Tour of California 2007

Tour of California 2007
Originally uploaded by vendmr.

Hi all,

Well, while Katy was out watching elephant seals my friend Rick and I spent the weekend watching the first two days of the Tour of California bike race which started in San Francisco. All the big names in world cycling were there and it was amazing to be able to see them all up close. Day one was the Prologue stage, a 2 mile course through the streets of San Francisco, ending with a steep climb up to Coit Tower. The winning time for this stage was 4m49s. We got to walk the entire route durning the race and got to see it from all possible angles.

The second day was Stage One starting Sausalito going 97 miles up to Santa Rosa. We had to pick one spot to watch the race due to the large crowds. We chose to wach the 3 parade loops through the streets of Sausalito which gave us the most chances to see the peloton go by. Again, it was an amazing experience to see these guys and I had a lot of fun.

Click on the picture to see more of the photos I took over the two days.

Ciao,
Michael

Elephant Seals

On Sunday I went out with the Barnett/Dow crew for some fine viewing of the Elephant Seals at Ano Nuevo. Ano Nuevo State Park is the largest breeding ground for the northern elephant seal. At this time of year the females have mostly all given birth and are getting ready to mate. Once they mate they head back out to sea to feed for the next 9 months or so. The females congregate in harems that are guarded by one alpha male who hopes to mate with each one in turn. We actually saw some mating going on, that's right, real life wildlife porn!! It was about as exciting as watching elephant seals sleep. But we did see lots of cute babies and a few fights. All in all a pretty impressive sight. I posted photos at: Elephant Seals
Katy

The planet we live on.

Planet
Originally uploaded by vendmr.

Here is my first experiment with a planet. Our condo is top floor, 6 o clock. I have also included a 360 movie of our place made with the same set of 14 photos that made the planet. You need quicktime to see this movie. Use Ctrl and Shift to zoom in and out.

This is my first attempt at a full 360x180 picture. There are a couple of glitches but otherwise it came out pretty good. Now that I know it works, I'll take a picture of something more interesting next time.