Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico

This sign sits in the park or town square in Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico. My friend and I decided to take a walking tour around the shops and sights while she was visiting on July 15, ... She had never been but I have been going now and then ever since I was born. Although it has been about seven years or so since I was last there with my two aunts on one of their trips to Albuquerque. http://www.albuquerqueoldtown.com/ The town of Albuquerque was founded in 1706. The church of San Felipe de Neri Church sits on one side of the square and the other three sides are full of shops, and cafes, as well as one old, large, and famous restaurant named La Placita. When visiting you need to remember that Old Town now is mostly for the tourist trade and prices may be higher here than in other, more modern, parts of Albuquerque. There are lots of gift shops, jewelry stores, and artist shops and galleries. Some shops have the cheaper tourist trade gift items but lots of unique, and very high quality items can be found in other shops.
http://www.virtualalbuquerque.com/VirtualABQ/OldTownPlaza/ This website has lots of photos, history information, and tourist information about Old Town.
I have posted a lot of the photos and some brief descriptions of the day that we toured Old Town. I have tried to put them in a semblance of an order of the way we walked and so that it would make since to those readers that have never been there. Hope you find it interesting and that maybe if you are ever in Albuquerque you will find time for a visit to one of my favorite places in my home state.

Night Wishes

I am really having a lot of fun with my Canon 5D Mark II. This camera is allowing me to capture images that I never thought were possible. It certainly is a wonderful camera for night photography! The waterfall seen here is Partridge Falls on the Pigeon River in northeast Minnesota. This river is the border between the U.S. and Canada in this part of the state. My friend Roger was up for the weekend and when Roger visits we usually try to do a session of night photography. The concept portrayed in this image was actually Roger's idea. I was in between shooting images when all of a sudden Roger walked out in front of me and stood near the base of the falls, using his flashlight to paint light up, down, left and right across the falls. After I saw his image I knew I had to try one of my own. I have always wanted to try shooting Partridge Falls with the stars above it but with the cameras I used to have the results, while interesting to view at web size, would have been too noisy for printing. The Canon 5D Mark II changes that. I have already had a print of one of these images made, and it is stunning!



(Above: I used my Petzl Tikka headlamp to "paint" light onto the falls during the 30 second exposure.)

(Below: In this image, in addition to my Petzl headlamp, I was also holding my flashlight in my right hand. My intent was to try to look like I was holding a lightsaber, making me look like a Jedi from a Star Wars movie. The effect sort of worked, except my lightsaber is really long!)



After shooting at Partridge Falls, Roger and I then headed down to the Spirit Tree to do some more star shooting, this time with longer exposures to produce some star trail images. In this first image below, I was looking for a unique angle on the tree and was lucky to have both the North Star and the Milky Way in this image behind the tree. Overall, this night was one of the most fun times that I've ever had with a camera!

Failure to Yield and Crosswalk Design

In Somerville, MA we have this community path for bicyclists and pedestrians that stretches all the way to the neighbouring town of Arlington, grazing Cambridge along the way. The path is great, except that it is frequently interrupted by busy roads and the crossings can be challenging. We had this one particular interruption, where cyclists had to make a complicated series of turns and negotiate a major intersection in order to get from one stretch of the path to another.Then sometime last year, construction began at that intersection. Rumor had it they were making a crosswalk that would cut through the series of islands - a straight line connecting the disjointed stretches of community path. That is exactly what they did, and the new intersection was unveiled a couple of months ago.






It's hard to capture the whole thing in photographs; it is vast and consists of 4 separate crosswalk segments. But the pictures above each show a chunk that should give you an idea of how it's designed. In 3 of the 4 segments there are traffic lights with clear red and green signals. And there is another small segment not visible here where there is just a crosswalk without a traffic light. In theory the design is great, because it creates a direct line of travel connecting the community path, without forcing cyclists to make an elaborate detour. In practice however, there is one big problem: Drivers don't yield. Some drivers make right turns on a red light at full speed without even checking whether anyone is in the crosswalk, others make U-turns on a red light, and others still simply run the red light altogether. In some instances the drivers obviously see me, but proceed anyway, forcing me to stop abruptly in the middle of the intersection or to speed up if I am already in their line of travel.






Roughly half the time I go through this intersection, something like this happens - to the point where I absolutely do not trust it anymore. It's a shame that all this work was done, and drivers' failure to yield ruins it. It is also frightening that the crosswalks look so nice and friendly, while in reality it is quite dangerous. I cannot really think of a solution, but it's clear that something needs to change in the local drivers' mentalities in order for attempts to create decent, convenient infrastructure to be truly successful. The infrastructure itself is not always enough.

