Pictures of the day

Just a few images taken on my commute home from work this evening. I am loving the GF2! Also I can't say enough about the Photogene app for the iPad2. I used the app to make the collage below.

New camera

With the recent demise (sand caught in lens retraction gearing) of my Sony S90 a few months ago, I've finally saved enough cheddar to hit B&H for my new Four Thirds camera. Stepping into the four thirds realm is both familiar and exciting at the same time. Familiar in the sense that I am used to having full-manual control when exposing scenes and exciting because this new camera is so excellent. I'm talking about my new Panasonic Lumix GF2 shown at left. It has nearly all the control of a DSLR, yet is sized similarly to most of today's point & shoot cameras. The image sensor, though not as large as my full frame Nikon D700, is much larger than most point & shoot cameras allowing it to surpass them in both file size and image quality. Rather than go on and on about the specs for this camera I'm only going to tell you about what I think are the neatest features and let you get the full low-down over at dpreview.com. The biggest reasons why I bought this camera over a traditional point & shoot are: RAW file captures, interchangeable lenses, sensor size, full exposure control (f/stop & shutter speed, & manual focus), 1080i 60fps full HD video, SD memory, touch screen menu, all metal body, iPhone-like image browsing in play-back mode & lastly; size.

Below are a couple of images I took this morning while transferring from bus to train in Marble Hill.

Above left: f/2.5 @ 1/25 sec. Above right:f/2.5 @ 1/40 sec.

Picture of the day

Soaked

Saturday morning in pictures

This past Saturday I was up and at em' for an early morning walk with the camera around Columbus Circle and the south end of Central Park. I checked out an interesting sculpture "Tornado" at the southeast entrance to the park, swung by Rat Rock and hit up the Apple store. I can't explain exactly why I feel a compulsion to visit the Apple store every several months. I don't need anything from them. Yet I'm attracted to their laptops and desktop machines; drawn to them much like Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Anyway, I stared in amazement at the 27" iMacs for a few moments until the idea of a pretzel croissant at City Bakery entered my mind and I was able to snap out of it and head down to 18th Street. Ahh, the power of food. I have to thank Chris Kreuter for turning me on to these insanely delicious little morsels. Thank you Chris. Seriously. Before heading further downtown, I noticed an awesome little hot dog stand. The owner's nice orange road bike sandwiched between the stand and the boundary wall of Central Park is what first caught my eye. But then, I noticed pictures of Eddy Merckx on the outside; sweet! Though I didn't buy one of NY's classic dirty-water street dogs I did delight in the thought of Eddy Merckx pushing for his five Tour de France wins in the 70's, fueled by Belgian hot dogs.

The Bottle Ride - 2nd Annual Race

It's Monday morning and I find myself in the office feeling both sore and good, not unlike other Monday mornings. Recounting Saturday's race, I wash down a couple of Aleve with a sip of mediocre coffee from the kitchen here at work. In my cube, I shuffle my legs a bit to keep my slacks from sticking to the giant raspberry on my right leg. I loosen my tie in hopes of reliving a little tension from my shoulders. What an awesome race.

Above left: my left leg in 2010 after The Bottle Ride. Above right: my right leg in 2011 after The Bottle Ride.

Saturday morning I raced in the 2nd Annual Bottle Ride at Blue Mountain in Peekskill, NY (See last year's race report here). This time, I raced on my rigid single speed. Why? Because I love they way it rides: the flex of the steel, the direct connection to every impact that travels from the wheels up through the frame. Again this year, Georges's efforts in the race preparation, organization, and enthusiasm really paid off! Where else can you find a free race, comprised of a bunch of random cool cats, strong riders, prizes and on trails as brutally epic as the ones at Blue Mountain? Nowhere, mon frere. And so again, this year I raced.

