September 26, 2009
September 21, 2009
September 18, 2009
September 16, 2009
September 15, 2009
Day 11 - Fence and Wire
This project is nice in that if forces me to leave the house with the camera when I normally wouldn't. It also forces me to make the best out of some mediocre images and forces me to explore the Lightroom controls. For this image, the sky was very washed out. After playing around with the exposure controls, I moved down to the curves control. I was able to darken and bring some blue back into the sky by moving the highlights part of the curve to its lower limit.
September 14, 2009
Cyman Triathlon Race Report
The Sterling Physical Therapy Multisport team made a good showing at the Cyman Triathlon held at Big Creek Park on Sunday September 13th. We placed two members on the podium. Eric "Boom" Recker took first place in the Clydesdale division and Josh "Smooth" Smith placing second in his age division. Tony "Adonis" Briggs just missed the podium with a 4th place finish in the 35-39
division. Matt "The General" Patton had a good race to finish up his rookie season showing a great improvement on his bike but wanting to work on his run. Paul "Hammock" Cartwright finished the tri season with an OK swim, Great bike, and a pretty poor run.
The weather was beautiful with a breeze out of the East. Water was glassy with a wet suit legal temp of 76 degrees. The 10 o'clock start was nice as my family was able to come to the event, however, I believe a 9:00 a.m. start would have been appreciated by many in attendance. I was in the fifth of six swim waves starting 16 minutes after ten. The water was shallow for the first 50 yards. I went wide to the left and did several dolphin dives (something I have never done before) to end up gaining quite a few positions over people not dolphining. I felt comfortable in the water from the start with no questioning of "Why am I here?" My right calf did start to cramp up a couple of times during the swim. After a couple of breaststrokes it loosened up and I resumed the swim. Normally, after I touch the ground twice I jump up and start running. Because of the shallow water I took five more strokes after I touched the bottom.
Normally I "lope" through transition. One of my goals for this race is a combined transition time of less than 60 seconds. A T1 of 25 seconds put me a long way to achieving that goal.
I had a rather poor start and finish on the bike, but the rest of the bike was excellent. I have my shoes clipped onto my bike in transition and slip my feet in the shoes after I get on the bike. I am not sure exactly what happened. I could not stay on the tops of my shoes. I think one foot slipped off a pedal. The shoe would then rotate forward pinning it to the ground. Thankfully, nobody was too close behind me as I made a couple of large swerves trying to get things in place. Then just as I was stopping to sort things out, one of my shoes came off the cleat. I was able to retrieve it without getting off the bike and get moving. Talk about embarrassing. I am so thankful that I did not swerve into anyone.
The Cyman bike course is not exactly flat, however, when compared to most of the rides that I do, it might as well be. There was a small headwind going out limiting my average speed to 18.8 mph. I was only passed by 7 people on the bike, which is pretty good for me, and I kept setting my sites on passing the person in front of me. This was a change to my race psychology, something I ought to remember in the future. After turning back west with the wind at my back, I felt like I was positively flying and bringing my average speed to 20.1 mph according to my computer.
I had problems with the shoes coming off of the bike. I slip my feet out of the shoes then do a "flying" dismount that normally works quite well. This time my left shoe flipped forward and hit the ground causing it to become uncleated. When I step off of the bike it normally bounces a little bit. When this happened it really bucked. I then heard someone say that I lost my shoe. Looking down I realized that they were talking to me. I set my bike against the fence and started to run back for the shoe. As I turned I realized that I was in transition and shouldn't go back across the mat. Fortunately, a volunteer grabbed my shoe and was running it toward me. A quick pass and a catch later and I was picking up my bike and running through transition. Although it took some extra time, T2 was only 33 seconds allowing me to make my transition goal!
I will preface my commentary on the run by stating that I haven't run in two to three weeks. My Achilles Tendon has been acting up. Anyway, I have my excuse out of the way. Unfortunately for my excuse, I didn't have any problems with my Achilles! My calf was tight, then loosened up after the first mile. My ankle gave me some problems about halfway through for five to eight minutes. I think that I was somehow compensating for my Achilles. I was able to pick my pace up for the last mile to finish fairly strong in 30:10. Although my run time was not what I would have liked. I can honestly say that I left it all on the course.
All in all it was a great day shared with family and friends.
September 11, 2009
September 10, 2009
September 9, 2009
Comments on the President's Back to School Speech
I hope the President's Back to School Speech motivated a few kids beyond this week. If that is the case the speech was probably worth the time.
I do have a few comments about some very specific parts of his speech. President Obama stated:
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
The federal government has absolutely no role in setting standards, supporting teachers and principals or turning around schools. There is no provision in the Constitution to give the federal government any jurisdiction over the education of my child. Quite frankly the governments standards are too low.
He goes on to say some good things about personal responsibility, taking control of your own education, and working hard toward your goals.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community....
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it....
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
He then went on to say:
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
I find this very disturbing. I do not go to work because I love my country. I go to work because I love my family, and want to provide the best for them.
I love my country because for the most part it stays out of my way. I love my country because it still provides basic services like roads, justice, and security. Unfortunately, my country is changing, It no longer wants to provide only the basic services and as it starts adding the more progressive services like education, health care, welfare, ect., the basic services are slipping.
September 8, 2009
September 7, 2009
Day 3 - Before and After
Canon 30D
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/60
Apature: f4.5
Flash: Fired on board flash through two
layers of a plastic grocery sack
September 6, 2009
Day 2
Canon 30D
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/50
Apature: f4.5
The family went to Lake Miami near Albia today. We had a nice time. The kids played on the playground equipment, then we went to view the deer and elk that the park has. My wife spied this plant growing about 15 feet up in a pine tree. The Tree itself was not climbable. My lovely wife helped me move a picnic table over to the tree. We then tipped the table on its end so that I could climb up the underside like a ladder.
September 5, 2009
Day 1 - Ripples
Canon 30D
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/1250
Apature: f4.5
We went to downtown Ottumwa for their 2nd Annual Art Walk. As can be expected, there were some good art and some not so good art. Like they say, Art is in the eye of the beholder. Hopefully, what you see here is mostly on the good side.
September 4, 2009
365 days of photos Kick-off
Today I am kicking off a project to publish a photo a day for a year. My intent is to publish the best photo of those that I take each day. This will force me to walk out the door with the camera more often.
This year I did quite well at the State Fair Photo Salon, even though I thought that I had the weakest selection of photos to choose from in the three years that I have been submitting photos to the salon. I hope that next year when it is time to submit to the salon I will have more images to choose from.
I hope we both can enjoy this project.
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