I recently wrapped up a story about Sun Basin Cinemas (the company that owns all three local movie theaters) and the new digital light processing projector that has been installed at Columbia Cinemas in East Wenatchee.

For those of you who aren’t tech nerds like me, a digital light projector doesn’t use film, which makes for picture quality that is better than high-definition television on the big screen.

Bryan Cook, the general manager for Sun Basin, told me he has received lots of positive feedback from movie goers who say they can notice a difference in the picture quality.

Aside from the cool digital movie news, the other thing Cook told me that got me really excited involved 3-D movies. Columbia Cinemas will debut its new 3-D capabilities thanks to the DLP projector on July 11 when the Brendan Frasier film “Journey to the Center of the Earth” opens.

If you go check out the movie, don’t expect to be wearing red and blue glasses like the kitschy 50s films. The new 3-D glasses are sort of like sunglasses, according to Cook. Cook also said to expect more 3-D films at Columbia Cinemas in the comig year. According to this story in the Hollywood Reporter, there is a large demand for 3-D films.

A few years back Applesauce saw “The Polar Express ” in 3-D at the Imax theater in Seattle and it was amazing. I remember one scene where a train ticket was floating through the air and I watched it float through the theater as if it were real. I actually attempted to reach out and grab it (it was right in front of my face after all), but my hand passed through it like a hologram. It was one of the coolest experiences I have had at a movie theater, so I can’t wait to see what other films will look like when given a three-dimensional presentation.

Oh, in all my excitement over 3-D I almost forgot my number one reason for being all geeked out over movies in 3-D. There are plans to re-release Star Wars in 3D. I just hope those lightsabers don’t come too close to my seat because you could poke an eye out with one of those things. Plus, if I get really into the movie and Darth Vader’s glowing red light saber comes crashing down toward my chair, I might get scared and squeal like a little girl. I think it would look exactly like this.

Star Wars not a cool enough reason to get you excited about 3D movies? Well, how about having a 3D television in your living room?

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As a kid, I loved the stories about Johnny Appleseed. It wasn’t so much because he planted apple trees. To me, the apple tree thing always seemed like the thinnest of covers for the real business at hand: a long getting out.

These days, I still follow long distance hikers. Lately, I’ve been paying attention to Nimblewill Nomad, an almost 70-year-old man hiking toward North Central Washington and Chelan County’s high country on the Pacific Crest Trail.

I first came across Nimblewill in 2007 while following the online postings of uber long-distance hiker Andrew Skurka.
Skurka and Nimblewill (that’s his trail nickname) crossed paths and
Skurka mentioned the older hiker in his journal.

So, I tracked down Nimblewill’s journal and back-read the entries as he wrapped up his hike.

Nimblewill’s journal entries were charming.

Day in and day out, despite long hours on the trail, he was able to find something to like.

Here’s a video Skurka shot of Nimblewill at that trail meeting in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness. I think it gets across something of Nimblewill’s character.

Nimblewill’s sked, like that of many PCT through-hikers, has him passing through NCW late this summer, at Snoqualmie Pass on Aug. 28 and at Stehekin on Sept. 6.

It’s not a hike, but I’ve also been following Roz Savage as she tries to row across the Pacific Ocean. As you read this, she’s somewhere between California and Hawaii, all by her lonesome, rowing her way west. Oh yeah, and the machine that produces her drinking water just died. You can follow her at her Web site and through podcasts. There’s a good bit of stuff on Youtube, too. There’s even an Ocean Rowing Society keeping tabs on Savage and other big water rowers.

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To get ready for the coming local elections, we’ll be collecting filings with the state Public Disclosure Commission. We’ll see who’s raising how much and what sorts of financial interests candidates are declaring.

We’ll also spend some time checking court records, online records and our own archives. Will any of the checks produce a story? I don’t know, but the checks come with the territory, both for reporters and candidates.

Meanwhile, over at the Chelan County’s elections office, work has been completed that will let observers watch the counting of ballots without violating security. Visitors will be able to walk around the elections office and see the whole process through glass partitions.

Over at the Public Disclosure Commission, there’s a nifty map that breaks out contributions by county to Gregoire and Rossi.

Gregoire has reported raising more than $7 million while Rossi has about $5.6 million, through Tuesday afternoon. King County, of course, is at the top of the list for both candidates.

In Chelan County, Rossi has about $57,000 in donations and Gregoire, about $19,000. it’s pretty much the same sort of picture for the other NCW counties.

And somewhere in Garfield County, way over in southeast Washington, Gregoire has attracted a total of $10 in donations.
Rossi’s ruling there with $578.

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I’ve been back to Travis “Applesauce” Hay’s blog a couple of times recently to take a few looks at a photo from the movie “All the President’s Men.” It was, as they used to say in the day, a blast from the past. Travis reports that he recently saw the film for the first time.

There are a couple of years separating Travis and I, enough that I remember Watergate as it unfolded. In the years after Nixon waved goodbye from the helicopter, I joined the surge of students heading to journalism schools where we could learn to pursue the cool, big story, bang out our reports on typewriters and dress really badly, kinda like those guys in the movie photo.

Travis, well, Travis is soon to leave the city halls beat at The Wenatchee World to become our online journalist, one who also happens to connect with dressing up like a Teletubby and dancing on stage. Things do change.

But if you want strange, sometimes reality helps you out, and so we’ll circle back to Nixon and end this post with a publicity shot of a different sort. This is from the National Archives collection “When Elvis Met Nixon”:

(A footnote: I showed my college freshman son this photo. He named Elvis in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t so sure who the other guy was.)

