Minnesota Photography

Recently a friend directed me to opencultures website.  This site provides links to over 700 free college classes, many of which are offered by leading schools in the US.  Having a little bit of free time these days I decided to brush up on my photography skills, as I had been getting board with the pictures from my camera.  After perusing the Strobist blog, and decided to skip ahead to the part of the class on lighting. I have an external flash, and recently purchased two Pocket Wizards but hadn't had time to learn how to use them.  My initial pictures would occasionally turn out half obscured.

While previewing the test pictures of my harry feet, I realized I was looking at an image of the delay between my flash and the camera's shutter. The flash was going off just a fraction of a second after the camera had released the shutter to close.  Being a physicist, I quickly realized I could calculate, to a close approximation, the delay time on my Pocket Wizards.  I was shooting in ISO 200, f7.1 and just had to adjust the shutter speed till only a small fraction of the picture was opaqued.  At 1/320 my picture was about 1/3 opaqued, meaning the flash was going off just as the shutter was closing.  As one of my favorite former professors would have said; 'between friends', lets call this the exact moment the shutter went off.  Meaning that my flash was about .003 seconds behind my camera.  

I quickly understood the basics of the remotes and flash and decided to practice on a more interesting subject, my little brother. 

It was a lot of fun shooting my little bro while he did backflips and other acrobatics.  He is shockingly comfortable upside-down while air-born, and quite good at striking some interesting poses.  After a couple of shots (170!) I decided to have a little fun with tracers.  

We took 4 headlamps and put them on his hands and feet.  I set the camera for a longer exposure, and delayed the flash.  The result was some really interesting pictures of Christian with the light trails highlighting his motion.  I plan on experimenting a little more with this, but am glad I got some neat shots while learning to use my new photography techniques and toys.

Desert Rumpus

Once upon a time, the liberating mobility of jorts outweighed the practicality of long leg pants. I give you, the birth of proper climbing attire courtesy of Drew Thayer, truly a dedicated geologist and rock climbing master:

A Bucket Ride Home

Some Saturday in 2012: Upon waking up, the first thing I noticed was the throbbing sensation coming from my right foot, accompanied by the sort of heaviness usually associated with large footwear. Peeling back my double down comforter, I discovered that I had slept with a single shoe on, and it was covered by the bunched trousers that I had failed to remove from around the shoe. I was still wearing an undershirt and there were mysterious purple marks around the left armpit. Further gathering my bearings, I groped at the floor next to my bead where my water bottle typically resided. Instead of the corrugated plastic lid, my fingers fund a spongy and wet carpet. As I rolled to account for the full mess I had created the evening before, my brain retaliates by reverberating each heartbeat like a gong in a linnen closet.

Considering the slurry of alcohol and sugar that preceded this mid morning awakening, I was surprised the room was only slightly rotating. I struggles to get the shoe off, and dawned more comforting clothes. Attending to the spill, I discovered the remains of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich adhered neatly to my spare pillow; each half perfectly affixed with a small ring of the spread adhesive protruding from around the half eaten crust. Abandoning the mess, I reassemble what was left of my midnight snack and head down the hall to my kitchen toward the distinct smell of burning food.

To my surprise, on the counter is an open recipe book, and a round pie dish filled with what appears to be a casserole. The oven is still set to 350 and is giving off a pleasant warm glow in comparison to my chilly apartment. Under further inspection, recipe book is open to a page reading "Mushroom Lasagna," and the dish on the counter is actually quite close in appearance to my book's picture, with the substitution of a round pie pan, and a rather unique plopped layering method.

Between my half eaten sandwich and the lasagna, I opt for the sandwich and head for the living room to locate my belongings. My phone alerts me that it is both buried somewhere in a soft object, and receiving a phone call. Eventually, I bring up records from the night before, and confirm that I had in fact called nearly everyone on my favorites list, created 10 minutes of voice recordings, taken a dozen or so pictures, tweeted, and posted obnoxiously on Facebook. All I needed to see however, was the first picture to confirm that my shabby state was entirely worth the ride I had apparently snagged home. The last picture on my phone was taken from the bucket of a utility truck traveling down a four lane street. From the voice recording, I gathered that my drunken alter ego (Drunk Noah) had been unable to get a cab, and performed a "hop on" at a stop light. He then went on to remind me that the lasagna should be eaten cautiously as cream cheese was substituted for ricotta, and there was perhaps too much salt.

While I hadn't forgotten these facts, I consider myself fortunate to have such a considerate drunken alter ego, leaving me messages and snacks for the inevitable morning. Now if only he would have set the coffee maker, and remembered to put his six cupcakes in a bag before stuffing them in my jacket pockets.

Sorry Danica Patrick but I've moved on

I'm calling up Shimano and telling them that I wanted my soul back. I took my new Gary Fisher bike out today and was absolutely amazed. The response of the new SRAM XO shifters is amazing, the metallic click that comes with each shift is great too, I feel like I am working with a highly crafted, engineered piece of equipment. This bike is my first SRAM group-set, first Gary Fisher, and first 29er and I know now that I was previously living in a narrow band of life. I am running Avid Elixir CR and while this particular component doesn't seem to outperform the old Shimano brakes, it could just be the adjustments that I need to make to get the feel I prefer. At around 300 grams I can't complain too much, but I just feel that they don't have the slamming stopping power that my XTRs had. At the end of my ride, once I regained the mositure in my mouth from the drool inducing Captain Jacks, I remembered how lucky I was to have great friends to help me out getting on a bike like this, a huge Thanks Matt for the new wheels!!

At Least There are none in my Hands!

The second half of my christmas break I traveled down to Mexico to enjoy some climbing time. The adventures started when the whole gang piled into my brothers prius and headed for the border. Packed into my brothers tiny little car, Tim, Nathan, Nathan 2, my brother and my self began the drive at 11 P.M. It wasn't untill 1 in the morning that we finally made the boarder. Expecting a thorough inspection, we were surprised, to say the least, by the guard who merely waved us through.
Entering a foreign country without showing your passport, or being questioned in any way seemed, in reflection, a little funny...
Any way, we got in on new years eve day, tired we joined the hoards of people cragging, with most routes heavily lined we found some respite at the wave wall. Tired from the drive there was little motivation for climbing hard. The highlight of the morning was waking up below the front wall and the amazing thousand-foot tall limestone cliffs. Despite only 3 hours of sleep on a popped thermarest we were all still very excited. That night rumors of various parties floated around the camp until one officially opened up near the park entrance. We summoned our last energy to go up and ring in the new year. We watched drunks stumble through the bonfire until we counted the last 10 seconds down. Then a unamimous vote to get some sleep sent us to our sleeping bags.
The next day my brother and i climbled light so that we could get on the famous Time Wave Zero route without fighting through crowds. Zach's feet were soar from the tight climbing shoes so he climbed most of the route in approach shoes that he bought in the 8th grade. He is 25 now so the only thing his shoes should be approaching is becoming soil. It was chilly and we climbed in down jackets, alternating a second layer to the belayer as we linked through pitches. On the 18th pitch the sun rose. we watched the sun's heat chase away the few clouds that had settled into the valley, and the amazing landscape appear from the darkness. It was nice finaly climbing in the light. The darkness had its advantages though too, I found the fact that I couldn't see my last clip as a confidence boost to run it out so i didn't face serious rope drag problems with full 70m pitches. At one point i skipped a bolt and then didn't clip the rope into the draw I hung on the next one (climbing durring your brains usual REM cycle does strange things) and then skipped another one, accidentally running out most of what a normal pitch would be.
The final pitch and only 5.12 on the route was true to grade and exciting for me, but proved epic for my brother. I linked the route with the easy 5.8 above it. Having around 60 meters of rope out between myself and my brother at the crux, basically destroyed any posibility of taking because of rope stretch. After 22 pitches, a pitch of 5.12 is hard, being forced to climb it clean is even harder, on the third go after yelling at me for some time, he finally stuck the moves and climbed up. I had been sitting on the ridge with my head in wind and was oblivious to the battle below. Reaching the top we ate our success chocolate bar and prepared for 23 pitches of rappel.
The next day I was soar and decided to rest. I hiked up to the Moleskey wall to be a belay slave for the day. In my flip flops, I was scrambling over a small rise, and about 8 feet off the ground i reached for a rock and high-stepped over a cactus.
The next thing I knew I was hurtling backwards through the air. My hand hold had sprung loose!
It happened pretty fast so i don't know the specifics of my arial acrobatics, but my landing was truely memorable.
Convientaly There was an enormous prickly pear cactus tree behind me! My brother described it as the size of full grown man, with ten long cactus arms.
From his account, I summersaulted in the air as I fell, and upon impact I beat the thing to smithereens! Where it once stood, there was nothing more then a stump. Stunned from the impact I sat below the slain beast, securely stapled with cactus needles to my clothes, gear, and two cactus sections, one for each butt cheek. Resembling a mangy porcupine, I exclaimed profanities to my brother. Remarkably,
half way through my statement I sild a few feet further down the hill on my cactus sled into a much shittier situation... literally. I had managed to fall over a short ledge, annihilated a cactus, ride bits of said cactus down a another slope and now as icing on the cake had landed in a pile of human shit!
Resuming my complaining from before, all I could think to say was that at least there were no needles in my hands! Laughing hysterically, he failed to reply with much more then what one hears from a dreaming dog. It had been quite some time since had taken a breath, he was laughing so hard that his face was turning colors.
I sat there unable to move because there were needles protruding from the majority of my surface area, where i was missing the unwelcomed acupuncture, there was poop speared, and one of my sandals was missing (the cactus beast had stolen it).
After finally helping me up, and picking enough needles from me that i could walk, hobble, and sulk back to camp. Picking needles from my scalp i enjoyed a ballena of beer and finished the most grueling rest day I have ever had.