Liz's Broadway Burgers

It was a Sunday and I was in the mood for a burger. Unfortunately our normal burger place is closed on Sunday, but my dad knew of a place he’d been meaning to try over on Broadway. They’re open on Sunday so we headed over there. Looking at the building you’d expect to go in for some tacos y burritos, but it’s a burger place. They may have had other things on their menu but I don’t remember; I was there for one thing. OK, I was there for two things, burgers and fries. Maybe I was there for a drink too. So three things; I was there for three things. We walked in and found a table in the back, right next to a small radio emitting the loudest and tinniest sounding pop music I’d heard in a long time. This was practically strike one because we could barely hear each other. Luckily we weren’t the only ones annoyed by the poor quality of this music, and the two guy’s at the table in front of us got someone to turn it down. Honestly I think we could have just gotten up and turned it down ourselves. We ordered a couple singles with cheese, fries, and drinks and before we knew it, they were ready.

The burger itself was good, but not great. I think it was lacking in the grease department; maybe a little healthier than you’d expect from a dive burger joint. The bun wasn’t anything special either, but I’m not one for the specialty burger buns. It was the fries that were worth writing home about. Thicker cut homemade fries; just about right. They had some kind of seasoning on them, which was good too. All in all, it was a good burger and fry combo for a Sunday. It doesn’t stand up to some of the harder hitters in Wichita, but it takes a good swing. Like I said, it’s a good Sunday burger for when the others are closed. Would I go back? Maybe under the right circumstances; I’d not be opposed to giving them another shot. They certainly weren’t bad by any means. If you're in Wichita, think about giving them a try sometime.

Alaska in Medium

You know what I haven't done yet? Posted any pictures from Alaska on here. Well, I posted a few, but not many. I've been really slow about uploading all my Alaska pictures to Flickr. I think I've gotten most of my film pictures uploaded, but almost none of my digital ones. Of course, I like film better in general, so that's why I've done more of them. Lately I've been really pushing to get all my Alaska pictures up but there are a lot of them and I don't like uploading a ton at a time to Flickr. So that's why it's taking so long. Here are some I took with my Hasselblad from all around Alaska. From Denali all the way down to Resurrection Bay in Seward. It was a whirlwind trip but I had a ton of fun.

that's enough, tv station

I'm sitting here with my Dad and Stepmom watching the KU game and I'm seriously considering putting a ban on the rest of the NCAA tournament this year. Even the rest of the KU games. I can't believe the amount of commercials they're playing. It's ridiculous. I'm 99% sure that there has been more time spent on commercials than there has been on the game coverage. I'm not interested in buying your product, going to your business, or listening to your stupid marketing campaign. I don't care. I just want to watch a little KU basketball. Luckily for me, that's all I'm seeing; a little. Now here's a picture I took today.

almost time...

I'm going skiing tomorrow. Finally. Last year I skied about once a week and it was awesome. This year it'll be just this one week. Some is better than none though. It’ll be nice to have a vacation too; even if it will be cold and snowy. But I’ll be skiing, so snow is good. Hopefully I’ll get some good pictures. I’ve never taken my SLR up on the mountain and I haven’t decided if this will be the first year or not. I’m bringing a few cameras and at the very least I’m going to bring my Holga up there. I’m loading it with 35mm film, which I’ve never done before but have been meaning to try. Hopefully I don’t screw it up!

Here are a couple pictures I took last week that I really like. I wish it would hurry up and be spring.





Here's another cool thing I found today.. It's a bike stand by ClankWorks. Check out the link or click the picture for more info. I just think it looks cool, and that's half of what matters, right?

Science Sphere Globe

My company’s foundation announced today that they were donating one million dollars to a local science museum. I guess to make them more competitive, more modern, and to help steer kids towards careers in science and engineering if they’re so inclined. This is a pretty hefty sum of money, so I looked into what this money was being spent on and one of the things they’re going to install is a Science on a Sphere® exhibit. So I looked up and talked to a woman in my division who’s involved and it seems pretty neat. Basically it’s a big sphere that, by way of projectors, becomes a live globe. It will show current weather patterns, simulate weather patterns, show all aircraft in the air in real time, or if you wanted to get crazy, you could project the sun or another planet on it. On the NOAA’s site (they make this thing and sell this thing) they had a slide show going of other places that have this live globe. Some looked pretty cool, but some looked totally lame. The woman I was talking to about it asked me to send her the pictures I found and let me know what I thought, so I picked out some of my favorites and least favorites and added a little commentary, and then I decided to put them here too. Now although there are pictures, these are not my pictures. Thanks to the NOAA for all the pictures, and for selling us this thing for the science museum.

Ours needs to be less like Rockport (very boring)..

And be more like Korea (South Korea; nobody should be more like North Korea)!

Here’s a casual, open set up:

But it’s maybe too casual. It doesn’t emphasize the awesomeness enough, like a dedicated room would.






Chicago added some nice touches with the dome and the continents:







This is cool from a design standpoint, but you can’t get very close. People will want to be able to see the details:







I think the lady in yellow is the Queen of England. If we could get her to come to ours that would be key:







I’m pretty sure this one is in the lobby:

That’s definitely not OK, unless the stuff inside is exponentially cooler.







