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Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

You know what it’s like when you first move into a place and boxes are everywhere and you know it’s going to take some time to make the place look the way you want it to? Even though it’s in disarray, it’s still your new house and you can sleep there and get mail there. It’s your house. That’s the way the new site is, but it’s time to start working there. The new site is simply www.adventuremonkey.com

It’s a little rough and doesn’t quite have the look I want yet, but I am going to start posting over there from now on. It will soon be a fully functional e-commerce store with a blog and soon other things too (think magazine and social networking)!

Anyway, I will start the new blog posts on the blog section of the Adventure Monkey site. It doesn’t have all the functionality of this site yet but it will soon surpass this place in a big way as I load everything in there. And as I move in and build the site, you can watch. How fun is that?

Oh and for those of you that subscribe to this blog, I’ll have that functionality over there too. A lot to work on… www.adventuremonkey.com

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

At this year’s Dirty Kanza 200, Adventure Monkey is teaming up with the Pablove Foundation to raise money for Pablove Shutterbugs in memory of Adrian Lewis Solano. Why do I want to support this? Just look at the mission of Pablove Shutterbugs:

“Pablove Shutterbugs seeks to teach children living with cancer to develop their creative voice through the art of photography.”

Wow. There couldn’t be a better foundation for Adventure Monkey to support than this one. And guess how they raise a lot of the money? You guessed it – bike rides. It’s an Adventure Monkey match made in heaven.

You can read my post about Adrian HERE. Please read both links about Adrian. Adrian’s is one story of many. They are stories that I wish would never be told. They are stories of children fighting the fight against cancer. A fight that children should not be fighting.

All of our fundraising is being done in memory of Adrian. He fought a hard fight. What we will go through in the 200 miles of the DK200 is nothing compared to what Adrian went through in his fight. Not only am I fundraising in Adrian’s memory, every pedal stroke I make will be dedicated to Adrian. I know this will keep me going.

Adrian and his parents

What can YOU do?

Click on THIS LINK to get involved. If you can handle it, join the team and race the Dirty Kanza 200 with us and help us raise funds. I believe we will even have special jerseys for you at a very low cost to represent the cause! If that is a little too much for you, and that’s very understandable, you can still help. Click on the link and give to the great cause of Pablove Shutterbugs. Then spread the word. Instead of forwarding that joke today, send a link to this page to everyone you know that would care about this.

You can help make a difference.

Feed Your LoveMonkey!
Eric

 2011 was a great year. Adventure Monkey continued to grow and so did I. It seems like 2011 went so fast, in fact it was the fastest year of my life. The older I get the faster it seems to go. Now that I am working on the new site (soon to be http://www.adventuremonkey.com I am very excited about what 2012 will bring. I will soon have the web presence I’ve wanted to have for Adventure Monkey and I will be able to manage this wonderful brand better. It’s going to take a lot of work, but the site should be up soon. When it’s ready this url will take you there and the original Adventure Monkey site will be history.

Choosing the “best of” images is always difficult. I based it on comments I’ve gotten and a few that I just really liked. Here is the first half of 2011 in pictures.

New Year’s Day ride 2011

Snow!

Lelan and I take Adventure Monkey to St. Louis, Missouri

The Fargo

Aaron from Big Poppi’s bike shop in Manhattan, Kansas

Lots of training miles for the 2011 DK200

Spring!

Sweet rollers on one of my dirty century rides

The gravel grinder is ready to tackle the DK200

Sunrise from the cold Spring edition of the Photocycling tour

  Tornado hits Reading Kansas

A storm that developed while I was on my last big ride before the DK200. It was HUGE and was headed my way until it stopped and headed towards Joplin and devastated that city.

The love of my life

Dirty Kanza 200!

The storm that ended my run for a finish at the DK200, 2011

Another storm – lots of storms in 2011

I was comissioned to do a print of downtown Emporia, Kansas for a gift for Kristi Mohn.

 My new friend that bought a print and rode with me through the Flint Hills. He lived, but barely.

I will have the second half of last year next.

I have so much work to do in the upcoming weeks to get AM where I want it. The posts may get a little farther apart than usual. I also need to look at last year’s goals, see how I did and make some new ones for 2012. Time is ticking, let’s not waste it!

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

Every year no matter what the weather I like to start the year off with a New Year’s Day ride. That’s exactly what happened this year, but I made it an event on the Adventure Monkey Facebook page to invite anyone that wanted to join in.

We had a pretty good showing and even though we got split up a bit during the ride, it was a great route and a beautiful day to ride. I felt great and that is a big deal as I have been fighting a lack of motivation lately. More on that later, but because I need to train for the DK200 and other races, every ride becomes a training session and it is easy to burn out. Every now and then I need to just ride and not worry about pushing myself, but rather just to enjoy the act of cycling and take in the natural world around me. I can’t help but want to improve my cycling skills though. I have to be ready in case a friend of mine invites me on an adventure! I here Colorado and the cold North calling this year.

