Happy Birthday to the Wentworth Warrior!

Daily Reminder

Don't forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS Feeds to the new URL: http://www.photography139.com/notebook/

There is good news on the commenting front. Now when you leave a comment on this blog you will have the option of checking a box that will subscribe you to future comments left on the blog. That means that when a comment is left after your comment, you will get an email notification and you will find out the answers to questions like: "Did you name the fish from 'Open Mic Night'?"


Today is Bill's Birthday. Unfortunately I have not seen Bill for 2 years now, so this is the most recent picture I have of Bill:





Fortunately, Jesse and I are heading out to Omaha on Friday to celebrate the anniversary of Bill's birth with Bill's Omaha Crew. We have never met Bill's Omaha Crew, so this could be an encounter for the ages. Or not... We will find out on Friday.

Today's Love Letter from The Writer's Almanac:

Playwright, poet, and Dublin wit Oscar Wilde was married with two children when he met Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed "Bosie," an Oxford undergraduate student who edited the school's literary magazine, The Spirit Lamp. Bosie had written a glowing review of Wilde's play Salome (1891, Wilde first wrote it in French), and the poet Lionel Johnson introduced Wilde and Douglas later that year, in the summer of 1891. The first six months of their relationship wasn't physically intimate, but during that time Wilde wrote to Douglas letters like this one:

"My own dear boy — Your sonnet is quite lovely and it is a marvel that those red roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the music of song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. You know that Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there and cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place; it only lacks you ...

Always with undying love, yours, Oscar"

The two went off on vacation in February 1895, and Douglas's father, who disliked his son and detested Wilde, left a visiting card at Wilde's social club in England accusing Wilde of being a "posing sodomite," though he famously spelled the latter word wrong. Douglas didn't like his dad and encouraged Wilde to sue for criminal libel. The trial went badly, and his dad's detectives hunted up all sorts of evidence against Wilde's sexual doings, even bringing forth male prostitutes to testify. Wilde dropped his lawsuit, but was then charged with "gross indecency." He was convicted and sentenced to two years of prison and hard labor. From prison in May 1895, he wrote this letter to Douglas:

"My sweet rose, my delicate flower, my lily of lilies, it is perhaps in prison that I am going to test the power of love. I am going to see if I cannot make the bitter warders sweet by the intensity of the love I bear you. I have had moments when I thought it would be wise to separate. Ah! Moments of weakness and madness! Now I see that would have mutilated my life, ruined my art, broken the musical chords which make a perfect soul. Even covered with mud I shall praise you, from the deepest abysses I shall cry to you. In my solitude you will be with me. I am determined not to revolt but to accept every outrage through devotion to love, to let my body be dishonored so long as my soul may always keep the image of you. From your silken hair to your delicate feet you are perfection to me. Pleasure hides love from us, but pain reveals it in its essence. O dearest of created things, if someone wounded by silence and solitude comes to you, dishonored, a laughing-stock, Oh! You can close his wounds by touching them and restore his soul which unhappiness had for a moment smothered. Nothing will be difficult for you then, and remember, it is that hope which makes me live, and that hope alone. What wisdom is to the philosopher, what God is to his saint, you are to me. To keep you in my soul, such is the goal of this pain which men call life. O my love, you whom I cherish above all things, white narcissus in an unmown field, think of the burden which falls to you, a burden which love alone can make light. ... I love you, I love you, my heart is a rose which your love has brought to bloom, my life is a desert fanned by the delicious breeze of your breath, and whose cool spring are your eyes; the imprint of your little feet makes valleys of shade for me, the odour of your hair is like myrrh, and wherever you go you exhale the perfumes of the cassia tree.

"Love me always, love me always. You have been the supreme, the perfect love of my life; there can be no other..."

I would just like to add that I hope that at some point in my future, somebody writes a sentence about me that ends with "... and Iowa wit Christopher D. Bennett..."

Amazing Weekend

Daily Reminder

Don't forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS Feeds to the new URL: http://www.photography139.com/notebook/

I did have a couple of late submissions for RWPE. Here are a couple of bonus FRAMING pictures.



Julie Johnson



Michael Vest


I had an amazing weekend. I would just like to share a few of the highlights. In no particular order, besides chronological:

• I ate supper on Friday night at Jeff's Pizza with Teresa and Jesse. I love their pepperoni rolls.
• I got to watch Jesus Christ Superstar at Stephens with Mom, Jesse and Teresa. It was an awesome production, with the exception of the geriatric Ted Neeley, who has continued to suck it up into his 60s. I firmly believe that the only acceptable definition of Hell is "separation from God". But if I were to believe in a personal punishment vision of Hell, it might be that I get up to what I think is Heaven because Jesus is there. But then he opens his mouth and sounds like Ted Neeley. I would have to pump my fist and scream, "You win this round vengeful God! You win this round!" Sorry Shannon, but that is the way it is.
  
• I got to chauffeur Jim out of the Cyclone State for only the 2nd time since 1987. It was the first time he has left the state for an "extended" period of time since 1987 when he took Nate to see a St. Louis Cardinals game. I think he might have enjoyed it as he is considering leaving the state again this Summer to see the Twins play the Braves on June 12 & 13.
• I got to see Bethany's new house. It is pretty sweet. They have managed to put down a new wood floor, new tile in the kitchen and new carpet in the rest of the house. Her new fridge is the coolest fridge I've ever seen. They painted all the rooms and they got the paint for free because they bought it on Christmas Eve and the Sherwin Williams employee just gave it to them as a Christmas Present because they were the only customers he had that day.
• I got to try my first (and won't be the last) Jucy Lucy. Yes, there is no "i" in Jucy. There are two restaurants that lay claim to having invented the Twin City curiosity. We went to Matt's Bar based on the recommendation of Becca's boyfriend Gelli. He insisted that they have the superior Jucy Lucy. A Jucy Lucy is a cheeseburger that has the cheese inside the meat patty rather than on top. A piece of cheese is surrounded by raw meat and cooked until it melts. The end result is a hamburger with a molten core of cheese. The sandwich is both incredibly tasty and slightly dangerous. You have to be careful with the first bite because if you bite into it too aggressively you are rewarded with an explosion of boiling cheese. This cheese explosion is both tasty and painful. A rare combination. The two restaurants that claim to have invented the burger are only a few blocks apart. Matt's Bar does not use the "i" in juicy. The 5-8 Club does use the "i". They both have used this spelling in their marketing. Matt's Bar boasts "if it's spelled correctly, you're at the wrong place." The 5-8 club boasts "if it's spelled right, it's done right". In a future trip to Minnesota, I will give the 5-8 Club a try. I might also venture into St. Paul to try the Cajun Lucy served at the Groveland Tap.
• Stopped at a quaint little store called Tom's Popcorn Shop. I picked up 4 types of popcorn. A chocolate popcorn that ended up being terrible. Jill compared it to Cocoa Puffs and that was a very accurate assessment. A double caramel and mixed nuts variety ended up being very tasty. A caramel and peanuts variety was tasty. The banana popcorn I am munching on right now isn't too bad.
• I got to see the bank where Bethany works and pick up two new pairs of shoes at a nearby Burlington Coat Factory. My injured foot is already starting to feel better since I switched shoes.
• I made Sara's dream come true by wandering around IKEA with Bethany and Jim. Okay, mostly with Bethany. I think Jim was ready to go 5 minutes after stepping in the door. I didn't get to see all of IKEA, but I did get to see a group of girls acting out the scene from (500) Days of Summer (have I told you lately how much I love that movie!) that is set in IKEA. That warmed my heart a bit. I also fell in love with their collection of butcher block tables and I have decided to get rid of my kitchen table and replace it with a small butcher block table. To create both some space and so I have a food prep area if I ever decide to cook. Or the more likely scenario, for the next time somebody comes over and cooks for me.
• I got to see Jill's apartment. It was disgustingly clean. Meaning if I spent now until my birthday party cleaning my house it still wouldn't be half as clean as Jill's apartment. But it is a well-known fact that the Gorshes are cleaners. Anybody that ever worked a closing shift at the Boone outpost of the Evil Clown Empire with Derrick can tell you stories about the cleanliness of the grill area when he was done. They can also tell you other stories, but I'm concentrating on how much that guy liked to clean for now. I got to meet her cat. I don't think it is a major surprise that her can't didn't like me, but the theory is that this was just laying the groundwork. The next time I visit, the cat will think I'm swell. It is similar to my theory that the next time Jupiter gets together with Jackson and Bailey they will get along swell because of the groundwork I did on Dog Playdate when I was borrowing Jupiter for Sara's trip to Florida. I also got to ride in Indy for the first time since I got to drive her several months back. We ate at this sweet restaurant called Jade 88 Chinese Cuisine. We were the only people in the restaurant. Literally. My favorite aspects of this restaurant were that they called crab rangoons - cream cheese powder puffs, they had a chair sitting in the women's bathroom stall (Jill reported this fact, I did not go into the women's bathroom) and they had the largest collection of cleaning supplies I've ever seen sitting on top of the toilet in the men's room. That isn't to say the food wasn't good, because it was great, but to know me is to know what type of weird things tickle my fancy. After the meal, Jill returned my copy of the 2 Disc Special Edition of A Clockwork Orange that she had borrowed a few weeks back. My Stanley Kubrick boxed set is complete once again! I was also able to loan her The Departed and give her the final piece of Halloween candy. A piece of candy that almost ended up in Willy's stomach.
  
