Category Archives: Andree

It Just Blooms

I need to start today by wishing Russell a happy birthday. Happy birthday Russell!


Liberty Bowl Road Trip

Photo Journal - Page 56 Reject

Civil Rights Museum

Iowa Republican Straw Poll - 2011

I hope ripped it up on your birthday as much as you desired to rip it up!

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Today’s collection is a bunch of pictures I took tooling around my back yard back in May.


It Just Blooms

It Just Blooms

Unloved Flower - 2020

Unloved Flower - 2020

Unloved Flower - 2020

Unloved Flower - 2020

Unloved Flower - 2020

Unloved Flower - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

The title of today’s blog post comes from a quote:

“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”
– Zen Shin

Russell hates my flower pictures. Maybe if he engaged in some Zen Shin Meditation, he would be so angry and learn to love the simple beauty of flowers.

The Baugher Wedding – Two

I need to start out by wishing my brother-in-law the happiest of birthdays! Happy birthday Jason!


State Tournament - Albia

Stensland Family Photo Shoot - 2016

Iowa State Cyclones vs. Oklahoma Sooners

Mom's Family

I almost starting to think that these birthday tributes need to be more than 5 pictures!

I hope it was the happiest of birthday Jason!

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It is time to unveil the second collection of pictures from the wedding of Alexis and Kupono!


Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

Alexis & Kupono Wedding

One more collection of pictures from the Baugher Wedding still in the hopper!

Camping World Bowl Road Trip Day 3 – The Game

Day 3 was the only day we spent entirely in Orlando. It was one full day too many. Orlando is flat out one of the worst cities I’ve ever visited. It is dirty. It is poorly laid out. There is no culture. There is no music. There is no historical significance. There are no beaches. There aren’t any parks. There isn’t much to do.

I would rank Orlando just above Omaha for worst cities I’ve ever visited. Frankly, if I never go back to Orlando again, that is just fine.

The Camping World Bowl Stadium is in the worst part of Orlando. Most of the businesses that surround it are liquor stores or bail bonds. There is also a high school.

There is hardly any parking around it. What is there is poorly organized.

The stadium itself is okay. It isn’t a festering dump that ought to be burned down like where Kansas plays. However it isn’t all that nice of a stadium either.

There was a great fear that we were going to be rained on all game. That didn’t happen. It rained for a little bit. But we thought we had won the jackpot because we were sitting under the ledge of the upper deck, so we were protected from the rain.

However, we actually lost that hand. We sat under a pipe that leaked on us the entire game. So instead of being protected from a rain that barely showed up. We were the only wet people in the stadium. It is a shame we weren’t on the Notre Dame side of the stadium. It was pretty much empty. We could have sat anywhere we wanted. Instead, we sat there getting dripped on.

Here are some pictures from the morning:


Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3
#wafflelife

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3
I ate walnuts in tribute to my Grandpa Paris, the man that introduced me to Iowa State football.

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3
Lagoon behind our hotel.

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3
Yeah, they have these dicks in Florida too.

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3
I think this statue is a tribute to pedophiles that also play football.

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3
We met up with Dre and his bro before the game.

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3
View from backside of the stadium.

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

Camping World Bowl Road Trip - Day 3

The game didn’t go the way we wanted. Iowa State finished the season decimated by injuries and it showed when they played one of the best teams in the country.

We left the stadium wet and down, but ready to see if this awful city called Orlando had anything to offer.

2009-10-01

I need to start my post by wishing a very happy birthday to my man Andree!


09-25-07 Wever Wedding

December 28, 2019

Photo Journal - Page 56 Reject

Happy Birthday Greg!

04-19-08

Happy birthday Andree!

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The picture in the folder 2009-10-01 are from a trip I took to an Art Festival in Ames with Johnathan and Logan. Plus there are a few pictures there of Thomas the Tank.


