16-JUL-2009
Day 197 - New Tire
Yes, another "New Tire" photo. I have been waiting on this little nugget (the new Conti Trail Attack on the right) to arrive this week for installation either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday morning. I also have a new set of All Balls front wheel bearings and a complete set of brake pads for the front brakes. To top it off, I am going to balance it with dynabeads instead of lead weights. Looking at this photo, the old tire on the left doesn't look that bad, but it has worn a little past the wear bars in most places. I ride in rain and need that tread. I can't wait to try out the Conti's the tread pattern is so different. For the next 3k miles or so I will have a mismatched set with the Conti Trail Attack up front and my replacement Trailwing on the rear. I plan to replace the rear with a Conti Trail Attack when the time comes, most likely next month or so.
14-JUL-2009
Day 195 - The camera you carry
We never made it to the golf course. Instead, we went downtown with some people we had a meeting with. It was the first business engagement that I've had for quite a while. One of the other guys was a techie like me and had an iPhone 3G, we were comparing iPhone apps and showing off capabilities. While walking to dinner, I snapped this photo with my iPhone of North Church in Portsmouth. It was a good thing I did too, since I just got back home and really don't feel like taking any kind of PaD photo at this point. I added negative clarity (subtracted?) and did a slight straightening job, and boosted the exposure. I didn't take a whole hell of a long time to setup for this shot, I stopped for about a second to take this. I liked the clouds we had this evening, I kind of wish I had my DSLR with me...
13-JUL-2009
Day 194 - Call me hardcore
Yet another one of those "Odd things on a bike" kind of shots. I am going golfing tomorrow evening after two season "break" from "After work golf". I'm not willing to drive in, so I was testing out the concept of strapping the golf bag to the bike. It works fine. It doesn't extend much further over my tiny Givi E21 side cases (the black box with the scuffs all over it). The weird thing on top of the seat is a cheap bead thing I picked up at WalMart as a test for fixing the seat comfort level. While it seems more comfortable, I am sliding all around in my riding pants. The jury is still out on that thing.
12-JUL-2009
Day 193 - Dinner Ride
Well, it was more than a Dinner Ride. We left for the University of New Hampshire (My Wife & I) to find the Hall that our oldest will be going to for the next two weeks. She is in an upper class Writer's Academy. They had a class for new High School Freshmen, but her teacher put in a good recommendation and got her into the upper class program. I will be dropping her off in the mornings on the bike and my wife will be picking her up. After finding the building, we had to ride around for my wife to get her bearings, then I took a semi-extended way home. I stopped by Strafford Farms, it's the first time we've eaten at the take out in about 6 years. The weather was perfect, it was in the evening and it had started to cool down nicely. OK, I lied, I'm the one who ate, my wife claimed she wasn't hungry, didn't order anything, then picked at my food. It is kind of a "wife thing".
11-JUL-2009
Day 192 - Lunch
My oldest & I took to the open road today and visited the University of Maine at Farmington campus. It was nothing official, no tours. We simply went up there and had a look around the place. She will be a High School Freshman in the fall, it's not too early to start thinking about this. The trip was fun, it was her longest on a motorcycle (300 miles) and was enough to tell me that I need a new seat. While walking around the campus, she realized they didn't have a football field which means they probably don't have a marching band program, something she is very in to. This KFC/Taco Bell was a couple of miles away from the main campus, it made for a good lunch.
10-JUL-2009
Day 191 - Bags Ready
Tomorrow my oldest & I are heading out on an all day motorcycle ride. The main goal is to hit the University of Maine, Farmington campus. We aren't getting an official tour, we are simply going to walk around the campus and check it out, have a lunch, etc. It is also the first weekend with no rain and no baseball or cub scout commitment for the past 6 or so weeks. It will be the longest ride for me this season and the longest ride for her ever. Tomorrow I find out if I need to junk my stock bike seat and go with a Day Long Saddle.
09-JUL-2009
Day 190 - Looking up
Just a simple shot of the maple tree that is overhanging our deck. This is technically a tri-tone, I set the highlight & shadow tone hues to the same settings to get this effect. This is exactly what I was thinking when I shot it, it took a little persuasion during Post Processing to get it right.
08-JUL-2009
Day 189 - Up close
Another day of getting home with no PaD taken. According to the weather report, we have something like 3 or possibly 4 days of sun coming up!
07-JUL-2009
Day 188 - Turning
It is just barely July, there's been about 4 days of sun in the past 6 weeks and we already have leaves turning on our birch trees in our front yard. This happens each year though, normally because of insect damage, there's been no insects this year though, they must not like the rain. Another day of coming home with no PaD taken yet. It was raining so hard in the morning that I decided to leave the camera gear at home, good thing too as I don't have a ton of storage on the bike and I wound up hitting the grocery store on the way into work. I turned up the ISO again to get a grainy shot. I certainly got my wish.
06-JUL-2009
Day 187 - Free Squirrel
I was fretting over the fact that I'd left work so late and hadn't had time to shoot today's PaD. Here I was thinking there'd be slim pickings at home. That is, until I arrived at home and saw this nugget resting in front of our house (on the street). I made two different signs and made two different trips to the road to get the shot "just right". I was amazed at the fact that there was zero cars coming by during any of my shoots.
05-JUL-2009
Day 186 - Uninspired SP
Time is ticking away, it was a long ride home (we stopped at an RV dealer to look at RVs, they didn't have anything we liked). I just got caught up with my Flickr & pBase galleries and I'm feeling uninspired so this is a simple SP with the Tokina at ISO 3200 on a 40D (yeah, it's not 5D MkII low noise 3200).