Story

Baboons are a very strange, colorful, and robust animal. They are very fun to photograph because they have such amazing colors in the strangest of places which I am sure I won’t have to mention because everyone is fully aware of that already. Yes, he is scratching his butt. I really enjoyed the females the most even though the men have such interesting looks I liked the females better. Their hair looked almost like it had been crimped and dyed with yellow. Their eyes are the most amazing par, wide and yellow. They were fascinating to watch. ...

Let me introduce to you a very strange animal called a dik-dik.Yes, its name is dik-dik. The even funnier part is what this animal actually is, a deer like animal that is only about a two foot long. An antelope named for its shrill call that actually sounds like “dik dik” or “zik zik”. Probably one of the strangest animals I have ever seen, I had heard about them before but never expected to see one in person when I went to the San Francisco Zoo. I am very glad I got to see one, and now you can too. ...

Joshua Tree in the eye of the beholder, the eye of the adventurer. My mom and I recently visited Joshua Tree National Park down by Palm Springs. A park full of rock pillars and sculptures and very odd looking trees that slightly resemble puffy cacti slapped on the ends of a scruffy looking tree trunk. Odd but intriguing plants. The first thing we did was visit Barker’s Dam. It was a nice little hike out to a small lake and a very old looking dam. ...

The peacock is a truly magnificent animal with dazzling colors, long majestic feathers, and beautiful patterns. However it is actually a relatively mean animal. There is something scary about them like they are constantly trying to figure out the best method of attack to send you running and screaming in the other direction. I think it is the black beady eyes always watching you even when it seems like it isn’t. ...

Slowly but surely through constant effort, I am getting better at getting the bird shot. Here are some new attempts for bird shots.

Gabe’s planning on doing all the Early Bird Criterium races this year, and here we are for the first mentoring and racing session. A bit of warmup on the rollers, and it’s off to the start of the race. It’s a good sized field, and I’ve tried to pass on the key advice Gabe will need today. The pack wound up getting shredded when a really fast Spokesman guy took off the front. After a couple of laps between two packs, Gabe dropped to the second pack and finished a strong first. Outstanding job Gabe! ...

This past year has been one of progress and growth for me at least. I have learned so much in this year alone that it is astonishing to me; from photography, to my writing, to my schooling I feel I have grown. Instead of taking the time to look back on all the wonderful things that have happened this year I want t o take the time to move forward. People linger far to log in the past and as part of my growth I hope to live in the now instead of what has happened. I want to tell everyone to take advantage of the life you are given and don’t waste a second. Now is the time for growth, it does not matter if you are young or old, it is the time to grow. So soak up in your roots the wonderful memories of the past and spread out your branches with the growth of new memories and new life.

Gabe’s racing season gets off to a start with the San Bruno Hill Climb. There’s plenty of rain and cold threatening as usual, but fortunately there’s a somewhat sunny pocket just for the race. Warming up is a trick at this race, but we’ve got the tent and rollers that do the job nicely. It’s too bad the long line of starting groups cools him down completely before the start. I know Gabe is nervous with national champions and older kids in this race, but he’ll do his best. I think he was happy with his result of 22:20.7 for the day. ...