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Another great time taking shots. It was a blast spending time with Brett and making my way around Liberty for the first time in years. I finally got incorporate some sports stuff into this shoot. I was even nice enough to hold back on my duty as a Blue Springs alum to charge extra for making my camera have all that Liberty stuff in its the view finder. Here are just a few shots.
Got a beta invite to a new service called BrightKite. Imagine Twitter, Google Maps, Flickr, and Facebook getting together and deciding it is the right time to have a baby in a hypothetical bizzaro world where web services procreate. This is an excerpt from the FAQ on their site.
Why should I use Brightkite?
If you’re like us, you’re tired of the rise of social networks that take away from your real life. Sure, it’s great to have a gazillion friends on MySpace, but really, how many of them have you actually met? Brightkite connects people based on the places they visit in the real world. With Brightkite you can see where your friends are, what they’re up to, see what’s going on around you, and meet real-world friends.
How does Brightkite work?The basic idea is simple. When you’re out and about in the real world, you tell Brightkite where you are by checking in at places (you can do this on your phone). Brightkite can then tell you who else is there, who’s been there, what’s happened there, who is nearby etc. Additionally you can post notes and photos at places that others nearby will see.
Everything you do in Brightkite is accessible on the website. You can choose who gets to see your stuff by adjusting your privacy settings, but by default everybody can (after all, the idea is to meet people).
A lot of red flags went up when I was reading about what this service was about and what it did. When I got down to actually using it those concerns went away. It has clear multi teared privacy controls to only allow sensitive data to trusted friends.
You begin by checking in. Let’s say I am watching a baseball game with Chris. I put my exact location in and it records it. Along with that I could write what is going on as a post and even take a picture of us watching the game and upload it. If someone is a trusted friend of mine and we are connected on BrightKite they can see instantly that I am at my house watching the game with Chis. Someone on the outside of that trusted friend loop would get a more vague update of my status and if I wished, no update at all. A friend that doesn’t have “trusted” status could get an update that I am in Kansas City. Not my exact location at XXXX Jefferson Street. It lets you provide as much or as little as you want to user groups that are very well defined and controlled. I like that someone can still be connected with me as a friend and not see everything.
I have friends that are constantly on the go and constantly moving around. This could be a great tool to try and plan things without the hassle of bothering someone with a phone call and the limited ability to communicate well through text messaging.
There have been a lot of people I have been lucky enough to meet just based on the internet. Springfield Bloggers Group, Photography Meetups, ChiefsPlanet gatherings. The list goes on. This could be a great way to see what is going on with Kansas Citians. I can sit and look at a feed of what is going on around me. My status updates are published for anyone who wants to see them. Maybe I make some photography connections from someone seeing my work or maybe you run into someone who has work you have read or seen going out one night.
The interface is clean and easy to use. There are a lot of options to make updates easy through computer, phones, and an iPhone application that is in alpha. There is a lot more to it but I am trying to throw out the Cliff’s Notes in this post.
The whole thing is in private beta so you can’t jump on yet without an invite. I hope this is something people get into because it would make organizing and planning nights out with groups of friends much easier. It also has a lot of possibilities for interesting discoveries around the place you live. The only thing I can think of that is close to this is a service called Meetro. Their plan was going about all of this as a messanger app and it all just felt too much like MySpace for me. Pretty weak overall.
Just lately I have been really getting into some of the fresh things going on in these social media sites. The opportunity for marketing and discovering quality information and people that you wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise is an exciting thing. I also like the emphasis on “real” life. I want these services to aid my actual real world activities not keep me glued to a computer screen.
I have a very small number of invites. If you are really interested drop me a line and hopefully I will still have one to hook you up.
Went out and did some shooting with friends from work. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Kristen did a really good job and Kelly came along to help us out. This process can be a blast when people relax and let go a bit. I got them together for a snapshot at the end. One interesting thing about Kristen. I can say with supreme confidence that I will never again be paid with a check that has a “My Little Pony” design on it. Hilarious, I can just imagine the look I am going to get from the teller at Commerce Bank.
