Velo City - Kenosha, WI

Last weekend was racing up at the Kenosha Velodrome for Velo City.  XXX-ers Jen Greenberg and Andrew Nordyke advance and are going to Dublin.  There was also an alleycat that Val & Brean put on Friday night.  I worked a checkpoint with Ben (who is taking a photo above) and yeah it was crazy people central (and I don’t mean the racers).

Hang out at Mke/Division/Ashland long enough and the following will happen:
- get offered “Purple Haze”
- be asked for a quarter by the same guy 20+ times
- watch a drunk Cub’s fan get in a fight with Purple Haze guy
- be in the crossfire of a hide & seek game of one participant

I didn’t take many photos, but the ones I did are here

The Greatest, Pt. Deux

In honor of yesterday’s post here are my current* favorite movies (10 of them at least) in no particular order.

- The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
- Vertigo
- Rashomon
- Rushmore
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- West Side Story
- M
- Aguirre, Wrath of God
- Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control
- Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

* this is a really hard list for me to keep.

The Greatest

The AFI has updated their list of the greatest 100 movies.  I reposted the list below and in bold are the 75 I’ve already seen.  Of the 25 I haven’t, the only ones I really want see are the remaining Marlon Brando pics.  Otherwise, I’m not terribly bothered.

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE’S GREATEST MOVIES

1. “Citizen Kane” (1941)
2. “The Godfather” (1972)
3. “Casablanca” (1942)
4. “Raging Bull” (1980)
5. “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952)
6. “Gone With the Wind” (1939)
7. “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962)
8. “Schindler’s List” (1993)
9. “Vertigo” (195
10. “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)
11. “City Lights” (1931)
12. “The Searchers” (1956)
13. “Star Wars” (1977)
14. “Psycho” (1960)
15. “2001: A Space Odyssey” (196
16. “Sunset Boulevard” (1950)
17. “The Graduate” (1967)
18. “The General” (1927)
19. “On the Waterfront” (1954)
20. “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946)
21. “Chinatown” (1974)
22. “Some Like It Hot” (1959)
23. “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940)
24. “E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982)
25. “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962)
26. “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939)
27. “High Noon” (1952)
28. “All About Eve” (1950)
29. “Double Indemnity” (1944)
30. “Apocalypse Now” (1979)
31. “The Maltese Falcon” (1941)
32. “The Godfather, Part II” (1974)
33. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975)
34. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937)
35. “Annie Hall” (1977)
36. “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957)
37. “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946)
38. “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (194
39. “Dr. Strangelove” (1964)
40. “The Sound of Music” (1965)
41. “King Kong” (1933)
42. “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967)
43. “Midnight Cowboy” (1969)
44. “The Philadelphia Story” (1940)
45. “Shane” (1953)
46. “It Happened One Night” (1934)
47. “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951)
48. “Rear Window” (1954)
49. “Intolerance” (1916)
50. “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001)
51. “West Side Story” (1961)
52. “Taxi Driver” (1976)
53. “The Deer Hunter” (197
54. “M*A*S*H” (1970)
55. “North by Northwest” (1959)
56. “Jaws” (1975)
57. “Rocky” (1976)
58. “The Gold Rush” (1925)
59. “Nashville” (1975)
60. “Duck Soup” (1933)
61. “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941)
62. “American Graffiti” (1973)
63. “Cabaret” (1972)
64. “Network” (1976)
65. “The African Queen” (1951)
66. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)
67. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966)
68. “Unforgiven” (1992)
69. “Tootsie” (1982)
70. “A Clockwork Orange” (1971)
71. “Saving Private Ryan” (199
72. “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994)
73. “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969)
74. “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)
75. “In the Heat of the Night” (1967)
76. “Forrest Gump” (1994)
77. “All the President’s Men” (1976)
78. “Modern Times” (1936)
79. “The Wild Bunch” (1969)
80. “The Apartment” (1960)
81. “Spartacus” (1960)
82. “Sunrise” (1927)
83. “Titanic” (1997)
84. “Easy Rider” (1969)
85. “A Night at the Opera” (1935)
86. “Platoon” (1986)
87. “12 Angry Men” (1957)
88. “Bringing Up Baby” (193
89. “The Sixth Sense” (1999)
90. “Swing Time” (1936)
91. “Sophie’s Choice” (1982)
92. “Goodfellas” (1990)
93. “The French Connection” (1971)
94. “Pulp Fiction” (1994)
95. “The Last Picture Show” (1971)
96. “Do the Right Thing” (1989)
97. “Blade Runner” (1982)
98. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” (1942)
99. “Toy Story” (1995)
100. “Ben-Hur” (1959)

Yosemite Pictures on Flickr

I finally uploaded some of my photos from the Yosemite trip on my flickr.  The photo set is here.  I still have a bunch more photos to upload, but with my iBook in the shop it kind of take awhile.

The Pros/Cons of My Wide Angle Lens

The lens I use most often on my camera is a super wide angle lens. I love the lens and if you look at my flickr it shows. While I was in Yosemite National Park it was great for capturing how epic everything in the park was. From the great expanses visible from Glaciar Point to the towering Giant Sequoia trees in Mariposa Grove I could see it all through my super wide angle lens.

On the last day though I was faced with the nemises of my lens: wildlife. I took the picture on the left while standing about 10 feet away from two deer about to cross the road. On the right is a close up of the deer from that same picture. 5 feet behind me was a women with a point & shoot camera who was disapointed that I got such a shitty picture of the deer with such a big looking lens. Oh well

I Am Back

Yes I am back and with me is my broken iBook. So far I can tell it is
broken in 3 ways:
1. The display turns very very dark after starting. I can only see things by holding my maglite to it.
2. The keyboard doesn’t work
3. It falls asleep ever 30-45 seconds.

Luckily, I have an older computer to work with and I should have some photos up soon. I am 90% sure I can at least recover my hard drive and we’ll see from there.

Yosemitie National Park = greatest place ever.

Full size picture available on my flickr photostream

Vacation

Next week I’ll be on vacation with my sister & her in-laws.  Better get your jeff kao fix ’cause I’ll be in the wonderfully scenic Yosemite National Park from Sunday, June 3rd until Monday, June 11th.  And while I have people covering for me at work, I have no guest writers lined up.  Any takers?  Who wants to write about me for me?  That’s what I thought. 

In the meantime check these out:
- Luke Seemann’s new site: Chicago Bike Racing.  Looks to be awesome.
- Team Pegasus has been ripping up the trails.
- Ira & Andrea’s criss crossing tour of America by bike has them in New York
- Naz has updated absenter and as usual has some great photos & entries
- In non-cycling related news ubiquitous computing may be around the corner & Microsoft is leading the charge (!)

Take care!