Brandon McCarthy held Miguel Cabrera hitless last Saturday evening in Oakland. It isn’t often that Cabrera goes without a hit and strikes out twice. This is a guy who got on base 45% of the time last season and has finished in the top five of the AL MVP voting each of the past three years. But McCarthy had Cabrera checking his swing on several occasions. Cabrera didn’t like the strike call on one of his check swings and let the umpire know it. We could hear Cabrera still cussing all the way from the stands while Cabrera was getting ready to play defense the next inning.

How are your lip reading skills?

Posted on May 16th, 2012 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: AF-S Teleconverter TC-17E 1.7X II for Nikon, baseball, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, people, sports. Comments Off on Miguel Cabrera

Things wrapped up a bit quicker than I expected at the previously mentioned Musichead show in Medford last week. I thought we were half done when two of the four bands had played, but it turned out that bands three and four were one and the same so no stage changeover time was required. A couple of band members merely left the stage after a few songs, the remaining two members switched instruments, and a few songs later I was on my way home.

Posted on May 15th, 2012 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: concert photography, metal, musichead, Nikon 85mm f/1.4 lens, nikon d7000. Comments Off on Muknal / The Haunting Presence @ Musichead

Since seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall in San Jose back in 2010 I’ve been longing to experience it again. This time around the wall was twice as big, running nearly foul pole to foul pole. Some things had changed and things were bigger and better in nearly every way. This was Roger’s first massive outdoor stadium performance in North America on the tour. After hitting some smaller venues he will eventually be bringing it to places like Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Yankee Stadium. If you can get to any of those venues you will not be sorry.

I’ll post some more photos on my other blog.

Posted on May 14th, 2012 under outside of ashland. Tags: nikon d7000, roger waters, san francisco, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX Autofocus Lens for Nikon. Comments Off on The Wall in San Francisco – Roger Waters

Last night I went to the Oakland A’s game and had a great time in super weather. After the game, I got in the car and drove for 5 and a half hours to be home in Ashland before 2 a.m.

Brandon McCarthy pitched an amazing game for the Athletics, baffling the Tigers all night. The big guns (Cabrera and Fielder) went a combined 0 for 8 with four strikeouts and 4 men LOB. The A’s ended up winning 3-1, and I drove home with a smile on my face.

Posted on May 13th, 2012 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: AF-S Teleconverter TC-17E 1.7X II for Nikon, baseball, california, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, nikon d7000. Comments: 1

Next up, after Gore Cadaver‘s short set (the drummer hurt himself and couldn’t continue after just a few songs), was Sickened from Merlin, Oregon.

The quote of the night had to be from Wayne (pictured above). Seconds before Sickened started he said, “thanks for coming out” (perhaps more of a mic check than anything else) which was funny to me as I think there were only two of us in the audience at that point. It was a Tuesday night, and the crowd did grow from there, but I got a chuckle out of that line.

Posted on May 12th, 2012 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: medford, musichead. Comments Off on Sickened (band) @ Musichead

On Wednesday I had a bit of free time in the afternoon, and the clouds began to break up, so I headed up Highway 66 into the Green Springs. I was going to look for a bald eagle I heard had nested near Hyatt Lake. More on the eagle later….

On my way home I came down Dead Indian Memorial Road into Ashland and took several photos which I photomerged together to arrive at the above panorama picture.

Posted on May 11th, 2012 under nature, only in ashland, outside of ashland, places. Tags: clouds, nikon d7000, panorama, skywatch, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX Autofocus Lens for Nikon. Comments Off on Dead Indian Memorial Road Panorama

I headed up to Medford last night for a Tuesday night metal show at Musichead. Gore Cadaver from Klamath Falls was on first. The guy doing guitars and vocals, Henry, rolled his eyes back into his head while keeping his eyes open as he sung. I have never seen that before, but it was very metal.

Posted on May 9th, 2012 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: musichead, sigma 85mm f/1.4. Comments Off on Gore Cadaver @ Musichead

I picked up a Nikon 70-300mm VR lens second hand for a great price about 10 days ago. Today’s photo is one of the first photos I took with it. I’m not sure if I will keep the lens or not as I already have the Nikkor 70-200mm VRII which is a much better (albeit much larger and heavier) lens. The 70-300 seems to do fine in good lighting though. I’m not sure exactly where I was when I took this photo. I was east of I-5 and either in Phoenix, Talent, or somewhere in between. That’s Wagner Butte in the distance.

Posted on May 8th, 2012 under nature, outside of ashland, places. Tags: flowers, Nikkor 70-300mm VR, nikon d7000, wagner butte. Comments Off on Pear Blossoms

I’m heading back to California this weekend (for the 4th time in the past 8 weeks). I won’t make it down as far as Huntington Beach, where I took today’s photo, as the primary goal is to witness Roger Waters performing The Wall (again) in front of tens of thousands at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

Posted on May 7th, 2012 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: beach, california, newport beach, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, nikon d7000, water. Comments: 1