I am pleased to announce that I now have a photography book on sale for the holidays!

The book is entitled “Standing But Not Operating” and is a compilation of shots of Six Flags New Orleans.

For those unfamiliar: Six Flags New Orleans was flooded under 9 feet of water and destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. The property was subsequently left to rot by Six Flags who cherry picked what they could from it and left the rest as a liability for the city.

James and I ventured down there in April and found our way into the park illegally, eventually being caught by the police for trespassing and graciously allowed to retain our images.

From the back cover:

“Standing But Not Operating” is a term used for an amusement park ride that is still standing in place but for whatever reason not operating.

Since being ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005 the amusement park formerly known as “Six Flags New Orleans” has been standing but not operating after facing abandonment and an uncertain future.

For the few who have visited the park since it’s closure it has served as a place frozen in time. A haunting memorial to the devastation and perseverance of the city of New Orleans.

This is a 40 page 10″x8″ softcover book and includes 37 of my favorite shots from that trip which I am selling for $30. I am also making an iBooks compatible ePub available for $9.99 if you’d rather have that.

To date this is personally my most beloved photo project. I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do and I really appreciate your support.

You can pick up the book here: Standing But Not Operating

Of course the original photo set will continue to exist on Flickr at a lower resolution. If you’d like a preview of the images feel free to check them out here: Standing But Not Operating on Flickr.

Thank you!

On my second day in Paris I gave up trying to find a constant connection for my devices and decided to knock as much off of my checklist as possible and planned to leave the next day. So I got up early and found my way to the Catacombs. Lis Rock and others were pretty adamant about it too

I had long heard about Paris’ dramatic underground tomb & tunnel system so I made it a point to get to it on this trip. The cost of entry was 8€ + 3€ for the audio guide. The walk through is entirely self paced through an unguided pathway. Any diversions in the tunnels have been gated off to prevent visitors from getting lost. The path has very few modern signs or notes in the tunnels and almost none of them are in English making the audio guide well worth it.

The combination of the calm voices of the audio guide and the long walk wound up being a relaxing break from the hustle and bustle of the Paris streets. Kinda odd when you consider being surrounded by the remains of thousands of the dead.

After walking up the 83 steps back to the street level I immediately found the gift shop across the street (surprise, surprise). There I picked up some postcards and a bottle of Absinthe. On my way out I decided to ask the gentleman working there where in the area I could get a sandwich. Immediately after I asked I could see the excitement on his face, he then told me that his absolute favorite place in Paris was just three blocks away on a little corner by a roundabout. He quickly jotted down directions and emphasized “best sandwiches in Paris. No tourists.” This was exactly what I wanted to hear.

I took his advice and headed up the block and over to a little place called Le pPin d’Auguste (unfortunately not found on FourSquare) and found there was only one other customer. After she finished ordering I attempted to ask for a sandwich in the crudest most gratingly awful French ever spoken. The girl behind the counter laughed and told me, in English, that normally she wouldn’t have time to make a sandwich from scratch but she would for me since there was no one else around. A few minutes later I was eating the most delicious ham and cheese ever on the best French bread ever. Well done Catacombs gift-shop guy, well done.

After that I needed to recharge mentally and physically so I stopped at a Starbucks, got on Wifi for a bit, and caught up with the world and took suggestions for the evening.

From there I headed back to Notre Dame like the day before. This time I quietly explored the area while mass was in session and I marveled at the amazing stained glass work from the inside. I then relaxed in the plaza for a while and then decided to take the advice of Tim Dreyer on Twitter to check out the Musee de l’Orangerie and see their impressionist collection. With that in mind I used my map and found it to be on the other side of the Louvre courtyard area so I headed off that way. By the time I got there though it was closed, I looked at the signs and checked, and it wasn’t supposed to be for another hour. I don’t know why but they had closed early this evening. Damn. Out of luck and unsure what to do next I headed to the riverside to watch the sun set behind the Eiffel Tower.

Out of ideas for the evening and more exhausted and hungry again I took a walk along the riverside. Eventually I came to the Musee d’Orsay, which was also closed, but I stumbled upon a statue of Thomas Jefferson that caught my eye and a street vendor who was grilling some sausages. I stopped, bought a water and a sausage and just as I went to leave the guy asked me, in very broken english, if I had been to the Tower. Not wanting to get into semantics about when I was there (two years ago), I told him I had. He then handed my a silly purple souvenir Eiffel Tower keychain. I thanked him for his generosity and headed in for the night to work on photos and relax at the hostel as I was getting up early the next morning to head to Munich.

Full photo set.

That got me thinking, I’ve played around with having a blogroll here before but I’ve always wound up removing them. I’ve typically decided I didn’t feel there was a good semantic reason for me to include people on them, it always felt like a form of favoritism and I’d feel guilty not including some people over others. Jeremy’s solution hit me as a fair and fun way to handle it.

