Cyclocross

For the second year in a row, I went out to watch the Jingle Cross Rock cyclocross race in Iowa City today. For those who don't know, cyclocross is kind of a cross between road and mountain biking. A cyclocross bike looks like a road bike with fat tires, and the races are run off-road, but not on courses as technical as you'd see at a mountain bike race. It's a fun sport to watch.

Throw in a little snow and a lot of mud, and it's a really fun sport to watch. I can't imagine how hard it would be to ride through the mud like these guys did. They didn't exactly make it look easy which shows just how tough the conditions were.

Here's a picture of Todd Wells, today's winner. I've got a lot of fun pictures that I'll put up soon, but this is all I have time to work on tonight.

Windmill

I shot this last night at a big family Thanksgiving get together. Too bad there weren't some more clouds to catch that last bit of light...

Cool patterns

I was all set to have several more days of fall colors pictures on the blog, but they're going to have to wait a couple of more days.

Any idea what this is?







It's the frost on my car this morning. I was determined to leave the house on time. Henry and I were walking out the door at 7:30. I got him buckled in the back seat. I started scraping the frost off the car. The whole time I'm scraping, I'm thinking, "Wow. This is really cool. I should really take some pictures."

After pestering Henry all morning about leaving on time, I knew I'd be in trouble if I was the one who made us late. I got about half the windows scraped off when I gave in.

I stuck my head in the backseat, and told Henry I'd be right back. I came out with my camera and shot for about five minutes when I heard, "Daddy, you better hurry up."

I probably could have kept shooting these cool frost patterns until they melted, but Henry was right. I got my five minutes in, put my camera away and went to work. With any luck, it'll freeze like this again tonight. I know I'm going to check my car first thing in the morning.

Fall colors

Henry and I went out to Lake McBride when the leaves were still on the trees. We did some "hiking," and I shot some photos. I can't resist the chance to shoot blurry photos anymore, so that's what I did. Here's the first of what will probably be several blurry pictures.

Happy Birthday

Five years ago tomorrow, my favorite photo subject of all time was born.




Happy Birthday Henry!

Endorsement and a prediction

This is obviously not a political blog, but since I took some pictures of the guy I'm voting for about a year ago when he was still campaigning for the Iowa Caucus, I thought the night before the election would be a good time to put them up.

There was never any doubt that I'd end up voting for the Democratic nominee regardless of who it was, but I was never a big Barack Obama supporter. I've seen him in person three times, and he never lived up to the hype for me. He's grown on me a bit lately though, and I think he's clearly the better person for the job than his opponent. You're here to look at my pictures, so I won't go into the reasons as to why I think that is.

I will say that when I shot these, I got really frustrated with his campaign people. They did everything they could to keep the photographers from doing anything interesting or original. There were just a few spots where they'd let us sit or stand. Every time I moved to where I thought I could get a more interesting picture, they came and kicked me out of that spot. I tried waiting in the hall for him to come out afterward, and they kicked me out of there too. I ended up waiting for him outside the building. I waited by the big, black SUV with security guys around it. I figured it had to be his. It was. He eventually came out, and I got some pictures of him shaking hands with a few students who were also hoping to get the chance to meet him. The same campaign people who had kicked me out of a couple of spots inside didn't look too pleased that I was outside either. It was a public sidewalk though, so there was really nothing that they could do. None of my pictures from that day were great, but if things go well tomorrow, they'll be pictures of the next president of the United States.




I'm also a bit of a political junkie. I thought the extended Democratic caucus season was great. I love watching election returns on tv, and with so many primaries that mattered, I got to do a lot of that this year. I'm really looking forward to watching the returns tomorrow night. To make it a little more interesting, I made a map with my predictions. I think it's going to be a little closer than a lot of people are saying right now, and I also think there will be a couple of surprises. Here's my map: