Category Archives: Baier

Baier, Becky, Candid Portrait, Commercial, Dawn, Derrick, Event, Music, Shannon, Suzie, Willy

Family Night

June 9, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Last Friday was Family Night for Ames on the Half Shell. By all measurable criteria the event was a smashing success. More than twice the amount of children made it to Family Night this year than last.

Plus I got to see many of my friends and their children. Take a look at some of the fun that was had on that evening.

Of course there are about 80 more pictures in on my website in the AOTHS Gallery.

AMES ON THE HALF SHELL

Here is a Family Night Fun Fact. Despite the fact that there were 5 times the amount of children at Family Night than there were for the first night of of AOTHS and Red Monkey was free for children, less than half the amount of Red Monkey that was consumed on the first night was consumed on Family Night.

If you picked up what I was laying down with that big run-on sentence, you might be wondering how that was possible. The fact is that I am to blame. I laid off the Red Monkey during Family Night because I thought the youth of Central Iowa would pick up my slack. They did not. Now I have to hit the Red Monkey doubly hard this Friday night to make up for lost time. But I mean really, what is wrong with this generation?

I also learned a few things on Family Night. I learned that Shannon can’t blow bubbles. I learned that if you sign up to run the 5K during Scandinavian Days they give you a pretty sweet free shirt. I learned that Becky proved that she doesn’t know anything about hats because she wore a balloon hat around most of the night. I learned that even if you have somebody watching the bounce house, children will get in a fight and scare other small children. I learned that the Baier children will take their tats like men when the time comes for them to get their tats. I learned that security is such a tough job that I didn’t get a chance to talk to everybody nearly as long as I had hoped.

Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Ames on the Half Shell will happen again this Friday night. This week the band is Burnin’ Sensations and they are excellent. If you have a hole in your schedule between 5-8, this is the place to be. Also Friday is somebody’s birthday. I don’t wish to embarrass them (yet), but at the very least it is worth the price of admission (79 cents less than a gallon of gas) to wish her a Happy Birthday!*

Plus it is Friday the 13th. I’m not a superstitious person, but it might be a good day to be in a large crowd.

*That exclamation mark is not a random choice of punctuation.

Art, Baier, Christianity, History, Shannon

Too Hot for Photobucket

May 29, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking on a topic lately and I’ve come to the conclusion that I just need to write about it and then be done with it. I’ve been thinking about junk in art. Not refuse or garbage, but the male productive organ or the penis. I will refer to the penis as junk for the rest of this entry to prevent some people from giggling while they read this treatise.

When it comes to junk, I’m not all that different than most men. The only junk I’m really interested in is my own. However, through a series of events and a trip to Fort Dodge I’ve been a little more interested in junk in the world of art. To put more succinctly, why is the world so afraid of junk? To whittle it down a bit more, why is the world so afraid of gypsum junk?

I first came interested in the Cardiff Giant several years back while reading a US News and World Report on hoaxes. Although on the surface, the Cardiff Giant hoax was not as interesting as the Breatharianism Cult, but it had Central Iowa connections, so I was interested.

Near the end of the 19th Century a man (described as either an atheist or agnostic depending on the source) went to hear a preacher speak. The preacher relied heavily on a segment of Genesis that says that giants once walked the Earth.

This lead to a dispute between the preacher and the man about how literal one was to take the Bible. The preacher insisted that giants walked the Earth and that they were 12 feet tall. The 12 foot part the preacher said that he “just knew”.

The man left the revival meeting and got an idea. He went to Fort Dodge and bought a big block of gypsum for a barrel of beer. He then took the gypsum to the nearest railhead (Boone) and shipped it to Chicago. In Chicago he hired a man to sculpt a giant.

His exact orders were: “Make me a naked giant! Make him look like he died in agony.”

After the sculptors were done the man took the giant to his cousin’s farm in New York where they buried it. They waited almost a year and then the cousin ordered a new well to be dug right where they had buried the giant.

The well diggers found the giant and learned men and fools came from all over the country to have a look at the giant. There was a great debate at the time about whether or not the giant was a petrified man or an ancient statue. The man and his cousin began charging people to see the giant.

After the man and his cousin had made a tidy fortune on their con, the truth was discovered. People still came to see the giant though.

The original gypsum giant resides in a museum in Cooperstown, New York. Fort Dodge had a replica made and it is housed in the Fort Dodge museum. Since I don’t think I will be making it to New York at any time in the near future, Baier and I conspired to make a pilgrimage up to Fort Dodge to see their version. This trip came with the nice little ancillary benefit of annoying Russell who hates Fort Dodge despite the fact that he is a Dodger.

