The Redbull Soap Box Derby ’09

My wife Heather dragged me along to Red bull’s Flugtag a few years back for lots of wacky fun, so when we heard about the Soap Box Derby, we were an easy sell. Accordingly, last Saturday, Heather and I dragged another few cohorts down the hill to Los Angeles to take it all in. Fellow photogs Jackie Jordan and Jonathon Redman were navigator and bombardier to our pilot and co-pilot. None of us are Red bull drinkers, in spite of it being handed out like water to many a thirsty hipster.

The event was at 5th and Grand, a diabolical choice of venue, where gravity and one nasty turn served to foil contestants and entertain the masses. One might have chosen a more gentle grade or a lesser turn, but what fun is there in creating a course where the majority of contestants actually complete it unharmed? Skyscrapers of the jewelry district stood watching over the silly festivities laughing quietly to themselves. Inside were many curious executive types welcoming the distraction. They reminded me of Caesar but gave no thumbs up or down. Residents of the local Hilton looked down from what seemed like a hundred stories, leaning on glass balconies, clutching drinks.

They even brought in a few celebrities to “spice” things up. On hand were : Paul Rodriguez, Jillian Barberie and even Erik Estrada was there signing CHPs shirts and casting judgement on the bruised and beaten teams of soap-boxers with cards reading 1 – 10. There were cameramen on scaffoldings and emcees choking on the mic. Almost as if planted at every crowded event, there were teenagers and twenty-somethings and even drunk thirty-somethings climbing into the sky on whatever they could find. Perched in trees and traffic signals and street signs, they kept the cops busy and gave them something to do. There were jumbo-tron type screens displaying the games for the short or poorly placed and not too far from the free Red Bull, they were selling Red Bull and water for $3. Yeah…theres a certain ugliness to an event like this. It sort of turns us all into stock animals, sharing fluids and bacteria. I looked to the pro photogs and thought, “how do I get press credentials?” They were in there own little zone that had the best views, a crowd-free space in which to work and of course free Red Bull.

Among the wheeled death machines were every manner of rolling nightmare: a fire truck from the FD, a giant PacMan, Lonestar’s RV from Spaceballs, a piano and even a giant brain from my current schoolmates at C.S.U.N., which did very well I might add. Nothing quite measured up to the almost flawless replica of the Mach 5, complete with Speed Racer. The seasoned driver took the Red Bull branded berm like it was 2nd nature. I mean it WAS Speed Racer after all. Actually I hated the cartoon. How strange is it that the greatest incarnation of this awful Japanese cartoon was in a soap box derby years after the fact and not in a multi-million dollar feature film?

The event was so crowded that it wasn’t too easy to find a decent view of the course. This was frustrating me for a little bit and we all sort of split up and found what vantage points we could. We all ended up pretty close to each other struggling for line of sight as best we could. Heather is far better with crowds than I and her set of photos shows it. Jonathon got some great video. All in all, we had quite a good time. We are seriously considering building a soap box derby car for the next event. Anyone want to lend a hand?

The crowd dispersed faster than you can say tear gas. We were out of there in a hurry and due to a few wrong turns, we found ourselves chasing food and architecture in Chinatown. Every time I visit L.A., I am forced to concede that my outdated, all negative,  Jack-Kerohuac-On-the-Road view of Los Angeles is more than likely unfair. I find something fine and something sad every time I come to the City of Angels. We happened upon a Chinese temple of some kind just before sunset and closing time, just soon enough to snap a few shots of the amazing structure. Art and creativity were everywhere on the property and it made me wonder why we so seldom build for beauty’s sake here in the West. Our Churches pale in comparison to the temples of the Middle East or even South America. We have so much ability and so many resources, why don’t we put it to better use? Our pyramids land on Mars and create nuclear energy which is great, but I want a real pyramid-type monument for my age. Any thoughts?

In other news, a few people are starting to get their hands on the much-coveted Canon EOS 7D. The results look good so far and it looks like I’m on track to have one in the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, I’ve found a few nice links with some info on this machine. Visit Rob Galbraith’s site for a great write and up and preview. I’ve been finding quite a bit of results from new owners at DPReview, which is one of my go-to sites for all things digital photography. Also, I found the video below from Digital Rev which outlines some of the great new features I hope to be enjoying in the near future.

Saddleback Butte 9.20.09

We have been very, very slack in our hiking lately. Its really shameful. Last Sunday, we tried to find our way back. We normally scoff at 10 and 12 mile hikes as with thousands of feet of elevation change; last weekend, we barely topped 2 miles.

This isn’t for lack of trying. The Station Fire, according to the media has laid waste to 160,000 acres of our playground, the Angeles National Forest which is essentially the San Gabriel Mountains. From where we are, the burn doesn’t look so dramatic, so we are anxious to get up there to survey the damage. We decided to grab our favorite hiking guides and our maps and head as far in as we could get before we were stopped. We didn’t get very far. We did see some burned out post-apoctalyptic landscapes in the distance, but nothing that anyone living in Southern California for a while hasn’t seen before. Fires are a part of life here just like earthquakes and avocados.

We didn’t expect the roads to be closed here. We continued around the northernmost range of the San Gabriels in hopes to find our way up a fire road for a peak. All roads into the forest were blocked and it looked serious. We continued to drive East to the Devil’s Punchbowl, a natural sincline that we have hiked more often than any other local site. The fire was one entire range away, so we figured we would at least head out to the Devil’s Chair, one of our favorite spots. The geology around these rock formations is dramatic and exiting. Everywhere you look there is evidence of fault activity. The San Andreas runs directly underfoot here and makes for some lovely desert terrain.

