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

Operation M O Y

No time to lose, some time freed up so back on the posts.  Tonight’s topic brings yet another project.  Unlike most of my projects, this one had a short execution time.  Not by choice mind you, this was a direct result of losing track of the time.  You would think with the relatively low amount of sleep these days I would be on top of things a little better but alas, not the case.  To give myself a little credit I had been thinking about it for a couple of months trying to figure out the right medium to use for the build.  Options included wood, plexiglass, patio bricks, drywall (trust me, I have PLENTY of that laying around these days), but all of those had an extended prep time.  Time that was not in the budget.  Then the shower moment hit me – matting would be perfect and provide an additional compositional element to the project.   With that big decision over, all I needed to do was get the shampoo out of the hair and get to work… well later that day after work while Linda was at the dog club.  That was actually another factor in the delay – she needed to be gone for awhile and I needed access to her boys.

The best part of this is I already had the materials.  With all the photography projects over the years we have a good stock of mattes.  A quick rifle through the pile found the perfect sheet.  Linda was suppose to be gone for about 1.5 hrs which forced some design decisions on its own.  I needed some letters I could freehand cut on the board.  10 minutes on Paint Shop Pro found a smooth cornered font that would do the trick.  A few prints and the patterns were ready.  For ease I just cut the letters out and traced them on the the back of the matte.  With my favorite knife in hand I spent the next 20 minutes slicing through the matte.

There was also a need to have the letters stand on their own.  A lunch brainstorming session came to the conclusion that electrical wiring would do the trick.. and yes, there just happens to be plenty of that laying around the house as well.  The window of opportunity was slipping away, so a quick cut of the wire and some duct tape would have to do.

Hit the jump to see where this is all going

Continue reading Operation M O Y

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

Aftertreatment Sweetness

Here I sit at another dog show trying to figure out how to pass the abundance of downtime that comes with these agility events.  Working in my favor, for a change, is I still need to get some posts in to close out the month.  Knowing the show was coming up gave some security that as long as the post processing was done on the images and the upload to the Smugmug gallery went without a hitch only thing left to do was find time to spew out some words – maybe even in readable sentences!  Processing done – check, upload successful – check – some free time … crap loads.

Keeping with the theme of all the barking dogs crated around me, today’s post returns us to the ancestry of the domestic dog.  Not sure if it was mentioned in the previous Wolf post (link here), but that post was really a three parter. A trifecta if you will since that specific shot resulted in three very distinct post processing opportunities.  The previous shot was the standard color treatment, but likely unnoticed by you, there were some subtle differences in the final processing of those.  Specifically the contrast was amped a little more than usual to darken the background.  This provided better separation between the wolf and the foliage in the background.  Although it does make a slightly better image in terms of color, where it really makes an impact is when you convert it to …

Welcome to my new favorite set of photographs.  Although there were a few sample tests during the color processing I wasn’t entirely sure how it was going to turn out.  Admittedly a very biased opinion, but I really really like them.  My favorite shots are the one above and below (and one a little further down) – can’t decide between these two which I like more for sure, but leaning to the first one due to the more symmetrical ears.. at the cost of the wolf staring directly at the viewer in the one below.  Hit the comments section and give me your thoughts.. which as always are valuable input into the upcoming competition season – Linda’s already beginning to worry but the Yellowstone trip is coming up and that is a rich environment for her preferred subjects.  Some photobombing may be in order hehehehe.

Hit the link to see more of these B&W wolf shots!

Continue reading Aftertreatment Sweetness

Two Soles to Support the Soul of Boston

A week ago yesterday two cretins from Chechnya decided carry out the message of hatred and violence spewing out from the mouths of insecure people cowering behind the cloak of a perverted ideology. What was the target of these bold and tough warriors of a faith… the innocent and defenseless bystanders at the Boston Marathon who took the extra effort to go out and cheer on participants of the most revered events in the running world. I can only hope there is a special place in the afterlife reserved for the dark of heart. A place that will provide rightful punishment for a pair of cowards that took pleasure in placing and detonating a bomb next to an 8 year old. I personally extend my sympathies To all whose lives were cut short or forever altered by the actions of these terrorists. By definition terrorists derive pleasure by instilling fear in the minds of others. I imagine they achieve satisfaction by the mere thought of someone opting out of a once pleasurable event due to uncertainty and concern for danger. Needless to say this could be the case for millions of running enthusiast around the world. Is someone else going to trying something similar at another race? Do I want to put myself at risk and stand with fellow runners in the starting chutes? Will I be concentrating on picking suspicious people out along the race route instead of watching my splits? Will I be able to feel the pride of conquering a difficult race or too paralyzed at what might happen at the finish line?