I knew that the Cardiff Giant was anatomically correct (to an impressive degree) because of some of the reading I had done on it in preparation for the trip. I did not expect that this one section of gypsum that made the Cardiff Giant a man would be somewhat controversial.

I for one don’t really desire to see junk. However, I don’t see anything wrong with including junk in art. It is the way that we are constructed. There is no reason to pretend that we are not.

However, about a week before the trip it came to my attention that not everybody wa comfortable with the junk of the Cardiff Giant just being left out there blowing in the wind, so to speak.

I was talking to Shannon about the trip one night. She told me that Living History Farms has their own version of the Cardiff Giant that they brought out for special occasions. She knew the guy that had sculpted their giant. Their giant was more “modest”.

The word modest has a few different definitions. Since I don’t have any problem with showing junk in art, I immediately glommed onto the definition of modest that relates to size. He was more modest meant to me that LHF had decided to reduce the giant’s endowment. I did not question her at the time.

The day of the big trip arrived.

Baier and I loaded up into the Rideshare van. We made a stop at the Whistle Stop Cafe for breakfast and then headed north towards the Cardiff Giant.

When we arrived at the Fort Dodge Museum we made a pact that the Cardiff Giant would be the last thing that we would see.

We ambled through the rest of the museum letting the anticipation build. After a couple of hours the Trainwreck that I had knocked down at the Whistle Stop came back on me and I visited the little boys room.

While I was enjoying the environs of the Fort Dodge Museum bathroom, Judas Baier broke our pact. When I began walking across the Fort’s courtyard he came strolling towards me from the corner of the fort that houses the Cardiff Giant exhibit. I cold feel that he had betrayed me.

“I couldn’t wait, I had to sneak a peek.”

“What? You jerk. We had a deal.”

“All I can say is there must be a very happy stone lady out there somewhere.”

So it was true. The Cardiff Giant was a giant among men in all conceivable ways.

If I had immediately published this entry as soon as I returned from Fort Dodge I would have never even considered blurring out the junk of the Cardiff Giant. To me it is just art and it is just junk. It is natural. I blur it now because I know that the Cardiff Giant’s junk is a major threat. How or why? I don’t know.

However, as the days wore on the word “modest” began to dig at me. It was one thing to not make the giant anatomically correct. I began to wonder if what Shannon meant by modest was that they had simply deprived the Giant of his manhood and never gave the Giant at LHF any junk.

The Fort Dodge Museum had already committed this heinous crime by not making the Cardiff Giant in the Cardiff Giant gift set anatomically correct.

Crime Against a Statue

I don’t get it. If I pick up a knockoff of Michaelangelo’s David, they don’t get rid of his junk. What is so dangerous about the junk of the Cardiff Giant?

My imagination began to work at a feverish pitch. I decided that LHF was a museum and it is my belief that a museum pursues truth. Sometimes truth is a big gypsum junk. Maybe some people have a problem dealing with it, but that isn’t the problem of the museum. A museum has to sometimes be in your face with the truth, yes even if that truth is a big gypsum junk.

So I decided that when Shannon said modest she must have meant that they shrank his endowment. This set my mind racing as well. Why would you do such a thing? Who would do such a thing? Do you have to have a meeting to do such a thing? Or can the sculptor make a unilateral decision?

In my mind I see the sculptor looking at his block of gypsum. Then he looks at a blueprint with dimensions. Then he looks back at the block of gypsum. Then he stares harder at the dimensions of the Giant’s junk.

Then he scoffs to himself and says out loud: “I don’t think so buddy. 3 inches is more than enough.”

But what if it wasn’t the insecurity of the sculptor that lead to the Giant being robbed of his manhood. What if this was a committee meeting? I have sat through a ton of meetings lately. I have no problem imagining the leader of a meeting standing in front of a group.

“The next thing on the agenda is deciding on the girth of our Cardiff Giant replica’s junk.”

“Why are we discussing this, shouldn’t we just use the same dimensions as the original Cardiff Giant?”

“It has come to the committee’s attention that there are people out there that are not comfortable with the giant being so giant.”

“Isn’t that just their own immaturity. I mean it is just junk.”

“We are a family museum.”

“Then what is family friendly. 3 inches, 4, 5?”

Then a vote would have been taken on the matter and a few inches were lopped off.

