It actually is morning and much more sunlight in Iowa than there is an Vancouver right now. Funny how Reddit serves up sometimes.
Even my B.C. sister-in-law was impressed with the dawn and dusk skies of the Midwest. It’s a different beauty to appreciate.
Nothing is ever perfect, and things are always changing. This much I know to be true each and every day, whether it’s at work or life in general.
The one thing that I have a hard time accepting is when something goes backwards. When we give up on ways of doing things that were functioning relatively positively or just generally working pretty well due to some illogical voices of reason or lack of effort on how to make the big picture work for the sake of the greater good.
That makes it hard to convey any happiness about any freedoms or independence.
Every visit back to Iowa, the numbers of craft beers and spirits being made in the state never fails to impress.
Millstream still makes my favorite IPA, a wonderful play on the name but not on my affinity for hoppy beer. A visit to their brewery in Amana introduced me to their pilsner and stout, but it’s the Iowa Pale Ale that keeps me coming back. A wonderful play on the name for my favorite style of beer from my home state.
I used to spend a lot of time around these parts. 8 years in Iowa City, and this is the place that everyone always wanted to hang out. I took this picture yesterday, looking down there at a lot of fond memories.
One 4th of July during Jazz Fest, I was here helping with a full KSUI broadcast from the center of the Ped Mall when the clouds rolled in. I tend to remember saying to someone that “this doesn’t look good,” and suddenly the skies started pouring down. As the winds roared in, someone jumped on the microphone to say a hasty signoff and that we were ending the multi-hour broadcast rather early and quite abruptly.
We moved fast. Everything was piled into a four-door sedan, we crammed in, and were gone within 15 minutes. Not a piece of equipment was left behind or damaged.
Good times.
Without a doubt, this has been the coldest morning of the New Year that I can remember. I do recall days of going to elementary school and being held inside for recess because the weather was unsafe due to the subzero windchills outside, mainly because there was always some kid who would lose his stocking hat on the bus ride in from the country or not bring gloves that day, but you never really grasp how frigid, cold weather can cause damaging effects that can last a lifetime.
Last night, as 2018 struck in the central time zone, windchills dipped to -34F, which is nearly at the point where subzero temperatures between Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same. Once -40 is reached, reference or calculation is no longer needed.
Today will certainly be quiet.
On another trip back to my homeland of Iowa, I thought I should take the opportunity of being here to document a little bit of history while the caucus[wiki] happened yesterday.
Continue reading “My Iowa Caucus Experience in Photos”
I got a posting on my Facebook wall about a band that was from Iowa, The Autumn Project. The question was about if I knew about them because we’re both from the same state and the person really hoped they would come to Vancouver.
It seems like I’ve seen their name float by me at some point, but it’s tough to say that I know a whole lot about them. Reading up on them a little bit, I found out that they’re from Des Moines, Iowa. And actually, they’re right in the middle of one of those “indefinite hiatus” situations.
But the thing that struck me is when I found on that they were from the central portion of Iowa, my first thought was, “Of course I don’t know who they are, they’re from the central portion of the state.” And it’s completely true.
My hub for a music scene was Iowa City for a number of years. There were those two or three hour road trips for a show on occasion, and that was often for acts from other states or countries on their tour route.
I think that once you start to get into a local music scene, your efforts of venturing out of your home base doesn’t seem as important. It’s not about losing connection with it. You just have the ability to have close proximity to something you enjoy while having plenty of friends who are able to tag along (or drag along in some cases).
In the last six months before I moved to Vancouver, we took one of our popular WSUI radio shows on the road to a coffee shop in downtown Des Moines, and the neighborhood in the area of the downtown core that I discovered really surprised me.
There was a feeling of creativity in the area we were in, and the amount of concert flyers I saw for local bands and musicians performing in the downtown area alone was impressive. I recall thinking at the time that I had never given Des Moines much of a thought for a local music scene. That’s almost a regret… Almost.
And yes, Slipknot came from that city and is one of the only bands that many people know from Iowa. They were the only ones I could actually name around that time, but my knowledge was more populated with artists from the eastern part of the state. You never looked west.
I became friends with a lot of bands who called Iowa City home or claimed it to be one of them. I’d get other friends to come along or have great nights out with those passing through town, sometimes to catch a good show.
Being in Vancouver, that’s what’s fun about finding a new music scene, and I’m still learning. Even brief excursions to Victoria, cover band or not, goes to show that getting out of your comfort zone is healthy more often than none. Even if you’re let down, that’s just apart of the education of learning what finding a diamond in the rough is all about.
Going back to 2010, I took this shot while in Iowa during the 4th of July. When you have a camera, some sparklers, and low light around sunset, what else do you do than experiment with long exposure?
Rebecca is remarkably good at making shapes like this, especially reversing a word to make it appear correctly for the shot without horizontally flipping it after the fact.
I’ve spent a number of family outings at this place, but never have I been to the Field of Dreams during the winter time, especially in the middle of one of the coldest cold snaps that the Midwest has seen in a number of years.
I shot this from the backseat of the car. My finger tips still got numb from the mere minutes it took to take this picture.
My last time here was the July 4th holiday of 2005. My family spent the day there in the summer heat, getting in to take our turns at the plate, playing catch in the outfield, and having a little picnic under the trees, just near the picket fence of the house that is still there. Being there in the depths of this Iowa cold spell makes it seem even more of a distant memory.
It’s certainly worth the trek to see this landmark in the summer. Nothing compares to the imagery you get with the corn in the outfield and visitors all over the place just taking it in.
