Black Thursday

Another 500 people lose their jobs today at The Lab.

Sad times.

Sunny weekend

On saturday I ran a 10k with L. It was my first race in some time. I ran the race at a 6:00ish minute per mile pace. Since I’m out of competition shape I was pleased with my time and placed fourth overall. There was a fifty dollar award for third place and I would have pushed myself a bit harder had I realized I was so close to the money most of the race.

Sunday L. and I went cycling near Oakdale and afterwards hiked at Knight’s Ferry on the rocky banks of the Stanislaus River. It was warm but the river was cool and fast and we soaked our feet in its waters.

Stanislaus River:

Me above the cliff diving area:

My face is starting to get weather-beaten. Too much time outdoors.

Sangiovese

An Italian sangiovese but I can’t recall the name of the wine. Very good.

Henry Coe State Park

L. and I finally made it to Henry Coe State Park. Henry Coe is the largest state park in California and is one of the parks in threat of being closed down because of the state’s budget problems. The park is what I imagine California would have looked life before all the people arrived. Except for the lack of grizzly bears and herds of elk : /

We hiked to China Hole which is a small swimming hole fed by a spring. On the way we saw snakes, a coyote, deer, a turkey, and some nice wildflowers.

Oaks and rolling hills:

Chine hole:

A snake:

Many pretty trees:

New Lens

Last week I bought the 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM lens. I wanted the faster Canon EF-S ultra-wide lens but I couldn’t justify the extra $200 dollars for it. In low light situations I figure I’ll be using a tripod anyway.

I went to Henry Coe State Park to try it out and also shot my girlfriend with her pet rats. So far I am not entirely impressed with the image quality but I also haven’t tried the lens with a tripod.

L. with Rats:

Return to the Valley

I returned to climbing for the first time since my shoulder surgery in January. Mostly I did easy stuff in the 5.7ish range though I did lead all routes.

I brought my dSLR with me for the first time on a climb. The original plan was to setup some good shots but the crowds discouraged spending a lot of time on photography.

Dave coming up to the belay on The Grack:

Looking down from the Apron:

Belaying:

The weekend was fun but I’m way out of climbing shape.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Physics, it works!

Sunday my beam time came up so I have been busy babysitting my experiment. The good news is that the experiment seems to be a success. It wasn’t without hiccups, we spent 10+ hours trying to calibrate the beam energy of the Tandem accelerator. But we eventually did so and the data looks good.

Low

It’s been awhile since I followed the band Low but they still seem to be making wonderfull music:

Great dane

A lovely woman and her lovely great dane in downtown Livermore: