Matt Sandy's Blog » photography

Bike Ride Photos

admin — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:22:04 +0000

Here are a couple of the photos I took while biking up South Mountain Yesterday. I did get a little lost and went up the wrong way to a hiking trail the first time. Granted, a pedestrian only trail would have been safer. There were so many cars, many of which I only were were approaching through auditory indicators, since the road wrapped around the mountain so tightly at many points.

Awesome Road Ahead

Phoenix from a Distance

First Snow of 2011

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:23:35 +0000

This post is a bit delayed, but Minneapolis received its first snow of the season on the 19th. I walked to downtown and headed to my usual perch. Turns out elevators are disabled to those without keys during the weekend. I ended up climbing the stairs to the 25th floor, and ran into security on the 18th. I gave a smile and a polite “how are you?” that seemed to make it look like I belonged. Here is the view from the 25th floor.

From my Perch

…after climbing down the 25 flights I headed toward Nicollet and took this photo.

First Snow

Better late than never for the update, right? Well, that is it for now.

Old Seattle Photos

admin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:43:22 +0000

I was going through my old photos and stumbled across the ones I took while in Seattle. I decided to try my hand at editing them again, as it has been around 4 years and my post-processing skills have hopefully gotten a little better. The first one is a heavy crop from a 6mp camera (inside a car). It isn’t the best shot I have taken, but it goes with the set.

Pike's Market (Public Market before Place and the clock were added)

I absolutely love this one of Mckenzie from the Dandilion Junk Queens. I saw her the first day but didn’t have time to snap a photo. The next day I went back to Pike’s Market and saw her getting coffee. I asked about her playing later and she gave me a time and place as well as the okay to take photos. I later found out who she was through Sean and Ben from Andrew Jackson Jihad.

Mckenzie from Dandelion Junk Queens

This last one I absolutely love as well. I didn’t catch his name, but I caught a lot of shots from different angles. This is one of the better I think.

Man with Guitar

Going through my old photos makes me really want to start just taking photos every day. I have taken a few recently that I will probably upload later this week… once I make sure this piece of software I have been writing is fully functional.

Riding Weather

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:44:48 +0000

I love the fall for the colors of the leaves, the brisk air, and the overall beautiful riding weather.

Fall Colors

The Wayzata ride I normally do was absolutely gorgeous. I have missed out the couple Saturdays before last weekend, but I think this Saturday I am going to try and make it out there again. I am not sure how much longer my rides will be feasible with winter approaching so I really should be getting out as much as possible. I wish I had the money to invest in a really nicer 29er for this winter, but considering the time I spend in Arizona I just couldn’t justify the purchase. Next winter

Show at The Triple Rock

admin — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:06:02 +0000

Andrew Jackson Jihad and Evan from ‘Into It. Over It.’ opened for Frank Turner last night at The Triple Rock. After a text from Ben saying he got into the states at 3:30am, Norman and I headed over to Hard Times with Ben while Sean slept. Afterward Norman and I headed to Jamba Juice so he could return a wallet someone lost. After the ride yesterday I figured I should get some protein and had one of the most delicious peanut butter smoothies ever. I think the weekend was just incredible overall. We headed back to the apartment to wrap up some things, before grabbing some real food at The Triple Rock.

Once we got to the Triple rock we all sat down for some AMAZING food. I suck at names, but Justin from Off with their Heads and his girlfriend (wife?) joined us as well which was fun. Minneapolis has such a wonderful music scene. I was a little unenthusiastic about seeing the opening band after listening to a couple tracks from ‘Into It. Over it.’, but Evan is really great live and I ended up picking up an LP from him. The holy hitch seemed to be my camera flash batteries dying during AJJ’s set. If just listening and singing along instead of taking photos was the worst thing to happen in a day, that is a pretty awesome day. I am excited to see some other people’s photos from the show, as I was pretty out of practice (months) and want to just see some great photos from the night. Here are some of the photos from the night.

Evan from Into It. Over It.

Norman with a new friend

Ben and Sean from Andrew Jackson Jihad

Ben and Sean with TONS OF FANS

Long exposure of Ben

Ben at the merch table

Sean in the back of The Triple Rock

Crowd surfer during Frank Turner's set

SO MANY PEOPLE

Frank Turner

2007 Revisited

admin — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:00:00 +0000

I used to drive kinda fast

I can't even remember where this was, but it was somewhere in California

Found this in a park in LA

The Unurban Cafe in Santa Monica

The drive back from a California trip

The first Willow House in Phoenix (coffee house)

My dog in Arizona

Now Entering Hudson

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:23:52 +0000

I have been missing out on quite a few rides in order to finish up a couple projects with work that had missed their deadline due to feature creep. Today though… today I did over 60 miles which was nice. Unfortunately I am pretty out of shape , especially while using a fixed gear in Wisconsin. I was thinking of trying to make it up to Duluth before it gets cold, but I think I would miss having gears too much for that, and my touring bike still has a broken fork. If I can get some more riding in during the week, maybe I can get to where I would feel comfortable doing over 100 miles a day once again.

The Leaves are Changing

Fuzzy Caterpillar

Now Entering Wisconsin

Fun Shadows

The Route

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Photo Update

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 06:35:39 +0000

Just a couple recent photos for kicks.

Marantz 2252

AJJ on Technics 1200 MKII

The Mountain Goats at The Varsity

admin — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:14:34 +0000

Tuesdays are looking to be good show dates. Last Tuesday I went to see The Mountain Goats with my friends Danaca and Levi which was pretty awesome. The band Communist Daughter opened up for them and I ended up really liking them. They were not at all what I expected. This Tuesday I will be seeing Against Me!, which will be good even if they only play a few of their older songs. The last time I saw them was with Andrew Jackson Jihad in Arizona where AJJ was double booked and actually played both shows. I doubt this time will be nearly as great, but good music is like good pizza. Even when it is bad it is still pretty good.

I have been doing pretty well getting myself ready for the trip up to Brainerd, MN. I can do 40 miles pretty easily and way under 3 hours. Thursday night after work I went for a 40 mile ride, and yesterday I went for one as well… so far so good. I had to replace my rear tire though as it basically became shredded after one of the 40 mile rides, much of it through gravel. I am thinking about doing the same for the front as a precaution, but it is only 140 miles up to Brainerd, which isn’t really THAT far. Anyhow, here is a photo from the Saturday ride.

Luce Line back to Minneapolis

It was also nice to find out the GPS does work in rain. I had a chance to test that out thoroughly.

Anyhow, in other news I also have a bike trailer and a new office chair thanks to my boss. Already made two trips with the bike trailer. One was to pick up the office chair and the other to grab a million groceries. Loads of soda (12 pack of Barq’s Root Beer, 2x 6 pack of Sanpellegrino), orange juice, grape juice, chocolate cake, pretzels, pasta, gushers, and a bunch of other stuff fit great. Ah, summer.

The Last Month

admin — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:00:54 +0000

I really suck at updating this, but I have some photos I also want to post. Norman came for a visit which was nice. He will be moving up here in August, shortly before I head out again. Right now he is in Israel though, which means no phone calls for a little while. I set up an SSH account on my VPS for him so he can have access to Hulu and other sites that don’t allow access to people outside of the US. While he was here we road around Minneapolis and St. Paul, but didn’t make it down to the falls. I guess that will be saved for when he moves. We have also planned for some pretty long rides for when he has down time. Minneapolis to Mankato is on the list, as well as some other places. It should be nice having someone actively pulling me out for rides, as some days that is just what I need.

Speaking of riding I have been trying to get my 12 mile route down to under a half hour. I think I got it to about 45 minutes which is averaging 16mph… I want to average over 20mph though as once I do that I should be able to cover 80 miles in around 4-5 hours once I build up my endurance. First thing is building up my continuous speed though. It would be great to eventually be able to bike to Brainerd, MN in a single day. I had a goal of 200 miles in a day, but I will save that for next summer when I have a lighter bike with more gears than one. The end of June I will be biking to Brainerd, but likely will just find somewhere to stay in St. Cloud.

As far as the photos go, here they are…

Chipmunk at Minnehaha Falls

Path Along the River

Minnehaha Falls

All of the photos were just taken with my point and shoot, but I like how they came out. Of course I did a bit of editing on them, as I usually do.