Atlanta Skatepark

This weekend I took Mary's nephews Adam and Sean to the Atlanta Skatepark. It is a neat place, mostly easy transitions. Their website is here.

It was a fun place, but today I am VERY sore. Right about the time I started to warm up I tried to stick a 50-50 on this little wood mini-ramp and I hit the flat hard. My new little Canon camera was in my pocket and it now has a big dent and a bent corner, but it still works fine. Adam got whacked in the hand real hard and needed some ice, and then he fell on his front side and got the wind knocked out of him but we all had a good time anyhow.

The photos are all low resolution because they are screen grabs from video clips. I had the video resolution set low because the frame rate is higher that way and it uses less memory.

That's me in the background, grinding in the cool little mini bowl. 

Adam rolling in from the back platform. 

This is Sean, rolling in from the back platform. 

Trip to Columbus, Ohio

This past weekend we traveled to Columbus, Ohio for Mary's grandmother's 90th birthday and a family gathering.

Slow shutter+flash on one of those moving walkways in the Cincinati airport where we had to change planes.  

Ileya has a little sister in Columbus, this is Indie. They are from the same parents but have much different facial features, Ileya's has a more pronounced snout and larger lips.  

Sharing a toast with Mary's brothers. 

This is Mary's neice Ashley and nephew Nathan in the hot tub, blurry slow shutter effects with the new Canon.  

This Mary's brother James, niece Lauren and Mary in the hot tub at the hotel. 

This is me, carrying Mary's niece Lauren through the pool. 

Canon Moves In

This is my new personal tool for recording my life. So far I am thrilled with it, it really blows away the old Nikon Coolpix. A review can be read here. Below are some of the first photos taken with it.

Big Gurl sits, but only for a second.

This is a forced portrait as you can probably tell. Ileya was not really into it but I got her to sit for a minute.

This is Ileya and I leaving Keisal Park. Mary had to work so we walked and played for almost 3 hours. It was very hot. 

Margaritas!

I can still do my toast shots, and I just figured out that the Canon has 2 different modes for it. This is at Laredo's on Saturday night.

This is an orchid growing on Mary's porch. The new camera does a great job with macro shots. 

Le Tour de` Auburn

Sunday I rode around Auvburn and rural Tuskegee. It was a total of 45 miles, and it turned out not only to be very hilly, but the mid-day sun really took a toll as well. This was early in the ride heading out Moore's Mill Rd. and away from Auburn.

Stopped to rest by this sign on hwy 80 and munch a power bar. 

This a field off Wire Road that I rode past Sunday. During the Springtime in Alabama these feilds of wildflowers bloom all over. There are places where I can ride through on my bicycle and it seems endless in all directions, they move with the breeze like waves. The photo doesn't even start to do it justice, it's a beautiful place. 

A horse that lives behind Mary's backyard.  

Fuschia blooming on my porch. 

The value of old stuff!

It seems that BMX bikes from the late 1970s and early 80s have become very collectable. After discovering this I gathered all my old parts (the race bike will never leave me) and I sold them on Ebay. The stem pictured above is a Pro-Neck Pro model. I bought both the stem and the vinyl snap-pad when I was in the 7th grade. I bought them along with a set of alloy V-bars; they transformed my old Mongoose BMX bike into the real-deal. I still remember my Mom driving to the bike shop to get them. I don't recall the amount I spent that day, but I am going to assume around $30. The bars shattered into pieces years ago. The stem and pad netted $80 on Ebay last week. Had they been in mint condition it would have been hundreds. These guys are building up BMX bikes as collectables that they don't even ride! My friends who were into BMX during the early 80s may remember chrome Hutch Zap Pads. A few weeks ago a set that was new and in the bag sold for $1100! Anyhow, none of my stuff was new but it did pretty darn good.
Anyhow, I will always keep my old bike, but I'd rather see the spare parts in the hands of someone that will use them than in a box in my storage closet. I sold an old Hutch frame & fork set, my old mountain frame and several old BMX parts. The net total was enough to buy this little freestyle bike I fell in love with last year at Chain-Reaction bicycles and have some leftover. So I traded in a bunch of very used old greasy parts for a 2005 model SE Quadangle, for some reason that seems almost too good to be true. Of course my motherboard, vacuum cleaner and digital camera all died the same week, but this was my most successful and exciting Ebay venture to date.

R.I.P.

My Nikon Coolpix point and shoot camera died this week. This camera really meant a lot to me, I hate to see it go. I bought it 3 years ago and carried everywhere. I originally bought it to take in my jersey pocket on bike rides, so I spent just enough money to get something that I could capture decent images with, but not so much that I would be upset the day it smashed into the pavement. Once I started using it I decided I was on a mission to wear it out. I let friends walk around with it at bars and parties, I took photos while going 30 mph on the bike, holding the camera out at arms length, and it was there for all kinds of events and activities. I spend all my time using photos to document other people’s lives; this was the tool to document mine. Most of the photos on this blog were taken with it. It had this great setting called “Indoor Party Mode” where it used a long shutter and fired a series of test flash, then a final flash at the end of the exposure. I used that for my “toast” shots, and great fun times like this. Just going to work without her in my pocket I feel awkward. A replacement is on its way, I will have to do something about that this afternoon. The new camera will be just as inexpensive, I wouldn’t want a pricey thing for my pocket-camera and being new will probably have better quality also, but the Coolpix will be missed.
It should be noted that the camera pictured is not actually mine, it is from the Nikon web site. Mine is much more used looking than that!

This was taken following our bike ride around Auburn Sunday. We left from Mary's driveway and rode down Wire road to Auburn Industrial Park, then by Chewacla Park, then Wright's Mill to Ogletree to Moore's Mill and back to Wire Road. Total distance was 28.5 miles, and it was an absolutely beautiful day. The temperature was nice, not too hot and not too cool and even though there was a little wind it was gentle.  

Old Friends!

I am posting this one for my old friends Daniel and Bill, who are shown below dropping in on Daniel's old ramp. That was around the summer/fall of 1985. Daniel now works with children with disabilities in Asheville North Caralina and Bill (aka Noodles) is serving in the Army in Ft. Benning Ga. I have kept up with Daniel over the years, but just spoke on the phone last night. I have just recently got back in touch with Bill after almost 20 years.



Gotta put myself on this post too, it's a photo from the same roll of film and might even have been the same night. I am doing a kick-turn in a drainage ditch we called "The Rock".