Cutting Branches, Snapping Shots

One of my regular assignments from my aunt and uncle has been pruning trees on their property. At this point, after 8-10 trees, I'd consider myself a near-expert. So yesterday and today I decided to tackle the big tree. Here's the pile I ended up with:



And the highest branches aren't even cut yet.



Today's weather was similar to what's forecasted for the Bay Area next Monday, so I spent some time adjusting camera settings and taking some test shots panning on cars going by. I'm sure I weirded out a few passing motorists by taking pictures of them. Don't worry motorists, I didn't actually want your photo.

It looks like at ISO 400-800 I can get away with 1/125th of a second for objects moving under 20MPH and 1/200-320th for approximately 30MPH. It creates a nice minor action blur while maintaining clarity. As far as zoom, the 70-300mm lens is only useful if I'm at least 30-40 feet away. Any less than that and the 18-55 is my only viable choice. Wondering what on earth I'm talking about? The Tour of California next week, of course!

Big weekend plans

It started as an idea planted in my head a mere four days ago (thanks Mike!) - the Tour of California is coming up, you're unemployed and free to travel, and California isn't that far away...

That in combination with hearing of recruiters at the finish line of stage 2 got me at least considering the possibility of finding my way down there.

Talking with Joey the other day really solidified the idea, and I decided I wanted to go.

I set about looking for transportation options, but after no rideshare options appeared and train/greyhound options took the better part of a day each way for absurd prices upwards of $200, I was about ready to write it off. Until I checked airline prices, that is. Kayak.com is a great resource, just so you know. Round-trip flight to Oakland for $170 with an hour and a half travel time. Now we're talking.

That price sounded just about right, and it sounded even better after I calculated my tax refund (read: not being claimed by anyone else as a dependent makes a HUGE difference when you don't make much money). I booked the flight leaving early on the 15th and returning late on the 17th and will be crashing on Joey's very familiar couch.

So then I set about viewing options... and the best I came up with was hopping the BART to the Daly City stop and walking a couple miles to the beachfront highway the race goes by.



It's a decent viewing spot with a slight grade that would be considered a hill if it weren't for the fact that we're talking about professional cyclists. 3% won't be enough to slow them down. I decided I really wouldn't be doing myself justice.

I started looking into car rental options, but quickly became frustrated as renting a car while until age 25 is far too expensive. Then I found another option: rent-a-wreck. Not a nice rental car by any means, but cheap, and only a $5/day under 25 charge. As long as it can manage to drive 150 miles or so, we're good.

So now I'm in the process of planning my viewpoints during the race. I think I'm going to try to make two different stops - one at approximately mile 52 at the top of the biggest climb of the day, and then head to the finish line in Santa Cruz. Now I just need to double-check road closures and where to find parking.

And of course, I'm bringing my camera. I need to get some practice getting clear shots of fast-moving objects in the next week. And as much as I'd like to be able to shoot in RAW, I think I'm going to have to go back to Jpeg for the race due to the massive number of pictures I'll be taking within only a minute or two. The buffer just can't handle more than 6-7 RAW+Jpeg shots in a 15 second period. I'll likely be taking upwards of 100 in a two-minute period. I'll just need to make sure I've got the camera set perfectly before the race gets there. Let's hope there's a break off the front up the hill.

Here's a link to the full course profile

Exciting times. More to come!

Two things

Both ads.

First, my vote for most entertaining ad of the Super Bowl. Not necessarily the most memorable, or the funniest, but an amazing job of creating personality for two anonymous subjects. The fun party atmosphere and total aloofness of the commercial had me laughing and and wanting to go joyriding with them on the moon. Too bad their ride got jacked. Check it out.

Bridgestone Joyride

The other is unrelated, but is a great ad from Heineken that I saw the other day.

Walk-in closet

And wasn't the game today great? It's too bad the last 20 seconds ended up somewhat anticlimactic.

80 Miler

You know it's a good ride when...


