Strong City Elevator

On Nate and I’s jaunt from Wichita back to Manhattan we made a stop in Strong City so I could photograph a surprisingly photogenic town.

Here is a photo of some rusty goodness:




You can take it to the bank, there is more Strong City coming your way!

PARTICULARS

CAMERA: SONY SLT-A65V
ISO: 100
FOCAL LENGTH: 35mm
APERTURE: f/8
EXPOSURE: 1/125
DATE: 04/03/2016 – 10:39
LATITUDE: 36.9505°
LONGITUDE: -96.53696°
PHOTO ASSISTANT: Nate Miller

Paisley Park

This last weekend I made a trip up with Nate and Laura to visit Bethany, Dae Hee, Nora, and Colleen. On Saturday night we made our way to Long Lake to eat at Primo. Dae Hee and I left early so we could swing by Paisley Park to see the Prince Memorial.

Below are some pictures.










































So part of the reason I went to Paisley Park is because it was history. It was like going to Graceland after Elvis died. However, it wasn’t the majority of the reason that I went.

I don’t normally get too caught up in celebrity deaths. It is usually a time when people flock to social media to overstate their “relationship” with the deceased celebrity.

However Prince’s death to have an effect on me. I can’t claim to be a huge fan of Prince’s music, although I did enjoy it. I also admired his musicality and he was without a doubt one of the foremost musical geniuses of the last 50 years. He produced an album a year for over a decade. There are rumors that he has well over a thousand unreleased songs that he has recorded and not released. On some of his biggest hits he played every instrument on the recording. Often recording the song in one day. Often recording more than one song in a day in this manner.

One of my favorite Prince stories is when he played the Super Bowl halftime show in the pouring rain. The producers of the halftime show were worried that he would want to pull out. When they called him and asked him about the rain he gave a great response.

“Can you make it rain harder?”

The rain didn’t stop until he played his final song of the night, Purple Rain. Despite this fact, he gave what was easily the best Super Bowl Halftime show in history. A show that will stand the test of time for its pure virtuosity alone.

I’ll miss Prince because one of my fondest memories of my childhood was my eldest sister Teresa’s friends infatuation with Prince (even though I think Teresa was more into Phil Collins). One even dressed like Prince and his license plates matched Prince’s from PURPLE RAIN. It is up there with listening to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 on family road trips. Or Dad telling Teresa that if she wanted to go Hall some Oates, he could take her to a farm.

Prince dying is like a piece of my childhood dying.

I may have to become an adult yet.

Got a Couple of Couches, Sleep on the Love Seat

Here is a collection of pictures that didn’t make the cut for RUINS in the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE.


RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

RUINS - LOSER

One of the reasons these photos ended up on the loser pile is because I had already used an abandoned train bridge (on the same abandoned right-of-way) in my WATER picture. While it is a different bridge, I didn’t want to draw water from too similar of a well.

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 32 – COUNTRY

Going to be a quick write up today, but excited that there were a plethora of submissions this week. Including a submission from first time submitter Jodie Bennett. Which is pretty sweet!

Here are the submissions for COUNTRY:


WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - BECKY PERKOVICH
Becky Perkovich

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - BILL WENTWORTH
Bill Wentworth

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - JODIE BENNETT
Jodie Bennett

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - KIM BARKER 1
Kim Barker 1

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - KIM BARKER 2
Kim Barker 2

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - SHANNON BARDOLE
Shannon Bardole

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT
Christopher D. Bennett

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - ANGIE DEWAARD 1
Angie DeWaard 1

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - ANGIE DEWAARD 2
Angie DeWaard 2

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - MIKE VEST
Mike Vest

WEEK 32 - COUNTRY - MICKY AUGUSTIN
Micky Augustin

A fine selection of submissions!

But what is the theme for this week?


WEEK 33 - WINDOWS
WINDOWS!

WINDOWS is not as easily accessible of a theme as COUNTRY, but everybody has access to WINDOWS. Of course there are many ways to interpret WINDOWS. Some would say that the eyes are the WINDOWS to the soul. If you are serious about running your business, WINDOWS is the OS for you. Of course, there are WINDOW(S) displays for WINDOW(S) shopping. Even cars have WINDOWS. Translate the theme however you see fit.

