10 Mile Hike near Lake Louise

After teaching two graphic design classes to a lovely group of folks at a small business marketing conference up in Canmore, Alberta, I was treated to a 10 mile hike up to Plains of the Six Glaciers with my friend (and Your Mac Life listener) Maurice Shevalier. (Click here to see the Flickr picture gallery.)

The hike was scary in places as we had to cross ice fields that were really steep! I was so proud of myself for making it all the way up (and back down again). How often can you say you had a sandwich at 10,000 ft. while watching avalanches off a honkin' big glacier?!

The Alexander Keith's I had back down at the Chateau was The Best Beer Ever.

Now let's hope I'm not too sore to make it to the airport. Thank you Maurice for an amazing day!

Graphic fun

Though I didn't go riding this weekend, I did create an El Coolio graphic for a Photoshop training video I'm recording this week. The technique is selective blurring and fading one image into another. I think it turned out rather well :)

Back in the saddle

Finally got to go riding this past Sunday and though I feel a bit like the Michelin Tire Woman all bunched up with heated gear (hate that), it was nice to be back in "Saphira's" saddle. Since I had my camera with me, I fired off this shot after hanging my helmet on the handlebar.

Speaking of the helmet, I picked up this new Arai last week, as my trusty Schuberth was looking really shabby (and you just can't find those things here in the US!). If I could have waited for the BMW rally in July, I probably would have bought another one, but this Arai is SUPER light and airy (a bit *too* airy for this cold weather!). Plus the Dallas Cowboy-ish graphics are way cool and the tinted visor makes me feel mysterious :)

How to make a husband happy

Why, buy him a brand new motorcycle of course :)

After hearing that our insurance company declared his Royal Star a total loss after a small accident in December, I found an amazing deal on a Yamaha FJR 1300 posted on--wait for it--Craiglist, of all places. Within two hours, we were riding to the dealership two-up on my BMW F800ST to pick it up. He even got to unbox it himself.

Gracious as he is, he let me name the new addition to our family. My bike's name is Saphira, after the beautiful and powerful blue dragon in the Eragon book series. Therefore, since his bike is larger and jet black, I've christened it Temeraire.

Needless to say, he's been SUPER nice to me ever since. I'll let you know how long that lasts ;)

An afternoon at the MOMA

In between business meetings this past Friday, my husband and I visited the MOMA in Manhattan. Surprisingly, they let us take pictures (no flash, of course). We spent about three hours at the multi-level museum and really had a great time snapping this and that. I tended to take photos of my favorite paintings and Shawn (as usual) just shot EVERYTHING :)

My most favorite painting in the world lives at this museum: Van Gogh's Starry Night. Though I was disappointed to learn that Salvador Dali's "Persistence of Memory" was out on loan. Alas, I must wait until the summer to go back and see it (unless I go to London first... hmmm...). Admittedly, some of the installations at the museum are just whacked (in my opinion) but I was surprised to see so many spectacular pieces in their collection, including Warhol's serigraphs of Marilyn Monroe.

Needless to say, we only covered two floors in three hours, so we're set to go back really soon. If it's warm enough, we'll ride our motorcycles :)

Click here to see the whole Flickr gallery. And please note that all of my pictures were shot with a glorious Canon 40D that Canon loaned me for review. I do *not* want to send this camera back!

Going home for a Week

There ain't nothing like going home.

This past week I was lucky enough to score several speaking gigs in the DFW area of my beloved Lone Star State so I got to stay for 6 days. First I did a little ditty on digital photography for the Cowtown Mac Users Group, then enlightened two UTA commercial graphics classes on the gloriousity of iStockphoto, I spent the afternoon with a cool design firm called Church Media in Keller, taught a two-hour hands on Photoshop course at the Art Institute of Dallas on Friday, then finished the week out with a tex-mex lunch with four area iStockphoto contributors--a good time was had by all! Gads they just really can't do spicy up here in New England.

I spent some quality time with friends I used to see on a daily basis, ate at my very favorite restaurants, and drove familiar roads that I've been down a thousand times. It was a little like going back in time and I have to say, it was fun yet melancholy. I've always known I missed that area and the life I led, but I guess that's just part of life. I wouldn't trade what I have now and the experiences I'm having being this close to Manhattan, but... you know--I *really* miss my friends.

Anyway, included in this post are a few of my favorite shots during the week snapped with a Canon 40D I'm lucky enough to have in my possession (thank you Canon!). I *so* do not want to send this thing back. My own camera is a Rebel XTi which is great, but it's nothing like the 40D. With the 40D, I actually feel like a pro. It's easy to use and the photos are just amazing. I also didn't have to RTFM to figure it out, which was nice. (Okay so I had to look up how to set aperture when in Manual mode.)

On Sunday I drove to East Texas to spend some quality time with Mama which was great. On the way home I suffered many delays due to weather, which meant I should have just stayed put an extra day. This was the view outside the airplane window:

Fire Island Lighthouse shoot

Not much has gone on in the way of travel since getting back from San Francisco for Macworld Expo. That being said, I did drive to Long Island, NY on Friday to shoot the Fire Island Lighthouse. Much fun was had as after shooting, my husband and I spent 4+ hours at the Brickhouse Brewery.

Going out for a photo shoot is a rather new experience for us, and this one taught us several things:

1. Only shoot lighthouses in the summer, else you will freeze to fracking death!

2. Monopods are USELESS! In a fit of generosity, I let the husband borrow my new tripod because he was testing Nikon's new D300. Foolishly, I thought the monopod would help me in the low light situation that is sunrise, but I was dreadfully wrong. I had better luck handholding the darn camera (Rebel Xti).

3. Scout the location the day before. Thankfully we did a drive-by, but didn't actually walk to the lighthouse. Not only was the address of the lighthouse wrong on their own web site, getting to the lighthouse involved a one mile hike. That much we learned driving by, though if we had gotten out and walked it we could have scouted a better position than what we ended up with early the next morning.

4. Not all sunrise pictures are going to be great. Since I got up at "the crack of ass," I fully expected the pictures to be fantastic. Alas, they were not. Either because of too many or too few clouds, the time of year, or whatever, this particular sunrise wasn't worth the 4:30 am price.

All in all, it wasn't a total bust for as disappointed as we were, we retreated to a fabulous pub for many pints and good food with good friends at noon. I'd probably do it again... when it's warmer ;)

Click here to see all the photos from our Fire Island Lighthouse shoot.