Category: Observation

Pin the Tail

I’ll tell you right up front, this particular blog post is going to cheat you a bit on your viewing pleasure.  Normally I try my best to give a healthy dose of pictures with each of my offerings.  When it comes to birds the goal is to give you a variety of poses or angles that help provide a good perspective of the featured species just in case you happen to live in one of those obnoxiously big cities and think birds just get in the view of the pretty skyscrapers.  Today.. not so much.  To be honest, I cannot recall what the issue was, but there was really only two picture taken of this bird – surprising since this was another NEW bird to check off the list.

The only hope is there are more shots of the Northern Pintail from the second day of shooting – which hasn’t been processed yet.  If I find more while in the digital darkroom for the those I’ll be sure and post them to make up for the sparsity here.  There is a correction for the long term readers of this blog.  Back on June 5th 2010 I suggested one of the bird shots on that post was a Pintail (although skeptical even then – link here).  Clearly it didn’t possess the twin tails of real Pintails as clearly seen in these shots.

This day began in one of those “Small World” experiences.  It was a little cool that day so I was sporting my Illini pullover.  While walking up to the entrance of the Preserve, a man came out and noticed the coat and asked me if I had gone to Illinois.  Always seems surreal to head out thousands of miles from home and then come across someone that lives a few hundred miles from your hometown.  He actually was the individual who alerted us to the presence of the Pintail.  Based on his excitement at the time it appears that was not a common sighting on the ponds.  A quick look at the regions indicates they do Winter there in that region, but since this was August that does seem pretty early.  From an artistic perspective, I find the color palette on these ducks to be gorgeous which is only enhanced by the sleek profile.  In case you are wondering, these two are both males.

How about some interesting facts to complete the post.  First off they are very abundant and therefore have a conservation status of Least Concern – follow up research indicates they are in a large decline so this may actually change in the future (sad).  They also happen to be a very popular game duck due to (and I quote Wikipedia) “speed, agility, and excellent eating qualities”.  Hey, look ad that purdy eyegil burrd leck’s put led in itz ass.  They are classed as dabbling ducks or simply those ducks that feed off the water’s surface instead of diving.  They are primarily plant eating animals with the exception of when the female is nesting.  During that time,  it changes to invertebrates likes insects – wonder if that is similar to us humans which tend to switch to ice cream and pickle juice during our “nesting” period.  Interesting.. another site indicates they are the first ducks to begin their Winter migration.  I think we can personally confirm that now!  And lastly, the ducks organization website indicates that Northern Pintails have a circumpolar breeding pattern.  Know what that means?  … ‘cuz I have no clue hehehe.  Current guess is they only have sex when circling a polar bear.  Trust me, I’m an Eggspert on dem der wingy things.

That’s all folks – my apologies again for the lack of pictures – good news is you could read the whole post without a jump.

Hefner Would Be Proud

Admittedly, when things get tight I go to my ace in the hole.  Lucky for me, I was able to finish processing all the shots from our first day at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve.  If you recall, on our trip to Nevada last year we stopped in to that gem of a preserve.  Per previous posts, this area already provided two blog posts for brand new birds to my collection – specifically, the Green-Winged Teal (link here) and the Greater Roadrunner (link here).   Here’s a little secret.  Those were not the only two new birds this shoot produced!  I was able to add another new check in the bird list with today’s blog entry.

Anyone want to take a guess on what this might be?  Really take a guess – a little validation would help me at this point.  This little bird took me some extra time to eventually come to a consensus on what it was… or actually what I think it is.  To accomplish this I employed my brand new bird reference guide I picked up while out in Yellowstone.  While perusing the various gift shops in the park, The Stokes Field Guide To The Birds of North America caught my eye.  It isn’t often a book on birds shows up I do not already have, much less ever seen.  The key aspect of this particular reference was the ABUNDANCE of pictures.  None of the books on my shelves come close to  having the quantity of actual photographs contained in this book – in particular the fact it has shots of the female, the male, the juvenile and even seasonal and regional differences.  Truly awesome and it was instantly “mine” – didn’t hurt we got a discount being Yellowstone Association members but truth be told I would have gladly paid full price (shhhh don’t tell anyone).  After about 40 minutes of thumbing through the book I decided to go with … drum roll .. a Verdin.  The only concern was the region but a closer look (need a brush up on my state shapes) shows that it does venture into Southern Nevada.  A friend at work (thanks John!) helped me verify the region today so thinking that concern is past me.  As with any bird post at Lifeintrigued – you are more than welcome to debate any identification.  So for now were going with a Verdin.  This bird is especially cool since it doesn’t come anywhere near where I live making the trip that much more fruitful.

