Snowing....again?

I just went back to the kitchen area in my office and looked out the window. Snow...again. I can't remember a year that saw so much snow! Seems like it has been years since I saw green leaves on trees and felt warm temperatures. Needless to say, I'm waiting for spring to arrive...and it can't come fast enough!

Today is the last day of February. The year is already flying by at a feverish rate. Pretty soon it will be summer and I will be complaining about the heat. I hope I go back and read this when I do, and remember how LONG the winter is - and go outside and soak up the heat. There's a saying in Indiana - "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it will change." It's true.

Somewhere I heard that today was going to be a nice day, so I packed up the Hasselblad with hopes of getting to go outside on my lunch hour and shooting a roll or two of black and white. I want to get some images blown up quite large for my living room. The Hasselblad makes a 6cm X 6cm negative, so it can be blown up quite large without getting any film grain. With black and white, though, I like to see the grain, so I have some 400 speed Kodak that should do the trick! Since it decided to snow today, however, my plans will have to wait. Perhaps later in the week...

- christmas eve, 2004 -

- chicago watercolors -

Traveling

- chicago 2004 -

Traveling to me is an escape from the daily grind. A time to just explore a new place, or even an old place, without an agenda. Lauren and I usually try to make it up to Chicago every once in while for a long weekend. We go and pretend that we have loads of cash and shop in all of the fancy stores and what not. Usually we buy a few things from places like H&M or some other trendy establishment. I'm a sucker for the Levi's store - always lured in by the super fly looking punk rock shirts, westerns, or the always in style jeans. I usually walk out frustrated - realizing that I'm not "rich" enough to look like a dirty punk rocker. What ever happened to wearing the clothes that you got drunk in last night and looking "punk rock"? I guess when fashion get's involved in a trend, the price tag of the "look" goes up.

This summer Lauren and I are getting married in Maine. July 30, to be exact. I'm very excited about it. We get to do some traveling in June to go up and finalize all of the plans, then go back in July for the ceremony and spend a week there on our honeymoon. In a way, I think it's symbolic that we are traveling away for the wedding, since a lot of the best times we've had together have been on our travels. We always return from our trips a little bit changed by the place we visited. Maybe it's our clothes, a new CD, or a new pair of shoes. Maybe it's the photographs we come back with, or the art that is made while out and about. In July, though, we'll come back husband and wife - ready to start a new chapter in our lives.

Welcome!

Hello! Welcome to my very first blog. How exciting! I've been in web design for years now, and never had a real "BLOG". Sure, I've had the personal website since I was in collage, updating it now and then, having fun with it, making money with it at times. But never have I had something like a blog that is easy to use...something I would actually update and take full advantage of.

That is until I was inspired by an artist's blog I read today. I'll get the URL for it soon, but it was great. It was inspiring. It made me want to start something similar, where I could put my thoughts for friends to see and read...to stay in touch. I also wanted a place to put up images that I take for fun, so this is it. I hope you enjoy it as much I do.

-Tom