No HOUSEKEEPING today. I’ll try to do better next week.

02-22-07

The images posted here are from the folder 02-22-07.

As promised, there is some squirrel.






































The next folder is supposed to be 02-28-07, but it seems to be just a bunch of pictures that were already in another folder, so we’ll probably just skip that one and move on.

Nora

Bethany and Dae Hee recently brought forth new life into this world. Nate, Laura, Jim and rolled up I-35 (or 35 Interstate in Kansan) and visited little Nora Olivia Yoon.

I don’t normally post pictures of people in the hospital, but I’ll make an exception, this one time.

Here is Nora:


Nate is unpictured because there was a limit of 3 people in the NICU at a time and I was never in there with him.

I should point out that to be allowed in the NICU with Nora, you had to have your flu shot. I was never so happy that my Mom’s incessant nagging to get my flu shot actually paid dividends. Nate, Laura, and Jim had to scramble the day before we went up to get theirs. Meanwhile, I was kicking back with Carla taking pictures of the remains of the Wagon Wheel Bridge.

Oh wait. I forgot I have some cruddy phone pictures to share as well. You can see Nate’s arm in one of those.



Dae Hee’s interpretation of child birth!

I’m going up to visit Nora again this weekend, so there might just be more Nora pictures in your future… you lucky dog!

J.B. McHose House

This Sunday the Youth Group from my church is having a fundraiser for our Mission Trip to Milwaukee. It is a two tiered fundraising effort.

When: Sunday 2-4 PM
Where: The Historic J.B. McHose House – 921 5th Street – Boone, IA

But what is it?

I’ll just steal Alisa’s description from Facebook:

Come take a tour of the beautiful, historic McHose House. While there check out and purchase some beautiful youth-made art. We will be selling cute mugs for a flat rate and having a silent auction for our canvases.

This is will be our last fundraiser before the Boone FUMC youth group heads off to Milwaukee, Wisconsin this summer on a week long mission.

This is an free-will offereing, open house event so feel free to come and go but I can’t promise the cookies will still be there at 4pm.

So you can tour the historic McHose House and pick up some high quality hand-crafted local art. On a canvas or on a mug. Win! Win!

Here are some of the canvases that could potentially be for sale:


Hopefully I’ll see a few or many of you there!

Pre-Work

There is an old timey hamburger joint in Manhattan (Kansas) that I want to photograph at night at some point. On my recent trip to visit Nate, I was never in Manhattan at night. So it didn’t happen.

However, I did scout the area out and took a few test photos. Maybe a few months down the road I’ll post the photo that this scouting trip helped make possible.

Here are some scouting photos:
















A Kansas State area restaurant that calls their desserts Cyclones? I get your subliminal message Vista Drive In. Loud and clear!

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 31 – OLD

So I made a rookie mistake and left my camera battery at work over the weekend. Good thing that I had already taken a plethora of pictures of old things on Wednesday.

This week’s submissions for OLD:


WEEK 31 - OLD - KIM BARKER
Kim Barker

WEEK 31 - OLD - SHANNON BARDOLE
Shannon Bardole

WEEK 31 - OLD - BILL WENTWORTH
Bill Wentworth

WEEK 31 - OLD - SARAH KARBER
Sarah Karber

WEEK 31 - OLD - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT
Christopher D. Bennett

WEEK 31 - OLD - ANGIE DEWAARD
Angie DeWaard

A pretty good selection of submissions methinks.

So what is this week’s theme…


WEEK 32 - COUNTRY
COUNTRY!

So what is COUNTRY? When I wrote this theme down and put it on a Post-It note, my basic concept of country was anything that isn’t within a city limits. Anything rural would qualify. However, you can take the theme any way you want it. Want to saunter down to your local honky tonk and grab a picture of a pretend cowboy. That would qualify. Have a cherry collection of old Tom T. Hall 8 tracks? Take a picture of that. If you want to take a picture of a map and say “look, it’s a country!” Do that. Express the theme however you see fit.

No HOUSEKEEPING today. I’ll try to do better next week.

If the Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll see you next Monday. With a sweet collection of COUNTRY pictures, I have no doubts.