#8: Introduce a friend to the wonder that is Sherman’s ice cream and #61: Take a friend to the beach were both completed when I brought a friend home with me for the weekend and gave them a lovely touristy overview of my town. Meaning we went to the beach, and walked along the shore, even though it was spring and it was cold.

Then we went to Sherman’s Ice Cream and partook of some of the interesting flavors they offer. I had my favorite, Chocomania, which is dark chocolate ice cream with fudge and truffles and anything chocolate inside. It is sooooo rich, but I love it. My friend tried Birthday Cake, which I never had before but it tasted just like a birthday cake! We discussed how you could skip the cake and ice cream deal with this stuff and just get Birthday Cake ice cream for a kid’s party. I might even do that for my own birthday party someday! Haha! Why not?!

So, what’s your favorite brand and flavor of ice cream? Have you ever had Sherman’s?

The first fresh blanket of winter white always manages to take my breath away. But never have I seen a first snowfall come this heavy or fast. Usually the tips of the green grass are still sticking up for a week or more before there’s enough snow to cover it and not melt in a day. But today it started snowing, and didn’t stop… and it’s sticking. After about three hours, there was four inches of snow on the ground. I ran back to my apartment, grabbed my new camera (I bought the Canon Rebel T1i over Thanksgiving break), and ran back on to campus and took photos of the freshly fallen snow.

Of course, I was not alone out there, even though it was eleven at night by then. Plenty of other people were already out making snowmen, having snowball fights, and taking their own photos of the first snow of the season. Walking around in such a beautiful snowy world put a goofy grin on my face and just made my day.

In my excitement, I’ve already uploaded a few photos on my flickr tonight. Nothing like enthusiasm of fresh snow to get my motivation going.

So Monday and Tuesday this week, I spent around 25 hours on set for the movie What’s Wrong with Virginia? I found a link online that said they were filming in my hometown, so I clicked on it and read about it, and it had a link at the bottom to go sign up to be an extra. So… I clicked it and signed up!

It ended up being two days of very little sleep and long days of waiting around on set just being fascinated by the film crew, and a little time where you’re actually doing something useful while filming. I was cast as a hot dog vendor with three other guys, so I spent most of my time inside a little glass box that blocked the cold, under 50ºF winds and got to warm my hands on the heat lamps for the french fries. The other extras played tourists on Virginia beach on a hot Labor Day afternoon. HAH! Some warm Labor Day. Everyone was shivering and got to wear coats in between sets.

There were, however a few celebrities on camera. Jennifer Connelly plays the crazy ex-wife of Ed Harris, who is a sheriff running for State Senate. Toby Jones has a part. He plays Dobby the House Elf’s voice in the Harry Potter movies. There was one guy who was cast from Michigan playing Dale, the friend of the sheriff’s son, Emmett who was played by a guy cast from Australia. Dale has a cool death scene that was right outside my hot dog stand, so I got to witness that being filmed about two dozen times from inside there.

I’m so glad that Michigan passed the film incentives and is bringing the film industry into Michigan. It’s a beautiful state that can use the economic boost of Hollywood films. And a big thanks to TicTock Studios as well for being one of the first film studios to cater to Michigan. I hope to see lots more film productions coming to Michigan. I greatly enjoyed my teensy acting experience, and would like to be an extra again in the future.

It was supposed to be, drive up north, stay at a hotel, ski on a big mountain. But things kept getting in the way. My ski boot didn’t fit so I would have to rent, my brother didn’t want to go, my mom doesn’t ski, so it was just gonna be me and my dad going to a closer ski hill a little ways from home. (Note: hill, not mountain.) Then there was a two for one deal at the place closest to us that I’ve been going to for years with my school’s Ski Club… so that’s where we went.

It was still fun! I haven’t been skiing in like two years, but I picked it up fast enough. Got a few pictures of the place, meanwhile freezing my hand off to do so. And that was the extent of my spring break “ski trip.” Spending three hours at my local ski hill. Woo!

So my art department went on its semesterly trip to Chicago last Tuesday. We went to the Art Institute of Chicago and to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and of course I brought my camera and took many photographs. So I thought I’d give a narrated tour of my trip to Chicago in pictures.

Part One – Art Institute

We took three charter buses at about 8am Eastern Time and left Grand Rapids to get to the Art Institute fifteen minutes before opening at 10:30am Central Time.

Art Institute Lobby

Now, I’ve been to the Art Institute half a dozen times in the last 18 months, I have the place memorized forwards and backwards, and since we weren’t on any sort of tour, I hit up all my favorite rooms. I oogled my favorite painting in the impressionists wing again and looked at all the Miniature Thorn Rooms that I have a fascinating book on at home. There was some spectacular photography by Yousuf Karsh in the basement as well.

Part Two – Park

Cloud Gate "The Bean"

Once I had skipped through all the exhibits I wanted, me and a small group of people walked through Millennium Park in 20ºF winter weather. It’s my policy, that any chance you have to see “the bean” in Chicago, do it. So, we went to the bean!

And as is tradition for most people with the bean, you always take fun self portraits. Here is one of mine.

Self Portrait in the Bean

After that, we made our way into the nearby Giordano’s Pizzeria for lunch. My four friends split a large deep dish pizza. But I’m a sucker for pasta so I ordered a delicious plate of cheese ravioli. I don’t regret it, though I’ve still never had deep dish pizza. Hahaha!

Part Three – Cultural Center

Fat Pigeons

So we backtrack a little bit and go to the Cultural Center which I still, to this day, don’t quite understand it’s purpose. But we saw some enormously fat pigeons and two more small art exhibits which were not that fascinating.

Cultural Center

Though one thing I love about the Cultural Center is the fact that it used to be the public library and they have amazing tiled ceilings with famous author’s names and quotes about books and reading and several glass domes inside.

Part Four – Hike

Frozen Chicago River

After that, it was a journey across the city to the Museum of Contemporary Art.  Along the way we crossed the Chicago River which I had never seen frozen. It was cool. (Haha! Get it? “Cool?”)

Me and the Silver Moose

Then we walked past on of the coolest scupltures ever. I just call it the silver moose. I got my picture taken with it because meese (yes, meese) are one of my favorite animals and it’s just full of bad assery.

Then, I made sure we stopped into the Apple store. I had to update my Twitter,  of course! Apple Stores are always fun though. And they’re a safe bet when you’re a broke college student because you know you can’t walk out with any purchases because it’s all too expensive. Yay!

Part Five – MCA

We finally made it to the Museum of Contemporary Art which had really awesome exhibits but they were dumb and didn’t allow photography. Still, there were these awesome light exhibits by Jenny Holzer that would have been awesomely fun to photograph but their security guards watched like hawks and were rude. But here are two videos of the different installations on the MCA website.

Orange Floor Installation

Purple

I also got a picture of the underside of their staircase which is really cool and sculptural, if not oddly uncomfortable to walk up.

MCA Staircase

And that was the end of the trip! Other than the bus ride back home where I got bored and started taking long exposure shots of car and street lights going by. Go here to see a map of the full route I walked and buildings I visited.