Below are a few of my favorite images from the day. Thanks again everyone for making the day awesome!

The idea came to me on a cool Duluth day after I had finished a run.  I was uploading the GPS information from my Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch to the Garmin Connect website.  The watch tracks your route, pace and how far you have run.  When uploaded, the path is overlaid on Google Maps.  That day I ran a route that was a little haphazard and I saw what looked like a letter and then hit me!  I could run in the shapes of all kinds of things and it would appear on Google Maps.  Animals, shapes, smiley faces, words, you name it.  I decided I would run out the words M-A-R-R-Y-M-E-? and have the route uploaded to Garmin's website and then from there I could fashion a way to propose to Kristin.

The first couple of times were a complete disaster.  Think of a five year-old writing with his left hand.  Heck, I'm 28 and can barely write legibly with my left hand.  It did not look good.  So I wrote out a guide on a piece of a paper with specific paths, which would help me create readable letters on the map.  I also needed props at various points where pieces of each letter intersected so I know where I needed to run to and from.  For example, the letter R has a point where a bunch of lines intersect.  The letter Y has a part where the two lines diverge from the center.  You know what I mean.

So with my guide, an orange hunting cap and four towels, I set out to find a large open field.  This wasn't easy.  The first few places I looked at were private land.  The second spot was a swath of forest that was clear cut to make way for giant transmission lines.  Not wide enough.  I turned to Google Maps and searched the area around where I live until I found the Lake Park soccer fields in Lakewood Township.  I was still unconvinced.  I wasn't sure if something as wide as two soccer fields would even show up when I start turning and running back and forth and all over the place to form the letters.  I decided to give it a shot and it worked, but I needed to do it a few more times and get it perfect.

Just before noon today, I set out with plenty of props to mark my path.  It went a lot smoother than the first few times and this time was readable.  There was a maintenance man at the soccer field giving me weird looks as I ran in circles and triangles and all kinds of weird paths all the while looking at the paper guide in my hands.  I was pretty happy with the result and wasted no time in asking Kristin to marry me as soon as we were back home for the night. I said something to the effect that she should check out the path I ran tonight because something crazy appeared on the GPS after I uploaded the data.

She said yes, it was awesome and I couldn't be happier!  For those of you wondering about how far I ran to spell out the words, it was 1.06 miles.  All together, I ran about 15 miles in various test runs to get this to work.  I also burned approximately 1,250 calories in the process.  In the end, I chose the soccer fields because it was a wide open publicly accessible place and it didn't hurt that my girlfriend is a soccer coach.

Below is the route and the words as they appeared when the GPS information was uploaded to Google and below the map was the guide I used to make the magic happen. For those of you who don't have the Google Earth plugin, a screenshot is below, but if you do have the plugin, you can see it in the Google Earth version below the picture of the guide!

Did I mention she said yes?

The Guide

Above, Google Earth. View GPS: Grand Proposal System in a larger map

One cool thing I had the opportunity to do was spend a day at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar shooting all kinds of images for the Wall Street Journal.  The restaurant is located about 10-15 miles north of Duluth along the shore of Lake Superior.  I found out about the assignment on Wednesday and they needed the images by the following Monday.  On top of that, it was Grandma's Marathon weekend so I couldn't shoot it Saturday and on Sunday I had to leave to shoot a Charity Golf Tournament in Milwaukee.  That left me with one option... which was to shoot the assignment on Friday.

So I headed out there around 4 in the afternoon and spent about 6 hours there shooting all kinds of scenes from inside the restaurant, the kitchen, different foods and more.  My girlfriend Kristin joined me around 530 and helped out and then we settled down and had dinner there and make no mistake about it--the place lived up to the hype.  Strangely, the bread we had was my favorite part of the whole meal.  The cooks in back put sea salt (I think) and olive oil on it before baking it and it turns out delicious.

Anyway, check out some of the images from my afternoon at Nokomis and what the final article looked like in the Wall Street Journal...

Oh and here is a link to the article online...

Customers enter the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth.

Sous-Chef Curtis LaBreche puts the finishing touches on a Whitefish Cake at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn.

Tables near large windows that let natural light pour through with views of Lake Superior are among the hardest to get on busy nights at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn.

Fog rolls in off Lake Superior toward the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn.

Lake Trout is one of the main courses at dinner time at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn. The Lake Trout comes with fingerling potatoes, butternut squash, wild mushrooms and butter sauce and sells for $16.

Line cook Seth Lozano removes bone from fresh Whitefish at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn.

Waitress Susan Fackler (left) gives a tense expression as the evening rush kicks in while waiting for an entree from the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar Chef and owner Sean Lewis (center). On the right is line cook Seth Lozano. The restaurant north of Duluth, Minn. recommends reserving tables with views of Lake Superior up to a week in advance.

The Opera Cake is one of the more popular desserts at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn. The Opera Cake comes with strawberry cocoa powder, strawberry compote and sells for nine dollars.

Nokomis Restaurant and Bar Chef and owner Sean Lewis (right) reaches around line cook Seth Lozano while they prepare Chicken Gumbo at the restaurant north of Duluth, Minn. On the left is Sous-Chef Curtis LaBreche.

Pastry Chef Elizabeth Banks tends to some Peach-Mango Creme Brulees at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn.

Susan Fackler rushes through the kitchen to deliver a meal to customers at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn.

The Elk Burger is one of the popular items on the dinner time menu at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn. Served with tomato relish, aged white cheddar, onion marmalade and a pickle, it sells for $10.

Eric Faust (right), a waiter at the Nokomis Restaurant and Bar north of Duluth, Minn., pours wine for customers.

Other DNT journalists who took home first place awards included reporters Mark Stodghill, Janna Goerdt, Brandon Stahl, John Myers, Andy Greder, Jon Nowacki, Steve Lindstrom, Chuck Frederick, Gary Meader, fellow photographer Amanda Hansmeyer, Andrew Krueger and Photo Editor Bob King.  Peter Passi, Kevin Pates, Robin Washington, Tamara Gruhot and the entire staff brought home additional awards for their work.  Brandon Stahl also won third place for his buzz.duluth blog.  Congrats to all of them!

Here are the photos that brought home the awards for me...

David Stevens of South Range comforts a horse that was rescued from frigid temperatures over the weekend at Jeff Tucker's Raindance Farms. Windchill the horse is a bit of a legend at the DNT. The staff followed the story of this frozen colt who ended up passing away a few days after this photo was taken. The people charged with Windchill's care were eventually convicted of neglect. There is something about me and assignments with horses where I always seem to come back with a photo I really like. Maybe it's the gentle nature of horses and people's attraction to them that always generates a genuine moment. In Windchill's case, it was simply a matter of people who deeply cared for this animal and were doing all the could to comfort and nurse him back to health.

Hermantown's Hannah Buchite could barely watch Cloquet's Hannah Roy as she toed the line during a shootout in the Region 7A sectional final at Public Schools Stadium in Duluth. Roy's shot sailed over the net, which sent the Hawks to the state tournament. This was one of those games that photographers dream about. Two rivals. A close game with lots of action. An overtime that led to a shootout and lots of nerves playing out on the field in the form of painful expressions and nervous demeanors. One such player, Hannah Buchite of Hermantown, embodied all the emotions of these players as the game inched to its conclusion. You could just feel the nerves pouring out and a few seconds later they morphed into jubilation, exhilaration and relief. This might have been my favorite sports image of 2008.