Tag Archives: people

Edward J. Kuhn 1923-2013

Posted on July 19, 2013 | 4 comments

A few days ago, I was wondering some things about the Alaska trip: how long Mr. Kuhn had done it for or if anyone else had ever posted pictures at some point in time, so I went to internet to see what I could find out.

Unfortunately, the first thing I found was Mr. Kuhn’s obituary. It seemed an odd thing is that it was just a few weeks ago, right before I started posting every thing about this trip. He passed on June 20th, a week before we left thirty-two years ago.

I wasn’t even sure how old he was at the time, we were just fifteen, so even thirty years old would be ancient to us. But he was celebrating his 25th year of leading this trip when were on it, so that would make him a bit older, now that I have the dates, he’d have been fifty-seven on our trip. Did I mention that he originally went on this trip with someone else as leader? He retired from the eight years after our trip and it says he did the Alaska trips for over thirty years, so I guess at least five more after us, maybe a few more than that.

That’s Mr. Kuhn in the back in the blue jacket/shirt.
That’s the fish bake (I think by some mines) in Alaska we went to.

He was this crazy old guy who took us on the adventure of a lifetime. I think about this trip often, I feel that it has a bit to do with the traveler in me. Obviously, I had something of it in me before I left or I’d never have taken this three week trek away from home. Until recently, it was one of the longest trips I’ve ever been on.

Thank you and take care Mr. Kuhn I hope you’re still out there traveling…

In case you know Mr. Kuhn and are wondering why I’m posting his obituary, I went on a trip to Alaska with Mr. Kuhn when I was a kid. I recently found my journal from that trip and scanned my slides and I just spent the last three weeks writing about the whole trip to Alaska. I wrote it up each day and posted information and photos on the same day but exactly thirty-two years later.

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Tagged Alaska Trip, people, travel

From Chateau Lake Louise to Kamloops!

Posted on July 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Unfortunately, we didn’t get enough time at Chateau Lake Louise we were up at 7 am and out of there by 10 am. I did get a chance to take a few more pictures before we had to take off. It really was a beautiful area!

There is no question that he was posing for me!

I do have a copy of the final group photo somewhere, I believe he gave it to us as an 8″ x 10″ in black and white. I’ll have to find it, I’m hoping it’s with a few other items I can’t find that I think I know where they all are. But I’ll probably have to scan it to do it justice.

This is a group picture we were trying to take before leaving. Obviously we aren’t ready, I’m not it it yet!

I’m not sure which portion of the background is the glacier? But I know a portion of it is. Maybe most of the middle “mountain”? I didn’t actually take a photo of the hotel, but you can see part of it at wikipedia (From the description, it looks like they added onto it)

I liked the room key here, it kind of folds up to be less bulky!

Here’s a few more photos of the area(?) and on the way to Kamloops. Even with these photos in chronological order, it’s still hard to tell when events change sometimes. With my digital camera I quite often take photos of signs so that I know what something is. But what I really want is GPS built into all my cameras so I really know exactly where I took my pictures. That also makes for some fun options to have software automatically place them on a map. WIth that said, these photos are from between Chateau Lake Louise and Kamloops (and maybe Vancouver, but hopefully not).

A train bridge in the distance.

A little glare on the window for this one, but I liked the view!

Kamloops was pretty small but I really remember it being a tough town (I know I mentioned something about Calgary, but I didn’t remember that and it was before I was here!). It was a regular town (not a tourist town and not a big city at all), but I remember making fun of it in a variety of ways: “Kamloops, the only place the 24 hour A&P closes at 11pm”, we thought that was hysterical. We also thought Kuhnloops would be a good nickname for Mr. Kuhn, I guess Fruit Loops mushed with Kuhn and the town Kamloops made it all funny. We were kids, okay?!?

It was really hot, I wrote that “it hit 96 degrees here today” and while that was Canada, I’ll assume that was in Fahrenheit. This was our least fancy (not at all fancy) hotel all trip. I don’t need “fancy” but this one stood out as “not like the others”…

One very “not vacation” thing we did was to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark which I’d said in my journal that “Raiders was just and good and the first time!”.

It wasn’t very much of an Independence Day but we were able to cope :)

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

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Tagged 4th of July, Alaska Trip, Canada, Chateau Lake Louise, people, photos, travel

Silhouette Photography

Posted on August 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

One of the photo groups went out to a park at sunset to do some silhouettes. I’d never done this before so I made sure to attend.

There were twenty of us, so we were always asking the two models to move. We pretty much needed them between us and the sun.

A few of these I cropped and a few I tweaked a tiny bit in iPhone on the iPad. When I say tiny bit, I mean one click and a drag (not a dozen adjustments).

I cropped a few too. When the contrast was just right there was too much black below the figures.

If I’d gotten a little lower on this one, I think she’d really look like she was floating.

I was surprised at how much red you could still see in the ribbon in this shot.

The bicycle was tricky because she needed to go slow and also not accidentally ride down the hill she was atop of.

This one I think I cropped too much, but maybe I was cropping something out. Regardless, she’s too much of the image but I love this one, I need to find the original and take another look at it.

I took hundreds of bad ones. Why? Because they kept moving. We didn’t have control over them moving, so we just kept snapping. But I got lots of good ones too!!!