• I had lunch with Jim, Becca and Nate at one of Becca's favorite restaurants Quang. It is a Vietnamese restaurant that reminds me of one of Sara's favorite restaurants, A Dong. (Yes, immature people, that is really the name of the restaurant. Stop giggling. I know who you are.) While we waited for a table, Becca and I checked out an Asian grocery store across the street. Now just going to a normal grocery store is kind of an adventure for me. (If you don't believe me, ask Jay) But going to this grocery store was a special kind of adventure for me. I actually didn't take my camera out of my backpack on the whole trip. Even though I thought about doing my FRAMING picture for RWPE up there, but in the end I admittedly just kind of phoned that project in. However, at the bottom of this list, you might just find a few low quality images I captured with my phone in this market. The food at Quang lived up to Becca's hype. We had some kind of fried yam things called Banh Tom Chien. They called crab rangoons cream cheese wontons. Tasty, but not as cute as cream cheese powder puffs.
• After Quang, I allowed Becca to drive my car (without a small amount of consternation on my part) to give us a tour of Uptown Minneapolis. I really liked Uptown. We got to drive by Gelli's parents' restaurant "It's All Greek to Me..." (a place I will no doubt try in the future) and hear Becca's sermonizing on how much she doesn't like hipsters. Nate liked to point out that Becca is a borderline hipster, but she doesn't see the similarities. Even though she does want to drive a Prius, she is not a hipster she insists. Mostly because she doesn't ride a bike. But perhaps the most exciting part of the Uptown tour was driving by the Uptown Theater. Although I had missed it, they clearly proclaimed on their marquee that they had a midnight showing of A Clockwork Orange. Jill is going to look into this phenomenon and hopefully a midnight showing of A Clockwork Orange is in our future.
• After the Uptown tour we stopped at a grocery store so Nate could buy the ingredients for gumbo. On the surface that doesn't sound particularly exciting, but in fact it is like watching Van Gogh buy paintbrushes or Eric Clapton buy a guitar.
  
• Becca made a Coastal Seafood Salad that included shrimp, squid and roughie. It was incredible. Nate made gumbo (no need to point out how phenomenal the gumbo was) and we settled down to watch the Super Bowl. I would have to say that my favorite Super Bowl commercial this year was the monster.com commercial with the beaver playing the violin. Like Jen, I'm partial to beavers. The team I was rooting for also won. That was a surprising bonus. Nate also tried to convince me that Metallica had redeemed themselves with their most recent album. I've never been much of a Metallica fan, but at some point I will be giving their new album a listen in order to make my own assessment.
• I pulled into my driveway at 1:30 in the morning. It had been a successful weekend on many levels.

Here are a few low quality pictures from my phone:



Mmmm... Pork brains. But you can't prepare that without edible beef blood!



Fresh clams!



Lobster. I wanted a picture of the crabs, but the water in their tank wasn't clear enough to get a good picture.





Of course I also wanted to share today's love letter from The Writer's Almanac:

Franz Kafka wrote stories about human beings transformed into vermin; unsettling legal battles over unspecified crimes; and a father who sentences his son to death by drowning. Kafka is often thought of as neurotic, and rarely as romantic, but he wrote a great many love letters — many of the anguished, helpless variety — to a Berlin woman to whom he was engaged for five years. Their relationship was carried out almost entirely by letters.

In the autumn of 1912, he wrote to Felice Bauer about how much she had become inseparable from his composition process, and also how anticipation of her writing kept him awake at night. He wrote:

"Lately I have found to my amazement how intimately you have now become associated with my writing, although until recently I believe that the only time I did not think about you at all was while I was writing.

In one short paragraph I had written, there were, among others, the following references to you and your letters: someone was give a bar of chocolate. There was talk of small diversions someone had during working hours. Then there was a telephone call. And finally somebody urged someone to go to bed, and threatened to take him straight to his room if he did not obey, which was certainly prompted by the recollection of your mother's annoyance when you stayed so late at the office. — Such passages are especially dear to me; in them I take hold of you, without your feeling it, and therefore without your having to resist.

... [It takes] every imaginable effort to get to sleep — i.e., to achieve the impossible, for one cannot sleep and at the same time be thinking about one's work and trying to solve with certainty the one question that certainly is insoluble, namely, whether there will be a letter from you the next day, and at what time. The night consists of two parts: one wakeful, the other sleepless, and if I were to tell you about it at length and you were prepared to listen, I should never finish.

Eleven days later, Kafka wrote to her:
"Fraulein Felice!
I am now going to ask you a favour which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well this is it:
Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them.
For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you.
I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don't want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that's why I don't want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?"

And a week after that, he wrote to her:

"Dearest, what have I done that makes you torment me so? No letter again today, neither by the first mail nor the second. You do make me suffer! While one written word from you could make me happy! ... If I am to go on living at all, I cannot go on vainly waiting for news of you, as I have done these last few interminable days ...

I think the thing I've liked about these letters is their common theme of thinking constantly about the woman they love and how that gets in the way of their work.

RWPE #5 - Framing

Basic housekeeping:

This page will be moving at the end of February. Don't forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS Feeds to the new URL: http://www.photography139.com/notebook/

Astute and technically savvy subscriber Angie did remind me that Blogger Dashboard is just an RSS Feed reader and anybody that follows An Artist's Notebook on Blogger Dashboard will still be able to follow it through Blogger Dashboard by simply updating the URL.

Dawn and Angie both raised concerns that they would not get email alerts when responses to their comments are left on the blog. I am currently looking into coming up with a fix for that and I will let you know when I come up with a solution.

This week's submissions for Random Weekly Photo Experiment:



Christopher D. Bennett



Dawn Krause


Shannon Bardole's Art Appreciation Picks of the Week:








Dawn Krause's Weekly Poetry Entry:

Dawn went for the "psychological concept of Framing" with her poem.

Framing

A social theory of interpretation
It helps us along in communication

Reference points making up our lives
Fitting together till every piece jives

Outline of who we believe we are
Continually makes us raise our bar

Compare our lives to what we know
Fitting our frames to friend and foe

This must have been a tougher concept to tackle as the fewest people contributed, but hopefully more people will be able to tackle this week's theme:

ADVENTURE

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of The Writer's Almanac. It is my favorite thing on the radio. I wanted to share a little tidbit from today's Writer's Almanac as it is rapidly approaching Valentine's Day. In fact, The Writer's Almanac is celebrating this week with love letters.

Poet John Keats (books by this author) lived to be just 25 years old, but in that time he wrote some of the most exquisite love letters in the English language. The letters were to Fanny Brawne to whom he became engaged.

He was 23 years old, recently back from a walking tour of Scotland, England, and Ireland (during which time he'd probably caught the tuberculosis that would soon kill him), and had moved back to a grassy area of London, where he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne. During this time, he composed a number of his great poems, including Ode to a Nightingale. And one Wednesday in the autumn, he wrote this letter, considered by many the most beautiful in the English language:

My dearest Girl,
This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my soul I can think of nothing else. The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you against the unpromising morning of my Life. My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again — my Life seems to stop there — I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving — I should exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love ... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have shudder'd at it. I shudder no more. I could be martyr'd for my religion — love is my religion — I could die for that. I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet. You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavored often "to reason against the reasons of my Love." I can do that no more — the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats

The following spring, Keats wrote: "My dear Girl, I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The more I have known you the more I have lov'd. ... You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was filled with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time."

