Maine and the Lobsters

This last week work sent me to Portland, Maine. It was my first time ever going to Maine and also my first time ever eating lobster. Not that I haven't ever wanted to, but it is usually pretty expensive. Anyway, it was much much cheaper in Maine, and work was paying for it. So, I figured, why not have the experience in the place most known throughout the entire US for its lobster. The state is gorgeous as well, and there is some cool stuff to see. There are rocky beaches and cliffs into the ocean, lighthouses everywhere, and just all around beauty everywhere I went.This is the victim of my first lobster meal. Oh, and the New England clam chowder was pretty dang good too!
This is by far and away my favorite picture I took on my trip up there. The sun just happened to line up perfectly with the lighthouse to give the illusion of it being on and shining bright during the day.




I hope to be able to go back one day and explore other areas and see what other places and scenes I can find in what the people on Maine call "Vacationland."

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Biking Mackinac Island

About 2 weekends ago I went home to see my parents and one of my younger bros (Jeff) before he went off to school. We decided that we wanted to go to Mackinac Island for a grueling bike ride. It is this little 8 miles around island in Lake Huron where no cars are allowed. You take a ferry to it and then either walk, bike or ride horses. We didn't want to pay for horses so we biked it. It had been raining all weekend, but the weather was PERFECT when we got there.

These are my parents and brothers as we took a break for some pictures and rock skipping. The water was a bit choppy so the most we could get the rocks to skip was about 4 or 5 skips.

This is actually a picture of Jeff from the day before when he and I were near our parents house looking for old places to explore.
Now, I know this isn't anywhere close to the size of Arch's National Park in Utah, but natural arch's are always cool and beautiful!

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My first 4th in Chicago...

Well, I had my first 4th of July in August, and possibly my only 4th of July in August (work may be moving me again within the next 6-8 months). Anyway, it was great. We played some volleyball on the lakefront, went to a Chinese acrobat show (amazing!), hung out at friends apartments and watch fireworks 2 different nights. Here are just a few pictures from the weekend.

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Downtown Exploration

So, this past weekend I went downtown because I wanted to explore this church I saw down there.  While I was exploring I found some pretty cool stuff and some cool views of different things, so I thought I would share.  (Just so you know, these are the originals, the colors have been edited using some color schemes I downloaded from craigsactions.com.)

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Long overdo update...

I haven't put anything on my blog in a while, and boy have I been to some cool places and had some great things happen.  Recently I was in Calgary, Alberta Canada for work, and the people at the dealership told us to go to this place called Banff.  Boy am I glad I listened.  The place was incredible, and I can only imagine what it looks like when covered in snow completely!  The people in Canada are so awesome and nice and the area is beautiful.  Should I move there?

I will one day stay in this hotel.  I am sure it is quite expensive, but it was incredible!
Along with mountain goats (which at one point we thought were going to ram our car), we saw elk, dear, a bald eagle and the most emerald colored water I have ever seen.  We looked for bear and moose, but to no avail.
When I was home during the Highland games my sister, her husband, and their daughter came up as well.  We were all there for that and more so because my grandma was in town as well.  Anyway, I think my niece started warming up to me some!
I purchased a new car (granted about 2 months ago now).  I loved the old one, but I started spending a lot on service, so I just broke down and bought a new one.  I love this one too!  The biggest benefits to the new one: better gas mileage and faster!  I think I can handle that.

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The "Highland" games

So I went home for Memorial weekend to see the Highland Games.  I guess apparently there is a large population of Scott's out in the middle of Michigan.  In fact, the tiny town of Alma is nicknamed "Scotland USA."  There sure were a lot of kilts and bagpipes, that's for sure.  So, here are some photos from the event.It is kinda hard to see what this guy is doing in the sequence here, but this is the hammer throw.  And it isn't like the hammer in the Olympics.  It is a 20 lb lead ball on a stick.  One of the guys let go a bit too late and threw it into the crowd.  I don't think I would want to be in the way of that.  Luckily no one got hurt.  We also saw the caber toss, which is basically these guys throwing a telephone poll... the thing was HUGE.

I would say the games were a success, and I really enjoyed being there.  Walking around the games and such all you heard were bagpipes and drums.  Granted, if you don't enjoy the sound it would be quite annoying, but I love the bagpipes!!  It was wonderful!

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Educate Ghana

I just finished this video of my time in Ghana.  It is geared towards the importance of education, but still helps you get a feel of what it is like over there.  Because I had to compress it the quality may not be as good as the original, but it gets the job done.

I hope this helps you to see why it is that I am involved in such a thing, and why it is so important to me.

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