In Bloom

So it's mid August, the sun has been shining and the remaining snow has been melting fast. This means that it is the time of year for blooming wildflowers! The subalpine meadows around Mount Rainier are home to many types of wildflowers, most of which are in the midst of flowering and adding beautiful colors to the landscape.

If any of you have been up climbing or hiking I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. The Paradise Meadows have been ablaze with Broadleaf Lupine, Cascade Aster, and Pasqueflower Seedhead just to name a few. Paradise isn't the only place to see fields of red and purple though. The subalpine ecosystem that is home to these flowers surrounds Rainier and is usually found between the 4,500' and 7,000' elevations. This being said climbers are sure to notice hardy plants and flowers growing in the rocky areas of Rainier at all elevations. Look around and you will surely be amazed when you see a hummingbird feeding on a flower as you approach 10,000' on Steamboat Prow or Muir Rocks!
These are some pretty hard core plants that survive year after year while spending eight or nine months buried beneath snow and ice. The best way to keep these guys around for future climbers to see is by not stepping on them, so on your way up to high camp please be sure to set a good example for the rest of the parks visitors (yes they are watching!) by staying on the trails, and not walking all over the fragile meadows.
The photos on this post were taken by Steven Redman one of our Interpretive Rangers here at Paradise. Interps work in the visitor centers throughout the park and are a great resource if you are looking for non-climbing related information. They have the most current beta on everything from flowers and animals to park geology and history. They are always amped to help you out with all the questions climbing rangers can't answer!
One thing climbing rangers can say with authority is that climbing on the mountain is still great. Check out new updates on the Kautz and DC. Don't forget about Little T (with a side trip up K Spire!) along with the Tatoosh peaks as climbing destinations.

It is true...I've made fun of YOU!

If you have worn a helmet rock climbing or a visor/face mask on ice I have likely made fun of you, at least silently, in my past.

I know, poor potty training. But it comes from honest hard labor and not getting killed..... yet.
While I almost never (never?) wear a helmet cragging on decent rock I always wear a helmet on ice or in a winter/alpine environment or on the typical limestone choss.

It is not my suggestion that you skip wearing a helmet or use me as a poster child as to when to or not to wear a helmet. Make up your own mind when you think you need a helmet and "live...or not" with that decision.

Helmets have gotten so light...the newest ones from BD and Petzl are down to ounces...literally half of my last helmet's weight.

But this isn't about helmets. The discussion is actually about face shields while climbing ice. I have to admit having more scars on my face than I care to. All of them from ice cuts. One in particular, a 1980 dinner plate on Carlsberg, knocked me out cold and cut my lip through to the gum line. Unpleasant all that to finally make Banff and getting sew up. I am not sure a face shield would have stopped the injury or brain fade but it might have helped. Either way not an experience I want to repeat.

Old habits die hard so no mask or visor for me. Well not until last season anyway. Two years ago I was finishing up the right hand side of Weeping Wall when for the first time ever, I popped a small piece of ice directly into my eye and it REALLY hurt! And I do mean REALLY hurt. I couldn't see and it hurt bad enough I couldn't climb for a few minutes. My eye was pouring tears. And it was later sore for several days. No fun on lead.


My partner that day was wearing a Petzl helmet and shield which I thought rather goofy at the time.....but not so much now. He wasn't goofy mind you, just his choice in gear was goofy from my inexperienced perspective. My first piece of damning evidence is the zebra striped bike tape he used to wrap his Nomics. '70s California hippy obviously. The fact that he has climbed a whole lot more ice that me..over a longer period time..and was still climbing harder...(the bastard!).... kept me from giving him shit about his obvious "goofiness". But I really wanted too. Right up till I poked myself in the eye!

That was my last trip for the season up north. I started looking for one of those fancy shields to add to my helmet on the drive home. "How about sliding me a pro deal on one of them fancy helmets with a visor, Jack?" "Nada."

Took me a few months and I still have a helmet without a shield but now one with as well. I pick and choose which helmet I want to use as the shield is fragile and a PIA to stuff along with the attached helmet into a pack. But I almost never go on water ice now without a shield/visor. So much for the old school label. Now I am one of the goofy ones. But I get to laugh at myself......every time all that nasty stuff bounces off my visor with every swing as I smile and "style" my way upward!

