Wilderness Sled Dog Race in Greenville Maine

February 4th, 2017, a group of us from Eastern Maine Camera Club traveled to Greenville Maine to photograph the 10th (or 11th, there was some debate) Wilderness Sled Dog Race.  This would be my second time in three years and it was every bit as exciting as the first.  If you've never been I highly recommend it.  You don't have to be a dog fanatic to have a great time.  The excitement of the dogs is contagious and in the middle of a cold winter it really puts the "win" in winter! As soon as they line up for the start the excitement begins. In every direction there are dogs yipping and barking, wiggling and jumping. Some would think so much noise would be annoying, it's not. Somehow the message from the dogs is clear; "We are beyond excited and we are ready to RUN!  Let's go!"

Then the team is released and the change is immediate and breathtaking, perhaps even spiritualistic.  The dogs stop barking, they stop wiggling and they run.  As they pass you on the trail it's magically quiet, the only noise you hear is the steady panting as they hang their tongues out to keep themselves cool on the 4 degree morning.

After getting home I shared my Wilderness stories with my friends and co-workers and a clear favorite emerged.  I had walked up the trail searching for an ideal spot with a low angle and the right background.  Off to the side of the trail I packed down a spot in the snow and made my self comfortable.  Spotting a team rounding the corner, I pulled up my camera and prepared to shoot, checking the zoom, finding the focus point and then, click, click, re-zoom, re-focus, click, click. In the background I could hear the musher talking to the dogs. A stereo-typical musher, a tall man with a full beard, repeated the same phrase two or three times in a gentle voice, such as a mother would use lovingly with a baby.

It happened so fast I wasn't sure what he said.  Further up the trail were more photographers. After he passed me I put the camera down and listened, I could hear him calling the same phrase again as he approached the other photographers.  This time, without the distraction of the camera, I could hear clearly what he was saying; "Smile pretty girl, smile pretty girl".  Here I thought he was issuing some important command to keep the dogs focused and on the trail, but no, he was telling the dogs to smile for the photographers.  Later at home I processed the photos and immediately went to that series. Imagine my delight when I found the photo below!

In the beginning the dogs are running hard.  After 30 miles, or in some cases 70 miles, the dogs have slowed down a little. Their noses iced up and frozen, their level of excitement never waivered.  No matter if they are in first place, or last place, they are still focused and giving their full attention to the job of running.

Once the day is done the mushers all gather for an awards ceremony to celebrate their hard work and dedication.  Something missing from the awards ceremony, the dogs.  They don't care about the awards.  They don't care about the recognition.  They are all tucked away in their houses, resting after a long day of running, beginning the wait for the next one.

Bucksport Adult Ed Graduation, 2016

I was thrilled to get a call from Leslie Murauckas recently, asking if I would be the speaker at the Adult Education Graduation in Bucksport. I considered it a real honor, I can't think of too many things as important as continuing education.  Adult Ed programs understand that life gets in the way sometimes, and they work hard to find creative ways to help people learn.  I feel very strongly that education is the only thing that can change the world.  I'm not talking about just Algebra II here, I'm talking about changing peoples lives with knowledge.

Leslie is retiring from Adult Ed this year. No one I know has done more to promote continuing education then Leslie. She certainly has been a positive influence in my life, and for that I will always be grateful.

If you missed the graduation this year, no worries.  There will be another one next year.  Do you fancy yourself someone who supports your community?  Ask yourself this...have you done anything to support Adult Education in your community?  Shame on you (unless you have then THANK YOU!).  Think about doing something...this is about making positive changes in the world.  You can still save the whales and the spotted owls.  Just take a minute to support people in your community who want to learn and improve.  Help them learn to fish (with the proper license of course).  

So with no further ado, here's my speech, from the 2016 Graduation.  Congratulations to all the Graduates!

Graduation Speech

By Kevin Doyle - June 2016

Good evening everyone, and thank you Ms Murauckas for inviting me to speak. Tonight I have three things to share with you.

1. Why this day is important.
2. Why it’s good to Fail Fast. I know that sounds a little weird but I will explain.
3. Why Relationships are important.

Before I get to these points I want to say Congratulations to all of you for your accomplishments today.