According to Stokes, this bird prefers desert scrub along washes and streams.  The desert part was dead on and it was alongside one of their ponds which kinda fits the water reference.  That is about the sum total of info I got out of the book.  Again, that was purchased to help identify the bird, I have our friends over at Wikipedia and an abundance of info on the web to fill the data gap – finding out what the hell it is the real battle.  Another site did mention they like thorny scrub – based on the shot above and the one below, this one was right at home.

Hit the jump to read more about this cool looking bird.

Continue reading Hefner Would Be Proud

Being Bryson

It’s a pictureriffic post today!  Well, definitely in the sense of quantity, but in truth it is a rather hodgepodge collection if I do say so myself.  The topic today happens to be something that I have in common with Bill Bryson – we both like a good Walk in the Woods (link here).  One glaring difference is he had the opportunity to do his walking on the Appalachian Trail were I tend to stay a little closer to home.  Some day I’d like to actually do that legendary trail but there are a number of items ahead of it on the Life List as of now.  Just a quick note on Bill Bryson – he is one of my favorite writers up there with AJ Jacobs.  Something about his dry wit that makes me crack up every time I read or listen to one of his offerings.  He has a very British feel from spending a significant amount of time in that region, but his perspectives of a Midwestern life are dead on.  I recommend starting out with “A Short History of Nearly Everything” (link here) to get a feel for his style and maybe even learn a thing a two along the way.

Back on topic, one of my favorite past times is hiking waterways.  Hiking is a great way to get out and experience the best the outdoors has to offer.  No cars to stress over, forces you to unplug from the electronic media push industry and helps you forget that this administration has (as we’ve come to expect) abused the Patriot Act.  Just you, a good pair of boots, a pair of leather gloves, protective eye wear, a hat, a camera and depending on the time of year maybe some bug repellent.  Now there is one other convenience I do recommend for two reasons – a smart phone.  Obviously, the ability to call in help in an emergency is the major benefit, but the GPS capability is pretty cool for tracking your route and distance.  Case in point, here is the results of my hike back in April.

It is difficult to tell at that zoom level, but that trail directly follows a stream which is a feeder for the Kickapoo Creek.  This is the same stream that runs through my property which I had already mapped on a previous outing.  On this particular hike I wanted to continue it through Jubilee Park.  So, why the fascination with streams and rivers?  It’s quite simple really – first, it is virtually impossible to get lost and secondly, that is where the wildlife hangs out.  My rule is to choose a side of the stream and walk along that side as close as possible to the bank following every switchback and fork that keeps you on the same side of the water.  If you get lost.. simply retrace the stream and it will lead you back to the start as opposed to trying to navigate in open woods which can be a nightmare (trust me, been there).  It also makes it very easy for rescue teams to find your body should something go awry (don’t ever use this as the argument, your significant others tend to get a little nervous).  Now, this rule does need to be broken every once in awhile – such as when a fork eventually takes you way out of the way or when you get caught in between another merging stream.  That is what happened to me at mile 2 above.  Conforming to the rule, the hike took me back on a merging stream until eventually there was a horse crossing I used to get back on the right side of the main stream (if I would have stayed on it it would have taken me back out of the park).

Granted the hike will do your body good, but it’s the sights and sounds that give me the greatest enjoyment.  All the running allows me the freedom to trudge through the thickets, briars and weed for as long as I want allowing me to  explore wide sections of the woods at a time.  You never know what you will find on a given trek no matter how many times you’ve already covered that area in the past.  In a macabre sense you just never know what might have met their demise along the bank.

