Rome

Forewarning: the spell check here is in Italian. There may be a few misspellings, sorry Keith.

Days 1, 2 & 3 were spent in Rome.

After spending 13 hours on a plane over the pond, we arrived in Rome at 10 am and spent the entire day touring the city. 38 hours of saying awake made for sleeping very well on a firm mattress at the convent, where we stayed while in Rome.

Some of the highlights: click on any foto to view full screen.

The Colloseum:
The Roman Forumn, the heart of Rome at its peak.
Eric's 'I was there foto' of the Forumn. I know, I don't like it either.
The view while having Lasagna at the Pantheon.
A sculpture of John the Baptists very much severed head.A fruit thing that was pretty much amazing.
Saint Peters Bacilica: The biggest church in the WORLD. I am sitting in the plaza below the church, near the obalisk. Please note the top of the dome in this picture.522 steps above the ground floor of the church, this picture was taken from the top of the dome. I was sitting in the center of the plaza pictured below. That might give you a sense of scale here, but probably not. This place is rediculously HUGE.
A sweet shot of a rather well done hedge in the Vatican, also taken from the dome of St. Peters.
The cars there were on the smaller scale for sure.
The Trevi Fountain, if you toss a coin into the pond, you will come back to Rome...
We are now off to Florence. I hear that there is a good market there for buying things...Then to Padova, Ravenna and Venice.

Until next time...

European Religion History Tour

As many of you know, I am going on a study abroad. I am currently enrolled in the European Religion History Tour through Brigham Young University-Idaho.

I am going through this experience so that I can finish up the last few random classes that I conveniently left until the end of my college career: my arts, letters requirements and 1 religion credit.

When looking at the classes offered, I had a decision to make. Stay in Rexburg, Idaho and take these last few painful classes stretched out over the whole semester, OR get the painful part over with relatively quickly and THEN go to Europe and witness the sites that history took place at firsthand. Well...I took the Europe option.

I leave on 25 Sep and return on 21 Oct. To view the jam packed itinerary, go to the Tour's blog through the links on the right hand side of this page.

I will be posting updates with pictures of the places we have been while I am over there.

So if you are interested, come back here and see where we have been.

See / talk to everyone when I get back!

THE Summer

This summer I stayed very busy working with Mariani Landscape as as 'Eric the intern'.
A few highlights of my time spent in Chicago:

#1 was the people that I met and interacted with while there.

*Click on any photo to view full screen*

A group from Mariani at my 'Huasta Luego' party.
A group from church from the very anti climatic 'white water' (more like flat water) trip.
My fearless mentor: Keith Lemburg. The man with many talents, an impeccable eye for detail, and the patience to deal with the most interns in the company's history...
He needed that vacation after spending most of the summer with me.
Jill Burson and Gomez, the best behaved Cheiawa I have ever met. Go team Burson.
Can you say: AFRAID of a bee? Thank you for saving all of us Shari, from the bee and the fleeting Jacqueline: your talents are many.
My fellow interns: Andy McDowell & Sam Kibler.A very flattering picture of Andrew Rulewicz, Andy McDowell and Tatum Collins. Sorry boys, I don't have anything better...
Andrew hard at work, and he isn't even very dirty!Frank, Ed and Heather took the interns to a Cubs game, on a rather stormy evening.
#2 The many things learned at Mariani. Not all things that I learned are included here:

Where do plants come from?: The Mariani Nursery Tour, Garden Prairie facility. It was fun to see the facility...
But the bus ride left something to be desired. I wonder if there will be as many attendees next time?The ILCA Summer Field Days @ Ball Horticulture's Headquarters:
New plants and their combinations: very cool.

#3 Much knowledge gained from the Mariani team on my one excursions with them.

A special thanks to: Marni Wilson, Ed Furner, Nick Voykin, Shari Precht, Larry Weil, Jay Stephenson, Andrea Ricter, Jill Burson and Todd Vena.

This list of people endured a time (some longer than others) in taking me around and showing me what they do, answering far too many questions about trivial things as well as parting of much knowledge to this small town Idaho boy. Much appreciation to all of you.

#4 Cathy's Though for the day. Very inspirational, Thanks Cathy.

