Photoshop...

I've started to learn using Photoshop, which for the time being will sort of replace all the photographic tools that I don't yet have. I got a book that is way too complex, but I'm looking through it and learning a lot.

Here's a picture taken with Nicole's point and shoot at Yellowstone:


And here is what it looks like after I applied a little photoshop magic that mimics a neutral density filter, which helps the brighter sky from being overexposed in landscape shots.


I also added a "sideways" filter on only the sky to compensate for the fact that the sun was much much brighter on the left than on the right. I wish the meadow had been oriented so that I could shoot this mist while facing West, so all the sky looked like it does on the right hand side.... next time.

Look out, don't piss me off or I'll photoshop you in a picture with a naked Chinese gymnast, who are "16" but are really only 12.

Watching the Olympics....

why do they call the swimming pool "The Cube"? From what I can tell the three main dimensions of the pool are all different. Should be "Rectangular Prism".

Back on Track...

Just realized the last... umm... too many posts dealt with politics in one way or another... enough of that.

Took an amazing trip to Yellowstone a few weeks back. Everyone should visit there once- the geysers and colorful pools are amazing, there's always tons of wildlife, and even at its most crowded, Nicole and I found many places pretty much to ourselves, so it was an awesome trip.

Old Faithful- gotta see it, along with everyone else who rolls out of their cars...

Morning Glory Pool- used to look like the flower. This one was maybe a mile or two walk along a level boardwalk, so most people didn't make it out to see it.

Lonestar (who would DARE give me the raspberry... still waiting for someone who knows what that means). This geyesr was a 2 mile walk in, so there were only a handful of people there to share it with... pretty cool to just come across this in the middle of the woods.

Scenery over Yellowstone Lake at dusk

This bison hung out in the field near our backcountry site all night and was there in the morning fog...grass must taste good

Anyway, after getting back from Wyoming, I've been slowly tacking the miles and intensity on to get prepared for cross. Might even start running and doing stairs soon. I had to do a runup the other day when I took my cross bike out for a cruise, and almost had to sit down and let the world spin around my head for a few minutes. Nothing spikes your heartrate like running uphill with your bike on your shoulder.

Nicole has offically been relocated to SoCal- grabbing a cool apartment in LongBeach, which is only ~27 mile ride from me, and within walking distance to the metro. Also purchased the requisite four wheeled vehicle, and a two wheeler is on the way- made of....CARBON FIBER- bling bling??

Scary.

Obama has been reaching out to religious voters recently- probably seizing on the fact that McCain isn't particularly strong in that area either. His most recent statements seem to indicate that he'll be EXTENDING the faith based programs Bush had. I believe most of these are religious groups that do charitable work towards helping the impoverished. Obama claims that strict controls will be set up so that the programs receiving money will not be able to use it for converting people, or discriminating based on religious beliefs.

That all sounds well and good, but aren't there non-religous groups out there that could do the same work, if they had the same governemtnal support? I realize, however, that because those groups are not connected to a large umbrella organazation that effects how people vote, that they won't get nearly as much money. Maybe we should end voting in this country- might solve alot of problems.

Why expensive energy can be good

High energy prices are often seen as a stimulus for other more environmentally friendly, but more expensive, energy sources. Aside from that, high energy prices also force the entire economy to be much more efficient. This article in the NYT discusses how Walmart / Sams Club is switching to a different type of milk jug that makes shipping and production easier, and translates to significant cost savings, and 60-70% decreased water use at the dairys. Packing more into a truck means less trips, decreased water use is certainly good in times of uncertain supply. All these positve changes just becuase high energy prices were making buisness executives at Walmart (not really a stalwart of environmental progress) look more carefully at their practices.

Bring on $5 a gallon- it might hurt at the pump, but we'll be saving money in other places, and we're getting *closer* to paying the actual cost of the energy we use.

End to the world's energy crisis?

Or someone who is just really bad at math and logical reasoning? This article recently ran in VeloNews. While some of the points I think are valid such as pointing out some things our society does that wastes energy, and advocates taking the stairs or riding your bike to work. However, some of his ideas are just.... stupid. Replacing a power plant with a bunch of cyclists on stationary bikes. Let's do some math here.

Coal power plant at 500MW is to be replaced by cyclists. (Not to mention a nuclear plant at a few gigs...)