Truthfully, this is a pretty common scene on my walks.  For one thing it is apparent deer head to the water when something is wrong.  Not sure of the reason, but multiple hunters have informed me that deer they’ve shot tend to run directly toward water.  Most of the deer carcasses I encounter are not felled by human hands and appear to the handy work of coyotes or possibly simply old age.  Now for a little secret.  The spine of deer tend to solidify when they die.  Why mention this?  ummm it happens to play into a little quirk – I like to arrange the bones as a little surprise to fellow hikers.  Specifically, I either place the skulls in the “V”‘s of trees or better yet….

… stand them up along the banks.  This particular valley near the stream was FILLED with deer bones and a few full skeletons.  The full ones were positioned in various arrangements around the value like they’re still alive.  Wish I could videotape anyone who comes upon them hehehe.   Don’t worry, the rest of the shots are from the land of the living.  Hit the jump to check out all the birds found along the hike

Continue reading Being Bryson

Project Sesame Street

It has been a whirlwind the last two weeks, but now I’m pleased to say we finally made it back home.  Linda and I were actually off on vacation to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton areas and caught a number of entertaining places on our drive out there and on the way back.  This is the main reason last month’s posts were a little more burden than usual.  In fact, the last 5 posts for that month were all done on the road (literally) or late nights in hotel rooms.  Luckily I was able to get all the pre-work done on the images and then uploaded before heading out – no trivial matter since the bit into the packing time and prepping for the Chase Race.  All is good now, the kids are back and finally getting some sleep thanks to being through with crappy hotel beds.  The next couple of posts are actually cleanup from last month’s prep work.  Not knowing what mood I’d be in for posting topics, I worked up a few extras.  Tonight’s had a slight time lag since the trip also involved delivering a project to our friends Dr. G and David.  We had the pleasure of meeting up with them on our way out to Yellowstone and were able to spend a few days catching up and checking out all the animals in the park.  (By the way, thanks again for letting us stay over at your house)

Turns out we were able to explore Yellowstone with David and Dr. Giselle a few years back (link here).   To complete a project idea, we gave ourselves a mission – Seek out and photograph naturally (er or in some cases man made) occurrences of the letters W Y S T O L E N. When I chose to accept this mission I didn’t have very high hopes of actually being able to pull it off but this kid is no stranger to a challenge.  It took some effort, but with the help of the team we located every one of those letters somewhere in the park (er.. at least close to it if not in it).  Each was expertly photographed, transferred in triplicate to the storage drives and then … left to wallow in the darkness until there was enough time to kick-start the official project.  That point in time did not make itself available until last December – just before Christmas to be exact.  When possible I like to give Linda creative gifts for special occasions .. something she can’t just go out and buy which directly translates to something handmade.  To be honest, she probably could go out and buy much better versions of the stuff I give her, but part of the gift is really the blood sweat, tears and too often frustration that go into making it.  Good thing I waited until nearly Christmas Eve to working on this project ’cause nothing like putting yourself in a corner to keep you focused.

I’m going to skip ahead a bit on the project since the real meat of any photography project is the matte creation.  So just assume the all the typical effort of pouring through thousands of photographs to find the best letter composition, post processing those, sending them out to get printed in both color and black and white and locating a frame and corresponding matte blank were tediously completed.  with that out of the way, the matte cutter was dragged out along with the tools that would be needed.

We do a LOT of photography framing etc. so we opted to purchase our own matte cutter (on the left of the image).  Based on the prices local framing retailers charge this has more than paid for itself over the years.  After an extended period of time in Jeffery Alans I decided on the choice of mattes – a textured white front with a black backing.  This would give a nice black border on the images with the bevel cuts.  The shot above was taken a little late in the process since you can see the layout had already been drawn out on the backing of the frame I purchased.  Let’s go a little closer on that since this is the loooongest part of the process.

Hit the jump to see how this project turns out

Continue reading Project Sesame Street

No One Bites Back as Hard

No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies

I saved the best for last which is quite fitting since this is the last post of the month and the last in the three part Wolf series. Continuing on with the shoot at Wildlife Prairie Park, this particular entry brings closure on the after treatment study.  If you recall, the first post in this series was the traditional color version with some amped up contrast (link here). The resulting benefit of that is the conversion to Black and White was pretty impressive (link here). In fact at the time it was a definite candidate for this season’s contests. There was still one more effect to experiment with….

