kansas city

My hometown, the city of fountains, home of the Royals and Chiefs. Birthplace of great BBQ, Charlie Parker, and me.

HTML5 disturbingly close to bringing a tear to my eye

2 September 2010 in kansas city, music | 1 comment

Aw, man. It just got a little dusty in my office at Cooper. Seeing my old childhood home in Leawood, Kansas will do that, especially when the Arcade Fire provides the soundtrack and when Google engineers work with a music video director to create the experience.

8710 Lee Blvd - Wilderness downtown

The photo above is from an “interactive video” called “The Wilderness Downtown,” and it’s actually as technologically interesting as it is emotionally-provocative. (It’s especially emo if the Google Maps satellite imagery from your home looks appropriately old and nostalgic; see image above). Anyway, it’s referred to as an “experiment” with Google’s Chrome browser, which is probably why, at times, it started to feel like a showcase of whizzy HTML5 elements — windows get launched and shuffled around; you’re asked to scribble on the screen; graphics are animated and layered. I don’t know, maybe I’m just the right mix of cheeseball and geek, but it kind of worked for me.

Royal-ly sucking

15 July 2009 in baseball, kansas city | No comments

Zack Greinke’s lockdown pitching during the bottom of the fourth inning of tonight’s All-Star game made me wonder: When was the last time a Royal looked great in an All-Star game? Of course Bo Jackson’s epic home run to lead off the 1989 All-Star game comes to mind. Royals Review helpfully offers a brief history of Royal participation in the All-Star game over the past decade.

  • 2008: Joakim Soria named, pitched one and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief.
  • 2007: Gil Meche named, did not play.
  • 2006: Mark Redman named, did not play.
  • 2005: Mike Sweeney named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 7th.
  • 2004: Ken Harvey named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 3rd.
  • 2003: Mike MacDougal and Sweeney named, neither appeared.
  • 2002: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Paul Konerko at 1B in the 7th inning, flied out to right in the 9th inning.
  • 2001: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Jason Giambi at first in the 8th inning, flied out to right in the 8th inning.
  • 2000: Jermaine Dye voted to start, Mike Sweeney named. Sweeney pinch-hit for James Baldwin in the 4th, reaching on an error. Sweeney did not appear in the field. Dye walked once and struck out.

Yeah, not so illustrious.

Kansas City / Home for the holidays

8 January 2007 in kansas city, the ancient past | No comments

Flickr photo



I love Flickr, but the good times are killing me. It’s got too many amazing high-def and beautifully composed photos. How do they do it? After doing some research, I decided to step up my game and picked up a fancypants camera. Above is one of the first pictures I took with it, a panorama of downtown Kansas City from the Liberty Memorial. The bent horizon is the result of a cheap-o fish-eye attachment that I bought on Amazon. I used the 30D/fish-eye setup throughout the holidays, as you’ll see in this set, and while I had fun, I also had the inevitable realization that an equipment upgrade doesn’t automatically result in glorious, high-def photos. Back to the drawing board. Or the dark room. Or the Internet forums.

While I was in KC, I sampled some of its finest. I visited some homegrown letterpress printers (Hammerpress), ate some legendary BBQ (Fiorella’s Jack Stack in Martin City and Gates on Main), and made a pilgrimage to a basketball temple (Allen Fieldhouse, to witness KU’s run-and-gun thumping of Boston College). All in all, a merry and bright time.