Keats and Brawne became engaged. He wanted to earn some money for them before they got married. But then he began coughing up blood. When he saw it, he said: "I know the color of that blood; it is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that color. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die." He wrote to tell her that she was free to break off their engagement since he would likely not survive. But she would not, and he was hugely relieved. But he died before they married.

Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 3

Before I delve into this week's PPPW, I want to pass along some sad (not real sad) and fairly technical news.

The way I have always posted entries into this journal is through a blogging company known as Blogger. It is an awesome program and it allows me to write blogs on their website and publish them to my website via FTP.

Blogger is discontinuing their support for FTP publishing in about a month. That means that I am parting ways with Blogger at the end of February.

There are some positives to this change:

1. Now my Journal will have a consistent look and feel to it.
2. The blogging software I'm changing to (WordPress) is the same software I use to create, design and maintain my website. It does have a couple of features that Blogger does not.

There are some negatives to this change:

1. The URL of "An Artist's Notebook" will change from: http://www.photography139.com/index_files/artistsnotebook.htm to http://www.photography139.com/notebook/. That means that those of you that have links or bookmarks to the blog will have to update them to the new URL. Also, if you follow this blog via RSS Feed, you will have to update your RSS feed. I'm currently double posting, so it won't hurt to change those links and bookmarks before I stop posting via Blogger on March 1.
2. Some people follow me via Blogger Dashboard. Those people will stop getting updates on March 1. If this is troubling to you and you aren't comfortable with RSS Feeds, you can email me at bennett@photography139.com and I will add you to the email subscription list.
3. There are only a few people that actually leave comments on my blog, but I do treasure those comments. (This is in addition to the people that email me directly, I treasure those emails as well.) Most of those people follow via Blogger Dashboard. It is my hope that they continue to leave comments on the blog in its newest incarnation, but know that this will take an extra step for them.
   
4. Because the email subscription list will be distributed in a new way, it is possible that there will be hiccups along the way. I am in the process of "beta testing" this knew system, but it is possible that something could slip by the testing process. If you suddenly stop getting emails from me on March 1, then something bad has happened. Let me know and I'll look into the issue.
5. Perhaps the most annoying for my readers, I will be posting a reminder similar to this on the top of every journal entry I publish between now and March 1.

Enough housekeeping! Here is Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 3:



Open Mic Night


The sad part about this story is that this fish has already died. As Dennis so eloquently put it: "He lived on the stage. He died on the stage."

I did not kill this fish. Nor did I kill the second unpictured fish that I got for free because the Wal-Mart lady fished out two fish on accident and was too lazy to return the other fish to the aquarium.

They both died of completely natural causes, I believe that natural cause of death to have been "fish bought from Wal-Mart". Despite my best efforts to keep them alive, I fed them every now and again, they perished... from this Earth.

So let me share a couple of pictures from their brief existence.








I need to thank my favorite rock star, Derrick Gorshe for loaning me the mic and mic stand. I printed out a temporary copy of this picture that Derrick requested so he could hang it up at Rieman Music. If you don't count Shannon's apartment as the worldwide headquarters of Little White Lye Soap or Jesse's office at work, this is only the 2nd business to proudly display a Photography 139 image on one of its walls.

The first business was Salon 908.

I do know that the Photography 139 Calendar has graced office walls and cubicles of businesses like The Salon at Younker's, Loan Processing Services, Ortho Computer Systems and Principal Financial Group, but this is a little different.

I hope you enjoyed the comedic picture and the sad tale of how it ended.

RWPE #4 - Plants

Last week's Random Weekly Photo Experiment Theme was PLANTS. It is exciting to have Julie Johnson as a first time contributor! Here are the submissions:



Julie Johnson



Dawn Krause


Jesse Howard


Mike Vest



Mike Vest



Christopher D. Bennett


Shannon Bardole's Artistic Appreciation Selection of the Week:





Dawn Krause's Poem:

Plants

As bee and butterfly flit through the green
Amid a summer day
On a rose flying-beauty paused to preen
While bee begins to play

The garden sways gently to the breeze
It’s rustle fills the air
Aroma and beauty with aim to please
A sensual gift so rare


The theme for this week is FRAMING.

The best way to describe FRAMING is it a compositional technique where an object (usually in the foreground)surrounds the subject. Essentially creating a frame.

An example of this technique can be seen in the image below taken by my nephew Logan on Mother's Day.





However, don't feel obligated to stick to that definition. A picture of somebody framing a picture or framing a house would qualify just as easily.

I do actually have several other photos that from my PLANTS photo session that I will publish later this week. I took several more pictures than I usually do for RWPE and I don't want them all to sit on my hard drive collecting dust. Like the picture of the aftermath of me tripping over a fence, during the SOOTHING photo shoot, always will.

The 52 Themes

I have been asked by a couple different people if I knew all 52 Themes for RWPE couldn't I think ahead?

The truth is that I could think ahead, but off the top of my head I couldn't tell you what maybe 5 of the themes are that haven't been used yet.

Plus I have to admit that I don't feel the need to think ahead on RWPE, when I'm already planning very far ahead for my Personal Photo Project of the Week. To put it somewhat bluntly, thinking ahead defeats the purpose of the project. The point of the project is spontaneity and being forced to think creatively when faced with a timeline. But admittedly there is a factor of convenience involved as well.

During the first 3 weeks, the photo that I have ended up taking (all 3 weeks) has been my 3rd or 4th idea. The first ideas just haven't worked out because of time and sometimes the weather.

However, I do want to afford other people the opportunity to "think ahead", so below I have listed all 52 Themes:

1 means available 0 means used.

1|~|Active
1|~|Adventure
1|~|Calm
1|~|Colorful
1|~|Communication
1|~|Discover
1|~|Dry
1|~|Explore
1|~|Fast
1|~|Harmony
1|~|Hope
1|~|Love
1|~|Motion
1|~|Peace of Mind
1|~|Silence
0|~|Soothing
1|~|Spiritual
1|~|Strength
1|~|Wet
1|~|Wild
1|~|Restaurants
1|~|Market
1|~|Paths
0|~|Plants
1|~|Painting with Light
1|~|Smoke Photography
1|~|Long Exposure
1|~|Rule of Thirds
1|~|Leading Lines
1|~|Symmetry and Patterns
1|~|Viewpoint
1|~|Depth of Field
1|~|Framing
0|~|Use of Space
1|~|Macro
1|~|Odd Camera Angle
1|~|Unfocused
1|~|Panning & Camera Blur
1|~|Light Placement
1|~|Still Life
1|~|Diagonal Rule
1|~|Self Portrait
1|~|Food
0|~|People
1|~|Silhouettes
1|~|Feet
1|~|Hands
1|~|Eye
1|~|Reflections
1|~|Face
1|~|Shadows
1|~|Signs


Some of these themes are somewhat specific photography techniques that some people might not understand. Don't worry, when "Depth of Field" or "Painting with Light" or chosen, I will do my best to explain what that means. Of course, there is no reason to have to think inside the box and feel obligated to use that technique literally.

Number 750

This is entry number 750 in this online journal. I'd like to take a little bit of time to archive some data. It is one of my peculiar imbecilities that I love meaningless statistics. Therefore, consider these statistics:

Every journal entry falls into at least one of sixteen categories. This is how many journal entries have fit into each one of these categories:

1. Photography - 295
2. Friends - 269
3. Life - 238
4. Family - 98
5. Religion - 63
6. ISU Football - 41
7. Jaycees - 40
8. Movies - 39
9. Blogging 33
10. Sports - 25
11. Work - 25
12. House - 24
13. Writing - 23
14. Comedy - 20
15. Politics - 17
16. History - 12

If you measure popularity by how many times a picture is viewed, these are the 10 (or so) most popular pictures in my Artistic Gallery.



