Deep In the Heart of Texas, Pt 2

Our second day on Galveston Island we boarded a ferry to go check out one of the nearby islands.

We saw this ship crossing ahead of us as we left the dock. I looked it up online and found that it's a Norwegian utility ship that repairs oil rigs and was on contract to the Gulf area.

You can see a U.S. Navy ship and a submarine along the peninsula.

The rusty hull that is barely protruding from the water is the remains of a sunken concrete tanker. It's the SS Selma and it transported concrete during WWI, but it ran aground in 1920 and has been sitting there ever since.

We saw a lot of sailboats out on the Gulf:

When we got the the next island there wasn't much there, so we rode back. We weren't really headed anywhere, we really just wanted to ride the ferry, heh.

Leaving the dock headed back to Galveston:

When we got back to our hotel, we changed and hit the beach:

This is the view from outside our hotel room:

In the evening, we walked along the seawall and then went down along the beach to pick up shells. There were lots of crabs running around, which freaked the girls out at first, but then their curiosity won over.

Funny story about picking up shells... Rose and Emily collected a lot of shells and some of them were larger. On the trip back to Iowa, there was a face-melting stench like something crawled up into the car and died, came back to life and then died again. We dug through our luggage until we realized the smell was coming from the collection of shells. One of the shells still had a resident living in it when it was collected... only now he wasn't living anymore. On the way back we soaked 'em in bleach and that took care of the stink.

The next day we went to the Lone Star Flight Museum. It was a collection of mostly WWII aircraft with a few cold war aircraft as well.

The MiG-15 was flown by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was used during the Korean War:

There were some cool seafood places along the seawall, so we stopped at one and the waiter had a nifty routine of magic tricks that completely baffled Emily.

The following day we went into Houston to help get the church set up for Abby and Justin's wedding. After the rehearsal, the dinner was at Justin's aunt's house in the suburbs. Houston is a shining example of urban sprawl and very poor urban planning, so trying to get anywhere is kind of a nightmare. There is almost no public transportation, so the nearly 4 million residents have to drive. It took us an hour to drive 19 miles. So glad we don't live there.

Some pictures at the church:

I designed the wedding invite as well:

Stay tuned for Part 3...

Deep In the Heart of Texas, Pt 1

My sister Abby married Justin on Saturday, June 13th, in Houston, Texas. We made the 16-hour drive down through Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and ALL of Texas. Man, that is a long drive. The northeast part of Oklahoma is kinda scenic and naturey, but after that it looks like Nebraska, except it's even more brown and featureless. And Texas ain't much better. The sucky part is that once you cross the Texas state line you're only half way there. It's a big state, yo. Day one:

They had lots of games, snacks, music, pens and paper, and movies to watch to keep them occupied. They did better than Cynthia and I expected them to.

We split up the drive over two days and planned out some points of interest to visit along the way down and back. Our first stop was Fort Scott, Kansas. It's a town that seems to be trapped in a time warp and the town square still matches the old historical photos from the 1800s. Yeah, it's changed that little. But the fort was awesome and very well maintained. They gave each of the girls an activity book to log certain specific details from their tour (sort of like a scavenger hunt) and at the end a park ranger deputized them as assistant deputy rangers.

The fort was built in the 1840s and became a training post during the Civil War. In the picture below, the stables are on the left, the Dragoon barracks are just beyond that and then the post headquarters in the smaller building. The two buildings straight ahead are the officer's barracks and then there's a well that is partially obscured by the tree on the right.

Officer's Quarters #1 and #2:

The post hospital with the guardhouse in the smaller building to the left of it. The other small building closer to the tree is the powder magazine.

Deputy rangers! They look thrilled, don't they?

We finally arrived on Galveston Island where we stayed for a couple days before the wedding:

Back at the hotel room the girls jumped on the beds they were so excited to be out of the car:

More in the next post...

Come What May

Wow, I missed the May update completely. Too much going on to try to recall all of it, but here are the highlights from May...

I designed book covers for a couple self-published authors I know. One for Casey:

And one for Jolene:

I'm also finalizing the design of 15 flavors of granola for O'Brien's Own, which will be sold in Hy-Vee grocery stores and numerous other grocery stores throughout Iowa. It's been a huge task designing 15 different products, but it'll be cool to see them on the store shelves! Not too long ago I shot senior pictures of their son and mentioned that I also am a graphic designer, so they asked me to take a shot at designing their new packaging and it turned out great.