Let's say each cyclist is producing an average of 100W over their workout. Sure intervals would be much more than this, but as the numbers will show, we'll need A LOT of cyclists, so its not all serious racers here.

Let's just throw in a 75% efficiency rate from power at the hub to electricity, so basically each cyclist is producing 75W of electricity.

Plugging those numbers in, that is 6.67 million cyclists. For one coal plant.

Yeah. Good solution.


His other thought that just made me smack my forehead was the thought that we should take the stairs UP to our floor in a building, but take the elevator down, and hook the elevator up so that its potential energy at the top is converted to energy as it brings people back down. Ok buddy, how does the elevator get up there??? Yes you would get a net benefit of the weight of the people that you are only moving down in the elevator and not up, but considering that the weight of the elevator itself far exceeds the weight of the people, you're never going to break even with this system. If you approached this by saying people should walk up stairs so that they aren't as fat, then I'd buy it.

Sometimes the mix of bikes and social concerns is good (more bike lanes!!!), but when people who have no idea what they're talking about throw out the idea of replacing power plants with cyclists... it's not good for anybody.

Breaking News!!!

I was watching tv for a while and noticed that CNN had the headline "Breaking News" on for about five hours over Obama writing a check for Hilary. That story is breaking news for one hour. How long is it breaking news when they announce another solider is killed in combat? I don't think at all. But yea... Obama writing a check for $2300 is really important.

But whenever I think CNN is bad, I accidentally have FOX on for more than 5 seconds, and I start to feel sick to my stomach.

January 20, 2009

Cannot come quick enough- check this out.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I hope that the next administration has a better outlook in the energy / climate change area. Obama's ties with large ethanol firms is already quite disconcerting...McCain supports more nuclear power, but would leave us in Iraq for 100 years. On that note:



Interesting commercial- it's not quite as over the top as much of moveon.org's content is- I like the main thought behind it.

This one is much better though:

Need to get my passport

A recent study shows that 92% of Americans believe in God. In an unrelated note, my own personal research indicates that 92% of Americans are bad at biology.

Not really fair to say that everyone who says they believe in god to some survey would support intelligent design, but I think it's still scary to live in a country where the vast majority believe in god. It's not really the vast majority part that freaks me out, but the portion of that 92% that make decisions (like voting) based on religious beliefs, that scare me. I wish I had written a book two thousand years ago that could sway half the voters in this country just as much as a candidate's ability to speak well.

On the other hand... is any other country any better?

Gas savings...

Heard an interesting tidbit on NPR the other day about the gasoline savings reaped by replacing certain vehicles. Basically, the question was posed as what is better: replacing a 10mpg car with a 15mpg car, or replace a 20mpg car with a 50mpg car.

On the surface it seems that the latter is better, 30mpg improvement, whereas the first one only had 5mpg. However, when you think about the gasoline that is required for these two vehicles over a set distance, let's say 100,000 miles, the result is that the jump from 10mpg-->15mpg results in a savings of 333gallons, while the jump from 20mpg-->50mpg results in a savings of just 300gallons.

To visualize this, I plotted the incremental savings of gasoline required for 100,000miles vs the mpg. As you can see the dropoff is very steep at first, so the savings is large when changing from a lower mpg car. The takeaway from this is that changing from a hummer to a minivan might be just as helpful as switching from a civic to a hybird.

Friday Night

When I got my latest phone I added a free option to backup the contact list every night. The phone chooses a time when you are normally not using it, and connects with the server and syncs up the contacts. I'm sitting at home about to go to bed at about 10PM this Friday evening, and the phone kicks up to do the sync. 10PM, Friday. Sweet.

On a related noted, I'm doubling up Cat 3 and 123 tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to some upgrade points, then some training. Word.

CBR State Championships

I think overall I'm happy with the race given I'm still coming back to racing shape. Really should have done better in the finish, but everyone except one lucky dude says that.

Course was different than the normal box: it had a 180, and then some tight turns that spit you out on the long finishing straight which had a bit of a bend in it before hitting the line. It was technical enough that most of the races were lined out for most of the race... and many fields only had half the people finish.

