History and Bikes

So how's this for a post: I haven't found any pictures or come up with a title for this one yet. I thought I would just write and when I'm done I'll pull the meaning out and fill the rest with pictures and a title that fit. Haven't done it that way before.

So here I am sitting at work loading images into Photoshop so that I can edit them. Sounds fun, huh? Well to some I know it does sound fun because they took photo classes and know what they're doing. To others it may sound tedious and boring. To me, well...it's both and here's why: while I do enjoy working on photoshop with pictures that I've taken it can get tedious when everything you do is mapped to a hotkey. All I have to do is press one button and all the functions are done. I just have to save it and move on to the next image. And the images I'm working with are just typed pages. Nothing interesting in the slightest. My employees however get to work with some really cool old negatives. They are working on a collection of nitrate film that has started to degrade so we have to scan them and get them all digitized so that we can preserve the history of what's on those negatives. Those pictures are really cool to look at. Here's an example of what we are doing with them:

These pictures were damaged to a point that you wouldn't be able to see what was on the negative because the emulsion is so damaged. We scan them and then we have to play with settings and techniques in Photoshop until we come to an image that we can see. We literally pull the image out of the muck and this is what we end up with. Pretty cool I think. It amazes me how much can be pulled out of some of these. You look at them and think no way is there an image in that mess but once you scan it and see it, it's very cool. And the pictures themselves are pretty cool too. I love history, I always have. I have favorite time periods that I would love to visit just to see what it would be like. A lot of them have to do with war so I wouldn't want to stay long but still I would love to see things take place. I would love to see a Roman army form ranks and attack an unorganized horde of barbarians. I would love to see and hear the battles of the civil war where passion was king. Where it was brother vs. brother and family vs. family. I can't even imagine what that would have been like. And it all hinged on where you were from. You fought for what you believed, right or wrong. Some of those wounds still haven't been healed. I love the 1920's with all the flash and flair and pomp and circumstance that went on then. The parties, the extravagance, the overindulgence that comes from a great economy. Then of course you have the crash in december 1929. I wouldn't mind seeing that. I've thought about doing a photography project where I take pictures to look like they were from that time period. touch them up and tear them down in Photoshop to make them look desperate, desolate, disconsulate. I would love to do that. Recently I took some modern photos of a temple in Cambodia and used Photoshop to make them look like they were taken back in the early 20th century by explorers. I love it because they look like something out of Indiana Jones now. So that's something.

The weather has now turned warm. To all of you who have been whining about how cold it was and that it was snowing in May, Bite me! I miss the cool weather. I love waking up to 50-60 degree mornings and having the temperature not go above 75. Now it's going to get too hot and it will be uncomfortable. That just sucks. I can't wait for fall. Yes, already. I don't like hot weather. I like warm weather but not hot weather. It makes me feel sick to be in the heat for too long. I know, I'm weird. But one good thing comes from summer weather:

getting my butt off the couch and in the mountains to ride my bike, my baby. I have missed you. And, thanks to Chauntay, I have a biking buddy. She loves it about as much as I do. I've found some new trails to ride that I'm really excited to try out. Some new early season rides that are out on the mountain face where the snow will melt quickly. Can't wait to take Chaunie out and have some fun. Planning on Friday. Hopefully my knee feels better by then. Really wish I knew what happened there because I don't feel old enough to have bad knees like that. See ya in the mounatins.

Thanks for reading.