just a few miles, the condition of the road improved a great deal, with crushed gravel instead of rocks and ruts. A few miles after that, I reached a junction and a sign that pointed to Orangeville. The road eventually came out in Joe's Valley, and on the way back home on SR-10, I noticed that those dark clouds were dumping rain on the mountains near north Skyline Drive. It was also just starting to rain in Huntington when I passed through, turning the thick coat of dust on the Mazda into mud--it needs to be washed pretty badly now.

Before yesterday, I'd planned on hiking to Fish Lake Hightop next, but with a "moderate" difficulty listing and an 8½ mile hike, I think I'll pass for now. East Mountain in Emery County sounds a little better--while also having moderate difficulty, it's only a two mile hike, and it's much closer to home.

I'm gearing up for a hike to South Tent Mountain on Sunday, and while doing so this evening I ran across ExpertGPS. I can't believe how awesome this program is. I've got AllTopo for the entire state of Utah, but ExpertGPS is so much better at managing waypoints, plus it uses maps and aerial imagery from TerraServer, which makes zooming and panning much easier (with completely seamless maps).

I'm only slightly nervous about going on this hike alone, and the only thing I'm legitimately worried about is the weather. Scattered thunderstorms are forecast for the weekend, and hopefully by going early in the morning I can avoid that. I'm going to buy another water bladder to bring with me, for a total of four liters, 'cause I definitely didn't like running out of water on my last big hike. I think I'm going to use my plain ol' JanSport backpack that I've had since college, since my normal hydration pack is too small to carry food and water (and other necessities) for a several-hour hike.

Last year, I said I was going to attempt King's Peak this fall, but that's definitely not going to happen. Not only did I not get into shape over the last year, but I also haven't bought all the equipment that I'd need to go on such a trek. It'll have to wait until the snow melts next year, and hopefully my lazy ass will be ready for it.

I found out yesterday that the speed in the Taurus is governed at about 100 MPH. I was passing a car on a long, straight stretch of US-6 east of Wellington, hoping to record a speed of over 100 on my GPS, but I could only do 97.3 MPH. I think I could hit the mark going downhill if I really tried, but I didn't want to risk getting clocked by a UHP trooper by trying it again.

I love how that car handles on the highway, though--we went for a 300 mile drive on Saturday, south on SR-10 to I-70 westbound, then north on US-89 to US-6, then home again. We made a lot of stops, and the car was only shut down once when we stopped for lunch, so the engine was basically running for 8.5 hours during a 10 hour trip. We did a lot of geocaching along the way, but nothing really interesting happened.

It seems like summer has passed rather quickly--September is just a few weeks away. I'm planning on bagging three more Utah county high peaks in the next month, and camping at least two more weekends, though I think I'd like to keep camping long past our normal camping season since my truck won't overheat in the cool weather and the heater in the trailer works quite well. If only the new car payment and higher insurance rate won't interfere with those plans, then I won't feel like this summer was a waste.

Among the best (or worst) Mark Hacking comments on Fark: OMG l33t h4X0r and Dibs on his new mattress!.

And I thought it was only the younger generation who had this feeling of entitlement. Get over it, you old bag!

I did a lot of hiking this weekend, and I stumbled upon the remains of a mountain lion. I wasn't sure what it was at first, since I couldn't see the front of the skull--I originally thought it was a calf. Once I saw the teeth, I immediately realized what it was. I've never seen a mountain lion in the wild, so I'm not sure how big they get, but this one appeared to be a little small. I emailed somebody at the Division of Wildlife Resources, asking if I could recover the skull and keep it, but I haven't heard back from them yet.

I hiked to the top of Billie's Mountain (the left side of the road-cut in the background of this picture), and I also hiked as far up the Thistle mudslide as I could without trespassing. However, the fence that kept me from going any further, with "No Trespassing" signs all along it, ended at the side of a steep hill, at which point you can simply hike up the hill and go around the fence without actually climbing over it. I'm pretty sure that it's all public property on the other side of the fence, and I don't know why I wussed out and turned back, but next time I'm up there I'm simply going to go around the fence and hike to the top of the slide. It should make for some interesting pictures, looking down the slide rather than up from the bottom.

Traci and I made some PVC geocache containers this weekend that are pretty cool. I cut some 6-inch long sections of 2" PVC pipe, then we glued caps on one end, and we're using rubber test caps for the removable end. We painted the PVC first with Krylon Fusion, then immediately hit it with the camouflage paint. I just used small branches from some juniper trees as sort of a stencil to get the pattern I wanted. We made six containers already, and after we place them (probably close to town), I want to make some rather large PVC containers (such as 6" diameter), but those'll be quite a bit more expensive.