http://joshwilliams.com Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:49:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I moved to Las Vegas in September to be a newspaper man. Or at least the "news" in newspaper man. I loved Washington and the Smithsonian, but I really wanted to work for a news organization. Out of the blue, I was invited to be part of a new, world-class ... http://joshwilliams.com/2008/01/19/its_always_brighter_at_the_sun/ Last night I saw my first building implosion. After 65 years standing on the Strip, the Frontier came down in about eight seconds. My work buddies Zach Wise and Hepi Mita shot this video of the event: I was standing behind Sun journalists Richard Brian and Matt Toplikar when they made ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/11/14/boom/ After six years in the District of Columbia, I’m packing my bags for Las Vegas. I’ve accepted a position at the Las Vegas Sun, where I’ll get to combine my journalism and Web skills. I expect big things to come out this little paper. I leave D.C. at the end of ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/08/28/vegas_baby/ The Census Bureau is a treasure trove of information about communities. But sometimes getting to the data and making sense of it takes a bit of work. It can be hard to find the data and even harder to wade through it, especially if you want to use it in ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/08/20/web_scraping_the_census_with_php/ On June 20, a humid Wednesday in the District of Columbia, I schlepped my internal frame pack, my daypack and a carry-on, all exploding with two weeks worth of clothes and camping gear, to Baltimore Washington International Airport. Two bumpy rides later, I landed in an even hotter, but dry, ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/07/15/across_the_great_divides/ The inaptly named Four Mile trail in Yosemite Valley is, in fact, just over four and half miles each direction. The Yosemite National Park Web site list the trail as “strenuous,” but it wasn’t incredibly taxing for the distance. Besides, the trail terminates at Glacier Point where, unknown to us, ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/07/15/the_four-mile_trail_that_isnt/ Everything Is Bigger In Sequoia From Zion, we stopped outside Sequoia National Park for a night and spent the following morning playing in the Giant Sequoia forest in the park, which is only a small part of the very large Sequoia National Park / Kings Canyon National Park complex. Group Hug The ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/07/15/sequoia_national_park/ “There is no maintained trail; the route is the river,” is part of the description of the Narrows on the Zion National Park Web site. And that is certainly accurate. One gets to the Zion Narrows by simply jumping into the Virgin River at the end of the Riverside Walk ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/07/14/the_narrows/ As I said before, our day at Zion was my favorite on the trip. The Narrows stole my heart, but the Angels Landing hike after lunch was amazing on its on. Starting at the valley floor, Angels Landing is two and half miles one direction, and it feels straight up. ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/07/13/angels_landing/ After four days in Telluride, Colo., Scott and I met Abigail, Dave and Meredith to backpack in Rocky Mountain National Park. We spent two nights in the Never Summer range in the northwest section of the park, entering on the Colorado River trailhead. According to rangers, Never Summer is one ... http://joshwilliams.com/2007/07/07/rmnp/