2013

Have a happy New Year's!

Rise Above

Another track

Still playing around with GarageBand. It's really rough, but I've got two tracks in there...

Wasteland Survival Guide

Like everyone else, I have been stocking up on canned goods, twinkies (because they can stay fresh for centuries), and firearms as I prepare for the coming apocalypse. When civilization comes crashing down and the world as we know it turns inside out on 12/21/12, I want to be ready. It would be foolish to stand by and do nothing to prepare for the worst, especially since an ancient tribe of people from nearly two-thousand years ago ran out of steam when putting together calendars for the future and called the project quits when they reached 12/21/12. Of course this is an accurate prediction of the end of the world, a person would have to be nuts to think otherwise. To ignore this obvious warning sign would be crazy. CRAZY, I TELL YOU!

In preparation for that Friday morning, I have put together a list of things that I will do to ensure the survival of my family (and anyone who stumbles into one of our hidden pitfalls that we've set up around our yard... er, I've already said too much). On that fateful day when the internet becomes nothing more than folklore and everyone is left staring at their iPhones in disbelief, I will be busy ransacking Cedar Rapids. Here is my plan:

1. My first stop will be at HyVee. No more helpful smiles in the aisles on this day! I will load up on all the food I can fit into my HEMTT A3, a handy-dandy rig that will be easy to pick up from the local National Guard base amidst all the confusion. I will also acquire a substantial supply of Dr. Pepper from HyVee. Why? Just because.
2. After I have left HyVee in smoldering ruins, I will proceed north to Guitar Center. Once I have completed a few laps around the parking lot crushing parked cars (there's no way you could drive one of those things around and not crush stuff), I will stop in and gather up a few guitars and amps to keep up our spirits during the long days to come without Facebook or Netflix. The rig should easily accommodate 20 or 30 guitars with room to spare, so I will strap them down carefully before moving on.
3. Where can you find all of your apocalypse survival needs? At the Home Depot of course, and on this particular Friday they will be running the sale to beat all sales: a first-come, first-serve, five-finger discount sale! I'll make my way across the parking lot from Guitar Center, leaving a trail of crushed Fords and Chevys in my wake. This is where I will acquire a couple generators to power the guitar amps... and our household appliances, too.
4. Next up, I will swing through Lowe's to pick up several chest freezers and their largest charcoal grill along with a smoker. We'll be grilling out for a year after cleaning out HyVee's meat department.

I'll head back home and – as long as Cedar Rapids doesn't burn up or get destroyed by a meteorite – spend the following months sitting out in the yard taking it easy, grilling and shooting stray cats. This end-of-the-world situation doesn't seem so bad after all. I'm looking forward to it!

Thanksgiving with Arnold

Life is full of twists and turns and things don't always work out as planned. Sometimes we are faced with making difficult decisions when we're not prepared to make them, but we do the best we can. My sister had to make a tough call recently when she broke up with her boyfriend of 1 1/2 years the day after Thanksgiving. After he had been included in all of the family pictures. The pictures we take at Thanksgiving are usually sent out with Christmas cards to everyone, so this situation pretty much makes that impossible. Or does it?

My brother suggested Photoshopping my sister's ex-boyfriend out of one of the photos and sending that one out. Great idea, except that the ex-boyfriend is standing right smack in the middle of the group. If we remove him, then there is a really obvious and fake-looking gap in the group photo. We thought about shuffling people around in the photo, but that will start looking very fake in a big hurry and in the end it really doesn't get us anywhere.

But if we intentionally make it look fake, maybe that will work? We can't send the picture as-is, but why let it go to waste? Might was well make the most of it and fix up the photo so that we at least have something to send/post. On my brother's suggestion, I've replaced my sister's ex with someone who will definitely boost my family's coolness factor. Not that we aren't already cool. Here's what we ended up with:

It really is an improvement. If you saw the "before" picture you would understand.

Will a MacBook Pro stop bullets?