2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

2009-10-01

Coltrane's 1st Wife's Middle Name

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Coltrane’s 1st Wife’s Middle Name

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve shirts with beavers on them.

Ledges

I need to start today’s post by wishing a happy birthday to Dawn. Happy birthday Dawn!

Here are a few pictures of Dawn:


Surprise - Dawn

Photo of the Day 0089 - July 30, 2014

Bonne Finken

Josh Davis Band

September 15, 2017

I hope your birthday is as happy as you want it to be!

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I also need to wish a happy birthday to Jason Baier. Happy birthday Mr. Baier. Here are a few pictures of Jason:


Baier Tenderloin Road Trip

Cardiff Giant - Fort Dodge

Photo Journal - Page 56


I hope your birthday is also jam packed with happiness!

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I also wanted to share some pictures from the 2019 backlog. Here are some images from a trip I took to Ledges back in August:


Ledges

Ledges

Ledges

Ledges

Ledges

Just gotta keep plugging away on that backlog!

Gratitudo

Happy Thanksgiving! Every year on Thanksgiving I like to think about my many, many blessings. I know, real original. You should feel free to try it sometime. But make sure you let everybody know that I invented gratitude.


I am thankful for my family, no matter how family is defined:

April 9, 2019

May 18, 2019

May 25, 2019

August 24, 2019

September 19, 2019

October 26, 2019

January 26, 2019

February 25, 2019

June 29, 2019

July 6, 2019

August 4, 2019

April 6, 2019

May 12, 2019

I am thankful for my friends:

January 16, 2019

March 12, 2019

PHOTO JOURNAL - PAGE 121 ALTERNATE

Photo Journal - Page 56 Reject

March 21, 2019

May 6, 2019

May 17, 2019

June 1, 2019

June 6, 2019

August 25, 2019

July 12, 2019

August 10, 2019

August 13, 2019

August 18, 2019

September 7, 2019

September 20, 2019

September 21, 2019

October 5, 2019

October 21, 2019

April 27, 2017

Selfie Project - January 21

March 3, 2019

I am blessed with an amazing church family:

April 7, 2019

Selfie Project - January 27

April 17, 2019

May 1, 2019

June 15, 2019

June 23, 2019

June 24, 2019

June 25, 2019

June 27, 2019

July 13, 2019

September 25, 2019

October 27, 2019

June 28, 2017

I am blessed with a decent job and work friends that I don’t mind seeing more than 40 hours a week:

January 12, 2019

August 30, 2019

May 2, 2017

Selfie Project - March 27

Iowa State vs. Northern Iowa

I’m blessed to share my house with Naima:

January 10, 2019

October 6, 2019

July 9, 2019

Naima

This is only a small sampling of my blessings, but I feel to go on much longer would sound like boasting. Thank all of you for choosing to be part of my life!

2009-07-15

Sometimes these Saturday walks down memory lane that are part of a restoration project of old blog posts, takes a completely unexpected turn. The images in the folder 2009-07-15 contains a couple of those pictures.

In there are pictures of Sara and a sparkler. Then there are pictures of lilies. There is a picture of Andree in front of his house. Then there are pictures of Logan and Willy running in Midnight Madness.

But buried in those Midnight Madness photos are 2 pictures of people I haven’t thought about in years. One guy I liked and miss when I remember them and another person that was just the strangest briefest flash across the sky of my life. He was a person I had completely forgotten about.

The first picture is of a UPS guy named Blake that used to be the dedicated UPS guy at the Computer Mine my first 6 or 7 years I was swinging the pick. At a certain point Blake took a different route and I haven’t really seen him since then and it is too bad. I miss talking to that guy. He even once tried to pay me to pretend to be Santa for his kids. I declined the offer because, you know, kids smell, but in the history of people thinking I should portray Santa, Blake the UPS guy was the first. At least the first to offer me money.

