One month from today I will be riding with 7,000 others to raise awareness in the National MS Society City to Shore Ride 2008 taking place in New Jersey.  I will be riding 45 miles on my bicycle from somewhere just outside Cherry Hill to Ocean City, New Jersey and have been training daily for it.

In addition to loosing about 10 pounds over the last 4-5 weeks, my energy level has gone through the roof; I sleep better at night and overall, feel better.  Several of my friends have also picked up the sport and we now are enjoying the last days of summer nightly and for periods of time on the weekends.

My personal goal for this ride is to complete it in 3 hours or less, which puts me at an average pace of 15 miles per hour, something I think I can tackle.  Considering no more than three months ago all I was riding was a couch, I’m real happy with the progress.

I’d also like to whole heartily thank everyone who has donated; you’ve helped me raise $785!  If you would still like to donate on my behalf, please click the banner at the top. Thank you for your support, encouragement and kind words.

Curious to see how my training is going?  I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of when I ride and for how far; to the right you’ll see my August miles.  For those of you not so good at math, those totals out to 327.64 miles up to and including this morning, another 7.15 will be added when I head home tonight.  Yes, I’ve even started to commute to work on a bicycle, who would of thought?

Went to the velodrome Friday night to watch the last pro races of the year with a friend and during the pee-wee pedalers laps, Marty Northstein rode with them.  Marty has won just about everything there is to win in track cycling and grew up about 10 miles from where I live.  He is still very active in the local community and can be found at the velodrome on a regular basis.

Doing event coverage is one of my passions that I have not done as much of in the last few years as I would have liked.  I got my real photographic start doing them, so they are close to me and I enjoy shooting the performers as much as feeling the vibe from the crowd, so last night was a real treat.

The Trocadero in Philadelphia hosted the Def Jux Aesop Rock tour, featuring Rob Sonic, Yak Ballz, Kosha Dillz, and Grayskul. Full review of the night will be on Randomn3ss shortly but here are the photos.

Grayskul:

Yak Ballz & Kosha Dillz:

Aesop Rock & Rob Sonic:

And here’s all of them from the evening.

Several months ago friend and fellow photographer Alison Conklin contacted me about being a shooter for an unusual upcoming wedding with her.  The wedding was to take place prior to the start of a home game for the minor league baseball team, Iron Pigs, and Alison wanted me to take some unique shots.

Alison is known for her unique, cutting edge, playful and masterfully shot weddings. Shooting with her means that my A-game wouldn’t be enough, it would have to be better than that.  After some discussions with her, her plans for what she wanted from me, I agreed.  What I agreed to involved me getting on the roof of the stadium and shoot aerial photographay.  Let me clarify, this doesn’t mean I would be on the top deck in a plush box seat, this means I would actual roof of the stadium, about twenty feet above the viewing deck below me.

The wedding day was this past Friday, August 8, 2008.  A beautiful morning lead to some quick thunderstorms early in the afternoon and quickly followed with what couldn’t have been a more perfect day.  Bright blue sky, white puffy clouds and virtually no humidity, very unusual for an August evening here in Pennsylvania.

I arrived at the stadium a bit early to ensure I could meet up with the staff that were to get me access to the roof and scope out some shooting angles.  Being in a brand new stadium while it is empty is a unique feeling.  While waiting for one of the staff to get back to me with what time we would actually get onto the roof (as the ceremony kept getting pushed back), I captured this still in the empty stadium seats.

Shortly after that I headed up to the roof, seriously an amazing view from up there.  The wedding started right on time and happened much faster than I thought.  During the ceremony I switched between three lenses, one of which was new to me, an uber wide-angle lens that Alison was really excited about.

As a point of reference, center field is exactly 400 feet from home plate.  Huge stadium to be captured all in one shot.

For the first wedding shot in the Coca-Cola Iron Pigs stadium and to mark the start of their new life together, Scott threw the first pitch of the game.

A special, warm hearted thanks to Alison for asking me to be apart of this experience.  Wedding photography is not my strongest of skills, but I had a blast and will always remember it, as I hope Tiff & Scott do as well.  Below is one of Alison’s images showing the happy new couple.

View more photos and the slideshow from this wedding here on Alison’s blog.

