Fitness and Photography

Check Out My New Blog

2012-06-19T15:13:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to invite you to check out my blog that I update now days. It's called Country Side Photography and it's a place where I display and talk about some of my photography adventures. Just click the link below if you are interested. Thanks

http://csphotography12.blogspot.com/

Crossville Tennessee Adventure Part 1 of 2

2012-01-09T08:26:00.003-06:00

I just posted on my Country Side Photography blog about my adventure to Crossville, TN. You should go check it out :)

Here is the link
http://csphotography12.blogspot.com/

New Blog

2011-12-28T20:40:00.001-06:00

Just letting everyone know that I have started a new blog called "Country Side Photography" that is just for my photography. I am going to start using this blog just for my fitness updates and my 2012 goals. But anyway feel free to check out and follow my new blog.

Heres the link http://csphotography12.blogspot.com/

Thanks

Summer

2011-06-16T18:22:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a while since my last post. After spring semester finals I had one month off before I started my summer Calculus II class and I decided to take a break from blogging and a lot of other things to enjoy my time off. I have been back in school for 2 weeks now and I'm going to start blogging again. I have continued to lift weights and train. I will be posting new pics of myself next week to show my progress. Anyway be on the watch for more blog updates and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Fishing Tournament Results

2011-05-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I participated in a fishing tournament on Old Hickory Lake, TN. There were a total of 12 boats in the tournament. We launched at safe light and began fishing. It had rained a ton a couple of days before and the main river channel was extremely muddy and full of logs and other debris. So we decided to stay out of the channel and fish right around the corner from the launching dock. We caught several small fish but none that were keeper size (14 inches). Later in the day we decided to hit the main river channel after not catching any keeper Bass. We headed down the lake to the steam plant. My friend has caught many a good fish from this place before and knew exactly where to go. I began throwing a lure called a rattle trap into the muddy water. All of a sudden a fish slammed my lure. I reeled the fish in and got it into the boat. It was a real nice fish and we didn't have much time before we had to be back at the dock for weigh in so we headed back. We where the next to last boat to be weighted in. We only had one fish to weigh ,which was my fish, which weighed 3lbs and 12 ounces. At the awards ceremony it was announced that we had caught the biggest fish for the tournament and we won $140. However, we didn't come in first or second because we had no other fish but my friend and I were super stoked about the money we had won. Overall the fishing tournament was a great experience and we can't wait to do it again.

Later this week I am doing my weigh in again (taking pics and measurements of myself) and I will post everything here like last time. Also, tomorrow is my last final so I will be officially be out for school until later in the summer when I start my summer class, but I will be posting a new workout routine I am going to call "Boot Camp." It is basically going to be a summer boot camp to get my body in better shape and loose that stubborn fat around my stomach and gain more muscle mass. I haven't fully gotten the program together yet but I am supper excited about and I can't wait to get started. Well I hope everyone has a good rest of the week and look for my Weigh In Part II.

This Weekend

2011-04-29T07:18:00.000-05:00

I thought I would let you guys know what I am doing this weekend. Saturday I am going to be competing in a bass tournament on Old Hickory Lake, TN. My good old friend Jesse contacted me on Monday to ask if I would like to be his tournament fishing partner and I was like "heck yes I would." I have never competed in a bass tournament but I have been fishing since I was six years old and have caught a many a bass. I think my friend and I have a good chance at placing in the money (first - third place). We are leaving at 3 in the morning to get to the dock. We launch at day break and we have to be back for weigh in at 1p.m. so it is roughly about 6 hours of straight fishing. I will write about my lake experience on Sunday or Monday. I hope everyone has an awesome weekend and wish me and my friend luck.

Pics That I Promised

2011-04-25T10:14:00.000-05:00

Back several weeks ago I blogged about some new pics I was gonna post after going for a visit at Cane Creek Park in Cookeville, TN well I never posted them. So I am finally going to put them up after much postponement.
The pictures were taken on March 29, 2011 and here they are.

