Life in Technicolor

Through out the time I've been in Kansas it's like a life in technicolor.

The burning yellow of summer,
piercing the whiteness of my soul,
The crackeled haze of humidity
nestled below azure blue skies
The lush green landscape
awaiting the golden mask of fall
The winter ice, like crisp rice underfoot
next new life, new ways, spring days

I have one week before I fly back to the UK. The time since May has flown by, interspersed by the adrenalin of work, the company of top people and the relaxed pace of life in Kansas.

With all new travels there's the excitement of something new, the hope that your assumptions are squashed whilst woven with the fresh injection of new stimulus.

Yesterday we had an in-office Christmas lunch, made by the team. As lunchtime drew to a close I was presented with a present, a cowboy belt with a Kansas buckle. Not one to accept presents easily I was so touched by the kind consideration by the team.


I originally thought Kansas was cowboy country mainly through watching cowboy movies as a boy, it's not really but my childhood memories shaped my imagination.

This year has been one of many challenges, new travels, fresh learnings and above all healing power for the soul. If you could do just 1 thing differently every day, put yourself in a situation that stretches you, question how you see things and not forgetting it's the simpliest things in life that make all the difference.

Today it was -15C in Kansas, growing up in Scotland we had very cold winters, frost patterns on the windows, the wind scrapping your skin, but in Kansas your not prepared for the sharp intake of stinging gasps of cold air.

My last weekend in Kansas, it's warming up to +5C, the chill of ice thawing from my bones. Been trying a new radio web service called Pandora. It's free, fantastic but licensing rights means it's not available in the UK. Try it whilst in the USA, music played that suits your own taste, when you want it and rockin your senses.

Really cool.

As the New Year fast approaches what's on the other side of your life window, do you try and look beyond your own horizon and wish for an opportunistic peek, or relish on the excitement of steping into the unknown?


Have a top day.

Full suspension what a blast, hard tail bites the dust!

Since arriving in Kansas in May 2009, today is the 1st time I've been mountain biking this year. It was so good, I rented a full suspension Specialized FSR Stumpjumper mountain bike from Sunflower's in Lawrence. I really like hard tails but this bike blew me away for the ease in which it covered and soaked up the terrain.

The blast was the River Park E Bike Trail, in Lawrence, Leavenworth County, running alongside the Missouri River. Trail distance approx 9 miles through a woodland, skirting a skinny creek and cusping the lip of vast fields. Weather was fresh, dry and calm. Photo of the trail below:


Before I arrived back in Kansas in November my mountain bike was stolen in the UK. From now on it's a full suspension bike for me, the technology is awe inspiring, a privilege to be able to ride such a top piece of innovation.

When I returned the mountain bike to Sunflower's I was given an overview of the new bikes and a Trek FuelEx8 caught my eye. It looks like a switch from Specialized to Trek when I go back to the UK, picture below, cool, sexy, a work on art on 2 wheels..


Time has flown since I 1st arrived in Kansas in May this year. I have less than 12 days before I head back to the UK. It will be sad to leave, so many fantastic people I've met, the work experience, culture and freshness I've absorbed will stay with me for a very long time.

Looking forward to closing what I started @ work and maybe more mountain biking next weekend. Winter may scupper my plans but the interest will still be there. My Scottish experience of cold, wet, windy winters will do me in good stead. Sometimes I relish in the memories of it all, the frosted windows, the cold fog of breath, standing alone pierced by the low winter sun, as dark descends to close the day.

Tonight I finished off the day with a few friends having dinner, realising that we sometimes strive for things, that when we get them they don't really matter in our every day lives. It's our gut feel and intuition that guides us more than anything to what we really need.


Have a top day.

Best Laid Plans Often Go Astray

I went to Lawrence again today, had plans to see a Psychic and get a tatto. Neither happened. Psychic was out of town, he/she must have seen me coming.... and no needle slot for my tatto.

My tatto takes me back to my early years in the 60's when I caught sight of my favourite uncle and a tatto on his chest. I was so mesmerized by this, couldn't read it at the time as I was only 4. It was a few years later that I understood what it meant..."Made in Scotland". To this day I've always wanted the same tatto but never got round to it.

Shortly after the intial tatto sighting my uncle accidently shot me with a hi-powered air-rifle, lost the sight in my right eye. It's a strange story how it happened but it had a big impact on my life later on. I had a real passion and skill for football but my professional career came crashing to an end subject to a medical.....

So when I think of the tatto I also think of my uncle and the anguish he must have gone through, the shock of accidently putting my life @ risk. I came through it and to this day still think highly of him.

Lawrence has a hippy feel to it, like a misplaced surf town in the centre of the USA, when it should be hugging the coast line. The place is full of student dudes bringing a sense of energy and creativity to the town. I'm sure there's a potential HBO show lurking in the backwater with intrigue, surprise and real mid-west sensibilities jumping out from the screen.

As for the Psychic it was not meant to be and my skin has survived another day of the tatto needle.

What's also good about Lawrence is it's top bike shop, Sunflower's. There's a few cool Specialized bikes in the shop and also a Beetle car on the ground floor. Yes a Beetle car, it adds a cool point of presence.



Using my Panasonic camera I picked up a few other interesting photo's of Lawrence, namely a colour glass window and a painting from a local art gallery.






Had lunch @ Milton again, came back later to have soup & fruit salad @ Dean & Deluca's in Leawood, then watched "Brothers" @ the cinema in the evening.

Weathers getting cold now as winter is drawing in, tomorrow potential snow and temperatures below freezing.



Have a top day.

It can't be easier!

I went to another superb art museum of paintings that normally provokes the thought....surely I could do this. Give up my day job and paint...and paint and try to see if I can convince people it's art, expensive and has some hidden meaning.