Sadly though, I don’t host a lot of travelers. It’s not that I’m opposed. It’s that usually I seem to do more traveling myself.

With that in mind I’ve stolen Jeremy’s idea, but flipped it. Instead of having a blog roll for people who have stayed with me, I am now going to have a blog roll for people whom I’ve stayed with while traveling or have traveled with me. I figure if you can tolerate me for any significant length of time there should be some form of badge of honor.

So check out these excellent people listed on the left, it’s the very least they deserve for all of there generosity.

Now if only I could figure out how to add “link category descriptions” in WordPress…

When I arrived in Paris via the Eurostar from London, it seemed like everything was going according to plan. I had a restful train ride in which I wrote, edited photos and caught up on that week’s episode of ‘Breaking Bad’. When I got to the station my friend Kirsten was there waiting for me at the gate with a big smile on.

Kirsten is over in Paris for grad school and had moved here just days before my arrival from Chicago. The original plan was for me to stay with her on my arrival and she had anticipated to have an apartment but due to a series of reasons was unable to secure a place beforehand and was staying with someone from her college alumni association. Luckily she had managed to contact me ahead of time and I scrambled in London to find a hostel for Paris.

She needed to pick up her monthly train pass so I took the opportunity to purchase a series of train tickets as well. The next thing on my agenda was to pick up a prepaid SIM card for my phone so I could proceed as planned with the crowd sourcing of the trip. In England there were vending machines at the station so I assumed the situation would be similar in Paris. Not so.

When checked into my hostel I asked the guy at the desk about getting a SIM. I was told that the country has recently cracked down on them, due to anti-terrorism legislation you now need to supply ID and fill out paperwork even to buy even a temporary pre-paid SIM. With little to go on Kirsten and I head off towards the Louvre shopping area to run errands and I figured the guys that the Apple Store would be able to supply more info.

Once there I was able to check in and get my bearings and the staff informed me that there was an Orange store nearby that might be able to solve my problem.

Sure enough, once we arrived at Orange there was a gentlemen who was extremely helpful in getting me setup. For 9,90€ I had what i thought was a working SIM card with 500mb of data in just minutes. We got next-door to the post office and suddenly nothing worked. I popped the SIM card out and plugged it back and suddenly things worked again. Then moments later, they didn’t.

I went back to Orange and eventually discovered that I needed to top up the phone with an additional 10€ to make it work on data, and on top of that, it wouldn’t work until tomorrow anyway.

After a little bit of cross cultural customer service battling I was able to get my money refunded and returned the card. I set out looking for other carriers but soon found myself frustrated and resorting back to a paper city map.

The plan was to catch back up with Kirsten and her friends at a gelato cafe across from Notre Dame around 7. By the time I found myself in the area however I couldn’t locate the cafe in question and spent my time walking up and down the street peering into restaurants for someone I knew before eventually giving up. Tired, hungry and surrounded by expensive food I resorted to the cheapest thing I could find that I knew I could get quickly: Subway.

I tried looking for wifi connections I could use to figure things out but it turns out that the same law that restricted SIM card purchases also restricted open WiFi

Refusing to let the night be a complete bust I trekked back to Notre Dame and spent my time sitting in the courtyard people watching. As I sat there soaking in the incredible architecture, detailed craftsmanship and the camaraderie around me I determined that even though nothing had gone as planned, it didn’t matter, it was still a beautiful night. Also I was eating gelato. Gelato rules.

After some time wandering around I head back towards my hostel and found open WiFi at a bar near the Stalingrad plaza. When I finally got to catch up on tweets, fellow Chicagoan, Elaine noticed I was in Paris and so was she, I then hopped a train and headed her way.

Small photo set posted, more coming soon.

My fellow employees were lined up from the glass staircase to the doorway leaving me no choice but to walk down the middle between them. As I approached they began to clap and cheer at full intensity. I had been a part of this ritual countless times in my six and a half years with the company so I knew it was coming. Still it took every fiber of my being to stay composed. I bolted for the door and when I finally got there I turned around, looked back at my friends and threw my arms in the air to wave goodbye one last time.

Seconds later I turned the corner. Once I knew I was out of the view of my colleagues I let loose and full on wept.

I couldn’t hold it back. Working for Apple was more than job, Apple was a family. Apple still is my family. I have met some of the most important people in my life through Apple. Mentors, friends, lovers… you name it.

Apple allowed me to put my creative energies to use. They enabled me to move halfway across the country to start over; and they inspired me to strike out on my own.

I learned more working for Apple than I did through all of college and high school combined. I grew more as a person than I could have possibly imagined. Apple filled me with memories and experiences that I will cherish until I die. All of that, those people and memories are a part of me, many of them mean more than anything else ever will. I wouldn’t trade any of it, the good or the bad, for anything.