This is a shot of a Canadian Goose sitting on the bank of the lake. One reason I like this shot is because the goose is in such a nice natural pose.

This is a Mallard Duck that just hopped out of the water. I love this pic in particular because you can see the water beading up on its feathers.

I hope you all enjoyed the new pictures and there will be more pictures to come I promise. This is my last week of classes and next week is my final exams. So after I am out of school I will have more time for photography, working out, and blogging too. Well I hope everyone has a great day.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter to everyone. I hope everyone has a good time with family and friends. A new regular post will be coming later this week. I have a lot of work to do for school on Monday but hopefully I will be free later that night or Tuesday but anyway have a great day and enjoy your day :)

Navy Seal Extreme Off-Road Challenge Results

2011-04-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was the Navy Seal Extreme Off-Road Challenge in Cosby, Tennessee and it was a ton of fun. Me and three of my friends left Friday evening to camp out at the one of the three campsites that are available on site. It was raining hard and storms threatened but we decided to camp anyway. We put out our tents and got camp set up and went and hung out with Dan ( the man that puts on the race) at the main pavilion. Dan is an awesome guy. Down to earth, funny and super nice. After a while we went back to our camp and went to bed to rest for the day to come. The next morning we woke to cars arriving at the event. The race started at 10 a.m so at 9 we walked down the hill to get out registration stuff. I was really excited and nervous for the race to start. By the time I was standing at the start line I was ready to go. The way the course was laid out they had you run up this hill and circle around the main pavilion to the bottom of Cardiac hill. Cardiac hill is nearly straight vertical and the only way to get up it is to crawl. After you reach the top of the hill you have a little flat section before the start of long hill. Long hill is just what the names says it's a long hill that climbs in elevation from 1,470ft to 1,921ft. This hill is a quad and calf killer. At the top of long hill there is a beautiful view of all the other surrounding mountains but that only lasts for a bit. The trail quickly takes you down a steep decline down to a basin where the obstacle course is, which is a lot of fun. The course continues up and down hills till you get to the water pit. The water pit is 4ft deep and about 30 yards (90ft) long and feels amazing. Once you get past the water pit there is only a few more hills till you get to the finish line. My friend Matt came in 3rd overall place with a time of 54min:45secs. I will be honest and say I was not fully prepared for this event but look forward to doing it again in the fall. I finished 43 out of 56 with a time of 1hour:29min:42sec. I am really happy with how I finished the race. I would highly suggest this race event to anyone. It was a ton of fun, the race is a real challenge to anyone of any level of fitness(even the super fit people) and after the race you feel awesome because you can say that you finished the Navy Seal Extreme Off-Road Challenge!
Here is a few pics of the race.

This is me on the left with the black sleeveless shirt at the start of the race

Here is Dan the man behind the race

Here is everyone at the start of the race. My friend Matt is in the blue sleeveless shirt and my friend Scott wearing the blue t-shirt behind the man in the orange shirt

This is not me jumping into the water but this is the water pit

All four of use guys together after the race

left to right its Scott, Matt, Me, and Tim

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the post and there will be more great stuff to come. Thanks for stopping by.

Weigh In

2011-04-14T13:58:00.000-05:00

As part of my fitness progression I am going to be doing monthly weight ins where I take measurements of myself and pictures and post my results on here. On March 29 I did my first weigh in and I am going to be posting the result today. As time goes on I hope to be able to look back on old posts and see results! Also this weekend is the Navy Seal Off Road Challenge so wish me luck. So here is my weigh results.(by the way the reason why it looks like I have a lazy eye is because I had an eye infection at the time)

Chest-40 inches

Biceps- Left 14 1/2 inches Right 15 inches

Forearms (at widest point) -Left 10 7/8 inches Right 11 1/2

Waist- 31 3/4

Front View No Flexing

Side View No Flexing

Front View Flexing

Back Flexing (needs some work)