Cynthia's Dell laptop is feeble and dying and needs to be put to rest, so I've been keeping an eye out for a replacement for her. Not replacing Cynthia, I mean replacing her laptop. ANYWAY, I spotted a deal on craigslist yesterday for a MacBook Pro that an Iowa student is selling because the WiFi on it started flaking out. It's got an ethernet port, so it can connect to the internet that way until we get the WiFi fixed. Cynthia mostly keeps her laptop on her desk at home and doesn't really carry it around, so a repair may not even be necessary.

I got a hold of the dude who was selling the MacBook and he gave me his address in Iowa City so that I could stop by on my lunch break and check it out (since I work in Iowa City). If you're not familiar with Iowa City, it has a reputation for being kind of a snooty place for being a small town in the middle of Iowa. (Apologies to anyone from Iowa City reading this. If you're cool enough to be reading my blog, then you obviously are immune to the uppity vibe there. ;) It's a town full of pseudo-intellectuals as well as a handful of truly smart people. The signs posted on roads entering Iowa City indicating that nuclear weapons are prohibited by city ordinance give some indication of the ridiculousness you should expect there. Not that I usually bring my nukes to work with me, but the fact that I have to be told not to bring them puts me out.

The address that I drove to turned out to be a large campus of apartment complexes in an area that stood in stark contrast with the rest of the town. Lots of people wandered aimlessly around in the middle of the road glaring at anyone who passed by and Caddys with oversized rims filled the parking lots. Each apartment had its own entrance – sort of like an old motel – and some had broken windows. There were broken bicycles and trash scattered about. There were people everywhere; not going anywhere or doing anything, just standing around watching. It felt like they were all waiting for something, it was very strange. It was very quiet, except for a couple of people a block away yelling at each other and the faint thump of music from an apartment nearby.

After parking the car, I walked along a sidewalk between two buildings as I looked for the apartment number that MacBook Dude had given me. A door swung open and a Muslim woman with a scarf around her head stood in the doorway and looked at me as if I was expected. She closed the door again after I walked by. A guy across the courtyard got up and quickly went inside. If this were a movie, I think this is about the part where the shooting starts.

I ducked around the corner and saw the apartment number I was looking for. Of course, it was almost the very last apartment and on the side of the building facing away from the parking lot. MacBook Dude was friendly, which made him seem out of place. The laptop turned out to be as described and worked fine, so I paid for it and began the scenic trek back. A group of guys standing along the sidewalk stopped talking and all turned and glared as I walked toward the car which made me wonder, Will a MacBook Pro stop bullets? It wouldn't even be a problem if I would have been allowed to bring a nuke with me. Thanks for that, Iowa City.

10 years

I wrote this for our 10th anniversary... just in time for our 11th anniversary. Yeah, it took me a while to write this, mostly because I kept deleting it since the early versions had problems. It had minor little things wrong with it; hardly anything rhymed.

Anyway, I wrote this for Cynthia as I remembered all the good times we've had in our marriage and how we've been able to make the most of the ups and downs and have fun through it all. It has been an awesome 11 years and I wouldn't trade it for anything:


2001
We watched the stars, danced together, drove broken cars

didn't have much, but we were so in love

a change of jobs, then a change of life

in this year we became husband and wife

this year went so fast

2002
A snow storm, spaghetti, and a house that wouldn't warm

didn't have much, but we were so in love

long walks around the lake, staying up late making plans

happy memories holding hands
this year went so fast

2003
We stood on mountains, took pictures, carved pumpkins

didn't have much, but we were so in love

watched movies together, laughed at our jokes

rode sleds down the frozen slopes

this year went so fast

2004
Painted the house, made our own music, chased a flying mouse

didn't have much, but we were so in love

a welcome surprise, what would it bring

everything would change before next spring

this year went so fast

2005
A banner year, a baby girl, memories that we hold dear

didn't have much, but we were so in love

no more lazy saturdays sleeping in

our noisy kid will always win

this year went so fast

2006
Another change; new house, new town, new friends
didn't have much, but we were so in love
for better for worse we stood together
and wished our time would last forever
this year went so fast

2007
Christmas and birthdays, photographs of the holidays
didn't have much, but we were so in love
funny stories get better each time they're told
grilling feasts out in the cold
this year went so fast

