I’ll try to get them restored as soon as I can.

How did the turkey cross the road? Quickly. Gobble gobble.

Sometimes you wait in the freezing cold for a spectacular sunset, and all you get is a dud.

The Tulips exhibit by artist Jeff Koons, on display at the Wynn Resort. Each tulip is made out of stainless steel.

I visit these goldfish each time I swing by the Wynn Resort. They’re off the beaten path and hidden away; I don’t think many visitors know where they are. Their secret is safe with me.

The Mirage “volcano” is currently drained and undergoing maintenance. Do not attempt this with a real volcano.

A welder makes some repairs at the Mirage Volcano.

Long lines of customers anxious to try out the new Surface tablet at the Microsoft Store. Oh, wait — I think those are employees. My bad.

The Sirens of TI show at Treasure Island.

The Alluvial Fan, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Elk along Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park.

“Come on — if we put our heads together and figure out how to drive this thing, it will be EPIC!”

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Along the Loch Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Along the Loch Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Along the Loch Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park.

View from the Loch Trail (High Point Fire in the Distance), Rocky Mountain National Park.

King of the Hill, Rocky Mountain National Park.

The Massive High Point Fire, West of Fort Collins, as Seen from Rocky Mountain National Park.

Driving along Colorado State Highway 133.

Colorado Highway 90.

Desert Reflections off a Hertz Rental Car.

Sun sets along the Delicate Arch Trail at Arches National Park.

Stream of Cars Leaving Delicate Arches Trailhead after Sun has Set.

Stars above Delicate Arch.

Star Trails above Delicate Arch in a 4-minute Exposure.

Petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock in Utah.

Driving to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.

Hiking the Chesler Park Trail at Canyonlands National Park.

Hiking the Chesler Park Trail at Canyonlands National Park.

At 8:03 pm, there’s just a bit of light left in the sky.

Looking at the Washington Monument from the World War II Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial was quite crowded, even at 10:30 pm. A ranger was even giving a talk on the steps.

I swung by Barack and Michelle’s house for a chat and cup of coffee. (Just kidding. I don’t drink coffee.)

My fellow hikers gather at the meeting point. We weren’t going to a rave party; the glow-sticks were to make the group easily identifiable.

What I love about this shot is you can’t tell if that edge is coming out or going in. Stare at it long enough and your brain will start to hurt, even though you probably know the right answer.

This was a triple exposure. I think. My first few attempts at a multiple exposure demonstrated that I didn’t remember how to use the multiple exposure feature on my camera.

World War II Memorial. One of my favorite memorials.

Medium exposure.

Fast exposure. 1/320 second, f/5.6, ISO 12,800, 300mm.

That’s the moon peaking through on the left.

Vietnam Memorial.

It’s a bit grainy at ISO 12,800, but I love that my camera can find light where my eyes can’t see it and snap a photo like this handheld in near darkness. The biggest challenge is focusing.

Names at the Vietnam Memorial.

I tell you, all I ever do is see that guy sitting around.

Eyes hurt. At the Lincoln Memorial (in the elevator, I think).

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

That got old fast. So I soon jumped to a magic technology called “server side includes.” Portions of static pages could include portions of other static pages; this allowed some content to be centralized in one place.

Soon thereafter, I re-coded DCSki in the Perl language. When someone visited a page on the site, some Perl code was executed to dynamically generate content. I was cleaning some old files and came across this printout of some very early DCSki code, written in Perl. A list of news stories was stored in a flat text file, and this Perl parsed through that file to pull out relevant stories and then create HTML on the fly based on them.

From the comments, I can see that I had a cavalier attitude about the code not being Y2K compliant.

As an interpreted language, Perl wasn’t very fast, and I decided to re-code everything in compiled C code. This dramatically sped up the performance of each page. I think 1997 is the last time I programmed in Perl.

But the code didn’t stay in C for long. Open source databases such as MySQL became popular, and the PHP programming language, geared towards web development, took off. I embraced these technologies and continue to use them today. A continuous evolution has moved nearly all content on DCSki from static pages into a dynamic database. This makes everything much easier to maintain and provides additional flexibility.

But, nothing stays the same for long. This summer, I hope to once again remodel DCSki from top to bottom. Perl probably won’t be part of that transformation.

Here’s the story behind the shot: I was camping in Big Meadows Campground at Shenandoah National Park. I was awakened by a strange sound — it sounded like someone blowing air on the tent. With bleary eyes, I unzipped the tent door and saw a deer a few feet away. The deer kept sneezing. (I guess deer can have spring allergies, too.) I grabbed my Minolta Maxxum 5xi and tried to catch the deer in mid-sneeze. I was only able to take one frame before the deer ran off and the moment was over.

I didn’t know whether I had captured the shot until I developed the film. I have to say I like everything about this shot — the gesture, the framing, the depth of field, the grain, the chaotic interplay between flora and fauna.. And wow, I forgot how much I loved pure black and white photography. Desaturating color photos is missing a certain je ne sais quoi, isn’t it? I’m glad I had a chance to work directly with black and white film.

It will take me awhile to go through my old photos and negatives, but here’s an assignment from a college photography class I found tucked away. The assignment: to compare three stocks of slide film (apparently — I barely remember it). I clearly aced the assignment, as you can tell from the “check” placed on it by the professor.

The scanner did a pretty good job scanning the slides. That’s Brian, my college roommate, lending a hand in the middle shot. (Belated thanks, Brian!)

But, alas, there’s a sad footnote to all of this. Kodak discontinued Kodachrome and Ektachrome film, and the last place Kodachrome processor in the country developed its last roll on December 30, 2010.

