Cubcamp was here. Spot 3. Or was that Spot 4?

Anatomical Photos

I took some anatomical photo's back when I was in school with my roommate's 20D, also recently dug up in my excavation of my photo archives. I put them into a set, and any future pictures I take of anatomical references, I'll add them to it.

Flickr Set: Anatomy Study





I always loved the planar head, and I was lucky enough to get my life drawing instructor to let me take it home temporarily to shoot some photos of it. I was inspired to do this in part because I had looked for images of a planar head online with almost no luck, and I didn't see any company that sold them. I guess they had gone out of style at some point, and the ones Otis had were commissioned, and made from a custom sculpt by a professional sculpture artist. I took photo's all the way around, and at some point I'm going to make a quicktime 360 turn table of it.

Another instructor who taught several 3D classes, had a hand painted replica of a fetal skeleton, which he brought into class and gave an open invitation that people could take photos of it. An offer I couldn't refuse. My apologizes if this freaks out anyone.

Yahoo Center Park

I had taken some pictures during a lunch break a while back at the Yahoo Center Park across the way from Sony, but I had sort of forget about them. This was back when I first got my new camera, and I think then it wasn't the Yahoo Center, it was something else. I've been digging through some of the archives and posting up forgotten pictures lately, these being some of them.

Images of Mexico

I finished processing the rest of my pics from the Rosarito Ensenada Bicycle Fun Ride trip. I had left my camera with the truck, and the group I was with needed to get back to Los Angeles with some relative haste. So most of these photos are taken from inside the truck while in motion. To prevent motion blur a lot of shots were take at 1/5000 to 1/8000th of a second, and the bright Mexican sun allowed for okay exposures and decent depth of field despite the fast shutter.

Flickr Set: Rosarito to Ensenada Trip (135 Images)




Here is lustful close up of my bike's carbon weave glistening in the sun light as we loaded the truck.



The epic Ensenada flag towering over the landscape. This photo does not do justice to it's massiveness.





Yes, that is indeed a Happy Pharmacy where you can get Happy Meal "Viagra". Just down the street from the strip club in the previous photo.



Tons of little homes like this were scattered across Baja, heavily marketed to American's looking to retire close to the ocean on the cheap.



Most of the roads we traveled on were toll roads, and being the one in the vehicle with cash in the wallet, I was doing a lot of forking over monies.



Another common site on the trip were large unfinished beach front condo structures. Some of these have barely seen progress since the last time I saw them six months ago on the Spring season ride.



A rather large Jesus on the way between Rosarito & Tijuana.



All the real estate advertising I saw was completely in English with no Spanish translation, and photographed with happy white people.





The walls in Tijuana were full of interesting sights and textures.





During the final stretch as we approached the border, speed trickled to slower than a baby's crawl. It is during this time that the street merchants capitolize on a captive audiance. Most of these things are useless knick knacks and knock offs, your last chance to take a piece of Mexico home with you.

Big crucified Jesus figures seem to always make an appearance, and the popular item of the day was big tortoise lawn ornaments. Last time Scarface blankets were the hot recurring item. We did buy a big of churros for a dollar that was enough for 3 people, and they tasted better then any churros I've had stateside.



At last our time of inspection had come.



American parking lot. The end.

Epic.

This weekend was some bicycle riding of epic proportions. It's too much to adequately convey in a distilled synopsis, but I will say that seeing all of Los Angeles, and the Valley, from the top of the Hollywood Sign, was quite a sight to behold. That was one part of what was almost 19 hours of straight off and on riding, and being awake for more then 24 hours

While on the topic of epic journeys, I signed up last weekend for the 7 day, 545 mile, AIDS Lifecycle ride, from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It will take place in June 08, but I will need to start training and fundraising now. Each participant needs to raise $2500 that will go toward the fight against AIDS, both in helping those already affected, and prevention. If you would like to support my endeavor, you can make donations through my AIDS Lifecycle Homepage. Really any amount would be greatly appreciated. The cumulative effect of many small contributions can really add up and make a difference.

CUBCAMPXXVIIII . HIGH SPEED PURSUIT

This my second week organizing the ride for our cycling group CUBCAMP!! Time to exercise that need for SPEEEEEEED!!!