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Tagged people, photography, photos, silhouette, sunset

The Big Blue Bridge – Day 11 of 31 Photos in 31 Days

Posted on August 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

So I have a confession: I LOVE The Big Blue Bridge! It’s the bridge that crosses Telegraph and I-94, I’m not sure why I like it, it’s kind of a bright blue and other than that, I just like it. If you’re in the car with me when I’m crossing it, if I didn’t say anything I think you’d notice something was up.

This is the side view (and it’s not perfect), I don’t think I’ve ever been thrilled with any of my crossing the bridge photos, it’s hard to see the depth (there’s no where to stand, so focus and such isn’t really an option). This is for my 31 photos in 31 days project today.

Speaking of things on the road, this guy is driving down the street with writing on the back of his truck and it took me a few minutes to get a view (and then a few more to get a photo).

This guy has some anger issues, I’m not really sure who he’s yelling at? The government? The Governor? The public? Of course, I had to go look up the definition because I’ve never heard the phrase before. Notice the parts written on both sides of the license plates too. And then the profanity, I can’t believe he hasn’t got a ticket for that yet.

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Tagged 31 photos in 31 days, cars, economy, people, photos, quotes

Why I Love Doctor Who!

Posted on August 9, 2011 | 5 comments

Doctor Who has been around for almost fifty years, I never got into it, I knew he was a SciFi icon but it wasn’t my thing at all, which is strange in that it’s about a time traveler and I love time travel. In 2005 they reintroduced the series after being off the air for over fifteen years (kind of a reboot). I caught an episode here or there but it just didn’t click and then I was watching an episode and it clicked. They were a year behind in the US so I started looking for episodes to get all caught up and ending up watching the two seasons out of order with the two different doctors but eventually I figured it all out. Now I love it and I feel all giddy when it comes to all things Doctor Who.

So why do I love Doctor Who?!? It’s this story about hope and learning and redemption. It’s about friends and love and understanding and learning. It’s about forgiveness and balance and making things right. It’s about doing the right thing and making peace and hope. Yes, I know I said hope already.

Did you notice that I didn’t even mention adventure, time travel or aliens? That’s the fun part but not the heart of it.

Actually, as I wrote that last part it made me think of something that Rose said at the end of the first season (2005) when she was trying to figure out what to do without The Doctor in her life, I thought maybe I’d steal an item or two for my list, but I’m just going to cut and paste the whole thing:

“It was a better life. I don’t mean all the traveling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don’t matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. … You don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say “no”! You have the guts to do what’s right when everyone else just runs away!”
– Rose in The Parting of the Ways

It’s got lots of running and lots of holding hands; I’m big on holding hands so maybe that part has more impact on me. And it’s fun, with a capital FUN.

Just so you know this is part of the Ten Day Doctor Who Challenge (and I have no idea where I got this list from, maybe Tumblr?) so I’ll be doing these for the next few weeks.

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Tagged Doctor Who, hope, people, quotes, television, The Doctor

People in Chicago – Day 7 of 31 photos in 31 days

Posted on August 7, 2011 | 10 comments

I always love Chicago, I’ve had incredible luck with the weather when you consider the number of times I’ve been there and it’s almost always a different experience than the last time I was there. That’s not to say I don’t do some of the same things: I bike or rollerblade, I get ribs at SRO and I hit the Apple Store; after all, I am a creature of habit (habits?). And with all the people there, you can’t help but spend some time people watching…

This little girl was sitting right on the edge of the pier(?) looking into Lake Michigan. There were a few other kids with her and they were all pretty peaceful down there by the water, there is a beach not far away and I think they’d been there for a while (some were wet and I’m pretty sure they hadn’t jumped off the edge there). This photo was taken almost right behind the Adler Planetarium.

It was a nice day but it was hot out, these people were out relaxing during their lunch. This is downtown Chicago at State Street and Wacker Drive and the river is just out of sight to the left. I’d been relaxing in the shade by the water and didn’t even realize how the big steps were benches and grass until I’d gone up those stairs.

There were people running, walking, biking and blading everywhere (mostly along Lake Michigan). It was really hot when this runner was out and it was still early in the day but there were still lots of people out. You can see the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier in the background.

Yeah, I know I title this “People in Chicago” but there are some tiny people in the distance in it. In the distance you can see Chicago in the distance. From the left we’ve got Navy Pier, the Hancock Building, Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) and to my right (not in the photo) across the road is the LIncoln Park Zoo (to give you a frame of reference as I try to do with my photos).

This is my 31 photos in 31 days photo for today.

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Tagged 31 photos in 31 days, Chicago, Lake Michigan, people, photos, travel

Have you seen Trevor / iTr3vor ?

Posted on April 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

So this kid Trevor plays songs on the computers at Apple stores and records videos of himself dancing to them and posts them to YouTube. They’re entertaining and he’s certainly not shy! I actually heard about him because someone else was complaining about the girls in the background making fun of him in a different video and that they’re the ones that look like idiots…

I’m wondering out if Trevor is really just marketing for “Active”, he sure wears a lot of shirts with their name on it. And as far as I know, the other shirts could be their brand too.