Bravery

Found this picture on the web and it made me laugh. Look at the girl admiring how brave he is. 

_Vince

Long Beach Marina

_Vince

Pose

Love this type of music.

_Vince

Apple TV

Apple released new products today. The last few Apple announcements weren't very exciting to me. I have everything I need from Apple at this time except for a new MacPro. All the new iPods are cool but today I've added the Apple TV to my list of Apple products to buy. What's really cool about the Apple TV is the ability to watch what I want when I want. The pricing is very reasonable. I've never been one to maintain a library of CD's or DVD's, so this is perfect for me. I've had a membership with Netflix and Hulu for a while now. Watching online content works great for me. I have more TV channels, movies and podcast to watch than I have time to sit.

_Vince

Time Lapse Photography

Vancouver is a great place to visit. I've been there a few times. Very clean, beautiful scenery and the people were polite. Perfect place to do a time lapsed video. For those of you who are not sure what time lapse photography is you can read more about it here and see more videos here. If you have a fast internet connection watch it in 1080p HP mode. Its much nicer to watch.

Of course the song is what I really like.

_Vince

Bicycle Gear

Its been one week since I started tracking my bike rides. Before I go into details, I want to let everyone know I'm having so much fun riding! One, my bike is awesome, two its a nice change to be outside away from my computer and three, I enjoy riding my bike because its exercise. I've never taken exercising seriously. I've had a gym membership for years and don't even know where I put my membership card. Buying this bike has changed the way I think about my health. That's a post for later. Today I want to talk about gear.

For anyone who might start riding on a regular basis, you should definitely buy a phone mount for your bike. I bought an Arkon. This mount works really well. It was easy to install and it stays put. You can rotate it in either landscape or portrait mode. Here's what it looks like.

 Screw the base to the handlebar-

Attach the phone holder-

Snap the iPhone into position-

Front view-

The mount is a must have for bike riding. It keeps the iPhone off of me and in plain sight. Easy to change the music or read emails while I'm riding. 

The next must have is an app for tracking your ride. I bought Cyclemeter. I picked this app because at the time, it was the only one that worked with multitasking. Its a great tool. The app tracks my speed, calculates my distance and even tells me how many calories I've burned. When I'm done riding, a woman's voice starts speaking and tells me all my stats. It also sends me an email showing me a map of my ride. I can even use this when I'm jogging. Super cool app! 

Here's the map that was sent in the email.

Lastly, I bought the S9-HD bluetooth headset from Motorola. This headset is nice except for the ear bud design. One of the rubber ear buds keeps falling off when I carry it around. Once its snug in my ear it doesn't move. The HD sound quality is great and best of all, there's no wires to get tangled in. I don't think its legal or safe to ride with these on but I'll leave that up to you to figure out. Here's what they look like:

I'm happy with everything I've bought for the bike so far including the gloves and riding shorts. Soon I'll be buying cleats to help pedal more efficient. I don't really want to but, after almost getting hit twice today, I think its best I buy a helmet. 

_Vince

Giant Seek 0

I spend money foolishly without thinking about it. Its a terrible habit. Like I've said in the past, I'm an impulse buyer and sometimes it backfires. I've bought things in the past that I thought I needed or at least convinced myself that it was going to make my life easier, and sometimes it didn't. Hate to say it but I've wasted money so many times.

In a past post I showed off my trail bike. Bought it, rode it once and sold it. I was disappointed. I didn't do enough research on the bike. After riding it, I knew it wasn't the right bike for me. It was meant for dirt/trail riding and not the street riding I want to do. So I took a HUGE loss on the bike. After spending countless hours at the local bike shops and many hours online reading, I decided to buy a 2010 Giant Seek 0.

I absolutely love this bike! I wish I would have known about this bike before the XTC1. It's a cross between a mountain bike and a road bike. Very light, fast tires and an incredible internal gear hub. Unlike traditional gears and de-railers this bike can shift at a complete stop. When your riding and you want to shift into another gear, you push a lever, it makes a subtle "click" and its in another gear. Its very quite and smooth. In fact when I ride all I hear is a light humming sound of the  tires. It pedals very easily and it coast for a long time. The bike has hydraulic disk brakes with Shimano levers and an Alfine crank. Anyone who appreciates aesthetics or the "fit and finish" of a product, will really like this bike. I spent a lot more on this bike than the previous one but its well worth it. I'm having a lot of fun riding. I bought an iPhone bike mount and a program to track my speed and distance. The program even emails me a map of where I rode. How cool is that? I will post info on that later.