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free
No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you

What do you think? Admittedly, I was very very pleased and ranking these series as my best yet. Granted the purists are going to have some hardship with the degree of post processing, but at this point I could care less. Whenever this particular argument comes up (purist vs processing) I always fall back to one simple question – “What is your impression of Ansel Adams’ work?”. I do not think there are many photographers out there that have a bad opinion of his work and some out there (as in Linda) consider the pinnacle of the business. Guess what folks, he did major manipulation in the darkroom – granted before the age of digital, but the concept of dodging and burning was in full use in his workflow. I am no where near the caliber of Ansel and the other greats in the photography world likely post processing their work (perhaps Mr. Lik falls into this category), but what is good enough for them is good enough for me. I tell no lies, I do use Lightroom and Photoshop… and why do I do that… because these are the results.

Hit the jump to read more about the treatment done on this set of pictures.

Continue reading No One Bites Back as Hard

One Fast Cuckoo

Another day, another post!  Guessing the doubters are starting to get a little concerned (hehehe).  I’m not out of the woods completely, but as each post rolls out through the publishing pipeline the stress ratchets down another notch.  The good news in all of this is I was able to get started on another vacation’s worth of shots from last year.  The great news is it looks like the topic hopper will be full for an extended period of time based on activities that has transpired as of late.  Of course, this does have the downside of erasing all the gains made on the already overflowing topic queue.  A very good problem to have when all your peeps have such high expectations.

Speaking of queues, next pop from the stack places us back in Henderson Nevada, home of the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve discussed a couple of posts back (link here).  If you recall, that post introduced a new bird to the blog.  Let’s continue that streak with still another new species.

Most people will recognize this bird thanks to the numerous references over the years.  If you are struggling, imagine it as a highly clever bird painted in blue and yellow.  No help?  How about Beep Beep?  If that didn’t trigger the name, then clearly you did not watch enough cartoons as a kid.  Just in case the suspense is too high, this is a Greater Roadrunner.  That day in Henderson officially marked the first time I’ve ever seen a live one of these and to say I was elated is an understatement.  After shooting the Green-Winged Teal, a blur of brown and white caught my eye dashing across the shoreline of an adjacent pond.  Intrigued,  I immediately headed over there and tried to get a decent shot.  Let it be known that the amazing speed of these birds is confirmed.  It could flat out move making focus tracking nearly impossible.  Left, right, under brush, out of brush, to the water, back to the shore – it never seemed to stop.  To get the shots here required some high shutter speeds combined with just a smidgen of luck.  Tracking brown colored birds against a brown backdrop makes for interesting times with the Beast, but when you get it… you generally get it.

Hit the jump to read more about this runner’s friend

Continue reading One Fast Cuckoo

Concert Recollection – Spring Fling Pipes Fest

Hopefully to no one’s surprised I’m back at it.  Tonight I am going with another recollection.  One of the reasons for that is it is still fresh in my head LITERALLY.  Specifically I am talking about a concert some friends and I attended a few weeks ago sponsored by 105X, the local hard rockish yet still playing Nickelback crap station.  They were holding their annual Spring Fling Concert which typically is a multi-band mashup.  They had a decent lineup this year consisting of two bands I really like (Papa Roach and Sick Puppies), a band I wanted to see (Stone Sour) and two bands that intrigued me enough to consider seeing (In This Moment and All That Remains).  Not a bad night of entertainment and more importantly, the price was right at $42.  Ironically, I’m at a point financially where I can afford concert prices but old enough to not appreciate being gouged by greedy promoters and bands – think Rolling Stones if you need an example.

The first band of the night was All That Remains.  There are no pictures to show you being that my arrival came in the middle of their set and the remaining of their two songs was spent trying to figure out who they were and being very unimpressed.  This could have been due to some distractions having to kick some people out of our seats.  The others were still on their way but since I was already dealing with my seat went ahead and told the squaters in those seats to find another place.  They responded with annoyed faces but honestly was beyond caring – we purposely chose seats so we did not have to deal with the general admission crowd… definitely getting old(er).  There was one noted band observation – they had a female bassist.