The second is a more weird twisted, rocky memory lane. There is a picture of a guy named John in the collection. I can’t remember John’s last name at all, but at the very end of my tenure with the Evil Clown Empire I was stationed at the West Ames Outpost. John was my “boss”. He suffered from some mental illness, but I’m not entirely sure what flavor.

He spent an entire afternoon once counting paper clips and rubber bands in the lobby. Then he calculated which one was cheaper to bundle money with, paper clips or rubber bands. He spent hours on this project to try to save the store .0003 cents per bundle of bills.

I’m going to let you in on a secret. There are two ways to control your profit at a restaurant that matter. You control your labor costs. You control your food costs. Placing energy on anything is a complete waste of your resources. Control those 2 things and almost everything else will fall into place.

I only worked with John a few weeks. He was fired during the weeks I took off work after Olivia passed away. I can remember sitting in my Mom’s kitchen a couple days after Olivia’s funeral when John called me. He called to tell me that he had been fired. When I returned to work, they offered me John’s job. I told them where to stick their job in so many words. It was also when I put in my 1 month notice. In retrospect, I don’t know why I gave them a full one month notice, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.

As for John, it would be 3.5 years before I would see him again. He was running in Midnight Madness. He seemed to be doing well. I haven’t thought of him in years until I came across his picture in this collection.

I wonder what he is doing now, but I can’t even look him up. I don’t remember his last name.

Here are some pictures from that folder:


DFDA54

DFDA54

Midnight Madness - 2009

The Most Tolerable Third Party

The Most Tolerable Third Party

The Most Tolerable Third Party

The Most Tolerable Third Party

New Digs

Midnight Madness - 2009

Midnight Madness - 2009

Midnight Madness - 2009
This is John

Midnight Madness - 2009

Midnight Madness - 2009

Midnight Madness - 2009

Midnight Madness - 2009

Midnight Madness - 2009
This is Blake

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

DFDA54

New Digs

The Most Tolerable Third Party

Yet There is Method in It

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve another Ames on the Half Shell concert.

Roundball Oracles – Year 15

It is time once again for the greatest sporting event of year. It is that time known as March Madness. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Once again, I will be sponsoring a pool. There is not cost to enter the pool, except for pride.

The winner gets a trophy. The dead last place person gets a trophy known as The Sara.

By winning, you get your name etched on the list of immortals:

PAST ROUNDBALL ORACLE CHAMPIONS

Past Roundball Oracle Champions:

2018 – Paul Golden
2017 – Paul Golden
2016 – Michelle Haupt
2015 – Derek Dohrman
2014 – Brandon Kahler
2013 – William McAlpine
2012 – Lowell Davis
2011 – Carrie Baier
2010 – Mark Wolfram
2009 – Mark Wolfram
2008 – Mark Wolfram
2007 – Tim Peterson
2006 – William McAlpine
2005 – William McAlpine

Paul’s repeat championship definitely puts a target square on his back.

But I said that there are 2 trophies. The 2nd trophy, The Sara, goes to the adult that finishes dead last, while trying. A person can not tank on purpose and win The Sara. The reason The Sara winner has to be an adult is that I don’t want to mock children, to their face. Probably a better rule would be that to “win” The Sara, you have to be at least a teenager. I have no problem mocking teenagers to their face. I do it pretty much every Wednesday night at Youth Group.

Past “The Sara” Winners:

The Sara

2018 – Robert Henning
2017 – Shannon Bardole – now Bardole-Foley
2016 – Laura Priest – now Miller
2015 – Derrick Gorshe
2014 – Sara Lockner

The Sara doesn’t have the long storied history of the championship trophy, but it will get there. I have no doubts.

