the year in pictures [2010]

year six for [the year in pictures] post.

looking over the past year, i can honestly tell you i spent half the year in a [thrisis] which is basically a fear of turning 30. i looked back on my life and thought about the many ways it had turned out nothing like i had planned. there were a number of things i thought i would have accomplished by now, and it got me a little down, not depressed...more like disappointed.

then came summer, and i started looking at things in a new light. my life is just that, my life, and it's up to me to make the most of it. i stopped looking at 30 as an end of an era, but rather the beginning of something new and exciting. i started preparing my life for goals i'd like to accomplish in the next decade. looking back, the one word to describe 2010 would be [prelude].

i've been told, your thirties is when you really become comfortable with yourself. no more trying to impress anyone, but rather a time where you know your strengths and weaknesses, and use that knowledge to make the most of your life. let's hope that's the case.

for now...please enjoy some of my favorite shots defining the [prelude] year.

goodbye_christine_1.3.10

i started the year out selling my truck, a vehicle which got me though high school and most of my twenties. the truck was a centerpiece for a number of memories in my mind, but it was time for us to part. the first of many actions in a year spent saying good bye to my twenties.

cold_structure_3.20.10

not the most interesting photo, but i remember the mind set i was in when i took it. it was cold, snowy, and dark. it was close to my birthday, and it was also the day i found my first gray hair. all of the above effected the final editing of this photo.




wichita_treat_5.15.10

i loved taking this photo. it was taken during wichita's annual river fest. it's, light, cheerful, youthful and fun, just like the riverfest itself. it's also a reminder, snow cones don't care how old you are.




denver_wedding_5.21.10

one of my dear friends got married this year. i've known her since she was born, and over the years she has become a second sister to me. not only was it amazing to be there to experience this new adventure in her life, but spending time with her friends and family is always a treat. as an extra bonus, the family she married into were as kind as cold be, terribly entertaining, and are now considered friends.




new_york_coffee_5.28.10

my first morning in new york, my friends and i went to for some coffee. the whole morning had been a sensory overload, so taking a coffee break sounded perfect. standing by the window, looking out on the sidewalk, wondering where in the hell i was, i looked down ready to take a sip, and saw this.




better_than_friends_5.29.10

old friends, delivered pizza, cheap beer, cinnamon apple vodka, new york rooftop, good conversation, and great laughs. by far one of the best nights of 2010, and my favorite photo of the year.




first_view_5.30.10

i'm not a huge sports fan, but there's something magical about seeing the inside of yankee stadium for the first time. there's a story that accompanies this photo, but it involves a lot of "new york style" cussing. lets just say i found people from the bronx to be incredibly friendly, even while using colorful four lettered words.




soho_5.31.10

horrible photo, but it means a lot. for an afternoon i found myself alone in new york, so i wondered around soho. shortly after taking this photo my phone died. i began to really experience that old cliche about feeling alone in a city of 8 million people. knowing only the cross streets where i was to meet my friends, i navigated from soho to the lower east side. honestly i was nervous and scared, but upon finding my friends, i thought to myself, "nyc...you just got owned."




swinging_around_9.18.10

once again i traveled to the kansas state fair. after experiencing new york for the first time this year, i still enjoy the simple pleasures one can find in their own wheat filled backyard.




acl_bus_ride

finishing off the year is a shot of my friends at the acl music festival, well...actually on a bus leaving the festival. this year we decided to try something different and took public transportation to and from the festival. there's something about cramming into small spaces with thousands of other tired, drunk, and sweaty people that really brings you closer to your friends. being that all of them have already crossed the 30 year mark, and still living life to the fullest, i realized i have nothing to fear.

my best [family] friend's wedding

our grandparents started out as neighbors, and became friends. then my mom, met her dad, and became lifelong friends. through the years and miles, they grew up, and married their spouses, and eventually my parents became dear friends with her parents. three generations later, my sister and i, call ashley and aaron our friends.

last weekend, ashley was the first in our little group of four to get married. it was a beautiful outdoor ceremony with the rocky mountains acting as backdrop. over the past twenty some years, ashley has become a second little sister to me, and in a way, it was hard to see her all grown up and getting married. however, sometime during the reception, i realized, that although she was now an adult and starting a new life with an amazing guy, our friendship was not ending, but rather, like our parents and grandparents before us, it was simply starting a new chapter.

the year in pictures [2009]

year five for the [year in pictures] post.