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If you read the post written about two hours before this one, you might have been led to believe no Wenatchee-grown cherries were available in the Wenatchee area today. Well, all of us cherry lovers are in luck. I called up my friend who runs our family stand and, big news, cherries were for sale. They started picking today. I have a feeling they’re not the only ones.

Now I don’t have to bring airport gift shop goodies. I can bring real Wenatchee goodies instead.

See you in a week.

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If you remember the big eruption of Mount St. Helens, this foto may look familiar to you.

This is a NASA pic of Chaitén Volcano in Chile, erupting on the green side of that country, its ash-filled plume blown to the much-drier countryside to the west. Click here to check out more NASA fotos of the volcano.

And here’s a link to a U.S. Geological Survey Web site with a wealth of information, links and photos on Mount St. Helens, which has been quiet lately.

And here’s a column by Tracy Warner, editorial page editor of The Wenatchee World, looking back on the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption 20 years later.

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Readers,

I am going on vacation. This means that Nosh On probably won’t be feeding you nuggets of food thought for the next week. Please try not to be sad. I plan to have lots of fodder for the coming weeks from my foray to New Jersey and Manhattan. Think of all of the possibilities! Pastrami. Pizza. Bagels. Hot Dogs. Cheesecake. Steak. Pasta.

The first thing we did last time I arrived in New Jersey was eat pizza. Seriously, I got off of the plane, Brian’s family greeted me, we grabbed my bag and then was treated to “the best” pizza in the state. It was good. I enjoyed it a lot. This time, they plan to take me to eat Chinese food after disembarking from the plane. I’ve had great Japanese food, excellent Thai food, fantastic Pho, but honestly I’ve never had good Chinese food. We’ll see what happens.

Being from (East) Wenatchee and having worked at the family fruit stand for years, I think I have a few sensational foods of my own to share with my hosts. My big plan after we made the decision about when to go, was to bring fresh cherries to share. The plans were dashed as spring continued to feel like late autumn and cherry trees suffered frost damage and cool-weather-related pollination problems. Usually by this time in the year it isn’t hard to find cherries. Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do something else, or God forbid, buy cherries that come from the Yakima area.

I had also considered making a side trip to Pike Place Market for some salmon on the way to the airport. However, that seems like quite a hassle for our airport-dropper-offer and my future-brother-in-law Justin. As it is, we’re asking him to drive 40 minutes to Sea-Tac and back. I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into by asking to marry my sister.

No matter what, I’ve vowed to bring something from Washington to New Jersey, even if it’s one of those Chukar Cherries gift boxes from the airport gift shop.

While I’m gone, enjoy a few of my favorite food blogs: Bitten, DavidLebovitz.com, Orangette, Gluten-Free Girl, 101 Cookbooks 

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“At Mount Zoomer”
Wolf Parade, $13.98

Listening to Wolf Parade’s sophomore album, I find myself drawing comparisons to a combination of potential influences including U2, the Thompson Twins, Billy Joel and Semisonic — that final one especially, due to the vocals and piano throughout.

With heavy use of synths on much of the record, this is, to me, pretty much an attempt at something I like to call “new new wave” (and a Google search just now has confirmed that I am not the first person to come up with that term, to my disappointment) with a good dose of indie grit. It’s like Flock of Seagulls meets Modest Mouse, successfully resulting in a sound superior to both on their own devices.

The thing that I find very interesting while hearing each song on this album is that many of them only excel for moments at a time. There are rhythm shifts that make my heart thump (in a good way, not a medical-emergency way) and epic crescendos that send shivers through my bones (again, in a good way). The rest of the time, I find myself zoning out and become distracted. The music is largely only stimulating in bursts, but those bursts manage to redeem the remainder.

When the opening track, “Soldier’s Grin,” starts in, it doesn’t sound particularly awesome, but about two-and-a-half minutes in, there is a moment where I love it so much, I’d marry it. In “Call It a Ritual,” the vocal melody makes me melt at just about the one-minute, ten-second mark. I actually really disliked “California Dreamer” on first, second and third listen, but that’s because I let myself become too distracted early on and my attention was consistently elsewhere when the good parts happened.

Some songs really do go the distance, though. “Language City” is just one long burst of awesome. “Fine Young Cannibals,” as light and threadbare as it comes across, is actually what I’d consider the most engaging track on the record.

The album is less interesting during “The Grey Estates” and “An Animal in Your Care.” The former sounds less evolved than of what the rest of the album shows the band to be capable. The latter is thin, and it meanders in a way that never actually leads it anyplace good.

The final track, “Kissing the Beehive” (clocking in at nearly 11 minutes long), unintentionally shares its name with a Jonathan Carroll novel. The instrumentals — especially the break approaching the middle of the song — are very pretty and interesting. The whole thing goes on too long, though. The band could have cut out about three minutes from the end of the song and had something much more relevant.

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It’s pretty tough to show cherries on a tree - the foliage just seems to hide and shade the fruit. But I was able to look up through the leaves and get a better perspective, sun shining through the leaves made the darker cherries stand out better. It was a matter of patience, waiting for a picker to come to a place where this idea would work well.

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 I found a different perspective for this photo. I had spent most of my time shooting some pretty standard photographs of dirt being spread over the fabric, a roller being run over the dirt - all from the other end of the playground. I was about ready to leave after talking with the workers when I climbed up on the playground equipment for a better vantage. That’s when this idea came to me. I had to crawl through the hole, built for a child, then shoot the other direction. I’m pretty happy with the result, showing the work but also making it know that it is being done at a playground.

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