#5 Nick's e-mails. Nick, you have an amazing way of writing. Whenever I read your messages, I could see your face, feel your enthusiasm and even when I didn't know who any of the people who made your 'We are better off because these people don't work at Mariani Landscape anymore' list, I understood, it was funny and motivated me to look on the bright side too.

#6 Last but not least, and sorry I don't have but one picture of yall: the BG 3rd branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You know who you are. Thanks for your patience and perseverance in dealing with me. Keep up the good work. Watch out, I might be back next year.

There it is. Not a comprehensive list, but a few of the highlights.

Thanks again to everyone in the big city of Chicago. Take care and God Bless.

Montanta Visit

Well the summer is now over. Sad day.

This is s photo of the Stanza outside my sisters house in Butte, MT THIS MORNING!
I am not ready for snow and cold weather, but unfortunately that doesn't matter. Some Montana scenery on the way to the Lewis and Clark Caverns, just outside of Butte.

The Cavers: Eric, my seester: Michelle & her husband Barrett.

Big colored rock mountains.

This one was cool to see the contrasting colors just from the different minerals that were present in the stone when it was formed.

One of the large rooms with a display of many different types of stone coming from the cieling as well as piling up on the floor, sorry I forgot what they are called.

The end.

Family Bonding Time

I went home to Idaho for the annual Ball Family Reunion extravaganza. I call it an extravaganza because we cram 3 family reunions into one week!

We started the fun out by having a sibling reunion at my parents house in Monetview: rural Idaho. Before I had even arrived, a niece and nephew were riding a four-wheeler and hit a pickup truck in an intersection near my parents home. Kadee (10): the driver got staples in her head, pictured below, as did Ethan (4). Kids: it helps if you do what you're told!

The boys also went on a four-wheeler ride about warm springs, a spring that is about 30 min from home. The kids played in the dirt and in the water of the spring. We had hot dogs and Adam melted the chocolate for our smores, oh the things you can learn in dental school...

Eric's proof of his ride. Taken for Robin Knoke, administrative assistant at Mariani.

The riders: RJ, Larry, Doug, Brian and Eric, Jerry was taking the picture. Some scenery. The blue mountains in the distance are the continential divide.Wesley, Brians boy eating dirt with a stick.
Cameron Cook with some sweet goggles. He wasn't quite sure what was giong on at the moment.There was also lots and lots (27) small children running around the house. It was a fun few days. Everyone was glad to see each other, and more glad to go home! Family: isn't it about time?

This is Liz. She is 1 year old and is awesome. The picture pretty much explains it. Ann: if you make 'em like this, keep them comming.
Friday we had my fathers siblilngs family reunion. We talked, played volleyball, softball, ran races, chatted and had a pie eating contest. Family bonding.

Bailey, my oldest niece (15) eating some pie. I wonder if she won? She should have.

Then on Saturday was my fathers fathers sibling family reunion 'the big ball reunion'. I wasn't able to make it to this one, I was on my way back to Chicago.

At this reunion we have the best food ever: pot luck lunch, lamb chop and BBQ corn for dinner, a snow cone machine, a coke trailer with ambitious pre-teen servers giving away as much soda as possible, volleyball, softball and a whole lot of chewing the fat.

Until next year.

Landscape People

Well, we had the opportunity to go and look at some flowers. Not that that is what we do EVERY day at work (it is), but we just cant get enough, so my mentor and a few of his collegues & Itook a day to attend the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association Summer Field Day. This year the event was held at Ball Horticulture's Corporate Headquarters: very cool.

Cathy Rosborough, Keith Lemburg (my mentor) & Dave Hare: Client Representitives for Mariani Landscape, and Eric the intern below.

A petunia house with a grass roof.

Keith thought that it would be fun to live in a house of petunia's with a grass roof...

A dog statue that has a doghouse with a green roof and a bed of petunia's. He's living better than me!

A very cool sitting sitting area, and it kind of looks like birds flying or something.
Well I thought it was cool. If you don't that is your loss!

My Mentor

During my internship experience I have been assigned a mentor. Keith Lemburg is that lucky guy; he is pretty much THE MAN. Keith is from this great state of Illinois, he started his college education at Kenoshia Technical Institute , continued at Utah State of all places, then returned back to his home state.