I owe a big THANK YOU to all of my friends, family, co-workers and strangers who have donated to the National MS Society City to Shore Ride 2008 on my behalf.  Originally, I set a personal goal to raise at least $250; this goal was met within days of my fund raising.  Quickly I changed the goal to $500 and as of a few days ago, it has been surpassed!  All said, with checks that I’m mailing in today, I’ve raised just over $700 for the MS Society!

Again, thank you to all those who donated to the charity and who believe and have been encouraging me through my training for it.  Your kind words and positive encouragement help motivate me.

Just because I have met and surpassed the goals I set for myself, please consider donating if you have not yet done so.  This is a great charity, a tax deduction for you and an ass-kicking workout for me.  The ride is still nearly 7 weeks away, so please keep the donations pouring in.

If you would like to donate money on my behalf, please visit: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/mikepanic.

This Friday, don’t miss The Mash-Up.  Hombase is doing video premiers, Audio Dynmaikz is spinning, King Magnetic & Adlip are performing live, give-aways and much more.  Free for everyone.

I recently started to ride road bicycle as a way to get into shape and possibly commute to work.  I’ve taken to it pretty well and really enjoy it, several of my other friends also picked up the sport around the same time.

Last month one of my friends mentioned a charity ride to benefit the MS Society.  25, 45 and 75 mile rides were available and I got kind of excited about riding that far and the ability to help out a great cause.  Two weeks ago I signed up, paid the registration and started to hit the ground running to raise money.  In order to compete, I needed to raise at least $250 in tax deductible donations, that was accomplished in the first four days.  My goal is to raise at least $500 for the charity and I’m happy to say that, with the help of everyone, I’m 85% towards that goal.

I don’t personally know anyone with MS, but why should that stop me from spending a Saturday riding with several thousand other cyclists and pessing my friends, family and co-workers to donate a few dollars for a great cause.  Just because I don’t know someone now, doesn’t mean I won’t in the future.  I’m also doing this ride for myself, to prove that I can not only do an extremly unselfish act and commit to riding a fairly long distance, 45 miles in my choice, all at once.

With just under 8 weeks before the ride, my training is going almost as well as the fund-raising and I only expect to continue moving forward and progressing, towards a more fit, healthier me and breaking the $500 goal I set.  If you would like to donate money on my behalf, please visit: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/mikepanic.  All donations are tax deductible, so skip Starbucks one morning on your way to work and put that $5 towards something good.

Resources:

•  National MS Society
• Wikipedia on Multiple Sclerosis

My good friend Mune celebrated her birthday Friday night along with some other friends at a club slash private house party in Manhattan. She invited me up and who was I to say no?

First time taking a bus to the city, I usually drive. Wasn’t so bad I guess.

Apparently, even if you put on a private party, you need a flyer to promote it.

And on with the party pictures. This was seriously the must nuts house party I’ve ever been to. Barely any room to move, hot as hell and the floor was moving a good two inches vertically from people jumping.

Home around 4.30am, bed by 5.30am just as the sun was coming up, awake around 1pm. Motley looking crew in the morning.

Leave a camera lying around with a wide angle lens for too long and Emery’s bound to pick it up and start snapping photos.

After some discussion and clean-up time, we decide to head to a Peruvian joint that is supposed to have the most amazing roasted chicken. Turns out, it’s true. If you are in Brooklyn, hit up Luz.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who were starting our day late. Luz didn’t open up till 3pm, Andy wasn’t happy.

30 minutes later they open up and Andy is once again happy, drinking something that resembles slime.  He swears it tasted good though.

Pretty table thing things.

Random balls hanging from the ceiling.

You know it’s summer in the hood when someone cracks open a fire hydrant.

Food was great, but we had to bust out and leave Brooklyn, bound once again for PA.  Can you imagine how long it took to tile the Holland Tunnel?

Thank you Mune for the invite and hospitality, shout-out to all the amazing people I was introduced to and met, and everyone who was celebrating a birthday!

OK so today isn’t the 4th, it’s actually the 5th, but whatever, it is still a good time to blow shit up. Matt asked if I wanted to tag along to a friend’s farm where they set off about $7,000 worth of fireworks every year. Who am I to say no. This whole weekend has been muggy and rainy though, so I left all my camera gear at home. Thank goodness for camera phones.

And finally, 15 minutes of fireworks! No one got hurt, we all had a blast and hopefully the weather will be a bit better next year so I can take a real camera out.

Thank you to everyone who came out last night to make Pulse an amazing night. Below are a teaser set of photos, all of them will be up shortly on Audio Dynamikz.