Race Day

To say that Sunday at the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland was considerably drier than Saturday would be an understatement. It did drizzle a bit in the morning, but nothing like Saturday's downpour.

The morning started with the big cars on track for a Champ Car warm-up session. I stayed completely dry under a truely waterproof rain poncho that I had purchased the previous evening, and kept my camera completely dry thanks to the addition of some gaffer's tape to help secure the Lightware rain cover.

The warm up session was followed by the weekend's second Atlantics race, which proved to be an exciting battle. The race was eventually won by Canadian rookie Kevin Lacroix.

But of course, I had come for the main event, the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland. The race marked a number of firsts, including the first standing start for a Champ Car race. It also marked the second year in a row in which the race was run entirely under green—there were no yellow caution periods. (The start of last year's race was waved off, so the first lap was run under a yellow flag, but the remainder was all green flag racing.)

Justin Wilson took an early lead and appeared to be running away from the field. But after the first series of pit stops, Sebastien Bourdais began to catch him.

I headed to the pits to photograph the second round of pit stops from the pit wall.

By the third stint, Bourdais had built a sizable lead and remained ahead to the checkered flag. I took this photo several laps from the finish. Sebastian Bourdais is chasing Dan Clarke into turn number 2. Notice that the same image is being displayed on the Jumbotron screen.

I must admit to being totally unenthusiastic about another win for Bourdais. I was much more excited about the second and third place finishers. Justin Wilson came in second and rookie Robert Doornbos was third.

I've got one other thing to report about my weekend in Portland. I rented a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens for the weekend from LensProtogo.com. I also borrowed a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM lens from my friend Jay Solomon. I had previously used the 70-200mm lens to shoot some of the CAD Camp events. I assumed (correctly, I might add) that the 70-200mm would be too short a focal length for most of my shooting situations at the race. I've been considering purchasing the 100-400mm lens, but was unsure about the push-pull zoom function (as opposed to the twist zoom of the 70-200 and other similar lenses that I've used in the past). I am happy to report that I found the push-pull operation of the 100-400 lens to be quite easy and in many ways preferred it for this type of shooting.

I also HIGHLY RECOMMEND LensProtogo.com. I had reserved the lens several weeks in advance and called at the beginning of the week to confirm my rental and to provide payment information. The lens arrived as promised on Thursday, packed in a custom Pelican case inside a cardboard box. When I returned home after the race, I packed the lens back into its case and returned it using the pre-paid mailing label provided. The total cost of the rental, including insurance and shipping, was $90. This is a great way to try out lenses prior to purchase, or to get your hands on a specialty lens that you wouldn't otherwise buy. LensProtogo was a pleasure to deal with and I look forward to trying out other lenses in the future.

You can view a more extensive selection of photos on my Flickr site.
Click here to view as a slideshow.

Wet and Wild

I made my annual trip to Portland to photograph the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland, once again accompanied by my friend Elliott Fine. This year, instead of camping at the race track, we decided to stay at a hotel. That turned out to be a very good decision for several reasons.

First of all, I attended my daughter Clarice's school play on Friday evening beginning our drive, so we didn't arrive in Portland until nearly 3am, much too late to begin pitching camp. Second, it rained on Saturday's practice and qualifying sessions, making a nice dry, warm hotel room a welcome asset.

It didn't rain that hard on the Saturday morning qualifying session...

...but by the time the Atlantics cars took the track for the first of their two races of the weekend, the rain was coming down pretty hard. Quite frankly, I don't know how these guy can see where they're going in the rain. It's not just that the rain is falling from the sky, but when an open-wheel race car speeds across the wet track, the car throws water from the track back into the air in a "rooster tail," further increasing the amount of moisture in the air. The driver of the lead car might be able to see where he or she is going, but the drivers close behind that car can bearly see a thing.

We were pretty surprised that the Saturday afternoon Champ Car qualifying session happened at all. By the time that session started, it was pouring and there was lots of standing water on the track.

While it made for some amazing photos, the photographers around the track probably got wetter than the drivers. We not only had to contend with the rain, but were blasted by the spray every time a car went by.

