Reno . NV

Sparks is to Reno : Blue Springs is to Kansas City. I recently had to travel to Sparks, NV for a job that i have been working on for a couple months. I always thought, as I think many people do, of Reno as being sort of a micro Las Vegas. Not so much....it's more of a flat dust bowl, but the geography was pretty cool.

Fantasy Football 2008

photo from si.com

Many Fantasy owners were faced with difficult decisions in this year's draft. None more difficult than where to draft the guy that consistently made defenses look like division II-A college teams. Then halfway through the first quarter that guy and millions of fantasy owner's saw their season's go up in smoke. granted with some unlikely candidates stepping up this year, in most cases a replacement could found, but no one who is going to put up similar stats to what Tom Brady was expected to. I luckily chose to pass on him in one of my leagues, and he was drafted 3 picks before i had the chance to get him in my other league.

The beginning to this young season has been filled with surprises and a lot of fantasy owner's are still waiting for their top picks to produce the numbers that all of the experts projected them to. These experts study these player's statistics more than Kansas City Chiefs fans complain about Herm Edwards and Carl Peterson, and that is a lot. For example 7 of the top 10 point producing players this year are quarterbacks....unprecedented. 2 of the top 10 are running backs & 1 is a wide receiver. To many people, it is obsurd that Aaron Rogers and Jay Cutler have produced more points than players like Ladanian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson, Randy Moss & Terrell Owens. To make matters even more unbelievable, no one (even the TMR - talented Mr. Roto) would have believed you if you were to say that after 2 weeks of this young NFL season, LT and AP the consensus number 1 & 2 picks in this years drafts, would not even be in the top 20. I was lucky enough to draft a team that had Adrian Peterson as a keeper pick from last year, which means even before the draft began I supposedly had an unfair advantage. The rest of the owner's in this league were even more upset when by luck of the draw, I got the number 1 overall pick as well. A fantasy team with a backfield made up of Adrian Peterson & LaDanian Tomlinson was a dream come true. Big Ben at QB and Braylon Edwards, Marques Colston, Patrick Crayton & Tony Gonzales catching passes...This team is going to put up numbers that no one can compete with....right?
It was debated prior to this season, but to me it has been confirmed. It is no longer necessary to have stud running backs to succeed in fantasy football even if those studs are LT & AP, especially with so many teams utilizing the RBBC (running back by committee) approach.

What I have been up to...

This is a project that I have been working on for a while that is finally nearing completion. It is a women's lifestyle boutique located in Leawood, Kansas in the new One Nineteen Development. (grand opening this thursday).

A few weeks ago I traveled up to Toronto to see my girlfriend who was working up there for the summer (she'll be done in 3 days back home on friday). It seemed like the summer flew by, I don't know if it was because I have been so busy or because we both have great friends who kept us "up" when we were "down." While in Cananda Shelly & I celebrated 1 year of being together by having some great food in downtown Toronto, followed by a trip to Niagara Falls and watched the sunset on Lake Ontario. Despite having some ridiculous flight trouble that turned my 3-day weekend into a 5-day vacation, I had a great weekend and was thrilled to spend some time with Shelly.

Trans Siberian Orchestra.
12*8*07

"Private" Garth Brooks show.
mic check...is this thing on?

This was one of the most amazing experiences i have ever been a part of. This was on the last day of Garth's week long concert series in Kansas City, a "sound check." In reality it was a 2 hour concert consisting of Garth, his band & the 300 or so people that were lucky enough to sit back and watch. It was more than a concert though... Garth talked about life, family & music all while playing his guitar and singing his number 1 hits.

from the cheap seats.

relatively speaking that is... I don't know if I consider myself lucky or stupid at this point. The day started out by shelling out a rediculous $22 to park in the royals lot directly behind the construction barricade chain link fence which ended up blocking about 50 cars in as we were trying to leave, thats a whole story in itself. We then walked across to the opposite end of the parking lot to a friend's tailgate, where a different friend had just got back from the scalper area and proceeded to tell us, "I just sold my tickets for $250 a piece! honey are you ready to go home or do you want to stay and get drunk?" The first thought in my head was to try to sell the tickets that I had for around that price which would have been too easy...then someone else gets back and he says "dude, they're going for $600 a piece for lower level seats!" At that time I was determined I could get at least $1000 for my seats which as you can see from the photos below were crazy, so crazy that the Packer's fans sitting directly to my left felt they needed to pay $780 for thier two seats. At that time I thought to myself how upset I would've been 10 years down the road knowing I had a chance to see one of if not the greatest quarterbacks of all time play in a stadium which in my opinion rivals alot of the new venues being built around the country for nearly 1/4 of the price the people sitting right beside me. There is absolutely no way that you can put a value on the excitement and energy felt in arrowhead stadium on a sunday afternoon, especially while sitting in one of the best seats in the house.

as you can see from the photos I didn't sell them for two reasons:
1. A friends first game
2. Brett Farve (future first ballot Hall of Famer)

Shelly & I tailgating at Newman's.

you haven't tailgated unless you've been to one of Newman's.

Priest Holmes returns to arrowhead.

#4 Brett Farve getting ready to make our defense look stupid.

Chicken Point Cabin

Upon visiting a friends blog found here, finding form, I remembered an architect that was brought to my attention a few weeks back. If you conduct a simple google search for Tom Kundig you will find that his work is simply amazing. "Kundig brought an extensive understanding fabrication and an incredible attention to detail. Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects is now a firm that receives national recognition for their creativity." Check out these images of one of my favorite projects.

all images from oskaarchitects.com