I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog recently due to the holidays as well as a sinus infection or some other bug that has had me less than inclined to spend time writing some of my thoughts for everyone's reading pleasure.  Hopefully I will be back on my regular updating schedule going forward.

We spent a brief time in St. Louis for Christmas.  Our work schedule has prevented us from staying more than about 24 hours during our last two visits but it's always good to go back to see family.  Unfortunately, we don't get to see everyone we'd like to during our visits but they are always in our thoughts and prayers.

Jodi and I celebrated our 20th anniversary last night with a dinner at Texas Roadhouse, accompanied by JD.  The night before, we went to Nebraska Furniture Mart and bought a new set of furniture for the loft as our anniversary present.  We also found a black and red leather futon for Jodi's office which will come in handy as seating as well as a place for extra company to sleep on if needed.  We found it in the clearance section of the store and it was a great deal.

I finally ordered and received my picatinny rails for my AR.  I installed them today along with some UTG rail covers.  My tactical flashlight now resides on one rail and I also installed a forward hand grip on the bottom rail.  I still need to get a one point sling and I think at some point I'd like to change the stock but at this point, I'm mildly content.  If the current market panic ever dies down, I'd like to build an AR-10 for long range accuracy.

Happy New Year!

To All My Liberal Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2013, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Conservative Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Did you know that spoons make people fat?  When you read my blog, do you notice that my keyboard occasionally misspells a word?  Yes, I'm being sarcastic but the thought that guns kill people is as ridiculous as my first two questions.  The gun fearing left is going to use this opportunity to try to ban once again, the guns they deem as "assault weapons".  They think that an AR-15 is a military weapon that should only be found in a war zone.  I wouldn't dare go to war with an AR-15 as I would be massively outgunned.  Take a look at this image.

So one is an assault weapon because it is black and scary to them.  This is the type of logic we are dealing with when it comes to politicians and the main stream media.  You can see just by watching the news what the agenda of the liberal media is.  They think a ban on assault weapons will magically end these types of tragedies.  How did that work for the students at Columbine who were killed at a time when the Clinton assault weapon ban was in place? 

I'm convinced that we will once again wind up with some type of ban on "black, scary guns" and some of their accessories.  Panic buying has already taken place so good luck finding an AR-15 at any gun store.  Fortunately, I have been preparing for a day like this and have adequate supply on hand.  Now it's time to get a reloader so that the government will not be able to inhibit me from the shooting sport I enjoy.  

If you want my guns, 

Well, here we go.  AN emotionally disturbed individual commits a heinous act and it's the gun's fault.  It's been the agenda of the left to strip American's of their rights and liberties, all along telling them that government knows what is best for them.  The majority of Americans have become good sheep and are willing to give up their liberty for what they believe is safety provided by the government.  It was Ben Franklin who said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

The main stream media is running full tilt with this as expected and the run on guns and ammo has begun.  For some reason, the left seems to think the 2nd amendment is about hunting and that guns such as the AR-15 should only be available in a war zone.  This shows their ignorance quite well as if you're in a war zone with an AR-15, you will be far outgunned. I heard one raging Lib say that if you shoot a deer with an "assault rifle", you won't even be able to use the meat!  Seriously? Now, who are the nuts here?

Criminals don't pay attention to laws.  If making guns illegal is the answer, we should do that with meth and crack too. Uh, they are?  Wow, those laws are really effective, huh?  This kid stole his mother's guns (against the law), broke into a school (against the law) and killed people (against the law).  See how effective laws are?  Data shows that the gun ban during the Clinton years was ineffective. 

This was obviously an immense tragedy and I feel for the parents and those affected deeply.  However, this is an emotional reaction to the tragedy.  The focus should be on the individual, not the tool that was used to commit the crime.  Out of all of the AR-15's in this country, how many have been used to carry out mass killings? 

Since 1950, all of the mass killings with the exception of one has taken place in "gun free zones".  Why?  Because the attacker knows he will not meet resistance.  It's not that hard to figure out.  Gun free zones are a huge problem.  Is a gun free zone suppose to keep a criminal from bringing a gun in?  The only purpose it serves is to keep law abiding citizens from bringing their legally obtained and permitted weapon onto the premises.  Therefore, it's a great place for a coward to go kill people. 

In my opinion, the main stream media is an arm of the left wing government and due to the overwhelming amount of sheep who live in this country, they can control the topic of debate and the outcome of it as well.  I just hope that law abiding gun owners stand up and show that we will not be stripped of our rights and liberties.  Thomas Jefferson said, ""The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."  Well, it's coming and we should all be prepared. 

I think this quote says my thoughts quite well, ”The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90MPH, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.”
~Sam Cohen (inventor of the neutron bomb)

We were talking about Silver Dollar City last night with JD and Megan and I was reminded that we did a tin type family photo when we went there many years ago.  A quick search through some boxes in the basement produced the photo.  We then discussed the merits of bringing the mullet back.  If I were to do so, it would be closer to a skullet I think.  Enjoy.

We're running behind on getting our Christmas card out but it will be in the mail shortly.  We just uploaded it to our lab last night and we hope it ships today which would put it in our hands tomorrow.  Jodi came up with the design and the photography is by moi. 

I found out last night that it will cost $299 to replace the cracked glass on my new phone.  Kind of ridiculous since I paid $199 for it 3 weeks ago, then got $50 back when it went on sale for $149 and then last night got another $50 back when it went on sale for $99.  One of my other lines is eligible for an upgrade January 20th so I'm going to just get a new iPhone 5.  I don't like this Galaxy 3 at all.  It was a big mistake going back to an Android phone from the iPhone.

As I write this, JD is driving home from college for a 3 1/2 week break.  The first semester went by pretty quickly and baseball season will be here soon.  The second semester will likely prove more difficult for him as he will have to deal with the travel schedule and missing classes.  He should have plenty of time to stay up on homework though on those long bus trips.  I think the longest bus trip is 8 hours when they go down to Jacksonville State and Southern Miss, deep into Mississippi.  We plan on making the trip to the Southern Miss series in May.  The other road trip will be the season opener in Nashville.

Here are the two sneak peeks we posted last night on our Facebook page for the bride, groom and their family and friends to view.  I grabbed them off the Facebook page so they are a little compressed in quality.  Click on image for larger view.

