New Boots!
I was badly in need of a new pair of casual leather shoes. These arrived yesterday, and they are awesome. By far the best-fitting footwear I own, and I’m rather fond of how they look.
The pictures are nothing special. My camera does a terrible job with white balance under the dim CFLs in our apartment, and I’m not very good at cleaning it up with software.
Wedding Pictures
We got the wedding pictures from the photographer a week or so ago, and we’re really pleased. I’ve uploaded a handful below.
The wedding was an absolute blast, everything we could have hoped for and more. The entire weekend was filled with the people we love. Thank you all so much for coming, or for being with us in spirit. It wouldn’t have been the same without all of our wonderful family and friends.
1 down, 45 more to go
Erin and I climbed Giant Mountain in the Adirondacks today. It’s spring break this week, and we had a break in the weather today, so we decided to go for it. I’ve been desperate to get out of the city lately. Giant is one of the 46 high peaks in the park, so at this rate, we’ll be 46ers…well, maybe never.
It was a beautiful walk. A strenuous hike, but not too technical. There was a lot of snow on the upper half, but thankfully it was packed enough to hike without snowshoes.
Too tired to write more, so enjoy some pictures:
Spring Bike Porn (SFW)
So I’ve spent the last couple weeks making some adjustments to my bike. I’m pretty sure I’m done, at least until summer. You can see the original build here. After taking those pictures, I replaced the pedals with a set of MKS GR9s, which are decent, inexpensive platform pedals that accept toe clips. They’re great with street shoes, and the profile is a little bit narrower than my original pedals. I also added a set of half-clips from Velo Orange.
This spring I replaced the stock stem with a shorter one, also from Velo Orange. Along with the shorter stem, I fine-tuned my fit, shortening my reach. The result is much more comfortable. I also replaced my 16t rear cog with a 17t Rennen cog, as my original gearing was a little too tall for the stop-and-go traffic on my usual commute.
I ditched the steel fork in favor of a cheap carbon/aluminum cross fork that I scrounged up last year. A lot of people would argue that a carbon fork on a heavy steel bike is silly, but mostly I was interested in the disc brake tabs. Snow-clogged cantilevers are no fun in the winter, and I think I’ll add a front disc break next year. Dropping a pound of dead weight off the front isn’t a bad thing either, and I can’t discern any difference in the geometry with the new fork.
Most recently, I stitched some leftover leather onto the toe clips and added pair of VO alloy fenders. It looks like Albany is pretty wet in the spring, and commuting in the rain without fenders is a special sort of hell.
Finally, I scraped off the gaudy Surly logos. Personally, I think the end result is gorgeous. Here are some pictures, although the color balance is pretty crummy. I’ll try to get some outdoor shots tomorrow.
Winter keeps hanging on…
We had some nasty freezing rain last night, followed by snow this morning. Made for a real mess, but the ice was pretty, especially when the sun came out.
The Pond, 2010 edition
Since Erin and I are both back in East Lansing this winter, it’s time for another round of pond pictures.
For those that don’t know the story, this is a pond that Erin and I discovered while living in the university apartments. These were older buildings, next to the express-way and the train tracks. There was a surprising amount of swampy, wooded land near-by, and it made for fun exploring when we were bored.
The pond itself is shaped like two perfect rectangles; I’m assuming it was a borrow pit left from the construction of the express-way. If you’re curious, you can see it on Google Maps.
This was our first trip this year. It was a beautiful day for a walk, and I wanted to check the ice conditions. I looks like there’s enough ice for skating, but the surface is pretty rough. We’ll need to get a patch cleared off and see if it smooths out.
Here are some pictures:
Pictures from Bangladesh
Here are two galleries of photos from Bangladesh. I’ll do a longer write-up later, but I’ve got lessons to plan right now. Enjoy!
A Wednesday Walk
Our year here is winding down, and I’m wishing I’d taken more photos. Lately, I’ve been trying to do just that, but as much as I like taking pictures, I hate lugging a camera around.
here are some shots from a walk along the river on a Wednesday evening:
Mureung Valley
This weekend we took an amazing hike up Mureung Valley, near Donghae (about 45 minutes south of Gangneung).
Hiking is pretty popular in Korea, especially in Gangwondo. Every weekend, the parks fill up with people, and quite often a “hike” is actually filing up a big stone staircase in a line with hundreds of other people. Not exactly my idea of a good time.
If you get off the official path a bit, things are completely different. After walking up the path for about 20 minutes, we dropped down onto the river bed and rock-hopped upstream. There were a few people sunning themselves or having picnics, but we walked a few minutes upstream and had the whole river to ourselves.
We spent the day swimming in the river and lounging on the rocks. In the evening, a few more people showed up, and we set up camp. We pitched tents, cooked some food, and drank some beer. We hiked back down on Sunday, after more swimming and lunch.
I wish I’d known about the valley sooner, but I’ll definitely return before we leave.
Here are some photos. Also, I’m looking for feedback on the new photo system. I’ve wanted a Lightbox script of some sort to overlay my photos and display captions. Some of them run really slowly on my server, but I think I’ve found one that works. I’m still tweaking things, but let me know what you think.
Pictures – Weekend in Hyeonri
Our friend Jose lives in Hyeonri, a rural village near Inje. This was a long weekend for us, so we spent Friday and Saturday night with him. We went whitewater rafting on Saturday and took a nice hike Sunday morning.
It’s a gorgeous place. Here are some pictures:
