I had an incredible time in Chicago. While there I was able to visit my cousin Jack and good friend Josh. Below are some pictures from the trip.

View from Josh’s apartment.

My first day there I had the privilege to sit in on a closed rehearsal for a play my cousin Jack was directing. I took many pictures of this.

Before they began rehearsal Jack led the cast in a warm-up routine called viewpoint acting. This was incredibly interesting because during this exercise Jack would introduce numerous stimuli (playing music, flickering lights, dodge-balls hurling towards their heads) and the actors would then have to react impromptu as they felt led.

Watching Jack direct and involve himself in the growth of each character as the rehearsal progressed was ridiculously entertaining and inspiring to say the least.

My last day in Chicago landed me a short ride on the blue-line with Josh and into Wicker Park.

We met Jill and Chad in the actual park located in Wicker Park. She was shooting a demo reel for a Chicago based traveling show.

Josh’s good looks and my insatiable curiosity got us interviewed by Jill.

I have countless (about 1300) more pictures I could post. But this is all I have the energy for right now. Now I am going to celebrate Ashley’s birthday.

This fall I will have the privilege of traveling to Sulaymaniyah, Iraq with my friend Michael Dalton to shoot a documentary covering an organization called Buy Shoes Save Lives.

In preparation for this journey we have created a blogsite to document our travels and progress. We also created a little video.

Mike’s site promotion from Michael Dalton on Vimeo.

We greatly appreciate the support and prayers of our friends and family and anyone else who wishes to follow our endeavor. So, please explore our site and shoot us an email with questions or encouragement if you have it.

While I am in Chicago I will not have time to post many pictures. So here is a mess of them from today. Enjoy.

Did I mention I am hanging out with Josh Owen in Chicago? Good times ahead.

Tony Adams made us an incredible meal for lunch today.

Then he insisted that we take photos of ourselves jowling.

The Chef himself.

Mancel sort of looks like a character from the Simpsons.

We left feeling nauseated.

… or is it?

Some of my friends over at Maven recently had a challenge to see who could hold two iMac boxes in the air for the longest amount of time. Amidst the competitors were JonPaul Douglass and Alastair Sterne.

I swiped this video from their blog which you can read here.

MAVEN Man Challenge #1 from MAVEN on Vimeo.