Midnight Ridazz Posting

The Second Coming of Rosarito Ensenada

I finished my second Rosarito Ensenada 50 mile bicycle ride this Saturday. It's hard to believe it's been half a year already since the last one in Spring. The ride was much easier this time, finishing more then an hour faster, with no stopping and I wasn't pushing it as hard as I could have if I had really wanted too. It is a fun ride after all, not a race. Those views going up the mountain are amazing, and the abandoned cars wrecked at the bottoms of the cliffs are a creepy and sobering reminder of the dangers of mountain roads. I'll post more when I finish processing my photos from the trip. Big thanks to Katon and crew who I car pooled with on the ride.


loading the truck after the ride

Swarm the Pier II

I posted up pics from the insanely awesomeness ride "Swarm the Pier II." It was a big mass ride starting at the Bicycle Kitchen in East Hollywood, winding down to meet up with more West Side ridazz in Culver City, then off to Venice Beach and finally north to the Santa Monica Pier. To keep with the swarming theme, some came out in insect attire, with bees the popular choice, and kazoos and other noise makers were handed out to make some buzzzzzzzz!!!

Midnight Ridazz Flyer

Flickr Set: Swarm The Pier (139 pics)
























Flickr Set: Swarm The Pier

Environmentalist Propaganda of the Day

After listening to some lectures on ecological sustainability recently, the inner environmentalist in me wants to come out and say hello. Hopefully inspire others. To this end, I will be periodically interjecting the blog with ecological tips for a greener world. Come on admit it, everyone's got a little hippie in their hearts somewhere.

So here we go with tip #1. Rather then loading up on bottles of water, consider reusing bottles by refilling. Especially if you are in an environment where it is easy to do so. Most plastic bottles never get recycled, and are non-biodegradable, making them an expanding and persistent problem in solid waste. Even if you do recycle bottles, they will need to be trucked to a recycling center and reprocessed, leaving a carbon trail along the way. Reuse is essential to sustainable living, and is fundamentally better then recycling.



Also consider that bottled water, though substantially more expensive, is subject to less health regulations then standard tap water. Some brands of bottled water, are just filtered tap water, repackaged for an image of "purity." Link: NRDC

At work it was easy to fall into the habit of taking freely provided water bottles, drinking them up and then tossing them for recycling. Then a couple months ago , it just dawned on me, what I'm I doing creating all this waste when I carry a water bottle on my bike, which I ride to work everyday. So now I just refill my bottle, quenching my thirst at work with considerably less waste.

So the next time you get that itch to chuck a bottle, think about reusing it instead. The bottle will love you for your kindness as well. I hear them talking to me in my sleep, and they told me so...

Link: Container Recycling Institute

The "I PISS EXCELLENCE" Yellow Jersey IMAX Ride

The Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, I did 3 Midnight Ridazz rides in one day as well as riding between each one and eventually riding home. It could have been 4 rides, but I couldn't get awake early enough for the unusually early Pier Pressure ride. The first ride of the day for me was The "I PISS EXCELLENCE" Yellow Jersey IMAX Ride, to go see the Tour de France documentary "Wired to Win". The pissing excellence is in reference to the drug testing between stages, and we wore yellow, color of victory in the Tour.



While waiting for the film to start, we wondered the California Science Center at the USC campus. At the top of the building is a high wire bicycle with heavy weight to counter balance the rider. Most people who tried it went tepidly across and back, but Cole, from our group, rode it hard and tilted it all over the place. Was awesome to see, and next I'm at the Science Center, I'd like to try it out as well.


The documentary was fascinating on two main levels for me. One is that the documentary focuses mostly on the adaptation of the brain to extreme physical conditions, with the Tour De France as a case study. The other level is just the awe of seeing these super humans of endurance riding on some of the most beautiful roads in the world, on the epic screen size and resolution of IMAX. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in psychology, physiology, and or the sport of cycling. A word of caution though, it's guaranteed to make you feel slower the next time you get on your bike.

Link to Flickr Set:
The "I PISS EXCELLENCE" Yellow Jersey IMAX Ride

Also, in testament to the small world we live in, at the Wolf Pack race later that day, we ran into the projectionist who was showing the IMAX movie, and he recognized our yellow jerseys & shirts.