Or maybe I should should try and sculpt, become a thinker or a motivational speaker...We all have choices, sometimes it's having the courage to have a go, even if we don't have the full-on skills or experience to start with. Tap into your hidden potential it could change your life.



A simple technique on motivation that will allow yourself to be happy in some small way. It's the ABC rule...

A - allow yourself to focus on something that will make you happy, make your choice
B - begin and start to initiate what you want to do
C - continue this process on a regular basis, daily, weekly whatever rocks your boat

For me I'd like to get on a mountain bike and try out a new Specialized Stumpjumper Comp Carbon....such a cool gorgeous piece of machinery...



A - allow myself the choice
B - go buy it
C - regularly get out there and enjoy it

It can be so easy it doen't have to involve a purchase. It could be enjoying what you already have, appreciating the people around you or how you can make other people happy.

Whatever it is, have a top day.

It's good to see things from a different perspective!

Sometimes it's good to see things from a different perspective. Like snowboarding upside down in a glare of sugar white, a rush of blood to the head, beads of perspiration bubbling on the skin as you subconsciously navigate through challenging situations.

Every day we face all sorts of challenges both personal and in work. As creatures of habit we like to do repetitive tasks that we're comfortable with. By introducing freshness and new stimulus into our lives gives us the opportunity to explore new ways of self development.

I love to learn by being put in challenging situations, to see things from a different perspective, to stimulate new ways of thinking and doing.

The visit to the Kemper Museum of Modern Art the other day drew my attention to a stunning painting by Jamie Wyeth known as the Black Spruce. I'm sure we all look at art from a different perspective, a reflection of what we can translate into our norms of understanding and what we really like.


My translation of the Black Spruce as seen in www.kemperart.org is of a harsh landscape in the mid-west, filled will real people and interspersed with motivational colour. A slice of life captured in a very natural way.

An open mind is the beginning of self discovery and growth. We can't learn anything new until we can admit that we don't already know everything.

Have a top day.

Look within, you will see the imperfect in all of us

It doesn't take long to realise when you look deep within yourself you will see the imperfect in all of us. This can be looked upon not as a negative but as an opportunity to improve aspects of our lives that we want to change.

Without change there is no innovation, creativity or on incentive for improvement. I look on a regular basis what I can do differently and can realistically change about myself. Some of it I pull off, some of it I don't by a long shot. This doesn't deflect from my resolve to improve who I am or what I what to change.

In a visit today to a town called Lawrence in Kansas I came across an innocent looking wall, but when you look closer you will see some clues as to what it's built of. Lusco-VVV bricks are in the fabric of the wall... "1907 saw the birth of one of Wichita's oldest and most reputable brick & stone companies". Yes there it was in a brick, a clue as to the history in making of this town.



If you look closely you will also see clues in people in how they need to change. In many aspects their history or path in life has shaped who they are today.

My past came back to remind me today in a very simple way.....

Banana loaf, yes this was one of the 1st things I cooked almost 30 years ago. Today I had it in Milton's, Lawrence, Kansas. It made me realise the passing of time. When your travelling and working abroad it's the simplest things that make all the difference...Banana loaf did it for me today.



Lawrence is a University town, you can see & feel it, young dudes all over the place, and in a hippy kind of way. Art also has a presence, 2 examples to show you in photo's below, 1 piece of wall graffiti and the other an Andy Warhol in the Spencer Art Museum of Elizabeth Taylor.




If only Einstein could see how his name is being used today who'd have thought it would in the name of the honorary bagel. Well in Lawrence I came across a bagel shop bearing his name...E=MC2 has now been replaced by B=KI$$2....Bagel=Keep It $imple $tupid2....



Young dude students bring music to life in all genres, the photo below is an example of a music shop in Lawrence,some vinyl and all sorts media, The Love Garden. Without music there is no progression in a world of chaos, it's a real comfort to me on the road.



Look within, our history, hidden clues, the need to change, reinvention, the aesthetic of art, the calling of music all in some connected way can help shape who we are or want to be.

Have a top day.

Apple Splatz, Tasty, Munch, Lunch, Suckerpunch.....

Today started well, played some early tennis and went to Weston, Missouri in the afternoon. A bit of a weird coincidence, when I was living in Australia, where did I spend most of my time, yes Weston, but in New South Wales.

Weston Missouri felt like it controlled it's own time, pace of life and how it would adapt to any creeping change from the city.

Had a top lunch at a local cafe, home made fries and a barbecue roast beef sandwich, honest sooo good wholesome food...and wait for it! Apple Splatz, home made pie that looked like it had dropped on the plate from Outerspace, Tasty, Munch, Lunch, Suckerpunch.

Used my new Panasonic camera today, the photo's are so much better, a cleaner edge on image quality. At the top of my blog is a photo leading your eyes up the stairs of a house in Weston, early dark forcing lights to illuminate the staircase. A million thoughts to who might be living there.

In one of the antique shops I same across a model car just like my Mini Clubman, if only I could transport as much on the roof of my car! Who knows a Mini 4x4 in 2010?


Light was fading fast and I came across a house that had some lights on the outside on the window ledge, I caught this photo as an opposite to the illuminated staircase. Light seeping from the outside trying to get in, filling the dark with a soft sparkly glow.



For Weston's mid-west charm my time spent there was short, although I was drawn to a sign for Old Geezers. I think I'm getting to become a bit of a Mantique myself, who knows what awaits me, only time will tell.

Of all the photo's I took, there lurking in an old camera shop was a chair...see it for yourself....


It's a bit of symbol for the mid-west in particular Kansas & Missouri, if you look you will find all sorts of positive motivation, more so the people and their willingness to help you.

And as for the Apple Splatz, Tasty, Munch, Lunch, Suckerpunch it might not have been Michelin on a plate but it was real good.

Have a top day.