So how did I do? Racers were sent off at 30 second intervals; the race followed the time trial format just as it did last year. Just, like last year, I started off aggressively, over excited and clumsily. I crashed hard, 50' into the race in almost the exact same spot as last year. The start of the course skirts off-camber, along the side of a steep hill and runs through a large rock garden. This is where I stalled, balanced for a moment, then slowly started to fall to the right, down hill. Looking downhill at my landing zone I saw nothing but boulders! And over I went, unable to disengage my cleat from my right pedal. I fell in an almost sitting position, still clipped in on the downhill side. Without a smidgeon of grace and with my arms flailing wildly, I plummeted downhill reaching out at the last second, bracing for impact. Luckily my upper body landed in a wonderful little soft patch of leaves while my hips and legs landed hard on the rocks. Adding insult to injury, my bike came to a stop on top of me.

Calm down.

While I scrambled back up the hill to the trail, I noticed my legs were scraped up but other that, they felt fine so I was eager to get pedaling as soon as possible. A race is no place for standing still you know. It's also not the place for hyped up, adrenaline fueled, clumsy riding. I had to calm myself down and ride smarter. A few minutes further down the trail and I had settled into a rhythm and started to feel very "on". My lines through the technical sections were precise and smooth as I lofted the bike over small rock patches, logs and slippery roots. I passed about 6 people in the first half of the race, and was able to stay ahead of the people behind me which was a really good feeling. My legs were loosened up and I was feeling great. So I began to push it. When I reached the long climb up Ned's Left Lung I just put my head down and chugged up the hill with a steady but ambitious cadence. I puked up a little coffee from earlier that morning, without loosing my focus and continued to turn the cranks.

Half way up Ned's Left Lung, I lost the ability to clip into my left pedal. The 2-year old wings in my Crank Brothers Candy pedals seemed to be stuck in the "open" position and would not close around the cleat in my shoe. I stopped half way up Ned's Left Lung, a grueling climb over loose baby-head sized rocks, grabbed a rock the size of a baseball and gave the pedal a few hard blows (TWSS). the wings snapped back in place and I was able to clip in for a few more feet before the pedal failed again. This time I just kept riding. Riding with only one foot clipped in is very aggravating. Every rock and log I hopped, had my left foot flying off the pedal, so I had to take them much slower than I usually would.

In the end, I think I did pretty well. The winner won with a time of 45:15. I suspect my time was probably somewhere around 60:00, but I won't know until Georges posts the times. Regardless of my time, I had a great time and even made a couple of friends who I plan on riding with. You can never have too many riding buds. Lastly, I want to thank Georges for all of the work he put into the second, Bottle Ride. Thanks G!

Death on wheels

Mixed in with my office mail this morning, was this screen printed patch I had bought on Ebay last week. It's a Shepard Fairey screen print from who knows when. He's not currently selling patches on his website and I'm glad to have scored this one. Looks like the future holds another trip to the Ecuadorian Shoe Repair Shop in my neighborhood. The guys at the shop have a sewing machine with a stout needle that can handle stitching through the thick rubber and Cordura material of my old messenger bag. It's always fun to pop in there and explain that I want them to stitch a patch on my bag. They're always happy to make a quick and easy $5.00.

Rock on

Last Sunday I ripped around Sprain Ridge Park for a few hours on my singlespeed. Trail conditions were a little moist from the rain we received earlier in the week giving them a tacky/grippy feel. As usual it felt fantastic to turn the cranks and dip & dive through the woods. Riding a singlespeed through a damp forest can be quite surreal in that it is a very quiet experience. Twigs didn't snap beneath my tires and wet leaves helped to muffle my roll. I played around on this boulder for a few minutes before moving on. I wish I had the skills I used to have; I was once so smooth!

Backpacking at Harriman

I spent Friday through Sunday morning backpacking in Harriman State Park in New Jersey. Friday night I took a 6:00 bus from downtown, across the Hudson River and into NJ where I met my friend Jay who drove us to Harriman. Our hike in to the Dutch Doctor Shelter was dark and the cool air was really comfortable for hiking. We hiked 2.5 miles by the light of our head lamps over gentle grades of boulder strewn trails. We arrived at Dutch Doctor Shelter around 9:00 where we met up with Mike, who would join us for the weekend. I made a lazy dinner of pepper jack cheese and pepperoni and we all sat around talking and listening to Thievery Corporation. The temperature was down around the mid 50's and made for extremely comfortable sleeping.