We survived the wedding!  It was quite interesting to say the least and I was completely out of my element but the pictures turned out really well and I'm confident the bride and groom will be very pleased with the results. All did not go as planned however.

Jodi and I arrived at the church at 10:15 am for a ceremony that was suppose to start at 2pm.  The bride told us she was going to be there no later than 10am.  The groom was there but the bride didn't show up until after 11:30.  She had everything we needed that we were going to photograph before the wedding while she was getting her hair and makeup done.  We were off to a bad start and it wasn't helping my nerves or confidence any.  The thing that was really bothering me the most was this small, old church resembled a cave on the inside.  It was DARK!  The ceiling was dark wood so I wasn't going to get much help with bouncing light.  I had to push my ISO way up just to get enough shutter speed to stop motion.  What a great first gig!

When she arrived, we did the photos of the rings, bouquet, her boots, marriage license, and some other detail shots.  When we finished, they were in a rehearsal so we waited again to get photos of the bride and groom getting dressed and ready.  No way this thing was starting on time.

My biggest concern was how well the ceremony shots would turn out.  You only get one shot at them coming down the aisle, the exchange of rings, the kiss, etc...  If they aren't sharp and in focus, you're toast.  Since I'm not an expert at on camera flash, this was the scariest part for me.  Luckily, I did some practice shots earlier and had a pretty good idea as to what my settings needed to be. My fingers were crossed.

After the ceremony, we did the usual family photos before I took the bride and groom outside for some shots in front of the church.  We later went to a bridge nearby that the bride wanted photos at and then we used a gazebo, loading dock and an industrial looking overhead door on a building for some creative and unique photos that I wanted to do for them.   

Inside the reception area, which was the wine cellar of a Mercantile store, (DARK!),  I took photos of the cake and table decorations, the toast, cake cutting and some dancing photos.  That wrapped up our day and I was able to relax a bit.

Since I had the lenses I rented for the entire weekend, I wanted to use them to create some black and white images for my office walls.  I wanted to do some Kansas City landscape photos as well as take pictures at or of some of the more well know venues in the area. To do so, we got up early on Sunday and headed downtown to Union Station.  It was decorated for Christmas and their tree must have been 30-40 feet tall.  The place was bustling with people, as I imagine it was in it's heyday when used as a transportation hub.  The building is massive and is quite spectacular.  I took time to photograph all of the architectural details and the natural light coming in through the massive windows was amazing.  There was a model train exhibit in one wing and I took some shots of the train layouts.

Leaving Union Station, we drove to the relatively new Kaufmann Performing Arts Center.  The building resembles the opera house in Australia and is quite spectacular.  The Nutcracker was being performed so it was quite busy around the building.  Jodi dropped me off so I could take the photos I wanted since police were everywhere and there was no street parking.  I used the wide angle lens and some low angles to create some pretty cool images.  I also took photos of the four towers across the street that rise above the convention center and are a well known feature in the city skyline.

From there, we drove down to the West Bottoms to visit some of the junk and antique shops that are open on First Friday.  These shops are only open the weekend of the first Friday of the month.  The district they reside in houses some of the oldest buildings in Kansas City, down where the stockyards once were. Several of the buildings are used for haunted houses in the fall.  Many of the buildings contain small junk shops where repurposed furniture, knick knacks, antiques and collectibles are sold. It's kind of like a flea market environment.  We did find a cool, funky chair that we purchased for the studio or to take on location.

A brief stop to pick up a Christmas gift and a meal at Golden Corral wrapped up our busy day.  We spent the rest of the evening at home with the animals, working on the computer and watching some TV.  It felt good to relax after a very busy yet productive weekend.

By the way, if you want me to shoot a wedding for you or anyone else, the answer is "No"...seriously.   

This is for my boat loving brothers.  Wait for it.

What did I get myself into?  After adamantly saying multiple times I would never shoot a wedding because of the high risk, the emotional drama, etc..., I'm shooting one....this Saturday!  I must be stupid.  Three frickin' days to plan and get gear ready for something I've never done.  Sure, I like a challenge but this is just nuts.

I've been friendly with a bank teller at our branch.  She's been real helpful and she set us up at as the bank's featured "Business of the Week" last spring.  Through our conversations, I knew she was getting married and she discussed photography with me and that her cousin was going to do her wedding.  At that point, I declared that I did not do weddings, had no desire to do so, etc.  Well, last night, Jodi and I were shopping at Hobby Lobby and I ran in to her.  She was so excited to see me and said she was going to call me the next day to ask me to do the photography at her wedding this Saturday.  Due to unexpected circumstances, their plans had changed and they are going to have a small wedding here. I told her that was not my area of expertise and I turned her down.  I did tell her why but made an offer that if she finds someone to take pictures, or guests had pictures, we would help get them printed or create an album for her.

As we parted and continued our shopping, Jodi said to me "You just crushed her."  OH MY GOD!  Thanks for saying that and making me feel bad.  So now I spend the next 20 minutes going back and forth between how I'm going to do it and what is the plan to "Nope, sticking to my guns".  Yeah, that didn't work.  We ran into her again and I asked her if she had a dress.  When she said yes, I told her I would do it but I had reservations about doing so because I had never done a wedding before.  Well, when you are desperate, you'll take anybody right?  Yeah, I'm hired. 

Here's a couple shots from the gun show I went to on Saturday.

 

Also, I found my truck on Friday night.  It's a Ford F450 Harley Davidson edition.  North of $70,000 I believe.  No sticker on the window but the F250 version of the same truck next to it was $64,000.

 

I thought I'd post a few more shots for your viewing pleasure.  We recently purchased an antique chair to use in the studio and I think it's a perfect addition.  It really looks good on most any background.  Heather was the first to get to use it and I really like the colors in this shot, so much that we ordered a large print on metallic paper to use as a studio sample.  Clicking on the image will bring up a bigger view.

I don't remember if I posted these two previously or not.  We did some photos for the high school orchestra as gifts for the graduating seniors.  I think they turned out especially well considering the environment I had to shoot in.