I contacted Shannon to find out exactly what she meant by modest. As it turns out, modest to LHF means that the Giants is “covering his junk.” I have to confess, that possibility never once crossed my mind. I don’t like it any better than what I thought had happened, but at least nobody had looked at the Giant and willfully denied his his full endowment.

A few days later I was talking to Baier and filling him on the definition of the term modest. As it turns out, he was talking to his wife about the Cardiff Giant. When she was in High School they took a field trip to the Fort Dodge Museum. The corner that housed the Cardiff Giant was roped off. They were denied access.

Unbelievable.

What is the deal? It is just a statue. The Baiers hail from Audubon. That is a town that houses a 40 foot tall anatomically correct bull statue. A statue with junk isn’t new to them.

I finally had decided to come to peace with the world and its anti-Cardiff Giant junk crusade. Then one thing happened. While I was preparing for this blog I uploaded a full body picture of the Cardiff Giant to Photobucket. Photobucket is where I house all of the pictures I embed in blogs.

I had some busy days and nights and I posted some less ambitious entries in its stead. Then yesterday when I went to Photobucket to upload some images I saw a shocking thing. My full length picture of the Cardiff Giant had been deleted because it violated some part of the licensing agreement.

“This was the most unkindest cut of all.”

So now I blur the junk of the Cardiff Giant and I house the images on my own server. I am probably on some FBI watch list now. Great.

I worry now that we are heading towards that future world that was predicted by the prophetic film Zardoz. A world where junk is considered evil.

Andree, Baier, Jason, Jay, Russell, Steph

Celebration Nonterminus

May 22, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

It has been an interesting week thus far.

I thought that yesterday I was going to take a major step forward towards fixing my car situation. Jason and I had scoped out a 2004 Buick LeSabre on Car Trader. It was right within my desired price range and only had 33,000 miles on it.

I called down to the dealership in Perry to make sure the car was still there and then I left work early and we headed down. Basically as we pulled onto the lot, the car we came to look at drove off the lot with its new owner.

The car had sat on the lot since September without being sold. In the two hours between when we called down to see if it was still on the lot and showed up on the lot it had been sold.

I’m not much of a fate guy, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. The car search continues.

Birthday Gatherings

I have not celebrated my birthday much recently. However, this year it seems to be over celebrated. I had a barbecue with the family on Sunday. Jay took me to West Side Deli for lunch on Monday. I had lunch with Stephanie at Dublin Bay on Tuesday.

Check out the sweet hunk of bread she brought me from Pittsburgh:

From the Allegro Bakery in Pittsburgh, PA.

On Tuesday night Baier, Russell and Andree took me out to King Buffet. I’ve gotten a few phone messages from people wanting to give me “late cakes” or go see Indiana Jones next week. So the Sunday gathering might be a small group, but perhaps it will be just the right number of people.

Baier, Becca, Bethany, Bill, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Carla, Derrick, Jay, Jen, Jesse, Jim, Johnathan, Monica, Nate, Russ, Sara, Self-Portrait, Teresa, Ungs, Willy

Bad Photos

May 20, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I got all of the old pictures off of my phone. There aren’t a terribly large amount of pictures on there because the old phone is about 4 years old and didn’t have much memory on it.

It turns out almost every picture on that phone ranges from bad to horrible. Although some are amusing.

One major plus of the new phone is the memory card. I can use pictures taken by a real camera for the Caller ID Photo. As you can tell by these images, that will make a big difference.

Art, Baier, History, Movies, Road Trip, Self-Portrait

Lessons Learned in a Giant’s Town

May 16, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

On May 10, 2008, I loaded up into the famous Rideshare Van with Baier and we headed to Fort Dodge to tour the Fort Dodge Museum and see the “Real” Cardiff Giant.

I already knew that there would be a certain amount of controversy surrounding the trip and the Cardiff Giant due to the Cardiff Giant’s phallus. However, I will delve more deeply into the realm of the Cardiff Giant and his junk later. Today I just want to cover some of the salient points of the trip.

We did some important things like:

Take the Traditional Road Trip Photo

Pretend to be Repentant Prisoners

See the Cardiff Giant

However we also learned a few things on this trip.

heck out the “Conditions for Employment for Teachers” in 19th Century Central Iowa.

Like you can read that! Stop squinting!

Since you can’t read that, let me start out by saying I know some womenfolk that I hold in very high regard. Some of them its even for their morality. But I don’t know a single womanfolk that could hold to these standards or would even bother trying.

