Blue Man Group

Tonight John and I offically celebrated our three year anniversary by going to see Blue Man Group. Our official three year anniversary was on Monday September 26th but I had to work that day so we didnt really do anything. Today I baked brownies and I hung out at John's house all day. Later on we drove down to Briar Street Theater in Chicago to see Blue Man Group. I've been to see them once before and I knew how spectacular they were! John had never been to see them but I just knew he would love it. The audience participation and all the crazy things they do on stage are fantastic. We had front row seats in the poncho section so we were right in front of the stage. If you havent seen Blue Man Group before I HIGHLY recommend it. There freaking amazing every time!
They even make art during the show and hand it out to the audience. One of the blue men made John a paint splatter painting using a gumball like item that he caught in his mouth from across the room. It was totally awesome! John dosent have much room in his bedroom so he gave the art to me. I'm not sure what to do with it, maybe find a place to hang it up? Now we'll have a keep sake to remember the show.

Hanson Concert

Yesterday was another Hanson Concert at The House of Blues in Chicago. As tradition Olivia and I had to go and we had a wonderful time. No matter how many times I see them live they are always amazing. I think this is a tradition Olivia and I will continue to follow for a long time.
Yesterday was like any other day, Olivia and I took the CTA in Rosemont this time instead of taking the metra because it is much cheaper. From the CTA we walked about a block and we were already at the House of Blues. We had to wait in line for about an hour and a half until they finally let us in.
The opening act was Meiko who is a solo girl musician just starting out. After she performed Hanson came on and performed the best show ever. Now Hanson always does an encore no matter what. People always chant for them at the end of the show and they always come back on and perform at least two more songs. This time was different however. Towards the end of the show a few feet in front of where Olivia and I were standing a man fell off the second floor balcony and landed on the floor. I'm surprised he didn't hurt anyone but somebody ran to get security and that was the end of that.
Because of that guy Hanson didn't go on for an encore, that's the only reason we can think of. The entire crowd was chanting and cheering for Hanson for about twenty minutes until the lights finally came on and they announced that the show was over and House of Blues was closed.
When Hanson was wrapping up there last song all the sudden one of the band members says "uhhh... I think someone just fell off the balcony" like he didn't even know how to react. So there was no encore and all the Hanson fans were angry haha.
However, to make up for there being no encore we met the drummer while we were walking back to the CTA. When we were walkking back we see one of the band members standing on the sidewalk. A few other girls are there talking to him. The drummer Zac Hanson was on his way to go bowling haha. The show hadn't even been over for half an hour and Olivia and I had just left House of Blues and he was already on his way to the bowling alley by himself.
I guess hes just human like the rest of us but it was a weird experience. Him there walking down the street in Chicago with his A&W root beer in bowling shoes headed to the bowling alley to throw some balls. You think after a show he would be doing something else like relaxing. Why was he by himself? Where were his brothers?
Anyways, he apologized for ending the show early and that was that.
This is one Hanson concert I'll always refer to as the time the guy fell off the balcony.

365 Days Holly

Today I've started a new blog on blogspot.com. You can find this blog at
365daysham.blogspot.com.
Here I will post a picture of myself every single day for an entire year, for 365 Days. I might take a picture of myself on my webcam or shoot a picture of myself using my orange pocket camera. Or maybe I'll have my Nikon with me on a photo shoot. Whatever type of camera I have with me and where ever I happen to be during the day I will take a picture of myself. I will have snapped 365 pictures of myself by the end and have posted them on my blog. It might be 11:59 at night when I post my picture for the day or 2:00 am but whatever time it is there will be one picture posted every day.
I hope everyone will join me for this year long ride. You can comment on my pictures at my blog and see what I look like and what I'm doing every single day for one whole year.

http://365daysham.blogspot.com/

:)

Late College Nights....

Yesterday afternoon I spent hours trying to finish up my final paper for my Capstone class. I didn't quite make it before I had to go to work. So I went to work and then I had to come home from work at 12:00 am and keep working on my paper. I ended up staying up until about 2:00 am and although I don't have Capstone until noon on Wednesdays, sleeping in until 11:00 am just wasn't good enough. I woke up and left myself a half an hour to get ready today which is usually no problem some days because I can get ready fast. Today I was just dragging along though. I ended up leaving my house late and I still had to go to the bank to take out some money because my gas tank is almost on empty. Its just one of those days I guess. Its so close to the end of the quarter but its not quite here yet.
I had such a hard time finishing my paper. It had to be ten pages long which is the longest paper I've ever written in my life. I'm terrible at writing papers because I can never get them long enough. When I turned that paper in today a million pound weight was taken off of my shoulders. I'm sure you guys all remember your late college nights up until the wee hours of the morning writing papers. I only have two big projects to finish up before I can celebrate my week long break. Right now I'm sitting in class a little sleep deprived but I don't even care. Now that I've turned in my paper I'm completely free the rest of the day. I'm going to make it the best Wednesday ever.
I hope you enjoy the picture in this blog post. I shot it from my seat in class :)
My little orange pocket camera is so handy for shooting spur of the moment pictures. I keep it in my purse so I can whip it out anytime I need to.

We the Sheeple

This past weekend has been pretty crazy for me because I've been trying to work on final projects and finish up assignments. There are only two weeks left until the end of my summer quarter so I've been going a little insane. Its only normal at the end of the quarter to be a little crazy though. Anyhow, this past Friday September 9th was my classes art show. The class is called Art Direction and our entire quarter in this class is spent preparing to put on an art show with our own work at the end of the quarter. It felt so stressful planning all the details for this show all quarter but when the show was finally here on Friday it felt like it was over to quickly. All that planning and it was over in just a few hours.
The first thing we had to figure out was our theme and topics. We had to figure out what we were all going to do our projects on. My project was about technology and two ways we used to communicate before we had technology. I shot two images and created them to be interactive to go along with all the 3-D interactive technology coming out onto the market today. I used my friend Chandra in the first image holding a cup to her ear. Then I attached a real string and cup to the frame. My other image was of Kristi pretending to write a letter and then I attached a real peice of paper to the picture.

