Be nice in the comments I have only been lifting for about a year now but stopped last summer and started again this fall. I went from weighting 160lbs to 185lbs and my bench press max from 195lbs to 235lbs so I have come a long way but still have a ways to go. Also I'm gonna be posting some new photography pics and pics from the race next week so watch out for that. Thanks for stopping by :)

New Name (Again)

2011-04-11T20:18:00.000-05:00

I know I keep changing my name of my blog, but I promise this will be the last time. The reason I changed the name once again is because I not only love photography but I love fitness too. I want my blog to be a place I can share a little bit of my life with people. Just limiting it to photography doesn't truly show who I am as a person. So from now on I am going to be talking about photography and fitness mainly and also some side notes of my life along the way. Anyway just wanted to let everyone know whats up and I look forward to whats to come :) Thanks

Race Event

2011-04-08T15:53:00.000-05:00

Well today I am going to talk about something other than photography for once. Next weekend me and a couple of my friends are competing in the Navy Seal Off Road Challenge in Cosby, TN. Basically it is 3 miles of off road running. You follow trails up crazy steep mountains, go through mud/water pit, and the course boasts nearly 2,400ft of elevation rise and fall. My other two friends ran this race last fall and loved it so I decided to give it a try. Most of you may not know it but I started lifting weights and training regularly since last spring. I love to exercise and stay fit. This will be my first race event of any kind. I have been training for a while and I am super excited about it. I will post pics and let you know how I did after the race.

Also, I have been doing photography despite having tons of school work to do. I hope to post my pics from last week on here really soon and also I hope to do some photography this weekend. I hope yall had a great week and have an awesome weekend.

Hear is a video of last falls race. You will have to skip the first little part to get to the actual race :)

My Flickr

2011-03-31T17:01:00.000-05:00

Just letting everyone know that I now have a Flickr account. If you look to the right of this post on the sidebar you will see a slideshow of my pics. This slideshow is fed from my Flickr account that randomizes the pics and shows them. So as I add new pics to my Flickr account they will be displayed here too.
Here is a link to my Flickr gallery http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanv09/
I have also just created a new Flickr group called "Tennessee Nature Photography". The purpose of the group is to showcase the true natural beauty of Tennessee.
Here is a link to the group http://www.flickr.com/groups/1611780@N25/ fell free to check it out and please join if you would like :)
In the next couple of days I will be posting some new pics from Cane Creek Park in Cookeville, TN so be sure to watch out for that. Thanks for stopping by.

New Pics

2011-03-24T09:49:00.003-05:00

Last weekend it was beautiful in middle Tennessee so I took the opportunity to do some nature photography. At this point in spring there are a lot of small flowers and bushes in blooms and there is some trees in bloom also. Here are three of my favorite photos

This is a picture of a plum tree in bloom.

This is a picture of a "for cynthia" plant in bloom.

This shot is of a Bradford pear tree in bloom.

As I have said before spring is one of my favorite times for photography. I will continue to update my blog and add new photos as I take them. As far as other news goes I haven't been able to go back to Burgess Falls this week due to school (Calculus to be specific) so I hope to be going there in the next couple of weeks. Monday or Tuesday I should have some more spring flower and nature pics posted so be sure to check back. Thanks for stopping by.

Its Been a While

2011-03-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

It sure has been a while since my last blog update but that will be no more. I am going to stick with it and blog regularly!
Spring is one of the best times for nature photography. Next week I am planning on going to Burgess Falls State Park in TN for my first major spring photography outing. I have been to the park twice before last summer but I have new equipment that will hopefully improve my pics. I will post a couple of pics on here but I will post a link to my website so that you can see all my pics of the falls. I look forward to updating my blog again and sharing with you some of my photography adventures.