This morning I woke up in a hostel in Bruges and heard the news. I looked at Twitter and it was filled with loving, thoughtful comments and not a single one in poor taste. I then looked through instagram and it was flooded with photo tributes. Every news site was filled with articles and comments regarding his passing.

And I wept.

I never met the man, I never even saw him in person (though I apparently stood right next to him and didn’t know it) and yet there I was standing on a picturesque bridge in the middle of Bruges on a dreary, cold day openly weeping.

My friend Nick today posted on his Facebook regarding Steve’s death. He mused on how people feel like they know someone in the public eye when really they don’t know their internal person and said that he hopes Jobs was as good in person as we all like to think he was. I would like to counter that point.

That one man who Nick claims I didn’t know, whom I never met and probably didn’t even know I existed profoundly changed my life for the better and for that I am eternally grateful.

When I heard of his retirement I did something that I swore as an employee I’d never do.

I emailed him.

It was just a simple thank you, basically saying a lot of the things I’m saying here. I have no idea if he read it and I never will. And thats okay. I didn’t need anything from him. I didn’t need to know him personally. The Steve I knew… the Apple I knew gave me more than enough.

Thank you Steve.

I arrived in London Tuesday morning and soon made my way via bus down to the coastal city of Brighton. It was early afternoon when the bus pulled into my stop where I met Jeremy and we walked over to the Clearleft offices. There I got a good rest in their nook and enjoyed my first legitimate cup of British tea. The office got a good laugh when I wasn’t sure how I wanted it (I went with milk and minimal sugar after asking the crowd.)

From there we made our way to Jeremy’s home. We enjoyed some delicious homemade pizza made by Jessica and had few glasses of wine and then it was off to bed, only to awaken the next morning to explore the city.

The next morning I took another pitstop to the Clearleft offices and then headed south with the intent on wandering the coastal pier area but soon found myself at the Brighton Pavilion, a bizarrely out of place, but beautiful structure. The Pavilion was built for Prince Regent (later King George IV) as a seaside retreat to be deliberately over the top, and it shows even today as it poorly mimics eastern architecture and design practices in a way that winds up being charming in it’s own right.

Wandering the area I stumbled upon The Brighton Museum and Art Gallery and found myself spending more than an hour exploring it’s halls and learning about Brighton’s history. The city was first known as a health resort spot and later as an epicenter for underground rock culture complete with fights between motorcycle rockers and mods on mopeds. All in all, my kind of place.

Once I tore myself away from the museum I finally made my way to the pier where I purchased a 99 flake and then was promptly attacked by Brighton’s infamous seagulls, eventually escaping into arcade portion of the pier.

That night we got together with the Clearleft folks for drinks and attended a night of “Geek Comedy” as part of the Brighton Digital festival. It was definitely the only time I’ve heard jokes about CD-ROM video games, rocket scientist sex magik and carbon atoms in the same show. It was a blast.

The next day on the suggestion of Jessica I visited the old pier on the west side of the city. Due to fire and suspicious activity the old pier has collapsed into the channel and what remains is mostly a haunting charred skeleton of a structure just a few meters from the shoreline.

That evening I met up with Jeremy and Jessica at The Grey’s Pub for a hearty meal and a round of drinks.

Brighton was a great time, it was a comfortable and friendly place to visit with obviously more culture than one can take in a few short days. In addition, Jeremy and Jessica couldn’t have possibly been better hosts, I look forward to seeing them again soon.

Photo set here!

Next up: London!

Along my way I will use digital devices and social media tools to explore and find what to do in each respective city. I will document my experience on this blog, Flickr, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, FourSquare, Gowalla, Tumblr & and maybe even YouTube. I will attempt to find places to say either with friends from these services or using sites like CouchSurfing and AirBnB.

The idea is to “crowd source” my adventure, asking for you, the reader, to supply me with input as to where to go, what to see etc.

My end goal will be not just to explore the world but to really test the limits of our global communications network, the so-called “global community”. Can we, “the internet”, actually supply what one person needs to know on such an adventure? How connected are we really through these services and how easy (or hard) is it to maintain the relationships with your loved ones while traveling full time?

I have also submit a panel to next year’s SXSW Interactive Festival and hope to be able to share the results of my trip with you there as well as eventually publish a book on the experience.

I will share more details about the trip as we get closer to leaving but for now I could use your help.

Please do me a favor and vote for my panel to be accepted to SXSW… the voting period ends tonight Friday the 2nd at midnight. You can do that here.

And if you’re so interested you can donate to my experiment as well here.

Anyone who donates me any money (doesn’t matter how much or little) will have their name on a slide at our SXSW presentation should it be accepted. Thanks!