#1. Outburst of the Soul (26 Views)



#2. Untitled (23 Views)



#3. Grizzly McAlpine (22 Views)



#3. Untitled (22 Views)



#5. Untitled (21 Views)



#5. Jen Smoking (21 Views)



#7. UnHingd Publicity Still (20 Views)



#8. 1900 (19 Views)



#8. Untitled - (19 Views)





#10. Campanile Self Portrait - (18 Views)



#10. US30 East of Ogden - (18 Views)


I know these numbers are somewhat controlled by the length of time a picture has been in the Artistic Gallery, but I am pleased by the number of black and white images that are high in popularity.

But it begs the question, what is the most popular subject in the Snapshot Gallery. What do people like to see from the "Daily Grind of My Existence"?



#1. Jesse and I with the World's Largest Cheeto - (25 Views)



#2. Jesse with a Bob's Dog - LeMars, Iowa (23 Views)



#3. Jesse and in backstage of the Surf Ball Room - (21 Views)



#4. Shannon reading a map on our first road trip to Backbone. (19 Views)



#4. Sumrall catching a pass against A&M. I think this picture is so popular because it was a popular picture to get spammed when I was having spamming problems with the galleries.



#6. Jesse at the Surf Ball Room - (18 Views)



#6. Jesse kissing the Blarney Stone - (18 Views)



#8. Jesse and I in Clinton on The Eastern Iowa Road Trip - (17 Views)



#8. Jen and Shannon making some kind of deal at Bonne Finken - (17 Views)



#8. Cousin Amy, Sara and Jen at Bonne Finken - (17 Views)



#8. Jesse and Jay on The Eastern Iowa Road Trip - (17 Views)



#8. Robert enjoying the view of the Mississippi River in Balltown - (17 Friends)



#8. Jesse videotaping Big Jesus - (17 Views)



#8. Jesse and I at the Sgt. Floyd Memorial - (17 Views)


I think what I have learned from this exercise is that people like to see Jesse and I having adventures. I think I'll have to look into us having a few more adventures in 2010!

I will have to check back in on this when I hit journal entry number 1,000.

Proust Questionnaire Number Sixteen

Proust Quote:
"What a profound significance small things assume when the woman we love conceals them from us."

We have come to the end of the days where I will answer any more Proust questions. I hope some people got something out of this little exercise. I will give special thanks to Angie, as she is the only person that either read these little essays or is the only person to have the testicular fortitude to also share her answers. I fear the lack of participation has dashed my hopes of playing this little parlor game at a tea party this Spring.

Since this is the last day, rather than throwing a bunch of words at one question I will answer all the remaining questions with just one or two words.

Your favorite virtue or The principal aspect of my personality:
Valor (of the Seven Holy Virtues)
Temperance (of the Eight Heavenly Virtues)
Prudence (of the Four Cardinal Virtues)
Love (of the Three Theological Virtues)

Your chief characteristic:
Veracity

If not yourself, who would you be? or What I should like to be:
Sorted out

My favorite bird:
Crow

Your favorite prose authors or My favorite prose authors:
Salinger

Your favorite heroines in fiction or My favorite heroines in fiction:
Autumn

My favorite composers:
Beethoven

My favorite painters:
Henning

Your heroes in real life or My heroes in real life:
Mom

What characters in history do you most dislike:
Lieberman

Your heroines in World history or My heroines in history:
Hepburn

Your favorite food and drink:
sauerkraut casserole & Pepsi

The military event I admire the most:
30,000

The reform I admire the most:
Health Care

How I wish to die or How I want to die:
Fearless

What is your present state of mind or My present state of mind:
Dull

For what fault have you most toleration? or Faults for which I have the most indulgence:
Inclinations

Before I click "Publish Post" and wish you a safe and Happy New Year, I would like to conclude this little exercise with some of my favorite Proust quotes that didn't make it into any of the previous entries:

"A woman one loves rarely suffices for all our needs, so we deceive her with another whom we do not love."

"As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress."

"Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without his book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself."

"Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments."

"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."

"In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things."

"It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body."

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

"Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit."

"Like everybody who is not in love, he thought one chose the person to be loved after endless deliberations and on the basis of particular qualities or advantages."

"Love is space and time measured by the heart."

"No exile at the South Pole or on the summit of Mont Blanc separates us more effectively from others than the practice of a hidden vice."

"The charms of the passing woman are generally in direct proportion to the swiftness of her passing."

"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

"The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it."

"There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory."

"Those whose suffering is due to love are, as we say of certain invalids, their own physicians."

"Three-quarters of the sickness of intelligent people come from their intelligence."

"Time passes, and little by little everything we have spoken in falsehood becomes true."

"Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them."

"We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full."

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."

"We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond."


I have just begun to read Swann's Way. (It was a Christmas present along with Within a Budding Grove and The Guermantes Way!) If I can make it through this entire series, I might be ready to try to tackle Ulysses.

Now that this exercise has concluded, I will begin posting pictures from my latest photo projects very soon.

Proust Questionnaire Number Fifteen

Proust Quote:
"Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces."

Confessions Question:
What I hate the most.

Confidences Question:
What I hate most of all.

Proust's Answer:
What is bad about me.

I'm clearly too arrogant to hate what is bad about me and I try not to dwell much on the concept of hate. In fact, I think I can state with a clear conscience that I don't actually hate anybody.

There are concepts or things that I hate. I hate the Boone Speedway. I hate golf. I hate the fact that Pufferbilly Days is held at the fairgrounds. I hate the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Notre Dame and Duke. I hate the Yankees and Cubs.

Above all things though, I hate ignorance. Perhaps that is a way of hating what is bad about me, but not in a straight line sort of way.

I hate what ignorance brings. Ignorance brings ideologues. I hate ideologues. Ignorance brings prejudice. I hate prejudice. Ignorance brings anti-intellectualism. I hate anti-intellectualism.

However, the way that ignorance effects my every day life (besides having to read news stories about death panels. With apologies to Se7en, "I've been trying to figure something in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is as dumb as Sarah Palin clearly is, do they know that they are dumb? Maybe they are just sitting around, reading "Guns and Ammo", trying to put a verb next to a noun in a futile attempt to actually complete an intelligible thought, do they just stop and go, 'Wow! It is amazing how frigging dumb I really am!'") is my ignorance when it comes to subjects that can be used for making small talk.

I am terrible when it comes to small talk, but I don't want to put in the time it would take to keep me abreast of the subject that is invariably the focus of small talk - television.

Contrary to my reputation I am not an elitist. I do own a television. It is frequently on. I can't deny that it is to some degree little more than a monitor for my Blu-ray player, but I do frequently watch sports, news, documentaries, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. In the future I will be giving the show Dexter a shot, but other than that I am completely and utterly ignorant of most television programs.

When I am in a group of people that I don't know well (okay this even frequently happens with people that I know well) I am frequently reduced to little more than a background observer while the others happily chat about the latest episode of Big Brother or about the winner of American Idol or the latest crime solved on Law & Order: NCIS - Miami.

I do not mean to sound greedy. I do not need to be the center of the attention constantly. I can be a background observer occasionally dropping a mind-blowing dimebag of insight on the conversation, but when I get involved in these conversations I cannot really pay attention. I am often forced to drift off to Willy-land. There are chocolate waterfalls and gumdrop forests in Willy-land. That is where I remain until there is a word that draws my interest and breaks through the boredom induced haze.

What I truly wish is that there was a website for people like me that are small talk handicapped. A website where I would go before parties and other social engagements and learn just enough to fake my way through the night. The website could feed me just enough information so that when I was thrust into one of these conversations I could laugh knowingly and when the moment was right I could interject something like:

"Oh yeah. That Adam Lambert is super talented."

or

"Sgt. So and So really nailed him on that episode."

or

"I totally saw that. David Hasselhoff is such a card!"

Then I could retreat back to the anonymity of the background. New money of course, but part of the club.

Proust Questionnaire Number Fourteen

Proust Quote:
"The bonds that unite another person to our self exist only in our mind."

Confessions Question:
Your idea of misery.

Confidences Question:
What would be my greatest misfortune?

Proust's Answer:
Not to have known my mother or grandmother.

I once stated that the greatest misery is waiting for something to happen and the greatest happiness is when that thing happens. Therefore I think the best way to answer this question is to think of what didn't cause me the greatest depth of misery this year, but what caused me the longest length of misery.

Or what was my greatest mistake in 2009?