Once they were done, the roadies took to the stage and started building an elaborate set.  Out came a bag of skulls, a pikes full of skulls, a platform, a large fan, some dumb looking trellises that looked like wedding props and a few more knickknacks scattered about.  Eventually they uncovered the drum which had a barely readable In This Moment logo.  Ah, time for the screacher!  Based on a few samplings it was apparent they had a front woman that could belt it out.  Turns out she was pretty pleasing to the eyes no small part due to the fact she came out in a one piece number giving proper attention to her assets.  Of course, for some strange reason, she chose to stand in the middle of a dry ice jet stream which made it difficult to see her most of the time.  No stranger to a stripper pole, she gyrated her way through her incredibly long FOUR or FIVE song set accented by her walking off stage after each song and attempting to add some form of dramatic flair to her re-entrance.  Summary – she can indeed belt out some notes and at least one of her songs was halfway decent, but her constant gesturing to have the fog blower fiddled with degraded the overall impression – you are trying to watch the “artist” perform yet constantly having to be distracted by a roadie continually coming on stage to jerk around with the fan to fine tune a gimmick that wasn’t adding any real value.

With those two bands out of the way it was time to get into the part I really paid the money for.  Sick Puppies came out and to my surprise it was only a three person band.  Drummer, guitarist singer and surprise surprise another female bassist.  3 for 3 with women as an integral part of the band (translated.. not simply eye candy as witnessed in the past Crue concerts).  The puppies did not let me down.  They played with a lot of energy, interacted with the crowd and most importantly played all the songs I came to hear.  Kudos to the female bassist pounding away on the strings.  They bring a LOT of bass to their songs which is why she surprised me at first, but looked like she had an interesting claw like style which delivered a lot of power.  Additionally, there is new found appreciation for their singer’s ability to hold his old against the power voices in the industry.  If you have not heard of this band before I highly recommend checking out Long Time Coming – could be my all time favorite bass beat.

Hit the jump to read about the rest of the bands that night.

Continue reading Concert Recollection – Spring Fling Pipes Fest

Hitting Jackpot in Henderson

Having finally made my way through the Indy Zoo photo shoot, I can finally switch my attention to another photo trip that has been lingering out there way too long. Last November Linda and I headed out to our home away from home in the plains of Nevada. As in the previous time we hauled out our camera equipment with the primary intent of heading out into Red Rock. Turns out one of employees that works for Linda had lived out there. When she heard I was into bird photography she highly recommended we popped over to Henderson and make a visit to their Bird Viewing Preserve. Without hesitation this spot was added to the agenda figuring we could drop by on a late morning before packing up and moving out to the Red Rock staging area (translated.. one of our casino “finds” from a previous trip). The day we went was somewhat of an emotional roller coaster. There was high anticipation on the ride out, but as we neared the location (per the GPS) that started to taper quickly. Spoiled from the preserves around us in Illinois, I expected a mini forest – on hind sight there was no basis for that assumption seeing as how we were in a … DESERT. The GPS kept telling us we were headed in the right direction, but all that really stood out was industrial type buildings and a water treatment plant. You would think there would be a large lake or something if they had any hopes of pulling in waterfowl. Linda eventually found a small sign pointing to a road that wrapped back behind the industrial complexes. This brought us to a small building with exactly one other car in the parking lot. The coaster had just bottomed out.

With subdued enthusiasm we got all the gear ready and headed into the building where we were greeted by a gentleman who instructed us to sign in. Additionally we were required to sign a special form indicating we understood the rules and wouldn’t harm anything. Hmmmm – that at seemed a little odd. That form was basically good for one year before you had to fill it out again. This slight annoyance was forgotten soon enough when we discovered that the Preserve was FREE. In this day and age that is becoming rare. With the paperwork out of the way, we headed out back to see what this was all about. Remember that coaster comment? well it took a massive ride up a few minutes later. There were approximately 140 acres (according to their website) dedicated to the facility with a series of ponds carved around a nice walking path. Oh, and they did have some trees. I was floored, not sure my shutter finger ever left the camera for more than 10 minutes as we moved from pond to pond. That place was packed with birds I’ve never seen before and according to someone we met there, a current stopping point for some rare migrating birds. A personal jackpot in the land of excess. As with the Indy posts, these will take some time to get through, but as before I’ll sprinkle in some other topics to keep the non-bird enthusiasts entertained.