what a wild year 2009 ended up being. for the past three years, life has been fairly simple. get up, go to work, put 40 hours in, relax and enjoy the weekend. it's amazing how deleting one piece of that formula changes everything. like it did with a lot of people, the economy slapped me in the face this year. although slaps can hurt and sting a bit, they can also be an awakening. if 2008 was a very [internal] year for me, 2009 was the complete opposite. not only was i able to expand my view on the world by traveling more than i ever have, but by reading and studying, my thoughts on my professional and personal goals were questioned, explored, changed, and strengthened. here are a few pictures representing the "sting" and "awakening" during the past year.

up in the air_1.22.09

last january i attended the kansas aviation museum's open house. i took this shot because i liked the way the silhouette of the plane looked in the light. i would have never guessed this would have made the top ten photos of the year, but after going through my albums, reminiscing on the past, this photo, with it's setting sun mixed with the idea of travel seemed to be the perfect foreshadowing of the year to come.

shelved_3.31.09

last march a group of local photographers were allowed to photograph the inside of an old player piano building before it was cleared out. decades of piano repair had created five overstuffed stories of objects, gadgets, and things...basically a photographers dream. walking around, taking pictures, there was something exciting and depressing about the whole experience. a building that had served it's purpose for years, filled with it's tools of the trade, being cleared out for something new. change always brings about that feeling.

laidoff_4.1.09

the very next day, i was laid off. that exciting/depressing feeling hit me again. i boxed up my "tools of the trade" and headed home, unsure of what might lie ahead.

the artists_4.13.09

not long after i was laid off, i was enjoying a few drinks with friends. that night, a couple sat next to me. before too long we struck up a conversation. the couple ended up being mark and beth, traveling artists from wisconsin. they had booked their art in galleries across the mid-west, and were on the road, following their art, eventually to end up in austin. naturally we talked about art, and architecture, but that led to deeper discussions about following one's passion, no matter what the sacrifice. after last call, they left, and although we'll probably never cross paths again, the discussion we had was the most perfect and inspiring, i could have had at that point in my life, and gave me a new sense of direction. they will forever be my muses of 2009.

friends_5.25.09

in may i, along with most of my college friends, traveled up to portland to witness the wedding of one of our buddies. although most of us were unemployed, it didn't stop us from enjoying the city. the days were filled with late brunches, coffee, and beer. it had been three years since were were all in seaton hall, working late nights, and that weekend proved, nothing had changed.

hazards of love_5.27.09

what year wouldn't be complete without a decemberists concert. in may, i was able to see them play the entire "hazards of love" album non-stop, from beginning to end. always a wonderful and beautiful time.

vivienda moderna_5.28.09

for two months this year i worked construction in kansas city. my wonderful and gracious friends eric and lauren, offered me a job helping them finish one of their projects. although this did give me a chance to get out from behind the drafting desk and get my hands dirty, what i really enjoyed was strengthening my friendship with these two.....living and working with someone seven days a week for two months tends to do that.

real life fiction_6.2.09

this year i started reading "on the road", agian, but this time i was bound and determined to finish it. while in the process of reading it, i took a trip to denver. not only is denver mentioned several times in the book, but specific address are given. finding an online guide, i spent the better part of a day visiting a few places mentioned in the book. the above picture is of a bar neal cassody, the real life dean moriarty, use to frequent. soon after this trip, i finished the book.

study hall_7.14.09

wanting to use the free time i had been given with my unemployment wisely, i started studying for my architecture exams. along with a lot of reading and test taking came a lot of iced coffee which, through the course of the summer, i was able to perfect.

bubble girl_10.2.09

one of the last trips i took this year was to the austin city limits music festival. i was able to snap a picture of this girl mid way through one of her spins. her "hippy-ish" look adds to the delight of this photo, but i just really enjoyed her care free, no worries attitude, and i was glad to capture a bit of that feeling on film.

road[less]

tonight is a sad night...

first of all...i finished a book...a book that took me six years to read.

secondly...i finished a book...a book that i've had with me for the past six years.

i finally finished "on the road", a process that's taken me an embarrassingly long amount of time. i bought the book in 2003, the summer i stayed in manhattan to work construction. with all my friends out of town, i thought reading this classic would help pass the time. i started reading, and made it a few chapters. however school started back up, and it soon found it's way to the shelf. months would pass, i'd find it, decide to start over, and begin the journey again. however, things would happen, school would happen, life would happen, and it remained unread.

