Please Stand By

As you can probably tell, Intellectual Poison is undergoing some changes presently. Things will probably look a little wacky for most of today until I can complete the upgrade to the new design. The nice thing is that, moving forward, site redesigns will be all easy-peasy!

But its this first move into the new Blogger in Draft custom template system that will require lots of micro-fixes and cutting and pasting.

I should bullet out a list of changes still pending but I've got so much work to get down right now (real work that someone else pays me to do so it moves ahead of blog redesign fun).

In the meantime, you are invited to peruse my photos from yesterday's Stage 3 of the Amgen Tour of California as it wound up down along West Cliff in Santa Cruz. We were able to get into town, get parked and find a great spot to enjoy the really impressive spectacle of a top road race featuring some of the world's best cyclists in one of the world's most beautiful settings. Sometimes I feel truly blessed to reside in an area as stunningly awesome as Santa Cruz. And it makes me want to relocate back into town much sooner rather than much later.

Things on My Mind

Just a little peek inside my busy little mind of the things that are going on in there.

State Park closures - I was speaking a lady over the weekend who mentioned that some of the pending State Park closures California is considering would include some of our rather magnificent beaches that are run by the state. I think this would be an absolutely horrible idea to try and shut down the beach. But then, I think its a ridiculous idea to allow our forested State Parks to turn into massive hobo camps if they close them to the public.

Seniority and Bumping - its great to be a part of a bureaucracy if you are sufficiently high up the totem pole to be doing the bumping. It sucks if you are fairly new and easy to bump. I checked with my school district's HR office the other day and found out that I'm 6th on the totem pole of site techs to be called back. I'm not holding my breath.

Fictionarium - I've been on a roll creating new words lately. From my recent post about the development of a Twitter lexicon to random new words, I think I'm running at about two or three new words a day right now. Which means my brain is working pretty well.

Cycling - I've been making more of an effort to get out on my bike lately. I've averaging about two rides a week right now and am trying to push that number up to three per week. I find my body is happier, my brain is happier and it just makes me a more balanced guy. The one or two downsides are that my bike is in bad need of a major (and expensive tuneup) and I need to get some good cycling shoes with stiffer soles. My feet are starting to get really sore during the long descents down the backside of Nisene Marks. But I'm still loving my rides more and more.

Kyani - Our business is starting to really get going which makes the likelihood of my having to go back to a full time job less and less which is just fine by me. You are welcome to check out my blog that I've started about my experiences with Kyani and network marketing.

More to come as I'm headed out the door with Nande and the boys to go for a walk at the dog park.

Short Tour Wrap Before Bed

Grady and I, along with thousands of others, braved the cold, wind and rain today to enjoy the Amgen Tour of California as it made its way from Sausalito down to Santa Cruz. Fearing missing the excitement, we got out onto Empire Grade above UCSC by around 11:30 this morning.

And waited. It rained for an hour or so. Then stopped and we waited some more. And then it rained some more.

Every once in a while an Amgen festooned vehicle would come tearing by, lights flashing, horn honking and everyone along our little stretch of the road, all twenty or thirty of us, would get up, get ready and then get disappointed.

The cyclists ended up starting to come through at about a quarter to two. We were smart and I'd turned the Escape around to face the oncoming riders so that we could effectively camp out in the back hatch with it open to avoid most of the rain. And Grady and I played games together, ate snacks, told jokes and took pictures of other stuff while we waited. Grady also had fun kicking gravel into the rain runoff, so much so that he's probably ruined his new(ish) shoes.

When the cyclists did come ripping through, they were proceeded by support cars, police cars, motorcycle cops and photographers on the backs of other motorcycles. And they blazed through even though we were at the top of a pretty good sized hill.

As they tore by, I snapped pictures, shot video from a tripod on the deck in the back of the car and made sure Grady didn't go wandering out into traffic. I had both my big-boy camera, the Canon XTi, and my new SX110. I think I may have ended up opting for the 110 to replace my SD1100 because of today and the desire to zoom in.

Either way, I got some good photos, including Lance!, shot some good video footage and had a good time spending so much time alone with Grady.

My favorite (and recorded) moment occurred after the first big peleton can ripping through with all of its support cars and excitement. Grady appears on the far right of the video, watching, smiling and digging it. After the last car goes by, he turns towards the camera and says, not once but twice, "That was awesome, poppa!"

And it was awesome.

Here's my photo set from the day. I'll probably add a few more as we move forward. I'm currently working on getting the videos converted into a more usable format.

This Week in Weak and Strong #4

Lots of stuff going on this week. Let's get to it.

Weak Catch - Ex-MLB catcher Bobby (Ch)Estella, who was built like a brick shithouse and now we know why, will accuse Barry Bonds of getting him steroids in the government's never-ending witch hunt for one player while an entire league was rife with PED abuse.

Weak Reason to Fight - Two friends got into a little fight "over nothing" after some drinks and one was arguing with his girlfriend. One punch knocked the kid down, he smashed his head on the ground, never regained consciousness and died the next day.

Weak Legislators - The California budget impasse continues unabated. Three months and counting.

Strong, LiveStrong - The Amgen Tour of California is set to kick off. But there were already some pre-race fireworks when an asshat of a reporter named Paul Killage asked Lance Armstrong a question during a press briefing. This is the same reporter that referred to Lance Armstrong as "a cancer in the peloton". Nice.

Strong (and Just) Punishment - Richard Craig McNew raped and murdered a 90 year old woman. He's been found guilty and is going back to prison for the rest of his disgusting and pathetic life.

What a Beautiful, Sunny Day Up in the Mountains

I will admit that I wasn't super thrilled about the early rise and roll today to get out to the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge 2007 put on by Santa Cruz County Cycling Club. The coffee helped, as did the 40 miles of twisty fun empty roads on my moto! And I got this shot and many more, I'm still working through the mass and should (or maybe might) end up with upwards of 180 keeper shots. Maybe. Maybe not.

First off, I cannot imagine a more beautiful place to grind out 66.4 or 100 miles (depending on which loop you choose to ride). Some of the vistas along 236 above Big Basin National Park are really and truly astonishing.

Second, there were hundreds and hundreds of places to choose from to photograph the riders. The one I chose with the boys the other day ended up not being satisfactory and I changed to another place. I changed from a descent to an ascent out of a corner with good sun and a good turnoff to get my motorcycle well off the road.

The next step, after culling the out of focus deleters and other unmentionable miscues, will be to upload all of the thumbnails to my Backprint.com store for reprint sales. But that will have to wait until tomorrow as I am bushed.

Oh yeah, by the way, my pro photography website is called CarpeVivo Photography. Stop by and take a look if you're looking for prints from today's race.

Off to the Races

It is early, no kids are up, the cat wants out (but she's not allowed out since she just had an abscess) and I'm packing up to head up to the mountains.

The Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge 2007 begins in just about a minute. I'm headed to a spot on 236 near Big Basin National Park to take photographs of the peleton or breakaways or whoever I can.

As much for a training exercise as to take photos of riders in action, we'll see how it goes. Be back in a few hours!