Back in June I took a road trip up to Arnolds Park to visit the Stenslands at the Lake House. As an added bonus Sabas, Elainie, and Elawyn were up there. While Jason and Sabas were off playing gross golf, the rest of us went to a restaurant on the… Read More »#LakeLife: Arnolds Park Field Work
At the end of the last collection Lowell and I were wandering around Chinatown. In this collection we will finish up in Chinatown and then move on to the famous Philly Cheesesteak Square. Home of Geno’s Steaks and Pat’s King of Steaks. 2 of the most famous cheesesteaks in all… Read More »Philadelphia Day 1: On to Cheesesteak Square
Can you believe that this is the 5,750th entry in the blog known as “An Artist’s Notebook”? Every 250 posts or so I like to take a moment to reflect on where this post has been and post a lot of meaningless stats. As always on these posts, I like… Read More »Post 5,750
After the late night with Sarah and Tim was over, we went back to Newark. Crashed. Woke up in the morning. Ate breakfast. Took the shuttle to the airport. Flew to Chicago. Flew back to Fort Dodge. Drove home. I got to see Bokeh again. I loved Ireland. I loved… Read More »Travel Home Day 2
Now it is time to begin sharing the collection of cruddy cell phone pictures of the trip home from Ireland to the Cyclone State. We got up in the morning and headed to the lumber yard/cafe and then headed to a grocery store to find a post office so that… Read More »Travel Home Day 1
There aren’t many cruddy cell phone pictures from Day 6, the last day in Ireland to share. One of the things we did was far too dangerous to have a cell phone out. It wasn’t dangerous for us, but a cell phone would have definitely gotten lost. Plus I definitely… Read More »Ireland Day 6
Day 5 in Ireland. We took a different route on this day than the others. Rather than driving somewhere, we decided to take a tour bus over to Galway via the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren. We got on the same tour bus with Jon and Angie and kind… Read More »Ireland Day 5
On Wednesday, the Iowa Pork Producers Association released the finalists for this years Iowa’s Best Breaded Pork Tenderloin. For us blue-collar-to-no-collar folks this is the equivalent to the Beard Awards or Michelin stars. You can have your fancy pants restaurants. Give me a pork tenderloin, a side of onion rings,… Read More »Ireland Day 3
After we left Giant’s Causeway we briefly made a stop in a village nearby and then beat it to Carrick-a-Rede which is a park with a rope bridge that goes over the Atlantic Ocean. 98 feet above the Atlantic Ocean to be exact. After that we headed to Belfast for… Read More »Ireland Day 2: Part 2
I took a lot of cell phone pictures on Day 2 of Ireland. So many, that I’m going to split them in 2. The first part will consist of cell phone pictures I took at Giant’s Causeway. One thing about Ireland is that every day I saw something that was… Read More »Ireland Day 2: Part 1
Last Sunday we left off basically when I was getting ready to get off the plane. We will continue from there. The first day in Ireland. It was my first time really going through Customs in over 20 years. Getting into Ireland was pretty simple. They asked why we were… Read More »Ireland Day 1
Today’s food adventure covers the travel day Andy and I had that began in Fort Dodge, Iowa and ended in Dublin, Ireland. I was going to do a thing where I calculated how much money I spent on food on this trip, but I didn’t do a very good job… Read More »Ireland – Travel Day
This is kind of a 2 for 1 food adventure. Back in June I went on kind of a boredom road trip with no real destination in mind. In fact, I don’t know that I really went anywhere. My initial thought was maybe to go to Denison and the Donna… Read More »Big Pizza Pie: Humboldt Field Work
By the time this post publishes I will already have picked up my entries for the 2025 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. So now it is a good time to share them. Selected for Display – Class 16 – Things & Still Life Selected for Display – Class 18 –… Read More »Baklaving It: Des Moines Field Work
A couple months back Teresa and I went to Pleasantville to try the new reigning Best Burger in Iowa. Halftime Bar & Grill. Here is some information from the Iowa Beef website: On the square in Pleasantville, Iowa, family, community, and Iowa’s best burger intersect at Halftime Bar & Grill.… Read More »Burgertime: Pleasantville Field Work
This food adventure is a little bit different. This isn’t an adventure where I went and ate hopefully delicious food. This one, in fact, wasn’t even a full food adventure. The pictures here are from the recent Boone County Fair Barbecue Contest. Logan’s barbecue team Tall & Meaty competed. This… Read More »Tall & Meaty: BCF 2025
Back in May, I went on my annual birthday road trip. This year it wasn’t overly ambitious. Nader went with me again, as he is my one and only true friend. We met up with Willy at the Houby Festival. I will cover the Houby Festival (in Cedar Rapids) in… Read More »Tenderloining: Monticello Field Work
Before I get into the meat of this food adventure, I want to enlighten you to the fact that the Best New Fair Food finalist have been named for the Iowa State Fair. Here is some info from the Iowa State Fair website: The TOP 3 Best New Foods, in… Read More »Tenderloining: Food Truck Showdown Field Work
A couple months back Russell and Andree took me out to the culinary treat knowns as Korean Barbecue for my birthday. I didn’t know that such a thing even existed, let alone in Iowa. I mean I knew Korean barbecue existed because of DaeHee, but not in this kind of… Read More »Cue: West Des Moines Field Work
Back in early May I decided to hit up a different taco truck in Ames other than Rico’s Tacos. This is rare for me, but I decided I would stretch my wings a little bit. So I went to El Primo. This was also the day of the Kentucky Derby,… Read More »Taco ‘Bout It: East Lincoln Way Field Work
This food adventure actually took place before my work trip to Philadelphia. But I was so hot to trot to get those Philly Cheesesteaks out into the tubes of the interwebs that I pushed this one back a full 7 weeks. But that isn’t to impugn this meal or this… Read More »Cluck! Cluck! – Beaverdale Field Work