The answer to these questions is quite simply: HELL NO!

Terrorists tried to take my sport from me but last night my fellow runners and I TOOK IT BACK!

Our local specialty running store – Running Central – in Peoria Heights put out the call to show  our support and unity for our colleagues and the victims and families of Boston. In their honor running stores across the country were holding fund raisers and fun-runs. Running Central was offering tribute shirts with 100% of donations being forwarded to One Fund Boston, the charity endorsed by the Boston Athletic Association (and the mayor of Boston) to aid bombing victims.

The word went out to their running clientele, Facebook and local news agencies that the shirts would be available for purchase starting at 5:00pm with a fun run beginning at 5:30. Without question I was going to be there and hoped my fellow runners would be doing the same. Immediately after work Linda and I headed down there arriving just before the 5:00 hour. What I saw made me very proud to be a member of the running community.

The community had responded with a generous outpouring of support!  All types had taken up the call, casual runners, distance runners, speed runners, beginners to veterans, young to old were there to show their support for Boston.  By the time we made it to the area the line had nearly wrapped all the way around the courtyard.  I saw the owner of the store surveying the situation and noticed he headed back into the store to pull out a couple more tables.  Once placed he grabbed the microphone and greeted all the supporters thanking us for taking the time to honor the victims of Boston.  He then said something that caught me by surprise – actually disappointed me at first.  An apology came for not having ordered enough shirts – only 160 of them to be exact.  My disappointment wasn’t that I might not get a shirt (far from it), but rather his initial assumption of a low turnout.  Hopefully the turnout that night will forever change that for future events.

Hit the jump to read more about this special event!

Continue reading Two Soles to Support the Soul of Boston

What Big Eyes You Have

Based on the recent feedback from the Wildlife Prairie Park shoot, it appears that Badgers are not that appealing to my readers.  In addition, what I thought was simply a collection of cute and cuddly goslings conjure up images of horror that have been unsuccessfully suppressed.  Well, there is only one thing left to do and that is to bring out the big boys.  I am actually torn between deciding what was more exciting that day at the park.  The rare sighting of the Badger was definitely a highlight, but the time we spent at the Wolf exhibit is tough to beat.  Compared to all the times we have been to WPP and all the times we have experienced other captive Wolves, nothing stacks up against the awesome setting one of the Wolves chose to pass away the day.

This is one of those shots I could stare at all day.  Truth be told, I’ll get that chance since almost all of the shots in this set were sent out for prints based on the results out of the digital darkroom.  It was pretty sunny out that day and the Wolves were pretty lethargic having had their big meal for the week.  For those new to the Park, they tend to feed them on Sundays – guessing that consists of deer roadkill and other raw meat based on the bones the Wolves  keep a very protective watch over.  The Wolf above decided to help us out a bit and walked over to the tree line out of the harsh light.

Pure gold from a photographer’s perspective.  The observation platform sits above the enclosure giving us a means to shoot through the foliage.   The specific spot it picked to take a rest filtered out the harsh light but left enough ambient light to easily pull out the fur details.  Further benefiting the shoot, it remained alert providing a variety of facial expressions and head position.  After awhile, I became to question exactly who was watching who.

Be sure and hit the jump to see even more shots of the WPP Wolves

Continue reading What Big Eyes You Have

Goslings Lounging

Looks like our wonderful 67 degree weather day is going to transition to rain pretty soon.  Good thing I got my run in earlier.  if you recall, I’m in the midst of a Project Austin and today marked the first time on the road since three visits to Accelerated Performance.  Today was all about working on the list of things I need to change in my running form (and that list is long).  The good news is the tweaks resulted in very little pain in the hamstring – definitely a plus since that area usually flairs up during every run.  Maybe those torture deep tissue messages are going to pay off or it is simply terrified that if it makes its presence known it will get the hell gouged out of it again.  With the good news is a little bit of bad news.  Apparently these changes are engaging a different set of muscles that have been neglected due to the injury compensating.  At about mile 4 started feeling the effects and ended up backing down to only 5.5 miles today.  This wasn’t meant to be a quick journey so not concerned yet – real test will be next week to see how quick those neglected muscles are going to take before they kick in.  For now it’s just all about the rest.

Speaking of resting, that is the theme of today’s post.  Apparently my last post scared some of our readers (okay, some being ONE but she has some power over me).  Who wouldn’t want to curl up next to a badger? all fluffy for comfort and you know, NO ONE will mess with you if you are sleeping next to a BADGER (especially a Honey Badger because those are just bad-ass).  Instead I get a plea for a more pleasant looking animals.  Sigh, figured I get kudos for bringing something new and intriguing but instead I get a fear response – not unlike when your lovely wife finds a mouse in the car.  Fortunately, the badger wasn’t the only wildlife we captured that day.  Rifling through the shoot I decided on something more cute and plushy but added some contrast to it by taking it in an icky setting.

