more from the bath...

birthday suit...

bath time

very happy



cleaning her face



but shot

another early morning pic

Since I've been uploading new "winter" exteriors to our site all day, I thought I'd throw up another random scenic I shot while cruising down Kings Crown Rd by Beaver Run.

camera phones

so yes I am still on the hunt for a better one to help me mobile blog with more details. but I am not so easily getting sucked into the megapixel war. they don't mean jack compared to a quality lens. The k790a still seems like the leader of the pack for now.
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We're skeptical about the value of a 5-megapixel camera on this phone. There’s mounting evidence that pixel count means nothing compared to the quality of the camera lens. We've seen plenty of 2-megapixel cameras on phones recently that produce images no more usable than a simple VGA camera. More megapixels just means you get a really large lousy image. We don't think people will give up their digital cameras until the lens quality on phones catches up with what you'd expect from a low-end standalone camera. While the 5-megapixel number places the Samsung F700 clearly at the high-end, the proof will be in the images.

Four O'Clock road

yesterday morning I was taking some early morning exterior shots of those properties that had good morning sun (eastern exposure). I snapped this from next to Riverbend, with Baldy mt. in the background. pretty chilly morning.

pretty nice view

looking west from our office this morning.

cold start

it was .3 degrees when I left around 6:30a to come to work. I think b/c the skies cleared last night after the snow stopped. Luckily it is spring time here, so we got up to almost 40 today and lots of nice sun to start melting the roads. hacked it up good on the courts last night. Casey & Chris crushed Tom and I, 2-6, 2-6, 3-6. ouch. hit the clinic today to work on my skills, still lots of improvement needed. But soon, my winter sport of tennis will make way for more saddle time. Luckily I did lots of riding the last couple weeks, b/c this week the weather has me opting not to ride. I think I will squeeze in a ride tomorrow though, and definitely on Monday.

winter

is back for a bit. woke up to a couple inches on the ground, light snow and 17 degrees. first time in several week it has been below 25 in the morning. Good for the snow and the last couple busy weeks of the ski season. Denver is actually supposed to get more than us, I think 5-10" down there, and maybe 3-6" up here. Hopefully Red Rocks melts out by Monday's planned mtb ride. Otherwise I can take out the road machine. Not as fun, but just as good for getting back in shape. Tennis tonight, pretty psyched about that.

good camera phone

this one is about one of the best cameras on a cell phone, 3.2MP and fairly good quality. as you can see in some posts below, it won't take a much better camera phone to get better images than the Razr is giving me. But this Sony Ericsson model is about $350, and I'd have to buy an unlocked one online and hope my SIMM card works. hmmmm.

"appliance"

for some reason this word was in my head on the way to work this morning. I wonder about its word origin, or etymology. I'd guess some kind of "applied science" to make everyday things easier.

creative parking

this guy backed up his armageddon vehicle onto a 4' pile of snow from the plow.

28

Happy Birthday Steve!

these boots are made for walking...

we think she likes them, but we're not sure. Helen put them on Alina this morning to wear to school, but she ended up staying home sick today.

red rocks et al

got down today to enjoy some great traction on the trails from Saturday's rain. started with Dakota Ridge, and descended Zorro to Green Mtn. Green Mtn was actually greening up nicely. the moisture of late and the warm temps have started the spring growing season. saw some nice yellow wildflowers on the trails. Had fun on the Hayden trail a couple times too. Endoed hard on the descent of Morrison Slide, cracking the plastic gear indicator covers. Hopefully I can order some new ones. The bike felt awesome, and I think I could use even more air in the rear.

Green Mtn

looking down from Dakota Ridge acorss C-470 and up to Green Mountain. If the camera phone had better optics and a few more megapixels, maybe you could make out something. It really isn't as much a lack of megapixels as it is just terrible lenses in today's phones. I wish I had a Japanese phone that had a nice camera. After all, the cell phone is always with me, and the MobileBlogger part can send pics to my blog from anwywhere, at any time. I wonder what is the best camera on a cell phone that Cingular/AT&T network can handle?

double

today was classic spring in Colorado. we had about 6" last night, so I got out on the mountain to snowboard some. hit up E chair, 6, Imperial a couple times. Snow was good, and the crowds hadn't yet got up that high. Came down and we went to Silverthorne for some errands. Rode the cross bike back to Breck on the paths and road. The path still had a couple inches of slush on it in spots. By the glory hole, I slid out next to the edge of the path, and fell right into a wet soupy mess. My feet felt like clubs after but I had a good time riding with Dennis and Tim. More is better. Tomorrow I'll get in 3-5hrs too, thanks to Mary's watching Alina. I hope it's on the mtb down at Red Rocks.

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early season riding...

still at least 6-8 weeks away here in Breck. I think this as I look out and see it dumping snow. I am thinking 7" by tomorrow morning. We've received about 2" by now. Pics below were from an early morning bike ride in late May on the middle flume trails.

April 2006

i dug these pics out of my work computer. Alina must have been about 6-7mos old. I certainly cherished those days, but I miss them already. They almost make us want to have another child!

N.O. trip

some pics my dad shot a few weeks back when we visited New Orleans. You can see bringing Alina to Drago's, one of my fav restaurants, was a neccesary rite of passage. Luckily, the Cospolich in her is obvious, as he liked most of the oysters, at least the fried ones. And of course she's liked french fries (normal & sweet potato varieties) for several months now.

foggy

we'll see about the 8-12" the local news was calling for today. we had a dusting overnight, and it is very humid with thick fog and low clouds around now. visibility is prob around 1/4mi. pretty neat seeing a big long cloud snaking its way up the valley this morning as I drove into work. my prediction is 5" by tomorrow morning.

at home

with Alina yesterday afternoon. she was tired, but refused to go take a nap. She would continuously sit on her ball, and fall off.



