Kids Say the Darnedest Things

Kid in yellow to girl in pink: "I'm gonna punch you in the gut." No joke.

Rescuing the Rescuers

Two Rock Island Firefighters in a small boat were pulled back to safety from the choppy waters around the Milan Steel Dam across the Rock River on Tuesday afternoon, September 23. The firefighters along with other emergency responders were searching for an unidentified 20 year old female last seen swimming near the dam who reportedly went under. Officials at the scene said they were switching from rescue operations to recovery, but the condition of the woman is still unknown.

Sk8

Armando Rosas Jr., 14, his brother Diego Rosas, 12, and their friend Juan Aguirre, 11, skateboard at an abandoned gas station near the corner of 5th Ave. and 11th St. in Moline on Monday evening, September 22. The spot is a favorite skating ground for the boys.

Robot!

Today I took some shots of the unveiling of a new surgical robotic system at a hospital. Cindy Sackfield-Deisenroth of Rock Island volunteered to wear this robot suit and point the way to the demonstration room. I submitted a different shot for the paper, but I still like this one too.

Arrowhead Ranch Round-Up

I went to this auction fund raiser for Arrowhead Ranch in Coal Valley, Ill., which is a residential treatment center for at-risk youth. Every year they hold this big auction to raise operating funds and people from around the Quad Cities come out to support them. There were a lot of interesting people looking at a lot of interesting junk.

River Trail

Yesterday on the second day of Maria's visit we rode bikes down the River Way trail from Sunset Park in Rock Island to downtown Moline and back. It was an extremely nice day and lots of interesting stuff to take pictures of on the way.

Chillin', Maxin' Relaxin'

Out for a Walk

Ted Butler, 42, of Madison, Wis. walks along 6th Ave. under the I-74 overpass in Moline on Monday afternoon, September 15. Butler is passing through the Quad-Cities on his way to New York City, walking across the country, a journey which he started in Santa Monica, Calif. in November 2007. Butler is using the walk to help promote his website, talkingaboutus.com, which advocates the importance of education and building a more participatory democracy.

Rain Video

Today, due to rain again, the event I was supposed to do a video on was canceled so instead of nothing, I made a little tribute to rain feature video for our website. Thanks to Andy Wicklund, I got to use a track by his band Dragon Fire Parade in the video. I think it turned out pretty well for a somewhat different online feature.

Watch it here.

More Rain

Tony (Right) and Tyler Harmon of Milan ride bikes through rain water flooding 3rd Ave. in Milan between 3rd and 2nd streets on Saturday afternoon, September 13. "My wife said there were puddles so we thought we'd go hit them with the bikes," said Tony Harmon.



Jake Montague plays with his dog Marley in the driveway of his home on 3rd Ave. in Milan on Saturday afternoon, September 13. Rain flooded sections of streets and basements around downtown Milan including this portion of 3rd Ave. between 1st and 3rd streets.

Rain

Today I had an assignment to shoot a 5 time state horse shoes champion but it was canceled due to rain; I found this out of course after I already left the office. It was supposed to be held at Edison Jr. High in Rock Island so I just stuck around and took pictures of football practice in the rain.

Storm Troopers like Bratwurst

Charles Packard of West Des Moines, Iowa finishes eating a bratwurst at the 26th annual Riverfront Pops at Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport on Saturday evening, September 6. Packard dressed as a Storm Trooper along with others in conjunction with the concert which featured the music of John Williams performed by the Quad City Symphony Orchestra.

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.