Before I show the images, let me give you the lowdown about the changes that will soon occur on this website.

• Soon the url will be www.adventuremonkey.com, dropping the “the” (although theadventuremonkey.com will point to the new site)
• A new template will be used to showcase the store better and adventuremonkey.com will become a real, live e-store with a blog and hopefully more features to come.
• An e-newsletter will be created to keep you posted, have special sales and even tutorials that you can sign up for

I have more ideas in the works, but they are in the idea stage now, but are very exciting! Anywho, here’s what you came here for – the pictures:

Scott trying to stay out of the cold wind as we waited for the group

The Flint Hills are beautiful in their own, simple way

We hit some serious rollers into the wind on Road V, one of my favorite roads

Randy cresting the top of a steep hill. I had to stuff the camera back in the bag and get pedaling after this shot

The O’Mara brothers grinding up the hill under the moon

One last big climb to get out of the Kahola Lake Valley and head the 18 or so miles back home.

It was a great ride and a great way to start the year. Now I’ve got to set some goals and come up with a plan for 2012!

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

Things are going to change around here. This site is the combination of my old photography site (the galleries), the blog and the store. They all have a different look and feel and I am using three different templates. Before things really blow up I need to have one site that can do it all.

I will still be using WordPress, but am moving to a different host and I will also be using a different template. Things will look and feel different here very soon. Trust me, there will be some growing pains along the way as I put things in place. What’s this mean to you?

Well, this site may go down for a bit and come back looking funny. I have to repopulate the new store and move over almost three years of posts and images too. But when it’s all said and done we will have a more robust e-commerce environment with a blog and image galleries and who knows what else!? Also those of you that follow this on Google reader or other RSS reader, that may change too, but I’m not sure about that yet. But I have some help and Adventure Monkey is taking that next step! Woo Hoo!

Oh and the official url will be adventuremonkey.com, not theadventuremonkey.com.

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

I know I said I’d see you next year, but I couldn’t help it. Sometimes a story needs to be told.

We were riding in a loose paceline formation on gravel heading towards the towers out in the Flint Hills. Suddenly my tire rubbed Jed’s in front of me and the sound of tread on tread filled the cold air. Instead of grabbing the brakes and slowing down since no one was behind me, I tried to go left or maybe I was going left when our tires met, it happened so fast I’m not really sure what the hell happened. The next thing I knew my brain was telling my body to get ready to go down. I prepared to hit gravel.

I went down. It must have been pretty hard because everyone stopped to see if I was OK and acted as if something bad just happened. After my lifeless body came to a stop I jumped up as jolly as I could to let everyone know I was good. I just didn’t know how to ride a bike. I fell pretty hard on my hand and knee and the worst part was that the gravel ripped a hole in my favorite Pearl Izumi leg warmers. Crap!

We were all riding on the day after Christmas. Lelan was in town and got us together for a little gravel ride before he headed back to Colorado. As you know, I haven’t been riding much and riding with these guys was the wake up call I needed. I was feeling way out of shape. This was probably the worst shape I’ve been in since I started this blog back in 2009. I was winded on the climbs and by the end of the ride my thighs were wanting to cramp up. The sad thing was, it was just a little ride, not even 30 miles and I wasn’t going all that fast. That was just what I needed – a little motivation to snap me out of the winter blues. I’ve got some training to do! The Dirty Kanza 200 is a mere five months away! I’ve got to buckle down and train.

On a photographic note, this was the first time I was out with the Lumix LX5 on a cloudy day. I always shoot in RAW to keep all the detail of each shot. When the camera shoots a JPG it compresses the file and throws out a lot of detail, especially in the highlights, making it impossible to recover any detail in the sky. This is bad when you have an image with a wide dynamic range, such as a bright, cloudy sky and a darker gravel road. Shooting in RAW allows you to keep all the information that the sensor recorded and with software you can squeeze it out in post processing. That’s how I bring out the details of the sky and ground in my images.

I was wondering how the LX5 RAW files would behave and how much detail they would retain. All in all, they are not bad. You have to remember this IS a point and shoot camera with a tiny sensor. The files are nowhere as good as from my Nikon D300, but they are pretty darn nice for a point and shoot. I actually really like this shot quite a bit.