during these past six years, i've taken several trips. the last item i'd always find myself packing would be my copy of "on the road", always thinking i'd have time to read it while on the trip. deep down though, i think i just packed it for the irony. it followed me to the beaches of san diego, where it's pages got filled with sunlight and sand, only to be brought back to the midwest, unread. it then followed me to the west coast during my internship. eight months later, when i moved back, it was still unread. it's been to the ninth ward of new orleans, the bars of austin, the sidewalks of chicago, the coffee shops of portland and the foothills of denver. always with me, always waiting to be concluded.

a few months ago, i felt it was time to give the images of sal and dean, that have been wandering the road in my mind for the past six years, some rest. two individuals struggling with the conventions of how society told them they had to live, and their own ideas of what it means to be free. i sat down and decided i was going to make it all the way through this time. not only did i take the time to comprehend every sentence, but i found a wonderful online study guide to aid my reading. after every few chapters i would go on-line to review the analysis and study the major themes.

for the past six years, sal and dean have been companions of mine, fitting nicely into a cozy spot in my [man-satchel] next to my sketch book. tonight i feel as though i said good bye to some dear friends. it seems only fitting tonight that it's raining. kerouac used the symbol of rain throughout the novel to suggest the passing of time, as i finished the book, dreaming and wondering about my own life, rain is hitting my bedroom window. rain which will then fall to the sidewalk below. those drops will flow through man-made pipes and channels until it finds it's way to the arkansas river joining all the other drops from all the other windows of dreamers and wonderers. after traveling through oklahoma and arkansas, it will join the mississipi. a river thick and muddy with the hopes and dreams of the whole country. they'll all eventually make their way to the gulf and become part of the endless sea. they'll evaporate into the air and form into clouds, clouds that will one day rain on wichita again...

maybe by the time those drops hit my window again, i'll have things figured out....

thanks for a great story jack.

a wonderful clip of kerouac reading while steve allen plays piano

denver[beat city]

last week, my family and i traveled west to the city of denver to attend the graduation party of a good friend of ours. with the graduation party being on saturday the next few days were spent catching up with our friends who we hadn't seen in a while. home made barbeque was enjoyed, shows were attended and shopping ensued. our last day, however, involved something different. we decided to try out denver's light rail system and venture downtown! having brought along "one the road" as i'm now on part three, i tried to figure out if there was anyway to actually visit a few spots mentioned in the book. thumbing past pages and taking down notes of streets and landmarks, my search quickly moved to the internet where "google-ing the words "denver" and "beatnik" brought me to an amazing site! "denver's beat poetry driving tour"! an amazing source filled with exaclty what i was looking for!

with this website bookmarked in my phone, i was ready to take the tour! that morning we all rode the light rail train to downtown. arriving at union station, the ladies decided to hit the 16th street mall, the guys went to a sporting goods store, and i headed out to begin the tour. being on foot i couldn't follow the tour exactly or to it's full extent but i was able to take in a few of the sites mentioned. now although kerouac and ginsberg spent time in denver, most of the sites realted more to neal cassady, who was raised in denver, and was also the inspiration for "on the road's" character, dean moriarity.

my first stop was confluence park, where cherry creek and the platte river merge for a bit. now i'm sure this isn't what the park looked like in the 40's and 50's but this is the area where neal cassady and his father would take sunday trips and meet with other bums of the denver area.


a short distance from the park is a bar called "my brothers bar". not only is this denver's oldest bar still serving drinks in it's original location, this also happened to be the bar where neal drank a lot and hence racked up a tab, which he later asked a friend to pay for, in a letter neal wrote from a clolorado reform school. the bar was incredibly quaint with a copy of the letter from neal framed on the wall. i sat at the bar, got some local history from the bartender and a few locals, and ate lunch.




after lunch i met up with the rest of the guys, and we walked along the sidewalks of 15th street until we reached larimer, a street where neal spent the better part of his youth. the tour suggested taking a look at the 15th block of larimer. at this location most of the buildings have been preserved, and represent a little more of what denver would have looked like in the 40's and 50's. with the shops and stores located on the street now, it was hard to believe that in cassady's day this represented the "skid row" of denver. i almost felt bad enjoying a gelato from one of the stores......almost.





after this stop we wandered over to 16th street and meet up with the rest of our party. it was suggested that we start heading back towards the train, to try to avoid the afternoon rush. so although i only took in a few of the sites on the beatnik tour of denver, and i'm sure my family and friends thought i was geeking out hard core, there was something enjoyable about physically being in the places portrayed in the words of the pages.

sisterhood of the traveling [buisness casual polo shirt]

years ago, i lost a shirt....well...not so much lost as misplaced.