2008
We will never forget; a new baby girl in a town soaking wet
didn't have much, but we were so in love
a full house now, but they don't outnumber us yet
how much noisier can this place get?
this year went so fast

2009
A summer at home, new jobs, another year flown
didn't have much, but we were so in love
swimming at the pool, trips to the park
sitting out on the porch after dark
this year went so fast

2010
Flying kites in the sun, playing at the park with space to run
didn't have much, but we were so in love
reading the same books over and over forever
will our kids get tired of dog parties... ever?
this year went so fast

2011
Do you remember it all? there's so much to recall
don't have much, but we're so in love
laughter, tears, the good and the bad
these are the best days we've ever had
10 years have gone so fast

Better days

This car has seen 'em...

Two flat tires and no license plates, this car was at the end of its road. The doors were unlocked so I got in to take some pictures and... oh WOW. What is that smell?! I'm pretty sure there's a dead body somewhere in there. Face-melting stench aside, this car would be cool if someone restored it.

Palisades-Kepler

Yesterday we went to Palisades-Kepler park. Really cool park that almost makes you forget you're still in Iowa...

We saw a gigantic spider. Alright, it wasn't that big, but if I zoom in close enough it looks scary...

Who killed Laura Palmer?

It has been way too long since I lasted posted on here, but I have been so busy. Too busy. I sort of feel like I'm drowning, I can't keep up with it all. It's not a good feeling.

A montage of dreams:

• I went to a wedding shower (which traditionally exclude dudes) and it turned out to really be a shower. We went into a large room with water spouts on the ceiling and everyone started taking their clothes off. I've always been sort of curious about wedding showers and now I am not.
• I posed as a realtor and tried selling homes to people without the owner's consent. All I did was walk the streets until I saw a house that looked nice and then I would wait for someone to come along so that I could give them my impromptu sales pitch. It was pointless, but it worked surprisingly well.
• There was the dream where I couldn't close my eyes no matter how hard I tried. That was disturbing. A 20s or 30s cartoony guy smoking a cigar would show up and start laughing each time I tried to close my eyes. He looked a lot like some old drawings I've seen of the man in the moon.
• In the most recent dream, I stood with a group of people at the top of a long wooden stairway looking down. None of us wanted to walk down the stairs for some reason, and we all stood around trying to convince each other to go first because we were all too chicken to take the first step. It was a dark stairway with a red carpet runner and we couldn't see the bottom. I finally realized that if I didn't go, no one would, so I took one step. Once I took that step, I discovered that I wouldn't be able to stop or go back, so I had to keep going. That's all I can remember from that one.

Also, I got out the guitar and played for a while last night. Ah... guitar. It's been so long since I actually played it, aside from Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings. It felt great to play whatever popped into my head. No one was home, so I cranked the amp and played it like it's meant to be played.

So there's my post for now. Don't that beat all? (another great old timey phrase)

Another dream

It was winter and I was the only snowplow mechanic in town. I was also apparently the only English-speaking person in town, which was weird. The family I lived with spoke German and Polish(?) and did all the talking for me. Whenever anyone came over, they would talk and gesture toward me, but I had no idea what was going on.

In my dream, it kept snowing and snowing and the snowplows were what kept the roads open and the town functioning. Apparently being a snowplow driver was a big deal and the drivers had sort of a celebrity status in the small town. Being a snowplow mechanic was also a big deal and everyone seemed to think I was somebody. It was kinda weird, but I didn't mind all the friendly waves and nods every time I went somewhere. It was a bit like being the roadie for a rock band, except better.

Each day I went out into the cold and walked through the snow to the plow barn. I remember coming home at lunch a few times, until I finally realized that the only thing the family that I lived with ate each day was sauerkraut. JUST sauerkraut. I brought my own lunches after that. Strange all the miniscule details this dream had.

Also, I had no clue how to fix snowplows, I just wore overalls and carried a greasy toolbox.

Unplugged

On April 18th, a very close friend of mine passed away. My Mac Pro tower went to be with Steve Jobs after a short battle with memory loss. I don't think it was in any pain; it just froze up and then displayed a blank white screen. On the plus side, an Apple tech was able to fix it and bring it back. Two weeks and $683 later it is working fine as if nothing ever happened. My life has been changed forever, though.