But if you show up with a wired frame football mask or looking like Freddy Krugger I'm still gonna laugh at you. Call it poor potty training.

Rose Crème Brûlée

Rose Crème Brûlée, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

After seeing a recipe for rose-flavored crème brûlée on Dessert First's blog, I decided to try the recipe with my French friend.

It ended up turning out wonderful. The vanilla cream was marked by the floral, spicy flavor of roses. Delicious.

Finally Paint

This is the brown paint we put on 3 sides of the house or should I say Lee painted it. I didn't do much to help. It is a bit darker than I had figured it would be but still looks so much better than the old dirty gray that it had been.

Reading and Riding

When I started cycling I never dreamed of getting into bicycle-themed literature. In fact, I intentionally avoided it. I guess I wanted to think of myself as "normal," didn't want to get obsessed, you know?.. Just a person who rides bikes, and nota person who is so defined by them that even her reading list is bike-themed.Fast forward several years, and my coffee table is littered with books and magazines about... you guessed it, cycling. My laptop has browser windows open to cycling-themed reading material. I'm a goner for sure. And you know what's worse? For some reason, most of the stuff I like is roadie themed. Let me explain: There is some truly excellent writing in this genre. Not just writing that seems good because I am into bikes. But writing that is so genuinely compelling in its own right, that it has gotten me interested in topics I had otherwise been indifferent to. Here is a sampling of my favourites, by category:



Book: The Rider by Tim Krabbé. I posted a sort-of review of it last winter and it remains my favourite. It is ultimately a novel about human introspection. That just happens to also be about bicycle racing. By the end, you may not be able to separate the two.



Writer: Limiting myself to just one, I would have to sayGraeme Fife. "I'm not greatly interested in results, frankly but the metaphysics and aesthetics of cycle racing excite me enormously," this man once said in an interview.



Magazine: I started readingRouleurbecause it was available at the Ride Studio Cafe libraryand I was looking for something to leaf through with my coffee. After a couple of issues I was hooked. The articles have an unexpectedly brooding, almost dark tone to them that lured me right in. I had no idea what I was reading about half the time, but it was gorgeous, so I kept reading until it gradully began to make more sense. That's how they got me.



Blog: Red Kite Prayer. This is a roadie blog that I really have no business reading. But the entries are so thoughtful and well written that I keep checking in and finding common threads, sometimes even patches of common ground.



Blog Entry: Favourite cycling blog post of all time is a masterpiece by a girl named Beth Newell. Now, this is a girl who went from riding her first roadbike to turning track national champion in just a few years, all the while documenting it hilariously. But my favourite post of hers has little to do with cycling, and focuses instead on a student exchange trip to Hungary. So, if you're having a dull night, do yourself a favour: Pour a nice glass of wine, click here, then search for the phrase "perhaps the most traumatic story about my calves dates back age twenty" and start reading from there. You will not regret it.

My Plan to Prepare for Disaster

After writing the post Are You Prepared? I'm Not a couple of weeks ago, I've decided to take my own advice and have begun devising a plan to tackle some of those issues. But something else came up this morning that added to the mix. Apple's post Uncertain Future brings up some things that I hadn't really thought about. So, what happens to all this stuff in the future, after I'm gone or incapable of living on my own? Wouldn't it be disastrous if it were all destroyed or lost? Looks like another plan needs to be made, or at the least, added to my list.

I'm posting this list for all to see so that perhaps it will give me some incentive. Time spent on these tasks will, obviously, take away time that might otherwise been spent on research or other more "fun" things, but these are things that really require some attention! With that said, I've identified what I think needs to be done, though I may have forgotten a thing or two. Now I have to prioritize these tasks and start working on them!

1. Inventory Household. Take pictures of stuff. Give a copy to someone else to keep in a safe place.

2. Go through all of the boxes (about 30) in the garage. Dispose of what I don't want (sell, give away or trash, if necessary). Inventory items in each box that is kept.

3. Investigate the various services available for scanning photographs. Do they scan the pictures themselves or send them elsewhere? What is the turnaround time, cost, etc. The Genealogy Insider had a post on Batch Photo Scanning Services in October that I've used as the starting point for my investigation. I have negatives for nearly all of the pictures I've taken, so the negatives could be scanned or printed if the pictures were lost in this process. It would be costly, but not disastrous if something were to happen to these prints.

