Update on Mikey!

And it's a happy one. Watch :)

Confessions

I want a man who I can confess to that I only have Neutral Milk Hotel on my iTunes because it's one of Jesse Lacey's favorite bands. And if he doesn't know who Jesse Lacey is, Jesse Lacey just happens to be the man behind my favorite band. I've listened to Neutral Milk Hotel a handful of times, like a few songs okay, but can't get into the rest of it. I keep the music there simply because it's one of the favorite bands of my favorite band.

And I want that man to find that endearing, not dumb.

Nice to meet you...

I "met" someone for the first time last week that I've known for over two years. In that time span, I've given him a place to sleep and shower, a few passing hugs and the careless "see ya next time" as he would once again roll out of town with his best friends who just happen to be a few of my best friends.

This person was so scared of disappointing the girl he loved that he failed to make lasting connections, even strictly platonic, with any other female he met. I realize his respect and love for her, but I also hope he realizes the years of relationships he's missed out on.

Car rides brought us closer last week, allowed me to see the genuine, ultra-sensitive, kind, intelligent, thoughtful, selfless, pained person that he is. We shared a few scars, our stories, some dumb mistakes and some laughs (mostly from me when I was half asleep). We shared ourselves. I know I'm not the only person who has gotten to know him recently because of the pain he's had to endure - the six years of his life that he's still recovering from - but I'm grateful to know this man; to know his heart, his spirit, his faith, his story.

If we never have another week like that again in our friendship, at least I know that he knows that I care. I know that just by listening, by igniting that friendship at the right point in time - the kind of friendship that we've never been able to have - that I helped him. I see such a change on the horizon. And just to let him know that someone was there after waiting for so long to be let in... it's hope. And I hope that the change he needs in his life is something he found in me and will find in all the connections he's able to make for the next six years.

"I realize that no change will ever come unless we involve our lives in the lives of others. Unless we get to know people by their names, their stories and their struggles, change will never take place. The right decision, I believe, is allowing people to make the right decision for themselves and to be there to help them through the process, to be their community."

The best park ever is in my own backyard!

Earlier today I told Sierra she was free to join me when I was going to meander around Liberty Park with my camera. I came to the park yesterday with Christi Bagwell and found so many photo opportunities that I just knew I had to come back the next day with the good digital SLR camera I borrow from my office sometimes!

I'm so blessed to have such beauty less than 2 blocks from my house. I didn't take proper advantage of it over the summer, so I'm trying to make up for it for this fall before it gets too cold!

I love the one of Sierra on the ferris wheel, it was definitely my favorite of the entire evening! That photo and few of my other favorite photos can be found below & the rest can be found on my Facebook by clicking this link.

THE Lance

Every year the sister company of the company I work for handles media relations for the Interbike OutDoor Demo & Expo in Las Vegas. I had the chance to go last year and really dip my feet into the HUGE world of cycling, and this year was no different. I spent the last week surrounded by the greatest innovations in cycling, accompanied by a few of the greatest athletes in the world, some top notch journalists and big names in the industry.

Among those star athletes was Lance Armstrong. He's as kind in person as you'd expect, though very much a man who puts off a persona of demanding respect. We held a press conference on Thursday morning as he announced more information about his return to cycling. But before that, I had the chance to photograph him as he raced in the CrossVegas 08 cyclocross race on Wednesday night. It was amazing trying to capture such intensity in a single frame, but I got one great shot that I loved. And apparently a bunch of other people did, as well. The photo below got picked up by a handful of international publications! Makes a girl feel pretty good ;)

Might be a quarter-life crisis...

Emily turned 25 today! Breakfast at Park Cafe (best!), shopping at Urban and Nordstrom, thai for dinner, arcade with a slue of our closest friends, and after-party at my place with ice cream cake, big balls, Boyz II Men sing-a-longs, running down the middle of the street in the middle of the night, lots of obnoxious yelling and true friends. I'm pretty sure our neighbors are going to disown us.

Getting ready before we went out for din-din (somehow Topgun snuck in at the end!):






Survey asks, "Do you have hot neighbors?"
Sherry says, "We are the hot neighbors."

So beautiful and only 23...

Sherry's birthday was Friday! I took the day off work to get her car windows tinted (surprise!) and then we spent the day shopping and getting our nails and toes did. What she thought was just going to be a night out with the Topgun turned into her "Skate & Surf" themed surprise party!

Highlights of the night included:

Best girl friends shot, ATizzle decided to come up and jingle his keys behind the Topgun taking the photo -- made us all laugh. A LOT


The birday girl & her man (who def. was a huge part in making it all happen! Thx Topgun!)


This is what you do with leftover cake and a drunk Nick!


Aside from ATizzle shoving half of a cake in Nick's face, he also punched him in the ear. Also, Nick ate it hardcore on the tile floor (which, to his defense, was covered in water after the water fight broke out) and was very interested in cheese in glass jars and. monoglycerides.

Happy birthday, Sher!! To my best friend, my roommate, my show friend and my sister in every meaning but blood... I love you!

the magical park

scrib is always my default friendate.



fave shot from the magic park photo shoot (the contrasting ghosts of dimples and scrib)

I feel like I'm in Alice in Wonderland...

Hi from the Hotel Monaco in Denver... my favorite city in this entire country.

I love my life, my family, my faith, my friends, my boys and how freakin' happy I am with all of the aforementioned right now. Life is so so good. Ran into some boys tonight that I know from Salt Lake that are in The Almost at the 16th Street Mall. So random. They're playing Denver Sunday night and then Monday night in Salt Lake... as much a home town show for them as playing a Florida show, seeing as half of them live in SLC now.

I'm missing their show, (un?)fortunately, to go Kanye, Rihanna, Lupe Fiasco and N.E.R.D. Dude... I'm SO STOKED to see Rihanna and Kanye, you don't even know.

Sherry and I are moving more downtown this month. We just signed a lease on a cute apartment and we're getting rid of crazy roommates and just moving in together. It'll be amaaaazing. So stoked to be closer to downtown and all our friends.

Anyway, I'm in Denver (my favorite city in the USA, did I mention that?) so I'm going to go play. My favorite friends from South Carolina (well, Patrick might actually be my favorite, but let's not get all technical here!) are playing the Soiled Dove Underground tomorrow night. Miss those boys, miss doing merch(?). Haha! I have a good feeling about this Denver trip...

Love all of you a lot a lot.

Random mid-day thought.

I just had this thought: if you were to name a child Friday, everyone should auto love her because it's most people's favorite day.

Chew on that!

My little bro's all grown up!

I flew to NJ for a long weekend for my little dude's (all 6'4" of him!) high school graduation. WOWZA! my little boy's all grown up. Mikey is, hands down, my favorite person on the face of the planet. I never would know the type of love that I do without that kid. He literally saved my life when I was 17 and I'm so grateful for his presence in my life.

Because of all his medical stuff, my mom really had to work with his teachers and guidance counselor to get him through to graduation. But the little dude did it and I'm so proud. It's still up in the air whether or not he'll be joining me in Utah for school in the fall yet, only the doctors and more tests have those answers. All I know is I'm so proud and I love that kid with everything that I have inside of me.

The immediate fam (minus the jerk brother-in-law & the amazing sister-in-law) -- putcha stunna shades on.

Happy birthday, Mom

It was amazing, when I was flying back here Sunday night the big and little dipper looked like they were right out my window as I was taking off. They were huge, so close. and I felt so small. It made me so incredibly happy just to be reminded that everything out there is much bigger than any small flaw in my life. It gave me hope in a way.

I feel ALIVE today. I've been doing some soul-searching, spending time mending my relationship with God and really applying the principals I want to live my life by. I used to be this passionate, compassionate, innocent, bright, hopeful person. I lost that somewhere and I feel it coming back. I see it around me, I see it everything; I want to be so much more than this.

I am brilliant in a way that I haven't in ages. I'm embracing it and running with it and not turning back.

Be vulnerable, but stay away from where it hurts.

Mr. Mayer has spoken:

"This is about us all. Every one of us. Who all seem to know deep down that it's incredibly hard to be alive and interact with the world around us but will try and cover it up at any cost. For as badass and unaffected as we try to come off, we're all just one sentence away from being brought to the edge of tears, if only it was worded right. And I don't want to act immune to that anymore. I took the biggest detour from myself over the past year, since I decided that I wasn't going to care about what people thought about me. I got to the point where I had so much padding on that, sure, I couldn't feel the negativity, but that's because I couldn't feel much of anything. And I think I'm done with that.

I'm not the first person to admit we're all self conscious, Kanye was. But what I want to do is to shed a little light on why we're all in the same boat, no matter the shape of the life we lead: because every one of us were told since birth that we were special. We were spoken to by name through a television. We were promised we could be anything that we wanted to be, if only we believed it and then, faster than we saw coming, we were set loose into the world to shake hands with the millions of other people who were told the exact same thing.

And really? Really? It turns out we're just not all that special, when you break it down. Beautifully unspectacular, actually. And that truth is going to catch up with us whether we want to run from it or not. The paparazzo following me to the gym ain't gonna be Herb Ritts and the guy he's following ain't gonna be Bob Dylan. It's just a matter of how old you are once you embrace that fact. And for me, 30 sounds about right.

What now, then? I can only really say for myself: Enjoy who I am, the talents and the liabilities. Stop acting careless. In fact, care more. Be vulnerable but stay away from where it hurts. Read. See more shows. Of any kind. Rock shows, art shows, boat shows. Create more art. Wear hoodies to dinner. Carry a notebook and hand it to people when they passionately recommend something and ask them to write it down for me.

Root for others.

Give more and expect the same in return, but over time.

Act nervous when I'm nervous, puzzled when I don't know what the hell to do, and smile when it all goes my way. And never in any other order than that.

And when it's all over, whether at the end of this fabulous career or of this life, which I hope takes place at the same time, I should look back and say that I had it good and I made the most of it while I was able. And so should you.

I'm going quiet now."



And today is my sister's 29th birthday.
Happy birthday, Helga.
Love, Olga.

Wake up, shake up, wake the sun

Every now and then, something will surprise me. And lately, I've been floored at the talent that comes from the people in my life I am blessed to call friends (artistically, creatively, musically).

That said, The Matches have a new record, A Band in Hope, coming out next Tuesday and it's flawless. Matty forked it over when we were in Las Vegas last month and it's been on a pretty constant rotation since (alongside Eisley's Combinations, mostly... still can't get over that record). These songs are something that's so new for them, yet they're still so true to themselves and their talent. AND I SWEAR IF ANYONE COMPARES THEM TO COBRA STARSHIP AGAIN...

Anyway! They shot a video for 'Wake The Sun.'

Mikey 4 President!

Never in my entire life have I been this proud to call one person, much less a group of seven dudes, my friend.

Please watch the following clip & die laughing with me:

Sherwood Show 10

never ever ever give up.

you may not have ever heard of randy pausch, but i hadn't either until recently. he was a professor at carnegie-mellon. he holds a PhD. he was an imagineer for disney. he's a husband. he's a father to 3 young children. he's 46 years old. he has pancreatic cancer, and he's dying.

i don't know if most of you have heard about his last lecture to more than 400 students packed into one hall, or what the wall street journal called "the lecture of a lifetime," but it is beautiful. at its least, the word inspiring comes to mind.

the whole 10+ part series can be found on youtube just by searching his name, but he recapped the lecture in 10 minutes on oprah and this is what i choose to share.







don't give up. ever.

Cover shoot! :)

Hallmark shmallmark

"You don't need to be in love on valentine's day... you just need to have love!"
Just another day, but as long as it's dedicated to love specifically... I love you :)

28 is too young...

This is how I'll always remember him.

Sleep sweetly, brilliant boy.