Keep Off

Keep Off, a photo by markkucza on Flickr.

From Seward, Alaska and Resurrection Bay.

Three Months Seems Long Enough

I haven't posted on here since February. Sorry. I hate to say it, but there aren't a lot of exciting things in real life. I haven't seen a bison on my way to work, or hiked through grizzly land and I certainly haven't seen a tornado. The last one is the real shocker. This is the first time since 1984 there hasn't been a tornado recorded this far through the month of May in the entire state of Kansas. I'm probably jinxing the entire state right now, so I would like to apologize for that.

I don't have much to post right now, which I'm sure you were expecting, so I'll make this quick.

My goal is to upload a picture or two every week here. We'll see how that goes. I was thinking about being ambitious and putting up a picture every day and then I decided that would be too much work.

Since I was last on here I joined the Twitter world. Feel free to follow me @RealMarkKucza. I'm on there a little more often than I'm on here.

The pictures above are from a remote road in Emporia, KS. I was visiting Jake a few weekends back after we were selected to DJ the Emporia High School After Prom. Needless to say, we cooked up an event that was hotter than the frying pan.

Until next time...

Cole World

(Please excuse the formatting of this post. I accidentally uploaded the pictures wrong was too lazy to re-do it. Hopefully it will be better next time!)

Pictures in order:

1. Nesto the Owner.

2-3. J. Cole

4. Big K.R.I.T.

5. Triple Threat Society (L-R: Homework Jones, Louie V, Irv Da Phenom)

6. Curren$y

Hello, folks. Not much to blog about today. The weather is frigid and Kansas is being sucked in more and more by the arctic air. I suppose it's a testament to my willpower to make it through these trying winters without losing any appendages or decaying skin patches due to frostbite, so I'll take what I can get.

This is a bit of a rewind post but hey, I need to catch up when I can! Upon my arrival in the Sunflower State back in October, I was lucky enough to catch two pretty good rap concerts. The first concert was a tour entitled "The Smoker's Tour" featuring several artists, with the most well-known fellow being Curren$y from New Orleans, LA. Before Curren$y (AKA "tha hot spitta") hit the stage the crowd was blessed with some music from Bit K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA and of course, Kansas City's own Triple Threat Society consisting of Louie V, Homework Jones and Irv Da Phenom.

The nice thing about the rap and hip hop concerts that come to Lawrence is that most of the gigs are in smaller venues, allowing the artists to connect with the fans. It's a cool thing, for me anyway.

The next concert was the B.E.T. Music Matters concert about a month after my return. This concert featured one of the most up-and-coming artists in the game right now, J. Cole. He's the first artist that Jay-Z signed to his new Roc Nation label, so he obviously has a lot of support behind him.

One of the opening performances was from Nesto the Owner, straight out of Kansas City. This guy has been on several tracks with well-known artists from the area, including Tech N9ne, Kutt Calhoun, Irv Da Phenom and many others. It was a great concert to say the least.

Anyway, I'll just post a few of my pictures from each event. Nothing too great, but this provides a reason to put some pictures up.

Big K.R.I.T.

Curren$y

Hello, Folks

Hi guys. Please excuse my absence. I'm struggling with finding stuff to blog about as of late, so the posts are few and far between.

Just a quick update of everything since I've been back from the great state of Wyoming...

I came back and worked for a couple of months at the grocery store, Dillon's, where I've unfortunately been employed since sophomore year of high school. I'm thankful for the time there with extreme schedule flexibility and great co-workers (for the most part). But, it was time to get the heck out of there. I've since taken my talents to South Iowa Street at Peoples Bank. I'm enjoying it there. It's very laid back compared to the fast paced corporate world of Kroger/Dillon's. So, I plan on sticking it out at the bank for a little bit until I determine what my next adventure will be.

Just in case I decide banking isn't for me, I've applied and accepted a position at Yellowstone again for next summer. The job would be the same thing as next year, and likely at the same location. I'm up for any location, so I'll wait to hear more about that later on.

As far as running is concerned, I've been on a hiatus for about 3 weeks now. I got a nasty bug a few weeks ago, which took me out for a week and after that the weather took a turn for the worse. After missing a week of running and trying to jump back into it with crappy weather, it makes it a bit tough.

I've been snapping a few photos, but nothing great. I'll post a couple images here that I recently had printed to fill a frame that I received from Jake for Christmas. Other than that, being the rookie photographer that I am, I find it tough to find my creativity during the winter months, so hopefully I'll come up with something before spring arrives to put on here.

