This past weekend I flew up to Chicago to hang out with my friends Holly and Matt who just moved there from Dallas a week ago. The trip was a lot of fun and Holly and I got to act like complete tourists on Friday while Matt worked. Things I learned during this trip:

1. The Sears tower was completed in 3 years.
2. Giordano’s stuffed pizza rocks! (and two slices will put you to sleep)
3. Cloud Gate (aka the bean) has to be the coolest art installation I’ve ever seen.
4. Chicago architecture is fascinating.
5. 3 days is too short of a trip to take in this huge city.
6. Buffalo calamari is fantastic (visit Bar Louie for this delicacy)
7. I want to see a Cubs game at Wrigley in the near future (perhaps next Summer)

And what good is a trip without photos?

We took the brown line downtown from the Addison stop.

A few photos from the 109th floor of the Sears Tower (yeah, it wasn’t that nice of a day… overcast)

Millennium Park and the Art Institute

(12 more photos after the jump)

Wow! Living in Austin it’s hard not to be a UT Longhorn fan and both Melanie and I embraced the hometown spirit when we moved to Austin 8 years ago. Yesterday the Longhorns (ranked #5 in the country) faced the Oklahoma Sooners (ranked #1 in the country) and beat them 45-35 and were rewarded with the #1 ranking on the Associated Press poll. I only have one thing to say about that:

I’ve been thinking about joining a gym lately. I’m not exactly in prime physical condition and I like to eat too much to really think that changing my diet alone will be enough. The problem is will I actually go to the gym on a regular schedule and will I be able to overcome my feeling of awkwardness that comes with taking my flabby self to the gym for the first time? Is anyone a member of Gold’s Gym? They recently opened a new location in Cedar Park and I’m thinking that it might be a great time to join (low number of members, brand new equipment, and everyone getting used to the place). Care to venture a guess to the number of times I’ll actually make it to a 5:30am spinning class if I do join?

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In general I’m a sports fan… any sport is fair game to watch when it’s on TV… football, yeah… billiards, sure… basketball, okay… baseball, only during the playoffs. I just can’t get motivated to watch the games until they really mean something. Each game being 1/162th of the season is just too much to me. Make it 1/3rd of the team’s remaining season and you have my attention. I’m looking forward to watching the ALCS (Red Sox vs. Devil Rays) and NLCS (Phillies vs. Dodgers) over the next week or so. I’m rooting for Boston and Philly.

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My last wedding of the year is this coming weekend. After that I have some portrait sessions lined up, but for the most part the rest of the year will be down time for me. And I am totally looking forward to it.

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I recently took a skill finder assessment for work (yes, remember I still have a full-time job outside of photography) and found that my top skill is being an achiever (along with a maximizer, learner, listener, and hunter… okay, that last one is made up because I can’t remember my top 5 skills). Being the achiever that I am I decided 3 weeks ago to start teaching myself to play the guitar. I’ve been tossing around the idea of posting videos on YouTube to document my progress, but I felt like that would be a little too narcissistic. Not to mention I’m not sure I want to subject the world to my feeble attempts at guitar playing. What do y’all think?

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Only 4 weeks until we elect the next President. One of the good things about living in a one sided political state (Texas is a BIG red state) is that we don’t hammered over the heads with political ads. The democrats know that the republicans will win this state. I really feel for those in battleground states… y’all are probably sick and tired of political ads. The good news it will be over in a few weeks.

Ever have that can’t-get-back-to-work feeling after a mini vacation? Yeah, that’s what I call a vacation hangover and that’s what I’m dealing with now. Last Friday was Melanie’s birthday and I surprised her with a long weekend at a lake house on Lake LBJ with a bunch of our close friends and we had a great time. We spent some time boating and swimming, sitting and talking, cooking and drinking, playing and eating… it was a great weekend. I didn’t take too many photos as the girls all had point and shoot cameras along with them (and I’m sure you’ll see them if you are friends with me on Facebook), but here are a few that I snapped in the mornings while Dave and Jeff fished.

The light in the mornings was beautiful and the fishing was pretty good too.

The many faces of Bella. These were all taken within seconds of each other.

This past Saturday Laura and I had the privilege of attending and photographing Jody and Sam’s wedding at Red Corral Ranch in Wimberley, TX. Both Jody and Sam are awesome people and are so in love. It was an awesome event and you just cannot beat a wedding that has 7 flower girls. Enjoy the photos.

Jody and Sam opted to see each other before the ceremony and Sam was a ball of nerves… he had a breathing exercise that Jody’s daughter taught him.

(8 more photos after the jump)

Hello, dear blog reader. Sorry for being AWOL lately. My parents had been visiting for a few days last weekend and it took me a few days to get ramped back up and moving again (I love having visitors, but it throws me off of my normal schedule and takes me a bit to get going again). Anyway I’ve been working my butt off finishing photos and albums, getting ready for Melanie’s birthday (it’s next week… I will definitely blog about it), and drooling over the new Canon 5D Mark II (I’m not sure about putting video capabilities in a DSLR, but I’m sure we’ll find fun ways to use it).

Anyway, just wanted to make a quick post letting everyone know that I’m still here. I’m shooting a wedding with Laura tomorrow at the Red Corral Ranch which should be an awesome event. Look for a blog post in a few days with those photos. For now enjoy this silly photo of yours truly.

Even the best of plans can be spoiled by Mother Nature and that’s what happened this weekend with Hurricane Ike. So, being the good planners we are, Melanie and I decided to take my parents to Fredericksburg instead of Houston yesterday (having a plan B is always a good idea). The weather was sunny, the company was good, and we had an enjoyable little day trip. Our first stop was Wildseed Farms and then we headed into downtown Fredericksburg for some lunch (burgers at the Buffalo Nickel) and a bit of shopping.

Here are a few collages that I put together using a new set of actions I got from MCP Actions. Let me know what you think (I’m trying them out because I want to get more photos on my blog while minimizing scrolling as much as possible).

(3 more collages after the jump)

Tonight I played in a mini softball tournament and while the results for my team were less than stellar we all had fun and I grabbed a few photos to share with everyone. Enjoy!

It’s been quite some time since I posted a YouTube video. This one is just too amusing to pass up.