Colorado Trip - The End!

This is the last post from my trip to Colorado. I had enough pictures from individual days/places that I made individual posts for each one, but I did have a few extra pictures from here and there during the vacation that didn't fit into the rest of the pictures, so I decided to do an extra post, just for those few stray pictures.

My Aunt Ruth and Uncle Nathan's dog, Logan. :)

Believe it or not, this is actually a Chinese restaurant, the Pearl Dragon. You would never know it from the outside. They had really good food though.

A hummingbird outside on Aunt Ruth's feeder. :)

Don't ask me where this was taken, I don't remember. :)

I had a few pictures from the zoo that I must have missed, so I threw them into this post.

Sadly, the only moose we saw on our whole trip, was one in the zoo.

Guess what. Peacock butt. I am so sorry. I will go and punish myself right now for this heinous atrocity of a joke.

My joke was so bad it made this poor orangutan sad.

This was the storm coming in as we left the zoo.

On one of the days we all drove around the towns near where Aunt Ruth and Uncle Nathan live, particularly Estes Park. These next few pictures were from that day.

And that's it! Colorado is one of my favorite places in the entire world, and I really hope to get back there soon! Now to work on the next batch of pictures I'm behind on!

OK Go

The other day while I was watching all those Cookie Monster videos, I found a video on the Sesame Street channel by OK Go. I wanted to share it right then, but my post was about Cookie Monster, so I decided to wait on it and do an entire post about OK Go later instead. If you don't remember who OK Go is you can click HERE to read my post about their hilarious collaboration with the Muppets.
One of the reasons I love OK Go's videos is because of how colorful they are. To have them teach kids about color on Sesame Street was just perfect.



If you've never seen any OK Go videos before, you might want to see this one.



It's not nearly as colorful or polished as the ones they make nowadays, but this is the video that launched them to YouTube stardom. It's very unique. How many other artists would think of making a music video on treadmills? Besides colorful, the other word that best describes them is unique. Every video is so different. They are just fun to watch. You can tell they love what they do by how much work they put into each one.

I just loved the camouflage suits in this next video. That was a really weird surprise, but it was just so random, and you know how much I like random! :)



I hadn't seen that video before now, but I had seen their Rube Goldberg video for this song. It is still one of the most amazing videos they have ever made. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to.



That was all filmed in one take. ONE TAKE! And you can tell from the number of smashed TVs in the background that it took them many, many tries to get it right. These guys are artistic geniuses.

Also a must see, is their Needing/Getting video. It amazes me every time I see it that they pulled this off so well.



That's 4 months of planning!!! 4 months of work for a 4 minute video. That's dedication. :)

This one I had not seen before, even though it's two years old.



What I like best about it is the goose! That is SO random, and hilarious! :D

The next one starts out just kind of weird, but as it continues, it just gets sort of mesmerizing, and you begin to see how creative it is. By the end it was one of my favorites.



Another one of my favorites is their video for the song White Knuckles.



They must have had some good dog trainers to get this all filmed in one take. That is just amazing. I wonder how many times they had to start over before they got it right.

Now that you've seen these videos, rewatch their music video with the Muppets and see how many references to their other videos you catch.



All of OK Go's videos completely embody the spirit of Randomness. They're never the same twice, and they're always creative. No wonder I love them so much. :)

Beanie Babies

So, as promised in my last blog post, today's post is all about Beanie Babies! Actually I have been planning on writing this for the last few months, because my first project for Design 2 was all about Beanie Babies. Yes, Beanie Babies. I have a very large collection of them.

"Jonathan, you're almost 26. Why do you have a very large collection of Beanie Babies?"

Well, it all started many years ago...
My Aunt Linda gave me and my brothers each a Beanie Baby one year. Mine was a dalmatian named Sparky.

We had never heard of them before, but soon afterwards, Beanie Babies blew up in popularity. They were the "It Thing" to have. Mom started buying them for us for Christmas, other family members bought them for us, and if I saw a Beanie Baby of some animal I really liked, I bought it for myself.

I think this was the first one I ever bought myself. Is anyone really surprised that it's a giraffe? :)

So over the years I amassed a rather large collection, and they all ended up stuffed in a giant plastic tote and put away. Who would have guessed that they would one day resurface to become the focus of the first half of my fourth semester of college?

This project was based on the book "Creature" by Andrew Zuckerman. The assignment was to study an artist and make a work that was a tribute to their style. Mine ended up more of a parody than a tribute, but everyone loved it and my teacher is encouraging me to have the pictures I took made into a book of my own. I won't be able to share all my pictures on my blog, but here are a few, just so you can get an idea of what I did. I may post more to my photography blog at a later date. (No, I haven't abandoned that blog, I've just been too busy to work on it.)

That's all for now, but I promise, this is not the last you have seen of my Beanie Baby collection. :)

Baby Dedication and Cookout

Sunday night my family attended a dedication ceremony for Ariana, the daughter of my friends Robert and Rachel. Afterwards Robert invited me and my brothers over for a cookout, hotdogs and marshmallows over a campfire. My cousin Shaina was invited too so we had a small gathering consisting of Rachel and Robert, Robert’s sisters, Cynthia and Cassie, two of my brothers, Joel and Jacob, and my cousin Shaina. Robert’s parents and grandmother were also there, though they stayed inside for most of the evening. I had my camera along of course, so I took a bunch of pictures.

The ceremony

Shaina

Rachel and her brother Matthew

Shaina with Ariana

Cassie wanted to give Shaina a manicure. She offered to do mine as well, but I declined.

Ariana

Their pets, Mollie and Coley. I love Mollie’s little bow.

After Cassie finished the manicure she wanted to do Shaina’s hair as well.

Rachel and Cynthia did their own nails while Cassie works on Shaina’s makeover.

Shaina preparing to get “Sugared Up” with some pop before we went outside.

Cassie, Shaina, Mollie, and Joel

Jacob, Rachel, and Robert

These pictures were all taken with the flash on. It was actually pitch black out except for the fire.

Roasting a water bottle. One of many non-food items that met a fiery fate after we finished eating.