Triathlon Time

So Jamie and I are doing the St. George Triathlon May 10th, just over a week away, and we are nervous and excited. We did our first sprint triathlon at Camp Pendleton last year and had fun so we decided to do a longer distance one this year. This involves a lot of training compared to last time when I made it to the pool once and ran a little and called it good. This time is much different, mile long swims and 35 mile bike rides to train. Friends from here are competing along with a brother from Utah, two other brothers are coming to hang out and cheer us on, it should be tons of fun.


Things I've learned from training for this triathlon:
1. My wife is competitive and it feels like I'm already racing her each time we swim.
2. I've learned to swim, that is a huge accomplishment on my part, not well but I've learned.
3. Padding sewn into bike shorts can never be too thick.
4. Bike shorts cost way too much.
5. Bike shorts are way too ugly.
5. Bike maintenance is very important. I learned the hard way from a tire blow out and a few rolls on asphalt at 20 mph. I should have taken pictures of the damage.

6. A thin layer of polyester is no match for asphalt.
7. Amazing how you worry about how many people see you crash versus worrying about bodily harm.
8. Water drains from my nose for hours after swimming, is that normal? (thats more of an observation)
9. Pizza is never a good meal before a long swim.
10. New shoes feel so much newer if your old ones were nearing their third birthday.
11. Guzzling propel during a long ride always makes me want to puke.
12. You can buy a carbon fiber seat post for $130....?!?! $130 for 12 inches of PIPE!
13. Polarized sunglasses are nice.
14. The farther your mouth is opened while riding, the further the bugs make it down your throat.

At least this time I'll be on a real bike (pictured above) my favorite christmas present from my in-laws. This is a ride coming back from my Laguna Beach route. PCH has some great views for biking. I hope training at sea level doesn't kill us.

For better or for worse.

In the past week I've been told that I look like the following three gentleman, I'd like to take that as a compliment-just because they are famous, but my ego was quickly trimmed down to size when a family friend and his wife told me I looked like the third guy and immediately Jamie started laughing. So do you know who they are? Name all three to win.

What I've been up to this week!

I've been in at my sister's house visiting since Tuesday and I'm loving it! We've shopped a ton, eaten PLENTY, played rock band, went shooting (it's the Midwest), watched movies and basically just have hung out everyday. I'm here until Thursday and I'll be sad when the time comes for me to leave (although it will be nice to be back in warmer weather). Above are two of my favorite pictures (bummer the top one isn't in focus tho). I'll post more pictures of my trip when I get home.

Do Not Feed The Animals

A Collage of recently snapped animals. Wish I could get a shot of the owl outside my window at night, or the roadrunners I see around here on occasion.

Canon Photo Stitch is a cinch.

I've taken multiple panoramic shots before and stitched them manually in photoshop, sometimes its easy, other times it is a long process. I finally decided to get out my Canon Photo Stitch software and give it a try. As you can see the results of 7 photos I took while at the top of the St. Louis arch turned out pretty good. I still did some color matching afterwards in photoshop, but it was much faster than me doing it manually. (I couldn't get a correct curve on in the sky doing it manually) If you look close "I" can find imperfections cause I know where to look, but overall its something I will be using again.

Which one is more white trash?

My sister has finally sent the super nasty shots of my beard. Vote for the worst. I got a hair cut that day and went shopping in Rocklin with the mustache on the right, it was awesome to see how people looked at me. I looked like a fool.





Here is another shot my sister took of us while I looked like a mountain man. It could be a wedding announcement photo, even though that was three years ago. These are the only shots, other than our wedding, that we could say were taken by someone that knew what they were doing, I guess that statement is debatable for our wedding photographer though.

My NPs!

Meet Joey, Tracy, (me), Christina, Debbie and Amy. We've been friends since high school. Now 4 of us are married, two engaged, and one has a beautiful lil girl. We still have just as much fun together now as we did back in high school. Last Saturday we had a girl's night and it was a great night! Thanks Tracy for getting us all together. (We missed you Britt and Camille...next time!). Since I moved away to Utah for college, I missed seeing these girls often and its so nice to come back home and have everyone (except sadly Joey) live within a few hours of each other. Hopefully when we are 60 we will all still be getting together for girl's nights.

Easter Weekend in Central CA

Here are some shots we took with our new camera while in Cayucos, CA this weekend. My grandparents have a house up there and so we went up with my parents and sister Julianne; my grandparents meet us up there as well. It was a fun weekend! On Friday we drove up the coast to Big Sur. It was the most scenic drive I've ever been on. We stopped at a few old, small towns. We hiked through the redwoods and also walked along many semi-secluded beaches. Saturday we explored San Luis Obispo and other neighboring towns and beaches. I went running on the beach every morning (which is hard to do down here because the beaches aren't as flat and the sand isn't as hard) and also biked along the coast. There are such great bike routes all over up there. I can't wait to go again. Too bag its a 5 hour drive (with no traffic) or I'd be up there more often.

Nikon D80

It arrived! Our new camera came yesterday and I couldn't be happier. We've been talking about getting a nice digital SLR for over a year now and I can't believe we actually took the plunge. I wish I could stay home all day today and play around with it. There's so much to learn. I have a 35mm SLR camera and I love having so much control over how the picture turns out. Too bad film cameras are almost extinct. This weekend we are going to Cayucos and I was hoping that it would come before we left. The only problem is Andrew is just as excited as I am about our new purchase so it's going to be hard to share. Look forward to some awesome shots from our trip (hopefully)!

Oh and Jen...when I come out I want to take some fun shots of Kambria. Hope you don't mind me using her as my model all week.

Universal Studios

Thanks to Jessica Price, Andrew and I went to Universal Studios for free on Saturday! We had a lot of fun, thanks Jess! I hadn't been there since I was little and Andrew had never been so it was fun to finally go check it out. It was a perfect day, as we never waited longer than 10 minutes for a ride/attraction. The best part of the day was when we auditioned to be on the park's version of fear factor. About 15-20 people showed up to the casting call that was held in the park and they picked 6 of us to be in the show (the show was just for the park, not filmed for tv). Andrew's friend was in the audience and took pictures, so I'll elaborate more when she sends those pictures our way. All I can say is there was a variety of stunts, a nasty smoothie, a shocking machine and a good football style tackle (where I was the one tackled). In the end, Andrew was the "champion" and couldn't be happier that he can now say he beat me at something! It was a great day!