Ashley and I went to Bend last weekend for our nephew’s second birthday. I cant believe he is two already. The theme was monkeys and between this and Christmas he has the present opening thing down to a science. It was nice to visit to Bend, Ash and I have only been back twice since our wedding. The trip home was a little time consuming. What is typically a 3 hour drive took us 6 due to snow, ice and traffic coming down off of Mt Hood. The last photo is of Kian’s friend Brendan. I dont typically like photos with one color saturation, but this has got to be an exception. He’s not as ornery as he looks. His parents may disagree…

I’ve been a bad blogger lately. These were taken a few weekends ago from my trip back to the Midwest. Originally Ash and I had planned to fly into Denver and meet up with the family at my brother’s house in Ft. Collins. The trip was altered a little with the passing of my Grandmother. Alaska Airlines worked with me to change my ticket so I could attend her service in Kansas. I have to say, while I wish under better circumstances, it was great to go home and see family. Doris lived to 99 years old; she was 3 years old when the Titanic sank and saw 17 different presidents take office and only missed seeing her 18th by a week. I will never forget her smile.

The original plans for the weekend stayed intact in that we all traveled to Bolder for the KU vs Colorado match up. It was Ashleys first Jayhawk basketball game; while it was unfortunately away from Allen Field House, it was in front of a home crowd since the hawk fans out numbered the Colorado fans.  

My mother has taken a liking to this tree which sits in the corner of a wheat field between Hutchinson and Ellinwood, Kansas. She travels between the towns often to visited her father (grandpa) and during one of these trips noticed this tree. She has brought it up in conversation several times, sent me her own photo of it and made a point to drive me by it on our way from Kansas to Colorado.  This tree could have easily been removed, but for one reason or another the farmer decides to plow, plant and cut around it every year.  I am my mother’s son, we both notice when someone goes out of their way to let a tree grow.  Does this make me a tree hugger? I gotta move…

The Willamette River is certainly showing signs of melting snow pack and recent Northwest winter rain storms.  Typically you have to strain to track  the current, but this was not the case Saturday night. With a long exposure the quicker than usual current offered up a great base for a shot of downtown. In my opinion when the river is still it reflects too much light. Both of the shots were taken of the Hawthorn Bridge from floating docks on the North and South side.

The “Made in Oregon” sign is on Burnside street. I’ve wanted to get a photo of it for a while now, but its kind of a pain to get to.  The sign itself is on the West side of the river,  just off the bridge, but to park on that side would require me walking through China Town with $4,000 worth of camera gear strapped to my back. Need-less-to-say this doesn’t thrill me. So, I parked on the East side and hoofed it across the bridge to take the photo. I processed the shot in both color and black and white, but I like this one better because the green street sign stood out too much in color.

Okay, this isn’t my typical blog entry but I promised Hank  if he put this video on youtube I would put it on my blog. This is his girlfriend’s cat, Gem, who is quite possibly the most aggravating animal I have ever encountered. It wil consistently meow at ear stabbing levels for utterly no reason what so ever.  She doesn’t need water,  she doesn’t need food and it’s certainly not for attention because she will swipe and or bite into anything within a whiskers reach. No joking, she’s the Gary Busey of cats. Her one redeeming quality hower is that she’s toilet trained, and this for some reason fascinates me to no end. 

This was the view from the television last Saturday morning as my Jayhawks played the Vols from Tennessee.  Since my brother and sister in-law both graduated from UT with their masters; you could say  everyone had a little bit riding on the outcome of the game. Even Kian broke out the orange and taunted me prior to tip-off.  Fortunatly though we played one of our better games of the year and won 92-85. I have had apprehensive tendencies  watching the Jayhawks play this year, but I saw a different team on the court during this game. Instead of running our offence like preprogramed robots I felt like we were streaking to open spots, moving the ball well and pursuing fast breaks. They are young, but its nice to see improvement. Things are tough again for both the Jayhawks and Vols as we take on Michigan State  in East Lancing and Tennessee has Gonzaga at home. (should be a good game)