To answer this question with one hundred percent honesty my greatest mistake is the same as it has been probably every year of my life. My inability to see and act on what is plainly in front of me. This year that inability lead to a huge mistake, but that mistake is one that I feel that I have been able to correct, more or less.

The mistake that caused me the longest stretch of misery was actually a mistake I made in 2008. I wasn't sure how much detail I would go into on this mistake. It is dependent on how deep into the well of bitterness I wanted to go.

However, of all the people I know that should actually loathe the organization that I could easily eviscerate with but a drop of that bitterness, is worried about what I will write. She doesn't want people to think poorly of this organization that she still loves.

Therefore, I will dial the bile back and just keep this simple and short. I will not go into detail about broken federal tax laws, lies, cover-ups, recriminations and witch trials. I will skate around the edges.

The greatest mistake I made in 2009 was joining the board of a community organization.

This organization exists (at least it is my understanding) to help people gain leadership skills. In essence, it is supposed to be a self improvement organization that does this through community service projects.

Self-improvement did not appeal to me. I belong to the Tyler Durden school of thought on self improvement.

I'm not in the need of enhancing my leadership skills. Running small projects isn't that interesting when you've run a million dollar business. Writing a CPG is somewhat of a joke after you've written actual business plans.

However, I was interested in community service. In fact, I would even say that I was happy in the organization until I joined the Board. In the 3 months I spent on the Board, I witnessed backstabbing, political maneuvering and the most ridiculous turf war I have ever witnessed in my life.

In short, it amazed me what I learned that one human being is willing to do to another human being to protect their small piece of the absolute insignificant part of a power structure for an organization that has 50 members and a budget well under $50,00.

Not that this organization isn't significant, but to quote George Bailey, "In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say (it) is nothing but a scurvy little spider."

In essence there is nothing in this organization that is anywhere near important enough to treat people the way that I witnessed people being treated.

After 3 months on the Board I quit. I can't stand quitting. It is something that runs contrary to the fiber of my being. But sometimes, you have to cut your losses and that is what I did. The Board had broken into 2 factions and the side that I was sitting on had all quit. All of my "allies" were much more passionate about the organization than I was ever going to be and if they weren't really willing to fight for it, then somebody of my nominal interest surely wasn't going to stick around.

But I did stick around the organization for the rest of the year to fulfill some of my obligations. In this time I have come to realize that there isn't really much community service being done by the organization. At least not in the way that I see it. There is a lot of begging other people for money so that they can turn around and give that money to another organization that actually helps people. I don't like begging people for money. Raise money in an honest way and then give the money to the people that actually help other people.

Although my faith in humanity was slightly shaken (I still really can't believe that people would act so heinously to protect something that is so insignificant.) I have decided to make my community service contributions to the world through my church. I will be the Vice President of the Methodist Men for 2010. I have been promised this job has no responsibilities whatsoever.

I figure that if I concentrate my activities on a Christ-centered organization there will be more concentration on actually helping people and less effort to worry about anybody's 3 inches of turf.

That is not to say that I consider my entire time in the organization a waste. Even though I am saddened to think about how much time I wasted on fruitless endeavors in 2009 (I've taken steps to correct that in 2010) I definitely met some incredible and wonderful people through the organization. I hope to continue some of those relationships from outside the organization.

Proust Questionnaire Number Thirteen

Proust Quote:
"Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination."

Confessions Question:
Your favorite qualities in a woman.

Confidences Question:
The quality I desire in a woman.

Proust's Answer:
Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship.

I do have to repeat - "Did I mention that Proust was gay?" With apologies to Proust, I kind of like pretty women as well.

Putting that aside, I do fear that some of these answers will both incriminate me and give away some of the precious information that I have hoarded over the years for my seminar: "All the Things I REALLY Can't Believe that Women Can't Figure Out About Men!"

Fortunately most of this information is me-specific and not applicable to the Man Kingdom as a general rule.

I wish to start with a scene from a fairly benign but fairly dreadful teen comedy called Drive Me Crazy.

In the scene, the male lead is approached by a couple of reporters for the newspaper and they ask him (more or less) to describe his dream girl. He responds (once again apologies for the vulgarity):

"All right. She's the kind of girl who'll call you on your bullshit. She's not afraid to dance. She offers to pay. She doesn't decide before a date whether she's gonna kiss you or not. She's not completely earnest, yet she's not completely ironic either... She orders dessert, and she can be ready in ten minutes."

"Well, we will have to change that 'bullshit' to 'bull'."

"Well, then use 'pretensions'."

Now I'm certainly not going down the "dream girl" road, but if I look back on 2009 and think of the women that have raised their stock this year, these must be the attributes that I think women should possess.

• Women should smell nice.
• Women should know that when a man makes a wrong turn, it isn't really a wrong turn, the man is choosing to take the scenic route.
• Women should cry at movies.
• Women should give A Clockwork Orange a chance. They can worry that it is kind of violent (so much so that it requires a reassuring phone call), but after time, it should grow on them.
• Women should absolutely, positively, affectionately, affirmatively, aggressively, articulately, assertively, clandestinely, cognitively, concisely, constructively, creatively, cutely, definitely, densely, desperately, selectively, exhaustively, expansively, explosively, freely, genuinely, impressively, indeterminately, inordinately, intensely, obstinately, obsessively, passionately, pensively, perceptively, perversely, privately, profusely, resolutely, routinely, safely, sagely, sanely, savagely, sportively, substantively, supinely, surely, unchastely, uniquely, verbosely love words that end in "ely".
  
• Women should know a little bit about sports, perhaps even have played sports in the past or present. They should understand the basics of what they are watching. It is okay for a woman to ask some questions, but I would say that about 3 per half is a good rule of thumb. It is okay for women to have opinions on sports, but they shouldn't be more well thought out than a man's opinions on sports. A certain amount of a man's self-worth is dependent on how well he understands sports and when a woman knows more about sports than a man, the man feels inadequate.
• A woman should never pretend to be dumb.
• A woman should like jazz. Real jazz.
  
• A woman should let a man off the hook if he agrees to have his tonsils removed with her if she ever has to have them removed a second time because he wasn't being serious. He didn't know that tonsils could grow back.
• A woman shouldn't whine incessantly about every picture ever taken of her. She should accept her beauty with a quiet grace.
• A woman should have some musical talent.
• A woman should have a soft heart for small children and animals.
• A woman should have an adventurous heart. Especially when it comes to posing for photos.
• A woman should have some artistic skills. Beaver drawing skills are a premium.
• A woman should have some interest in the arts.
• A woman should be able to eat candy or fatty foods without talking about how "fat" she is.
• A woman should own at least a pair of fuzzy socks and pjs.
• A woman should know of an alley that is photogenic.

Although hardly comprehensive, I think this list is a good start. As good as it is going to get at this time.

Proust Questionnaire Number Twelve

Proust Quote:
"All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last."

Confessions Question:
Your main fault.

Confidences Question:
My main fault.

Proust's Answer:
Not knowing, not being able to "want".

Ye be warned, any that go much further. What lies below is discussion of the movie Gone Baby Gone. If you haven't seen the movie and don't wish for the ending to be spoiled for ye, stop reading right now!

The offense that I'm about to admit to is not easy for somebody that is as extremely manly as I am to confess. I have come to realize in the last few months that my greatest fault is that I am too emotional.

I have been reassured that being this way is a "good thing", but I am not without my doubts.

For example, on two separate occasions this year, I reacted to situations at a very visceral level. I don't want to go into details about those situations, but one time it took the counsel of very good friends to prevent me from making what would have ultimately been a huge blunder. The second situation caused me to send a profane text message to my eldest sister. Perhaps the first time she has heard me utter such filth. I think you all know how I feel about base language and why I feel that way.

Even more than those situations, I think I can pinpoint my reaction to the movie Gone Baby Gone as when I realized how emotional some of my reactions have become.

Gone Baby Gone is a 2007 movie directed by Ben Affleck. I know that makes it sound awful, but it turns out that as bad as Affleck is as an actor, he is a pretty good director.

