Monday September 17, 2001
Map geek alert. Here's a Map of the Market from smartmoney.com. The saddest part was when I clicked losers under "Highlight Top 5" and saw the beating the airlines took. Of course under gainers you have the engines of war.



Rememeber the Dove of Peace? The American History 1970-1979 page has one rendition of it down in the Nobel Peace section. This morning's weather map also, oddly enough, had the Peace Dove flying across the United States. It's rendered mostly as fog with the garland clapsed in the beak as the green of light rain.

Could be one of the weather guys augmenting an already familiar looking shape (I remember mapping data where bored digitizers etched girlfriend's names or other shapes into rural city streets) or my overly active visual imagination. I started seeing faces in all manner of places about a year ago. The most fertile face generation has been the vinyl tile in our bathroom which until last year was another not-so-attractive 1970's tan and black swirl of textile "art". Now I see all manner of caricatures, cartoon figures, and hints at finer, more subtle profiles. Probably started with the stereo image craze a few years back and my mind has been building upon it since.

If you can spare some time today be sure to visit the Illusion Art Museum.



Now that I'm rested and somewhat more focused I've put together a topo map covering our hike yesterday. Our guidebooks clocked the hike at around 8-9 miles while my hand-traced route in Topo! shows just over 7 miles. In either case it felt like plenty of miles.

Click the thumbnail to see the route along with an elevation profile. The dogs, Zeke and Tucker, had a grand day out as well. Waterfalls and cold mountain streams to splash and drink in, plenty of dog biscuits, exercise in the woods, and best of all a couple dozen other like minded dogs met along the way. I think Labrador mix breeds were the most prevelant, with lab-husky, lab-sheperd, and some other lab induced varieties left unidentified. Still, Tucker, a purebred Golden Retriever, garnered the most attention of any. Everyone had a kind word to say and few could resist giving him a quick pat in passing or bending down to scruff those irresistably fluffy golden ears. I said it was because he's essentially the "blonde" of dog breeds. Zeke got a few pats, but for the most part he's too serious and intent on the business at hand to stand for idle dog worship.