Conditions for Employment

Must not dress in bright colors
Dresses must not be more than two inches above the ankles
At least 2 petticoats must be worn (I’d kind of like to know why that matters.)
Petticoats will be dried in pillowcases (Again, why does that matter?)
Teachers will not marry
Teachers will not keep company with men
Will not get into a carriage or automobile with any man, except her brother or father
Teachers are expected to be at home between the hours of 8 pm and 6 am.
Teacher will not smoke
Teacher will not play cards
Teacher will not dye her hair under any circumstance (Not even if dressing as Ginny Weasley for Halloween)
Teacher will attend church each Sunday
Teacher will either teach Sunday School OR sing in the choir
Teacher will not leave town without permission of the Chairman of the School Board
BUT THIS ONE IS BY FAR MY FAVORITE: Teachers will not loiter at ice cream stores

Another lesson learned on this trip is that the man who carved the “Real” Cardiff Giant looked eerily similar to Donald Pleasence’s Doctor Loomis character from the horror movie classic Halloween (1978).

Dr. Loomis

Haddonfield isn’t all that far away. I bet Smith’s Grove isn’t that far away either. Perhaps he just swung over on his breaks.

Even though I haven’t watched a horror movie in many a year now, I still have thoughts like this running through my head (in Donald Pleasence’s voice) when I look at the Cardiff Giant:

I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes… the *devil’s* eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that [Giant’s] eyes was purely and simply… *evil*.

– I- I watched him for fifteen years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall – looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.

This isn’t a man.

A final non-gypsum-phallus related lesson we learned is never eat at the Fort Dodge Bonanza, no matter how nostalgic you are feeling for the old Ames Bonanza. The high point of that meal was watching an employee refill the buffet with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.

There are many more pictures posted in the famous Photography 139 Gallery in The Cardiff Giant Road Trip Album:

Cardiff Giant Road Trip

BELOW IS NO LONGER ACCURATE:

There are some bonus pictures in the Friends Album that you have to be a Registered User to see. There might have been some rules violations in those pictures and I don’t feel right posting those for the whole world to see after the Museum Director asked to buy some pictures off of me.

Andree, Baier, Event, Jaycees, Russell, Shannon

Ames Jaycees Sandbox Fill

April 28, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Saturday was the big annual Ames Jaycees Sandbox Fill. I’m going to try to combine a couple of different things together to describe the event and I’m not sure it is going to come together exactly right.

So like I was saying, Saturday was the big annual Ames Jaycees Sandbox Fill. We met up at the Salvation Army at about 8:30 in the morning. We were split up into two teams: Team 1 and Team 2. I was assigned to Team 2. I felt that our team name was not indicative of our dominance in the realm of sandbox filling and was an attempt by Team 1 to claim a superiority that they hadn’t earned at the handles of a wheelbarrow. I suggested that we change our team name to Team Kicks Team 1’s Ass. I’m not sure we ever really made a decision on our team name.

Regardless of the fact that our team name did not indicate such, we were filled with powerhouses:

Shannon (Team Leader)
Melissa
Jamie
Adam
Jason
Keith

We ended up dominating the morning and early afternoon by any meaningful criteria. We filled two more sandboxes than they did, including 1 that wasn’t even on our list of assigned sandboxes and 1 that was on Team 1’s list. We also finished up well before they did, despite a couple of hiccups that were not the fault of anybody on our team.

On a downer note, I was also told that I seemed like a Computer Guy. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so insulted in many a year.

Monday morning came around and I started exchanging e-mails with my chums from The Principal Group. I let it slip out that I had stood around the Salvation Army parking lot for about 25 minutes on Saturday morning.

Russell jumped onto this little tidbit:

You appear to be loitering or are involved in some sort of drug trafficking scheme. Am I the only one who felt this needed explaining?

I wrote back:

It was actually public service. Saturday was the Jaycees Sandbox Fill. We met at the Salvation Army. Look below to see a not very good picture of me from Saturday.

The Me Not Looking So Good Picture

To which Russell replied:

You still appear to be committing some sort of criminal activity. The other person has a do rag, and when the do rag comes out, it’s never above board. How long have you worked for the mafia, Chris?

And Andree added:

I believe that Chris was indeed working. He’s a photographer, thus knows when to stop working and how to pose when a photo-op arrives to make himself as photogenic as possible given the circumstances.