Starting out this series is another new entry to the Blog:

That would be the Geen-Winged Teal. From the maps I have (Audubon) it looks like their permanent residence extends down into Nevada, however, preferring the Canada regions during the summer breeding and the bottom half of the states during the Winter months. It does show that it migrates through Illinois but do not think I’ve encountered one to date.

Hit the jump to read more about this sharply colored bird

Continue reading Hitting Jackpot in Henderson

More Power

Apparently the loyal readers are getting restless based on the emails hitting the inbox as of late.  For those that were concerned I have not fallen off the face of the earth and for those expressing a complete loss in faith I’ll miss my quota this month … you may be right, but what is life without a few challenges every once in awhile.  We have a few photo shoots coming up in the not to distant future which translates to devoting more time to getting in flight projects to a point where they can be put on hold.  This is hard enough, but May brings with it a start of a new season.  This month involves donning the orange and hitting the racing circuit!  As in previous years, the first race of the season was the Caterpillar Power Race.  This relatively flat 5K allows me to ease into the season and make sure the off season training regiment properly prepared me.   This year brought with it a little more optimism and conversely a concern standard with the previous 5 or so years.  First of all I opted to keep the road endurance higher than usual, committing to at least one long run a week outside through the winter months.. BUURRRRRR.  The second change was a little more dramatic… here goes.. Hi, my name is Brian and I partook in Performance Enhancement procedures.  Whew, what  a load off.  On the road work side of things, I can attest to how much of a pain that was especially in the sub 20 weather (sub teen windchill) runs but the treadmill just doesn’t prepare you for the stress of the pavement.  Pretty comforting I am already at 1/2 marathon endurance levels this early in the season.  With regards to the enhancing component… well, before you call the governing committees, these were all legit and didn’t involve any forms of illegal substances or transfusions. Truth is I grew tired of always running in beyond normal levels of pain and literally damaging myself during every race.  Runners can be stubborn and hard headed but I could argue that is probably a pro when it comes to running.  It does take some commitment to the discomfort of training and the annoyance of nutrition regiments.  But there is a time when  you have to let your guard down and admit something is wrong.  For me, that moment was during a conversation with my chiro attempting to once again calm down an aggravated left hamstring.  Ever since experiencing a nasty injury in the middle of a Bix and “stubbornly” refusing to fail the race and pounding through it, I’ve been fighting continual tears in that region and worrying about it during every race.  Enough was enough and decided it was time for full on gait analysis.

After questioning a number of fellow runners and talking to my local running store, I decided on Accelerated Performance.  Wanting to make sure this was the right fit, I opted for their free fitness assessment.  This is a 20 minute test of your physical capabilities – balance, stretching, strength etc.  Piece of cake, I consider myself fit and work pretty hard to keep myself in that condition.  Wrong!  it didn’t take long and they had pinpointed deficiencies on my left side…I purposely didn’t say anything about my problems there not wanting to bias the test.  By the end of that assessment I was committed to enrolling.  Next up was a follow up session where they dived deeper into each of the areas they tested previously as well as doing a detailed assessment on the rest of the joint and muscle groups.  Definite issue with the left side and easily recognized the issue with the hamstring.  For one thing there was 3.5 inches of scar tissue embedded right in the middle of it.  Add to that flexibility restrictions and you have the recipe for problems.  From there I was scheduled twice a week for deep therapy message to break up the tissue followed immediately by isolated strength training.  I won’t go into it, but for those who have not have the pleasure of deep therapy message let me sum it up in a sentence.  The entire time I repeatedly tell my inner self not to cry.  I’ve learned to snowboard, broken ribs during martial arts, hell even had my arm ripped out of my socket during a black belt test, but nothing … and I mean nothing compares to the pain I’ve had to endure during this process.  Good news is that scar tissue is practically gone now.  While all this was going on I was also doing gait analysis.  They utilize the Dartfish process involving videotaping you from all angles on a treadmill and then creating an interactive DVD highlighting problem areas.  To my relief, there were plenty of problems.  Sparing you the details, here are the highlight:

  • Not enough forward lean
  • Arms too high
  • Arms swinging too much forward and not enough backwards
  • Arms crossing body
  • Cadence too slow

I was basically braking on every stride with a full on heel strike sending massive jolts into the hamstring and back.  Not good.  For the last four months I’ve been breaking my form down and adopting the new style.  This is not an easy project and immediately highlighted the muscles that were not pulling their fair share of the load (like the ankles).  My weeks have been spent on the road changing behavior, on the table getting brutalized  and in the gym strengthening up.  All of this in an attempt to get better.. and better I did.  On all out days I was able to bring my pace from 8 to 6.30’s however holding that was difficult over 2 or 3 miles.  The cadence (180/min) means your legs are working very hard.  The best news of all is my hamstrings felt great after every run.

Last Saturday it was time to put this all to the test.  The gun went off and I ticked off the internal checklist and got to work.  One mile done .. feeling good.   Two miles done feeling okay.  Third mile and getting winded and the high humidity wasn’t helping.  The clock stopped at 23:06.  A personal best but 6 seconds over my ultimate goal.  No need to feel disappointed, I had just ran the first race faster than ever without injuring myself!  The retooling was complete – a new foundation to build upon.

There was another reason to be happy that day.  Turns out my time was good enough to take second in my age group (by the way, first in my group had a 19 so something to shoot for next year).  This is the first time I’ve ever won anything in a race.  Now, some of the runners had opted out of this race for another being held the next day, but I was there and ran to the best of my abilities and therefore not going to let that put an asterisk on the record books.  A little bummed they gave money prizes instead of trophies (as you get older your perspective changes hehehe).  My loving wife actually made me a little trophy to commemorate the accomplishment.  That little trophy now stands tall next to my other medals.  Yes, I needed a performance enhancement but I wish I’d done it years ago!

See ya’ on the road my friends!

Serenity Survives, Long Live Serenity

It’s day two of groundhog day err agility showing.  More dogs, more jumping and a lot  more sitting around.  None the less, yesterday actually turned out fairly productive with each of our dogs going 4 for 4, made a blog post and even got some photo shoots in at Chain O Lakes and Lake of Geneva.  Regarding the latter, it is now very obvious where the Chicago discretionary money is heading – straight to Wisconsin.  Good lord those houses around that lake are HUGE.  Also had an entertaining conversation with a Spring Grove Dairy Queen employee who thought the green Arctic Rush flavor jar was apple and not lemon lime.  DQ probably owes me a free blizzard for training their staff.

While digging around the Internet for some details for this post I stumbled on this quote.

Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.. anonymous

This seemed a perfect intro to today’s post.  This is actually a pretty popular quote on the net but none of the references attributed it to anyone in particular.  A shame since it is a pretty insightful quote – ESPECIALLY if you own a bridge named Serenity.  Note, I was really looking for relevant quotes from the movie Serenity when the one above came up.  If you recall, Serenity was a project to give access to the back of our lot (link here).  When it was designed consideration was given to how high to make it to account for the seasonal flooding that had occurred in the past.  Since building it, our Springs were pretty tame and as far as recollection serves, the stream stayed in the banks.  That was then.. this is now!

Welcome to the record flood of 2013.  The shot above is actually a few days after the water started to recede.  Still high, still displaying the awesome power associated with unbridled water.  The weather heads were calling for flash flood warnings but based on their accuracy over the last couple of years there was not a lot of concern given.  Well, at least until I headed off to work that morning and saw the massive flooding – Peoria was under attack by the Kracken.  All I could think of is whether Serenity was going to survive or not.  It was engineered for the worst… but maybe not for record amounts of waterfall.

Eventually Linda and I headed down to assess the situation.  Apprehension abounds.  Feelings were not getting any better at the first view of the stream.  What you couldn’t tell from that shot is the missing trees that used to be along the banks (now middle of the water path).  A quick look to the left revealed that my “debris” buffer was GONE.  There was a tangle of trees that was serving as insurance if anything decided to break away upstream.  It had already caught some large branches etc. during the smaller expansions.  That area was now free of all tangles – hell, even the bank had eroded significantly.

One of the trees was found shortly after…

SAVED.  the roots were tangled up in another bank tree which prevented it from harming Serenity.  Hopes were building especially when a hesitant glance downstream revealed she still standing tall.

Hit the jump to see more details of Serenity’s battle

Continue reading Serenity Survives, Long Live Serenity