First day in Tahoe: Riding Boreal

Got up this morning after a long drive yesterday and hit up Boreal, a sick, smaller mountain with a great variety of features. The trip has been amazing so far, and Tahoe is definitely my future home. Everyone here is so chill and laid back, it's like Nelson, but the U.S. version.

Here are a few shots I snapped today at Boreal. Tomorrow's agenda: Northstar. Tonight's agenda: No clue yet.

Shea with a switch 50, back 1 out.

Shea and Calin on the lift above the park at Boreal.

Look for more pics and stories soon.

Thanks,

- Tim

From the road.

The alarms woke us at 5 and of course we don't hit the road until 6:30. Things are going great so far, and we seem to be getting a lot of funny looks. Maybe you could tell me why.


I've been taking a lot of photos this trip, and plenty more to come. Stay tuned.

- T. Sorenson

[Recurring] Memories of Nelson

Just running through Lightroom and found a photo that I wanted to throw a vintage feel on. Here she is; let me know what you think.


Here's the camera settings. I think posting this will help me become more aware of my settings.

Thanks for reading. Now it's time to clean the car out for the trip. What an undertaking.

-T.Sorenson

Buttermilking.

Today only, IHOPs around the country are offering free pancakes with the suggestion of a donation to the Children's Miracle Network. The money stays locally and benefits children in Coeur d'Alene, based on the information provided by the IHOP employee that handed us the brochure.

Here's a shot I snapped on the iPhone of my free, delectable pancakes.

Kirk Mastin has inspired my iPhone photo intrigue. Thanks Kirk.

What's next?

A lot has been going on getting for our trip next week. We'll be heading Thursday morning to San Diego, where the National College Media Convention is being held. On our way down, Shea, Zack, Calin and I are going to stop in Tahoe for a few days, drive down to San Diego and then come back through Vegas and SLC making it an epic trip to say the least. I'll have my travel kit (battery chargers for laptop, iPhone and both of my cameras) so look for posts as our journey unfolds.

On Thursday I headed up and got some shots of Dash at Schweitzer. Here are a few shots I snapped.


After some riding, we headed to Thor's and got some pizza. Check out Thor's if you haven't already, you won't be disappointed. Best pizza this side of the Mississippi.

I've been shooting a lot lately, and it gets more and more fun everytime. I shot this one at the NIC Men's Basketball game against CNCC. Great game, and my sports shoot with the new lens. I'm loving it.


The newest issue of the Sentinel came out on Tuesday, and I was fortunate enough to get a front page shot (look familiar?) and a shot I got of Andrew Draper (even though it ran b&w) turned out great on the Life Sports page.



This was a great issue. NIC doesn't appreciate Jake Donahue (our managine editor at Sentinel) as much as they need to. Our entire staff works together to make our paper #1. Great design work on this one Jake, and nothing gets me more stoked than the way this issue came together with everyone's help.

iPhone back online.

Got the iPhone back up and blogging again from my phone is wonderful.

Unfortunate news hit us last night as we came up the stairs in our apartment building. About three stairs up the final flight of stairs in our stairway, Zack turned around with a gross look on his face. Come to find out someone threw up in the window platform just atop the 3rd floor stairwell.

After a call to the property management company, there was a weak effort by the on-site manager to make the hallway sustainable so now we have to walk around in masks with air freshener pieces in them.


(Quick shot with the iPhone)

Tips have led to the second floor suspects, but unfortunately that's all we have gotten so far.

- T. Sorenson

Success!

Finally made iPhone and Blogspot mingle well. Posting coming more frequently :)

- Tim

Rail jam at a gun show.

After the rail jam, I walked into the gun show that was going on in the fairgrounds building next to the set-up. Here's a shot I snapped of the 50 cal they had on display. Only $6000.

Been a long time coming.

Playing with my new toy has kept me from the blog for a few days. I'm still trying to figure out how to post from my iPhone so if anyone knows how to, let me know.

It's been a bumpy few days with a lot going on, but I got my new lens and I've been playing with it for the last two days and it's lovely. I'm sitting right now in the NIC satellite campus at the Sandpoint mall waiting for class to start.

Rail jam today, rode a little and shot a little. Here you go Cali. MySpace freak. :)

Free-dom fries.

Glenn hooked me up with an online coupon for a free medium curly fry from Jack in the Box.

Garret, Jonas and I headed over to the Box to redeem our coupons.

