08 Sep 2008 - In honor of today's celebration of the Virgin Mary's birthday, I've posted a short story in the Faith section of the site. Check back in the coming days for a further reflection on the story. Thanks for reading!

03 Jun 2008 - I'm slowly updating the site to change all the former topozone.com links to mytopo.com; trails.com bought out Topozone and is now charging for content that was formerly free. MyTopo seems to be a great replacement that allows much of the same functionality as topozone once had. The Texas 8000 peaks are now updated with the remaining Trip Reports to be done in the near future.

13 May 2008 - Although its been a really long time since I've climbed anything, I'm happy to announce another faith reflection being posted. I'm almost to the point of calling it a faith blog, but I've been so resistant to the term for so long, that it still might take me a bit more time to admit that I'm "one of them"... ;-)

This edition covers the first-ever email question submitted to me, so please peruse it at your leisure!

06 Mar 2008 - Have you noticed that I haven't updated the website for, say, four months? Well, as it turns out getting ready for a baby is pretty darn time-consuming! That being said, Carol & I were happy to find out that the child we have been affectionately calling "Hershey" (say "he or she" fast), is actually Jacob Andrew Smith! Our little 8th generation Texan was born on a snowy Alamo Day (seriously, we had 6") in north Texas. He was 5 lbs 13 oz and 18" tall at birth, and both he and Carol are doing great! I plan on posting lots of pictures shortly...

07 Nov 2007 - The various trip report pages for the TX8000 peaks have been updated to include satellite maps of some available routes. Thanks to GoogleEarth (TM) for creating such a user-friendly and free program that can produce such great graphics! Hopefully, after this weekend, I'll get to post new maps for either Bartlett & Shumard or El Capitan!

11 Sep 2007 - Pictures from our trip to Kauai are now on the Photo Gallery page.
Since we're trying to cut our spending to save for the baby, we were luckily able to use airline miles and hotel points to cover most of the vacation. After such an enjoyable trip, I would definitely recommend Kauai as a destination for anyone!

28 Feb 2007 - Daniel's venture out to the Guadalupe Mountains earlier this month resulted in a truly epic ascent of Guadalupe Peak! Though conditions prohibited climbing any "new" 8000ers (e.g. El Captian, Shumard Peak or Bartlett Peak), it was definitely a worth-while excursion. Keep checking the site for updates, as he's planning on climbing the last 3 in the following months.