Jodi had to work today so after rolling out of bed at 9am, I decided to head over to Overland Park, KS for a gun show at the International Trade Center. It wasn't as large as the one here at the KCI Expo Center by the airport, but I had never been to this one and thought I'd go check things out.  There were about 400 tables and it took about 45 minutes to walk past all of them to get a feel for what was there.  I decided to get a couple 45 round Magpul PMAG's for my AR.  These have the sight window in them and are made of polymer versus the aluminum ones I own.  I looked for the shotgun stock I want but didn't see it.  I will have to place an order for a few items it appears.  I need to order some ammo and it's cheapest off the internet.  I'd like to start bringing in about 1000 rounds every two months to build an adequate stockpile of about 10,000 rounds.  Once I get to that level, I'm going to get an AK47 and start piling up some 7.62x39.  The nice thing about AK's is you can shoot just about any ammo you want through them without any issues.  AR's don't like the cheaper steel case ammo.

In the afternoon, Jodi and I drove up to Kearney to look around and see what area we might like to relocate to if we decide to expand our studio and downsize the house in a year or two.  Ideally, a decent size ranch on 5 acres would do.  We would need some room to build our studio building which I expect will be around 40x60.  There isn't much available in the area we desire right now. 

Jodi left for St. Louis shortly after our return.  She is on vacation next week and went to visit family and JD.  Looks like I have 5 days of alone time to do whatever I choose.  I've got a long list of things I need to get done so I will start those and hopefully whittle it down a bit. 

With things slowing down a bit schedule wise, I've been giving some thought on what I'd like to do over the winter.  One thing on the to do list is to get my concealer carry permit and I'll probably take the required class in January.  I need to get a new holster for my XD-40 and am looking at the Blackhawk Sherpa.  Maybe it will wind up under the Christmas tree?

I also want to start upgrading my home defense shotgun.  I intend to change out the stock to the Blackhawk Spec Ops II NRS pictured below.  I like the pistol grip as well as the adjustable stock and I think it will be better for a close quarters weapon.  I'll follow the shotgun upgrades up with some upgrades to my AR15.  I need to add some sling points and some picatinny rails to mount some accessories to. 

Last night, Jodi and I relocated our desktop computer to her office upstairs.  We had purchased a graphics tablet some time ago for her to use for photo retouching and she installed the software and got that working.  She'll need to work with it for a bit to get used to it but most graphic designers and photo retouchers use something like it.  She is a quick learner so I expect she'll pick it up quite easily.

Although I am on a computer quite a bit, I am not much of a computer tech.  That showed last night in trying to get my laptop to connect to her desktop so we can share files.  It should be a relatively easy thing but every time I tried to access my laptop from her computer, I kept getting asked for a username and password.  To my knowledge, I don;t have one and I even had password protected sharing turned off.  It was quite a frustrating experience.  I did connect to her PC by creating an ad hoc network but there should be a much easier way, plus you lose the internet connection when you do that.  It looks like I'm going to have to enlist a friend to assist.

We made a quick trip to St. Louis for Thanksgiving.  It was short of a 24 hour stay but it was great to see family and all the little ones that make up the next generation of Williams'.  The food was good and the company even better.  We're looking forward to going back for Christmas, although it will be another abbreviated stay due to our work schedules. 

JD will be heading back to college tomorrow.  It has been good to have him home for a lengthy stay and we're looking forward to having him home for three weeks at Christmas.  Kyle has been busy on the bridge project and working a lot of hours.  There are several bridge projects following this one he said and he may get to move on to those when this one is completed. 

I spent some time this weekend working on our website.  The work is starting to pay off as we are now near the top of page 4 on Google when searching the key words I am targeting.  Originally, we weren't in the first 60 pages, at which time I stopped looking.  In talking with some website pro's who do this for a living, that is pretty good progress.  I was told it takes a good 6-9 months to realize the full results of steady work on the website to get to the first couple pages.  Although I suspect that most of our clientele will come from the four area high schools in our county, I would like to draw from a larger area to get our name out even further. 

I was off Friday for the holiday so I had a meeting with a marketing firm over in Lenexa.  A person I recently met works there and he told me of the services they offered.  I was wanting rear window graphics for the Edge and since they did that type of work, I had them make and install a vinyl rear window graphic with our logo and contact information.  They print on a vinyl that looks like mesh so you can see through it from inside the vehicle.  I also had them digitize our logo and they are going to sew it onto some polo shirts I ordered for Jodi and I to wear.  I might also have them do a t-shirt run to distribute to students at the high schools.   

JD is home for the holiday and our house has been a gathering place for his friends again.  He is also back together with Megan so they have been spending quite a bit of time together too.  When he goes back, he will only have two weeks of school left for the first semester and then has about 3 1/2 weeks off for Christmas break before starting the second.  Baseball will begin about 5 weeks after his return.  Their first series is in Nashville and then the following week is in Little Rock before three straight weekend series' at home.  I think we're going to Nashville and then I'll be at all of the weekend home games while Jodi will make the ones she can since she works every other Saturday.

We took the dogs to the dog park in Liberty yesterday.  They have a lot of fun there and I enjoy getting to see and play with other dogs.  There must have been 40 dogs running around yesterday, everything form Great Danes and Bull Mastiffs to Corgi's and mini Dachshunds.  Angus and Gia are always a hit with the people there and they love the attention they get.

Here's a couple shots from the park.  Angus DOES NOT like cameras and he's coming to attack it in the first pic while Gia is sucking up the attention of another couple in the background.  Second picture is Gia getting acquainted with other dogs.  She runs with the big dogs and keeps up pretty well.  Angus can run when he wants to.  Click on pics for larger view.  

 

Jodi and I decided to refinance our house to take advantage of the ridiculously low interest rates.  They required an appraisal, which I'm sure most people dread to even think about their home's value these days.  I feel our home is still worth what we paid for it, even though my neighbor's appraisal came in much lower than what they probably expected and another neighbor sold at a huge loss recently.  Today, our mortgage broker called and said our appraisal came back and it was $5000 more than we paid for our house, thus validating my opinion. 

At this time, we intend to stay here for a bit longer but have decided that if our business takes off like we expect it to, we may sell and purchase a home on 3-5 acres so we can have a large building that would serve as our studio and offices.  We also want to create scenic backdrops outdoors to utilize for our photography.  We would probably move a little north to find the land we'd be looking for, likely in the Kearney area. 

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

My thought for the day.

I thought I'd share some more senior portraits we did recently.  Kansas City has some great locations to shoot at  and we've found some new places to use also.  I'm looking forward to doing more outdoor photography this coming Spring.  Click on image for larger view.

Although we accomplished quite a bit this weekend, it wasn't what I had originally planned for myself.  Somehow we wound up painting the guest bedroom and converted it to an office for Jodi and we converted JD's man cave to the guest bedroom.   We still have to paint the guest bedroom but the office is done.  Jodi chose a blue-gray color and on the wall it looks more blue than the gray she was shooting for but it actually looks better with the current trim color.  She put up red panel drapes that we already had and it looks really nice.  We're going to look for a red office chair and paint the desk, a color yet to be determined.

We delivered two photo orders this weekend and our clients were thrilled.  The large prints really blew them away and they really liked the accordion books that Jodi designed for them.  One family is having us custom frame the 16x20 print they ordered so we'll be doing that this week.  We have another print order to deliver this week as well. 

We got a surprise yesterday when Kyle showed up.  He had come to KC to visit a friend and came by afterward.  We took him to dinner at Cracker Barrel and we all stuffed ourselves.  Kyle is currently working on the Blanchette Bridge demolition project.  He is on site as a crane oiler.  He is working 10 hour shofts and the project is 7 days a week.  He worked 72 hours total last week so he's seeing money he's never seen before.  He's working the night shift and starts at 6pm.   This project is scheduled to last a year and hopefully he'll get to keep working for the entire project. 

JD gets to come home for 9 days starting on Friday.  He's anxious for the week to be over and is looking forward to spending a lot of time with the firends he misses.  We'll see how much time he spends with his parents!!

Have you ever seen a Maine Coon cat?  At the animal hospital on Friday, "Link" made an appearance.  Jodi would love to have one of these but not with our dogs!  They are very cool cats and it would probably be the only type of cat I would say yes to.  One of Jodi's co-workers is holding Link.





“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.” ― Edward Gibbon

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/08/3906216/obamas-big-hispanic-win-worries.html#storylink=cpy

I've been working on our website quite a bit lately.  It may not be visible to the casual observer but I've been working on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so that our website will list higher in Google searches.  Until now, I didn't know much about it but I've spent some time reading and watching Youtube tutorials and then making changes to our site.  It's pretty interesting to see what is involved with Google's algorithms and how they rank websites based on content, backlinks, keywords, metatags, etc...  Simply putting this link to our website here Maxxum Photography will boost our ranking on the web.  Next, I'll be working on the portfolio portion of our site to show our senior portrait work. 

I'm also starting a new project, creating a digital magazine for our clients. The magazine will educate our clients about our products and services as well as offer tips on how to best prepare for their session date, hopefully giving them plenty of information to make the decision to use us as the senior portrait photographer.  It will take some time to create but I think the investment will be well worth it.  I'm investing a great deal of time in creating a detailed marketing plan for our company in an effort to create brand identity and get our brand out to as many potential clients a possible. 

I feel so bad for Barack Obama.  He is inheriting such a mess.

Here's my prediction for tomorrow:  Obama will have an early lead....until the rest of us get off work!

It was great to have JD home this weekend.  I didn't let Jodi know he was coming so when she came home from work on Friday and saw him sitting on the stairs waiting for her, she was quite surprised.  Our house was "normal" again as he had about 10 friends over on Saturday night to hang out and spend time with him.  We stocked him up on snack foods for the dorm and he should be covered for the next two weeks.  He will come home for Thanksgiving break on the 16th and be home for 9 days.

We received some pretty good news from Kyle over the weekend.  He will be working on the Blanchette Bridge project beginning tonight.  It sounds like they are tearing down one of the bridges and he will be working as a crane oiler.  He said it is 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.  That will be a good income for him and we're thankful that he's getting that opportunity. 

Tomorrow is Election Day and I'm looking forward to our day off.  I will certainly be casting my vote tomorrow and I hope everyone else does as well.  Prop B needs to fail in Missouri as well as Amendment 3.  I'm also going to be voting against Missouri setting up the insurance exchange.  Obamacare is going to be repealed anyway.

Here's the 2012 Cougars baseball team.  JD is front row, first on left.  You can click picture to view larger image.

Here is a link to the roster page where you can click on his name for his bio.  I guess they'll update it soon as they only have brief information from his junior year in high school.   

http://www.siuecougars.com/sports/m-basebl/2012-13/roster

Halloween has come and gone.  We had a steady stream of kids at the house for about an hour or so.  There were a lot of adorable little girls dressed as princesses and fairies.  One little girl, who was probably 3 years old, came as Red Riding Hood and told me how she didn't like the witch that was next door.  She was so cute.

Sign I'm putting on my door tonight:

JD is pretty excited after learning he will be wearing his favorite number this coming season.  He couldn't have it in high school since the jersey that it was stitched upon was much too large for him.  He didn't get to wear it on his summer team either because someone with a longer tenure on the team already had it.  Those obstacles no longer exist and now JD will once again get to proudly wear #27.

It's a shame that Monday's have to ruin a perfectly good weekend.  I'm looking forward to the day when the day of the week doesn't matter any longer.  Less than 6 years if I so choose.

Another successful fireworks show lit up the sky in Peculiar, MO this weekend.  I spent most of Saturday helping a friend set up his show that he didn't get to shoot back in August due to the burn ban.  We set up in a cow pasture and put up a pretty good sized show.  We could have used a few more hands to get done faster but we made do with what we had and I think the majority of the product on hand went up.  I'm sure the cows won't be producing milk for a little while!

Jodi and I spent Sunday working on business related things.  She finished up a couple photo orders we had pending and they are now ready to go to the lab.  We had a couple things we needed to design for a client and those projects are always a bit stressful because you want to meet their expectations right from the start.  I suggested a design to Jodi and she did a great job creating what I had envisioned.  Once finished, I sent a photo of the design to the clients and they immediately responded that they loved it. I spent the rest of the day reviewing potential vendors for some new product offerings for our studio, creating a referral incentive program for our clients and watched a little TV, something I don't do much of.

JD called late in the evening and we spent a half hour or so with him on speakerphone getting to catch up with what was going on in his life at SIUE.  He said they had their team and individual pictures taken for use on the website and the media guide last Friday.  He said he was in the front row for the team picture.  On Friday they had another three mile run and if you didn't make your time you had to run another three miles.  Well, he still isn't where he needs to be so he got to run the additional three miles after a 5 minute break from the first run.  So did most of the others.  We're looking forward to having him home for about 11 days in the middle of November for Thanksgiving break.  He's looking forward to coming home as well.

It looks like a great week of weather here in KC.  I told Jodi I wanted to do something we haven't done before so we're going to take the dogs to the dog park in Liberty and let them run around and play.  I know they'll enjoy the extra room to run and they'll get to play with other dogs too.

.

I don’t know whether to be outraged or just crack up laughing at this story, but the UN-affiliated Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe announced that it plans to send monitors to America next month to watch over our election. They want to make sure no conservative groups commit voter suppression or intimidation or violate any election laws at polling places. Of course, they were invited here by liberal groups, who have suffered terrible intimidation in the past, such as Tea Party members swinging bats outside polling places. Oh no, wait: that was the New Black Panthers. Maybe they mean Republicans violating laws like letting felons vote in Minnesota or dead people vote in Chicago. No, wait, those weren’t Republicans, either.

Oh well, at least we can rest easy knowing that our elections will be eyeballed by the same people who insure fair elections around the world, in places like Iran and Venezuela. Maybe they can even get some help from members of the UN Human Rights Council, like Nigeria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. You know what, come to think of it, I don’t think we really need the UN monitoring American elections. But I do think America needs to start monitoring the money we spend on the U.N.

 

Let's talk about religion for a minute.  Americans need to understand that in Islamic countries, no other religion is tolerated, period. The big misunderstanding is that Islam is NOT a religion, personal and private unto oneself. It is a system of government with religious interpreters dictating policy. It is a theocracy. And this type of totalitarian government demands that the populace conform, or else. It is simple: either convert, or pay a tax, or leave... or die.

I'm really pleased at how successful our Senior Portrait Photography business is going.  I personally enjoy seeing the reaction of the parents when we show them the images we created in a custom slideshow on our 55" LCD monitor.  The last session we had, the dad admitted to tearing up during the presentation.  I'm glad that what we're doing is bringing out that emotion in the parents.  It also shows when they write the check! 

This Saturday, I'm helping a KCAP member set up a fireworks show that he does every year at Halloween.  There will be some other club members there to help as well and we're going to fire the show with a wireless firing system.  It should be a decent size show and there is a big party going on as well.

It's a cool and blustery day here in KC.  This afternoon, we will be doing a mini-session with a client at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.  As windy as it has been the last day or so, I wonder how many of the leaves remain on the trees.  It's a beautiful place to take photos as the grounds are extremely well kept and there is quite a bit of architecture and design to incoporate into the photos.  I hope the wind dies down a bit before the session.

I just saw a tweet from JD that said at 6am, they were out for a 3 mile run in the rain.  He told me the other day that he's already shaved 2 1/2 minutes off his three mile run time.  He also said that the 6am workouts are pretty tough but he says he feels stronger and he's motivated to keep doing the best he can.







 

Here's a couple more images from a recent Senior shoot. Click on image for larger view.

The last week or so has been quite busy for us as we split time between putting the finishing touches on our studio and doing senior portrait sessions.  My legs are dead tired and one of my knees is giving me some trouble from all of the bending, squatting, running up and down stairs, etc...  Such is the price we pay I guess.

We're really pleased with how our sessions are going and the comments from our clients have been very complimentary.  Our last two shoots have been at Loose Park, a popular KC destination for photographers and their clients.  We've been turning heads at the park because we show up with out utility wagon full of gear and our clients clothing.  We use studio lighting on location and we have a pop up changing tent that our clients use to do their clothing changes in.  We've had other photographers comment on how well prepared we are and what a great idea the changing tent is.  We even had one family approach us about doing their photos based on how much gear we bring and how much effort we put into our sessions.  Guess the extra work is paying off!  Not to mention it justifies why we charge more than the "Craigslist and Facebook fauxtographers" out there. 

We like to give our clients sneak peaks on our Facebook page prior to them coming to the studio to make their selections.  We don't show them the very best images as we save those for the viewing session, but it does give them an idea as to how some of their photographs look.  Here's a couple we posted last night from a session last week.



We have a couple Senior portrait sessions scheduled this weekend.  We will be doing both at Loose Park, a beautiful park near the Country Club Plaza.  Like most areas, the park was hit by the drought and has lost some of it's color and beauty but there is plenty of photo opportunities there and I'm excited about getting to shoot at a new place. 

JD called me yesterday to tell me about how he's been working with his head coach on his slider.  He told me he has learned how to throw a "real" slider.  He has always thrown his curve and slider with a knuckle on the ball.  He says the way he throws it now, it bites much harder, he has more velocity on it and it has late break.  He said the Coach loved it and called it "filthy".  JD said he was able to throw it for strikes right from the start and coach said to keep working on it and he'll have something special come Spring. 

He has been "enjoying" the 6am workouts that started this week now that official scrimmages and practices have ended.  They'll do conditioning and strength training 4 days per week throughout the fall and winter as they prepare for the 2013 baseball campaign.  It can't get here soon enough for JD, and us.

We had a fun weekend at Casa de Williams as Jodi's mother, aunts, sister, cousin and great niece came to KC for a girls weekend.  They spent their time shopping and visiting and we made sure that no one went hungry.  We all went out to dinner on Friday evening and then Saturday morning, after several of us went to the neighborhood garage sales, Jodi and I cooked a large breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, and french toast.  We only snacked in the afternoon and then I grilled pork steaks to go with baked potato's, butter noodles, green beans, deviled eggs and cornbread. 

Here's the breakfast crowd:

After dinner, we celebrated Aunt Lonna's birthday with cake and gifts.  Here's Lonna with her goodies.

While they went shopping on Saturday, I put the bonding primer down on the basement floor so it would be ready for the epoxy the next day.  After everyone left on Sunday, I applied the epoxy while Jodi sprinkled the flakes into it.  It appears to have turned out really well.  Now I need to put the baseboard up and do some small paint projects. 

As promised, more about last weekend in St. Louis.  My mother was hosting a family dinner on Thursday evening and it appeared we would not be able to make it on time.  Fortunately, Jodi was able to leave work early and we were able to surprise my mother.  I enjoyed the food and visiting with all of my siblings and their spouses.  It was nice to get together "just because".  Usually our gatherings are for holidays or special events.

The feedback from our fireworks shows has been nothing but positive.  I'm quite proud that a suggestion I made a year ago at our club shoot last fall came to fruition and was so successful.  We are now talking about our club doing a show there every other year to show what the pyrotechnicians on the west side of the state are capable of. 

We were happy to get to spend some time with JD over the weekend as well.  I only got to see him Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon but Jodi was able to spend more time with him and that was good for her.  They went to lunch and did some shopping with some of her relatives and then he came to watch the fireworks shows as he does every year.  He doesn't want to do what I do but he really likes coming to watch.

Our photography business has really picked up and we have quite a few sessions booked between now and the end of the month.  We had a pre-session consultation with a client last night and we were pleased to hear that they really like the natural look of our photography and that is why they chose us.  The Senior said that a lot of the images she sees makes the subject look fake, or plasticky like a mannequin.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of photographers out there who aren't very good at photo retouching and that is the result.  I guess some folks like that but that's not what we sell.  If you can't see the texture in the skin, they've gone overboard with the skin smoothing.

Jodi has family coming in this weekend and I will be the lone man in the house.  Her mother, sister, two of her aunts and a cousin are all coming in for a girls weekend.  One aunt and the cousin are flying in from Phoenix.  They are calling it an "invasion".  I know Jodi will enjoy having them all here and so will I.  I like fixing breakfast and grilling for company.  I have work to do also so while they go shopping and running around, I can get that done.

Barack Obama after his first debate with Mitt Romney. 

I'm back from St. Louis, tired and sore.  It was well worth it though.  Our club put on a pretty spectacular show and we were told it may have been the top show of the night.  It was a lot of work as we spent at least 20 hours while there prepping and assembling the show.  I wound up leaving the park at 1am Sunday morning, after arriving at 8:30am the day before.

Here is the video from the show.  For best viewing, click on the word Youtube at the bottom of the video screen.  Once on the Youtube site, click the icon at the bottom of the video that looks like a gear and then choose 720p for the video quality setting.

I'll post more about our weekend in St. Louis later.

We learned last night that JD is having a team scrimmage game, full uniform and under the lights on Friday evening.  The team is doing it as a food drive and the public is welcome.  Admission is a canned good.  Jodi, along with family and friends will be attending, so if you want to go see the first glimpse of JD in a Cougar uniform, here is your opportunity.

He also told us that the coach told him they had a spot for him in the Jayhawk Summer Collegiate League.  This league is where Roger Clemens, Ozzie Smith, Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds and others played their collegiate summer ball.  He would stay with a host family and play about 50 games in two months.  It is a wood bat league and the league has an automatic berth to the NBC World Series each year. 

We're heading to St. Louis tomorrow afternoon for the fireworks fest.  We've put a lot of hard work into our club show so I'm hoping it goes as planned.  I've spent a couple nights building some additional racks we may need.  We have some 8" shells in our show as well as 6" titanium salutes that people will probably hear 5 miles away. 

Here's some baseball pics.  First is a picture I found on the internet of JD's teammates and coaches at the All Star game.  The second is the Cougars at practice.  This look is apparently called "Showtime".

Both the print and web edition of the Liberty Tribune came out today and two of my photos from last weekend's footballs game made both.  I like seeing the print edition more than the web version but either way, it's cool to see more of my work published.  Click the link below to see the article. 

Liberty Tribune Article link

It's my anniversary

Today marks 24 years at Ford Motor Company for me.  I remember getting to my 5th year  and thinking that I would never see 30 years and retirement.  Well, almost 20 years later, I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I had to sacrifice a little to stay with the company by moving to Kansas City but all has worked out well for my family and I. 

Here are some shots from the Jewell game on Saturday.  I received an email from the editor that his sports section has been cut down to three pages so it doesn't look like I'll have two photos in the paper due to those constraints.  He said he'd do what he could.  If nothing else, I have some good shots for my sports photography portfolio and I proved to him that I'm up to the task when given an assignment.  Click on photos for much larger view. 

Jewell's first touchdown of the game.

Going down field..

Headed up field.

 Game winning touchdown.

Punt return.

Quarterback scramble.

I spent Saturday afternoon shooting the William Jewell football game for the Liberty Tribune.  It was my first pro gig for a publication and I had a lot of fun doing it.  I arrived early and got my media sideline pass and went down to the field and prepped my gear.  The sports editor for the Tribune met me shortly thereafter and we talked high school and college football until the game began.  I roamed the sideline from end to end and took about 700 shots.  I am real happy with my shots and I'll be providing a disc of images to the editor today.  Since they won, he said he'd probably use a pretty big photo in the paper and it will have my photo credit under it. 

The night before, Jodi and I drove over to Kansas and spent an evening at The Legends.  We first went to Nebraska Furniture Mart and we wound up buying a new mattress and box spring for our bed.  I have a real hard time spending over $1000 on a bed and we've been debating on buying one for over a year now.  As we went through the clearance section, they had just put out a number of bed sets that day and we found a brand new set that we liked that normally sold for over $1500.  We got it for $499. Deal.  It's being delivered on Tuesday.

We then went shopping for a shirt JD was looking for.  We didn't find it but we did find a pair of baseball training shoes for him at the Adidas outlet store and then we picked up a couple Under Armour tshirts for him as well. After shopping, we went to Hooters for a late dinner.

We spent some of the weekend catching up on Sons of Anarchy.  Season 5 just started but we had only seen the first three.  We bought the DVD of season 4 and watched 8 or 9 episodes over the weekend.  We should be caught up by the second episode of the new season on Tuesday night.  

With our St. Louis fireworks shoot fast approaching, I thought I'd post a video of the show that I worked on last year with my good friend, Scott.  He designed the show and is one of the best pyromusical guys out there when it comes to product knowledge and how to use it with music.  My club is going to do something similar to this with our own twist.  Spoiler alert: The ending will be quite loud. 

Click the link to view the show.  St. Louis Pyro show

We received a call from Justin yesterday evening after he had finished up his first official team scrimmage.  He said each pitcher faced four batters and he faced all upper classmen when he was on the mound.  He said the first batter popped out to center and he induced ground balls out of the final three.  That should give him a lot of confidence going forward as he battles for a spot in the rotation.   

Fall is my favorite season and it will be arriving shortly.  We had a preview this morning as it was in the upper 40's when I went out the door and I could see my breath.  Soon the high's will be in the 60's and low 70's, my kind of weather! 

Saturday I had about 1/3 of our pyrotechnics club over to the house and we built comet racks and other mounting fixtures for the show we are doing in St. Louis at the end of the month.  We had the sawdust flying and we got quite a bit accomplished.  I grilled up brats and hot dogs for our lunch and Jodi had Mac n Cheese and baked beans to go along with chips. 

