My middle son, Zak, graduated from Free State High School this weekend. After a sluggish start in his high school academics, Zak found his rhythm and posted a near perfect 4.0 GPA for his Senior year. What a great kid. He’s an avid reader, a great cook, a budding Mac expert, he’s funnier and smarter than me, and he’s one of my best friends in the world. I am a very lucky dad. Zak decided to start his college career at Johnson County Community College and study computer technology and information systems. Hopefully he’ll get to work with the folks at Apple some day – and they would be very fortunate to have him. Congratulation Zak! It’s going to be great fun riding along your journey through life.

Zak having fun. The girl to his right – not so much.

Zak in a sea of green graduates.

Zak racing off to life-after-high school.

Zak with several of his buddies Aaron (far left) and Adam (center).

Zak with his brothers Alec (right) and Connor (left). Alec will be a Junior at the University of Kansas and Connor a Senior at Free State High. I’m a very lucky guy.

Several of Zak’s Senior pictures. We shot the photos a week before graduation instead of in the fall like everyone else. Zak likes doing things in an out-of-the-ordinary way (like his dad). Zak was a good sport to pose for his dad.

Have you ever seen a Jackalope? I have not had the pleasure yet – but I’ve seen postcards like the one above. I have, however, been lucky enough to catch several photos of several very rare species that can sometimes been seen around Lawrence. The squirrel deer, the bugalope and the horny hopper are shown below.

This is my first blog post for weekword. Looking forward to many more. Aimee chose this week’s week word: FAKE. Other weekword participants this week are: aris, cecilia, esti, fruenswerk, jenna, thereza, and valentina. Check out their take on fake.

Not wanting to miss out on all of the iPhone photography fun – I decided to pull out my twice-dropped-badly-cracked original iPhone and use it as my iPhone camera. Problem solved. Here are a couple iPhone clicks from this morning.

Our shy cat Tyler covers his junk (or should I say unjunk) so he doesn’t end up as a centerfold on some kitty porn site.

Our doorbell button broke and when the wind blows it actually rings the doorbell. Go figure. Since I haven’t fixed it yet and the noise drives my son Zak crazy – he took matters into his own hands and silenced doorbell man. Good thinkin’ Zak.

If you’d like to see some good iPhoneography, check out these guys – Chase Jarvis, Sionfullana and fellow photodude Chris Ralston.

There’s more. The folks at Kansas Farm Bureau called recently to say they plan to use one of my photos for the cover of KFB Magazine and use two others for a kid’s book. Cool. Can’t wait for the next roadtrip project with them.