Something else about this camera that bothered me though. I have to remove the lens cap to shoot. That takes two hands. This can be difficult when trying to keep up in a group while riding on gravel. Yes, that’s right, I need to shoot while riding. I have to figure out a better way to carry the camera with me. Currently I carry it in a Revelate Mountain Feed Bag which works pretty well but it’s not perfect. Getting it out of the bag can be a two handed job, then I have to remove the lens cap before shooting. If you were paying attention to the story above you know it is best if I keep at least one hand on the handlebars. We will see. I am looking for something different. The good news is it proved itself in the image quality category and luckily it didn’t get hurt in the crash.

Even though I crashed and got left behind because I am desperately out of shape, it was still a great ride. A bad day on the bike is always better than any day in a lifeless cubicle. Actually, I couldn’t even call it a bad day. Getting outside and riding with friends always feels great. I glad I got off the couch!

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

Happy Holidays everyone! Whatever holiday you celebrate make sure to get out there and Feed Your Monkey!

I am taking the rest of the year off from the blog. I have a lot of things going on in my head and I want to make some decisions on how I will be moving forward with Adventure Monkey. If you’ve been following along, I have done many different things from the magazine to the new clothing line. I want to focus where I put my energy a little better in the coming year. One of my big goals for 2012 isn’t even mine, but it will involve me helping others do something amazing.

Stay tuned and have a happy and safe New Years! See you in 2012.

Oh, I am going to plan on doing my usual New Year’s Day ride on January 1 (duh) again. Stay tuned to the Adventure Monkey Facebook page to get the details! If you haven’t “liked” us yet maybe you should get over there and like us! Thanks!

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

It’s here again. That time of year that I load the daily calendar with 365 more days for the year ahead. This day has become a big deal for me these past two years. When I changed the calendar in 2009, I challenged myself to take on any adventure that would present itself in the year ahead. I didn’t want to be in the same boring place in a year. But alas, here it is two years later and I am in that same cubicle, changing that same calendar. Yes, I may be physically in the same place, but I have moved.

Since I decided to really live, to take on any adventure in front of me, things have been set in motion. It’s been a fun ride. I have accomplished many things and made some great new relationships. I have been up and down both mentally and physically. I have finished the DK200 successfully and DNF’d because of weather. I finished, somewhat painfully, the 2011 Farmhouse Classic. I successfully rode the unending rollers of Nebraska to finish the 2011 Gravel Worlds. I have bikepacked in the mountains of California and fat biked on the river trails of Minneapolis.  I have led photocycling tours in the Flint Hills. I have shot many images of my adventures on my bike. I have started a store, created and published a magazine, designed an apparel line and am working on some photography ideas for the future. Some days I feel like I need to do more, but looking back on these last couple of years I see I have lived well.

One problem I have is that I feel like hundreds of BB’s hurtling through space after being shot out of a shotgun. They are all going the same direction but they all will hit the target in a different place.  That can be quite effective, but I feel the need to be a little more focused, to take all that energy and focus it on less things to be more effective. Focused on what? That is something that I have been pondering, meditating on for the past few weeks. And can I even focus on less with my somewhat ADD mind? I have been looking within to find out what I really want to do. That may be easy for some, but sometimes I have no idea what I “really want to do.”

On idea I have been pondering and percolating on is, “What things have I enjoyed to do and have been good at all my life?” What can I learn from this? Who knows? But one thing I know for sure is that I am done watching life go by. I am going to continue to take on the challenges, the adventures that present themselves to me. And yes, I am going to continue my battle to escape this dreadful, windowless cube.

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

Sometimes in photography, as in life, you need a different perspective to find what you are looking for. As I waited to video a training session at work I looked at this plain ol’ water fountain and wondered how I could shoot it to make it look interesting. I was somewhat limited in what I could do because I didn’t have strobes so I would need to use the harsh available light coming from the corporate fluorescents, I didn’t have a tripod, I didn’t have another person to lend a hand it was just me the fountain and my Lumix LX5.

Movement always adds interest to a photograph, so I decided to turn the water on and shoot a longer exposure to make the water movement blur into a stream. I was limited to how slow since I didn’t have a tripod. Now I needed to choose my shooting position, my perspective. I decided to get down on my knee to shoot. I got on my knee, pushed the water button held my breath and shot the image. My settings were 1/4 sec at 2.0 at 80 ISO .

I had to work fast as I do not work in a creative place and this could be seen as aberrant behavior. By taking a little time to think it out before shooting, I got this image with one shot and didn’t have to answer to a non-creative why I was shooting a picture of a water fountain. My reasons would not have satisfied him anyway, as there was no logic involved.

Water Fountain, black and white

This makes me want to experiment some more to get the image I really want. Photography as in life, requires you to change your perspective or position, your mindset, your, dare I say, paradigm to see  the potential in everyday things you never gave any thought. Maybe it’s time to think differently and make something happen.

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric