No, I did NOT mock up this logo myself. Found it on their site. Anyone who knows me knows my art skillz don’t reach far beyond MS Paint.
But wait! There’s more! From the Department of Unannounced News, I was privileged to catch the following tonight, courtesy of Tony Troxell at Geeking in Indiana, which you should visit for more fun and geeking:
https://twitter.com/IndianaGeeking/status/481603262114971649
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
This year marked the fourth time my wife and I attended the Indy 500 Festival Parade in downtown Indianapolis. The next five entries (to be posted over the next three days as quickly as time and endurance permit) represent a fraction of the pics my wife and I snapped. In many cases, encores and additional takes of specific subjects may be available if anyone out there is interested in seeing more, or is looking for a loved one who was in one of the many marching bands that day. For first-time MCC visitors, please note my wife and I are relative amateurs, obviously not trained professional photographers, sharing these from a hobbyist standpoint because fun and joy.
What we’ve seen so far:
Part 1: The Special Guests
Part 2: Marching Bands and Other Groups
Part 3: Some of Your Qualifying Drivers
Part 4: Floats and Balloons!
Here in Part 5, the grand finale: pics of parade participants in peculiar positions. Exhibit A: the mysteriously patriotic float known as “Michael the Eagle” ran into trouble on Monument Circle when a tree caught his Uncle Sam hat and threatened to bowl him over like a tenpin. Oh, the humanity!
Right this way for the float that nearly sunk, tourists in the parade, and a fond farewell!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
This year marked the fourth time my wife and I attended the Indy 500 Festival Parade in downtown Indianapolis. The next five entries (to be posted over the next three days as quickly as time and endurance permit) represent a fraction of the pics my wife and I snapped. In many cases, encores and additional takes of specific subjects may be available if anyone out there is interested in seeing more, or is looking for a loved one who was in one of the many marching bands that day. For first-time MCC visitors, please note my wife and I are relative amateurs, obviously not trained professional photographers, sharing these from a hobbyist standpoint because fun and joy.
Part One featured the singers, actors, and other celebrities who joined this year’s parade. Part Two featured glimpses of all the marching bands who rocked the streets. Part Three were the drivers we were fortunate enough to capture. Here in Part Four, we turn to a serious study of the most essential component to any viable parade: floats and balloons!
As a shout-out to our niece, we’ll let sugary-sweet Strawberry Shortcake lead the pack.
Right this way for envoys from the worlds of Jim Henson, Dr. Seuss, PBS, and more!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
This year marked the fourth time my wife and I attended the Indy 500 Festival Parade in downtown Indianapolis. The next five entries (to be posted over the next three days as quickly as time and endurance permit) represent a fraction of the pics my wife and I snapped. In many cases, encores and additional takes of specific subjects may be available if anyone out there is interested in seeing more, or is looking for a loved one who was in one of the many marching bands that day. For first-time MCC visitors, please note my wife and I are relative amateurs, obviously not trained professional photographers, sharing these from a hobbyist standpoint because fun and joy.
Part One featured the singers, actors, and other celebrities who joined this year’s parade. Part Two featured glimpses of all the marching bands who rocked the streets. Here in Part Three, some of the thirty-three drivers in this year’s Indy 500. Since today was too busy for me to complete this entry before the race finished, the following is our collection of driver photos that came out least-worst, organized in the order in which they finished the 2014 Indianapolis 500.
This year’s winner: Ryan Hunter-Reay! This was his first Indy 500 victory.
Click here for more drivers, their families, their hats and their sunglasses!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
This year marked the fourth time my wife and I attended the Indy 500 Festival Parade in downtown Indianapolis. The next five entries (to be posted over the next three days as quickly as time and endurance permit) represent a fraction of the pics my wife and I snapped. In many cases, encores and additional takes of specific subjects may be available if anyone out there is interested in seeing more, or is looking for a loved one who was in one of the many marching bands that day. For first-time MCC visitors, please note my wife and I are relative amateurs, obviously not trained professional photographers, sharing these from a hobbyist standpoint because fun and joy.
Part One featured the singers, actors, and other celebrities who joined this year’s parade. Here in Part Two: a sampling of each of the marching bands who brought us the gift of music and the sacrifice of wearing heavy uniforms in rising temperatures. My wife knows your pain from experience, folks.
Repeated for special emphasis in the case of this particular entry: if you’re in, or know someone who’s in, one of the following bands and would like to see more photos of them, please let us know. Either leave me a note in the comments section below or use the MCC Contact form located up in the masthead. We’re used to receiving a few such requests every year and we’re more than happy to help out band members and their supporters. Between the two of us, though, we took nearly four hundred photos today. I’m not going into photo overkill mode for this entry until I know someone besides us is genuinely interested.
