You can cliznic the piznics for da bigguns. I'm sorry... I completey blame Snoop Dog for me saying stupid s#@t like that. What I meant to say was that you can click the pictures for larger images. 

-Peace Out homey..... oops.

I can see my house from here.

From afar.

The view down from my perch.

On my way back I tried to get a couple good overexposures of Shenandoah Valley ... I only got one semi-okay pic.

Duh bird.

Da mouse. If you look closely you'll see it.

Anudder mouse. If you look closely you'll see it. Actually it's the same mouse. I just wanted to use 'anudder' in a sentence.

I have been to the Mountain Sayeth the Ron

You know how in the bible whenever someone has a pressing issue (Will the crop feed my family through the winter?), a big question (Iz Uncle Jebidiah gon’ Die?), or some big decision (Should I rumble in the Garden with Cleopatra behind the Parthenon?) and they don't know what to do they go to some huge, evil looking mountain and, exerted to within inches of exhaustion they climb to the top, fighting and clawing for every inch. Then they stand there, triumphant at the peak of the mountain and suddenly from out of nowhere God drops some dope knowledge on 'em? I mean, something serious like E=MC^2, Phi, The Fibonacci sequence, or the recipe for Funky Cold Medina. I mean dayum! Something just profound!

Well my friends! I WENT TO THE MOUNTAIN!

I mounted the mountain. 

It was a difficult task frought with danger but there I stood. I listened intently for Gods voice. Patiently I waited… and waited… and waited. I checked my watch a couple times. Hmmm…Okay… I emptied my mind (not too difficult a task in my case) in preparation for enlightenment. I waited some more…. I thought to myself that maybe I was supposed to be meditating or something. “ChrOhhhhhhhhhhhhhm, ChrOhhhhhhhhhhhhm, ChrOhhhhhhhhhhhhm”. I mean, maybe that’s what Moses did. I looked around. Still, no stone tablets or notebooks or anything. I started to think that maybe I got jipped here. I mean, I trudged up this freakin’ mountain….. nearly slipped on some ice on the way up. Yes ice, on a 60 degree day… or at least at the bottom of the mountain it was 60ish. It was a little cooler at the top. I got snow in my shoes (yup, mmm hmmm) ‘cuz I really didn’t expect any. I’d carried my camera and tripod all the way to the top of this mountain and I am not even getting a little bit of enlightenment? C’mon?! If not enlightenment at least some dope rhymes or lottery numbers.

Hold on. I feel a beat coming on… 

eh hmm

Oh… Sorry, just indigestion.

I mean, less face it. I’ve got no crops to worry about harvesting. I don’t have an Uncle Jebidiah… and well, rumbling in the Garden with Cleopatra is a no-brainer. So… why did I climb the dreaded mountain? What was my ultimate purpose for undertaking this endeavor? Was I seeking world peace? Was I desperately trying to save the life of a loved one? Was I intently searching for a solution to a problem bigger than myself? Well… No.

I conquered the mountain because it was there to be conquered. Damn skippy.

Yup. The whole enlightenment thing didn’t hit me until I got to the top and looked at the tiny world beneath me. Enlightenment was an afterthought. The experience of being there was awesome. The wind was amazing... especially considering there was NONE at the bottom. I mean, I wasn't about to get blown over or anything but I had to be very careful when I set up my tripod. As I crept to the edge for my photo op and the wind picked up I did start to wonder whether or not God was trying to teach me about Darwin Awards. Eventually I got some decent pics though...and then my battery died. Hmmm. Was this Gods message? I swapped out the batteries in my Garmin Etrex Legend GPS with those in my camera, a little ticked off since I had more batteries…. IN MY CAR. About that time a couple of hikers arrived and went to a slightly lower neighboring outcropping. After a minute I yelled over asking if they would take a picture for me. They did and I managed to get one that I hoped would do a good job of showing the magnitude of the mountain I was on… well… it was an okay pic but not the momentous one I’d hoped for. After retrieving my camera they asked me to return the favor. I did so and snapped off a few pics for them with their Casio Exilim…. then I went back to my perch and contemplated the meaning of life more. Well, not really… I just sat there and looked around. I saw these two birds hoppin' around a few feet away… tried to get a few pics… great… the batteries I stole outta my gps were also dying. It was odd cuz the birds they were really close. Then I saw what they were doing. It looked like someone left a half eaten piece of bread up there. They were taking turns getting their grub on. After a bit the birds left the bread and flew around some more… then I saw something else odd. A mouse ran out from under a boulder; I would have missed it had I not been looking right at it (near where the birds were). The mouse would hesitantly run out from the rock to a small pile of leaves, then from the leaves to the bread and try in vain to pull the bread back to the rock… Every time the wind blew or the birds came close the mouse would run back to the rock… then the whole thing would start over again. It kinda got me to thinking. That mouse is probably pretty pissed with those damned birds… I mean, they were totally wrecking his groove. Every time he tried to get his eat on they ran him off. WTF? I pondered that for a while. Then it hit me… From out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightening I was… well… enlightened… I explored my new thought… If he had freakin' laserbeams mounted to his skull he could vaporize dem effers... gat-sideways-like-a-G style. I could see it. Bird flies over to the bread… chomp chomp chomp then loses interest and flies away…. Next the mouse goes on over, nibble nibble nibble… Bird comes back and thinks he’s the man, like 'mooooove bitch, get out the way'. Then the mouse is like, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttttttttt and the bird is fricasseed freakin' frizzle fried crispy. THAT’S WHAT THE MOUSE IS THINKING ABOUT! Yeeeeah.