So, why do I think this day is so important? I’m positive I didn’t understand how important it was when I sat where you are in 1992. Lots of people told me it was great…but honestly…. I probably wasn’t’ listening. I thought it was great my family threw a party, and there was cake. Who doesn’t love cake right? I also thought my diploma was simply an indicator that I had achieved a certain skill level. Of course that’s true, but what I didn’t see at the time was the bigger picture; the more important accomplishment it represents. Which is the acknowledgment that I was able to set a goal, and navigate through a difficult set of tasks until I reached success.

Being here today means you have proven that you have what it takes to navigate a complex path of study to achieve success. Along the way I’m sure you encountered the support and encouragement of the dedicated adult ed staff.   I’m also sure they will agree with me when I say, the credit for reaching this goal is entirely yours. You made the choice to take this path. You and you alone stayed the course and completed this goal. You should leave here tonight with confidence that you have what it takes to succeed. So again, why do I think this day so important? Because It marks a point in time where you have proven you understand the recipe for success. Whether you go from here to college, or to a new job, or continue on in your current work, you have proven you can succeed. So now you simply define a new goal, navigate the barriers, celebrate and repeat.    

Now to my second point, why I think it’s good to fail fast? Fail Fast is a term I learned working in the software development world. Here’s the catch, when I say Fail Fast I’m not talking about failure. I’m talking about rapidly identifying things that don’t work, and being flexible enough to change direction quickly, to avoid failure. Traditionally developing software can take months or even years, and it’s not uncommon in the end to find major flaws costing thousands of dollars that could take months, even years to fix. A recent example we are probably all familiar with … Healthcare.gov.

Modern development methods attempt to break work up into small manageable pieces that can be completed quickly. If one of the small pieces doesn’t work, you can quickly change without a huge impact to the entire project.

I think this theory applies to many things in my life. Things are constantly changing around us all the time. Things that worked yesterday, don’t necessarily work today. It’s important to quickly recognize when things are changing, and adjust as needed to ensure success in whatever you do.

James Yourke, a distinguished professor from the University of Maryland, summarized it well when he said;   “The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.”

For my third and final point I’ll talk about relationships and why I think they are so important. No one makes it through this life without a few failures. If you have taken the time to treat people well and build strong relationships it won’t matter. People will understand and help, and your failures will be small and insignificant. If you haven’t taken the time to build strong relationships people will be standing in line to snap pictures and post them on Instagram, where they will remain forever!

In the end these things really won’t matter. Relationships will.

I have one final thought to share. As I prepared for speaking today I spent countless hours reading, in an attempt to find just the right message. I studied about Janus, the Roman god of beginnings. I read gobs of graduation speeches by famous people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Alan Alda, President Obama. As it turns out the perfect message was sitting right under my nose. It didn’t come from someone rich, or someone famous. It came from my 3-year-old granddaughter, Paige Ann. When asked by her Mom; “What do you want to be when you grow up?” her response was; “Taller, big enough to reach things!”. At first I laughed and thought, how cute is that. It took a while for it to sink in that there was a really good message in her words. It was the message I had been looking for. So in closing, Congratulations to all of you, and I encourage you to remember Paigeys advice….continue to grow, so you can reach things.

Thank you, and good night.

Sedgeunkedunk Stream Orrington Maine

The first canoe trip this year was successful from a wildlife spotting standpoint.  On this late afternoon trip we saw an Owl and two Osprey along with the usual Red Winged Blackbirds (I think that's what they are).  Most prevalent by far though, was the good ole Bull Frog.  Boy were they noisy.  I've never seen so many BIG frogs.  I never saw a small one all day.  Of course my favorite was Donatello, the Sedgeunkedunk Mutant Ninja Frog.

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Donatello the Sedgeunkedunk Mutant Ninja Frog

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Love was in the Air!

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They will never think to look for me under this weed.

Wild Florida

If you happen to be in the Orlando area my advice; check out Wild Florida!

Marsha and I watched this Peacock doing a dance for over an hour.  In case you were wondering...the lady he was chasing was not impressed. 

Never having seen a Peacock dance I was surprised by the buzzing sound he kept making.  It may look like the "eyes" are a little blurry.  That's because he was shaking them really fast.  For a minute I thought my phone was vibrating. 

This alligator was in Cypress Lake.  I took the picture while on an airboat ride.  The photograph won't win any awards but what you need to understand is this alligator was lunging toward us.  I thought I wasn't afraid of alligators before this!  I think he was unhappy that we were disturbing his routine.  Oh, and he was big.  We also saw eagles, a big black snake coiled on up on a bush and lots of other alligators. 