I had actually planned ahead, having purchased a rain cover for my Canon digital SLR and lenses, although I'm not 100% satisfied with the product I chose. I bought a Lightware RC100 rain cover from B&H Photo (the store from which I purchase most of my photo gear). The cover has a drawstring that cinches one end of the cover around the end of the lens. But I found I needed to add some gaffer's tape to keep this from sliding back from the end of the lens. The rest of the cover closes with velcro, which makes it easy to get your hands up inside the cover to adjust the lens. But the cover is quite long, much longer than my longest lens. The extra length actually got in the way. Again, some tape helped mitigate this problem.

But the end result was that my camera still got quite wet, so wet in fact that several of the lens' functions stopped working. By mid-afternoon, I could no longer adjust the ISO setting when in any of the camera's manual modes, and lenses would no longer auto-focus except when the camera was set into programmed modes.

I was also soaked all the way through in spite of wearing a supposedly waterproof jacket. Thanks to our nice dry hotel room, however, all of these problems were easily resolved at the end of the day. I hung up my clothes to dry and used a hair dryer to dry my shoes. But Elliott suggested the cure for my camera. I removed the lens and turned the open body face down over the keyboard of my laptop while we went out for dinner. The warm air gently rising from the computer dried things out nicely. By the time we returned from dinner, all of the functions were once again working properly.

You can view a more extensive selection of photos on my Flickr site.
Click here to view as a slideshow.

Touring the Midway

One of the nice things about doing two CAD Camp events back to back in nearby cities is the opportunity for some down-time. We took advantage of the 1-hour trip from Phoenix to San Diego to get into downtown for some site seeing.

My son may be the pilot, but I still have a love of plane and boats. What better way to spend a Wednesday afternoon than touring the USS Midway.

It didn't take much convincing to get Starr and Teri to join me.

The deck of this 47-year old aircraft carrier is absolutely huge. It truly is like a floating city, and they have done an absolutely incredible job converting the ship into an excellent floating museum.

There's a great collection of aircraft on the 1,000-foot long deck...virtually one of every type of plane that ever landed there. I particularly enjoyed hearing first hand from a former crew member what it was like to guide returning planes in for a landing.

We were able to join the final group of the day for a tour of the bridge and flight control. If anything, we didn't have enough time to see everything before the ship closed for the day.

We concluded the day with a nice dinner at a harborside restaurant. Matt Murphy and I each enjoyed our drinks.

There are more photos of the Midway on my Flickr site.

Torah Restoration

The weekend of June 1-3, sofer Neil Yerman came to my synagogue in Bellingham, WA as the scholar-in-residence for the completion of the restoration of our Torahs. The weekend began with a Friday night service and continued through Saturday morning and Saturday evening Havdalah service.

On Sunday afternoon, congregants joined Mr. Yerman on the bima to compete the restoration of the last of the congregation's three Torahs by writing the final letters on the parchment Torah scroll.

Mr. Yerman explained that a Torah must have 304,805 letters, and if even one is missing, it must be replaced before the Torah can be used. But if there is a tear through the name of God, then that entire portion of the parchment scroll must be replaced and all of the text in that portion rewritten by hand.

Mr. Yerman fashioned quills primarily from turkey feathers.

Throughout the afternoon, congregants came onto the bima. Then, Mr. Yerman guided their hands as they each wrote a letter on the final portion of replaced parchment.

Our Rabbi Cindy Enger had the honor of writing the final letter to complete the restoration of the Torah.

The congregation's 70-year old Torah is now fully restored and will eventually find a home in Congregation Beth Israel's new synagogue when it is completed in 2008.

I was quite gratified to have been able to take part in this historic event and also to be asked to be among three photographers who recorded the event for the congregation.

One of my photos was even published in the JTnews as part of the paper's front-page story by Emily Weiner.

You can view more photos of the Torah Restoration Weekend on my Flickr site.
Click here to view as a slideshow.

The Police Concert, Opening Night Vancouver

The last time I saw The Police was in back in the 1980s during the final tour before the band broke up, so I was very excited when the reunion tour was announced, and even more excited to learn that the tour would start in the Pacific Northwest. The only problem was, back when the tickets went on sale, I had no idea if my travel schedule would allow for me to go to the concert. So I didn’t buy any tickets. But as luck would have it, the first show of the tour was in Vancouver, BC on Monday, May 28 and I didn’t have to leave town until the following day.