I am fairly dreadful at writing up a synopsis of books or movies, so I lifted a synopsis from the Internet Movie Database:

The tough private eye Patrick Kenzie was raised in a poor and dangerous neighborhood of Boston, and works with his partner and girlfriend Angie Gennaro generally tracking missing losers in debt. When the four year-old Amanda McCready is abducted from her apartment, her aunt Beatrice 'Bea' McCready calls the police and the press, and the case is highlighted with the spots by the media. Then Bea hires the reluctant Patrick to work in the case because he is not a cop and based on his great knowledge of their neighborhood. Meanwhile Capt. Jack Doyle, who lost his own daughter many years ago and is in charge of the investigation, assigns detectives Remy Bressant and Nick Pole to give the necessary support to Patrick. After interviewing the addicted low life mother of Amanda, Helene McCready, Patrick goes to a bar and discloses that Helene was on the streets with her boyfriend Skinny Ray Likanski dealing and using drugs on the day Amanda disappeared. Along his investigation, Patrick faces smalltime criminals, drug dealers, pedophiles and corruption, facing a moral issue to solve the case.

The first time I watched this movie I was outraged by the ending of the movie. I don't mind a movie having a sad and/or depressing ending. Some of my favorite movies are Once, The Ox-Bow Incident, Paths of Glory...

But at the end of this movie, one character that I had grown to love makes the wrong decision. A very wrong decision. In fact, the thought never even crossed my mind that he made the right decision. That was until I began discussing this movie with other people. I quickly found out that I am the only person that thinks that Patrick Kenzie makes the wrong decision at the end of the movie.

Well, almost the only person.

But as I reflected on the movie some more, I realized that Patrick actually makes 2 moral decisions. Then after discussing the movie extensively I came to realize that there is actually a third moral decision that other characters in the movie make that I never even considered whether or not they were right or if they were wrong. I instinctively knew what I thought was right, but as it turns out, I am also in the minority on this as well.

As it turns out, the only person to agree with me (that I have found) on these 3 moral dilemmas 100% is Jill. Everybody else seems to disagree with me 100%.

I am going to do some extensive quoting of the movie Gone Baby Gone and it does contain quite a bit of profanity. I apologize if this offends anybody's delicate sensibilities, but that is the way it has to be.

Gone Baby Gone starts with this line of dialogue. I don't know if it is particularly relevant to this discussion, but it sets the stage for Patrick's personal code of morality.

Patrick Kenzie: I always believed it was the things you don't choose that makes you who you are. Your city, your neighborhood, your family. People here take pride in these things, like it was something they'd accomplished. The bodies around their souls, the cities wrapped around those. I lived on this block my whole life; most of these people have. When your job is to find people who are missing, it helps to know where they started. I find the people who started in the crack and then fell through. This city can be hard. When I was young, I asked my priest how you could get to heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God said to His children: "You are sheep among wolves. Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves."

When Amanda McCready is kidnapped, her aunt and uncle hire Patrick and his girlfriend Angie to augment the investigation. Amanda's mom Helene is a drug addict and a terrible parent. Imagine all of the Wal-Mart parents you have seen in your life. Now multiply that by 10.

Angie does not want to take the case:

Angie: We have a good life, right?

Patrick: Is that a trick question?

Angie: I don't wanna find their little kid in a dumpster.

Patrick: Maybe she's not in a dumpster, babe.

Angie: I don't wanna find a little kid after they've been abused for three days.

Patrick: Hon, nobody does.

Patrick and Angie meet up with the police that are assigned to keep them in the loop and find out that the only lead the cops have is a pedophile that has dropped off the police radar.

Detective Remy Bressant: Corwin Earle. Serial molester, recently work-release. Went AWOL around the time Amanda disappeared.

Detective Poole: Known associates - Leon Trett and his handsome wife, Roberta. The Tretts were released six and eight months ago, respectively. They have drug habits. We don't know where they are, but we think Corwin's with them. Jailhouse snitch claims that Corwin confided in him and told him when he got out, he was gonna move in with his family. Apparently, the three of them have some kind of Addams Family deal going on.

Bressant: Corwin's plan is to keep a kid in the house to have sex with.

Patrick: Well, that sounds promising.

Bressant: Not for Amanda, it doesn't.

Through Patrick and Amanda's investigation they learn that Helene wasn't at her neighbor's house on the night that Amanda was kidnapped. She was down at the Fillmore (think Wilson's Tap if you are from Boone or Deano's if you are from Ames) doing drugs. They also learn that Helene and her boyfriend robbed a local drug dealer named Cheese. With the blessing of Bressant and Poole, Patrick and Angie approach Cheese in an attempt to broker at trade: the stolen money for Amanda.

Cheese denies he has Amanda and turns down the offer.

Cheese: You got my money, you leave that shit in the mailbox on your ass way out, you feel me? Some mother fuckers let fool rob on them. I don't play scrimmage. But I don't fuck with no kids. And if that girl only hope is you, well, I pray for her, because she's gone, baby. Gone.

Later Cheese calls in and brokers a deal with Bressant. But the deal is intercepted by Captain Jack Doyle. He does not want to go through with the deal, but feels obligated to, since to welch on the deal would put Amanda's life in danger.

Jack Doyle: Do you have any children, Miss Gennaro?

Angie: No, sir.

Doyle: My only child was murdered. She was twelve. Did you hear about it? What you probably didn't hear, and what I hope you never have to deal with, Miss Gennaro, is what that feels like. What I have to deal with. Knowing that my little girl likely died crying out for me to come and save her. And I never did. My little girl died afraid and alone in a shallow ditch bank by the side of the road, not ten minutes from my house. I know what it feels like to lose a child. Now damn it, you force my hand and then you question the way I handle it.

Bressant: No one's questioning you, sir.

Doyle: I honor my child with this division. So that no parent has to go through what I've known. This child. That all I care about. I'm gonna bring her home.

The deal doesn't go as planned. Amanda ends up falling to her death. Captain Doyle is forced to resign. Patrick and Angie are forced to live with the guilt of not being able to save Amanda.

Life starts to normalize when another kid goes missing. This time, nobody comes looking to hire Patrick and Amanda. But after a few days, Patrick is approached by his friend (a local drug dealer) who has found Corwin Earle.

Patrick contacts Bressant and Doyle. They approach the house where Corwin Earle is living. Shots come from the house and Doyle is killed. Patrick goes inside the house and finds the body of the kidnapped child. He was raped to death.

Patrick shoots Corwin Earle in the back of the head while he pleads for his life. Afterwards, Patrick is treated like a hero by Angie and Bressant.

Angie: They told me what happened. I'm proud of you. That man killed a child. He had no right to live.

Patrick: You're proud of me?

Angie: Of course I am. You did what you had to do.

Later...

Patrick: They say how old the boy was?

Bressant: Seven.

Patrick: Second grade.

Bressant: Should be proud of yourself. Most guys would've stayed outside.

Patrick: I don't know.

Bressant: What don't you know?

Patrick: My priest says shame is God telling you what you did was wrong.

Bressant: Fuck him.

Patrick: Murder's a sin.

Bressant: Depends on who you do it to.

Later...

Bressant: I planted evidence on a guy once, back in '95. We were paying $100 an eight ball to snitches. We got a call from our pal Ray Likanski. He couldn't find enough guys to rat out. Anyway, he tells us there's a guy pumping up in an apartment up in Columbia Point. We go in, me and Nicky. Fifteen years ago., when Nicky went in, it was no joke. So it's a... it's a stash house, right? The old lady's beat to shit, the husband's mean, cracked out, trying to give us trouble, Nicky lays him down. We're doing an inventory, but it looks like we messed up because there's no dope in the house, and I go in the back room. Now, this place was a shithole, mind you? Rats, roaches, all over the place. But the kid's room, in the back, was spotless. No, I mean, he swept it, mopped it; it was immaculate. The little boy's sitting on the bed, holding onto his playstation for dear life. There's no expression on his face, tears streaming down. He wants to tell me he just learned his multiplication tables.

Patrick: Christ.

Bressant: I mean, the father's got him in this crack den, subsisting on twinkies and ass-whippings, and this little boy just wants someone to tell him that he's doing a good job. You're worried what's Catholic? I mean, kids forgive. Kids don't judge. Kids turn the other cheek. What do they get for it? So I went back out there and put an ounce of heroin on the living room floor and sent the father for a ride, seven to life.

Patrick: That was the right thing?

Bressant: Fucking A! You gotta take a side. You molest a child, you beat a child, you're not on my side. If you see me coming, you better run, because I am gonna lay you the fuck down! Easy.