Last year, 35 combatants threw their hats into the ring. Here are the standings from last year:

2018 STANDINGS
RANK TEAM NAME SCORE CORRECT BEST SCORE BEST CORRECT CHAMPION
1 Paul Golden 248 40 248 40 Duke (175)
2 Dawn Krause 243 38 243 38 Villanova (132)
3 Christopher Bennett 243 37 243 37 Villanova (153)
4 tim peterson 232 41 232 41 Michigan St. (165)
5 Michelle Haupt 232 35 232 35 Villanova (182)
6 Nate Miller 230 37 230 37 Villanova (159)
7 Jordan Toot 224 33 224 33 Villanova (108)
8 Corey Faust 223 34 223 34 Villanova (153)
9 Angie DeWaard 221 34 221 34 Villanova (201)
10 Rachel Johnson 219 39 219 39 Kansas (178)
11 Lowell Davis 215 38 215 38 Virginia (152)
12 Benjamin Baier 213 33 213 33 Virginia (112)
13 Derek Dohrman 205 36 205 36 Virginia (155)
14 Cathie Raley 204 35 204 35 Virginia (138)
15 Bill Wentworth 200 34 200 34 N. Carolina (97)
16 Sean Gildersleeve 198 35 198 35 Michigan St. (145)
17 Linda Bennett 195 36 195 36 Kansas (145)
18 Jesse Howard 195 35 195 35 Duke (146)
19 Olivia Baier 188 33 188 33 Virginia (133)
20 Toby Sebring 185 32 185 32 Arizona (148)
21 Russell Kennerly 184 33 184 33 Virginia (161)
22 Jackson Faust 182 32 182 32 Auburn (124)
23 Sean Clubine 173 33 173 33 N. Carolina (151)
24 Jason Baier 173 30 173 30 Virginia (159)
25 Michael Augustin 167 31 167 31 Virginia (186)
26 Brandon Kahler 166 33 166 33 Kansas (133)
27 Nader Parsaei 166 33 166 33 St. Bona. (170)
28 Andree Jauhari 165 32 165 32 Virginia (145)
29 Elizabeth Nordeen 165 32 165 32 N. Carolina (173)
30 Carrie Baier 162 31 162 31 Gonzaga (144)
31 Laura Priest 158 32 158 32 Duke (125)
32 FHMeiners 156 31 156 31 Kansas (167)
33 Becky Perky 152 32 152 32 Kansas (168)
34 Will Baier 148 25 148 25 Marshall (113)
35 Robert Henning 141 28 141 28 Kansas (156)
The rules are as follows:
Round 1 = 1 point + seed
Round 2 = 2 points + seed
Round 3 = 4 points + seed
Round 4 = 8 points + seed
Round 5 = 16 points + seed
Rounds 6 = 32 points + seed
I can tell that you are already sold and just want to know how to get into this competition, so that you can battle it out and possibly get your name on “The List of Immortals”. It is easy enough, just click on the link below:

Roundball Oracles – Year 15

Good luck! I know you will fare well!

Alamo Bowl Road Trip: Alamo Bowl

We gave her a hug. Loaded back up in the rental and left Waco profoundly changed in a way that is hard to figure. My best guess is that it would be the way you would change if you saw the Vietnam War Memorial with a veteran of the Vietnam War or if you talked to a holocaust survivor or met somebody that was in the towers on 9/11. Something that was merely academic, was suddenly real.

We were a couple hours from San Antonio and several hours from the kickoff, but the game seemed decidedly less important than it did just an hour or so earlier.

We only made one stop between Waco and San Antonio. Some gas station that won’t be remembered for the cleanliness of their bathroom. Bathroom not pictured.

We reached our hotel near the San Antonio airport about 4 hours before kickoff. We dropped off our stuff and took an Uber to downtown San Antonio to meet Andree and his brother. The Uber driver really hated Lonestar Beer. He made a point of that in our conversation.

We met Andree and his brother at their hotel and walked to Fudrucker’s for supper. This violates the #1 rule of Christopher D. Bennett road tripping, but I was hungry and wasn’t in the mood to make a big deal out of it.


Alamo Bowl Road Trip

The River Walk, which we walked by.