The first 24 hours after it died, I went through withdrawal wondering about all the emails I was getting that I couldn't read and agonizing over the senior portraits that I had just shot that I couldn't finish until it was fixed. I'm a news junkie, too, so the sudden disconnect from the outside world really hurt. Plus, there were so many other time-waster things that I had grown accustomed to doing on the computer and then I was left with nothing to do but use my brain (which I am not accustomed to).

I was left with lots of time to read books, sit on the front porch, stare at the neighbors (in a really creepy, unhealthy sort of way), and daydream about what the world would be like if some bands didn't exist. Like, what if I could travel back in time and assassinate a bunch of bands to prevent them from ever recording crappy, formulaic, middle-of-the-road rock? I would start by taking out the obvious bands like Creed, Nickelback, and Puddle of Mudd. And I couldn't just stop there, I mean, that leaves Pearl Jam, Limp Bizkit, and many others. Er, maybe not everyone in Pearl Jam, just Eddie Vedder.

This brings up a question: by altering the past this way, how would that affect the present? I would assume that after preventing these awful bands from unleashing their horrible music on society, we would all find ourselves here in 2012 as incredibly smart supermodel millionaires. How? I dunno, but I imagine that's how it would pan out.

Anyway, the things mentioned above are a small sampling of what my brain does when it is not silenced by a computer. It's been a rough couple of weeks and I'm so glad to be back online.

Dreaming of a white Christmas

It was Christmas Eve and we were driving to Chicago to visit a friend who I hadn't seen in years. There was a lot of snow and the roads were a mess, so we had to drive slowly. The trip took all day and when we arrived in my friend's neighborhood, it was very late and most of the houses were dark. Right about then I realized that I probably should have told him that we were going to drop in, but I figured it probably didn't matter. Christmas Eve was the perfect time to pay a surprise visit to someone I hadn't talked to in almost 10 years. We pulled into their drive and it was so cold that everything had a bluish hue to it, including the snow. A Christmas tree was lit in the window, but the rest of the house was dark.

We knocked on the door, but no one answered. Figuring they must be asleep and couldn't hear us, all four of us began pounding loudly on the door. Rose had the great idea to ring the doorbell repeatedly, too. Finally a light came on and he opened the door. I could tell he was really surprised to see us! We came in and sat down and asked for something to eat. I remember one of us telling him that we didn't bring any presents, so we didn't expect him to give us any, either. After an hour or so of trying to make conversation, things just got too awkward and we decided not to stay the night after all. We asked him to watch the kids, then Cynthia and I went to stay at a hotel in... New York City(?!).

Once we got to the hotel and got the key card to our room, we then spent the whole night wandering the hotel trying to find the room. Early in the morning we gave up and decided to go pick up the kids and head back home. The trip just hadn't panned out the way we expected.

This morning that's about all I can remember from that dream. Also, my dream was letterboxed.

Guess I showed them...

I woke up early to the door-knocking sound my cell phone makes when I receive a text. Sometimes my carpool people will text me first thing in the morning, but this message had a much more sinister tone. The anonymous text read: "Good morning. Someone at your location is spying on your cell phone." What?! (cue Mission Impossible theme) As I was getting ready to throw my phone through the window and make a run for it, my sleepy brain woke up enough to suggest to me that: 1) this was probably just a spam text and 2) nobody cares what I do. There aren't any messages from Al Qaeda on my phone, and I don't store the secret plans to the Death Star on there either, so in all likelihood no one cares about spying on it. It's probably just the deposed king of Nigeria trying to get me to part with my money again. He can be persistent like that.

So, along that theme, I thought I'd write about the time in second grade when I ran away from home and thought the army came looking for me. OK, I guess that doesn't really tie in at all, but it's my blog and I'll do whatever I feel like.

