The Fourth in Keokuk!

My family has been in Keokuk, IA (north of St. Louis by Nauvoo) for most of this month. Mark, Laurel and I drove up there for the 4th of July and had a great time. Mark and I went back to a spot in Illinois where we went with our wedding photographer, and therefore, you might recognize it from some of our wedding pictures. Basically, it's just a dumping ground for old train cars, trucks, sand and gravel. By the way, gravel is kind of scary to climb around on.

With all the flooding last month, bridges all up and down the Mississippi were having to close to traffic. It was very important that the Keokuk bridge stay open because all the other nearby bridges were closing. I thought this was very clever. They stacked cement roadblocks two high on both sides of the IL bound lanes. Then they filled the whole thing with gravel and had traffic drive on top of the gravel. Basically, they built a road over the road. I tried to take a couple pictures from the car. You can kind of get an idea for what it looked like. When I took the pictures, they were in the process of taking it all down, so I was driving on the IA bound lanes, which were left clear so they wouldn't even have to close the bridge to put up or take down the gravel road.

Then we went to the Keosippi mall in Keokuk where "Joe Exotic" was letting people pay to spend time in cages with his baby tigers. Apparently, people buy exotic animals online as pets. Then when they get too big, and people don't know what to do with them, they get sent to shelters. Joe Exotic is just one of these shelters. They have a wonderful habitat for the animals (ligers, tigers, wolves, etc.). They take a few animals at a time on the road to make money to keep the habitat running and to convince people not to buy exotic pets. So, below you will see Mark and I playing with baby tigers

Mark was being a nice son-in-law and made hamburgers for my family. In the process, he made friends with our dog Newton.

It was great. We watched fireworks at the park, ate pie and peaches, and hung out at my parents' beautiful riverside home. All in all, not a bad fourth.

Craig Decker

A friend of mine drowned in Utah lake on Saturday. The following was my contribution to the memorial website his family set up:

I first met Craig because he dated a friend of mine a few years ago. I always liked him a lot but didn't really get to know him until this past summer (07). We both moved back into the Elms and I hadn't met his hook yet (just heard rumors). [Craig lost his right hand about a year and a half ago when some fireworks in Mexico went terribly wrong]. The first time I saw him back, we ran into each other at the pool. No one else was there...I was just coming home from somewhere and walking by. I remember being so touched that he wanted to talk to me. We were just old acquaintances, but he was genuinely glad to see me. We sat there at the pool and talked for a long time, like old friends. I was immediately at ease (not common for me), and felt like I was hanging with my best bud, and not my friend's ex. (He wasn't even annoyed by my overdeveloped curiosity about how his unique appendage worked). One night I went over to his place because I needed to talk to my best friend. But he was in bed. So Craig talked to me...for a long time...about a guy. And he told me about a girl, and we dished like girlfriends about our respective crushes. He talked to me about school, and my frustrations, and told me about how he wanted so badly to be a chiropractor. He told me about how even though he had lost his hand, he wouldn't give up on his dream, about how there was a one handed chiropractor in Montana that had inspired him, and about how, with faith, he could do anything; and he encouraged me to do the same. I share these experiences from my friendship with Craig, to illustrate the kind of friend he was. If you occupied the same space as Craig, for any amount of time, you were his friend. When you were in his space, he was WITH you, and you were the most important person in his world. Craig wasn't my BEST friend. But he WAS my friend. And he was there for me at a time when I really needed someone unattached to all of my problems, to just BE there. He was willing, even anxious, to be the answer to that prayer. I will never forget Craig. I don't think any of us who knew him could.

I'm Employed!!

Yesterday morning I drove up to St. Charles and met with some lovely people who, after finding me lovely in return, decided to give me a job. I am a photographer for HR Imaging Partners. I will start out taking registration and picture day portraits of underclass students. Then, after they have trained me more and I feel more comfortable, I can move into studio photography and candid photography of school events. Also, they said I would probably spend some time in the lab editing as well. Next week I go in to fill out all of the emplyment forms, then, the week of the 14-18 is training, and then school registration starts! Every day is different. I get to go to schools all over the area and meet a lot of people. And they pay for my gas, which is nice. I am very excited. Here is a blurb about the company:


HR Imaging Partners, Inc. is a photographic company dedicated to the school markets in the Midwest. Root Studios is our oldest company with a great heritage in Illinois since 1889. Our other partner studios also have an equally proud record of providing top-level support to schools they work with. Although HR Imaging Partners, Inc. is a new name, the experienced staff our schools have partnered with remains as strong as ever.
HR Imaging Partners, Inc. was born as a reflection of our continuing partnership with the schools we serve, of the enhanced partnership between our individual studios, and of the way digital technology has allowed us to expand the products and services we provide to schools throughout the Midwest.
What hasn't changed is our commitment to our schools- and their students. That's absolute.