Took a road trip to Whistler Mountain Bike Park up in British Columbia...!

Finally made it up to Whistler, B.C. for some epic downhill mountain biking (that's my Kona Stinky in the picture above) on Saturday (September 24th) and Sunday (September 25th). Today I'm recovering (did more riding in a single day than a month of riding at Blackrock!)...

Chair lift-access up thousands of feet for singletrack and freeride nirvana is the only way to go! Wish we had this mountain bike park in our backyard (at least closer to home). It's 450 miles from Salem to Whistler. I drove up there Friday night with two other local riders. We left around 3pm and got to Squamish at midnight, then drove the rest of the way Saturday morning... lifts started at 10am and we rode 'til they closed at 4:30pm! Then, we grabbed some carbos at a resturant in Whistler Village (lazagna and spagetti), crashed at deluxe room at a hotel in the village, and did it again the next day!

No major injuries to report (although I "crashed" once or twice and got to know a couple of trees closely). Learned that I enjoy technical downhill singletrack the best.. or, maybe it's just that I suck at getting lots of air on jumps. We did most runs down A-Line which has lots of dirt jumps and burms. But the trip all the way to the top of Blackcombe mountain on the Garbonzo lift and then the ride down No Joke was the most fun... Gnarly roots and rocks, and twisted trails through narrow singletrack threading down through the trees... muscling the bike around... Great time!

We saw Richie Schley (a pro rider) on No Joke. He threw a behind the back no-hander off a short drop. Made it look easy, like it was nothing. Flowed down into the trees with a pack of other riders like wolves gliding into the mist.

Focused just on riding on Saturday, but took time to shoot some pics on Sunday. I put up 44 pictures on In the Zone Photography gallery. There's one of me doing a drop at a practise area, and that's the exact set of drops that inspired the Basic Training area at Blackrock. Got couple of decent shots of Rich and Todd, but didn't take a whole lot of time to shoot pictures (so didn't get lots to choose from)... hope they like 'em.

Enjoy!


Whistler Trip 2005 photos

Look over there, a rabbit hole...

The Rosetta Project - the largest collection of illustrated antique children's books on line... Children's Books Online: Stories, poems, rhymes, chapters and illustrations.

You can either read the books online, or download the entire book to view/read locally.

The illustrations are neat to look at, here's an example of the cover from Alice in Wonderland:


Here's the "super index" of all the books in their online library http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/super-index.htm

They're also interested in volunteers.. both to scan antique books into their collection and also to translate books into other languages...

"The Rosetta Project is committed to having all our works translated into as many languages as possible -- even "dead" languages such as Latin, or "international languages" such as Esperanto or Yiddish."

"If humankind spoke it once, speaks it now, or plans on speaking it in the future, we're interesting in having that language represented in this collection. No Fooling!"

Quote of the moment...

"Sometimes clouds look just like clouds."

Internet fraud, cyber-terrorism... have a nice day!

So, I've grown up with the Internet and now kind of feel like someone who has lived in a friendly neighborhood forever - blind to the druglords and gangs that now rove the streets... "You aren't safe here anymore." is the thought that's sinking in.

The Net has become an unfriendly, unsafe place. Internet fraud and cyber terrorism are real. Perhaps it's nothing new, but it's worse now - only because there's so many people who blindly disregard the dangers (I count myself among them). There's people who have had time to learn how to exploit the technologies involved and organizations which realize the value in infecting the systems from within. Yes, there are the "script kiddies" who think it's cool to write unintelligent hacks with frameworks that make it easy for anyone to unleash a new virus or worm. But at the other end of the spectrum are very real countries, governments, and organizations which have "Cyber Warfare" divisions. The U.S. government even dables - it's part of national security, afterall. It's a different sort of arms race, and most people shrug it off... Because it's not a very tangible threat.

What can you do besides wear a tinfoil hat when you surf?

1. Keep your OS up-to-date and patched with the latest security patches released from your OS vendor.

2. Use Firefox (http://getfirefox.com) as your browser (because Internet Explorer is too easily exploited and is just bloat-code anyway!)

3. Use a virus scanner and keep it's database up-to-date with latest definitions

4. Install and run an Ad-aware and Spyware filter (some of these also work as popup blockers too!) PC Magazine: Antispyware Oh yeah, and some Spyware "removers" are actually spyware themselves (trojan horses - they may remove malware, but they install their own flavor... neat, huh?)