One day after school, I had an argument with my parents about having to clean my room or do my homework or something completely unreasonable like that. They wouldn't let me watch TV until I had done what they told me to do, but I really wanted to watch Transformers (my favorite cartoon) first before I did whatever tedious task they wanted. My parents didn't budge and instead changed the channel to watch something else. That made me mad. I stomped off to my room to sit and feel sorry for myself and to reflect on what horrible parents they were.

My backpack was still sitting on the floor where I left it when I came home and my boots and plastic airsoft rifle sat nearby. That's when it hit me: I should run away. In that moment, I knew that I was wise beyond my years and only by running away could I really teach them a lesson. I snuck into the kitchen, made a couple sandwiches, filled a thermos with water, and peeked into the living room to see if they noticed. They hadn't looked away from the TV, so I was in the clear.

Back in my room, I gathered up a blanket, a flashlight, and a Captain Crunch Mount Crunchmore map (?!). I stuffed it all into the backpack and gathered up the rifle and boots. It was September, but I knew that after hiking for a day or two I would eventually reach some sort of mountains and it would be cold there. There's always snow on top of mountains.

I quietly exited through the back door and stood on the porch. The sun was low in the sky and in a couple hours it would be dark, so I had to hurry. As I walked away from the house, I expected to hear the door fly open and my mom yell at me, but by the time I reached the end of the yard, I figured I had a chance to get away without notice. The further I got from the house, the faster I walked until I realized that they weren't going to come after me. They were probably still sitting there watching TV, like the terrible parents they were.

My map wasn't as useful as I had expected it to be, but after half running, half walking for a long time, I guessed that I was almost to Alaska or Colorado and should be seeing the mountains any minute.

The mountains turned out to be a little further away than I thought they'd be, so I decided to find a tree to camp under for the night. It occurred to me that I didn't have a tent, a pillow, or a sleeping bag, but I didn't care.

I wondered if mom and dad were panicking yet. They had probably been calling for me and maybe they were looking around the yard for me. Maybe they had started driving around the neighborhood trying to find me. I didn't know how much time had gone by, but it was probably getting late. Maybe they had given up looking and called the police. Were the police looking for me? I kept an eye out as traffic rushed by. I didn't know how I felt about the police looking for me and I would probably hide if I saw them coming.

The sun was setting, my feet hurt, and I was sweating from running so much, so I sat down and rested. A helicopter flew over and I watched as a soldier wearing camouflage sat in an open side door looking down at everyone. It disappeared over the rooftops, then turned and came back. The helicopter was dark green and the word ARMY was painted on the tail. Wait... had the police given up looking for me and now they called in the army? Had the helicopter crew spotted me? Maybe there were tanks on the ground rumbling towards me right now. I was in serious trouble. I had underestimated how upset my parents would be about me running away.

The best thing to do would be to run all the way back home and hope that the police and the army wouldn't find me first. I ran the whole way and almost collapsed when I finally reached the back porch. The car was there, so they must have returned from searching for me. I opened the back door and expected my parents to be right there with a look of surprise on their faces when I walked in. They weren't by the back door, so I stepped inside anticipating their excited reactions when they saw me. No sign of the parents. I walked into the living room. They were still watching TV.

While I was sleeping

(I'm re-posting this one since I had to delete the original post because it was drawing a lot of spam. Someone from Russia was trying to use this post to promote dental implants.)

Every night I have dreams and often those dreams are very vivid. In my dreams, I can feel texture, smell odors, and after I wake up I can remember the most miniscule details. Most mornings I can remember details about my dreams, such as the location of light switches in a room, the color of someone's eyes (someone who doesn't even exist), whether the air was warm or cold, the food that I ate, and countless other fragments of information. When I first wake up, all of this stuff is very clear and sometimes I lie in bed for a moment trying to get my bearings because I'm not always sure at first if it was a dream or if it really happened. Dreams can leave me extremely uneasy sometimes. Especially when I have a dream that something bad is about to happen and it's so clear that when I wake up I still think that something is about to go wrong.