She did like her legos. Normally she just plays with them.



We looked out the window and saw our view of Baldy begin to disappear as they framed the upper level on the duplex across the street. At least it will cut down on the wind coming down the valley.

cool cycling photos

Pete Fagerlin has an awesome talent in shooting photographs. His site has some really cool shots, such as the one below. Not just your typical pics of cool bikes or action or trail shots, but artsy stuff. Lighting and sharpness of these photos is incredible. I wonder what kind of equipment he's using.

no riding today. my arse could use a break. i'll have to settle for tennis tonight. maybe I'll get my bike fix by helping Alina ride her bike, or cleaning one of my bikes if she takes a nap today. I do need to switch the old wheels back to my cross bike, and put the Ksyriums back on the road machine. I am excited to ride the road bike again this year. It is so light and efficient, yet a bit sketchy with some of the gravel and junk on the roads now.

Easter

is on the horizon. my memories of Easter include bringing Alina to the Easter egg hunt at the rec center, going for a good road ride around the county, and eating the brunch at Spencer's. Hopefully this year will be no different. I am not really a big fan of giant chocolate bunnies, homemade hard-boiled & painted easter eggs & stuff like that. But far and away my favorites are the Reese's peanut butter eggs. I bought some to give to my co-workers, and of course another pack just for me.

11

today's short spin was the 11th consecutive day on the bike. pretty good for March. With a bit of snow and cooler temps in the forecast for the rest of the week, I wanted to make sure I got in as many days as the high pressure would allow. I am far from fit, but also much fitter than I was when I went to Moab over President's weekend, a bit over a month ago. Fit for late May/early June would be nice.

what are you lookin' at?

Swan Mtn.

I didn't have time to bust out a full lake loop (1:30-1:45), but I was able to climb to the top at Sapphire Pt, then return back through the Highlands. Beautiful day for sure. First ride of the year on the bike path, though it isn't quite ready for the road machines yet. The cross bike rode through the few snow patches pretty easily. Today is the 10th day in a row I've been on a bike. My muscle memory is responding well. 42x23 was good enough to climb Swan. another 6 weeks and I'll be in shape I think.

Red Rocks

Dennis and I rode down at Red Rocks on Sunday morning. It was awesome to drive down, ride for 3hrs, and be back in Breck by noon. I spent a few extra minutes dialing in my bike's suspension, and now it really feels awesome. The ProPedal feature will come in handy during races, as it firms up the initial travel. We were riding well, enjoying warmth and shorts. Dennis had a jedi move to clear a tech climbing section. I again wussed out on bigger steps of the descent of Zorro trail. I forgot how great and demanding the tech climb is going up Morrison Slide. A few bits of snow & ice in the northern ravine, but otherwise the day was 95% dry. We did see a lot of people the last 20 minutes back to the car. That's what happens on a nice weekend day in the big city.

more

Alina's first bike

Helen bought her a Kettler bike from the toy store Saturday. She can barely reach the pedals, but it's adjustable and Alina isn't far away. We'll see how many months it takes her to learn how the pedals work.

hummers

What is it about these obnoxious cars that makes me judgmental about their drivers? Oh yeah, they're obnoxious. We see quite a few of them up here in Breckenridge. Our resv dept works with Hertz and National, and apparently they rent very well. They certainly make a statement; I think the drivers are insecure in other areas of their life. I always get a kick out of the short guys that hop out (fall out) of these cars when they come to check in. There are many other gas-guzzling cars out there, but the Hummer takes the cake in my opinion, esp. with the big boxy design. Sure they are great and practical in the military. To each his own, I suppose.

real estate photography

has always been appealing to me. Since I started photographing properties for our website 10 years ago, I've learned an awful lot. A year or so back, I was Googling "real estate photography" or something, and came across Larry Lohrman's impressive website. When shooting a property that has beautiful views, one of the biggest challenges is how to avoid the burnt out (overexposed) windows. Since a camera can only shoot one exposure at a time, typically you expose properly for the inside of a house, only to end up overexposing the windows (views out the windows). There are a few methods of dealing with this. I can use layers and manipulate manually in PS, but that is a huge PIA, esp. since we have over 150 properties, and property photography is only about 10% of my job scope. Looking through Larry's site, he discusses several ways to deal with this contrast blending, or HDR (High Dynamic Range). Photoshopping can handle a myriad of scenarios, but again, having extreme time poverty and a seemingly endless list of properties to shoot, this is not efficient. There are photoshop plug-ins which speed up this process. And another bit of software called Photomatrix. Check out the pic below. I think this was 3 separate exposures. It is amazing. I will have to play with this some more.

Montana

oh yeah, we have a dog named Monatana. she's a red Siberian husky. Since Alina came around, she definitely stole Montana's thunder.

top of Summit Estates

This is about a 2mi climb over 650' or so. Very nice...tons of sun, little wind, and hardly any traffic.
The camera on my cell phone is almost worthless. Look at this below. Wrecked an otherwise great view.

corn

we had some corn last night. Being March, it was obviously not fresh Olathe sweet corn, but it was still surprisingly good. We bought it from Costco in Gypsum, but it was pretty tasty. Speaking of corn, the Olathe Sweet Corn Festival looks like a cool small town festival to hit, but typically our summer weekends are already full.

winter gone for now, but a chilly spring

it was only for an hour, but 5 days in a row on the bike makes me feel good. I doubt I will be doing any March crits or many road races this spring, though I think I will do the Koppenburg in a couple weeks.

I towed Alina up Fr Gulch for about 2 miles, then turned around as the overnight snow made the road kid of soft in spots. we then did our safe route around town and back up Wellington to the house. Alina loved it. I think she'll really enjoy the new Burly, it will be much more comfortable for her.