And Baier added:

Doesn’t anyone else think that Chris looks added to this picture; to make it seem like he did a public service? Really; what kind of person who is actually working with a wheelbarrow smiles?

Then Russell added this:

Why the hell is she doing the digging and you’re holding a wheelbarrow? Be a man and get your hands dirty!

To which I was forced to respond:

I don’t know what is more manly, but moving a wheelbarrow full of sand is not work for the faint of heart. It is a manly and strenuous job. But if you must know, I did my fair share of raking. See picture below:

Look! My hands are dirty and now it is more difficult to eat donuts.

Now I’m going to step back from The Principal Group for a moment. There was one moment that kind of soured the day. There was a moment of prejudice and bigotry that made the day a little bit sad. The type of prejudice and bigotry that I thought that this great nation of ours had moved beyond, but I’m going to regale you with the tale because at least one member of Team Kicks Team 1’s Ass found it to be a hoot.

A customer of ours saw Jamie pushing a wheelbarrow.

Jamie and her Wheelbarrow

The customer approached Shannon and asked her this bigoted question:

What do you call a woman doing a man’s job?

I don’t know.

Lazy.

Let us put that sad story of prejudice and move back to the e-mails of The Principal Group.

After I sent out the picture of my raking, I figured I would be inundated with apologies, but that didn’t happen.

Russell responded thusly:

And in this picture you’re face is enshrouded in darkness. And how cruel is it to be burying merchandise and stolen goods underneath children’s playground equipment? Have you mafia types no shame?

I responded:

Perhaps you would like to sign on and help for next year? Stolen merchandise just won’t bury its self.

For the record, I now have a prejudice against sandboxes that are underneath play equipment, where the slide doesn’t move out of the way.

Russell’s reply:

I will volunteer if there aren’t a lot of kids running around. The Big Hu-Hot has never been an patient man. And the Big Hu-Hot will also not work in inclement conditions, but is not opposed to some muscle work if it’s for a good cause or a percentage of any profits. My do rag is black, though, not lily white, so I’d be naturally worried that would cause a conflict.

So perhaps next year I might be able to get Russell out there to move some sand around.

I do have more pictures of the event. You can click on the picture below, or the link below the picture and it will take you to my Snapshots Gallery. After that all you have to do is click on the Ames Jaycees Album and get to perusing.

Ames Jaycees’ Sandbox Fill

SNAPSHOTS GALLERY NO LONGER EXISTS

A few things for you to consider about the Snapshots Gallery. You can now register to use the Snapshots Gallery. The only thing that is required is a valid e-mail address.

In the upper right hand corner, there is a link that says “Register”. Just click on that, agree to my terms and conditions and then fill out some information. An e-mail will arrive in your inbox that tells you how to complete the registration process. Here is a hint: It involves clicking on a link in the e-mail.

Once you have registered, you can Login. Here are the benefits of registering:

Unlock Private Albums
Edit Personal Profile Information
Leave Comments on Pictures
Rate Pictures
Favorite Pictures

This Gallery is still under construction (meaning new pictures are added daily), but it is fully functioning.

If for some reason you don’t get an e-mail to activate your account, then just e-mail me and I’ll activate your account.

Also, if you have an account for the Artistic Photo Gallery, that doesn’t mean you have an account for the Snapshots Gallery. The galleries are controlled by separate databases (in actuality separate tables) and therefore you need to create separate accounts for both. However, you can still use all the same information for both.

Any way, that is enough computer garbage. You’ll figure it out, I’m starting to sound like a Computer Guy, but that is a bit of unpleasantness to discuss in the future.

Andree, Baier, Commercial, Derrick, Faust, Formal Portrait, Jay, Jesse, Nader, Russell, Shannon, Willy

Little White Lye Bonus

April 27, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

What you are about to experience is bits of a national advertising campaign that I would suggest that Little White Lye Soap launch immediately. However, I don’t have much pull in that department. So we’ll have to see what happens.

These pictures are of the actual models that I would use, but the background is not the background that I would use, for most of the models because I just took a picture of them the first time that I ran into them. Just imagine that the background is consistent with the quote underneath the characters.

“After a long day of kissing babies and pressing flesh, nothing cleans off the smell of constituent like Little White Lye Soap.”

“Oh my! After a long evening at the theater with Tennessee Williams, nothing cleans off the powerful odor of mendacity like Little White Lye Soap.”

“Nothing relaxes me and makes me ready for sleep after a long day’s work than a hot shower with Little White Lye Soap.”

