Leave.

Nothing subtle about this. I am migrating to my new site for good now. The new website has a blog incorporated into it, rendering this page useless to me. I will maintain it for a while, but will not post much content here.

For those who have followed, I sincerely thank you and invite you to join me on the new site:

www.studiobluempls.com

The good times are still rolling, just changing the address. See you there.

Best,

T.C.

National Sports Center Velodrome Promo

I promised I'd show the images once they were released to the public, so here they are. You may have seen them on posters in bike stores around Minneapolis and St. Paul. I really like what Chris Verbick did with the poster design-work around the images. He's a talented man - off educating himself in England as we speak.

Anyway. It's too late to visit the Velodrome to see some racing, but come spring you'll get our chance again.

Happy Halloween.

More Rendezvous- 08

"Hannible" sold knives, furs and such.



They didn't have hoop and stick yet...



The missing end of the card was shot off by this woman's musket ball. The skinny side facing her! Quite a shot, this one.



Blackpowder musket.



A trapper's bedroom.

Last summer I shot an assignment for the NY Times on a group of people that get together to reenact the ways of the fur trappers that settled parts of Minnesota way back when. It was an interesting job for sure. All around me people were dressing and acting like they were living a century ago. Kids threw hatchets, men fired black-powder muskets and ladies cooked over open fires. These are images that were never published.

Pears.

We try to grow as much food as we can on our little Minneapolis lot. We have a garden with over a dozen different things, as well as 7 hens (one laying blue eggs) that give us fresh eggs daily. We try to keep our foods' distance from our plate as short as possible - except for coffee. Mmm...

This summer we noticed that several neighbors had fruit trees that they did not utilize. We saw them picking up fallen, rotting fruit, but never taking the good stuff to use. So, I started asking if we could take some of the fruit off of trees if they were not going to. It pleased them all, and so we did. We got home grown apples and pears, which we either ate fresh or canned for later. The pears were especially beautiful, so I could not resist taking just a quick shot of them.

I'm told this was a great year for apples. It's not too late to find out for yourself. An apple a day...

NY Times: Home = happy foreclosure story

This last weekend I dodged rain and 30mph+ winds to finish my latest assignment. A little rosier way to look at the foreclosure mess our nation is in, was to pick a home that was bought cheap and made into a pretty sweet place.

If you want to read the article: NYT Home Section

View: Slideshow

The home was okay, but the real gem was the yard! The property includes the following: 2.5 acres of land within city limits. A large garden, and new fruit tree (pear & apple) orchard. It also had a view of both St. Paul and Minneapolis skylines, and a detached workshop with a bar (although not currently functioning as such).

So, the moral of the story? Foreclosure is not always bad. I guess.

Energyprint & Envirobate- executive headshots

I had the pleasure of working with a few brand new companies this last month. Both needed headshots of their executives, and management teams.

The first, Energyprint, specializes in software that helps your company track its consumption. They help you by road-mapping your consumption, costs and carbon in an effort to save you money and keep your business operating efficiently (and thus greenly - is that even a word?).

I am really into the idea of operating efficiently as a means of reducing consumption. It is not as hard as it seems once you get into it. I like what they are doing.



The above image is of Priscilla, the COO at Energyprint.

THe second company is Envirobate. This company takes care of the abatement of things you and I ought not try to remove ourselves. Things like mold, asbestos and more. If you have an older home like I do, you might find yourself needing their services at some point. Top shelf stuff.




This is Mike Sherek, Project manager of the commercial wing of asbestos removal.

Gear review- Thule Roof Box

For several years I have worked with writer, Stephen Regenold, of The Gear Junkie - a website and syndicated column in several papers nationwide. Recently he asked me to test (and in this case photograph as well) and review a few items and write about them for the site. This is the first of those. Have a look around his site - lots of outdoor toys, stories, photos, etc...

Here's the link to the review: Thule Boxster 611

So long summer and Beautiful bikes

It saddens me deeply to see summer go away soon. I absolutely love summer and being outside and grilling and tan. Alas...

Fall is amazing, but amazingly short here in MN, and then winter. Long, Long winter. Beautiful, yes, but so very long. So here is an image that I found and love. It says summer so well and is really simple and beautiful. I wish I knew who captured this image. Well, done, sir (or Ma'am).

And soon, so long to road bike season. I will trade my skinny tires for wider, Cyclocross tires and layers. So, here are a few nice rides to remind us of the fun of bicycling in the summer. I am not a fixie freak, but I like these bikes a lot. Gotta' say, the fixies look great - I just keep mine for the track. And I never tire of seeing pursuit bikes. Those frames are so agressive looking! Again, I did not take these, so props to those who did.

I had a good trip to Tucson, AZ this week. I was working for Everlast Climbing Industries -- my longest standing client. I will post images when I am able to.