Crazy Texas Weather

Everyone in Texas is quick to tell you that if you don’t like the weather wait a couple of hours, because it is bound to change. I really wasn’t surprise with Austin weather, it is either hot or less hot most of the time and I’m used to the changing weather from Florida, where it could be pouring one minute and sunny (and super humid) the next or sometimes both at the same time. But the last few days have been pretty crazy here in Austin. Check it out:

• Sunday (February 21, 2010), Beautiful sunny day in the 70’s.

• Monday (February 22, 2010), Colder foggy day.

• Tuesday (February 23, 2010), Cold and snow!!!

• Today (February 24, 2010), Still chilly, but nice and sunny… What ever happen to the snow?

Here is a picture of the snow in IBM:

Quicker Ride Than Expected

Today (02/21/2010) was a beautiful day in Austin, low 70’s sunny day. V and I thought it would be a great time for a bike ride, so we headed out to attempt the same ride we did last Sunday, a twenty mile ride in the Avery Ranch area.

What was a nice ride last weekend turned sour quickly due to the wind. It was so windy that even going down hill was hard. We cut the ride short to 10 miles, but it was a very challenging ten miles.

Iron-V Multimedia Documentary Project

I mentioned my proposed documentary project in the previous post. I will be following V on her road to participating in Ironman Brazil next year. Initially, I wanted to photograph the story, but after doing some research I would like to expand the scope of the project to a multimedia and social documentary:

1) Multimedia – A multimedia documentary mixes all sorts of media to come up with an outcome which exploits each type in order to best tell the story. These include photography (documentary, portrait, environmental, etc.), video, audio (spoken or environmental) and music. The definition according to wikipedia.com, ‘A web documentary (or multimedia documentary) is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools.’ I would also include web page and web presentation.

2) Social – I would like to exploit the available social tools for documentary content delivery, sharing and advertising. Currently we are making some progress on this front since you can follow V’s progress on her blog IRON-V and I will continue to blog about the documentary progress.  I’m currently working on the website. Soon you should be looking for our Facebook group and follow V on twitter or buzz (as soon as I convince her to start posting).

I also would like to share with you some great sources for multimedia documentary:

• Multimediashooter.com is a great source on information, technique and examples.
• ‘Remember Me,’ a touching and great execution of such documentary.
• ‘9 Multimedia Projects You MUST Experience’

My First Documentary Project

As a holiday present, V registered me in a documentary photography course taught by Ben DeSoto at the Houston Center for Photography. I was super excited since I like photography, although I read more about it than I actually practice it and I have never really looked into documentary style photography before. The course was split into two days, the first day we talked about the telling of a story through photographs and the history and styles used by the best. The second class was a bit more about technique, technology and what styles current artist are doing.

After the first class, a seed was planted in my head and I wanted to nurture it and see what I can do, but the problem was that I could not come up with an idea for a story to tell with my photographs. I had no idea because I was looking out for inspiration, instead of looking in. When I did looked into what was important to me, the idea was so obvious. V was the first thing in my mind.

One of the reasons I’m so proud of V and so attracted to her is her determination, specially in her physical activities endeavors. She sets goals and trains long and hard to be able to accomplish it. That means waking up early in the morning to go train before work or running for miles at night or falling off the bike in mile 24 during the 2009 Longhorn Half Ironman, getting back up and not only finishing the bike with major road burn on her right arm, shoulder and left hand, but also finishing the half marathon run to complete the race.

Now that she completed the Half Ironman, she wants to finish the real thing, a full Ironman; a total of 140.6 miles (2.4 mi swimming, 112 mi bike, 26.2 mi run). This will be taking place in May 2011,  Ironman Brazil Florianopolis.  In the meanwhile she will be training hard, participating in events, getting married, completing the Texas Tri Series and two half-ironman's.

And that my friends, is my project, I will follow V from February 14, 2010 until she completes her goal on May 2011. It will be a long road, I hope you guys can appreciate it as much as I will and enjoy as I fall ever more in love with every stroke, pedal and step V takes.

First Bike Ride this Year

Yesterday, V and I went out for our first bike ride of the year, a 20 mile ride that took us from the Avery Ranch area to Cedar Park, Leander and then back ( You can see the route here or in the map below).

The morning started a bit chili and in a bit of rush, since I woke up late and had to get ready, place all of our gear in the car and get there in less than an hour…. but we did make it. If you want to read V’s input check out her IronV blog post for this event.

Overall we did great, averaging 15 mph… not bad for being the first ride in a very long while. I was particularly impress with myself in the mini hills, since I was able to attack them without loosing too much time recuperating. I also rode on the largest (heaviest) gears and was able to keep up with V, something I couldn’t do previously. I have been taking spinning classes 3x a week this year and I’m glad to see that they are paying off.