The Quad City Air Show is normally later in the summer, but this year it was early and we had a perfect day for it. Cynthia, my dad, my brother and his wife all went with me and we had a blast! Got lots of good shots. Some of my best so far of the Blue Angels:

I'll add more air show photos in a separate post later.

We celebrated Cynthia's birthday and invited friends and family. The weather was awesome, so we set up in the garage and I grilled out.

I got her a really cool banjo for her birthday, too!

In May we went to the Bicycle Rodeo in Hiawatha and the girls both got new helmets. I bought Emily another bike (since she has outgrown her old one) and Rose is riding without training wheels now!

After a lot of waiting and anticipation, Cynthia and I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road the night it opened. It was a blast! OH WHAT A DAY, WHAT A LOVELY DAY! So much fun and it exceeded my expectations. They've been filming it for years and I've been following the news and waiting for it to be released in theaters, so it was pretty exciting to finally see it. It did not disappoint.

The girls' both had artwork that was on display in May at the Cherry building in NewBo. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted the pics prematurely from my phone and only have one remaining:

In May we spent time in the backyard around the fire roasting marshmallows:

I saw these little dudes when I went for a walk during lunch one day – a baby snapping turtle and a toad:

Before school was out, we attended Garfield Elementary's 100th anniversary celebration:

We also went to the girls' outdoor school concert during the last week of school and sang our butts off. Actually, they sang and we did parent stuff like taking pictures and complaining about hearing all the same songs for the 3rd straight year, haha.

Through Telescopes

Steampunk

Taking some of today's technology and setting it into the style and context of the 1800s or even early 1900s is part of what really fascinates me about the steampunk genre. Imagining how some of the inventions that exist now would have looked if they had been crafted back in the time of horse-drawn buggies and top hats lends itself to some interesting themed photography scenarios. Since themed photography is the direction I have taken over the past year or so, I decided it was time to experiment with things steampunk style.

Steampunk costumes and props are crazy expensive, but many of the elements are easy enough to make at home. The internetz are bursting with steampunk DIY tutorials and blogs that explore all the weird little complexities of the genre. I'm not a big fan of anything sci-fi (and I particularly dislike Star Trek), but I guess this is different enough that it sparks my interest, partly because I enjoy reading books set in the 1800s and early 1900s.

After some research I figured we could make the props easily enough, so we gathered up the materials and started making the props and costume. Cynthia made the dress after gathering some ideas on Pinterest and she tailored it to our model's (Heather) measurements.

We bought a cheap squirt gun at Kmart and with some paint we turned it into a nifty, complicated-looking contraption.

The goggles were made from safety glasses, frozen lemonade cans, a parmesan cheese lid and a few other odds and ends.

Next, we lined up a makeup artist and hairstylist (Olivia) and scheduled a day to do the shoot. Olivia has had a lot of experience and spent time in New York doing the makeup for some productions out there before coming back to CR. She was ready to update her portfolio with something more offbeat like a steampunk shoot, so she agreed to do the makeup and hairstyling at no charge in exchange for using the photos from the shoot.

Since Heather lives in Des Moines, we picked a day that she had free so we wouldn't have to rush it. The hair and makeup took hours to complete, but it was worth the trouble! We had scoped out a few new spots to shoot, which always helps with the creative spark (plus it gets boring to always shoot in the same places) and we headed out.

The sun was setting, so we shot outdoors first while we still had some golden sunlight.

There are so many interesting places to shoot around CR, and I keep discovering more nifty spots that are off the beaten path. I think I've found a new favorite location!

Slack-Jawed

watching the flickering glow all night

like some religious truth spoke through the light

in your time-obliterating trance you sit

surfing amongst spectacles so unfit

the words ring hollow, recited from a script

yet still you watch and here you sit

waiting for that moment of shattering truth

the words that give emptiness its proof

that catchy line tattooed in your mind
it's a cheap phrase thrown for the culturally blind
it enthralls and intrigues those who are unread
they shuffle through thoughts, the living undead

awake, transfixed, though the denouement means little
tidy gift wrapped episodes stream inconsequential
down your chin and your shirt, unnoticed too
amongst the crumbs and the crackers cast about by you

laborious thoughts of life's toils that matter
lay tossed about as before vacant waves they scatter
the refreshing numbing sense of nothing sets in
evidenced clearly as your face traces a grin

the last remnants of thought call warning with a shout
behold! and awaken! together they call out
but their cries are swept beneath electrical seas
all at once you are alone, without thoughts, at ease