Fries were dank, and I shot this one of Jonas at the counter. Cybershot is a blessing. Thanks Natalie.

Thanks Glenn for the shout out, and I'm glad people are appreciating the reading. Until next time, thanks for viewing.

-Pterry

Recovering from the awe they call Canada.

Definitely the most epic trip (so far) of my life. Quick recap: Headed to Nelson with our neighbors at the apartment and my roommate. Drinking age in British Columbia? 19.

When we first got there, we headed to a grocery store parking lot and set up camp. Gilbert and crew headed up in his Westfalia (guy pictured here is not anyone of us) camper-van while Shea and I took the Pterry-mobile. Unfortunately only four of us were of age to get in the bars, so we went in and grabbed a few beers at Finley's, an Irish karaoke bar in Nelson. We met up with a couple locals and they showed us to Spirits, a younger-generation bar. We got there and grabbed a beer and took a few shots and stood at the bar facing the stage and watched live music. Kick ass live show; Safire Jones (listen to Simplicity, this is her personal MySpace, but she played with an electro-rock band at Spirit) was playing.

We closed down the bar after the show and headed to The New Grand Hotel/Hostel. After talking with the guy at the register forever (he was a nice guy but couldn't understand the processes of his computer and punched the same information into the system forty times, so we were a little irritated) we ended up paying $20 for the three of us (Jonas, Shea and I) to stay in this room. Pretty cheap rate for a bed, bathroom and community shower.

The next morning, we headed out to get some food, grabbed some bagels from the grocery store and made breakfast happen in the Westfalia. After breakfast: liquor store. Grabbed some booze and got this shot.

We then set out for the Ainsworth Hot Springs and Shea drove the van and Jay and I took the Pterry-mobile. Shea got ahead of us in town and set out before we did, so Jay and I took a scenic route.

Snapped this one of Jay, as he was literally saying, "What are we doing here? This is the best trip I've ever taken."

After this shot, we were headed to the orange bridge in the background, and on our way there we stopped at a second-hand store to get some shorts for the hot springs, and got probably the best shorts we could have ever gotten for such an occasion. Ranging from orange and white polka-dots to cut-off courdourys, we were set for hot springing. It's also apparent that the J-Spot presentation was so correct. The perception in America of sex is so flawed that we shelter the fact that sex exists so people refuse that safe and responsible sex can coexist. The point I'm getting at is that a thrift-store in Canada has a stand with free condoms and literature educating the right way about STDs and other negative effects sex can have.

Anyway, back to the trip. As we were heading out of the thrift-store, a lady had locked her keys in her '89 Honda. She had a coat hanger, but had no skills in opening a door with it. I asked if she needed help and after 5 or 6 minutes I had her car unlocked. She gave Jay a few ciggarettes (I don't smoke) for us helping out. We got back on the road and headed up to Ainsworth.

The hot springs were incredible. These springs have the highest lithium content, so we're told from some of the locals, so you have a natural body high that is unlike anything I have ever experienced. The caves were unbelieveable. Mineral crystal walls and a natural passage underground. One can't describe it correctly to do it justice.

We hung out at these hot springs for a bit, and for the CAN $7 student rate, it made it even more affordable than beer. We all dried off in the changing rooms and got back to the cars to warm them up. I threw the macro filter on and took this after I realized that I had no U.S. currency in my wallet - all Canadian.


We headed back to Nelson after Ainsworth, and Garret, Jay, Jonas and Gilbert decided to stay another night, and Shea and I headed back home. We got to the border and (of course) we got taken inside and our car was searched. Nothing to hide (obviously), because we expect to get searched; two snowboarder kids with a pterodactyl on the hood of the car automatically get searched.

It was the greatest trip ever, and I'm sure they'll just keep getting better. I love my car (excellent gas mileage) and the fact that only $80 was spent on the entire trip (gas, alcohol, hostel, food). After looking through Lightroom, I stumbled upon this picture in my Cybershot library. It's not a great photo, but this is the image I think of when I look back and remember the trip.


I'll have more pics up on MySpace and Facebook. These were the most important photographs I took, but there are plenty more snapshots to fill an album on Facebook.

Thanks for reading.

-Pterry

Canada eh?

