We raced at Barton Park South of Portland. It was pretty muddy but fast. Our race was delayed and shortened as someone got hurt and taken out in an ambulance. It was hard but a cool course. There was a cool ride up that not everyone made but got cheered by the crowds. The barriers were hard after the bikeups. We didn't get lapped by the singlespeeds until the end, which was nice. Here is a picture of Jeremy as we don't have any others.

I finished the dog door and patched up the gate so now le dogs can go outside on their own.

Kellie came over to hang out Saturday night to make cookies w/ Ingrid. I was the food critic and got to taste everything for free.

For Halloween we dressed up as each other and hung out at Keevin's. I was Matt, Dan was supposed to be me, but he went as an Olympian instead - same caliber, Ingrid was Dan, Keevin was Ingrid, Karen was Keevin, Sylvia was Karen, Jeremy was Sylvia (we think).

Matt and Karen rode todays race at Astoria day 2. Matt was dressed as a waiter, I mean Michael Jackson, and Karen was a ninja. There was a dude in a ghillie suit, and a bunch of people in Tron. They better make the 2nd one good.

I got two short videos of Matt and Karen racing:

Matt

Karen

Ingrid, Keevin and I rode on Saturday at the Astoria Race. It was a cool race, Keevin went as King Leonidas, I wore a dress so I guess I went as a girl. Ingrid wore our Cheat To Win shirt. Sara took all of the good shots of us - even the butt shot of Keevin.

That night we went to the beach house and celebrated Ron and Keevin's birthdays by drinking moderate amounts of booze and watch 007 in preperation for the new one.

I've seen articles and pictures concerning HDR, but thought it was all just a hack. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was performing the duty of dodging and burning. It really just modifies the picture to show the detail in the darker and lighter areas of the picture at the same time.

So I downloaded a few programs and tried one out. I'm still learning my new camera, but I set it up to bracket the shots and took 3 pictures in the back yard. I think I exposed two pictures above normal, as opposed to doing one photo under exposed, one normal and one over exposed. But the result is still pretty cool.

Ingrid and I went over to my parents for dinner with Faustina and her family. Cole and Simone showed us magic tricks and didn't like my one magic trick with a dollar bill where the president turns upside down. And they ate the dessert.

Todays race was up at Rainier High School. It started out really cold and foggy then got sunny and warm for the last few races. As normal, there were more sandbaggers than not.

I've been hiking on Tabor and in Forest Park to get back into shape. Well, round is a shape but I want to avoid that shape. I went in search of the tree house above Hoyt Arboretum but couldn't find it. Lame.