Here is what you have missed in the past thee months.

Newport Beach Triathlon (5th in age group, 1st out of water in age group, top 20 swim overall)

UCLA Masters Swim Meet

Encinitas Triathlon

Tour Of California

And some photos

I will try and update my blog more.

About four months ago I decided to shoot a little series during some  massive storm that his Southern California. Everything in this gallery was actually shot in a single day (all with in three hours to be exact). The images were used for a color printing class that I was taking at the time and the original C-Prints look amazing. I finally decided to scan the negatives a few weeks ago and then tried to emulate the actual prints.

So take a look and tell me what you think and there should me more images to come later.

http://aaronpalmerphoto.com/galleries/ventura_rain

So as most of you people know, I like to ride bikes.  Unfortunately though, I’m not that experienced with riding on the track.  So a few weeks ago, I decided, since I can’t ride track, I will do a mini photo series at the Encino Veleodrome with a few members of Chain Gang instead.  I had a really great time creating these images and I hope to expand this series so look out for some more images to come in the near future.

ENJOY!!

http://aaronpalmerphoto.com/galleries/encino.velo/

Last Sunday (Super Bowl) Samson and I decided to drive up to Santa Barbara and tackle a grueling climb called Gibraltar on.  A 10mi, 4k foot climb with a tough final 2mi stretch averaging at about a 10% grade.  We were blessed to have good weather especially because it had rained the day before.  We started our day at my old work, Lazy Acres, to get some grub before the ride and to see some old co-workers.  The ride started right on the coast with some great views and then headed up State St.  After a quick glance of the Mission it was all work from there on out.

It got tough right at the start of the climb and my heart rate was going crazy but after a few miles I got right into good pace.  Samson on the other hand rode up it like it was nothing.  Being districted by the by breathtaking views made things a little easier.  After about a hour climbing the hardest part was just to come.  A very steep 2mi’s which made me re think my decision to do this ride really tested me but luckily I was able to pull through.  We then got a little nice flat and then another short climb to the summit where we meet up with another ridder who was nice and told us to descend San Marcos Rd. which we later did (and was well worth it).

We took a little break at the summit before heading back down one of the longest descents i have ever done and boy was it fun (and chili).  After a few bumpy roads we hit San Macos Rd. and we’re stoked to see a new pavement to make fast descent.  Knowing that there were going to be few cars on the road we went down a little faster and a little more carelessly then we normally would (well I did) hitting many sharp switch backs going well over 180˙.  We reluctantly hit the bottom of the decent and were bummed  it was all over.  After the ride we both celebrated a victory burrito at Freebird’s. Like Always.

Here are some images shot by Samson with his old point and shoot film camera.  It’s looks like the images were from the 80′s, which gives it a really cool effect.

http://samsonkhatae.com/images/gibraltar/

Here are some other images from that ride that don’t look as cool.

So Samson and I went up to Santa Barbara last Saturday to do a road race.  It was my first one so I was pretty excited and nervous.  We didn’t pre-register for the race so when we got there to register all of the spots were full.  Samson and I had to wait till 15 minutes before the race to see if there were any spots left and luckily they were able to squeeze us in but because of that whole fiasco we had to start near the back of the pack.  Unfortunately we were stuck near the back of the peloton for most of the race because it was impossible to move up in position but we were both able to make some good moves during the race and be able to hang on for most of the ride until.  Unfortunately we didn’t get the best result but I was just stoked to hang on for as long as I did and not crash (It’s pretty scary ridding with 50 other ridders with only a few inches apart from each other going at speeds of around 20-25mph).  There were hopefully be more races to come this year and some better results.