Here is a pic of the falls from last summer

Plants

2010-06-15T23:41:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is having a good week. Mine is going good so far. This week I worked 10 hours on Monday and I had today off and I am so glad. In fact i'm off tomorrow too. Today I'm gonna be posting some new pics I took last week. Todays theme is flowers and plants. Hope yall like the pics :)

This is a view looking in at a canon plant

I love taking pics of flowers and I have been trying to take as many pics of them as I can especially since the past few weeks the flowers have been in high bloom. These are only a few of what I took but I will try to make a new post maybe tomorrow. I hope you guys liked them tell me what you think about them thanks :)

Busy Week

2010-06-12T17:47:00.000-05:00

This week was a good but busy week. Monday- Wednesday I was able to take some more pics of flowers, birds, and even some storm clouds. Thursday and Friday I worked with my grandpa doing electrical work on a house. It was burning up outside but we managed to get a lot of work done. We even worked half the day today. Anyway I have some new Pics :)

This is a pic of a red flower that is growing in the flower garden right outside our house. It was early morning and I had just finished watering the plants when I noticed all the water droplets that had formed on its leaves. This is one of my favorite flower pics.

I have been working on my black and white photography and this is one of the first plants I have ever tried to capture in black and white. Leave a comment and tell me what you think of it.

For this picture I used the Sepia setting on my camera to give it this rustic look of the morning sky

These are just a few of the pics I took this week but I may upload some more tonight i am not sure. Anyway I am about to go to the movies to see A-Team hopefully its good. :)

A New Hobby

2010-06-04T22:21:00.000-05:00

I have always loved taking pictures even since I was young, but I never really tried to do anything with it but now I have decided to make something of it. I will be posting from time to time pictures that I have taken and the stories behind taking them.

Here is a sunset I took last week on a farm down from our house

This is a Tiger Lily in our flower garden.

Please leave comments on what you think of these two photos and there will be more to come :)

Good Weekend

2010-02-23T07:26:00.000-06:00

This past weekend was awesome. The temperature finally got above 40 degrees for the first time in about two months. In fact it even reached up into the 50's! Yay! Saturday I washed the inside and outside of my truck. Man it was so dirty is wasn't even funny. I think it had been since before Christmas since it has been washed because I found Christmas cards in the back seat. Of course I also hung out with my girlfriend all day and it was really nice to see her. Towards the end of the day around 3 we went to go visit my girlfriends Dad. After we talked for a bit we all three went bike riding. We ended up biking for almost ten miles. Which ins't to bad for a quick ride before sunset. Sunday was my grandma's 80th birthday get together. It was really nice to see family members that I hadn't seen since I was really little. I thought it was funny to see there face when they saw how much I have grown up. Most importantly my grandma had a great time which is what it was all about. Now I'm back at school grinding through the classes. Overall this weekend was a great break from all the snow we have been having. I hope all of you guys have a great week. Peace

PS I got bored so here is a new pic of me enjoy ;)

Snow

2010-02-16T14:16:00.000-06:00

Once again it is snowing. I have never seen it snow this much in middle TN for a very long time. Last night I went over to one of my friends apartment to do the P90X workout and right after I had got there it started to snow. It snowed the entire hour we worked out. When I went to leave the apartment I walked out onto the road and I almost feel lol. I barely made it back to my apartment without wrecking. All of my classes were cancelled yesterday and today except chemistry. Needless to say I didn't go. I wasn't about to go out and wreck my truck and be in a even worse mood than I would have been. My point in saying all this is that I really like snow, but after a while it gets really aggravating. Especially when I have proffesors who wont cancel class even when the campus parking lots are forzen over.

Anyway, last week I blogged about how busy my week was. Well I have some good news. I made a 60 on my chem exam........I know what your thinking that is terrible but the class average was a 55 and there is over 120 people in the class. When I recieved this grade I was sooo happy. I have yet to recieve the grade for my math exam but I should shortly as soon as we have class again.

Busy

2010-02-11T08:00:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone sorry I havn't made a post in a few days. I have been overloaded with work. Wednesday I had my first major paper due in writing 2 and I had my first exam in Math1730. Not to mention today I have my first program in fortran 90 due and my first chemistry exam is today also. I had something major in all my classes except intro to psychology class which our first test is next tuesday. I have been studying like crazy latly and had little time for myself. After today I will have a little break and I will go shopping for my girlfriends Valentines Day present. Personally I love Valentines Day. I'm one of those guys who doesn't mind spending a little extra money than normal to get my girl something really nice.