One week before the concert, I started looking for tickets through brokers like StubHub, and on eBay. With the date getting closer, all those people who thought they’d make a killing scalping tickets were obviously starting to panic. I ended up getting a fantastic deal from a guy in Ohio. I picked up a single $225 ($238.25 including Ticketmaster charges) floor level seat in row 35 for $49 plus shipping. Then, after exchanging email, I bought a second single ticket two rows behind mine from the same guy for the same price so that my friend Tom Dudek could go with me.

(my actual ticket, purchased for $49 on eBay)
We drove up to Vancouver on the afternoon of May 28, had a nice dinner, and then walked over to GM Place. By the time we bought a couple of beers, the opening band had already started. We missed the introduction, but learned the next day that it was Sting’s son’s band FictionPlane. We thought they looked and sounded a lot like The Police.

The opening band got a decent reception, but the place went absolutely nuts when The Police took the stage. No one sat down for the next two hours.

The Police opened with “Message in a Bottle” and then went into “Synchronicity II” after which Sting introduces the band. The rest of the set included:

• “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”
• “Voices Inside My Head”
• ”When The World Is Running Down”
• “Spirits in the Material World”
• “Driven To Tears”
• “Walking On The Moon”
• “Truth Hits Everybody”
• “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
• “Wrapped Around Your Finger”
• “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”
• “Murder By Numbers”
• “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da”
• “Invisible Sun”
• “Walking in Your Footsteps”
• “Can’t Stand Losing You”
• “Roxanne”
• “King of Pain”
• “So Lonely”
• “Every Breath You Take”
• “Next to You”

The show was everything I could possibly have hoped for. The sound was superb, my seat was good, and the concert itself was incredible. Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland were all at the top of their form. After watching Copeland intently throughout the show, I’m convinced he is one of the greatest drummers ever. At several points during the show, his drum kit was augmented by additional drums, gongs, and bells that rose up on a second platform behind him.

Summer's guitar playing was flawless.

Even the people sitting behind the stage were treated well, with Sting and Summers often mounting a semi-circular riser behind the main stage platform and playing to the people behind them.

There wasn’t an off moment the entire evening. If I weren’t traveling for the next few weeks, I would go to one of the other shows in Vancouver or Seattle. As things currently stand, I’m going to see if I can arrange my travel plans so that my path coincides with one of the other many stops on the tour.

(photos are from The Police website, AP, and other wire services)

A Cool House by Koolhaas

I had been meaning to get over to the Seattle Public Library for quite a while now. And no, I wasn't going to check out some books. I wanted to finally see first-hand what I had been reading about in the architectural press for more than a year—the new Seattle Public Library building by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.

This has got to rate as one of the coolest, most exquisite pieces of architecture ever to grace a major city. From the outside, the glass walls seem to fold up and over themselves, making the building look much smaller than its full city block size.


But on the inside, the building soars.

Yet, after briefly orienting oneself, it's quite easy to find one's way around.

Entering from the 5th Avenue (east) side of the building, you enter the "Living Room", the base of the atrium, which contains the reading room, fiction collection, a cafe, and the entrance to an auditorium. Escalators take you up to level five, which houses the "Mixing Chamber" where library patrons can meet with librarians to get answers to general questions or receive help with research projects.

But once you're ready to do any real work, you ascend to the upper levels. Levels ten through six form a continuous "Book Spiral" that allows the library's non-fiction collection to grow without having to move books to different areas. From level ten, you can spiral your way down through the stacks along a continuous ramp.

There's also an abundance of artwork, in particular an installation by Tony Ourseler projected on oval "eggs", which provide a running commentary as you move between the Living Room and Mixing Chamber levels on a bright yellow escalator.

I also absolutely love the floor of the Children's Center on the ground level. Designed by Ann Hamilton, the floor features polished wood planks with phrases in 11 different languages, but they're backwards to evoke type set to print the books housed in the library.

