The Lady Boxer

Monica Rumler, a 2003 Moline H.S. graduate, poses in the driveway of her family's Moline home as her mother Valerie Rumler and nephew Angel Perez sit in the shade of the garage on Friday afternoon, August 29, 2008. Rumler, who now lives in Sunny Isles, Fla., had been boxing only six months before winning the 2008 Women's National Golden Gloves title in the featherweight division.

Rock Island Grand Prix

So this weekend is the Rock Island Grand Prix in downtown Rock Island, apparently one of the bigger go-kart racing events in the country. My assignment was to shoot video for today's qualifying rounds, which you can see here. I grabbed this shot of a guy taking a nap in one of the staging areas.

Here's a link for the Day 2 video.

Fire

We had a pretty raging fire at a vacant home in Rock Island today. The house was unoccupied due to damage from another fire earlier in the summer. It was a good thing no one was there because this fire ended up collapsing the roof.

Seattle

Finally after over 2,000 miles we reached Seattle around 7:30pm on Sunday night. We stayed with a friend of Brad's at her place in a pretty trendy neighborhood just up the hill from downtown. We had a vegan pot luck dinner and played a board game in excellent hipster fashion. The next morning Brad and I headed down to Pike Place Market for a delicious breakfast of pan fried halibut, hashbrowns, eggs, beer and a look around the market. It was a very brief look at the city, but enough to make me want to come back soon. I flew back to Chicago Monday night where my Dad picked me up and we headed back to Rock Island. It was an excellent trip.

Day 4

On day four of our advizenture we drove to Missoula, Montana (home of the University of Montana) for breakfast. We ate at a pretty classic place called the Uptown Diner and had some delicious food thanks to Allison the amazing diner girl. Sadly we had to leave fairly quickly to get a move on to Seattle. We had great weather the whole time until close to Seattle when it started to rain. Typical Seattle move.

Up High: Seattle Trip Part 2

On the third day of our expedition we made a deviation off I-90 and into the northern part of Yellowstone National Park. It added a few hours to the drive, but was well worth it for the scenery. That night we made our way to basically a truck stop outside Butte, Montana for the night where we watched a bad Vin Diesel movie and drank some Moose Drool beer.

Westward Ho Part 1

So on Thursday afternoon after work my friend and fellow former Daily Illini photographer Brad Vest and I set off for Seattle where in a week or so he will start his internship at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. We made it to Mitchell, South Dakota around 3am Thursday night after stopping in Omaha for dinner and a few beers with the one and only Josh Birnbaum. On Friday we made our way through the Badlands National Park and Mt. Rushmore and finally ended up in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Spot News

On Monday I shot a big spot news event in East Moline. Allegedly this guy robbed a dominos and when law enforcement tried to serve a warrant for his arrest, he holed up in his house. They sent in the SWAT team and this whole block was sealed off by Police and the Sheriff's Department. In the first picture, the woman crying is the girlfriend of the alleged offender. The baby was in the house and the woman holding the baby is her cousin who with the help of the Police got the baby safely out of the house. It was a pretty dramatic scene and luckily everything ended peacefully.

Tucker

Tucker Anderson is 7 years old and has both cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Last summer he was granted a wish from a foundation to send him to Disney World, but on his way he got sick and couldn't go. His family is trying to raise money to take him again this year. Despite his ailments he seems like a very happy kid, playing in the yard with parents, the family's 3 dogs and best friend Brittany, his neighbor from across the street who is also 7 and has cerebral palsy. I spent about an hour or so with a reporter hanging out with the family and kids in the front yard of their East Moline home on Thursday.

Up, up, and back down...

I went with my friend Jesse to watch her little brother shoot off a rocket the other day. It was a bit anti-climactic since the chute didn't fire and it broke so they only got to launch it the once.

Rally at the Rock

I shot the kick-off for the school year party at my old high school today. Looked a pretty fun time for all. Back in my day we didn't have such things.

ASA 18 & Under National Tournament

The Amateur Softball Association's 18 & Under National Tournament is being held here in the Quad Cities and I've been covering it 4 out of the last 5 days. I shoot a few assignments to go in the daily sports section as well as produce images for the special tournament section that is distributed at the tournament, which has a photo page every day. It's been a lot of work but it's been great to get so much play. In addition I produce a slideshow for our website for each day of the tournament.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 5