So a huge group of us headed to Nelson this evening, well technically yesterday evening. Shea and I met up with Jonas, Garret, Jay and Ryan for a quick weekend getaway to Nelson B.C. Funny thing was that Shea and Jonas had warrants out for unpaid tickets. This is the Volkswagon bus at the border. Jay and I made it across and were watching as this car full of criminals tried crossing the border.

Anyway, we made it across, and as soon as we hit Nelson, we hit the bars. A few of the bars Natalie (my wonderful girlfriend) and I went to on our trip to Nelson just a few weeks ago, were poppin' so we headed to check those ones out. After a few beers at a karaoke bar, we headed down the street to this sick night club with live music. Jonas and I took a few shots of Jager, and then we cruised Nelson.

We just found a hostel and the guy running the counter had absolutely no clue what he was doing and so we were charged $20 for the night. Pretty cheap split between Shea, Jonas and I. Jay, Garret and Ryan are in the car sleeping (broke college students), but we snuck Jonas in here. I grabbed a shot just a second ago of me and Shea in our hostel.

We're headed to bed. Wake to a new day in Canada. Just got off the phone with Natalie. Such a great night.

Thanks for reading.

Zero the Hero.

Sold my lens today, so kinda stoked about that, but also bummed I won't have a telephoto for a week. Looks like a lot of wide stuff. And 50mm too. But Nik somehow convinced me to go to the daycare his parents own and dress in costume and perform for kindergarten students.

I was Zero the Hero, and I was there to congratulate all of the kids about the 100th day they had been in school. Here's a shot Nik grabbed. Thank you sir.

Busy day.

Just finally settled down from a busy day. Went and opened and closed the shop today. Sold some stuff, and got a ton of inventory-ing (not sure that's a word) done. Got home and went and shot the J-Spot, a college approach to sexual education. I really appreciated it; it was funny and informative, and the guy really had the ability to speak. Eloquent to say the least. This won't print well, so I'm throwing it on here hoping it won't run in the paper. Didn't turn out too bad for online viewing though.

I got home and pulled up the photos from the horse statues and found a beauty that Shea (my roommate) got of me. A little soft, but I think it works. See Shea, you're getting better already.

No hiccups.

Finally a trip with no problems: no bad alternator, no running out of money, no tickets, no hiccups. Probably the greatest trip we've ever taken, and there's been a ton of them.

It was a sweet day of riding at Snoqualmie, and as soon as the sun went down in the park, we decided to head back home.

On our way back through, we stopped at the Wild Horse Monument. It was closed for the season, so we had to hike up from the freeway, but we caught the sunset at the perfect time. Here's a few shots from our little journey.



Had to be back today from Snoqualmie for only one reason. I had court in Sandpoint today. But, I went up there, took care of my ticket, and stopped by Wolf People again to see if I could get a few shots of the wolves. After a few shots, I was wondering where I could shoot them out of the cage. The woman told me that they have a 5 acre compound where you can go take pictures for $175 of a cageless wolf environment. We then got to talking about graphics and photography and I think I have it in the works to go take every picture of wolves I've ever wanted to take a picture of, in trade for my designing of the Wolf People website. Pretty cool deal if it works out. Here's a shot I got today. Caged, but think of the possibilities of cageless. Endless.

Time to clean my room. And do laundry. And edit photos. I need a vacation.

On the road again.

This semester's first issue of the Sentinel came out today. Had some good photos in this issue. Colors turned out really nice and everything popped. Last night was a headache. Nothing going right online, and I didn't wrap up until somewhere around 3 or 4 this morning. Late sleep through Sentinel, but this one called for a sick day.

Got a few front page shots and two full page sets. Here's a few of the pages my photos went on.


Went to photo class and got back home, and Shea and I decided to head to Snoqualmie. So we set out.

We got in around 10:30 to Puyallup, had some killer steaks at my dad's house, hopped in the hot tub and now I'm laying in the aqua bed listening to a little Peter Bjorn and John before sleepy time. Waking up tomorrow at 7 to finally ride something different:

Summit at Snoqualmie - http://www.summit-at-snoqualmie.com/info/winter/parks.asp

More pictures to come. We'll keep you posted.

Outdoor Pursuits heads to Schweitzer

Trying to have my hands on the camera every day from here on out. Even if its just something I grab with the p&s.

Yesterday I got to shoot some photos of the Outdoor Recreations students up at Schweitzer. This weekend is College Daze, and colleges from around the area are having their teams and programs staying and riding up there.

Here’s a few shots I got from yesterday.