I started off well, sitting comfortably in the middle of the field, as the back was a place for people blowing up, even after a few laps in. About 15 mins in, I was on the outside when the road narrowed, and a dude a few guys ahead of me swung too far outside- this cascaded back to the guy in front of me, who had to swerve over to me, and also put on the brakes. I had nowhere to go but into the curb. I tried to hop up onto it and ride on the sidewalk, while also slowing down, and I ALMOST pulled off a beauty of a save. But I still got the front wheel caught up on something, and went over the bars, scuffing up the shifters a little bit more. I had managed to bleed off most of my speed, and really didn't take much of a beating at all. Two very minor scrapes, and no damage to the clothing. Best crash ever.

Got back into the field, and immediately jumped clear with a very strong looking group. Ernie was up with me, and was yelling at me to drive it... but I just didn't quite have the legs. By the time I had recovered in the group and was about to get to the front, the group was on us. We were both real surprised that some sort of move didn't stick with the technical course.

Last lap came down, and I was sitting on Ernie's wheel- about 10 deep. I got separated going into the 180, where I went too wide, and lost about 5 spots. I made one or two up by diving through the next corners, but was not able to move up enough. I didn't have the jump to sprint in the last stretch, but just drove it to the line as hard as I could- giving up at least one or two spots. Ended up 13th- so that was a bummer that I might have pulled a top 10 if I had a sprint on me. John finished 3rd to keep adding to his good placings, and Ernie was 6th, making up some points to Max in the overall.

Can't be too disappointed with my 2nd race back after a 3 week break, but I'd really like to get some points out of the next few weekends. Doing 3 races next weekend up in San Fernando and Glendale, then District Championships weekend after that.

Into the Ground

So I was off the bike for about 3 weeks, due to getting a stomach virus, then school work, then Sequoia NP (totally worth it!) and then some more school work. But luckily the quarter is winding down, so I finally had some time to put in some solid training. I don't often come roaring back from a 3 week break, but I figured this time I'd try just riding myself into the ground, and hope to snap back into shape for next weekend, and hopefully even better for the weekend after, which is SCNCA Crit championships.

This Sunday is the CBR Crit State Championships (yeah, California has TWO championship races for each discipline... actually 2 in SoCal, there is one in Norcal as well, and they all crown "state champs"). I'll probably be helping out some teammates and if all works out right, dragging suckers behind us for a little lead-out action.

I'll let you know what a crit feels like after a not so smooth 25 hours on the bike week feels like...

Photo Editing....

I've gotten a little into photo editing, especially because alot of the pictures from Sequoia were overexposed, due to the dark foreground (trees) and realllly bright background (while foggy sky). Anyway, this picture doesn't have much background after cropping, and I only changed the exposure... didn't change any saturation or anything- I think the colors are pretty sweet, as is the background you can see through the split. (I promise I won't get too artsy about this shit, I'm going to go take a picture of a camshaft or something greasy next)

Sometimes you just don't know how much hair you have...

... until you see it in a sink

Missing Cats...

I've noticed an increase in two things recently,

1. The howls of coyotes at night, particularly when police sirens go off, or after the sounds of something dying- which leads us to number 2...

2. Missing cat posters with tear-off phone numbers so that we can call the people and let them know that we saw their cat the other day walking home from campus, but because I didn't have a large box on me in which to place your cat, it is once again missing.

I really have an urge to put this poster up in response to the growing number of missing cat posters:

Sequoia NP

Nicole and I drove up to Sequoia National Park for Memorial Day. We were all set to do our first backcountry camping, in bear country no less. We had all we thought we needed, a bear box, good boots, legit tent, backpacking stove, water filter... you name it. Just didn't expect it to be winter in the park.

We left a little later than hoped, and arrived just in time to claim our backcountry permit.... we had to hurry out to the trail head to start our hike so we could find a campsite by nightfall. The hike was along a really cool trail: High Sierra Trail. It runs all the way across the park (East-West) to Mt. Whitney on the Eastern edge of the park.

Near the Western trail head of the High Sierra Trail

The weather was a bit chilly, and a persistent, albeit light, rain was falling during the whole hike. The views off to the South should have been spectacular, but unfortunately all we saw was water vapor.

The "view" from Eagle Point

We somehow missed all of the designated back country campsites along the trail.... and ended up about 4 miles in, just looking for some flat ground to put a tent. We eventually found a relatively flat spot a few hundred feet below the trail. It was right next to a log, which we found out the next day is a prime source of food (grubs) for bears.....

