Before the Swallow Dares

These daffodils were in my Mom’s room in Methodist during Daffodil Days. If you don’t know what Daffodils Days is, let me quote from the American Cancer Society Website:

You can give hope to people facing cancer and save lives by supporting the American Cancer Society Daffodil Days program. The Daffodil Days program is your chance to fight back against cancer by raising funds and awareness to help beat the disease. While the Daffodil Days program involves offering daffodils every spring to donors in appreciation for their contributions, it is about more than just giving beautiful flowers – it is everyone’s opportunity to create a world with less cancer and more birthdays, where cancer never steals another year from anyone’s life.
The dollars you raise through the Daffodil Days program do make a difference. Your support allows the American Cancer Society to save lives and create a world with more birthdays by helping people stay well and get well, by finding cures, and by fighting back against cancer.

Here are more pictures from The Before the Swallow Dares Series:

On the Sunday before Labor Day I hosted a little Bennett Family Reunion. Although none of the Fort Dodge Bennetts attended, I think it was a rousing success. It was the first reunion of its kind in at least 20 years. I hope that we can have another one next year.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

Just a couple notes. This was Naima’s first family function and she handled herself wonderfully for only having been in her new home for 5 days. Amazingly, she had yet to discover human food. That turned out to be a short lived nirvana though.

Also, I only wore that horrible Chiefs shirt to honor my cousin Jordan who is the most realistic Chiefs fan I know. So thanks for giving me that shirts Mr. Baier. It was a hit.

Some pretty sweet pictures of my uncles not wearing shirts in this volume!

I wonder how long that flag pole lasted because it couldn’t have been too many more years before they built the addition to the high school that destroyed Blair Park.

A lot of things can be said about the Bennetts, but after witnessing some of these pictures, our fashion sense will never be called into question again.

I made it to the State Fair twice this year. I went once on a Friday to see Maroon 5 with Jill. Then on the last day of the Fair I went with my Mom. I met up with Derrick, Jen, and Evie. We ran into Sara, Shawn, and Cousin Amy. Here are some pictures from those trips:

Jill in front of the picture of her at the Photography Salon.


Jill with her turkey leg.


The damage she did to that turkey leg.


Even though Jill is a Legacy Member of the Maroon 5 Fan Club, she felt our seats could have been better…


I thought that they were pretty good.
















For some reason, Maroon 5 played before Train. Don’t know why, but at least we didn’t have to endure Train.












Evie loves baby animals!




Evie is a toe wiggler!




Evie supports winners!


We heard the following at this stand a lot: “1 fried butter on a stick and a bottle of water, please!”




You can’t imagine how hard it was for me NOT to photoshop that terrible Hawk logo out of this picture, but trust me, despite what his wardrobe is telling the world, Shawn is a good guy. He just doesn’t know how to dress.


With the 2nd Place Picture


With the Honorable Mention Picture


Some people view this as impressive.

Looking forward to next year’s fair already!

The rest of the The Girl in the Blue Skirt Series:

This series of lily pictures consisted of lilies found in the gardens of my Grandma, Mom, Jen, and your truly.

As you may recall, I like to check in on some statistics every 100 posts or so to see how things are doing in popularity. However, this statistical check-in will mark the end of an era. I am officially retiring the Snapshots Gallery and the Artistic Gallery.

The advent of the store has made them obsolete and why bother with galleries where you can’t buy anything, right Andree Jauhari, Marla Gorshe, and Jennifer Wohlgemuth of Minnesota! Right. Right?

Therefore, the only gallery that will remain is the Store. Check it out:

So here are the final rankings of the 10 most popular pictures in the Artistic Gallery. For the record, these are heavily skewed by spammers:

1. 669 Views


2. 497 Views


3. 410 Views


4. 375 Views


5. 352 Views


5. 352 Views


7. 351 Views


8. 350 Views


8. 350 Views


8. 350 Views

Here are the 10 most popular pictures from the Snapshots Gallery. Data heavily skewed by spammers.

1. 2010 Labor Day – 915 Views


2. Jesse & I Netting My Trees – 643 Views


3. Derrick & a Gunderburger – 245 Views


4. Tailgating Games – 229 Views


5. Baier & I at Chiefs Game – 169 Views


6. Shannon & I at an Inebriated Saints Show – 89 Views


7. Shannon in Backbone – 54 Views


8. Holding the White Trash Elixir – 49 Views


9. Brandon Tailgating – 45 Views


10. Gunderburger! – 43 Views

Here is the list of the ten people that have contributed (in some way shape or form) to this blog the most in the first 1199 entries. Plus how many entries they have been in since we last looked at these numbers. Plus where they were the last time we looked at these numbers.

