Living Vicariously through My Former Self: Rome

Rome, Italy

I was born in 1986. What else happened in 1986? McDonald's opened its largest store to date. A 425 seat behemoth in the heart of Rome was considered by many locals to be the "death of Italian Cuisine". Based on the food I ate in this fine city that apparently wasn't built in a day, I'd say Italian cuisine has survived quite nicely. I would go back to Rome in a second if someone offered me the chance to. That's not saying much though since I would go back to practically every destination I visited on my month long venture through Europe. In descending order, we have the view from the Spanish Steps, a peek inside the doorway of the Pantheon,  a cross in a public square and an old buildings front door. 

Living Vicariously through My Former Self: Vatican

St. Peters Basilica

Vatican City

Life is all about taking what was once great, remastering it and trying to improve upon that greatness by creating a new, even greater reincarnation of that original greatness. If George Lucas could do it with Star Wars and DC Talk could do it with the Free at Last EP, I can surely do it with some of my European pictures. I surely can and I surely did. I rummaged through my external hard drive and selected/re-edited some of the finest digital images I created while backpacking my way through the southern half of Europe. For a quick historical recap, I traveled overseas to Europe in the summer of 2007. I'd been given the flight discount pricing of a lifetime. $300 round trip to fly standby on Delta. $300!!! I had to take up this opportunity, and I did. I hugged the Mediterranean heading east hitting Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and Italy once more. Due to the beauty of the sights, the historical depth and the company I kept and met, this trip was amazing. Due to my lack of planning, foresight and understanding of whether it's smart to trust strangers, this trip had some weird, crazy and generally unsafe moments. But that's bound to happen when you're travelling Europe. Below were three favorites from Rome, specifically the Vatican City. As I say often, no picture can really capture the greatness of what I was witnessing. But I did my best. 

A Very Ulysses Christmas

Bellingham Covenant Church

Bellingham, WA

Christmas came early for me this year. That, or my 25th Birthday came really, really late. I just found $50 in a birthday card from last March. I was cleaning out my room, going through old magazines and cards. The crisp bill slipped out of one of those cards and landed ever so softly on my lush, just vacuumed, carpeted floor. It didn't make a sound, but if it did make a sound, it would have been a very beautiful sound. Ulysses S. Grant just sat there staring at me in his stoic yet joyful way, almost as if to say, "Merry Christmas Kile, may your days be merry and bright." Thank you Mr. Grant and thank you sender of the birthday card. 

Bellingham: Dealing w/ Celebrity Status

Whatcom Museum of History

Bellingham, Wa

Fact: I once had a photograph displayed in a gallery at the Whatcom County Museum. Let me repeat myself, I had a picture in a Museum! Be amazed. Be proud. But before you decide how amazed and proud you are of me, know this; I was in 4th grade. Hundreds of other elementary students from the local public school system were granted the same honor as I and my feature photograph was a 4x6 affixed to the wall by a couple of rolled up pieces of scotch tape. The louvre this was not. But still, pretty amazing right? Well, let me explain further. I technically didn't even take the picture. One day in class, my teacher took each student outside one by one. He had a disposable camera. I walked out with him and he asked me where I wanted him to point the camera. I pointed, he pressed the shutter button and took a picture in that general direction. To finish the assignment, he asked me to name the picture. I hadn't even seen it yet and I was tasked with granting a name to my fresh new piece of art. I succumbed to the pressure and said, "Nature". It was a picture of a big oak tree. Oak trees are nature. I named it Nature. Turns out "Nature" was my ticket to the big time. A few weeks later I received a flyer declaring my photo a "winner", meaning it would be displayed at the great Whatcom County Museum along with hundreds of other "winners". This was clearly a socialists idea of winning. Still, my art in a museum! My mom drove me down one evening while the gallery was on display. We sauntered around, gave quizzical looks and pointed at things for no reason like good art observers do until we found "Nature". The colors were dull, the tree was poorly centered in the frame and and subject itself lacked anything of real interest. But that was my picture. My picture displayed in a public forum for all to admire, gush over and simply sit in awe of. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that grand. But at least when my friends ask me "can you imagine what it's like to be a famous photographer?" I can respond, "yes, yes I can."

Travel: Fort Casey

Fort Casey State Park

Whidbey Island, WA

Travel: Hawaii x3

Maui, HI

Menehune Shores x2

These were all taken around the condo where we stayed. In fact, the middle picture is the condo where we stayed. Other highlights include 1. The view from the condo roof, 2. A grassy trail, 4. Some beach chairs and 5. a 15 megapixel photo of an 8 megapixel photo of the sunset. 

Travel: The Unknown

Big Beach, Makena State Park

Maui, HI

Unbeknownst to anyone in my traveling party, on the other side of this wonderful beach we attended exists a place called Little Beach. You might think they named it that because it's small and short, crammed in between two big rock formations. However, the locals might say it's called that because it's like a little slice of Europe. The Europe they would be referring to is the nudist beach part of Europe. I can confirm that the beach on the other side of the rocks is in fact a nudist beach because the stoner who offered me a joint said in order to get to the cliff jumping rocks you had to go up over the large rock mountain and around the nudist beach. After I was told this, I was also asked to not tell anyone that said person who was smoking a blunt was in fact smoking a blunt because his Dad was a famous politician on the island. Hawaii !!

Travel: Puka 'ana La

Maui, HI

Menehune Shores

If you can't take a decent sunset picture in Hawaii you shouldn't own a camera. 

Seattle: Mighty are the Memories

Husky Stadium

November 5 . 2011

(click on the picture if you believe it should be larger)

I took a shot similar to this a few weeks ago when I was at the Colorado game. I posted it a few posts ago. But this was the final game at the Husky Stadium that was the Husky Stadium before it will become the new Husky Stadium. So clearly I needed a final panorama to celebrate the occasion. Some things will change with the refurbished stadium, most notably that track will be gone. Though it will be great to have that eyesore out of the way, it will be sad to see a few other things go by the way side. The most obvious of course being the tile peeing walls in a select few men's bathrooms. Sure most of the peeing walls had already been replaced by troughs or in a few cases urinals, but the few remaining walls were special to me. Where else in the world was it not only encouraged but expected that you let it all out all over a wall. No need to aim, no need to worry about back splash up on to the rim of the bowl, no need to think really. Just pee. To the right, to the left, up, down. Sign your name in cursive. Play a quick game of tic tac toe with your neighbor. Wherever and however you wanted to pee was fine at Husky Stadium in the special walled urine depositories. It's a little kids dream to be given the freedom to pee all over a wall. Husky Stadium made my little dreams a big reality.

Bellingham: Taylor St Boardwalk

Taylor St Boardwalk

Bellingham, WA

I was late to a steak dinner my mother was preparing in my honor last Monday evening. The reason I arrived at my parents house later than the time in which I had earlier in the day declared I would be arriving at was due to powers beyond my control. When I finally got to my parents house that evening my mother asked, "why are you late?" I responded "Because I couldn't leave a sunset like tonights." She looked me in the eye and said "it had better have been worth it". You be the judge, was it worth it? 

(The above dialogue was based on a true story. The actual words spoken may have been exaggerated in this retelling for the purpose of dramatization)

Travel: Willkommen

Highway 2

(near) Leavenworth, WA

A week ago I went to Oktoberfest in Leavenworth, the land of lederhosen, dirndls, beer and brats. The drive on Highway 2 in the month of October is a trip worth writing home about. We only stopped once to take a few pictures and for that, I am truly sorry. Sorry for you and sorry for myself. If I was in charge and didn't need to worry about the needs of others I would have stopped on the side of the road at least 12 to 15 times. I never would have made it to Leavenworth. It would have started to get dark and I would have turned back. These pictures aren't really that great, don't tell the whole story of how beautiful it was and generally just serve to make me wish I had more accurately captured what I saw on our little weekend trek. 

Seattle: UW vs CAL

Seattle WA / Husky Stadium

UW vs Cal

The U of W won the game. And we all know that when the Huskies win, America Wins. You're welcome America.

Travel: Kettle Valley Railway

Kelowna, BC

Myra Canyon/Kettle Valley Railway

Kelowna has more than just a big lake, nice golf courses, perfect summer weather, endless outdoor activities and a vibrant touristy downtown area. It also has a hiking/biking trail converted out of an old railway line up in the hills. No trains or tracks anymore, and a few years ago the old train trestles didn't exist either. They burned down in a massive forest fire. But they were rebuilt, and we walked over them. 

Travel: Kelowna means "Grizzly Bear"

Kelowna, BC

I was in Kelowna this past weekend. A nice little tourist town on Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. We swam, boated, kayaked, hiked, bocce'd, frisbeed, Pacho'd, and generally participated in other things of that nature. The weather was as you would expect it to be in this part of the world during this time of the year; a nice and dry 32 degrees celsius. After such a nice trip, I wanted to find out a little bit more about our 4 hour away neighbors to the North-East. I did some research and found out that 18.5% of Kelowna's residents are of retirement age. Nearly 1/5th of the total population! In addition, in July of 2007, "Wakefest", a wake boarding competition and music festival was canceled due to "general rowdiness". From these facts we can assume that Kelowna has one of the highest percentages of unruly old people in North America.

The Husky

Kato

Tyrell has a dog. A dog that is a husky. A husky dog that has eyes. Husky dog eyes that are unlike any eyes you have ever seen. They make diamonds look like rusty playdough globs. 

Seriously... those eyes.