Campsite the first night

We survived the first night intact, but pretty chilled. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast, and decided that with our lack of goretex (except for our boots) we'd better head back to the car and not get hypothermia. We found a car camping spot for the next night, and did some easy hikes that afternoon. We checked out the largest tree in the world (by volume) The General Sherman Tree. It was not the first Sequoia we had seen, but you walk along the path, and when it first comes into sight, it's on a whole other level than other Sequoias. The top is actually dead, so it actually has just been growing OUT, so it's a HUGE tree at the base.

General Sherman Tree. Hard to see the perspective here, but the other trees around are pretty big on their own...

We had a relaxing, dry warm night that night, as we could dry everything out in the car. The next morning, however, we woke up to a bit of a surprise: snow AND blue skys!

Was only an inch or two at our elevation, but... it's almost June!!

We did as much hiking as we could... the first one to a waterfall, and the second one a steady climbing trail that eventually lead to a meadow, but we turned around at a heavy creek crossing about 4 miles in.

Scenery along the Falls hike... if the visibility were better you'd see an entire huge mountain here...

Hiking through some light snow...

Topokah Falls from a distance

Looking back down into the valley from Topokah Falls. The U shape to the valley is indicative of it being formed from glaciers, whereas a V shape would suggest it was formed by water flowing

Topokah Falls
Thankfully the snow was hard enough to walk easily on top of. In spots it was at least 3-4 feet deep! Snowshoes in December anyone??

Despite the poor weather, and us being unprepared for how wet it was, it was a great visit. We definitely need to get back out there, to hike Mt. Whitney, finish exploring Sequoia, and check out Kings Canyon, which is adjoining to the North.

Cross Ride

Went out for a cross ride yesterday for the first time in.... a long while. I had never actually hit up any type of off road riding in the fall... just did the cross clinic at Fairview Park, and raced on the weekends. No surprise that anything technical was to my disadvantage... as I slid out in numerous corners, and generally rode cross like a roadie.

I'll still be riding cross like a roadie this season I'm sure, but if I keep heading out to the single-track out here then I'll be a lot better off come the fall. Plus it was a lot of fun.... but I've definitely learned the lesson that whenever the trail crosses over more than two or three iso-altitude lines (what are those called?) on a topo map, then... it's steep as hell! Did not plan on climbing for the first mile in my smallest gear, just hoping not to fall over.

Once I got up on top of a ride though, I could look out into the Laguna and Crystal Cove "Wilderness". Though if I turned around I'd see the 73 and a bunch of houses. Ehh, it's all good. Mainly rode fire-roads and just checked things out, but did hit up some loose dirt single track, which was fun, and I even bit it once... so even this tame ride was enough to buck off this roadie.

New Apartment...

Just got a kitchen table and some chairs, so the apartment is beginning to look like some place to live again. Also got a few cheap pots to separate the various aloe plants that we got for free when purchasing some cacti near Joshua Tree. Turns out what looked like a few aloe plants were actually all connected in the root structure, but I just pulled them apart.... we'll see if that works. It's got miracle grow potting soil, so if the advertising on the bag is true, I'll have aloe plants that are twice as tall!

Also got a microwave, which smells horribly like Chinese Food. Not takeout chinese food, but like pure cooking oil mixed with MSG mixed with orange glaze, smothered over deep fried fatty chicken, and then cooked in a microwave for three hours. It currently smells like 409, but I'm not even sure if that will do it. It's a pretty nice microwave though... and for a while if I want orange flavored tofu, all I need to do is stick some fresh tofu in there, and voila!

Nicole and I are going to Sequoia NP for Memorial Day, so get ready for massive numbers of pictures.

Might be a little chilly....

Nicole and I are heading out to our next National Park trip in about two weeks time- hitting up some back country camping in Sequoia National Park. Even late May is considered "early season" up there, and maybe this is why:


Might be a little hard to see (if this were google earth it would be crystal clear for sure) but that blue and white wedge in there basically encompasses Sequoia and Kings NP. The blue is around 30F, while the white is closer to 20. Holy balls. Now that is current as of 9AM... so presumably it might even be a bit cooler overnight.... hmmmmmm

Add that to Steven Colbert's number one threat, BEARS, and this three day trip has the possibility of being quite epic.