Patrick: Don't feel easy.

As Patrick reflects on these events he figures out that it was actually Bressant and Amanda's uncle that kidnapped her. This leads to a shootout where Bressant is killed.

Patrick and Angie visit Captain Doyle and discover that Amanda didn't actually fall to her death. It was an elaborate ruse to fake her death and that she was now living with Doyle and his wife.

Patrick has to make a decision. To turn in Doyle and return Amanda to her wretched mother where her chances of having a successful life are practically zero. Or let her remain kidnapped where she will be loved, pampered and spoiled.

Despite the pleadings of Doyle and Angie, Patrick decides to turn Doyle in and return Amanda to her mother.

Patrick: I'm calling state police in five minutes. They'll be here in ten.

Doyle: Thought you would've done that by now. You know why you haven't? Because you think this might be an irreparable mistake. Because deep inside you, you know that it doesn't matter what the rules say. When the lights go out, and you ask yourself "is she better off here or better off there", you know the answer. And you always will. You... you could do a right thing here. A good thing. Men live their whole lives without getting this chance. You walk away from it, you may not regret it when you get home. You may not regret it for a year, but when you get to where I am, I promise you, you will. I'll be dead, you'll be old. But she... she'll be dragging around a couple of tattered, damaged children of her own, and you'll be the one who has to tell them you're sorry.

Patrick: You know what? Maybe that'll happen. And if it does, I'll tell them I'm sorry and I'll live with it. But what's never gonna happen and what I'm not gonna do is have to apologize to a grown woman who comes to me and says: "I was kidnapped when I was a little girl, and my aunt hired you to find me. And you did, you found me with some strange family. But you broke your promise and you left me there. Why? Why didn't you bring me home? Because all the snacks and the outfits and the family trips don't matter. They stole me. It wasn't my family and you knew about it and you knew better and you did nothing". And maybe that grown woman will forgive me, but I'll never forgive myself.

Doyle: I did what I did for the sake of the child. All right. For me, too. But now, I'm asking you for the sake of the child. I'm begging you. You think about it.

Patrick pays a heavy price for turning in Doyle. Angie leaves him. In the end of the movie it seems like he puts himself in a guardian angel position over Amanda. Watching over her to see that she will be okay.

There are 3 moral issues in this movie as I see it. The first one I thought about when this movie was over was whether or not Patrick did the right thing.

One of the weekends that Jill was back from Minnesota, we went over to Jen and Derrick's to watch a movie on their Blu-ray player. Derrick's dad gave Jen and Derrick a Blu-ray player when they moved into their new house in January. I believe this movie watching night was the Saturday following Thanksgiving. It has been 11 months and they still had not watched a movie on their Blu-ray player. This is quite the tragedy in my mind.

I was given the power of selecting the movie on this evening. I chose Gone Baby Gone. Jill chose Full Metal Jacket as a backup.

We might have ended up watching both movies, but the first part of the evening was devoted to watching the Iowa State-Northwestern debacle. Thankfully that is far behind us now.

After watching the movie, I posed the following question to Derrick, Jen and Jill: Did Patrick do the right thing at the end of the movie?

Derrick and Jen thought that Patrick had done the right thing.

Jill agreed with me. Patrick had done the wrong thing.

Then I asked them if Patrick had done the right thing when he executed the pedophile.

Derrick and Jen thought he had done the wrong thing.

Jill agreed with me that he had done the right thing.

However, this is how I think that I am too emotional. Philosophically, I want to be opposed to the death penalty. I want to think that all life is precious. I want to think that I am evolved to a point where I don't believe in vigilante justice. One of my all-time favorite movies is The Ox-Bow Incident. A movie that is about a posse that lynches 3 innocent men.

The movie ends with a member of the posse reading a letter that one of the innocent men has written to his wife. Writing the letter is one of the last things he gets to do before he his hung. That scene is one of the most beautiful movie scenes I have ever seen. The letter reads like this:

My dear Wife, Mr. Davies will tell you what's happening here tonight. He's a good man and has done everything he can for me. I suppose there are some other good men here, too, only they don't seem to realize what they're doing. They're the ones I feel sorry for. 'Cause it'll be over for me in a little while, but they'll have to go on remembering for the rest of their lives. A man just naturally can't take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin' everybody in the world, 'cause then he's just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that have ever lived? I guess that's all I've got to say except kiss the babies for me and God bless you. Your husband, Donald.

I love the line, "if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience?"

Philosophically I want to think. "Just bring him in Patrick. Let the justice system handle him."

But do I really think, "Shoot him Patrick"? You're damn right I do! That is clearly an emotional response that I can't override with my powerful intellect.

It was during this discussion that Jen said something that really stuck with me. In fact, it completely blindsided me. I am paraphrasing, but she said:

"Morgan Freeman's character (Doyle) didn't have much compassion for Amanda's mother. He knew the pain of losing a child and he was willing to put somebody else through it."

It was a Saturday night when she said that. I thought about that for a long time. Of all the characters in the movie, I have the most in common with Doyle, but this is something that had never once even dawned on me. It never occurred to me that somebody might think that what the kidnapper's had done was wrong. How can giving a child a chance at a decent life be wrong?

I told Jen and Derrick that I had one more Gone Baby Gone question for them.

On that Monday I talked to Jill and asked her if she thought that what the kidnappers had done was wrong.

She agreed with me that what the kidnappers had done was dumb and not the best way to handle the situation, but it was still right.

That Wednesday was Iowa State's embarrassing performance against UNI. I already had tickets for the game, so Jen took my season ticket and sat with Derrick. At halftime I went over to talk to them. Jen asked me what was my 1 more Gone Baby Gone question.

I asked them if they thought that the kidnappers had done the wrong thing.

They said that they did think the kidnappers had done the wrong thing. Just because somebody doesn't deserve to be a parent, doesn't give somebody else the right to take their children.

I can see their point intellectually. I understand the reason for the rule of law, even though I don't think people should follow laws that are contrary to their moral code, but I disagree.

I look around and see people who shouldn't be parents and my base emotional response is why not take their kids from them and give them to people who deserve to be parents. People who would actually love the kids and raise them to be proper adults.

Then I think about Derrick's keen insight. He pointed out that the whole movie can be boiled down to one scene involving Patrick and Bressant:

Bressant: Would you do it again? Clip Corwin Earle?

Patrick: No.

Bressant: Does that make you right?

Patrick: I don't know.

Bressant: It doesn't make it wrong though.

I think on my emotional responses to outside stimuli and I tell myself again: "It is a good thing". My emotional response to that is, "Maybe it is."

Proust Questionnaire Number Eleven

Proust Quote:
"People can have many different kinds of pleasure. The real one is that for which they will forsake the others."

Confessions Question:
Your favourite occupation.

Confidences Question:
My favorite occupation.

Proust's Answer:
Loving.

Proust does give a pretty darn good answer to this question. But if you were to define occupation as a job, I doubt loving is a paid occupation.

It has long been my dream job to be me. Not to be unemployed necessarily. On the contrary to be paid to be me. To get a healthy paycheck in the mail for simply being me. Once a year I would get a performance review in the mail. It would indicate how well I had done that year at being me and I would be given a healthy raise if I had been true to myself that year or a dismal raise if that year I hadn't been very much me. Either way, the job would come with health insurance and a cost of living wage increase.

I don't think I would need a retirement plan. I couldn't retire from being me. At least not in a way where I would need to continue getting paychecks in the mail.

However, if you define occupation as "any activity in which a person is engaged", then you would have to be a fool not to figure out my favorite occupation. It isn't board games.

This following number has a certain degree of uncertainty in it, but it is in the ball park. At least I doubt it deviates from the truth by more than a few percentage points. Thus far in 2009 I have taken 7,796 photos.

That is a healthy number, but as I reflect upon it, I can only think of a small handful of personal projects that I have made significant progress on this year.

I do not believe in New Year's resolutions. It is folly to wait for an arbitrary point in the Earth's revolution around the sun to decide to make improvements in one's life. Today is the day to make improvements in your life. Nobody is promised tomorrow.