When we arrive at our home trail, so to speak, we throw on our packs and walk to the nature center as we always do, only to be greeted with a sign that informed us that, ” ALL TRAILS CLOSED.” Damn. We walk inside and inquire as to when our playground, the Mojave Desert’s backyard oasis, my church will re-open and the 5d Mark II wielding attendant stated that it was up to the U.S. Forest Service and there was no possible way to know when they’d open it again. “It could be a day,  it could be months.”  We started to speculate hopefully that it could’nt have burned everything. The trails here must be closed because they don’t have the personnel for a search and rescue operation, right? The map of the burn read like a laundry list of our favorite mountains and hiking trails. They always have a rattlesnake, an owl or a tarantula along with other flora and fauna for the public. There was a Boy Scout group there, taunting the rattler who sound like  he couldn’t possibly rattle any faster or louder to get his point across. Ruth, the barn owl, was there as she was last time so we said hello.

We retreated to the valley floor and away from the San Gabriels, leaving the USFS to its work.

Space Shuttle Discovery Landing

The first time I saw a shuttle landing it was STS-4 and Roanld Reagan was there. That was July 4th, 1982. I’ll never forget how amazing that day was. There were American flags everywhere and what seemed like millions of proud Americans, baking in the hot Mojave sun. I saw the president speak from a podium in front of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. He seemed so small to me – dwarfed by the orbiter. Twenty seven years later lor last Friday, I returned to Edwards Air Force Base to watch another.

Before I moved to California from Georgia, it seems like the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base just a couple of times after they built a runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They now try to avoid the cost of flying the orbiter across counrty on the back of a Boeing 747. Since, I moved here, the weather in Florida has conspired to allow me to see 4 landings now. None of them were as good as this one. My friend and reliable geek, Jonathon Redman drove us out to the North side of EAFB where we located an elevated train trestle, which would serve perfectly to elevate our line of sight above some sandy burms between us and runway 22. We had to drive down an access road of questionable density, bringing about the fear that after this was all over, we may have to get towed out of the sand and back to civilization.

We brought everything but the kitchen sink to help view/record the event: Celestron 20X80 binoculars on a paralellogram mount, Heather’s new Canon EOS 50D, Jonathon’s Sony video camera, Jonathon’s scanner with antenna to hear shuttle communications, two pairs of 10X50 binoculars and some water and snacks to power the eyeballs. Soon after we set up, I noticed that a radar tracking facility on the case had come online and had begun tracking an object. Taking our cue, we assumed that that object was Discovery and started to look in the general area at which the dishes were pointed. By the time we saw the inside of the dishes angled slightly toward us, we knew it must be overhead.

Every landing I’ve seen, someone always catches sight of the shuttle before I do or no one knows where it is until you hear the sonic booms associated with the craft breaking the speed of sound. This time, for a few short seconds, we spotted Discovery even before the sonic booms.

It was glorious. The partly-cloudy sky provided a reference to actually view the movement of approach instead of seeing the shuttle floating in a sea of blue sky, which provided for a much more dynamic viewing. The shuttle glided silently over a throng of tilted heads, over the desert and over it’s mother Earth. We couldn’t have asked for higher visibility or contrast. There, for the world to see, was proof that we can still achieve amazing things violently descending through the air. I wanted to catch it so that it wouldn’t break, the old man. I wanted to show the world how we’re not over yet and here is the proof. My eyes were locked on the shuttle. I switched from Binoculars to camera and back. At one point, through my trusty bino’s, I could actually read ‘the United States’ on the cargo bay doors. Our gamble with the train trestle paid off when we witnessed the puffs of smoke from landing gear touchdown, unobscured by the buildings that plagued viewers closer to paved roads. It was the best landing I’ve ever seen.
On the way home, I was wishing that Heather could’ve made it (she was working). Jonathon and I sat replaying the event in our heads, driving down the desert highway. The sun was moving on to Wester pastures but left a trail of clouds on fire in its wake. The windmills in Mojave served as reminders that there are forces much larger than us at play all around us.

The Space Shuttle program is coming to an end. The last launch is scheduled for May 2010. For several years, we will rely on Russian technology to reach the Internation Space Station. This is embarassing. I witnessed the construction of a single stage to orbit vehicle only to be canceled by our former president. There is no reason why we shouldn’t have some sort of active manned spaceflight program at all times. The science justifies it and we need it as our frontier. I look forward to the future of manned space flight, but I can’t help but think that we are taking a lateral step.

All images taken with Heather’s 50D and 28-135mm USM. I couldn’t help but snap a few shots of this guy riding his bike along highway 14. The images all had great blurred backgrounds invoking a ton of motion. I plan on really doing a shot like this correctly in the near future, so this is an informal sketch.

I’ve been very busy lately with classes at Cal State Northridge, so I haven’t been updating as much as I’d like. I’ve already got more Pin-Ups images to post before too long and I’ve got to get caught up before Canon releases the EOS 7D, my future new camera. I’ve spent many hours researching and I hope this is the right choice. The word is Bust Buy should receive shipment on October 11th. I just hope I can wait a month. I’ve already started to read the manual and it seems like it’ll be our goto machine for most of our work in our new photography business. We’ve also turned in our application for the Arbor Lofts mentioned in an earlier post so cross your fingers. All in all, things are going very well so stay tuned for much much more to come.

Canon 7D Reviews and Resources

Canon 7D Reviews and Resources

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