5. If you have broadband connection, use a physical firewall (don't just plug your machine into the network!), and turn your system off when you aren't using it (or have it use power-save mode and make sure it turns off your wireless/network connection when in that mode).

6. Think! Someone else is (thinking)... and they want to a) steal your identity, b) use your machine as a resource to launch denial of service and other attacks anonymously, c) destroy your data (for fun?), d) make you think... (oh, wait...) *shrug*


Have a nice day!

VIDEO: Basic Training one-year later...(Blackrock / Falls City, OR)

Earlier this month, I shot some video at the Basic Training area at Blackrock trails (near Falls City, OR). Was a little rusty shooting video - haven't really done much with it in, oh, can't even remember. Took about an hour to edit the 3 minutes of video I shot. wish I could just take pictures, shoot video, and edit all day long (oh, and build trails and ride!) - that'd be a sweet job...!

The reason I was shooting video is because I wanted to capture the stuff we've got built at Basic Training in one year's time, and the builders enjoying the fruits of their work!

The video is about 4 minutes long (I put in some still shots too). The broadband version is large at 70MB, but worth the download time! The dialup version isn't worth watching - but hey, that's better than nothing.

I posted links to the video in Trail Construction messageboard at the Blackrock Freeride web site.

Music is "Good Times Are Killing Me" by Modest Mouse. Riders are Jameson, Wade, Rich, and one quick shot of me (when Wade and I drop the 5' and new drop at the same time and pass each other at the Step up). There's also a slideshot of pictures I've taken at BT in the past few months.

Enjoy!

Quote of the moment...

"Change your thoughts and you change your world." - Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)

Jumping at Blackrock...

Didn't feel like riding (must be getting burned out or something?), but wanted to go to Blackrock anyway - so I rode my motorcycle out there late Labor Day morning and brought my camera along too. There's always people hanging out at Basic Training on weekends and holidays, so I figured I'd run into riders I knew. After hiking up from trailhead, found the normal crew was working on tweeking the skinny section. Later (by noon), at least 20 people or so had dropped in to check out Basic Training and do some riding.

Above is picture of Phil (he also rode in the Mt Hood downhill race) clearing the entire wooden section of "the Simulator" jump (landing all the way down on the dirt - it's easily 30 foot gap to dirt!). Focus didn't turn out with this one, but I liked the composition of the shot - so used Photoshop to turn it into an "oil painting" (if you look at large version it's easier to see that effect).

Hike to top of Table Rock...

It's sort of a Labor Day weekend tradition that we hike at Table Rock. This year we made it all the way to the top - about a 5 hour hike (round trip)! It's over 4,500 feet. You can see way across the Willamette Valley to the Coastal Range, and you can see the major peaks - Mt. Hood, Mt. Bachelor, etc. even up to Mt. Saint Helens in Washington. On a really clear day, they say you can see Mt. Shasta all the way down in California from up here - but I dunno - it's rarely clear enough to even glimpse Saint Helens.

We took the dogs with us, and they enjoyed the hike as much as we did. The weather was perfect - not too hot, and not windy at the top.

Took a bunch of pictures. Posted to a Table Rock family album. Contact me if you need the password.

More trip photos - Augusta - Johnson's cabin...

Put more photos from our trip to Montana back in July up. See "Augusta - Johnson's cabin" for 40 pics (you'll be prompted for password - since this is family folder).

Played around with apeture and shutter speed at Double Falls (to make the water "flow") and also of pictures of everyone around the campfire (to make the flames "flow").


Took a hike with Wendy and her dad up to "the meadows" and got some hike photos (notice the yellow spider on the yellow petal of flower - hint: it's on the upper one, click for larger image). Saw an antelope on the drive out, and there's a picture of that too. Oh yeah, and fun with cutting down trees (I KNEW that tree wasn't going to hit my truck...)

Sure was a fun time back in Montana! Glad we've got these pictures to remind us of the trip.

Pictures from West Rosebud camping trip (from July)...

Finally dumped and edited the photos taken while camping at West Rosebud with parents back in Montana in July. Above is panoramic of West Rosebud lake (the one above Emerald Lake). There's 59 pictures in that gallery. It's private for family only. Contact me if you need the password.

Had a lot of fun driving my dad's ATV up from the campground to the upper lake. And, there was a nice boulder near the camp that needed to be dropped off of (freeride)... Wish we had had more time to camp longer - just never enough time to squeeze everything into a week!

Click here for the West Rosebud photos (you'll be prompted for password if your browser hasn't cached the password from before)!

Enjoy!