That being written, I do have a handful of goals for 2010. I have started working on these goals already, including lining up a potentially pregnant chick to do some chainsaw work in my yard. One of the goals that does not involve chainsaws is to complete a personal photo project every week. I have completed some personal photo projects in the last couple of weeks and I look forward to sharing some of those in January, when this self-indulgent exercise has ran its regrettable course.

Proust Questionnaire Number Ten

Proust Quote:
"Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible."

Confessions Question:
Your idea of happiness

Confidences Question:
My dream of happiness.

Proust's Answer:
I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking it.

That Proust sure was a coward. "I am afraid of destroying it..." But he was from France and that is a country that isn't exactly known for its courage.

However, I think there is some truth in the quote that happiness exists to make unhappiness possible. I think it is closer to the truth to say that unhappiness makes the experience of happiness richer. I would also argue that unhappiness is at its lowest depth before happiness arrives. But happiness is a much more powerful (although frailer) emotion than unhappiness. A little drop of happiness blows unhappiness out of the water.

There is a misery questionnaire question where I will repeat this basic information, but I think in general terms, the greatest misery is in waiting for a certain thing to happen. The greatest happiness is when that certain thing happens. That certain thing might not ever happen, therefore a person sometimes has to come to acceptance.

There are certainly things that make me happy. One of them ends frequently with the phrase "Sweet dreams."

I have two friends that are diametrically opposed on the concept of dreams. One friend believes that dreams are an intricate part of life. They should be held up and examined every day and they should be pursued with every breath of your being. If you call his phone, the voicemail message will tell you that you have reached, "Dreams, Incorporated." It is not a real company, so don't give him any money. You won't get it back. But your money will help him pursue his dreams.

This friend's philosophy on dreams would best be summed up by the Marcel Proust quote:

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time."

The other friend thinks that it is pointless to pursue dreams because dreams can't become reality. He once noted that he couldn't "grow bat wings" in reality. All this talk about dreams is a humbug!

This friend's philosophy on dreams would be best summed up by the Baltasar Gracian quote:

"Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way."

My philosophy lies somewhere in the middle. I certainly believe that dreams are worth pursuing. To not have aspirations or goals leads to somewhat of an aimless existence, but perhaps I don't follow my dreams with the type of vigor that Friend One does.

If dreams are (what I think they are) our ideas of perfect happiness, then these are a few of my dreams:

Some of these are attainable dreams. Some of them are in the "bat wing" category.

To hear Jay say, "Want to come over and watch a completed version of Games 2 tonight?"
To hear Willy say, "And this is my beautiful wife..."
To hear Shannon say, "Wow! You organized that really well. If this is the caliber of person that Iowa State University produces, I should root for their athletic teams when they play anybody but my beloved UNI Panthers."
To hear Geri D. say, "Opening night for the One Act play you wrote will be..."
To hear Jen say, "Maybe the dogs don't like being dressed up."
To hear Derrick say, "Yeah, Pink Floyd called and they want to open for us on our European Tour. I told them we would get back to them."
To hear Jill say, "I think I have changed my mind... feet are funny, not gross!"
To hear Sara say, "I looked in the mirror and decided, I didn't need that Hello Kitty humidifier."
To hear Monica say, "I just don't have room for all these paintings I have done. Here, take about 5-10 of these off my hands."
To hear Baier say, "I really shouldn't be that emotionally invested in a pro sports team in a city that is 3 hours away from where I live. I think I'm going to take that wasted energy and train my dog to be less racist. Perhaps research unicorn blood in my spare time."
To hear Russell say, "I don't even know why I ever even question anything you say about sports, politics, movies or life. Mr. Bennett, I am in awe of you. In the future, when you speak, I will sit silently and keep notes. It is my greatest fear that some of your wisdom will be lost to the following generations."
To hear Nader say, "The new Harry Potter movie was pretty good."
To hear Andree say, "Maybe I have too many televisions. 7 is a lot for 1 guy."
To hear Scottie D. say, "I apologize for ever questioning your commitment to tenderloins. You may hit me one time."
To hear Eric say, "Dogs are really better than cats. I don't know why I couldn't see that before."
To hear Jesse say, "I've thought about it. Maybe I should worship somebody that actually gets some playing time during the Olympics, rather than that creepy looking Finch girl."

There are more, but I might be on happiness overload just thinking on my dreams.

Proust Questionnaire Number Nine

Proust Quote:
"A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it."

Confessions Question:
Where would you like to live?

Confidences Question:
The country where I should like to live.

Proust's Answer:
A country where certain things that I should like would come true as though by magic, and where tenderness would always be reciprocated.

As I spin a globe I know for certain that I obviously would choose to live nowhere else but the greatest country on God's increasingly less green Earth, The United States of America.

But to think hypothetically, if I could change the United States here are a couple of things I would change to make this a "more perfect union."

Close the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Things that need to change:

• The 400 richest Americans own more than the 150 million poorest Americans.
• Over 40% of GNP comes from Fortune 500 Companies.
• In 1955, the richest tax tier paid an average of 51.2% of their income in taxes. By 2006, the richest paid only 17.2% of their income in taxes.
• In 1955 the proportion of federal income from corporate taxes was 33%. By 2003 that percentage was down to 7.4%.
• In the 60s, 70s, and 80s the average ratio of executive pay to average paycheck was between 30-40 to 1. In 2001, it was 525 to 1. In 2009, the ratio is still an astronomical 317 to 1.
• The top .01% of American earners earned 6% of total U.S. wages.
• The top decile of American earners earned 49.7% of total U.S. wages.

Although some are terrified of the "S" word, this country desperately needs to create a single payer universal health care system.

• The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.
• In 2006, 47 million Americans were uninsured. 15.8% of the population.
• The United States spends twice as much on health care per capita ($7,129) than any other country. In 2005, health care expenditures totaled $2 trillion.
• 75% of all health care dollars are spent on patients with one or more chronic conditions that could be prevented.
• From 2000 to 2006, overall inflation was 3.5%. Wages increased 3.8%. Health care premiums increased 87%.
• The average family health insurance premium, provided through an employer health benefit program, was $11,480. Employees paid an average of $2,973 towards the premium amount.
• The United States ranks 43rd in lowest infant mortality rate, down from 12th in 1960 and 21st in 1990. Singapore has the lowest rate with 2.3 deaths per 1000 live births, while the United States has a rate of 6.3 deaths per 1000 live births. Some of the other 42 nations that have a lower infant mortality rate than the U.S. include Hong Kong, Slovenia, Canada, Ireland and Cuba.
• Approximately 30,000 infants die in the United States each year. The infant mortality rate is related to the underlying health of the mother, public health practices, socioeconomic conditions and availability and use of appropriate health care for infants and pregnant women.
• Life expectancy at birth in the US is an average of 78.14 years, which ranks 47th in highest total life expectancy compared to other countries.
• About half of the bankruptcy filings in the United States are due to medical expenses.
• More than 40 million adults stated that they needed but did not receive one or more of these health services (medical care, prescription medicines, mental health care, dental care or eyeglasses) in 2005 because they could not afford it.

I would want to live in no other country in the world, but we can do so much better.

Proust Questionnaire Number Eight

Proust Quote:
"Words do not change their meanings so drastically in the course of centuries as, in our minds, names do in the course of a year or two."

Confessions Question:
Your favorite names.

Confidences Question:
My favorite names.

Proust's Answer:
I only have one at a time.

The Proust Quote really nails this question right on the head. How much you like or dislike a name has a direct relationship to the people you know with that name. How much you like or dislike a given name can fluctuate wildly in a couple of years. It can fluctuate wildly in a matter of moments.

To answer the question what are my favorite names is roughly the same as answering who are my favorite people from this year. I don't really care to do that, but I can answer this question with broad enough strokes as to reveal anything exceedingly meaningful (as is my style). Meaning if you eliminate everybody that has a unique name (as it applies to people I really know and have made a certifiable decision on their worth) and look at names at the aggregate level, the following is what I deduce.

I know several people by the following names and they all seem to be good to outstanding people:

Sara(h)
Jason
Mike
William
Jen(nifer)
Cor(e)y
Doris

I know several people by the following names that range from outstanding to worthless:

John
Andy
Diane
Linda
Grace

As I reflect upon it, I can honestly say that I don't think that there is a name that is entirely negative for me. For every doucher I know, I can counterbalance them with a good to great person that has the same name. That is a satisfying piece of knowledge.