On our way to Fudrucker’s we ran into a guy with a beard that was almost as impressive as mine. We exchanged pleasantries and then we hugged it out for a bit. I think Andree and his brother were a bit mesmerized by this exchange. Apparently they have never hugged a complete stranger. Which is sad and means that they clearly need to grow beards.


Alamo Bowl Road Trip
My burger and onion rings hit the spot!

After the meal we walked to the Alamodome for the Alamo Bowl. We walked a good portion of the way with a Washington State graduate that was from San Antonio originally, but now lived in Japan. He was fortunate to be able to attend the bowl game of his alma mater because he had come home to visit his mom for the holidays. Washington State happened to be playing in San Antonio. Really worked out for him. He was a pretty cool guy.

We got to the game and I had an usher take our picture:


Alamo Bowl Road Trip

The usher walked back like 20 rows to take our picture to make it horribly backlit. I did what I could to salvage the photo in post.


Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Unfortunately, the Cyclones couldn’t pull off the victory. The refereeing was dreadful. The kind of refereeing you get one Big Ten refs referee a Big 12 game. They just don’t see the caliber of athlete and they aren’t prepared for the speed of the game.

This resulted in one of Iowa State players being ejected from the game for targeting, but replays showed the Cyclone more like softly landed on top of the Cougar quarterback.

Another terrible call was a play where Matt Eaton caught a pass and took 4 steps before being tackled. The ball came loose as he hit the ground. It should have been a 20 or so yard completion for the Cyclones. Somehow the refs called it an incompletion.

Regardless of how terrible the refs were, Iowa State has to look in the mirror and face the fact that they gave that game away. 3 turnovers. 7 false start penalties. That isn’t a recipe for beating anybody, let alone a top ten team.

It was with that bitterness we filtered out of the Alamadome, knowing the better team didn’t win that night, but excited to see what these young Cyclones do in 2019. Even though we were facing the reality that Hakeem Butler and David Montgomery were probably leaving for the NFL with a year of eligibility left.

Jesse and I bid Andree and his brother a fond adieu and took a Lyft back to our hotel. I think our Lyft driver was somewhere on the autism spectrum. At the very least he was extremely socially awkward. Not the type of guy that hugs a stranger on the streets of San Antonio.

After having the same conversation with the Lyft driver at least 5 times on the way back to the hotel, I was relieved as we hit the hotel room. I crashed almost immediately.

Jesse had booked us kind of a fancy pants hotel with all his Marriott points. They had a spread for breakfast that made me almost (ALMOST) forgive them for not having a make your own waffle maker that makes waffles in the shape of Texas.


Alamo Bowl Road Trip
They had 2 guys making cook-to-order omelettes.

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Jesse had something of a dreadful pain in the gulliver, so I took over the driving duties. The trip back to the Cyclone State was mostly business, but we did stop in Austin.


Austin
Austin artwork.

Austin

Austin

We also stopped to see the Stadium where the Texas Longhorns play football. I’m pretty sure it is the biggest stadium I’ve ever seen. It holds almost twice the number of people as Jack Trice Stadium. It feels twice the size of any other stadium I’ve seen. Such as where Kansas plays, where Kansas State plays, where Iowa plays, where Missouri plays, where the Vikings play, and where the Chiefs play. The only stadium I’ve been to that is comparable in size is where the Nebraska Bugeaters play.


Austin

Austin

Austin

Austin

Austin

Austin

Austin

Austin

Austin

Austin

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip
Horns Down!

The guy we met outside of Texas’s stadium was interesting. He immediately wanted to engage us in a political discussion when he found out we weren’t from Texas.

He had two main planks to his political beliefs.

#1. Texas not having state income tax was the greatest thing ever.

I was happy for him to be so happy about it, but I tried to explain to him that having no income tax just means that he pays higher taxes in other areas. Furthermore, not having state income tax moves the tax burden from the wealthy and makes poor people pay more taxes.

He insisted this wasn’t the case, but it is in fact true.