4. Scan Mom's pictures that are in magnetic album pages. Put those pictures into new archival albums. These don't have negatives so they won't be sent out for scanning.

5. Review and reorganize genealogy files (20+ years worth). They look organized, yes? But appearances can be deceiving. I need to put all information for my ancestors into their own file. Currently my files are organized by record type by location. When entered into Legacy a file number is given to each item so it can quickly be retrieved for reference. However, if something should happen to me, no one else would know which documents are specific to which families. Thus, these files need to be reorganized. I also need to confirm that the data has been entered into Legacy.



6. Scan the documents pertaining specifically to ancestors.

7. Finish scanning the old family photographs that I got from Dad (way back in 1992).

8. Create a CD or DVD to distribute the digital picture and document files to my brothers and cousins and anyone else interested in them.

9. Reorganize the files on my computer so that if something happened to me the "important" files would be easier to access, i.e. not buried in several layers of folders. Similar to my paper files, the organization of my digital files make sense to me but could be confusing to others.

10. Post my genealogy databases online. The Bray-Wiseman data is on WorldConnect but none of my other family data is available in an online database. The databases require some clean-up before they can be posted.

11. Be more conscientious about backing up the data on my computer.

12. Try to come up with an answer to the question: "What happens to all this stuff in the future, after I'm gone or incapable of living on my own?"

Spectator Sport

"So I hear you are into cyclocross," said Martina from Clever Cycles as we chatted on the second day of Interbike. I responded with genuine amazement. "Me, into cyclocross? What makes you say that?" And then I remembered that I'd spent the previous evening live-posting a continuous stream of blurry snapshots from Cross Vegas - "the biggest cyclocross race in America." I gave up two other industry events to attend this thing. I guess it did seem like I was pretty into it! But as I was quick to explain, I am only interested in watching, not racing. In fact, of all the forms of cycling out there, cyclocross is the one I am least likely to actually take part in (it combines every aspect of cycling I am terrible at!). Moreover, I had never before been able to tolerate - let alone enjoy - watching sports of any kind. So what makes cyclocross so appealing?






As it happens, Molly Hurford has just written a book that seeks to answer that very question. It's called Mud, Snow, and Cyclocross: How Cross Took Over US Cycling. Having borrowed a copy from the Ride Studio Cafe library, I finished it just days before Interbike. Aside from providing historical context, Hurford's book helped me make sense of my own feelings toward this bizarre sport. As race promoters all over the country have discovered, cyclocross is in many ways the perfect spectator event. And so I thought it might be interesting to describe it from the point of view of someone who is purely a spectator - and a fairly clueless one at that.






To do this, I will backtrack to last year's Interbike, where it all started. I had zero interest in attending Cross Vegas, but tagged along with Chris Kostman, who insisted I should at least stop by ("Come on, you can't go to Interbike and not see this!"). We drove to a giant field on the outskirts of town filled with tipsy people and flooded with electric light. In the distance I could see a colourful blur of bicyclists making their way through an elaborate obstacle course. As the sounds of cowbells and screams filled my ears, I remember wondering: "What am I doing here?" Five minutes later I was leaning over a barrier, ringing a cowbell and having a shockingly great time. And that's pretty much your typical "my first time watching 'cross" story. No one intends to like it, but inevitably they do.






This year we arrived to the spectacle of Elvis performing on stage before the start of the elite races.






Visitors wandered around purchasing water, beer and cowbells.






Cyclists rode around the grass warming up. Bicycles were being adjusted.






Before the crowds became too dense, I got the chance to survey the empty course. Winding around the grassy field, it did not look too technical, though there were lots of tight turns and a couple of short steep hills.





And, of course, these. I still remember how stunned I was when I first saw the riders hop right over them without breaking stride. How is this possible?







And then the race began. First the women's elite race; the mens would be next. Watching the hoard of riders charge cross the start line, the excitement of it all came back to me. I got goosebumps.





The thing is that at a cyclocross race, you can stand so close that you feel the energy of the riders wash over you like a wave.





And this wave is not some abstract poetic concept. It is very real, visceral. Even if you know nothing about race tactics and don't follow the background stories of any of the riders - just standing there and feeling so much human power and speed happening inches from your own body is a physical rush.





Watching track racing is more abstract in comparison, because the riders are further away. And with road racing you can only witness a small portion of the course at a time. But with cyclocross, all is laid out right in front of you in close proximity. The course winds around the spectators; it intertwines with them. There is a feeling that everything is happening everywhere, all at once.