Here's a resident of the Macaw Aviary.  Hmmm...what to say about the Macaw Aviary...oh I know...LOUD!  Those are some noisey birds.   

 

I Refuse to Say Goodbye to Summer Yet

Yes I know, fall is nearly upon us, but I refuse to admint it yet. There are still a lot of good riding days left.

I know I haven't been very religous about blogging but, today was a very special day. As you can see from the pictures I had a very special guest join me on an adventure, and oh what a great adventure it was. Yep, that's my Dad on the four-wheeler.  You may know him as  Russ. 

If you follow my blog you'll know that the location is not that different from earlier posts. Yes I've been to the Stone House many times on my dirt bike. But having someone to share it with makes it fun all over again. Just like you have never been there before.

This first picture is shortly after we got underway.  A great view of the road that leads to the stone house. 

We stopped at the bottom of the hill to check out the granite bridge.  Dad is a huge rock wall fan, so I stopped by this bridge to look it over with him.  Turns out he has never seen it, so I'm really glad I stopped.  I've spent many warm summer days sitting under this bridge, admiring the work, thinking, I bet Dad loves this bridge. Well he's a fan now. 

The base of the bridge is actually granite, just like the walls.  In fact the whole bridge is built entirely of granite.  Pretty amazing really.

I told Dad that I thought it had been there since before I was born.  He thinks probably it was there before he was born too!   Could be.  It is pretty amazing.  I bet most people that drive that road don't even know it's there.  You really can't tell from above, you have to get out and walk down the hill to see it.  I'm not sure how I first found it.  Probably I just walked down to the brook.  Not only do I like rocks, but I like brooks too.

So the next photo was the height of our journey, literally.  We were in the highest blueberry field above the stone house.  What a view from there.  You can see in all directions (duh).  What I mean is you can see really far in all directions.

We spent quite a bit of time up here trying to pick out landmarks and make sense out of what everything was around us.  We are pretty sure we could pick out dodge hill, where we used to live.  We also think we spotted the mountain that Dad lives on now, Great Pond Mountain, Camden Hills, The famous ledges where the lovers leap story my Grandfather always used to tell us about, Mount Katahdin, and I know there was more.  We think we could see the ocean, and Brewer lake.  If we've got any of those wrong don't bother to tell me.  The point was the chance to stand there and share it, trying to figure stuff out. 

All in all, a great summer day.  A trip to remember for a long time.  I purposely left out the part where I crashed going up the hill.  For a minute there you thought I'd changed didn't you...well I haven't.  A few more battle scars in the ole dirt bike. I really just wanted to give dad something to remember! 

Stay tuned.  Where heading for the Trails to Rails project next.  I went there once this year and had a greand time.  Dad and I have decided we'll do it together next year. 

Making Your Desktop Picture Span Two Monitors

So I decided the other day that I wanted to set my desktop background image to one that spanned across both monitors, instead of being duplicated on each monitor. I've done this many times before with Windows XP. No big deal. Well, several hours and a few swear words later I finally got it working on my Vista computer. Thought I'd share my frustration in the hopes of helping someone else.

So I did the normal stuff you would do. I looked at my monitor resolution and took the height as is, and multiplied the width by 2 (cause I have two monitors and I want the picture to span them both). I used Photoshop Elements to create a picture I wanted using these dimensions. Then I used Explorer to locate my new picture file, right clicked on the picture and said, set as desktop picture. The new picture was placed on my desktop, but no matter how I tried it would not span across the two monitors correctly.

I struggled with this for hours it seems, but I was finally able to get it to work. The problem seems to be when you right-click a file and select set as desktop picture, some kind of conversion or optimization takes place, and the picture is no longer the right size. Instead, if I right click on the desktop, select Personalize, the Desktop Background, I end up at the Desktop Background dialog box. From there I have to use the Browse button to locate the properly sized image. Once the image has been selected I set the position to be tiled and bingo, the picture is properly displayed. Phew. What a struggle.

Bottom line, browse to the picture instead of right clicking on the picture to get this to work. Good luck.

It's Lonely at the Top

I don't know what it is about climbing things lately. For some unknown reason I keep ending up on the top of Mountains. It happened again on Sunday, the 17th of August. I hopped on my dirt bike and headed for the Stone House.

When I got there I see some work had been done. The big mud hole on the Bald Mountain Road entrance was in really good shape. That made it an easy job to get to the the blueberry fields above the Stone House.