This isn’t the first time we’ve featured Canada Goose goslings here at LifeIntrigued (link here) but this is probably the nastiest setting I’ve bothered taking them in.  We had just arrived at the park and was caught off guard by the crowd of visitors.  Generally there is not problem parking in the close lots, but that day we were parked way out on a back road.  On our trek to the entrance these goslings caught my eye – yes, I did say goslingS!

Hit the jump to read more about these cuties

Continue reading Goslings Lounging

What Big Claws You Have

It’s April and that can only mean one thing.  That’s right, the post counter has been reset.  Figured tonight was a good night to start seeing as how I’d rather be sitting for an hour rather than working on a project.  This is due to having started my 50th round of rehab on the body.  This time I finally broke down and opted for the complete overhaul of my running mechanics combined with professional recovery and rebuilding of the body.  The constant injuries was definitely a catalyst for this decision – figured if I’m ever going to get in any condition to potentially tackle a marathon I better make sure the foundation is correctly built.  What I wasn’t expecting is how hard this was going to be.  After my gait assessment this week I have a LOT of changes to make.  Words of wisdom for you runners out there, when you manage to damage yourself pretty good.. take time off to get it fixed.  Apparently my body decided it would start compensating for its stupid owner which is likely the root of the problem.  Coupled with that is some serious torture they cleverly disguise by calling it message therapy.  Let me tell you, what it really means is warming up your leg with ultrasound (which actually feels good) and then digging the hell out of your leg to break up a 3.5″ band of scar tissue imbedded in your hamstring – god please don’t let me cry in public!  I got to thinking about this torture and immediately thought of the perfect post to compliment it.

Let us all welcome a new animal to the blog.  Just in case you prefer to hang out in the urban jungle, this here is a Badger.  While I was looking for the set of pictures that was supposed to be April’s theme, I discovered a shoot at Wildlife Prairie Park taken back in May ’12.  Somehow this had slipped through the crack on my post processing.  As the Yang and the Um goes, the bad of being unable to locate the original post has allowed for the discovery of an entirely new set for your pleasure.  The other set has been found, but we’ll get to those after a few posts from our favorite local wildlife sanctuary.

We have been visiting Wildlife Prairie Park since the day we both arrived in Peoria (when we were just two wide eyed kids out on a secret date).   From those initial visits up to this one I can’t remember a single time that this Badger ever showed itself.  The Badger enclosure is somewhat off on its own and has a few clay drainage pipes situated throughout giving it ample places to hide.   Based on the number of holes this boar (or sow) had dug it must spend sometime in the open.  To say I was surprised to see both of their Badgers out and about is an understatement.  Immediately the shutter was in full snap.

Hit the jump to read more about this interesting creature!

Continue reading What Big Claws You Have

Spring is in the Air

I still need to process the pictures for the next round of blog posts so figured I’d take the easy path to the quota this month.  Been pretty exhausted from work lately and it’s going to get EXTREMELY busy in about a week so this extended weekend is all about getting some things out of the way and hopefully some sleep.  Thanks to a mouse this week my slumber was cut short .. but more on that in a future post.  Today is all about celebrating the arrival of Spring.  What’s the best way to do that?  How about some of these:

How’s that for getting rid of the Winter blahs?  These flowers all came from the Indianapolis Zoo/Botanical Gardens trip we took back in 2011.  While processing the statues for the previous two posts I found these sprinkled in.  Linda is usually the flower girl but since she keeps trampling into my bird shoots figured it was fair play.  I’m not sure I mentioned it or not, but my digital darkroom received an upgrade over the holidays.  Although I was becoming quite efficient at Lightroom 3, we decided to go ahead and upgrade to version 4.  It seems those people over at Adobe decided to make some changes that impacted my standard workflow.  Since these shots had a nice range of color and contrast, figured they’d be a good place to start re-learning.

To Adobe’s credit, they did carry over the old interface elements for those items imported into a Lightroom 3 created albums.  Not a big fan of paying for things I don’t use so immediately chose to convert those images to the new format and the experimenting began.  One thing that is immediately apparent is the improved ability to pull detail out of the shadows and recover it from the highlights.

There definitely needs to be soak time with the new controls.  Kelby has been educating me nightly on how to get the most out of Lightroom 4 (the book of the month.. okay maybe more like two or three).  Nothing too earth shattering, but did explain the white balance eye dropper which has been baffling me ever since I started with version 3.  His chapter on how to add meta tags on load was also a big help.

Hit the jump to continue ushering in Spring

Continue reading Spring is in the Air