Muzak!

Everyone I talk to has different taste in music. So how do you decide what kind of background music to play in your restaurant/elevator/hotel/etc.? If you choose rock, people will complain it's too loud. Pop? People will probably lose their appetite. I won't even go into country.

So here's my theory.

The entrepreneurs of the world got sick of trying to find background music that everyone could enjoy. Instead, they decided to choose a type of music that nobody likes. Thus, Muzak was born.

Please Sir, may I have some cold press?

I like to think of myself as a fancier of coffee. I can tell you the difference between a Full City, Vienna, and French Roast, or why you might like coffee beans from Africa instead of Indonesia. But I'm certainly not the oracle of all things coffee.

I was sad to discover on my last vacation, that Dunn Bros - my favorite coffee shop - doesn't seem to exist outside of Minnesota. I told myself that I could last two weeks without coffee; it would be a good time to go cold turkey. Two days into the trip, I found myself pulling into the first coffee chain I'd seen in about 800mi, Starbucks. I'm normally very brand loyal, but this was decision born out of desperation. I paused for a second inside the door. I could feel each individual pore on my body open to suck in the scent of coffee, while my ipod jingled in my pocket asking me why I hadn't checked my email.

I bounced up to the counter and ordered. Below is a transcription of what happened next...

Barista

What would you like today?

Me

Umm... Iced cold press with

vanilla and room.

Barista

(blank stare)

Me

(incredulous look)

Barista

What is that?

Me

You don't have cold press?

Barista

No, what is it? (looks to fellow

barista for help)

Me

Coffee grounds brewed in cold

water for 24 hours. It's more

smooth than brewed coffee.

Barista

I didn't know you could do that.

I looked around at this point and noticed the number of people behind the counter had grown from two to five. What I didn't know was this Starbucks was hosting a regional manager meeting.

Barista

(turns to the growing crowd of managers)

Do you know what a cold press is?

Manager #1

Nope.

Manager #2

(shakes head)

Manager #1

(turns towards me) What is

a cold press?

Me

(awkwardly) Coffee grounds brewed

in cold water for 24 hours. It's more

smooth than brewed coffee.

Managers nod and mumble in acknowledgement.

Manager #3 appears from the back and all the managers turn to him

and ask if he'd heard of cold press.

Manager #3

Oh yea, it's a new kind of french press that's

supposed to be really good in cold drinks.

Again, managers nod and mumble in acknowledgement.

By this time my coffee is ready. I grab it, top it off with cream, and head back to my car feeling slightly proud that I out coffee'd Starbucks.

Little Wonders

Do you ever wonder what you are missing in life? Life keeps us busy, and sometimes we can't or don't want to take a break from the rat race to see what is going on outside of our 3 ft bubble. Take a hike (literally), go someplace you've never been before. Or even better, walk the same walk you do day in and day out and force yourself to notice something you haven't seen before. You'll be surprised what you might find.

I love to make ordinary things extraordinary, to see everyday things in a new way. Every morning I walk out of the stairwell, and up a set of crumbling cement stairs. On top of the stairwell is a rusty railing that has see better days, but it is behind the building, so no one has seen a need to replace it. At the base of that railing, I found this.

Do you think I would've seen this if I wasn't intentionally looking?

Check out more photos at http://gallery.me.com/josh.thulin#100090

It's a Small(er) World

When I studied photography in college, my professor gave a piece of advice. The key to good photography is to find a new way to look at everyday things. Here is my everyday life with a persepective you might not expect.

This is where my day starts...in a cold snowy parking lot. Pleasant, huh?

On the road with a point-and-shoot.

I love road trips. I have spent many weeks on the road covering the entire western half of the US. My favorite part of a road trip is the rest stops.

First, rest stops are an avenue of escape from my four-wheeled prison. They also give me a chance to encounter the environment through which I travel. I love to get out of the car and smell the air and stretch my legs.

Rest stops are also unique. Some are just a couple of cinder-block buildings with a toilet that barely flushes and no paper towels (Wyoming, MT, ND). Others have full gift shops with hiking trails, overlooks, and ships reconstructed in the lobby. If you drive through South Dakota you will recognize the pictures below. Each rest stop has a tall, abstract, concrete teepee.

If you ever hit the road with me, especially in the west, I will have a road-trip story for every rest stop we pass.