You can view more photos of the Seattle Public Library on my Flickr site.
Click here to view as a slideshow.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

When was the last time you stayed up for 24 hours? Well, that's what I ended up doing on Friday, May 11. I certainly didn't start out the day intending not to sleep for that length of time. It just sort of happened. Let me explain.

I was in Tampa this week speaking at an AUGI CAD Camp event there. That was an excellent event, by the way. The folks in Tampa really rock. It was one of the most "with it" group of users of all the events we've done this spring.

Anyway, I had to leave my hotel around 4:45am to get to the airport for my flight back to Bellingham. So I was up early. Thank goodness I was able to get first class upgrades on Delta all the way back to Salt Lake City (there is no first class section on the Delta Connections flight from Salt Lake back to Bellingham).

But once back in Bellingham, my day was just beginning. It turns out that once American Idol narrows its field down to the last three contestants, those contestants get to fly back to their home town for the weekend. Well, Blake Lewis, one of those three finalists, hails from Bothell, WA. So Friday was Blake Lewis Day in Bothell. And Bothell is only about 70 miles from Bellingham. And my family watches American Idol avidly and we've been Blake Lewis fans all season (although I have picked Melinda Doolittle to win). You can see where this is going...right?
So, no sooner did I arrive back in Bellingham, then I drove my car to the Bellingham Amtrak station, shifted over to my wife's minivan, picked up our girls and my daughter's friend Anna from school, and drove down to Bothell. We made the trip in record time (amazing considering the usual Seattle-area traffic) and managed to find a parking space in beautiful (and tiny) downtown Bothell. The girls and I positioned ourselves near the end of the parade route while Genny went over to the small park amphitheater where Blake would eventually perform.

The parade was supposed to start at 3:30pm and the concert at 4. The parade finally got underway a little after 4pm. The parade consisted of two police cars, a fire truck, and then Blake riding in a convertible. Check out the reaction on Blake's face when he sees my daughters' sign.

As soon as the parade ended, we quickly walked over to the park to see the concert. Of course, the park was already packed with people. And when I say packed, I mean PACKED. There was literally no where to move.

Even the local television camera people were having a tough time getting a decent vantage point.

I didn't so much see the concert as hold my camera up over the heads of the people in front of me and shoot. My daughters were positioned near the stairs where Blake came in, and they touched hands when Blake entered the amphitheater.

After some introductions, the mayor of Bothell declared May 11 Blake Edwards American Idol Finalist Day and then read from a fax he had just received from Paula Abdul announcing that the judges had chosen "Roxanne" by the Police as the number Blake will perform this Tuesday, May 15, on American Idol. Then Blake performed several numbers, including two original songs.

When he finished his final song, he introduced some of his friends, including the woman who had organized the Blaker Girls.

Then it was pretty much bedlam again when it was time for Blake to leave to head over to Safeco Field where he was scheduled to sing the National Anthem and then throw out the first pitch.

So why is this posting called "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" and why didn't I get to sleep until nearly 2 am (more than 24 hours after I had gotten up that morning)? Well, while there wasn't much traffic getting to Bothell, leaving Bothell afterwards was another story entirely. See, the rest of the plan was that Genny and Emma had tickets to "Rent" at the Paramount Theater in Seattle. Clarice, Anna, and I had tickets to take Amtrak back to Bellingham while Genny and Emma went to the show. Thus the reason for me parking my car at the Amtrak station in Bellingham before leaving. Unfortunately, we missed our train. Then Genny thought she'd drop us at Safeco Field so we could try to get tickets to the Mariners game against the Yankees (at which Blake was to sing). But again, the traffic was so bad (not to mention the game being a near sell-out) that I was concerned that she would then be late for her show. So Clarice, Anna, and I ended up going to my sister Lori's house for the evening while Genny and Emma went to the show. Then they came back and picked us up a little after 11pm to drive back to Bellingham. By the time we dropped Anna off at her house, went to the Amtrak station to get my car, and got back home, it was after 1am. By the time we got everything settled, it was 2.

We were signed up to participate in the 5km Haggen to Haggen run on Saturday morning...

Right. Like that was going to happen.