JD said that official fall scrimmages start today.  They've had him throwing short bullpens and other  throwing work in preparation for it.  He seemed to be pretty excited about getting to throw to live batters again.   The coaching staff will use the scrimmages to determine who will be their go to guys this spring.  They will start their 2013 campaign in Nashville and we're planning on going.  I haven't been down there in a very long time. 

First Lady Michelle Obama’s pitch to voters last night relied on the premise that she and her husband understand what it is to struggle to make ends meet. She spoke movingly about their early years–about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was “rusted out” and found his furniture “in a dumpster,” how they both came from families that had to “scrape by.” Her fairy tale–however well-delivered–was one great, big, colorful lie.

Both Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama began their adult lives with a leg up on the rest of America. They attended elite schools: Michelle went to Whitney Young, the public magnet school for Chicago’s upper class, while Barack attended Punahou, the private prep school for the top stratum of Hawaiian society. They were accepted to Ivy League schools despite undistinguished credentials, and both attended Harvard Law School.

“Believe it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage,” Michelle said. That sounds like a raw deal–but in fact reflects their fortunate circumstances. They had both just graduated from a very expensive law school, and their combined income from cushy law firm jobs dwarfed the repayments. Barack also soon enjoyed a second salary from the University of Chicago.

They had expensive tastes, reflected in the $277,500 two-bedroom condo they bought in 1993–a high price even by today’s standards. Several years later, they moved into their $1.65 million mansion in Hyde Park–with the help of fraudster Tony Rezko. Barack often told a story of hardship on the campaign trail in 2008 about having his credit card declined–once. The fact that he thought this counted as real hardship speaks volumes.

As her husband moved onto the national political stage, Michelle Obama began to enjoy a lavish lifestyle at taxpayer expense, directly and indirectly. When Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, he obtained a $1 million earmark for the University of Chicago Hospital–and his wife’s salary as Vice President for Community Affairs jumped from $121,910 to $316,962. Her job: pushing poor, uninsured patients to other hospitals.
 

On Thursday night, a friend called and asked me if I wanted to go to a concert with him as his son had bailed on him to stay at college to go to the football game.  The concert was at Livestrong Sports Park and featured  Journey, Pat Benatar and Loverboy.  I had never seen any of them live so I agreed, although I knew we were going to get wet from the remnants of Isaac.

We arrived about 45 minutes before showtime, guzzled a few beers and headed in.  Loverboy had just taken the stage as we arrived at our seats, which were third row off the field, in the rain.  We were wearing our rain gear and laughing about the conditions.  Twenty rows back, the seats were covered by the stadium overhang and dry.  Loverboy was actually still very good.  I thought Mike Reno would no longer be able to hit the higher notes but to my surprise, he did.  They played the songs most know from that era and it was a short half hour or so set.  When they finished, we headed to a dry area and consumed some more beer, although this time it was $9 a bottle!

Pat Benatar hit the stage about 20-25 minutes after Loverboy left and we were back in our seats in the rain.  About a third of the way through her set, we moved up about 10 rows and got mostly out of the rain.  Pat commented on how she was going to look like Alice Cooper by the time her set was finished.  She played all of her hits plus did her own rendition of Johnny Cash's "Burning Ring of Fire" which was quite good. Her husband,  Neil Giraldo, is her lead guitar player and that guy can wail.  He even did a little Zeppelin riff at the end of their show.  Pat's set was great and received a great deal of appreciative applause at the end.  Store this away in the useless information category: Pat Benatar's birth name was Patricia Mae Andrzejewski.

Journey hit the stage and as you can imagine, it was one big hit after another.  The only song I didn't know was the very first one they played which was off their newest album.   The crowd favorites were the big ones as expected, such as "Faithfully", "Open Arms", "Don't Stop Believin'", and "Separate Ways".  Mixed in between was everything from "Wheel in the Sky" to "Stone in Love".  They finished off the set with an encore serving of "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" that had the crowd swaying with their arms in the air side to side and singing along. Arnel Pineda has been the lead singer of Journey since 2007 and I have to say that he may be actually better vocally than Steve Perry.  The guy sang effortless for almost two hours straight and was amazingly strong on the power ballads.  I've always been a Steve Perry fan but I came away from this concert very impressed with Pineda and his ability to sing the original Journey songs.

After walking back to our vehicles, we found the grass parking lot to be a huge, rutted, sloppy mess.  Cars were already stuck trying to get up the hill to leave and we tried pushing one lady with no success.  I knew I would probably share the same fate so I took a huge risk and went down the hill toward the main street that was already clogged with traffic.  I figured I'd have to jump the curb at most. Several others were doing the same and there were a couple already stuck going that way too.  Little did I know that at the bottom of the hill was a concrete spillway with fairly steep sides.  One car had gone in and had the vehicle hung up on one of the banks of the spillway  I evaluated it for a minute and decided to take the chance by traversing it at an angle.  I was just hoping the front fascia of the Edge wouldn't scrape or hang up on the embankment.  I made it to the bottom without any issues and started up the other side.  I goosed the throttle as I headed up the embankment and popped over the top rather easily.  My friend in his F-150 followed without any issues.  That hillside was going to be completely destroyed and I'm sure most vehicles had to be towed or pushed out of there.  Glad I wasn't one of them.

JD came home from SIUE since he had a long weekend.  Naturally, he brought all of his laundry with him.  He spent much of the weekend hanging out with his friends which I think he misses the most.  Most of his friends are going to local colleges or working so he's a good distance from them and doesn't have the option to come home every weekend.  Well, he does but I'm not paying for it!  He drove home in the rain on Friday which took much longer due to accidents and slower traffic but he made it back in the normal time yesterday.  We'll see him again when we go back to St. Louis at the end of the month for the fireworks fest I participate in every year.

Time for a 3 day weekend!  I have a lot planned but it will be nice not to have to roll out of bed to the sound of the alarm clock.  It looks like today and tomorrow will be rain, which is fine by me as my work is inside this weekend and we certainly need it.

College football kicks off this weekend and I'm excited to see Mizzou play in the SEC this year.  Some people think they may not fair very well this season but I think they'll do just fine.  No matter the outcome, Mizzou has done some excellent recruiting and will be getting even stronger in the coming years.  I'm just glad college football is back and it will hold me over until spring baseball.