Of course I just couldn't find a nice place to park and walk 50 feet to the top. No, I had to go all the way. Which meant I had to tackle the bank you see here to make it. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, miles from home and nobody really knew where I was. Although as it turns out, not my worst decision of the day.

After looking at this view for a while I headed back down the trail. I decided it would be a good idea to go towards Bucksport. A ways up the road I hit a trail that cross's over to the Diamond Match road. Seemed like a great idea, a side trip to the Diamond Match road. When I was about 15 I owned the Diamond Match road. Well not literally, I just mean I rode on it a lot, and knew it like the back of my hand. So off I went.

The caution sign should have made me reconsider, but I just kept on motoring. Didn't even slow down. I may have thought about it a little bit. I thought, hmmm wonder what that caution sign is there for? The trail was getting a little more challenging. It was narrower, grass covered with muddy tire ruts pulling you around. Fallen trees across the trail were starting to pick up a little, a minor annoyance. I figured that must be what the caution sign was about. And then I came to the stream.

Ah yes. The stream. Two choices here; go over a broken bridge, or to the left through a deep mud hole. Well, I wasn't wearing the proper footwear so of course I took the broken bridge. All I needed to do was get my front wheel across the span of missing boards. A little wheelie. I've done them tons of times. Just need to get the timing right, get the front wheel over, get my weight over the handlebars and let the back wheel bounce through. Done it a thousand times. Yeah when I was about 15.

So, for the sake of education for all of you out there that are still reading, when your front wheel doesn't quite make it across, and it falls in the hole, you stop quickly. OK. So now what to do. I'm stuck with my front wheel in a hole. No problem, I'll get off and power it through. So I give it a try, lots of throttle, bounce the front wheel.

Again, for your continued education, when you power a 400cc motorcycle on wood with the front wheel stuck, the back end will slide sideways. Yep, off the bridge. Hmmm. Now I have two wheels stuck.

Wait, don't go away yet. At this point I did start showing some smarts. Yes that's right, before continuing on I walked up the road to a dry spot and set down the bag I was carrying with $3000 worth of camera gear. Oh, did I forget to mention I was doing all of this with a camera bag dangling from my shoulder? Starting to look like a Darwin award opportunity isn't it? But I'm writing about it so that's out.

OK back to the story. After putting down my bag I went back and manhandled the bike, and got it through the ditch. By this time I'm exhausted, and thinking that an old fat guy like me may be just at about the limits of the old ticker. But I'm through the bad part right? Well that's what I thought, so I headed out again. Just ahead I ran into an incline. It must be at least 45, maybe 50 degrees uphill. That's no big deal, but it's washed out. It's nothing but big boulders and trees.

Of course when you hit one of these things you've got to think fast and make a decision. So what decision do I make? My 15 year old voice says "go for it, you can make it". Turns out I didn't. I made it about half way. I was bouncing all over the place, over rocks bigger then my wheels, over trees laying in the way. Bouncing from one side of the road to the other like a pro, dodging low hanging branches.

At first you pick you route. After a while you start getting bounced and you aren't picking the route any more, you're just trying to stay on board. Then I lost momentum, almost tipped over, caught myself with my foot, and stalled. I grabbed a bunch of brake and slid backwards 5 or 10 feet until a rock stopped me. Few. At least I'm stopped now.

Now I'm getting a little worried. It's getting dark. I don't know what more is ahead if I can even get going. I walk up the road a little to scope it out. All I can see is more washed out road going up. Can't tell what's on the other side. So I turn to head back to the bike. Oh no! I left the key on when I stalled. The headlight is on and those batteries don't last long. There's no kick start so I need that battery. I run back to the bike down the hill (bouncing and dragging the camera equipment) and turn off the light.

Now I need to make a decision. Up to who knows what over the top of the hill or back through where I'd already been stuck once. I decided back was the best plan. I'm not even sure if I could have made it up, but I knew I had made it through the stream once, so I should be able to do it again. So I started getting the bike turned around. That was a quite a chore, but I finally made it and headed down.

Going down was a lot easier. I got off the bike at the stream and walked it around. That worked out pretty good other then I wasn't sure how much more the old ticker could take. I worked through it, and made it back to the main trail. From there it was an easy trek home and a great story to tell (even though I don't come out looking to good in it).

One final note. After all of this, riding through tight spots with a camera dangling from my shoulder, I took no pictures. Now that is dumbest thing I did (or didn't do) all day.

Anyway, dirt bikes rock.