I did about 80 miles today on Team Oregon's Saturday ride. We went out and rode once around the Banana Belt course, which included some hard efforts. I can't believe how good my legs feel considering I've only been back on my bike for a week. That and my endurance is much higher than I expected it to be. There's already some jump in my legs, so now I just need to do some interval work to get ready for the accelerations common in races and some more long rides to expand my base a bit.

Keeping Busy

It's been an enjoyable past two days. Yesterday Cousin Jessie and I headed downtown where we proceeded to do nothing and everything all at the same time. We walked through Chinatown and into the Pearl District. We perused Powell's Books for a while, and ended up at a shop called Cargo in the Pearl that sells all sorts of rare imported antiques and other various imports. Things such as chairs made from tires.

And brightly painted stools.

We toured the financial district for a while and decided to cross the river to the Lloyd Center area of town. I wished I had my camera (the nice one) with as the lighting on Portland made for the most interesting views of downtown I've ever seen. It was a mix of dark storm clouds, blue sky, rainbows, etc.

Downtown Portland was covered in sunlight through a tiny hole in the clouds, while dark clouds loomed in most every direction.

Last night I headed to a meeting for the local cycling team I'm joining. I've paid dues to get all the team discounts and such, and I'll buy a kit as soon as I'm sure I'll be around to race. For now, it'll be a good group to ride with. The goal is to be race-ready in a little over a month. Check out the team - teamoregon.org.

At the meeting I randomly ran into Kennett whom I hadn't seen in a while (from UO). I'm not sure why I didn't think about the fact that he'd be there, since I knew he was on the team and in the Portland area. It was good to catch up a bit.

Today after some morning job hunting, I headed over to the Mucha household to play some Boggle with Joey's mom. I'm infamous around there for being the only person to have ever beaten her at Boggle. No wins today, but I did manage to tie twice. Then I was introduced to Quiddler, which is somewhat like a combination of Rummy and Scrabble.

This afternoon I headed out for a ride to take advantage of the sunshine. I headed up Skyline, which I knew was a good sized climb, but I had no idea what exactly to expect. For those familiar with Eugene's riding, I'd compare it to a mix of Fox Hollow and MacBeth - on steroids. It's not constantly up, but it just keeps going further and further up as you go, resulting in some amazing views, and snow still on the sides of the road.

You get high enough up on the ridge that you can see into Washington all the way to Mt. Saint Helens and beyond. Looking back at one point, you can see down towards downtown Portland some 15-20 miles away with Mt. Hood directly behind it. The clouds were sitting low today, so it was a little odd to be above them.

Tonight I'll catch up on last night's episode of Lost, and then...

Moods Like the Weather

Today hasn't been a particularly good day. I woke up to a bit of a change when I noticed fresh snow outside, and I felt somewhat excited to go drop off a resume and cover letter for a company that I can hopefully make some connections at (They have their own internal cycling team, how sweet is that?). I froze in the frigid weather on the way there and back, but hopefully it will amount to something in the future.



I came back and spent much of the rest of the morning and afternoon submitting my resume to several other job sites I hadn't yet, submitted an application for a couple of retail positions, and then checked the news. December unemployment info is out, and it's bad. Highest unemployment numbers the country has seen in decades. 9.0% in Oregon last month before the Intel cuts. I'd guess it'll be 10% or higher for January.

For the first time since I started job hunting, I got really down over how lame being unemployed is. I'm not even that concerned about job pay or benefits as long as it's enough to get by on. Right now, I want something constructive to do that ideally uses my college degree that I still have a ways to go on paying off. I'd take an unpaid position at a company for several months to prove I'm a valuable asset if it meant good experience and would lead to an actual job.

I'm staying busy enough, but right now my constant state of flux doesn't allow me to feel at all settled. I don't know whether to build a new social network here since I don't know if I'll be around long. I just paid dues for a local cycling team, but I'm not sure if I'll actually be around to race with them. Then again, if I remain unemployed this could be my best training and racing year ever. I dunno.

The cold, wet, dreary Oregon winter day outside fit the mood pretty well.