JD called yesterday to tell us they had to go on a timed, 3 mile run yesterday and if they didn't make the target time, they had to run another mile and a half.  Four guys made time, JD not being one of them.  So, a 10 minute rest and then another mile and a half.  At this point, after running 7 and a half miles in two days, I'm pretty sure he's wishing he would have listened to me about doing a lot of running this summer.  I know that he is sore and tired from all of the conditioning and weight lifting they've been doing but he is also seeing the gains he is already making.  He's said he's up to 187 lbs and getting the workout of his life.

 There have been many reports in the media that Obama has deported many more illegal immigrants during his term than Bush did.  Since the Obama administration spoon feeds the media and they willingly regurgitate it in their papers and on their websites like the good sheep that they are, it is important to actually put some facts out there. 

The Obama administration appears to have artificially inflated its deportation numbers. It includes voluntary removals in the deportation statistics. But this is not removal because an illegal immigrant is not then subject to penalties for returning to the United States. For example, a single illegal immigrant can show up at the border and be voluntarily returned numerous times in one year — and counted each time as a removal.

Even The Washington Post found the Obama administration used questionable methods to achieve its deportation numbers last year. Just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, the Obama administration’s record is a trick. In reality, President Barack Obama and his administration are giving amnesty to illegal immigrants through inaction. It’s no wonder that the president recently admitted to Hispanic voters that his administration’s deportation numbers are “deceptive.”

Take away the hocus-pocus, and it is clear the Obama administration is neglecting to enforce immigration laws. The administration has all but abandoned worksite enforcement actions. Over the past two years, worksite enforcement has plummeted 70 percent.

Under this administration, there have been fewer arrests of illegal workers, fewer criminal arrests, fewer indictments and fewer convictions. This means illegal workers continue to take jobs away from unemployed Americans.

Without worksite enforcement, we can’t stop employers from hiring illegal workers. And as long as the jobs magnet exists, millions of illegal immigrants most likely will come to the U.S. and take jobs from lawful workers.

13 Rules of Gunfighting Everyone Should Know

1) Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians.
2) It's always better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
3) Cops carry guns to protect themselves, not you.
4) Never let someone or something that threatens you get inside arm's length.
5) Never say "I've got a gun".  If you need to use deadly force, the first sound they hear should be the safety clicking off.
6) The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes; the response time of a .357 is 1400 feet per second.
7) The most important rule in a gun fight is: Always win, cheat if necessary.
8) Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets.  You may get killed with your own gun, but he'll have to beat you to death with it, because it will be empty.
9) If you are in a gun fight:
    If you're not shooting, you should be reloading
    If you're not loading, you should be moving
    If you're not shooting, moving or loading, you're probably dead.
10) In a life and death situation, do something.  It may be wrong, but do something!
11) If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid.  Nonsense!  If you have a gun, what do you have to be paranoid about?
12) You can say "stop" or "alto" or any other word, but a large bore muzzle pointed at someone's head is pretty much a universal language.
13) You cannot save the planet, but you may be able to save yourself and your family.

"Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading." - Thomas Jefferson

Our St. Louis fireworks shoot is just a mere 5 weeks away and I'm pretty excited about not only my club show that we will be putting on but the other shows and events that are also planned.  We cut our show down to 6 minutes and we have it scripted to some epic music that most won't be familiar with.  Our finale is going to be quite intense and we have some segments that are sure to wow the crowd. 

I'd really like to go do some shooting in the near future.  I have been pondering purchasing a concealed carry weapon as my XD-40 is a full frame gun and I'd like something more compact.  Glock's are pretty popular but I may go with a Sig Sauer.  Eventually, I would like to get a Wilson Combat 1911 .45 ACP to play with and likely replace the XD-40. 

JD called the other night and although he is tired, he is enjoying the college experience.  He's already been lifting and doing conditioning with the baseball team and had some meetings.  He's only had classes a few days so he really doesn't have much of an opinion formed about them yet.  He said his free time has been pretty limited so far but he's been sleeping good and enjoying the food on campus. 

Jodi and I are working on a direct marketing campaign for a back to school special we will be running.  Tonight we will be working on the graphic design of the card we will be including along with some coupons to be used as incentives.  We'd like to fill up our fall schedule from this and possibly book some sessions for spring as well. 

We are back to the new normal here in KC.  After spending four days in the St. Louis area getting JD moved into his dorm and settled in, Jodi and I will be adjusting to a new lifestyle.  We will be devoting much of our new found free time to growing our business.

We drove to SIUE on Thursday morning, the car loaded down with all of the things JD will need to live in the dorm while there.  After purchasing his parking permit, he had to register to get his line number to move in to the residence hall.  Once there, the college had "Move In Teams" that came to our vehicle and carried all of his items up to his room. That made it quick and easy.  While Jodi unpacked things, we went and picked up his text books and got his bike secured to the bike rack outside.  In a matter of an hour or so, he was unpacked and ready to begin life on campus.

Since he had meetings and other activities to go to, Jodi and I left to get dinner and then we did some additional shopping for a few items he still needed and we took those to him the next day.  From there, we went and visited my brother Dennis, who lives 10 minutes or so from campus.  We don't get to see him much due to his work schedule primarily, but since he's retiring in the next couple weeks, hopefully that will change. Later in the evening, we went to dinner with his daughter, Tara, who was in from Chicago and her husband and children.  We went to Ruby Tuesday, which I had never been to, and it was good.  We went to Oberweis afterward for ice cream before heading back to my mom's for the evening.

On Saturday, Jodi spent much of the day hanging out with her mom and sister while I visited with my mom and relaxed a bit.  Later that evening, Jodi and I met up with a couple friends for dinner at Stefanina's and we enjoyed their company.  Both of them also had children go to college for the first time this year so much of our conversation was about that.

Sunday morning came and we met JD for brunch.  We all had Grand Slam's at Denny's in Glen Carbon and enjoyed hearing what he had been up to over the three days he had been at SIUE.  He had a baseball meeting with his team scheduled for 1:30 so after stopping and picking up a couple items for him, we said our goodbyes at the campus.  We'll see him again in 5 weeks or so when we go back to St. Louis for the fireworks shoot I attend every September.

Last night was farewell night for JD and his friends.  Many came by to see him before he leaves.  Here's the scene in front of our house at one point during the evening. Check out that lush lawn too!

Monday Night Fun