That being said: the following marching bands performed at the 2014 Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade:
* The Spirit of Muncie Band and Guard from Muncie Central High School. They’re leading off this entry along with a knowing nod from myself to regular MCC readers who’ve been following along with our recent Muncie photo series.
Florence Henderson, TV’s Carol Brady, Hoosier and patron saint of the Indy 500 Festival Parade.
The next five entries (to be posted over the next three days as quickly as time and endurance permit) represent a fraction of the pics my wife and I snapped. In many cases, encores and additional takes of specific subjects may be available if anyone out there is interested in seeing more, or is looking for a loved one who was in one of the many marching bands that day. For first-time MCC visitors, please note my wife and I are relative amateurs, obviously not trained professional photographers, sharing these from a hobbyist standpoint because fun and joy.
First up: publicly known faces who came to town for the occasion. Indianapolis was most excited to see the quickly appointed Grand Marshal of the Parade, Indianapolis resident Josh Kaufman, winner of the sixth and most recent season of NBC’s The Voice.
Click here for athletes, reality stars, singers, and more Mrs. Brady!
The “faith” aspect of the Midlife Crisis Crossover tagline may seem downplayed here more often than not, especially while diving into the deeper ends of geekery and pop culture, but rest assured it’s never far from my mind. What matters most, what keeps us going, what makes everything possible, what sees us through all that we do together — the hints appear around us everywhere we go.
Even on our 2013 road trip, examples weren’t hard to find. Whether it was a giant cross that would be the last thing we photographed in Ohio on our way home at the end of Day 9…
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we guided you through our annual road trip in thirty-three episodes, from Indianapolis to Boston to Cleveland to home again. Next came a three-part collection of outtakes for hardcore MCC fans or just people who like photos of places they’ve never been. Part One gave you more photos from the Boston area; Part Two, more photos around the rest of Massachusetts in general.
Here, then, in our grand finale: outtakes from everywhere and everything else we saw. Pretend these are the bonus photos you’re watching during the “Our 2013 Road Trip” end credits, while the names of myself and my wife scroll past repeatedly for every possible position we served for this production.
Speaking of which: on Day 8 in Cleveland at the A Christmas Story house, my wife Anne tried on a replica of Flick’s aviator cap, one of the perks of the house tour.
It’s that time of year again! A time for travel, a time for getting out of the house and out of town, a time for remembering what sunlight feels like, and a time for forgetting all about that nasty winter that we’ll all agree never to speak of again.
In two weeks my wife and I are heading once again up to Chicago to attend C2E2, that annual Midwest gala of a comic book convention that’s as close as we may ever come to San Diego. We’re also planning another walk around downtown Chicago, but haven’t decided on an itinerary. If you know of fantastic places or things around the Loop or the Magnificent Mile that weren’t covered in previous entries (see links below), we’re absolutely all ears.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, we shared photos from our visits over the years. With Chicago on our minds once more, it’s time to delve into the ol’ photo bag once more. Our last Chicago romp was last September, which was briefly covered here in an entry about the Gene Siskel Film Center, which for me was the highlight of the day.
Earlier in the day, we skirted once more along the shore of Lake Michigan.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Part One of a trilogy of outtake selections from this year’s family vacation photos, those that didn’t make final cut for the original 33-part narrative. Some were omitted for specific reasons; some were due to space, pacing, and attention span considerations; some, I have no idea why.
Part Two, then: Massachusetts randomness, photos held back from Day 3 to Day 6 for reasons.
Beginning with our last stop in Massachusetts on Day 6: the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in Springfield. In the original entry I opted for a comprehensive head-to-toe shot of Seuss himself and the Cat in the Hat, but I also like how this pleasantly level portrait incorporates the greenery around the museums.
At last it comes to this: the long-running photo series — chronicling our 2013 family road trip to Boston, Cleveland, and other towns along the way — concludes with one more trilogy.
I design our annual travelogues with two rules in mind: (1) each entry should comprise a story, or at least a chapter in a story, not merely a clutch of random pictures drawn from a hat; and (2) for the sake of readers with more limited devices, no entry should be bogged down with megs upon megs upon megs of photos. Sticking to my personal composition targets means a lot of photos don’t make the final lineup. I’m not convinced anyone unrelated to us would want to see all several hundred photos we took this year, but a few more shouldn’t hurt. Besides, I have selfish reasons: a 36-part saga sounds like a much nicer, rounder number than leaving it as a 33-part saga, which would invite curses and fatal feng shui errors in the site decor.