The more success these paying gigs have the more it seems momentum is building with my photography and the goals I have set for it. Really exciting time.
Next week will feature a different post each day from some guest bloggers. I have told the people that they can write about anything they want (as long as it won’t offend the hell out of everyone) and I will post at some point next week. Should be interesting to see what comes out of it.
Kansas City’s own Republic Tigers recently made a video for the song “Buildings and Mountains” and it is pretty good. I am a little late putting this out there but I still thought some readers would enjoy.
Ok, confession time.
I remembered to post this becuase I heard the song on the most recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Guilty.
Ran across this on my twitter account. I am going to try really hard to make it out and get some photographs of this event.
(Via Official Website)
Our first Zombie Walk will be Saturday, May 10th, at 6 PM, in Westport. We’ll meet at the Sunfresh parking lot (4001 Mill Street). We’ll meet, we’ll walk, and at the end we’ll be at a Kelly’s Westport Inn. An informal pub-crawl will follow from there.
A Zombie Walk is pretty simple. A bunch of people show up in a designated place, on a set date and time…completely made-up as zombies. Its not about making money, selling products, or any of that. Its all about having fun and eating a few brains.
Besides this May 10th Zombie Walk, there will be big follow-up event in conjunction with World Zombie Walk Day on October 26, 2008. Register on the Ghost Vigil website for e-mail updates.
Some people are old-school-zombie people. But feel free to be creative. There have been Jesus Zombies, Santa Zombies, Cop Zombies, Nurse Zombies (those are always hot!), etc. Its completely up to you. There are only a few rules to follow.
Please help us get the word out about this event and the event’s MySpace page. The more zombies we have on May 10th, the more fun it will be!
There seems to be something in the water if you are a safety for the Kansas City Chiefs. It started last year on HBO’s show “Hard Knocks” getting a clip of Benard Pollard dancing while players were goofing around in the locker room. Then last week the Chiefs drafted S DaJuan Morgan out of NC State in the 3d round. After running across a post game clip of him on YouTube it seems as though he will carry on the new tradition that is forming at Arrowhead. Jarad Page and Greg Wesley need to get to work. Thanks to Clayton for the video editing.
It seems there are a lot of ups and downs with the teams I follow lately. Here is what is going on in the sports world.
Kansas City Chiefs - The Chiefs absolutely knocked this one out of the park. It is going to be great to see our linebackers go to work with the freedom this defensive line will give them. They got the offensive lineman they wanted and also made some strong second day picks including Brendon Flowers who I am really excited about. Getting a blocking tight end to replace the absence of Dunn is a great move as well. More info on the draft and the undrafted free agent signings be sure to check out Arrowhead Pride.
Kansas City Royals - Royals rebound after that terrible 7 game skid. After that bad losing streak I will refer to Meatloaf’s opinion about getting 2 out of 3 games. Hopefully the bats can wake up as we start to move into May. Aside from that, what is up with powder blue jerseys matched with the white pants? It is really bad. If you are going to go powder blue then go powder blue. Blech.
Kansas City Wizards - The Wizards don’t seem to deal with first place very well. They seem to lose every time they jump into the top spot in the conference. They are still playing great soccer in a tie for second place in the Eastern Conference. Next game is May 3rd @ Columbus.
Kansas City Brigade - They finally won. The Brigade actually won a game. When time expired in their game on April 21st the Brigade had more points than the Crush did. Wow.
Chelsea FC - From the bottoms of a small league to the tops of a big league Chelsea won a HUGE game against Manchester United to pull even with Man U at the top of the Premiership. The Blues were back 8 points two weeks ago but now have a shot at the title with 2 games left to go.
From the vault. Taken January 2007.
While visiting my friend Evan in NYC I ran into a labor rally. The local 94 operating engineers union was staging an event. It all happened quite fast. I was walking around Columbus Circle when barricades and a ton of people came out of nowhere. This was one of the first instances where my professional camera got me access to certain places I wouldn’t have been able to be without it. I passed the police lines and got close to the events and people giving speeches right by the news cameras. Below is my favorite shot from that day.