This room seems pretty slick:














Want more information? Go here: http://sos.noaa.gov/ Want some pictures? Go to my Flickr!

P.S. Formatting this post really cheesed me off. Damn blogger kept wanting to embed the pictures and have the text wrap around them, which was all wrong for the way I did my comments. Only way I could figure out to fix it was to blow up these stupid pictures, so sorry. It's still not even formatted how I wanted it. The text for the pictures are too close to the previous picture.

Vibram's... run #2

Well hello there. Long time no see. I really would like this photo blog to get more use, and be more of a place where I can go to share some of my thoughts. Will anyone read it? I'm not sure. But I don't care. Well that's not entirely true; I'd love to have some readers, but even if it's just a few friends or family, it ought to be a good place for me. And I don't do enough fun/creative/non-professional/not-boring writing anymore. So here it goes folks, any questions? Yes, go ahead. Will I post every day? Probably not, but I wouldn't rule out consecutive days now and then. Will I post more than once a day? Perhaps on occasion, if I feel so inclined. Will there be a photo with every post? Most definitely, even if it's completely unrelated to the text (or maybe an old photo from my flickr if I'm feeling crazy). Will you try to be funny in these posts? Uh, yeah. Will they all be this long? No, probably not. That's enough questions, this interview is over.

So on to the blog post... I'd like to tell you all about these crazy shoes I got from my Mom. These are made by Vibram and are designed for barefoot running without the barefoot. Minimal padding (just some rubber) and individual toes make these baby's as close to barefoot you can get without being all nasty and running around barefoot like a damn dirty hippie.

So I got these for Christmas, but because of crummy weather I hadn't tried them until last weekend (I only want to run out outside in them). My first run was interesting. I had some issues with my left leg and foot, with a little bit of pain in the shin area and my left big toe and little toe were rubbing a little funny. The shin pain went away after a few tenths of a mile and I thought the toe issues could be rectified with a nail trim. All in all I enjoyed it. It was weird at first because I wanted to run heel to toe, but that was very impacting, and I didn't want to break myself, so I had to make a point to land on the ball more, which isn't terribly unnatural for me (I do it somewhat with regular running shoes). My calves really got a workout landing like that. A friend at work suggested I start out slow and only do a mile or so on my first run, and I'll be damned if she wasn't right. I hit my fastest mile that day too, which was interesting because my brother mentioned later that he's read numerous accounts of people running faster in these than in regular running shoes.

So now you're caught up to today, when I got out for the second time in them. Now that's what I call a run! NO feet issues and my left shin was iffy for the first 20 paces but then was fine. My calves were very sore from the first run, but were workable today. There was some pain, but it was manageable pain, and not the kind of pain that was bad and would lead to an injury. They're BUMPIN now though. But again, in a good way.

This much soreness surprises me. I've always been a real 'King of the Calf Machine' kind of guy at the gym. Loading up the weight, hitting a full range of motion. I'm also the guy who would scoff at people with either too little weight or too little range of motion (or too much weight and still no range of motion). Running barefoot really hits your calves in a way my muscles aren't used to just yet. Today was good though because the running style felt very natural after only a few strides and I hit a pretty good rhythm. Near the end I was even able to muscle through the last few minutes at a pretty good clip. Not quite a sprint, but about all the sprint my poor calves could handle.

Now, some pictures. Congrats if you read all of that; I appreciate it. Was it boring? Maybe some of it since I was blabbering about running and junk, but it interests me so I'm apt to go on and on. But I need to stop now and go make some dinner. And probably take a shower.

uh, I don't think there's anything wrong with the action on this piano

Well it finally happened; it got really cold here. OK, so it didn’t just happen, but it’s finally effected me. I went for a long run last week with my brother. It wasn’t super long for him, but it was for me, and the longest I’d ever run non-stop. Well tonight, I was ready to get back into my routine, so I decided I’d do it again. I knew it was cold, so I bundled up and headed out. I hadn’t run this route before, so I didn’t realize it was pretty much uphill the entire route until the very end, where it was a steep downhill run. That wouldn’t have been very satisfying to run uphill all that way and not get to enjoy a long downhill, so instead of calling it good, I turned around at the peak and doubled my distance. That was all good until I hit this wide open part (I’m in the burbs – no trees sometimes) and was hit straight in the face with a 17 to 28mph wind. When I finally got home I checked the temp and it said it felt like 22 degrees and confirmed the wind speeds. All I can say is this weather is ridiculous; completely ridiculous. It’s way out of line.

So now I’ve finally warmed up a bit and can use my fingers effectively enough to ramble for a couple paragraphs on this blog. I tried to keep it short, because really, who wants to read all about my run tonight? Anyway, I also played around with some new close-up filters I got; they fit my 50mm, so they’re perfect! Check these out. They’re a little soft, but what do you expect? First one is with the lightest magnification, second one is all three stacked, and the third is what I believe to be just my 50.