Our first batch of outtakes (plus commentary! as always! like it or not!) is entirely from our walk along Boston’s Freedom Trail and the adjacent areas, as seen in the Day Two entries from our handy, official 2013 Road Trip checklist. Up first: alternate shot of the Benjamin Franklin statue and the building behind it. I went with a head-on shot for the original entry to focus on ol’ Ben himself and make it easier to disregard the building whose name I didn’t write down. Also, it seems wrong to see Ben looking so moody.
Day Nine was the final leg of our journey, from the fair city of Cleveland to our hometown of Indianapolis. By this time my wife, my son, and I were ready to finish our gallivanting, return home, climb back into our own sleeping quarters, and swear off free hotel breakfasts for the rest of the summer. A man can only ingest so many stale mini-muffins before madness begins to creep in at the edges.
But it wouldn’t be our kind of road trip if we let a single pass without at least one stop along the way. Fortunately we found just the place to unwind, wander around, stretch our legs, clear our heads, broaden our horizons, and imagine how daily living might look if we walked in the shoes of another man completely unlike ourselves.
So we went to prison.
Open the door and see what awaited us inside…the Rusty Reformatory of Reckoning!
Day Eight in Cleveland continued southeast from the Siegel and Shuster boyhood homes to Lake View Cemetery, one of the hilliest and most scenic cemeteries I’ve ever seen. My wife’s penchant for locating Presidential burial sites in other states led us here to visit the final resting place of Cleveland’s own James Garfield, the 20th President of the United States of America.
He died five months after his inauguration, so I didn’t expect the James A. Garfield Memorial to be much more than a decent tombstone with a fence around it, not unlike Thomas Jefferson’s flowery but impassable plot in Monticello. In reality, Garfield’s mausoleum is a little shorter than Grant’s Tomb in Manhattan, but much larger than our house.
Day Eight of our nine-day road trip continue in Cleveland due southeast from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the kind of neighborhood that wouldn’t normally attract tourists if there weren’t some kind of major draw. As fate would have it, in 1938 a pair of young men named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster would put their heads together to create an intellectual property (years before the term became commonplace and meaningful) that would bend pop culture into new shapes and change the course of entertainment history.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: pics from our visit to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame Museum in scenic, underrated Cleveland. Last time I shared the items and exhibits that struck the deepest chords for me. This time: the general-audience objects that also caught our attention.
For example: FLYING DEATH CARS FROM ABOVE! Stage props from U2’s ’92-’93 Zoo TV tour.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: on Day Eight we woke up in Cleveland on purpose. Not many vacationers will lead a story off with that confession. This wasn’t like our last time in Cleveland, an ill-fated day in 2004 when we ended up trapped there for several hours, having been clobbered by a sneaky one-two punch of alternator failure and overturned semi. No, this time I wanted to be in Cleveland all day long. We had a to-do list of geek stops and I meant to assay every last one of them.
Our second stop of the day has a high-ranking item on my modest bucket list for years: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, ruling majestically from the coast of Lake Erie. I’ll be honest: its six-hour distance from home wasn’t the only reason I’d procrastinated a visit. I was afraid the whole place will be one massive, nostalgic, retrograde tribute to old acts from thirty or forty years ago, just like the average Grammys ceremony. I was honestly surprised at the breadth of musical acts honored inside these randomly shaped walls.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
We spent the late afternoon some 220 miles westward in Jamestown, birthplace of a certain funny redhead that brightened your grandparents’ lives. She used to be in all the papers.
The centerpiece of Lucy tourism is kept downtown in a dual storefront. One half recalls the production company Lucy created with her first husband, actor/musician/bandleader Desi Arnaz..
…and the other half of that storefront is the Lucy Desi Museum, devoted to souvenirs from the lives of TV’s original wacky couple, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Inside these walls lies a veritable cavalcade of whimsy and wonder and all the Lucy gift-shop merchandise you can carry home in your long, long trailer.
Day Seven of our road trip was divided between two different towns in upstate New York, each boasting a hometown hero who left home to become a classic TV trailblazer. We spent the morning in Binghamton, where Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling spent his formative years learning how to write, narrate, and remain invisible to everyone around him.
We spent the late afternoon some 220 miles westward in Jamestown, birthplace of a certain funny redhead that brightened your grandparents’ lives. She used to be in all the papers.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our first stop on Day Seven was Binghamton, New York, childhood home of Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. The celebrated sci-fi writer isn’t the only well-known personality with roots there, but he certainly has more markers than any of the rest.
What you saw in the previous entry wasn’t the whole story. Also marked for historical significance: Binghamton High School, Serling’s old alma mater and home of the Binghamton Patriots. Their athletics program totally missed a merchandising opportunity in not naming themselves the Binghamton Venusians, the Binghamton Invaders, the Binghamton Beholders, or the Binghamton Characters in Search of an Exit.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 