Lastly, I've been considering setting up a Twitter account. I'm not sure why. It seems like that's where all the news in the world comes from now, which is slightly ridiculous, but I don't want to miss it!

Until next time!

'Tis the Season

Happy Holidays from the Kucza household. It's been awhile since I've put up a post, so now is the perfect time. Because it's Christmas time, I will post this Christmas card that I created. Each image of the family members is from a different picture in the past year. With me being away for a few months and Jake living out of town, it's difficult to get everyone together for a family portrait. Of course we can't forget how busy Ma and Pa are. Constantly escorting the young ones around town and then filling up the gas tank (stomachs and vehicles) to continue on. We'll have to work harder to get that accomplished next year! I'll definitley attempt to start updating a bit more on here, but no guarantees...

Until next time!

Jake gets love from Big K.R.I.T.

Jake was spitting some K.R.I.T. like it was his religion and got a nice point from the artist himself.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

It's Almost Time

Wild beast found roaming the park

Yellowstone River

Bison in Hayden Valley

Grand Teton Sunset

Grand Teton sunset

Howdy. As you can see from my lack of posts the internet at Grant Village is dreadful. I am occassionally able to connect for a couple of minutes before losing signal. As you can guess, this makes it nearly impossible to upload any sort of photos or to even make my way to updating this puppy. My apologies. I feel like I've been apologizing all summer for the lack of quality internet connection. So, when you're disappointed about my quality posts, just think to yourself, "It sure would have been amazing had this kid updated daily...". Well, I didn't.

First off, I would just like to acknowledge Jake's posting of my web cam performance the other day. So tastefully put together, with great commentary. Thanks to him for taking time out of his busy schedule to watch a fool run around a delayed live stream of the world's most famous geyser. Except, I'm pretty sure his schedule isn't that busy. Whenever I talk to him it seems as though he just got done playing a game of FIFA or just got done running. Maybe I'm missing something... Oh yeah, he does have a full time job. Man, I hope I don't have one of those any time soon. (Dang, I sound like a responsible adult).

Presently, I'm coming to you live from the Bozeman Public Library. I thank them for the speedy internet access. As I mentioned in my last post, I receieved a new stereo unit for my beastly Pontiac Vibe from Ma and Pa for my day of birth. I made my way north this morning to get that puppy installed. It took them approximately 18 minutes to get the Vibe from the parking lot, to the garage and right back out with a new CD player securely attached to my dashboard. Props to Sound Pro for that. Not like I have many readers that reside in the Bozeman area, but if anybody comes across this page that needs any sort of home theater, stereo installation, etc. done I recommend these fellows. They were speedy, and did superb work.

Yesterday evening I went down to the Tetons to catch the sunset. I was mildly disappointed by the fact that a few of the prescribed burns in the area created a smoky haze that took over the mountain tops, making it difficult to get any good pictures. Don't worry -- I didn't get too upset. I just chose to work with what was provided. I was provided with a great view of some fall foliage and along the river providing some great color. Even if the photos didn't turn out too great, it was still neat to watch, that's for sure. There were loads of people stopping their vehicles to snap a shot of the beauty that was taking place as well. I felt like a chump when all the professional photographers showed up with their lenses the size of Texas standing like tripods. I decided to depart a little sooner than I wanted in order to make most of the drive with some daylight remaining. It's a lot easier to dodge animals when it's light, rather than sneaking up on the rear end of a bison's brown fur in the pitch black Wyoming night. Trust me. Well, my plan didn't work out like I thought it would. Within about 30 minutes I had to slam on my brakes as a young deer darted across Grand Loop Road and had to dodge the speeding silver bullet that was coasting along at 40 miles per hour. I missed him. He missed me. Thankfully. My biggest worry was the fact that my camera flew off the passenger seat along with my water bottle. Don't worry -- no harm done.

I'm not sure I have much else to talk about at the moment. The weather here is glorious, it's been well over 70 degrees for high temperatures for about a week and a half now. Usually there is snow on the ground by this time of the year, so no complaints there. The park has almost no traffic due to the end of the season coming, so it's a bit easier to drive from location to location without the fear of rear-ending a tourist.

I suppose I shall be on my way. I have a bit of a trek to make back to Grant Village. The drive is about an hour longer than coming from Canyon. So, off I go with newly installed car stereo with a direct USB plug-in allowing me to jam comfortably for hours on end. Thanks to the 'rents.

Until next time...