Oct. 29, 2011

Today started early: At 7am, small group of us walked down to Penn Station to add money to the Metro cards, caught a cross town bus to ride the East River ferry in the rain up to the Brooklyn Bridge (and under a couple other ones on the way, we had planned to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, but the rain was too heavy) We then went out of our way to John's favorite bagel shop (I brought home a dozen) then shopping on Broadway before back to the hotel in the snow for the bus ride home. It seems like longer than 3 days in NYC!

PS In the pano of the Brooklyn Bridge, you can see the Statue of Liberty on the left.

Oct. 28, 2011

My day starting as a teaching assistant in a workshop on a piece of software I had never opened... but video editing is video editing, so it went fine. In the afternoon I headed to Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district to see the Occupy Wall Street demonstration. Life in the park went on with protesting, cleaning and setting up camp as cold rain and snow is expected tonight. Watch the video for some of my photos and music by the protesters.

Oct. 27, 2011

New York City. So after an overnight bus ride (no real sleep) we cross through the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan for PhotoPlus 2011. That night we headed to Chinatown for a vegetarian Dim Sum dinner (for those to know me, know I didn't get a vote in that, but I only live once) Dim Sum is Chinese dumplings with stuffing, I even even ate my whole meal with chop sticks.

Oct. 26, 2011

Sam woke up excited for the sunrise after we looked for the Northern Lights the night before.

Oct. 25, 2011

Day one of a new cold.

Oct. 24, 2011

Working on her turns.

Oct. 23, 2011

Lions Park CX, Raleigh, NC. Race day 2. Sam and Deb decided not to come, so only a picture I shot after my race. I had a good day, moved up three places over yesterday (but so did Clay... time to pick a new nemesis)

Oct. 22, 2011

Week 4 races are half done. Sam's first race didn't go as well as hoped... she caught a boy for 4th place on a downhill U turn and turned too sharply (the corner is the one we are pre-riding above)and washed out her front wheel. She went down hard, hit her stomach on the handlebars, scraped her knee and knock the wind out of her... DNF. At least she gets another chance in the morning. My race was OK, I dropped a chain in the first lap at the sand pit, and spent the rest of the race trying catch Clay (running in sand above), who beat me again... I am not use to losing to friends ; )

PS my POD is the third one down of Sam, the rest are by Deb.

Oct. 21, 2011

Sam does hill repeats while training for her race tomorrow.

Oct. 20, 2011

My assignment this week for my PJ class was a flash back to "back in the day" and Friday night football. They had to shoot no more than 4 rolls of film and process and print on deadline in a lab. Great fun!

Oct. 19, 2011

Sam supervises Clay and me rehabbing Deb's old mountain bike so Sam can race her first cyclcocross race this weekend.

PS this picture was the first shot on my new camera. Picture of me and my box by student for her POD.

Oct. 18, 2011

Rained out seconds before the first pitch.

Oct. 17, 2011

Professional Development Day 1 - or drinking the Kool-aid.

Oct. 16, 2011

Race three of the season. The race featured a great course, including a real run up! The mass start was the largest I have done with 72 starters... no hole shot for me as a large group of Cat 2 road racers were lined up. Congrats to Clay for finishing (and beating me) his first CX race.
I included a picture from Sam of me rounded a corner.

Oct. 15, 2011 Part 1

We decided to head to the mountains for the day and enjoy some fall foliage. Our first stop was Blowing Rock, the nation's oldest road side attraction. After throwing some leaves over the edge we hit the road. Unfortunately most of the rest of North Carolina was visiting the Boone area too, so we went right and took the first dirt road we could find. For the next 2 hours we had trails, forest service roads and moon shine gravel routes to ourselves. It was great! After a quick jog to Grandfather Mountain (too crowed) we.... continued below.

Oct. 15, 2011 Part 2

We ended the day with a hike back to Linville Falls and a great home style dinner at a diner.

Oct. 14, 2011

Sam's softball game. She walked on four balls and scored on a past ball. (the ump blocked me on the play) She was thrilled!

Oct. 13, 2011

The moon, my first shot with my old Tamron 300mm with 1.4 convertor.

Oct. 12, 2011

More Lens Baby, still not nailing it....

Oct. 11, 2011

I brought home a Lens Baby to play with.... I didn't nail it today.

Oct. 10, 2011

Testing another camera before buying. I think this is the one. Nikon D7000 shot with a 50mm f1.4

Oct. 9, 2011

The second 'cross race of the season is in the books. Held at the South East Center for Contemporary Arts in Winston-Salem, I decided after last week to start easier and ride within myself... after I avoided a first lap crash (the two involved were right next to me) and the first barriers, I was mostly by myself. I didn't pass anyone after the first lap and wasn't passed either... My heart rate data showed I stayed fairly consistent with a HR, except for the two spikes at 193 bpm. I was happy enough with the race, next week is in Raleigh.

Oct. 8, 2011

A busy day.
I started my day (as most days start) by grading.
Then attacked a few maintenance items on the Taco.
Oil change, rotate the tires, adjust parking and rear drum brakes, wash it and clean the interior. Right away I found a leaking axle seal caused by a hung parking brake. I can't fix the seal, but had to replace the rear shoes (the old ones were soaked with grease) take apart the parking park and unfreeze it. By the time that mess was over, I barely had time to wash the Fit... so Sam and I played with painting with LED headlights for today's POD.