1. Jesse – 174 – +9 – 1
2. Jay - 165 – +13 – 2
3. Shannon – 153 – +6 – 3
4. Derrick – 138 – +14 – 4
5. Jen – 124 – +16 – 6
6. Teresa – 118 – +9 – 5
7. Sara – 112 – +15 – 8
8. Willy – 110 – +8 – 7
9. Vest – 95 – +14 – 9
10. Carla – 84 – +10 – NR
10. Mom – 84 – +17 – NR

Who are the 3 greatest movers outside of the Top Ten?

1. Dad – +16
2. Jill – +14
3. Evie – +6

Thanks to this group of friends and family for their consistent efforts in aiding me in my photographic pursuits, either through assisting, modeling, inspiring, listening, or just being around a whole lot. I couldn’t do what I do with out them. And so many other people too!

Today is the birthday of my eldest sister, so happy birthday to her!

The best laid plans of mice and men…

I had written this journal entry several days ahead of schedule because I was planning to be in Minnesota right now. I made all the appropriate plans, but fate took a hand and forced me to cancel my vacation.

At about 3:35 last Friday, I clocked out of work and left the building fully expecting not to see it again for 9 days or so. I spent most of Saturday morning mowing my lawn and packing and running errands and doing everything necessary to leave my humble abode for 5 or 6 days.

I pulled out of my driveway at about 3:15 and headed north to Oakdale, hoping to knock on Jill’s apartment door* at about 6:30.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Oakdale. My wheel flew off my car. That’s right. It flew the heck off.

It was a surreal experience and one that words will fail to describe adequately. I’m cruising along at about 75 MPH when suddenly the front passenger side of my car is clearly on the ground. My first thought was that I had very badly blown out the tire. I have done that before and this is kind of what it felt like. So I took a gander out the passenger side window and I saw my wheel flying through the air.

I immediately thought, “that is my tire flying through the air.. it isn’t supposed to be doing that… it is amazing I haven’t lost control of this car… I’m not going to be eating chicken wings tonight… this is garbage.”

About 10 miles north of Mason City my car came to a stop on the I-35 shoulder. There I sat for four hours roughly… pondering the questions of life.

As much as this incident has sucked (and continues to suck as my car has yet to be repaired and the towing bill from north of Mason City to Boone, well folks, it isn’t cheap!) I should be thankful for having such wonderful friends and family.

I had a pretty sweet vacation planned. Among other things, I was going to go to a chicken wing place that serves over 60 different types of wings. I was going to go to the Uptown Art Fair. I was going to watch the Minnesota Vikings practice. I was going to get to hang out with Jill, Bethany, Becca, Nate, Dae Hee, Faust, and Jackson.

Instead, I hung out with mile mark number 200.40.

But this isn’t about spilled milk, or in my case, uneaten chicken wings, this is about amazing friends and family, after all I will still be able to eat those chicken wings in about 3 weeks or so. Teresa and Ernie offered to come get me. As did Lowell, Jesse, and Sara. Faust and Jay called to make sure I was okay. Derrick even took my call while he was at a wedding reception. Becca and Bethany offered whatever assistance they could provide. After towing arrangements and picking me up arrangements were made (Thanks Mom and Jason!) and I was able to find my wheel after combing the ditch for an hour, Jill kept me company on the phone for the last 90 minutes while I sat in a ditch.

Before we get into this week’s RWPE, here are a few pictures from my time in the ditch:

You may notice from looking at the pictures, the bolts were sheered off clean. Jason has been working on cars for his entire life. He has never seen anything like this before.

Also, because of my cancelled vacation, I did get to go to the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon Reception. So now I know if I won an award besides the Superintendent’s Merit Award. Hint: I did!

Here are the submissions for LEADING LINES:

Christopher D. Bennett


Mike Vest

Next week’s theme:

That is a new theme for this year, so there is no looking back. Only looking forward. Good luck!

*This is hyperbole. Jill lives in a secured building.

A lot of pictures of the old Greene Street house and cakes.