Monday morning greetings to all!

It was kind of like how “Gilligan’s Island” started with what was supposed to be a three hour cruise! I didn’t get to ride my Harley very much last year because of being out of town and swamped with work. This year I’ve vowed to change that! Most of us here in the Midwest knew that the weekend was going to be gorgeous and I wanted to get out for my first “real” ride of the year. On Saturday morning I headed down to Hannibal, Mo. and then worked my way north along the Mississippi River. I stopped for a late lunch in Keokuk, Ia. and when I went to restart the bike, the battery was dead. I tried to push start it with the help of a good samaritan and had no luck getting it going. Now, you just don’t run over to Wal-mart to get a battery for a Harley and the closest dealership was an hour away. After trying a couple of different options locally, I called my lovely girlfriend Jan, who drove over to Keokuk with a battery charger in hopes that we could get the bike started that evening. We ended up spending he night and charged the battery overnight. I had talked with my local service guy at the Harley dealership and he told me one of two things that could happen. If it was the battery and I could get the bike started, once I got it running and didn’t shut the bike off, I could ride back to Peoria and the bike’s alternator would power the bike and I’d be fine. If the problem was with the alternator, the bike would run until the battery went dead and the bike would shut down. On Sunday morning, we got the somewhat charged battery back in the bike and we’re able to get it started. As we started back to Peoria, I was watching the bikes volt meter drop and when the dashboard electronics went dead and the bike was still running, I thought I was going to be fine and make it home. About two minutes later the bike started to sputter and I knew that I’d better find a spot to pull off on the side of the road! Sure enough, it was the alternator and the bike was completely dead.

After making a number of phone calls with the cell phone (never leave home without it), I was able to get a flat bed wrecker to pick up the bike on Sunday morning out in the middle of nowhere and take the bike up to the Galesburg, Il. dealership and drop it off. The bike is there now and they should be able to get it all fixed up at some point this week! We ended up getting back to Peoria around 2:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon, so my little day ride became a two day adventure!!!!!!

Oh well, sometimes that the way life goes and all you can do is keep a smile on your face and realize that things could be a whole lot worse!!!!! Sure it’s inconvenient and a pain in the butt to deal with, but in the grand scheme of life, it’s not all that bad!!!!!!

I hope that you have a great week and know that you’re weekend was probably a lot less eventful than mine!!!!

Kev

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Monday morning greetings!

As most of you know, I love shooting cars and bikes! A good buddy and I teamed up to shoot another bike in the studio recently. The bike is a custom “one off” bike from Chicago bike builder Johnny Legend. One of the things that was pretty cool about this bike is that it has no kick-stand. When you want to park the bike, there’s a motor and pump which lowers the bike right to the ground and a couple of pads protect the frame from scratching the paint! Not bad!!!!!

Thanks as always and I hope that you have an outstanding week!!!!!!

Kev

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Incredibly sunny warm greetings from Pioneer Park!!!!!

Today is the start of year 18 of self-employment, can you believe that? Wow, where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday that I was going to Bradley University and also working as an assistant photographer. Well, I’ve got a few more years of work in me, so it’s time to get busy!!!!!

I got to work on a great project last week shooting in three Mueller Company factories down South and the fun thing was that I got to do some “mood” lighting and have a little fun. It’s not always easy making a factory setting look good, but I think that we did it last week!!!!!

Enjoy the week and make it a good one!!!!!

Kev

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Wednesday morning greetings!

Being a photographer is sometimes very “voyeuristic” and I’m involved in people’s lives and moments. I had one of those special moments last Saturday. Phil Hook is a semi-truck driver for Caterpillar (23 years and 4,500,000 miles) and last Saturday he was coming home for the last time before retiring at the end of April. When Phil arrived back at Caterpillar’s Mossville facility, his family, friends and co-workers were there to welcome him back home. It was one of those very special moments that I got to participate in and share with all those people. It’s something that I’ll never forget!

Here’s one of my slideshows from the day and I hope that you enjoy it! “Phil’s last Run”

Thanks as always,

Kev