Oh well. I suppose bad days are a necessary evil. They stand out in stark contrast to my normal very positive self and if anything motivate me to do something to fix whatever is wrong. I just need to figure out what else I can be doing.

Tomorrow I pick myself up and dust myself off and keep going.

Your resume is so sharp, it cut me.

Seriously, look at that thing, it's beautiful:



The perfect balance of white space and text. Just enough color to catch the eye. Bold in all the right places. Enough action-oriented bullet points to take down a one ton grizzly. No fat - all meat. Revised and edited so many times any spelling and grammatical errors fled in terror. Power words. A constant state of flux - never the same on any two days or for any two jobs. It probably even glows in the dark!

If I were someone in HR, I would hire me based on that resume alone.

So Close!

Last Wednesday while taking Harry (the dog) for a run, something odd and out of place caught my attention as we ran past the backyard of a house in the neighborhood. I backtracked a few steps only to see an owl staring straight back at me in a tree perhaps 15-20 feet away. I froze for a few seconds trying to process exactly what I was seeing, before cautiously walking back out of sight and immediately bolting the two minutes back towards the house and my camera. It was one of those I NEED this photo type of moments. I raced back hoping it hadn't moved from its perch. It seemed relatively content just sitting there, so other than the squirrel that didn't like its tree being taken over and was being vocal about it, I figured there was a decent chance it wouldn't move.

I got back, and this was the scene.



The red circle is approximately where the owl was perched, and the blue squared is how much of the frame it would have filled with my 300mm lens.

I thought it may not have gone too far, so I searched around and actually found it in the same tree, just much higher up and behind plenty of branches in relative darkness. This made focusing and getting a decent exposure a pain.



I did manage to find one clear angle at it (other than the dense foliage in the way).



So as best I can figure out, it's a barred owl. Which mostly makes sense. Searching online, it's the only one that looks similar, but it's primarily a more eastern owl that has only recently started expanding its range into Oregon and Washington. Do you concur, parents?

It was very close to being a dream photo opportunity, but I just missed it. I run by there fairly often, so I'm going to have to keep my eyes open.

You choose.

What should I blog about?

Give me a subject, and I will write it.

Oh, and my trip to Eugene followed by two days of riding my bike back to Portland was fun.

A little too much hype?

This is going to sound a little odd, but as Obama prepares to be sworn in as president some eight hours from now, I worry that the country is making too big a deal out of the inauguration. While the event is certainly historic and exciting, the media frenzy and commercialization surrounding the event seems a bit much.

When I attended Clinton's 2nd inauguration, it was a big deal in my life. That entire trip to DC/New York/Philadelphia as a 5th grader is still very fresh in my memory. The inauguration, however, is not one of the most memorable moments. Granted, 5th graders aren't usually terribly excited by speeches and can think of things more fun to do than standing around for hours in cold weather - but I'm glad I was there and would certainly appreciate it more were it today.

This time around, everyone seems to feel the needs to get in on the day. Every major TV station is not only covering the event live, but most have hours and hours of "pregame" where they'll undoubtedly repeat the same thing over ten times trying to fill airtime. It's a little early in the morning to be playing drinking games, but I'm sure you'd be well on your way if you simply drank every time you heard the word "historic" uttered. Yes this event will be historic. I hope Obama gives a moving speach tomorrow that will be remembered among the great presidential speeches. The problem is that history usually runs its own course on its own time, and in this case everyone is forcing this to be a part of history. It's still what it's always been - a swearing in, some formalities, and a parade, followed by DC letting its hair down for a night of partying. Don't spoil the moment by making too big a deal of it.

I'm extremely happy for the countless African Americans who have waited for this day their entire lives. I'm happy for every Obama supporter who finally gets to see an extremely long election process come to fruition. I'm happy for our new president. I could do without 14,000 hours of TV coverage for an hour long event. I laugh at the 2800 different Obama t-shirts and 288 bottles of Obama wine (even though it's from Oregon). I shake my head in disbelief at the Obamarella and Obama bedside lights.

