You mean you've only just read Neuromancer???? OMG!! William Gibson isn't called the Father of Cyberspace for nothing. And yeah, all those crap net movies are based on Gibson's stuff in one way or another. The only one I know of taken directly from his books was 'Johnny Mnemonic' - a really awful movie with a classic wooden performance from Keanu Reeves (does that guy have facial muscles?). That was taken from a great short story in Burning Chrome, but they added a lot of junk to it, as usual. Anyway, you MUST read the other 2 of the trilogy, Count Zero (the best of the 3) and Mona Lisa Overdrive. I envy you still having that pleasure to come. mac

Thanks, guys! I wish that I had larger and better images to share. :deep sigh: I was carrying a cheap little *lightweight* digital camera without a memory card... so I can only get 20 low-res or 5 hi-res images. I really ought to see about a card for it, because 640X480 isn't enough. (The camera was a gift... I've held off on going digital because I prefer taking slides.) This shot is of Tenaya Peak and reveals general location as well as the nature of the granite. I usually climb straight up to my lake from the front side, but was coddling a knee that I twisted last month. Besides needing to keep a couple of private places, I usually bring my firends over country which is a trifle less steep! Carolly

This picture was also taken the same trip. There is another large lake nearby which does the waterfall bit in spring, but even the tiny pools hanging on the edge are interesting... and might make a good background for fairies sunbathing or griffins watching for fish or something else magical. I saw a doe, buck with decent rack, 2 marmots shrieking loudly that a marmot-eating predator was on their rock, coyote... but not a single hawk all day. I was intending to take the first one into PhotoShop and play with it (basically using the structure while replacing some elements) so the actual pixel count before tweaking wouldn't be too critical. Patricia is undoubtedly familiar with Kim Poor's "Ladies of the Lake" with the Pleiades reflected in a lake on a world far, far from here. I was thinking about a similar tack. The image size on these is small. Even so, they may be useful as starting points. You hereby have my permission to use these 3 within your own images, just don't claim them as your own. If I get a memory card and can take some bigger images next time, I'll see about sharing them, too. Carolly

Maclean, That was the sort of lightning. No sound at all. The area covered by the electrical storm went from the east side of Yosemite to the Bay Area, so was at least 250 miles wide. The temperature in Mocassin (tiny town at 1000' before major grade uphill) was 98 degrees in the morning and 81 degrees at 1:30 a.m. when returning. I shudder to think of what the daytime temperatures were like in the Central Valley!!! That had to be a contributor. August thunderstorms in the domelands are an incredible experience. I was somewhere above 10,000' one afternoon a few years back, singing "I've seen fire and I've seen rain" at the top of my voice. The air was pinkish with all of the strikes, but the neck hairs weren't tingling. I wasn't too concerned about standing in flowing water over granite, since they weren't going to strike my dome. Just a great day to be alive. :) Speaking of which... how was your birthday? Carolly

Ever do Lovers Leap?

Wonder how long this is going to go before it gets bounced off to OT land?

I want a poser golum model. Grim is close, but I just don't have the patience to play with him to get Golum to show up. I want to have a Golum. I want to throw him in Mimic Pro 2 and have him sing Rapper's Delight! Other than that I'm not a LOTR fan shrug Though I have read Vampire Lestat 14 times, insert BeetleJuice voice and it keeps getting better every time! Please, someone make Golum. His speech at the MTV VMA's were hilarious! okay, rant over, but it is Poser related!

Great pics, carolly. I'd LOVE to go walking there. BTW, do the lakes look extremely blue seen from above? All the Alpine lakes have this weird blue color. It's because the water comes from the glaciers and is highly oxegenated. '2 marmots shrieking loudly ' - Do you know that I didn't know that word existed in English. In Italian they're called 'marmotte', and they're all over the mountains round here, but I didn't know what they were called in English. Ha! My birthday was GREAT! When I pitched camp, I was surrounded by THREE thunderstorms, all at a fair distance luckily, but I got quite a bit of rain anyway. Not that it bothers me. No one from scotland has ever cared about rain. It's NORMAL for us. LOL. But yesh, I has a great few days walking. mac PS Lestat shudder - I read it - twice, in fact. Couldn't get into it at all.

oxegenated = oxygenated Oops! mac

Maclean, If you ever get to this part of the world, look me up. I'd gladly take another photographer up to the High Country. Some of the lakes are actually greenish-blue with the "glacial flour", others are the deepest sky blue you'd ever see. My second favorite lake is on the side of Mt Clark and is french blue, heart-shaped, and perfectly nestled there in sheer granite at 11'000. I was on a week-long geography seminar about 25 years ago criss-crossing the Clark Range. Every peak is formed of a different kind of granite. :happy little sigh: The first glacier that John Muir hiked over here in California (and which validated his theory) is up there, and we followed his footsteps for a while... but didn't descend into the Bergshrund. (sp) My absolute favorite lake is very close to Mt Conness (my favorite peak of all the peaks) and is one to which I've brought many friends over the years. The deeper lakes are often too cold for skinny-dipping, but the shallow tarns are just right. We have yellow-bellied marmots and tiny grey pikas. The pikas are quite shy... I'll usually only see these if I've been sitting so still for so long that they have forgotten about me. :) Carolly

Well, it looks and sounds like terrific country. I'd be right at home there. I keep meaning to get back to the States, but never manage it. Mind you, I'd need to spend a month or two just visiting. So many friends I haven't seen for a long time. sigh 'The deeper lakes are often too cold for skinny-dipping' ALL the lakes here are too cold for it. In fact, it takes major nerve just to wash your face in the morning. LOL. mac