I plan on writing about the gear I buy for the bike. I have to test it before I can write about it.

_Vince

Zachary is 1 Year Old

Happy Birthday Zachary! As usual it was fun taking pictures of him. This was the first of 2 photo shoots we had to do because it got cold and he got cranky. Can't wait to take pictures of him down at the beach. Kids usually go nuts in the water the first time.

_Vince

iPad

I bought the iPad today. I didn't buy the 3G model because I have a wireless broadband card that I carry with me all the time. I plan on using the iPad to read online, to blog, and most importantly, to show off my photography! It has a glossy high resolution screen so photos should look really nice. 

_Vince

Giant XTC 1

This is how my bike was shipped to me. In a box of course. I had time to get it assembled and tuned today. I didn't realize how nice of a bike I bought until I heard all the great comments from everyone at the bike store. I'm told it has very good components and it's setup to ride trails. I plan on riding it on the street too. I have a lot to learn and some riding to get use to. I bought a light kit so I'm prepared to ride at night. Now I need to buy my riding gear. My first ride will be Saturday. I'll be sore on Monday.

_Vince

My New Bike

I have a bad habit of impulse buying. A couple of examples are:

Woke up one morning and decided to go look at the new Suzuki GSXR-1000 motorcycle. I drove over to Bert's Motorcycle Mall and after sitting on the bike, I bought it. Went to Bestbuy one day and came home with a Nikon D700 camera because they had it in stock. And now this....

I've been looking to buy a bicycle. I want to take it on rides along the beach and maybe even a few trails. So I found the one I like. It so happens to be the 2009 model but the color scheme is cool, it has disk brakes (super cool) and it just looks badass! I found it on sale at a store in Northern California. After a couple of phone calls and a friend helping me out with shipping it, the bike should be here Wednesday. I didn't wake up today thinking of buying a bike. Somehow these things just happen. Now I can plan some bike trips. I definitely need to do some research on riding gear (biker shorts!), outfitting my bike to carry camera gear and a bag of clothes for my weekend trips.

I will post detailed photos when it gets here.

_Vince

Baby Photos

I love taking photos of kids. Especially when they're sleeping. There's no chance of them getting upset or cranky :) This little one was easy. She was 7 days old when I took her picture. If anyone has a need for baby photos, let me know.

_Vince

Pictures of Beijing

Finally got the Beijing photos online for those of you who want to see them.

Click the following link to see the pictures.

Beijing 2010


_Vince

China Vacation

I was in China for the last 3 weeks on vacation. For those of you who called me and emailed me, I thank you. It was a very exciting experience for me and humbling at times. It's nothing like America, very different. There's so much of the world to see, places to go and people to meet. Hope everyone finds time in their life to travel and visit different parts of the world. For me, it changed my outlook on life and made me appreciate what I have and who I am here in America.  

Here's a picture of my 2 friends in China. I'd especially like to thank Zhenghua for showing me Beijing and being the best tour guide :)

_Vince

In the Air

It actually got down to -72 degrees at one point.

Landing at LAX

_Vince

Coming Home

I'm in Korea right now. As eveyone in L.A. is sleeping I'll be flying.
I have a lot to share and more photos to show so check back later.
Trying to figure out what type of gallery I should use.

Great Wall of China

I went to the Great Wall last Sunday. The wall is about 5,500 miles long. Longer than walking from Los Angeles to New York. The part I walked was steep. I must say it was very tiring walking up the steps. For those of you who think its not so hard, you have to try it for yourself. I climbed for about 15 minutes and I was already in pain! Today is Friday, 5 days later and my legs still hurt. Its amazing to think that the wall was built in the early 1300's and the workers were able to carry or move the rocks into position. Many slaves died during the construction.

Here's a picture at the start of the climb. I was told this sign says something about not being a "man" if you can't make it to the top. Call me what you want but I see no reason to put my body through that much pain. 30 minutes was enough.

_Vince

Beijing Zoo

Went to the Beijing Zoo. I haven't been to a zoo since I was a kid. It was fun seeing the wild animals up close. The vultures were pretty cool. Seeing the carcass on the ground was weird. The Pandas were great! Seemed like all they do is eat and lounge around. Wish I had more time to stare at them like the Chinese stare at me. Don't mind a few of the shots that have haze in them. That's from either shooting through a window or the fence.

While watching TV here in Beijing, I found another organization that I would like to support. Its a non-profit organization that works to stop illegal wildlife trading and killing of endangered animals. For those of you who are interested, you can find it here.

_Vince