Critical Mass Bikers Riding Through Fashion Valley Food Court

After riding about 14 miles throughout San Diego we arrived at the Fashion Valley Mall. As we rode our bikes through the parking garage I thought this would be end point. Instead all 400+ Critical Mass riders made their way through the food court, down the ramps and finally everyone got stuck as the escalators.

After reaching the mall Aaron and I decided to head back home. We took a shortcut from Mission Valley up to Hillcrest which was fairly steep. After the hill Aaron and I parted and I headed home. All in all it was a great time, extremely entertaining.

Damien

Our new apartment

Melody and I moved apartments about 2 weeks ago and after a lot of hard work we’ve finally got the place looking good. It was very hard combining two apartments into one but I suppose we able to get rid of some unnecessary stuff. We also bought some new furniture and we have a spare bedroom for visitors.

The new apartment is huge, almost 1300 square feet and we have a balcony with a gorgeous view.  We have a small glimpse of the ocean and San Diego Bay, a nice view of Cabrillo State park and Point Loma.  Also we’re not disturbed by the planes, trains and fire sirens anymore.

We have ran into one problem, the lady below us is old and cranky.  Before we moved in the landlord installed all new hardwood floors throughout the place and I suppose our neighbor below doesn’t like the sound of us walking around.  I personally believe the hardwood floors are worth it!

Here are some of the pictures I took this past weekend:

Map of my move

Thanks

Damien
@DamienH

Places I traveled to in 2008

About a week ago I wrote a post called “A San Diego winter day” which talked about a sailing trip to Mission Bay.  I started the blog post of with thoughts about San Diego and how I absolutely love living here.  I also added some pictures from my sailing trip that day which showed just how beautiful it was.  Over the weekend I received a comment on my San Diego blog post questioning how I could enjoy living in San Diego so much if I have never traveled.  On my walk to work today I was thinking about whether I have traveled enough to offer such and adoring opinion of this city and as a result I’ve decided to compose a list of places I traveled to in 2008.

United States California San Diego Los Angeles Hermosa Beach Manhattan Beach Hollywood San Juan Capistrano San Francisco San Jose Julian Santa Clara Sunnyvale Mammoth Mountain Yosemite National Park Illinois Chicago Hinsdale Ohio Oxford Texas Houston Austin Oregon Portland Nevada Las Vegas

Canada Toronto Mexico Tijuana Rosorito Cabo San Lucas Mazatlan Puerto Vallerta France Paris

I only listed the destinations that I stayed overnight or longer and I’m sure that I’ll think of more.  That’s not a bad list for one year and I think that means that I have actually traveled enough to confidently say I like San Diego the most.  I’ve also circled around the US twice in my car and lived in 5 major cites (Cleveland, Cincinatti, Atlanta, Chicago and San Diego).  Oh and I’ve rafted the Mississipi (not all of it) in a man made wooden raft and I saw quite a lot there too.

Damien
@DamienH

A San Diego winter day

I love the fact that I live in San Diego and although I regret to say this I do a pretty damn good job of rubbing it in everyone else’s face.  I really only do it because I want them to live here to and enjoy this beautiful city.  Anyway, today was March 1st and whereas most people across the country are putting on their hats and gloves my friends and I headed to Mission Bay for a day of sailing.  It was absolutely beautiful weather and the wind was quite good.  Roy, Melody and I rented a 16′ sailboat and headed out to sail bay where we met up with Max and his group.

The wind was just perfect and because it was my first time sailing the 16′ (I’ve rented the 18′ and 22′ many times before) I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  Because of the strong winds we had no problem leaning the boat and at some points even took on water.  I captained the sailboat for the first 2 hours and then I gave it to Roy and Melody to take care of the rest.  When I was free I took the opportunity to take some photos  with my new camera which I was quite happy with.

As you can see it really was a beautiful day out.  I also took my point and shoot digital camera for video but I left the memory card at home.  I can’t wait to take video next time.

Damien
@DamienH

My new Olympus Evolt

As usual Melody spent way too much on my for Valentines day, she bought me an Olympus Evolt 520 Digital SLR camera.  Even though she spent more than me I have to say that I would prefer my camera to the jewelery that I got her.  To each is own I suppose.  Anyway after ordering the other required pieces from Amazon (compact flash card and a carrying bag)  I went out this morning with Roy and took a ton of pictures.  We went to Seaport Village which is right on San Diego Bay and is quite nice.  With the combination of the beautiful weather and the scenery/atmosphere I got some nice shots.  

All in all I was very happy with the 100 or so photos I took.  It was my first time using a digital SLR so I have a lot to learn.  

One of the more troubling issues was converting the images from .orf (olympus raw format) to .jpeg so I could upload them to flickr.  After much research and a couple failded downloads I found a .orf to .dng (digital negative) converter and once I had them in .dng (lossless quality conversion) I could open them with Adobe Browser.  From there I selected the .dng photograhps and right clicked on them to open them in Adobe Camera Raw.  Adobe Camera Raw then allowed me to modify the lights/darks etc and then batch save them as .jpg.   

Apparantly this situation can be remedied by upgrading to Adobe Photoshop CS3+ which supports the new Adobe Camera Raw 5.7 (CS2 only supports up to ACR 3.7 which doesn’t support .orf). 

Damien
@DamienH