Who knows, maybe the massive amount of money being spent in relation to the inauguration will accidently give the economy the kick in the pants it desperately needs.

As for me, I'll be wearing my Obama underwear and "Yes we can" slippers first thing tomorrow morning while I eat my Obama-shaped pancakes watching picture-in-picture-in-picture MSNBC/CNN/ABC coverage on all new inauguration news that has broken in the last 6 hours prior to the event. Then I might actually go back to being sane while I watch the actual event.

Shooz

Likely the last free pair of Crocs I'll ever receive:

A photo walk

I think the photos I took on a walk today are some of the best I've ever taken. I spent much of my time focused on macro photography, with some other odds and ends thrown in.








And Some HDR:

Key Words

In the last month, here are the top keywords (ordered high to low by number of hits, ranging from 18 to 1) that have landed people on this blog from Google:

"adjectives starting with m"
"adjectives beginning with m"
(Apparently I'm not the only one that can't think of very many)
"vibrating belt and Dallas"
(Uh...)
"interesting adjectives"
"migratory marketer"
(Ok, I'll give them that one)
"rick davis, portland, or"
(Undoubtedly a combination of several different posts having absolutely nothing to do with one another)
"rock racing"
(I may have mentioned them once, which apparently is enough)
"Vibrating Belt"
(Really? This was a couple months ago. And they're a joke!)
"Adam Edgerton blog"
(Hurray! Even if it is only one hit!)
"adjective running child"
(Once again, a mashing up of several different posts)
"Merry Marketer"
(At least this person spent a whole four minutes on the site rather than immediately bouncing)
"Portland Oregon Sneakerhead"
(Seems fairly apt)
"Road trips from Phoenix to Flagstaff"
(I wouldn't call myself an expert, but it is a trip I've taken)
"food movie"
(Well, I do like food. And movies, for that matter)

It would appear that my random post subjects that fail to fall under any one theme have unsurprisingly made it really difficult for Google to catalog my blog. Using the tags section on each post for locations also probably doesn't help. Nor does my blog's current state of name-in-flux syndrome. Not that I'm really that concerned with drawing in people who are actually looking for my blog. It's linked from every major online social network I'm connected to. Plus I kind of like drawing in people who are searching for something completely menial that my blog has nothing to do with.

Routine

After a week in Portland I'm starting to feel settled into a bit of a routine, for better or worse. A typical day begins around 8:00-8:30 with a run. Then I'll get back, eat Cheerios, and begin searching the dozen or so job sites I'm frequenting for new postings. After doing this combined with some research and brainstorming about companies to apply to directly, It's about lunchtime. I'll have a bit to eat and get back to job hunting, usually focusing on writing cover letters and submitting actual applications in the afternoon. Around the time my aunt and uncle get home, I finish up for the day and socialize a bit. Dinner is next, followed by anything from a movie to watching a bit of TV to reading a book to messing around with my camera. Late evening I'll watch some TV in the basement while stretching and doing some weights/balance ball exercises. Bed usually around 1AM. Rinse and repeat.

There are a few exceptions, including last night when I went over to a different aunt and uncle's house for dinner followed by American Idol. And Friday nights have been designated as the night I cook dinner with my aunt. We're experimenting with various Thai and Asian dishes.

Still, I need to get outside a bit more, see some friends in the area, and explore Portland. I'm also in the process of planning a long weekend trip to Eugene and Corvallis, probably to occur the weekend following this one.

I've got enough applications out now that I'm waiting patiently for an interview call. I've gotten a couple no answers already, including what I thought my best shot might be at the company I was recently working for.

I need to get one of my bikes.

Going RAW

So I finally added RAW as a file format my camera saves with. I'm not sure why it took so long, other than I had to get around to installing software to make full use of the format's potential. For those who don't know RAW, it's a format that saves all the details of the photo as captured by the camera's sensor before any additional settings (such as white balance or noise reduction) are applied. This allows you to go back later and make any changes to the image that you would otherwise not be able to if you set those extra settings prior to taking the shot and only saved as a jpeg.

