Local pusher...

There's no end to the madness! Today was yet another day at the local "hill" and some push biking.

It's hard to believe how much snow there were just a few days ago, now it's almost gone in some areas and in the forest the previously so white snow is now covered by pine needles a debris blown down by the wind from the trees.

The snow was now also just pure mush and the steering on the bike was at best taking you some what in the direction you wanted! :)

Had to work until 5pm, got home and went almost straight out again to the track, the last two times I was getting there the damn train had to cross the road and I had to wait, today was no exception! *Garhg*

I was lucky though, it was raining...
Had to take a shot at the same location I took a photo of my pug not so long ago.
Same old trail, just more debris!
Almost no snow left at the starting point.
Hmm, is it supposed to point that way?
I had totally repressed how slow my Olympus compact camera was...
Got tired of it and activated the flash!

MUCH better! ;)
Didn't keep track of how many runs it ended up in total but after almost 1½hour I was out of breath and back home again!

Now if only the snow could go away, the faster the better!!

Yet another PB session...

Tobbe seems to be like a energizer bunny right now, don't know if he is trying to work off some weight to keep away from me in the contest or if he has something else on his agenda?! :)

What ever it is I was too tired to dare bike down a slippery trail today, leaving that to tobbe, I'm trying to keep my bones intact until the Spain trip (good excuse!).

I took the chance to try some different lenses and shot a few shots:

Starting off with two B/W ones.
Pushing.
Testing to pan with the 70-300mm Sigma. Had to boost the ISO to get decent exposure times with usable aperture.
Testing a defishing filter in Photoshop.
More examples. Original.
Defished.
More pushing. Now I started to freeze like hell in the cold wind.
At last, final runs! :)
Switched to the Sigma 10-20mm lens.
A bit of drifting!
Final run! Bringing down the shovel..
On the trail getting back to the road.
Tobbe resting. =)
Insanely cold in the wind, the teperature was way over zero but the wind blew right through the clothes, was feeling cold even after getting home!

Wired action!

Bought a while ago an inexpensive YongNuo RS-N2 (corresponding to Nikon's MC-DC1) wired remote switch to my Nikon D80 from Fotofyndet.se and I was very pleased with the function.

But when I sold the D80 to be able to afford a Nikon D90, Nikon had changed the socket to a different one that also works with the new Nikon GP-1 GPS unit! Luckily I could use the infrared remote but a cord remote is sometimes more convenient.

I have been waiting for a third party wired remote for the D90 a while now and last week I took a look on Fotofyndets home page and noticed they had a remote to the D90 in stock, and for only SEK 180:-! The Original MC-DC2 costs SEK 530:-! Almost three times the price of the RS-N3!

Ordered the D90 remote YongNuo RS-N3 at once and today I got it in the mail. The cord is a bit shorter and not as flexible as the one to the D80 but for the price it was ok!

Unpacking:

First test run:

Good thing the cord is a bit shorter the cord on the remote to the D80 had a tendency to get snared with the tripod. The remote will come handy when shooting bracketed shots for HDR images. =)

Are we not men?

Ouch, just found out that DEVO will preform their legendary 1977 Brian Eno produced album “Q. ARE WE NOT MEN, ARE WE DEVO?” at the London Forum on Wednesday May 6th 2009!

And that's not all, they will hold a warm up concert two days before their appearance at our ATP The Fans Strike Back festival at London's Kentish Town Forum!

Feels like it's one of the last chances to see DEVO live, it's a band I want to tick off on my "Must see bands before I die"-list. ;)


DEVO preforming Mongoloid - 1978 French television
Hmm, have to calculate how much a trip to London might end up in....

Sunday stroll...

Visited my parents and managed to make it for dinner, a delicious pork steak!

Got home around 18:00 and since it's the first day of daylight savings time and the clock was turned one hour forward it was quite light outside even if there was a dull overcast, I decided to take a walk and bring the camera with me.

Fitted it with the 50mm f/1.8 lens to get the most light as possible through the lens. =)

First victim, a dried turnip stalk.
The worn skateboard ramp in the evening light.
Walked through the forest down to a lake, Gårlången. Had no wide angle lens so I took a series of images and made a panorama.
Some bird of pray.
Thirsty tree.
Shy ducks!
Sibylla, the nearest hamburger grill.
Got to hand it to my self, this is a good shoot! ;)
The walk took almost exactly one hour, with few stops for taking photos. :)

Weight update #7

Things are going more or less according to plan, managed to loose more weight than I thought this week, wasn't that far away from getting under 98kg but the lowest weight this week was 98,2! That despite the fact I ate a big plate of iskender kebab this Thursday! It was delicious! =)

Several days of biking this week might have helped keeping the weight from gaining. This morning I weighted 99kg.

Updated graph:
Roughly 5 kg in 7 weeks so far. A bit less than the initial 1kg a week plan, but still ok for me. I suppose it will get harder to loose weight further on but hopefully the weather will improve and the outdoor activities will increase.

The blood pressure seems to be going the right way also, following the weight down!
Since it's going the right way right now I will continue on the beaten path and try to increase the 'exercise' if I can. There are some trips coming up in the near future and that sure will put me to the test of resisting temptations! :)

Push-bike in the rain

Were just about to get ready for a easy ride around town on my Pugsley when I heard a strange noise, turned out to be my cellphone that had got a text message, I have the Sopranos title tune "Woke up this morning" with Alabama 3 as text message signal, takes a while before the tune starts to sound louder. =)

It was a message from Tobbe wondering if I was interested in some push-biking, so, I ditched the idea with the pug and grabbed the Reign instead. Talk about timing! :)

Since Tobbe lives nearest the trail I got there to meet up. Got a bit bored while waiting, so I decided to test run the Olympus camera that's been pretty much unused for a long time.

My Giant Reign, think it's the '06 model, there is a year difference between the European and u.s. models for some reason...
Close up on my golden Hadley front hub, working well after some loctite on the threads.
Lots and lots of snow last night and this morning but it was well above zero degrees Celsius.
Weird light over Väsman, hard to capture on camera.
Not far away now!

Skorstenhöjden or Ställviksberget as it's really called. ;)
Tobbe took the lead but all the fresh snow got stuck on his bike wheels! Looks like a fender. =)
The back wheel got totally locked up, tobbe is a bit sceptical about it.
Well, we managed to get up the hill half way.
And then all the way to the "top".
Didn't count the runs but I think it was around 5 or 6 times we climbed up the hill.
The weather started to clear up as the snow fall ended.
My pedals picked up all sorts of debris while I was pushing it up hill.
The trail is starting to look well used! =)
I had a small bottle of water with me and after roughly an hour it was depleted, have to get my Camelbak fixed as soon as possible! After 1 and a ½ hour I was done and started to get hungry so we got back to civilization again, on the last trail before I was home tobbes bike wheels picked up some more snow!

That's a wide tire! :)
And it looks more like a 29" wheel in the back!
I got in and drank a litre of water while tobbe took the long route over the forest back home.

It was a good run, even if I managed to make a OTB (over the bar) with my bike on the same spot where I managed to crash before, thankfully the landing was soft in the snow! Have to do something about that "pitfall" ! :)