I’ve been meaning to post to my blog for quite a while now (which you can see by looking at the date on the last post – April?!?), and so tonight I thought I finally would post.

This was a great summer for me, if extremely busy. I took 2 classes in the spring term, and another 2 classes in the summer term, so I was still quite busy with school. Along with that, I also participated in the Thinkbox: Archive show, stood up in a friend’s wedding in Iowa City, went camping a few times, and turned 30 years old.

The wedding of my dear friends Shawn Johnson and Laura Schlapkohl was certainly a highlight of the summer. I went to Michigan Tech with Shawn, and later worked with him at sigma6/AppNet/Commerce One. He began a series of world travels shortly after leaving Commerce One, hitting northern Minnesota, Alaska, Mongolia, Venice, Montenegro, and other places besides. Along the way, he met his future wife, Laura, and they planned a summer wedding, which took place Saturday, August 12. I have very fond memories of the weekend, from listening to the frontman for their rehearsal dinner band play the Irish bagpipes, to getting dressed in the groomsman’s suits we all wore, to seeing many friends I hadn’t seen in a long time slowly trickle into the church, to watching Shawn and Laura waltz under the canopy at her parents’ farm. It was a magical time, and I felt blessed to be a part of it. You can see pictures of Shawn & Laura’s wedding at the Van Loo family flickr site.

My son Aidan turned 4 this summer, too, and my daughter Hannah turned 2, so we had some low-key family birthday celebrations. For my part, I turned 30 and celebrated with some close friends and family, which felt like the right way to usher in the next part of my life.

Now, as Labor Day weekend has passed and my son Collin has started second grade today, the summer is ended and autumn is upon us. My classes at Eastern Michigan University started back up again today, and I’ll be busy with schoolwork in no time, as I finish the last of my classes in anticipation of student teaching in the winter of 2007. I also have a new record that I’m releasing on my label, chromedecay, and a bunch of other music and art-related projects in the works.

I hope your summer was as good as mine, and here’s to more frequent posts in the fall.