This means that this otherwise badly underexposed shot...



can be mostly salvaged without having to resort to contrast and brightness manipulation.



Oh, and I also decided to create my first HDR image. It's really a shame that I picked such a boring subject, but at least I don't feel bad for spending very little time adjusting it to make it look good. Look at the top of the window. Yikes.

Just a big kid

I spent much of yesterday playing with my cousin's son whose grandmother (the aunt I'm staying with) regularly babysits him. Legos were the name of the game, and I fulfilled building requests for a Star Wars-like spaceship, R2D2, and C3P0. Eventually the spaceship gave way to a larger space ship that was nearly 2 feet long.



R2 was an especially big hit. There was a bit of a tantrum when R2 had to stay when it was time to go. Not to worry though, R2 is currently sitting on the fireplace mantle waiting for his return.

My personal project of the day started out with a wheeled-vehicle of some sort. I wasn't sure where I was going with the idea, until I decided it had better be a jet-driven car. I added a couple jets. I quickly got completely carried away and decided that this needed to be the most overpowered jet car ever, so I crammed as many jets onto it as possible. I only stopped when I ran out of jet-like pieces to use.



32.

Sneakerhead

Well if I wasn't already into shoes before today I guess now I'm immersed.  Shoes and running technology has definitely been the theme of the day.  I started off the day with a walk in my running shoes to really feel out how they fit me.  Then I spent a while reading articles online about running stride, gait, and common gait problems.  Then I watched videos online of various running and walking gaits (plus 3d models and renderings - isn't the internet great?).

Then I had lunch.

Then I headed over to Portland Running Company, where shoe fitting expert Rich was very helpful in answering questions that my morning cram session had brought up.  I watched some in-person gait evaluation and shoe fittings.  I talked running with Rich whose fastest marathon time is 2:23, which is only 50 minutes more than my fastest HALF marathon time.  He was able to inform me about his particular reasons for recommending certain brands and shoes and clarified the very different purposes of shoe design and insole design.

Then I had lunch.  Wait...

Based on all this learning I determined that a while back on the tour the Mizuno rep that looked at about three strides I took before figuring out which shoes would be best for me actually knew a thing or two.  But wait, there's more.  After all this, I went back online and started doing some research and rote memorization on running shoe lines and their various features.

Ah, the life of a job hunter.

Snow Day!

We've got a good 3-4 inches of snow in Portland, with more potentially on the way and a week of freezing weather to go with it. Not that I haven't seen snow recently... and I suppose I am from Alaska, but it is still exciting since this much snow in Oregon is a rarity. We used the day to sit around drinking tea, eating homemade rolls, playing Hearts and Rummy, and I even prepped for my interview in the morning a bit.

It should be a lovely time tomorrow morning scurrying around trying to get to my interview. As it snowed today, the weather got colder and it transitioned from melting to freezing, which means there will be a nice layer of ice on everything tomorrow. I'm taking public transportation, which is probably more reliable than driving would be. Wish me luck. If nothing else, it'll be some good interview experience. Then it's off to Saint George, where the forecast is snow! I think there are already plans to go skiing when I get there.

Right Place, Right Time

The more time I spend in Portland, the more I feel like it would be a great place to call home in the near future.

I mean, how can you beat free Starbucks...



Unique Salvation Army Bell Ringers...





Friendly Chewbaccas (and cousins, for that matter)...



Frozen people (flash-mob style)...



(The pictures really don't do it justice, since it's basically taking a freeze-frame of frozen people)



Even the anti-Church of Scientology people joined in the fun.



Voodoo Donuts...



Saturday Market (which for some reason also happens on Sunday, in spite of the name)...



Tuba Christmas...



A dragon tuba?



Nike Town (both figuratively and literally)...



And we just went downtown to do some random Christmas shopping.

Top that off with some Thai food and Will Ferrell and you've got yourself a rather enjoyable day.