a few years back i took a trip to chicago. while i was there, i stayed with some friends. somewhere, somehow during the trip, the shirt was misplaced and i traveled back home without it safety in my bag. unpacking at home, i realized what had happened. i panicked a bit, ok, so i panicked a lot. let me explain.

this wasn't just your average, "run of the mill shirt", this was my black-polo-casual-short-sleeve-dress-shirt! it was what you'd call a varsity player, and it wasn't just at that level on one team, but two of the teams found in my closet!

it was one of the team captains on the "work shirt" varsity team. meaning it was one of three shirts i could constantly count on to always look good whilst working. from a day of drafting, or meeting with clients, it was the perfect shirt. comfortable and cozy! it could do no wrong! i loved it. making it even more irreplaceable, it was also a "starter" in my "going-out-on-the-weekends-hanging-out-with-friends" team! at the bar, drinking coffee, taking pictures, visiting the library, or eating out at a restaurant! this shirt could do it all! he could also work with anyone i might pair him up with! dress pants, khaki's, jeans or cargo shorts! this shirt would make it work!

this may begin to give you an idea of the panic i was in.

not all was lost though, a few days later, my chicago friend emailed me, letting me know that my stare player had been found .giving him my address, he'd have it back to me just as fast as the mail could deliver it....or so i thought.

weeks went by, and still no shirt. my friend had it packaged and ready to go, he just hadn't been able to get to the post office. eventually he decided just to wait until christmas when he would be traveling back to kansas city to bring it with him. christmas came, he forgot it.

skipping ahead a one year, he remembered to bring in down the next christmas, what he did forget however, was to take it out of the car which was eventually driven to the great city of denver by his parents. after this, the details get fuzzy, but i believe that while in denver it was handed off to his brother, who brought it back to kansas city, where it's been the past five months. now that i've been enjoying a little extended working vacation in kansas city, last week, my all-star and i were finally reunited. putting it on, it was like we had never parted.

unfortunately for him, the "work clothes" league has been on hold for the last month, so he hasn't been able to take the field yet, but as soon as the season opens again, i'm sure he'll be back to the top of the roster.

because...getting there is [half] the fun.

last week, my family loaded up the family truckster and headed to colorado. it's been a while since we all were in the same car for over eight hours, and some may see that as something to dread, but to be honest, i was looking forward to it.

years ago, our road trips consisted of dad driving, mom reading a book, and my sister and i in the back of our station wagon. the entertainment consisted of following our route on a fold out map, waiting for dead spot in western kansas, where the scan function on the radio is unable to pick up any stations, and being the first one to see the mountains on the horizon.

this trip wasn't for a vacation, but rather to attend a college graduation, but i was still hoping for some road trip fun. heading out on this little adventure were the parents, the sister + boyfriend and myself. being a total of five adults we opted to rent a mini van for the venture. now, i'm not sure if all new mini vans are like this, but it was chuck full of gadgets that were not in our 86 station wagon. it had separate climate controls for the front and back, which would have saved many hours of bickering 20 years ago, a dvd player, with screens in the back, and satellite radio.

the future is now!

finding out about these features, we grabbed a few dvd's and headed west. not being in too terrible of a hurry, we made frequent stops. in between watching such classics as "vacation", and "planes trains and automobiles", we stopped and had lunch in a park in hays, tried to visit the 300lb prairie dog in oakley, (it was closed), searched for the most bizarre items in truck stops, and yes, still had a contest to see who could spot the mountains first.

we spent a few days in denver with the company of wonderful friends, attended a graduation that, besides a freak windstorm that stopped the ceremony, went fine, and even made it downtown to check out the denver museum of art.

the journey back was a bit quicker, however we did make time to visit the worlds largest easel in goodland, kansas that holds a huge version of on of van gogh's sunflower paintings. if you're ever in the area, it's well worth the stop. getting back into the car after visiting this modern marvel, i started thinking about the fate of roadside attractions. with cars coming equip with everything that you probably get too much of at home, i.e. endless music, dvd's, internet, along with the increasingly rising cost of gasoline, what will happen to these roadside oddities. will 4 dollar gasoline unwind the worlds largest ball of twine? will in-car entertainment eclipse the amazing feat of world's deepest hand dug well? will technology and the economy slowly dull these little gems that dot the great american road trip? were these kansas quirks solely the product of boredom and cheap gas? as we learn to be more independent from oil, will future generations learn to become more dependent with visiting these wonders only on wikipedia?

who knows....