So... After squeezing the last bit of electromotive force out of the batteries I could and getting a last one or two pics I headed back down the mountain. There was a split on the way up where the trail forked. A passing hiker told me that one was the current, long route up, and the other was the old, really steep route up. On the way up I went the long way. I decided to take the short steep way down. Though I couldn’t tell from the top of the mountain I started to notice, now under tree cover that it was getting dark. About half way back down the mountain I came across a flock… err… a horde of… no… a school(?) of reindeers. There were some hikers coming down the mountain not too far behind me. I went back up and told them of the deer and headed back down. There were a lot of them, like 5 or 6, and as I went further down the trail I saw one right in the middle of the trail. It looked like he was eating something. Just then, like a flash.... a flash that you, uh, couldn’t see… yeah, like an invisible flash I went totally stealth, like a ninja. Yup. I totally hid in plain sight and stalked toward the deer…. I crept closer and closer, unseen. Finally I was about 20 feet from the deer which happened to be at the point where there was a berm positioned in the ground to stop water run off. I kneeled down there and waited. The deer came closer. I whipped out my camera, hoping to get one last pic… No luck. It wouldn’t even power on. Then I remembered my phone… I pulled it out and quickly deleted all of my existing images. I snapped off a pic… The deer stopped when he heard the “click sha-click” camera like sound that my phone makes when it takes a picture. After a moment the deer crept closer. “click sha-click”… Another pic. The deer was quite photogenic. Finally the deer was so close I thought it was going to ask me to smell it’s breath; like 10 feet away, I stopped breathing; time stood still. The deer reached down and chewed on something. “click sha-click”….. the deer froze for a second… like a, uhh… deer in the headlights… or something.. Then after a moment it rather calmly pranced off diagonal to the trail. As the deer moved off into the distance I looked behind me to see that the other hikers had been standing back not too far off. I thanked them for patiently waiting while I got some pics. I chuckled at the thought that they were prolly just waiting to see me get gored. Afterwards I trekked back along the trail to the parking lot and crossed the Parkway, crossed the old farm and found my car in the adjacent parking lot.

So…. What did I get out of the experience…. Hell if I know….but it sure was fun.

Epic, Paramount, Incongruous.

Simply Ron Nash

So... What do you do when you capture a ferocious beast in your buddies garage? Well, assuming you aren't into stew... You pose with it and put pics on your website ofcourse!

Uh. I... uhhh.. burp. hick. Wherz my beer?

The Origin of Ron Nash

The true origins of the infamous Ron Nash are still somewhat of a mystery. He was found in the Pacific Northwest in 1981 being raised by a pack of Wolves. His rescuers; Steve and Terri Irwin were astounded and decided to take him in and raise him as their own. They named him "Wolfboy". After studying him doctors at The University of Washington School of Medicine Center for Lupineological Study concluded most likely the boy was about 6 years old. Unfortunately studies had proven that children of this age who have yet to learn any conventional language may have lost the opportunity for the brain development required to speak effectively. For a number of years the Irwins raised Wolfboy; along the way discovering his love for Corned Beef and Cabbage. Largely influenced by his feral nature they had to constantly instruct him to eat more slowly and to “chew the cabbage”. They used this phrase so much in fact that he had started to think his name was “chew the cabbage”. Due to the effects of isolation on the Broca’s region of his brain he would pronounce it “Chupacabra”. One day while the Irwins were on Safari in South America with Wolfboy Terri Irwin was trying to train him to eat more slowly. Suddenly he bit her hand and ran off into the jungle. Despite their attempts they couldn’t locate him. Scientists believe he roamed the jungle and nearby towns for years consuming cows and goats and yelling his name; ”chupacabra!”, loudly in the middle of the night. In 1985 he was captured by a photographer for “The National Inquirer” where he made worldwide news as the chupacabra. In a few short years though the fame died and he found himself adjusting to life in Richmond VA. He attended Varina High School where largely he’d managed to think more and act more like a normal human teenager though there were still challenges due to his underlying lupine nature. Every now and then he was suspended for sniffing the crotches of girls he liked. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t reciprocate though. Rumor has it he still has trouble with the ladies. His life story was purchased by NewLine Cinema and, though great artistic license was taken, was the basis for the “Teenwolf” movies. Mostly adjusted to normal human life he graduated Varina High School in 1994 and began a career centered on electronics and eventually worked himself into Information Technology. Today he works for a leading electronic gadgets and gizmo’s company’s distribution center in Colonial Heights, VA as their Information Technology Support Specialist. He currently holds an MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) in NT4 and is a former CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate).

Wow..... Irish Coffee.. Gooooooooood..

So. What happens after a few Irish Coffee's and Guinnessess? Well, you challenge the fencing dummy to a fight ofcourse!

These two ladies were at the wine tasting. Note the "Certified Kilt Inspector" status. There were quite popular indeed.