Next we had to figure out where we were going to hold our show. We ended up holding our show in a Gallery called Studio 101 in downtown chicago. The space was really nice and it fit all of our works on the wall comfortably. To have the space for a twelve hour time slot it was in the 1,000 dollar range. Our show was only from 6-10 pm but we needed all the rest of the twelve hour time slot to set up for our show and prepare during the day. If you dont know anything about having a show and renting studio space I can tell you that this price was rather cheap. I was part of the food/fundraising group and the first few weeks of class we sold food at school. After the first few weeks of raising money for our show one of the kids in our class was able to get Geico to sponsor our show. This had never been done in the history of an Art Direction class, we were all pretty shocked. So in the end Geico payed for our entire show as long as we let them have a booth at the show.

The Name/concept of our show was We The Sheeple. "Sheeple (a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people" ) is a term disparagement, in which people are likend to sheep. People unable to think for themselves. Followers. Lemmings. Those with no cognitive abilities of there own".
In our day and age with technology and trends everyone follows each other. We are like a heard of sheep so our show was inspired by that. We made little post cards and give aways to hand out to people at the show that had little sheep on them.

Labor Day

On Monday we woke up very early at about 4:30 am Virginia time and we were out of the hotel and on the road by 5:00 am to go home. We all switched off driving again but we had some troubles using our map quest directions and got lost a few times. Unfortunately for some odd reason our GPS would not work what so ever so we were left to get home using the map quest directions my mom had printed out before the trip. We had used the GPS to get to Virginia, to get to the manor where the wedding was held, to get to the train station and back to the hotel from the train station. We literally used the GPS everywhere we went the entire time we were in Virginia. We went to turn it on before we left the parking lot at the hotel and it wouldn't work. We were puzzled but there wasn't really anything we could do so we just managed with our map quest directions. We did eventually make it home although it might have taken us a bit longer then it should have. Even with our GPS troubles the ride wasn't all that bad but towards the last hour was when we were all ready to get out of the car. We all had to go to the bathroom and were tired of being on the road. We some how ended up in Gary Indiana but we eventually found our way to Chicago. We werent even supposed to be in Chicago though, we didnt go through it to get to Virginia. But from Chicago the traffic was kind of ridiculous so it took us longer to get home. We ended up making it home though and it was earlier then expected because Illinois is an hour behind Virginia so we got home around 3:30? All in all it was a great trip and I'm so happy for Jackie and Brian.

Virginia Day 3

Our last full day in Virginia was Sunday. Everyone else in my mom's family left on Sunday morning but we stayed and went to Washington DC. We got up early and drove to the train station and took the metra orange line. We were instructed to take it down to the Smithsonian stop by my aunt. However, since they were working on the railroad tracks we had to get off the train half way and take a bus to the next train station and get back on the train until our Smithsonian stop. It was quite annoying but in the end we made it to Washington DC. We went to the Smithsonian Museum first and walked around some exhibits there for a while. Next we went to the Holocaust Museum and after that we walked all around DC and went to the monuments. Everything we did in DC that day ended up being free so all we had to pay for was our train tickets which was under $20.
We lucked out because it just so happened to be free day at the Holocaust museum so we didn't even have to pay to get in there.














The Capital

































































The Holocaust Museum



















Washington Monument







































World War 2 Memorial



























The Lincoln Memorial


























































The reflecting pool was under construction













Me on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Virginia Day 2

Saturday was our second day in Virginia. We all slept in and then had our free continental breakfast at the hotel that morning. We also went swimming for a little while and then my mom and I drove around town to look at some of the old shops around Virginia. After that we were all just hanging out in the hotel room until we had to start getting ready for the wedding. Luckily I brought my laptop along and I got free Internet access at the hotel.
At 4:30 we all met up with the rest of the family so we could make it to White Hall Manor which is where the wedding was held. Unfortunately it was down poring the entire day on Saturday so the brides plan was to move her outdoor wedding indoors. Luckily she did have a plan B just in case it rained. She was still upset though because she really wanted to have her wedding outside among all the trees and flowers. In the end it turned out to be a sunny gorgeous day and she was able to hold her ceremony outside.




















The Ceremony was beautiful! The bridesmaids all wore chocolate brown dresses of different styles. The groomsmen were decked out in there matching tuxedos with orange converse high tops on that they had all got as a special gift from the groom.
After the ceremony we all gathered around for a bunch of photos with the photographer and then we celebrated with an awesome reception!












Brother of the bride escorting mother of the bride.





























Before we started raising the roof with the DJ the maid of honor and best man did a speech. The brides dad also said a few words and showed some old pictures of course. It was all very touching but the most touching was a video letter from Abel. Abel would be my moms nephew as well as all of ours cousin. He is an army ranger and he's fighting in Iraq right now. He couldnt be in VA for the wedding but the brides dad was able to get a hold of him and get a video message from him. They played the video letter at the wedding and it was a very emotional moment. He said hi to everyone and gave his well wishes to Jackie and her new husband. Nobody knew about this, not even Abels parents or sisters who were at the wedding. Everyone was very emotional and started balling when it happend.
After that we all ate dinner and partied until late in the night.


Kristi and our cousin Arayana- Abels sister.





















After the reception we all went to Sal's NY Bar and Grill right next to the hotel and we partied, drank, and danced some more.