Recently I’ve found a bunch of handy uses for snapping digital photos (with my iPhone which is always in my pocket). If anyone reads this, please add yours to my list!

• taking a quick photo of which section I parked in at the airport or a sporting event
• backing up my pilot logbook by taking photos of the pages (my iPhone photos are backed up online so it’s a pretty safe backup)
• photographing clothing items I leave in a secondary residence so the next time I go I can quickly reference what items I already have there
• sending a photo of a grocery item to someone to ask if it’s the correct one
• reverse camera on the iPhone to act as a mirror (any spinach in the teeth?)

Hiking in toward the falls

The Last Stretch of the Hike

Arriving at the Top Waterfall

Invigorating

From the San Diego Reader:
“The triple set of waterfalls dubbed the “Three Sisters” is an amazing San Diego County feature not many have seen. In full flood, these cascades put on a show reminiscent of Yosemite’s show stoppers — except at a reduced scale. Since some of the upstream drainage of Boulder Creek comes from Cuyamaca Reservoir, regulated releases of water there can greatly affect the volume of water flowing over the falls.

Although the round-trip hike measures only four miles from the nearest road, visiting the falls is a task for expert hikers, not beginners. Take along drinking water, and be prepared for some strenuous climbing, both up and down, on marginal pathways and on no trail at all near the falls themselves.

To get to the trailhead from San Diego, exit Interstate 8 at Highway 79 (Descanso exit) and drive north. After 1.3 miles turn left on Riverside Drive. Continue 0.6 mile to the main crossroads (post office, etc.) of the hamlet of Descanso. From there take Oak Grove Drive 1.6 miles to the intersection of Boulder Creek Road on the right. Follow Boulder Creek Road north for 13.0 miles (first half paved, then dirt) to a hairpin turn where unpaved Cedar Creek Road joins from the west. Park there, taking care not to block traffic, and post a National Forest Adventure Pass on your car (the parking area and falls lie in Cleveland National Forest territory).

On foot now, follow the remains of an old ranch road (not Cedar Creek Road) due west for 0.7 mile to a saddle, where an old mining road on the left slants southeast and descends into Sheep Camp Creek. You can both see and hear the falls from this saddle.

Descend southwest on the mining road for 0.4 mile, cross Sheep Camp Creek, and switch back onto a narrow path cut into the south slope. After about 0.3 mile, the trail veers sharply left and passes over a saddle in the divide between Sheep Camp Creek and Boulder Creek.

Next, you negotiate an abrupt drop of 500 vertical feet through chaparral on a primitive — and in places excessively steep and slippery — trail cut by hikers’ footsteps. At the bottom you can either forge a route through the brush and angular rocks along the left side of the creek or (if the water level is not too high) rock hop and wade toward the falls. Great masses of poison oak, intermixed with wild grape vines, lie along the banks. Be very cautious of slippery rocks.

When you reach the base of the waterfalls, all the previous thrashing about will have been worth it. The “middle sister” is impressive, with water sliding 50 feet down a smooth channel worn in the bedrock into a kidney shaped pool about 80 feet long and at least 10 feet deep. Watch your footing — it’s deceptively easy to slip on the smooth rock and perhaps be seriously injured. It’s difficult and dangerous to climb up to the uppermost waterfall, though some agile climbers have done it.

This article contains information about a publicly owned recreation or wilderness area. Trails and pathways are not necessarily marked. Conditions can change rapidly. Hikers should be properly equipped and have safety and navigational skills. The Reader and Jerry Schad assume no responsibility for any adverse experience.”

The Splendor of the Human Agenda
By Mikhail Aaronov

There is no such thing as the perfect person. So many people want perfect parents when they themselves are far from perfect children. Others desire perfect jobs yet their work is uninspired. Our teachers demand perfection yet they too can be sloppy. Let us stop our quest for perfection in others. Rather let us learn to look inward for perfection before seeking its manifestation elsewhere.

The goal should not be perfection. We should merely work to the best of our abilities, remembering that the art is in the trying.

Let us try to be kinder. Let us try to be friendlier. Let us try to see each person as someone else’s beloved child. Someone whose birth gave great joy and whose passing will for some leave an unfillable gap.

That truck driver is somebody’s Daddy far from home. Wave him on. Let him pass safely. Somewhere there is a loving wife who does not sleep peacefully until he turns the key.

That sales person is trying to earn a living just like you and I. You don’t have to buy, but treat all who ply an honest trade with dignity. Return their calls and hear them out. Theirs is a hard furrow to hoe and without them the world might have been a darker place. Who else would have sold us a light bulb?

Be enchanted more and grumble less. The gift of waking each day midst good health cannot be surpassed by the brightest of jewels. Enjoy your children unashamedly. They are the best high interest loan you will ever get.

Do not envy. Other people’s shoes pinch and those who have borrowed soles are well pleased to return them to their rightful owners.

Salute today and worry less about tomorrow. Read to the blind and talk to the deaf. There but for the luck of the draw go you.

Slander not. Nothing is what it seems and few of us know the full story. Those who stoop low succeed only in toppling themselves. Heed well those who have learned from the school of Life. There are few things less bearable, and nothing less scholarly, than an educated ignoramus.

Whatever your burden, you are not alone. Bear it with courage knowing that which goes around turns around.

Place on the Human Agenda the care of the Earth and the care of the animals. We are their custodians but never their owners.

Protect from confusion and mockery those who do not speak our language. Respect their feelings and aspirations which differ very little from yours. Treat them as you yourself would want to be treated in a land of strangers.

Put compassion back on its throne. Bequeath it to our children’s children least it become extinct. We are temporary and should ensure the permanence of all that is good even if we don’t always succeed in practicing it.

Let us wipe each other’s tears, and help birth smiles. They are the essence of the human condition and inevitably they follow each other as the dawn does the night.

Let us be midwives to compromise. It is a struggling orphan midst the excitement of technology’s children.

The human agenda is the mirror of us all. Tarnish your portion and each sees less. Polish it, and you help renew the secret hopes which we all carry in our hearts.

At the end of the day you are but a modest reflection of all you do, not what others think you do. If you achieve but a modest fraction of what this is about, you will have mustered your fair share of rent for your earthly room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E8xMcXmI9E