The Inaugural Terry McGinnis Crit, Holladay City

We do some odd S%$* here in Utah.   For example, The Fourth of July can never, ever fall on a Sunday.  In case it does, most of the State the which proclaims  “Life elevated” as it’s motto, holds the fourth on the third.  Sometimes it’s on the Fifth.  Anyway, yesterday, July 3 2010, the City of Holladay (yes we spell things in unique ways too.. of course it was some dudes name) put together a small bike race as part of their Fourth of July Celebration.  A great three straight course with two 90º corners and a 180º sweeper made for good times as the men (why there was no women’s class is a mystery to be solved later) did 60 minutes and 3 laps.  The race honored long time Utah cycling advocate and the driving force behind the Tour Of Utah, Terry McGinnis.  Terry passed last year shortly after the completion of the 3rd running of the Tour Of Utah, after a long battle with cancer.

Billy Demong... Looking like a bike racer

Saturdays race brought out 70 of the top Utah racers in categories 1-3.  Cameron Hoffman (Bikers Edge/Destination Homes) took the win, after spending some time off the front in a short lived (aren’t they all?) break with Nordic Combined Medalist Billy Demong (Cole Sport Racing).

The boys from Coles, lacking a field sprinter, contented themselves with scarfing up nearly all of the lap prems. In all a pleasent afternoon in the 801, with a light breeze, moderate temperatures, good roads and a well supported race for the 3 of July Celebration.

Chase Pinkham (Trek Livestrong) on the point

Additional images on the new Fred Marx.

Why I Prefer Film.

This one or that one…..

Image has a nasty pink tint from the filter I used. Note to self replace the filter. The filter needed to go from upper right to horizon left. Note to self check twice on things like that so as to avoid blown highlight. Placement of the horizon is debatable. I wanted the feel of empty so I tried to empasize that with sky and foreground. Maybe too much of both.Horizon is tilted slightly to place the let higher than the right.  I could go either way with it.  Everything is leading to the left, so the tilted Horizon doesn’t cause me that much grief.  I like the dark cast to the image.  The light falls off hard to the right and is probably recoverable with additional post process.  Note to self keep working on post as much as you hate it.  Better placement of the ND Filter would have helped that too.  In addition, a higher POV would have placed the reflected clouds further on to the water.  Note to self double check your framing.

Better. Too blue for my liking. More post. Changed crop to de-emphasize the sky and took a bit of the foreground and the blown highlight at left. Played with color balance and recovered some of the EV on the right. Image is better balanced now. Helps that the left isn’t over bright as well since it no longer dominated the eye.

What say you?

Graveyard……

Bzzt Bzzt Bzzt…. wha? it’s 10 o’clock?   ALREADY?  &%$#.  Five minutes later the cell phone plays a merry little jingle.  OK now it’s time to get out of bed.  It’s OhDark pm, and time for a Snowcat operator to start the day.  S&%$, shower, shave, pull on some clothes, and out to the truck.  Oh goody, the thermometer says it’s only 32º, just cold enough to freeze.  This could be fun, or not.

1130pm clock in,  eat something, dish out a ration of &^%@ to the poor guy who opened hos mouth at the wrong time.  We’re fun that way.  He does this nearly every night.  1245, out of the yard……  For the next 4 hours it’s up the hill, down the hill.  Push snow up the hill, put pretty parallel lines on it.  Random chatter on the two way, tunes rockin’ the cab.

4 am… NAPTIME!  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…. 5am, Cell phone plays its happy tune and we’re off again.  Why you ask?  ‘Cause it’s a fine way to be first on the hill.  ‘Cause you get to see some interesting stuff in the dark hours.  Maybe because you have a predisposition to play with sandbox toys and these are the coolest of the lot.  The real reason?  You get to see this at about 6 am every morning…..

Yeah I get paid for this……

More images at Pbase

Buried: Avalanche Search and Rescue Dog Training

Today I was buried, alive, in snow.  Why you ask?  To get this image. This is an avalanche search and rescue dog from the Sundance Ski Area in Utah.  If you’ve never seen one work, it’s really interesting.  A mixture of work and play.  Dogs start early, with a favorite toy.  The toy becomes central to the dogs life.  Beginning with simple tug of war, then moving on to hide and seek.   Eventually hide and seek involves a person hiding with the toy.  After enough repetitions with the toy, the dog moves on to simply finding the person.  Working strictly by scent, under the direction of a dog handler, who is frequently the dogs owner,  the dog is able to cover large areas of disturbed snow pack in quest of a victim.  Finding the victim results in reward.  A well trained, experienced dog can locate a victim in a chaotic mess of scents and decoys very quickly.  This one had me located and uncovered in approximately 15 minutes.  Deer Valley Resort Hosted approximately 30 dogs of varying ages and skill levels in an all day series of burial and recovery exercises meant to test the abilities of both dog and handler.

additional images at Pbase