The effective tax rate on the bottom 20% in states without income taxes is 10.7%. The effective tax rate on the bottom 20% in states with income taxes is 9.9%. 9.9% is less than 10.7% if you were trying to do the math.

The effective tax rate on the top 20% in states without income taxes is 4.7%. The effective tax rate on the top 20% in states with income taxes is 7.6%. 4.7% is less than 7.6% in case you were doing the math.

The sad truth is that whether or not you have an income tax or don’t have an income tax, the wealthy in this county don’t pay their fair share of the tax burden and the poor pay too much of a tax burden.

To his other point that he wasn’t get taxed more in other ways to make up for the lack of income tax, the numbers don’t back him up there either.

Just putting Iowa against Texas, Iowans pay a little more than 1% more in state taxes than Texans. But 1% is not the great number that he purported.

Iowans pay:

Total Tax Burden – 9.32%
Property Tax Burden – 3.45%
Income Tax Burden – 2.5%
Sales & Excise Tax Burden – 3.35%

Texans pay:

Total Tax Burden – 8.15%
Property Tax Burden – 3.70%
Income Tax Burden – 0.0%
Excise and Sales Tax Burden – 4.45%

Excise and sales tax burden is inordinately paid by the poor and middle class.

States that don’t have an income tax get that money from some place else. That some place else is usually the poor.

While the jury’s still out on the benefits of living in a state with no income tax, experts agree that there is one clear result for those states that do levy an income tax.

It helps the poor.

An income tax is a classic tool for redistributing wealth. It’s usually “progressive” in nature, meaning that it taxes higher earners at a greater rate than lower earners. Other taxes typically don’t have that Robin Hood-like characteristic.

Sales taxes, for example, are considered “regressive.” They don’t change depending on the income level of the consumer. They treat everyone the same. So do levies on food, gasoline and other key consumable items.

These taxes place an unfair burden on the poor, according to research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The reason is the lowest earners in the state devote the lion’s share of their take-home pay to buying things that are subject to sales taxes. The wealthy, who can save a chunk of their income in their 401(k)s and other investments, have a much smaller exposure to the sales tax.

If you think I’m delving into class warfare, I will only say this:

There can’t be class warfare in this country until the poor start fighting back.

Here is my favorite example of how class warfare currently works in our country:

A billionaire, a worker, and an immigrant are sitting at a table with 1000 cookies. The billionaire takes 999 cookies and says to the worker, “watch out, that immigrant is going to take your cookie.”

#2. Ann Richards is the worst thing that ever happened to Texas.

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on Ann Richards. I’m not. I’m not going to defend her. However, after listening to this guy espouse about his libertarian belief for 15 minutes. Then listening to him call Ann Richards a bitch at least 5 times and tell us about how he celebrated her death, the only policy that he pointed out that was so terrible was that she repealed a law that made it legal to build a building that is taller than the state capitol building in Austin. That would be a libertarian policy. I’m not sure he actually knows what he is.

But I digress.

After doing our “horns down” gesture, we loaded back into the car and headed north. Hoping to get deep into the heart of Oklahoma before bedding down for the night.

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This is your reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is TRANSPORTATION:



TRANSPORTATION

A TRANSPORTATION photo is a photo of anything that is TRANSPORTATION related. From trains to planes to automobiles. To bridges to tunnels to tracks.

Happy photo harvesting!

Alamo Bowl Road Trip – Phonetos

Last week Jesse and I hopped in a rental car and headed to San Antonio to watch the Iowa State Cyclones play against the Washington State Cougars and the worst refereeing crew from the Big Ten in the Alamo Bowl.

While the game didn’t turn out the way that we had hoped, it was still an amazing trip full of precious moments. Even though, we willfully drove by the Precious Moments Museum and did not stop.

Here are some pictures from the trip I took with my trusty Pixel 2:


Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

Alamo Bowl Road Trip

I will have more commentary on these photos in upcoming posts.