The other night I had a dream that I was the manager for some Japanese punk band during their U.S. tour. Does it get any weirder than that? Yes, it does. They were a bunch of hipster kids who barely spoke two words in English. They also insisted on having apple pie after each show. Their favorite restaurant was Perkins and they liked to throw things at me when I wasn't looking. The bass player developed a liking of country music. This apparently caused some sort of rift in the band and they had a big falling out. I couldn't understand what they were talking about (because I don't speak Japanese), but it must have been serious because the rest of the band took off with the tour bus leaving the bass player and I stranded at a truck stop. Then my alarm clock went off and I woke up.

I sometimes wonder if I should document my dreams because they are so strange and so clear. They fade so quickly from my memory as the day goes on, but they leave such a powerful impression on me that I keep thinking about them throughout the day, even as the details begin to grow dim. I wonder why we dream? Do they sometimes serve as some sort of warning? Why do they fade so quickly? And what English-speaking person has dreams in Japanese?! How messed up is that?

Tryptophan Street

Last night, my commute took much longer than usual. Most likely because I was wearing rollerblades and skating through traffic on I-380. It was hard to keep up and vehicles kept rushing past, nearly knocking me off the road. The sky was almost dark, but the oil well fires along the interstate provided a warm, flickering glow that helped light my way. Some of the wells burned more brightly than others, causing huge columns of fire to leap up into the sky, and creating plumes of smoke that could be seen for miles.

As I skated, I had to keep wiping the sweat and grime from my face. The heat from the fires was stifling and blackened particles floated in the smoky air. Debris from passing cars stung my forehead and every so often a rock would fly up and hit me.

Eventually, I arrived home. Of course, there was the car still sitting in the driveway where I left it that morning. How in the world did I forget to drive the car? I couldn't leave it sitting in the driveway, so I strapped on my helmet and climbed in. I backed it into the garage as carefully as I could, but that was really difficult to do with my rollerblades still strapped on. Either the garage had gotten narrower, or my driving skills had taken a nosedive, because I couldn't seem to get the car into the garage correctly. On the first try, I hit Cynthia's car and knocked over both motorcycles. The second try resulted in my car scraping violently against the side of Cynthia's car, gouging up the sheet metal on both cars and taking off lots of paint, but at least I got the car far enough in there to shut the door. I shook my head at all the destruction I had caused, but figured that with a little buffing I could get most of the scratches out and maybe no one would notice.

I tossed the rollerblades over the fence and went inside. As I walked through the kitchen, I noticed the neighbors outside digging through our trash. I opened the window and yelled at them and they scampered off and hid behind the bushes, waiting for me to go away so they could resume licking the empty pizza boxes. Weirdos.

Cynthia greeted me wearing a new headband with fuzzy bunny ears. It didn't look as nice as her old headband, but I didn't say anything. Rose and Emily were playing in the living room and Rose told me that mommy kept trying to lock them out of the house. I told her not to make mommy mad.

We sat down to the dinner table and ate popsicles. Mine was grape and tasted great. Then we skipped dessert and cleared the table. Immediately the house went dark, so we went to bed.

Note: Turkey and Ritz crackers make a good late night snack, but apparently they mess with your dreams. Must be the tryptophan.

Hollywood Avenue

When I was growing up, I lived in this house on Hollywood Avenue in Chicago. It was a 2-story flat in Edgewater, at the north end of Lake Shore Drive. I found this old scan from a photo and decided to post it.

Ah, memories...

Studio

This week has been full of surprises, one of them being the chance to rent out a studio so that I can shoot photos somewhere other than my living room. No sooner did I rent the building, then I immediately had a shoot lined up for it! Very exciting, but very tiring, too. The building had been a studio previously, but recently was used for storage. I had to help move out lots of appliances and shop equipment, then clean the place before I could begin getting set up in it. It was a lot of work, much like moving.

As you can see, it's a fairly humble building, but it's a start. Even though the studio is in Iowa City, it's off the beaten path and sits back on a large wooded acreage. The scenery is nice, though. It has a gravel drive and gravel parking and the building has heat, A/C, and internet. You wouldn't just stumble across it and when you pull in, it looks like a place where some cult might gather to wait for their comet. Or it could be an Al Qaeda training camp. Any militant would be pleased to train here.

At any rate, it's a great place for cult members, militants, and photographers and I'm happy to be here!