“After a long morning of schooling chumps, nothing takes the rank of other people’s failures and broken dreams off me like Little White Lye Soap.”

“After a long night of grinding on the honeys in the clubs, nothing rids a dance machine of the stench of barfly like Little White Lye Soap.”

“There is just no way around it, I’m a handsome man and Little White Lye keeps me handsome by making me clean, while being gentle on my sensitive skin.”

My woman likes my skin to be soft to the touch and Little White Lye Soap keeps my skin soft and that makes my woman happy.”

“After a long night of rocking, Little White Lye Soap cleans off the reek of groupie and leaves me smelling fresh in the morning.”

“After a long day at the office explaining to old people that their 401K dropping 25% in value in the last week is just a normal market fluctuation I feel morally dirty. Nothing restores me to moral equilibrium like a long bath with Little White Lye Soap.”

I imagine these running in GQ. I’ll have to wait and see what the boss says.

Andree, Baier, Derrick, Faust, Jay, Jesse, Nader, Russell, Willy

Mendacious

April 20, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Over the last few days I have intermittently worked on some photos for a big product endorsement I’m going to be doing in the very near future. I asked a few friends to pose for the picture, without giving them any information. I would have thought that our friendship would have been enough for them to just sign on to be willing participants for my photo experiments. I learned that some of my friends just don’t trust me that much. Here is a break down of friends that trust me and friends that need to ask questions constantly:

Friends that Trust

Baier
Jesse
Nader
Russell
Faust
Derrick

Friends that Don’t Trust

Jay
Willy
Andree

I don’t know if these guys are just the untrusting sort or if I have wronged them at some point in our past.

Andree, Baier, Basketball, Faust, Football, Iowa State, Russell, Willy

Spring Game

April 19, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I started my Saturday by stepping on the basketball court at Beyer Hall for the first time in over a year. To be more direct, it was the first time I have stepped on any basketball court in over a year.

On the court with me was Andree, Russell and Baier. We had been planning this game for over a month. Through a series of e-mails I might have built my basketball skills up to them based on the baller that I was in my youth. I was not the only one though. Russell gave himself the nickname The Open Flame. I believe he also gave himself the nickname the Big HuHot. He also gave himself the nickname The Big Nome de Plume. However, he decided to rely mostly on the nickname The Open Flame. I tried to get him to wear a head band with flame design, but he only indicated that he would “work on it”.

I did not want to be outnicknamed, so in the tradition of some of my friends, I chose to give myself the nickname The Almighty. This was mostly based on the fact that Andree claims that the only thing that could make him cower is being in the presence of The Almighty.

There was doubt that I would be able to live up to the nickname, but through our first three contests I lived up to the nickname and more. I opened up the outside game early, then I showed off my post up moves. Then I cracked out the dribble penetration. Finally I showed off the passing game.

After three games, I was The Almighty. I was undefeated and everybody else had felt the bitter taste of defeat. Then my years of eating bad food and not exercising caught up to me. I ran out of steam. I didn’t fare so well in the last couple of games, but no need to dwell on that.

After the basketball game, Baier and I met up with Willy, Faust and Bret in lot B6 for a little tailgating. I had brought my grill over, but I was a bit concerned that it would not fire up. That fear was not necessary. The grill fired up and we knocked down a wide assortment of meats and a pasta salad that Baier had made. A couple other gents joined us and we made our way to the spring game. I posted some pictures from the Spring Game in the Snapshots Gallery. You can get there via the picture of the link below:

IOWA STATE FOOTBALL – 2008

I have some observations from the Spring Game, but I don’t really put any stock in the Spring Game, so I won’t bore you with any of that information.

Baier, Movies, Nader

Looking for a Scab

April 17, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett 6 Comments

The Baiers and I took Nader out for supper tonight. He leaves for London to be reunited with his family on Saturday. He will be there for six weeks.

That is excellent news for him, but that leaves me without a movie buddy. So I might put out a Help Wanted Ad for a Temp.

Help Wanted

Scab Nader – Temporary position that could last up to six weeks. Job responsibilities involve going to movies with me. Must love art house movies, independent films, foreign films and documentaries. It would be considered a bonus if any applicant can change the name of movies they don’t like with the use of mild profanity. Example: Lord of the Crap. Applicants should forward their resume and list of favorite movies to bennett@photography139.com. Applicants that include Sin City or Transformers will have their resumes shredded and then burned. I don’t care what the Equal Opportunity Laws say.

I wonder if I will get any applicants.