In this post, I trace back through a year of photos, showing many photographs that I have not previously published.

2010 began with one of my favorite activities: skiing.

Early in the year, I was lucky enough to snag one of the first Nikon D3s cameras off the assembly line. The D3s represents an incredible advance in photographic technology; with low noise and unparalleled light sensitivity, it can practically see in the dark. Since unpacking the D3s, I have taken thousands of photos, and haven’t used a flash in a single one.

In some winters, Maryland doesn’t see any snow. That wasn’t going to be a problem in early 2010. The snow began falling.

And kept falling.

And really didn’t stop. I was snowbound for many days during the Snowpocalypse of 2010.

I braved the cold and chest-high snow to snap some photos.

Thankfully, many great photos came right to my house, allowing me to shoot from inside my warm kitchen.

Eventually the snow melted, and I had more serious things to photograph, such as a major pillow fight taking place in the shadow of the Washington Monument.

During the spring, I took a trip to Las Vegas with my family — the first of three trips to the desert oasis I would make in 2010.

I also made a significant investment in LED lighting technology, replacing nearly all of the incandescent and flourescent lighting in my house with cool, energy-efficient LED lighting.

A year isn’t complete without at least one visit to Shenandoah National Park, which included a night hike through a thunderstorm.

With summer in full swing, I once again found myself in Las Vegas. The 110+ degree temperatures didn’t mix well with a bad summer cold, but it’s really impossible not to have a good time in Las Vegas.

I’m fortunate enough to live next to the edge of woods and wetlands. A 2-minute hike out my house leads to blossoming day lilies in the late summer.

Towards the end of the summer, I visited our nation’s great Capital and captured some late-day shots.

In mid-October, it was time for a character-building experience, courtesy of this man.

That’s Jay Maisel, a living legend in photographic circles. Jay teaches a series of intensive week-long photography workshops in New York City. They are quite demanding, beginning each day well before sunrise and ending late at night. I was terrified of taking this workshop, and with good reason. Jay challenged me to go outside of my comfort zone and take photos of things that could look back — i.e., people.

It was a week of baby steps for me. I approached street photography timidly, or perhaps, cowardly.

I camped out for over an hour on a street corner trying to get some double-take shots like this one.

A sunset on the last night of the workshop. I left the workshop with new friends and a renewed appreciation for great photography.

That’s Sally, the Wonder Dog. Several trips to Pennsylvania to visit family throughout the year provided the chance to hang out with Sally.

Sally takes her job of protecting the house from squirrels very seriously.

On Veterans day, I hopped on a plane and headed west for a two-week trip throughout the southwest. My first stop was on top of the world: Pikes Peak, Colorado.

I made a new friend.

The next couple weeks consisted of a lot of winter driving, taking me through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado is a magical place. Climbing the dunes in the winter, as opposed to 100-degree temperatures, is a nice treat.

Lots of harrowing winter drives.

I was one of only a few people who braved a snowstorm one day to visit the high plateau of Mesa Verde National Park.

Petrified National Forest in Arizona preserves 300 million year-old trees. Mind boggling, really.

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon. A couple days later, I would visit the North Rim of Grand Canyon on the last day it was open for the season.

There are lots of interesting ruins throughout the southwest.

I was the only person at Sunset Crater National Monument for most of a morning, until a bus suddenly pulled up. The door opened, and after a delay, a walker slowly appeared. A stream of over 50 senior citizens then filed out of the bus.

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It isn’t easy to get to.

Hiking solo in desolate areas in the middle of winter isn’t the smartest thing you can do, but a satellite transmitter allowed me to broadcast my location and status.

Rangers had controlled burns going at the North Rim to clear out some underbrush and reduce the possibility of future forest fires.

A highlight of my adventures was Zion National Park — a truly magical place. In one day, I experienced nearly every type of weather from sunshine to pouring rain to blizzard. I enjoyed Zion so much I extended my time there by several days.

A once-peaceful Virgin River quickly became muddy and turbulent during heavy rain.

These mountain goats have no respect for the rules of the road.

More icy-road driving at Colorado National Monument, as I rushed back to Denver, mere hours ahead of a major blizzard.

In December, I once again found myself in Las Vegas, where temperatures were perfect.

In late December, I stayed up all night to take pictures of a lunar eclipse in the freezing cold. I’m not sure why. Thousands of people snapped exactly the same photo I snapped.

2010 ended the way it began: with some skiing.

The year closed out with friends and family. My niece shows off her new camera, a Christmas gift from her doting uncle (that would be me). Early evidence suggests that she is in now in the early stages of a lifelong passion for photography. I’m happy to take credit for that.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2011.

Parasol Up at the Wynn Resort.

An eruption at the Mirage.

Gelato at the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

Delicious bacon/cheddar and French bread at SW Steakhouse, Wynn Resort.

A perfectly cooked steak at SW Steakhouse.

As photographer legend Jay Maisel would say, “busted!” An almost-candid shot at the Lakeside Grill at Wynn Resort.

A small sampling of the irresistible pastries at the Jean Philippe Patisserie (located in the Bellagio and Aria Resorts). These pastries alone are enough reason to visit Las Vegas.

Near the main entrance to Aria Resort.

The Conservatory at the Bellagio.

Alternative view of the Treasure Island sign.

The high-rise lobby of the Mandarin Oriental.

That’s right — chocolate pizza. Only in Vegas.

My room at the Wynn Tower Suites. It had been completely remodeled just days earlier. Unfortunately, the room directly above mine was being remodeled at 4:30 a.m. each morning.

Even canines enjoy a stroll along the Las Vegas Strip.