He started working in the green industry, finished up his education receiving a bachelors degree in Horticulture from Southern Illinois University. He started in the GREEN industry as an apprentice gardner then he went into the golf course sector for five years. He worked for the Theodore Brickman Company, more commonly known as the Brickman Group today, in commercial Landscape Maintenance and Construction. He worked there for 15 years before he started here at Mariani Landscape, where he has been for 12 years.

I will try and sneak a photo of him for those visual folks out there sometime soon. Until then, he looks and has a very similar personality to Duane Powell.

My fellow Interns

Mariani Landscape has 5 interns this year, of which I am one. I have gotten to know these gentlemen quite well over the past few weeks, as we all live in the same apartment, and I'm sure that we will be getting more familiar with one another as the summer moves on...

The others are: (pictures to come soon)
Andy McDowell, my roommate, a Landscape Architecture student from Michigan State University.
He is the one with the easiest job, at least we like to think so, he helps out the existing Mariani design teams that consist of 14 Landscape Architects with their respective projects.

The Mississippi Boyz: both students at Mississippi State University in the Landscape Contracting program.

Andrew Rulewicz, the other Mormon boy (weird, who would have thought out of the 5 inters at a company, another one would come from the deep south?!?) and definitely the crazy one of the group, who is full of totally unrelated bits of information that he interjects into most conversations...we will say that he is the intern (class) clown.

Tatum Collins, the quite reserved one of the bunch.

Sam Kibler, a plant production student at the University of Illinois Cabannus. We will call Sam 'the local'. His girlfriend Heather, who is a client representative in training, for Mariani has lived here for about a year, so he knows the area the best. We ask him lots of really stupid directions and general Chicago questions as though he has lived here all of his life. Thanks dude, you have helped us out a ton.

Welcome to Chicago!

On our second day at work Andrew, one of my Mississippi State roommates, had a pleasant surprise down in the parking lot.The common reasoning for this was his welcome to Chicago.

The moral of the story: don't leave your GPS sitting out where it can be seen.

My car was in between two cars that were broken into. A brick was thrown through the window and the goods were taken very early in the morning.

Mariani Landscape

This summer I am an intern with Mariani Landscape.

Mariani is a family owned and operated company that is celebrating 50 years of business this year. It has been a successful 50 years, as the company is the largest residential design / build company in the nation turning 36 million dollars in revenue last year.

We work primarily on the north shore of Chicago (a very wealthy area), although we are growing into other area's as well. The company has three major divisions: design, construction, and maintenance, which I hope are rather self explanatory.

I am doing a maintenance sales internship. Within the maintenance department there are 14 client representatives. As mentioned above, my mentor is one of these 14 people.

In a perfect scenario after a design / build job is complete it is transitioned over to the maintenance department and we look after it for many years to come. A client rep. is the person that sells and coordinates maintenance of the property as well as any enhancements (anything above and beyond the normal maintenance) to a property.

To see some of the work that we do here in Chicago, visit marianilandscape.com and click on portfolio. They do a better job of portraying our work than I could here.

Before coming to Chicago I thought that landscape maintenance was just mowing and blowing. I have been shown otherwise. With great attention to detail and keeping properties in their peak condition, I now broadened my horizons to now considering the option of working in landscape maintenance, if it is done the Mariani way!

During my time here in Chicago I hope to define what I would like to do, as far as what aspect of the industry I would like to pursue when I graduate next April. I am going to spend time with representatives of all of the departments of Mariani and ask them all the questions that I can think of to try and figure the ever going question of 'what do I want to do when I grow up?'

Travels to Chicago...

I started my epic cross country journey by staying Monday night in Butte , MT with my sister Michelle and her husband, Barrett.
Below: my fearless ride, the Stanza, parked in historic 'Uptown Butte', what a view.Montana was a good scenic drive, to pass the time, I took pictures of the mountains and talked to some folks on the phone, but once I crossed into North Dakota line, things declined rapidly...
Pretty mountains, IN Montana.

Where things started to decline.

The rocky mountains start to lose their steam and turn into much less interesting rolling hills. My bored face.

Until I came to the 'largest statue in North America'. North Dakota has to be known for something.

-Note the pickup at the base of the statue for a size reference. Most of the signs in the state of North Dakota have this blue sign attached. Be watchful of your fuel gauge or you could be in some serious trouble.

Eric made it safely to Chicago in a total of 25 hours of driving. It was rough but the Stanza performed like a champ, contrary to most people's belief that I would be stranded somewhere along the way...