Symphony in the Flint Hills

I have always said that every place we land will have something amazing and extraordinary to offer. I think I have found my love in Kansas, it is called The Symphony in the Flint Hills. It was held on June 14th out by Council Grove, about 45 minutes from Manhattan, on traditional Kaw Territory less than two miles from the Santa Fe Trail. The concert was performed by the Kansas City Symphony on privately owned ranchland.

The concert moves every year, “The Flint Hills have many faces. Each year moving the symphony to different sites-traveling from county to county, we honor our beloved tallgrass prairie and our plains heritage with music as big as the western sky.”

The idea is 5000 people come and brings chairs and drinks and sit on the land and listen to music. There are no lights, so the concert is during the day. Matter of fact, there is no infrastructure at all (unless you bring your own chair). There is just a tent for the symphony to play in.

From what I hear it is quite an honor to have your land picked as the home of this annual event. This year it was on a ranch. And at one point the song from the beef commercial, Aaron Copland's Rodeo, was played while men on horseback herded cattle in the background. It was amazing.

The night began with the whole crowd standing with hand over heart as the National Anthem was played and ended with that same crowd back on its feet and hands placed on hearts as the symphony finished with Home on the Range. Again…it was amazing.

Check out the pictures.

Mega Disasters: Dam Break

My Tuttle Creek Dam project will appear on the History Channel tonight. The project earned a spot on the show, Mega Disasters: Dam Breaks. Mega Disasters is looking at Dam Breaks and our project will show the positive; mitigating the disaster before it happens. The show will start at 9:00pm central time.

The Tuttle Creek Dam Stabilization is a US Army Corp of Engineers project that HWS is working in conjunction with Treviicos South and Bayer Construction. The purpose of the project is to protect the dam against possible failure. The dam currently sits on a fault line and the experience of a 6.6 magnitude earthquake would cause the natural sands under the slopes of the dam to liquefy (literally become quick sand) and loose their ability to support the dam and send about 425,300 acre-feet of Tuttle Creek Lake flooding into the City of Manhattan, only 5 miles away.

The solution was to build approximately 375 transverse shear walls running the length of the dam. The walls are approximately 60 foot deep, 45 foot long and 3 foot wide. The project has been broken up into 3 stages and we are currently in the final phase of the project, the Main Option. We have completed 32 of the walls and will continue work on the 251 walls till the end of 2009.

Dos cervezas por favor.

Ricky and I spent a week in Mexico at the end of May. The hotel we stayed at was absolutely gorgeous, the Excellence in Riviera Mia. My pictures of our room do it no justice. It does not even show the marble shower that was the size of our spare room. The shower was huge and beautiful…but I almost fell on my face twice! That marble gets slick.

We met so many nice couples and spent out time drinking, eating, playing sports and reading (pretty much in that order). I still stand firm that All Inclusive is the only way to go. It was awesome. They had live performances every night and then a bar turned in a “disco” every night and had some sort of theme. I believe a posted a picture from karaoke night, our fun new friends singing Ebony and Ivory. Again, the people we met were great!!

The place had 10 restaurants and Ricky and I agree that Spice, the Asian restaurant, was the best. Although everywhere was great and a few of our favorites were the Italian, French, and the Lobster House.

One thing I do regret…I did not get a nice picture of the two of us together. I did get a couple pictures of us together one night, but they are terrible…I posted them anyways.

There's No Place Like Home

Last night Manhattan was hit with it's first tornado in 62 years. I am glad to report that everyone is safe, but the damage to the houses in the Miller's Ranch area of the city was amazing. In an effort to help this victims of this disaster, our Head Coach, Ron Prince, got our entire organization together, players included, and had us all help in the clean up at Miller's Ranch.
On our way from the football complex to the affected neighborhood, we saw the first signs of the disater. A True Value hardware shop that Jen and I shop at was completely destroyed. Nothing was left.
As we made our way up to the neighborhood, fallen trees were everywhere. Cars were destroyed; 2x4 were lodged in the sides of houses and roofs were destroyed. We could not believe our eyes, but it only got worse.
The next neighborhood is where the main part of the tornado hit. Houses were completely destroyed and cars were flipped upside down. In one area, a man's 2007 Honda was in his neighbor's yard...upside down...across the street. This is the neighborhood where our team did most of our work.
Though extremely depressing to watch as people rumaged though what was left of their lives, all I could think was that it was a miracle that no one was killed. To see the devastation and to know that no one was seriously hurt was mind boggling.
It was also amazing to see the community spirit at work. Everyone was chipping in, and the victims were genuinely thankful and at times up beat. I think it gave our players, and coaches, a new perspective on the important things in life (family, friendship, caring, etc.).
Though the day was hard work, it felt good to accomplish something and to have a chance to help people in need while also teaching our players a life lesson.

The Tornado also hit the K-State campus. Pictures can be found on the link below.

http://www.found.ksu.edu/tornado_relief_album/index.html



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH5cWky6KSs&feature=related

Office Pranks!!

We have been known to pull a couple pranks while people are away from the HWS office. Although, I had not been the brunt of one, I have been quite the instigator.

In anticipation of my week away, I locked all my personal belongings away and hoped for the best.

To my dismay (not really, I thought it was pretty funny) the following pictures where how I found my desk this morning. Not to mention, all of those important things that were locked away had been easily broken into and filled completely with confetti and my chair wheels had been taken off and all five wheels were placed across the office, included one that was taped to the ceiling.

Lastly, every piece of paper and picture and candle was upside down. It was quite impressive.

Safe to say, it made my first day back a bunch of fun!

All Hail Kansas

We had a little bit of hail last week. I was able to get my car out of the storm and into our garage, but I have a picture of a hail ball from our front yard.

We also took a quick ride to the area it hit worse, at the airport, and about 50-60% of car windows were smashed completely and the dents in the hoods of cars are TERRIBLE! I should have taken pictures out there, but people kept coming out and seeing their cars for the first time…we felt bad taking pictures of their misfortune. However we do have a picture of my friends girlfriends car.

At least we came back from Mexico to good weather. haha