spooktacular drawing contest

bel organized a spooktacular drawing contest at our house this year. here was my entry. i called it "one smart pumpkin," but i didn't win.

tracy's awesome, van-gogh-esque entry of a fall landscape won instead.

pumpkin rage

during a party @ our house yesterday, people pulled out knives and did horrible things to innocent pumpkins...

wrapped around the axle

figgered out why the deere died a few weeks ago. now just a few hrs of trickle charge away from seein' how easily it can be salvaged.

the sun may set over minneapolis, but...

it rises over st. paul.


i actually had to stop, pull off the road, and grab my camera when i saw this this morning on my ride in. i wanted to wait until i got to a better vantage point, but i knew i was too far away from where i wanted to take the photo.

swing again

bel and i fixed the swing in the back yard. we used to have a 1x8 as the board for the swing, but that broke. we went industrial strength this and used a 2x10.

soccer aftermath

my stats: no goals (technically one for the other team when our goalie bobbled a pass i gave him) 1 assist FOR our team. we lost by 4, but we gave 'em two of those 4. heartrate? we only had 2 subs, so my heartrate was rather "spiked" for a whole lot of the game.

fred's pretty sure

that we created this garden for his enjoyment

tracy said the mower was making a weird noise

i wonder why?

morning shadows

bleary-eyed as i may be on my ride to work, i noticed myself plastered on the side of a warehouse building.

whoops, caught myself taking the picture...

night pics

i just like these shaky night pictures because they capture a sense of motion in a still frame. everything else about their quality kind of sucks, but i can admit that ;-)




here, though, i wish i had a better camera on hand. the moon was a-freakin-mazing this night and seeing it "next to" the radio tower when i pulled into the parking lot of the Y was cool. again, sorry for the substandard pic. this camera does not take expressive landscape pics.

i used to be so intrigued by the orange and red of fall

ok, i used to be drawn in by only the reds and oranges of the fall. i found them to be the elusive catch. it's hard to find them at peak and they last for such a short time. this year, though, i've come to appreciate the yellows. some for the contrast they provide to their surroundings and others jumped out at me for their shape.

here's a walnut tree in my back yard. the sun is shining on it and its yellow contrasts so nicely with the blue sky.



these leaves are in a wild patch next to my driveway. i'm not sure exactly what they come from. their shape really caught my eye. this plant yellowed up before the others around it so the leaves unique shape was very obvious at that point.
here's another shot of the same thing.
now, this is of a "burning bush" we have in our front yard. the reds aren't boring or passe, it's just that i'm appreciating the yellows this year.

rolling home on a sunny day

oy, it was a beautiful afternoon on the 15th, and i was shadow-inspired. i was that i turned around after reaching the top of the hill on cedar street and rode it again, the second time with my camera in hand so i could capture two of these.
this is on cedar street by the capitol on the bridge over university ave. ahhhh... the lamppost is chasing me!

i think i may have discovered a whole new subgenera, wheel shadows! this is just about the same place as the one above.

ah, yes, and here i am on jackson street crossing the bridge over hmm... not the rail yard but, could it be pierce butler route? heh... not such a big deal. i liked the fact that the angle of the sun was able to accentuate my cool-arsed fenders!

moonset

shucks, it was much cooler by my eye. yesterday, when i reached the end of the driveway, the moon was setting on the western horizon. here are a couple of my attempts to capture it with my centro's camera. don't underestimate the beauty and importance of optical zoom (which this camera doesn't have).

a cross bike, a camera, and a beautiful fall day

ok, it was a beautiful freakin fall afternoon, and i was riding my bike home after an extremely full day at work. on the way home i saw my shadow and decided to take a couple of snaps even though i was running a bit late. this one is on cedar street just to the north and east of the capitol. i had better options but this faint shadow was actually a mistake. i decided to keep it when i realized i captured this ghostly shadow. in actuality, i was trying to capture a very pronounced shadow about 10 feet before this, but i didn't account for the digital camera lag.


it's cool when your mistakes turn out to be somehow intriguing. look closely. it almost looks like it was cropped in with photoshop.



had the camera out on the roll and it's always fun to capture these behind-bars photos.

north on jackson street with the sun still at my left shoulder, i captured my shadow among some fantabulous fall colors. in true urban style, though, those colors are perched upon a chain link fence.

steamin trees

this morning, bel and i looked out back and saw that the trunks of our dew-covered trees were steaming as the sun warmed them. i tried to capture it with my camera. the steam isn't so evident, but the sunlight pouring through the haze had an interesting effect.





so, not the intended result, but something cool did come of it. :-)

ghost in the machine?

as i got to work today, i looked at my dripping bike locked up at the rack and i saw the glow. could it have been an apparition? after capturing it on camera, i realized it was my helmet-mounted headlight.

bikes... real bikes... for getting around

umm... here in sweden i have noticed that people eat a lot of the things that could make you... er... kinda big in the waistline. like the fried fish i had today with a rich cream sauce. i wonder why most of the people i've seen here aren't (big in the waistline)?





errrm... this many people rode their bikes to the resacentrum on a rainy day? no, i guess i don't wonder anymore.