Pressed against the barrier, I can see the riders' flushed faces, gritted teeth, twitching fingers, razor-burned legs. The physicality and rawness of it are overwhelming.





And then there are the technical parts that differentiate cyclocross from other forms of cycling. The obstacles, the vertical uphills, the dismounts and remounts, the bouts of running with the bike. No matter how graceful the rider, there is an intimate awkwardness to these struggles that makes us feel as if we are witnessing something private that perhaps we are not supposed to be witnessing.






Equally intriguing, is when a group of riders is so synchronised in their movements, that the dismounts and remounts appear to be done in choreographed unison - like a staged ballet.





And of course there are things like this - at which point it is the crowd's chorus of gasps that seems choreographed.






Watching first the women's, then the men's race, I noticed differences. The men stuck in larger, tighter clusters while the women were more strung out after the first lap. There were also difference in demeanor and body language - too subtle to describe, but nonetheless there. Watching the two races were separate experiences.






As the lead group of riders made its way through the course, spectators would rush to position themselves in different spots. This too was interesting to watch.






Through the elbows of others, I could see the anticipatory face of each rider as they crossed the finish line.






What struck me was how much they seemed to be savouring the moment, rather than rushing through it. There was a performative, theatrical element to it.






Photographers were everywhere, capturing the action with impressive lenses and flash units. John Watson's Cross Vegas photos on Prolly is Not Probably are especially worth a look.






While my low-light snapshots are far from professional quality, they do reflect my experience of the event as a spectator: dark and chaotic, punctuated with bursts of light and blurs of colour.






I am not sure whether any of this really explains what makes watching cyclocross fun. It is an evasive quality, but ultimately it is about entertainment - genuine entertainment. You don't even have to like sports or racing to enjoy it - though you might surprise yourself by developing a taste for beer and cowbells.






Accessible and awe-inspiring in equal measure, cyclocross strikes the perfect balance between a country fair, a bicycle race, and an alcohol-fueled block party. While the circus of Cross Vegas examplifies this more than typical races, it truly is the ultimate spectator sport.

Large White Gourd Vase

Making a Bicycle Your Own

When getting a bicycle, whether new or vintage, it can be nice to personalise it - to make alterations here and there, so that the bike feels distinctly "ours". I am often asked for advice regarding various aspects of this process, from budget, to component choices, to colour coordination. And while these things are highly personal, there are several general points that I propose keeping in mind.



1. Address functionality and comfort before looks. Prior to buying colourful panniers and covering the bike with flower garlands, make sure the saddle position and handlebar height are properly adjusted for your proportions and postural preference. You may be surprised how much just that factor alone can change the "personality" of the bicycle. And this, in turn, will better inform subsequent aesthetic choices.



2. Personalising the looks of your bicycle need not involve buying lots of costly accessories. Some of the most delightful decorations are also the least expensive. Consider that things like ribbon,faux florals,twine, and stickers can cost mere pocket change. A simple bow in your favourite colour on the handlebars, or some flowers along the edge of your basket, will create an instant, lively transformation. And if you have an old bicycle with scratched up paint? You could turn it into a "zebra bike", "tiger bike", or "bumble bee bike" by wrapping appropriately coloured electrical tape around the frame to create stripes.



Of course, with an older bicycle there is also the option of using paint. You could trylug outlining, hand-painting small panels, or even paintingyour own designs along the entire frame. In Europe I see bicycles hand-painted with flowers, polka-dots, zebra stripes, peace symbols, lady bugs, and all sorts of other simple motifs.A paint pen for lug outlining will set you back around $2. Enamel paint will cost around $6 for a small can.



3. Avoid formulaic accessorising. If you saw it in a magazine or on a popular blog, chances are that so did hundreds of others. Do you really want to spend all that money on limited edition saddles, deluxe grips and exotic tires, just to end up with a bicycle that looks identical to lots of other bikes? Take the time to consider what combination of things would suit you individually, rather than trying to recreate a popular look.



[image via Boston Retrowheelmen]

4. Explore ways to trade and barter with other bicycle owners. The components you no longer want might be just what another person is looking for, and vice-versa. This is considerably more affordable than buying everything new, and can yield interesting results. I acquired some of my best stuff via trades, including saddles, dress guards, a rack, and even an entire bicycle!



In the end, the bicycles that are the most striking and feel the most "yours" are those that reflect your personality - regardless of the budget that went into achieving that.