At this very moment my heart is starting to slow down from a rapid pace. My brain and endocrine system are finally starting to relax from the rush of adrenaline that pumped through me earlier. I’m just happy to be here in my aisle seat electric chair typing away and listening to my favorite Mountain Goats record.

I’m heading to Austin for South by Southwest Interactive where, for the next week, I will indulge in copious amounts of learning, networking and imbibing. When I return from Austin I will only have 8 more days of work at my job of the past 6.5 years. There is a mixture of excitement and discomfort in the fact I am willfully joining the ranks of the unemployed during a recession.

My heart rate continues to slow as I sip my complementary apple juice and snack on my peanuts. I just took a minute to revised the first paragraph. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” just came on. I love this song, I don’t really even know why, I just do.

I could tell the story about nearly missing my flight this morning, being told they were booked through the weekend and how someone I’ve never met volunteered to give up her seat making her my personal, yet thankless hero. But aside from me running unshod through Midway airport, the story really doesn’t have that much anecdotal value.

I’m looking forward to the next few days in Texas, catching up with old friends, making new ones and eating amazing food. That said, I am not quite sure what to expect. I did this once before and it was extremely enriching, even life changing, will it be again?

We’ve landed in Nashville to refuel and swap passengers before continuing on to Austin. No more Mountain Goats, moved on to Gaslight Anthem now. Stop, revise. I am fully relaxed now. Another revision.

I’ll be back in Nashville a month from yesterday if only for a day. It feels like an eternity away.

The problem with the aforementioned storytelling lesson is that it’s one of the few things from improvisation that can’t be mapped directly to life. We don’t get to just cut to the action, we’re forced to endure each beginning as even the smallest detail can be a catalyst that ripples through all of what follows. In life it’s the transitions that shape everything. The blur before something ends and another begins is arguably the most interesting moment, anything could happen that will affect the future and how we perceive of the past.

I ponder my own situation as I rewrite, revise and delete. I’m mildly frustrated that this, like many pieces I write, may sit in “drafts” forever awaiting a perfection that may never come. I switch the music again to Streetlight Manifesto to get a lyric trapped in my head out.

“We’ve all been there once before and it looks like we’ve returned once more. So is this the beginning or the end?”

I don’t know what will happen, I just know we’re landing and it’s almost time to close my MacBook.

I’m visiting NY for the weekend to see my family and reflecting a bit right now I’m thankful for a lot. I’ve switched to part time at my retail job and I really have started to find a good work / life balance. I turned 29 on Saturday and had an awesome party with awesome friends. I can’t express enough how important and awesome my friends are. Thank you everyone. This has been a great year. What I am thankful for going forward though are exciting projects. If you know me, dear reader, I’m not happy unless I’m doing a million things at once, here is what is going on right now:

1. I’ll be working with dynamic improv duo Batterymouth to promote their upcoming run Fridays at DeMaat Theatre at Second City from Jan 21st – Feb 25th. So far we have one publicity photo ready but there are more on the way. In my eyes Batterymouth is one of the best kept secrets of Chicago theatre and I’m very excited to be working with them.
2. Speaking of comedy… Long Pork is still going strong. The Gentlemen are hard at work on their next show which is set to debut at the Chicago Sketchfest on January 13th 9:30 pm. Also they’ve been invited to preform in the Charleston Comedy Festival for which they are super excited and honored.
3. Still doing the ChicagoNow thing. Yesterday I published a photo set of Wrigleyville during last Saturday’s Northwestern vs. Illinois Football game. You can check that out here. Tomorrow I’ll be publishing a holiday gift guide for photographers so check back then.

That’s all for today friends. I hope you all enjoy your turkey dinners!

I was able to move out here and not only keep my job with Apple but get promoted as well. In the last three years I’ve grown immensely, made amazing friends, traveled extensively, started taking improv classes, started working with Long Pork and really started to build my photo career with the launch of my ChicagoNow blog and a few new clients.

The only down side? It worked too well.

Moving out here has been liberating beyond my expectations, but I find myself so busy pursuing my passions that sleep and friendships suffer due to it. I also find myself turning down photo and design work I’d like to be doing due to conflicts with my full time hours. Three years into living here I once again have found myself in need of a change.

Effective next week I’ve decided to step down from my full time role and leadership responsibilities at Apple and into a more limited part time hours.

This will allow me to pursue my passions even further, recover a semblance of a social life and maybe, just maybe start sleeping again. There is a lot of traveling planned, for starters Long Pork and I are driving to NY next week for Sketchfest NYC at the UCB Theater. I am also going to finally get certified to skydive this year.

Last week on Friday Sydney Owen and I head out to the Chicagoland Skydiving Center to go for a tandem jump and enroll ourselves in the certification program. It’s going to be an interesting summer.

While I’ll admit I am nervous about what I’m leaving behind I am really excited about the road ahead. More to come soon.