Moreover, I will be glad for the weekend to get here so I can relax from all the studying until next week. Nobody said engineering school would be easy but im up for the challenge.

Leave a comment and tell me how your week is going and maybe what your planning for Valentines Day.
Peace

The Super Bowl

2010-02-08T10:44:00.000-06:00

This years super bowl was awesome. The past few years I have watched the super bowl and was overall not impressed. Sure the commercials where hillarous but overall I thought it was ok, but this years game was really good. For staters New Orleans winning their first super bowl in franchise history, not to mention the what it meens for the town of New Orleans after hurricane katrina. Also the commercials were very funny as always and I thought personally that the half time show was great with all the light affects and everyting. Last but not least the game itself was very suspenseful expecially when the Saints intercepted Peyton Manning for the touchdown that sealed the victory.
Im sure some people would disagree with me about this years super bowl being better than the past few, but in my opinion this years was one of the best.

Leave a comment telling me what you thought of this years super bowl.
Peace

Storm Chasing

2010-01-30T09:24:00.000-06:00

Weather has always been something that has intrests me. When I was young I would ride my bike up to our farm and go to the top of the hill to watch storms roll in during spring time. I would sit there and watch the clouds swirl, birds gliding in the strong wind, and trees bending over from the raw power of the wind. I would stay there until I was either rained out or lightning was to close for comfort. I would then go home and stand in the breeze way that connects my house to my grandmas house and watch the storm as it passed by. All during this time I would be pretending to be a storm chaser. Storm chasing was something I have always wanted to do ever since I can remember. Even when I was young I would try to predict weather based on the formation of clouds.I even wanted to go to college for meteorology, but didn't because I didn't want to travel to far from home to attend one of the few colleges that offer it. I have always told myself that one day I will act upon my dream, and I have. I should be attended a weather spotting class on March 11 in South Carthage, TN to become an offical weather spotter. I had previously wanted to do this last year but I missed the deadline for the classes so I had to wait till now. I am so excited to finally start acting upon my dream.

People may think I am crazy for wanting to do this but the thrill of the chase outways the risks. I know I could be killed but I will be taking further classes on weather to make sure I have the knowledge to keep myself safe. An added benifit to all this is that I will be able to keep my friends and family safe from storms.

"Climate Is What We Expect, Weather Is What We Get"
Mark Twain

Love for Animals

2010-01-27T07:27:00.001-06:00

Owning pets has been proven to increase life expectancy among people, over those do not own any animals; and I can see why this is true. Animals require a certain amount of care and love to be healthy happy pets. I have always loved animals imparticular dogs, fish, or any wildlife animal ( deer, turkeys, doves). Yesterday my girlfriend and I bought four new fish to put in our new ten gallon tank and we are so happy with them. We love to try and find really cool fish that are bright colors, but we also like the classics too. Two of the fish we got are light blue and depending on the way the light hits them they can be green. The other two are a type of tetra, a sunset tetra and a spotted tetra. In about a week we are going back to get a couple of small bottom feeders to complete the tank. Overall I am really happy with the fish so far and they seem to be healthy and happy

My point in saying all this is that I am excitied to have fish again and I would encourge anybody to get fish or whatever animal you like.

By the way leave a comment of your favorite animal or maybe a childhood pet you had.
Peace out

Morning

2010-01-21T07:38:00.000-06:00

It early morning again. I am about to get up, get dressed and go to school. Engineering prog at eight, then Chemistry at nine, Math at twelve, and last but not least Engineering prog lab. Oh and working in the library from 11-12. Great day right. Well it isn't so bad it's just that the day will seem like it will drag on forever. What gets me up in the early mornings ,like this, is the hope of becoming an engineer one day and I know I will. It will take hard work and determination but I am ready for the challenge. As a freshman I already spend many hours studying but I know it will pay off in the end. Peace out.

"You win some, you lose some, and others you get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all"
J Askenberg