Saturday morning I woke up around 7:00, well rested, and brewed a cup of joe. I sipped my coffee while sitting on the edge of the shelter watching the sun rise slowly above the horizon. Rays of sunlight warmed my legs and pelted the eastern sides of trees in the woods before me. It was a beautiful morning. We packed up and set off west along the Tuxedo Mountain Ivy Trail to Claudius Smith Den. This trail took us over Tuxedo Mountain (1040') to the den which is actually a pretty large cave. I crawled up and through the cave stopping inside to enjoy the cool darkness and sound echoing around inside. I down-climbed a simple route on the the backside of the cave and was pretty stoked about the whole thing. I think caves are really neat.

Pushing on past Claudius Smith Den, we turned south down the Blue Disk Trail. This trail was pretty awesome as well because it splits and gives you two options: the "elbow brusher" or the "easy route". We all took the elbow brusher and enjoyed squeezing through narrow crevices and along harry ledges. This trail was mostly down hill. At one point we stopped for a break and I noticed a big hornets nest hanging high in the branches above. It was the size of a basketball. Sitting on some rocks we all snacked, drank water and talked about the beautiful weather and excellent trail conditions. We all enjoyed the sight of a giant tree growing from a ledge on the side of an equally large boulder.

A mile or so later we were hiking along the Kakiat Trail which routed us across Spring Brook. Hurricane Irene had caused so much flooding that the bridge across Spring Brook was destroyed. Remnants of the bridge were interesting... concrete pillars with re-bar and broken strands of cable sprouting up out of them. Across the brook, a log the size of a telephone pole held anchored to the pillar. The other end of the log was swept downstream by the current. We followed the brook until we found a spot to rock hop across about a quarter mile downstream.

After another mile and a half or so, we came across Stony Brook which is a boulder strewn river with several small waterfalls (10') and deep refreshing pools. We all filtered water from this brook and I climbed around taking pictures. The roar of the water filled the air and a canopy of very tall trees let light filter down through gaps in the leave cover high above. It was beautiful.

We hiked a couple more miles to the top of Diamond Mountain where we set up camp. The tents went up quickly and we all went about collecting firewood for the evening. It was about 4:00 at this time and cloud cover had me wondering if it was going to rain or not. The weather forecast had called for good weather but I had a feeling I was going to get wet. As luck would have it, the clouds blew by and the stars came out. Dinner was a freeze dried meal of spaghetti (Again, I have to say Mountain House meals are great). We all made meals around the fire and talked while Bob Dylan played from an iPhone. The three of us shared food and stories and kept the fire blazing for a few hours before calling it a day.

Sunday morning I woke up around 6:45. The sun was just creeping over the rocks in front of my tent highlighting the green moss on the ground just outside of my tent. I stared through the screen at my boots and water bottle I left outside overnight. Moments later I was outside stretching, rubbing my eyes and picking up sticks for the fire. The coals from last night's fire were still hot and the fire came back to life with a few hand fulls of kindling. I wasn't too hungry but I ate a breakfast bar with my coffee and then cooked up some bacon for the three of us. We broke camp by 9:00 and hiked the last 4 miles out to the cars. Great trip!

Coney Island

I spent Saturday afternoon at Coney Island walking along the beach, the boardwalk and around the roller coasters and other rides. As usual, there was no shortage of strange sites and sounds. I believe Coney Island may have the highest percentage of Carnies in the entire New York City area. All sorts of folks roam this place, ensuring that you will always see something interesting at Coney Island. People danced to music on the boardwalk, children were running in and out of the water and flying kites. I was avoiding shards of glass, feminine hygiene products and other nasty bits of garbage that make up the beach at Coney Island. Although the beach is filthy and chances are high of emerging from the water with a used band aid stuck to my face, I usually jump in and float around for a bit. The cooler temps and my self-preservation mindset kept me out of the water this time. Below are a few snapshots from the days stroll.