Happy Valentine's Day (A Day Late)

I hope everybody had a marvelous Valentine's Day weekend. I spent Saturday night seeing the last Academy Award Best Picture Nominee that I needed to see with Sara. We went to see An Education and then ended up at Skip's, home of the best nachos in Des Moines. They really are fantastic and they are worth the trip to Des Moines.

Now I've seen all 10 Best Picture Nominees, I feel a need to rank them. Even though I think that it is a rather tragic oversight by the Academy that they failed to nominate (500) Days of Summer. I also feel that Julie & Julia should have been nominated for Best Picture, but other than those two omissions, I can't complain about the list too much. Okay, Fanastic Mr. Fox should have gotten more love as well. I also understand that the Oscars this year will hold very little suspense. Avatar will win Best Picture. That being noted, here is how I rank the 10 Best Picture Nominees from Best to not so good. Also, in case a person was to get invited to an Oscar Party, the movies that are currently available on DVD have been noted.

1. The Hurt Locker (DVD) - Most action movies have one big bomb diffusing scene at the end of a movie. Now imagine a movie with 4 or 5 of those scenes. On the surface it sounds like that could get boring, but every sequence is slightly different and slightly more intense. I'm not usually a huge fan of war movies, but this movie about the final few days of a bomb squad in Iraq is original and intense.
2. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Released on DVD March 9) - For starters, Mo'Nique should win the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. This movie is strangely uplifting even though I can't think of a more depressing story. Precious follows the story of an illiterate teenage girl that is approximately 150 pounds overweight and is pregnant for the second time with her father's baby. As bad as that sounds, the mom might actually be the worse parent. Her first child is born with Down's Syndrome and you never actually learn the name of the child because they call the child Mongo. Yes, that is short for mongoloid. Despite how screwed up everything is in this movie, it somehow works extremely well. Even the casting of the normally wretched Mariah Carey even works.
3. Up (DVD) - Perhaps the least impressively animated Pixar offering to date, but who cares? It has the most heartwarming and beautiful story. Finding Nemo is the most beautifully animated Pixar film (besides WALL-E) and it is their worst movie.
4. District 9 (DVD) - For the most part I've parted ways with science fiction. Rarely does anything interesting or original come out any longer. This movie and Moon were two releases this year that have helped slightly restore my faith in the genre. Now if I could only wash memories of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Terminator Salvation out of my mind. This is science fiction how it used to be - smart. It also comes with a sociological message. Reminds me of the glory days of The Outer Limits.
5. Avatar (Still playing in Ames) - James Cameron certainly deserves to win Best Director for this movie. It is a technological milestone in cinematic history. Unfortunately it isn't really a great movie. It is great to look at, but the story is only so-so at best. It is basically Dances with Wolves in space. Dances with Wolves is the 2nd worst movie to ever win Best Picture, next to Annie Hall. This movie isn't bad. In fact it is good, but the majority of me just wishes that the story was half as good as the visual effects.
6. Up in the Air (Released on DVD - March 9) - I was a little disappointed in this movie. It is a good movie, but it was better in my mind. All of the really great sequences in the trailer were better in the trailer than they are in the movie. The movie is also filled with great characters, but I don't think the story is as great as the characters deserve. There certainly aspects of the story that are fascinating. Just the thought that it is okay to lay people off over video conferencing and that anybody can do such a thing by following a simple flow chart was a perfect snapshot of corporate America. The performances are all great. In particular J.K. Simmons and Zach Galifanakis are superb in small roles.
7. An Education (Currently playing at The Fleur) - A good little movie that probably would have scored higher on this list if the ending wouldn't have felt so rushed and thrown on. An Education is the story of a 16 year old girl with dreams of going to Oxford that begins a romantic relationship with a much older man. The movie never really reveals his age but the actor that plays him (Peter Sarsgaard) is 39 years old. It is the type of movie that is frustrating because the parents of the girl completely sign off on the relationship because they think the man is suave and sophisticated and is good for the future of their daughter. The thoughts of the dad are best illustrated when he points out that David (the older man) is better for his daughter than a love interest that is her same age because he know C.S. Lewis. The daughter points out that the "boy" could become a famous author some day. Her dad retorts: "Knowing a famous author is better than becoming one. It shows you're connected." It is my hope that Carey Mulligan wins the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her performance as the 16 year old girl that gets seduced by an older man. It is certainly a better performance than Sandra Bullock's overhyped performance in The Blind Side. Olivia Williams is also brilliant (as usual) in her performance as the girl's school teacher and seemingly the only adult that sees what a colossal mistake this relationship is going to be for the girl.
8. A Serious Man (DVD) - Funny, quirky and a return to form by the Coen brothers, after the dreadful Burn After Reading. Not anything particularly great though. Funny in parts. Solid performances, but probably not Best Picture nominee worthy.
9. The Blind Side (Not playing anywhere that I know) - This is a decent and well made feel good movie. Sandra Bullock is good, but this isn't an earth shattering performance. There is nothing decidedly original about this movie and there is a very painful sequence where football coaches play themselves. Not one of them is a thespian of note. It is a good movie and I will no doubt watch this again on some sleepy Sunday afternoon, but that is about it.
10. Inglourious Basterds (DVD) - This movie is a collection of great scenes that does not end up to a great movie. There is Tarantino's normal addiction to violence and gore and he does do it in an artistic manner, but at the end of the day, it is still just violence and gore. This movie easily has the worst ending of any movie I've seen in a very long time. But the hype surrounding Christoph Waltz's performance is well deserved. I do hope that he wins the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.

Here is Saturday's love letter from The Writer's Almanac:

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote Puritan-inspired, New England-based works of dark romanticism, and he was largely a recluse. But he was cheerful about his personal romantic life. In his 30s, he fell in love with another reclusive person, Sophia Peabody. She and Nathaniel Hawthorne secretly became engaged on New Year's Day in 1839.

They got married in her family's bookstore in Boston. She was 32; he was 38. The newlyweds moved out to an old historic mansion in Concord, Massachusetts, where Henry David Thoreau made a vegetable garden for just the two of them. Hawthorne wrote to his sister: "We are as happy as people can be, without making themselves ridiculous, and might be even happier; but, as a matter of taste, we choose to stop short at this point."

Then, on his first wedding anniversary, he wrote to his wife: "We were never so happy as now — never such wide capacity for happiness, yet overflowing with all that the day and every moment brings to us. Methinks this birth-day of our married life is like a cape, which we have now doubled and find a more infinite ocean of love stretching out before us."

Writer James Joyce said things like, "A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." But he often apologized wholeheartedly to his wife, Nora. And he said things like, "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." But to Nora Barnacle, he wrote things like — on October, 25th, 1909 — "You are my only love. You have me completely in your power. I know and feel that if I am to write anything fine or noble in the future I shall do so only by listening to the doors of your heart. ... I love you deeply and truly, Nora. ... There is not a particle of my love that is not yours. ... If you would only let me I would speak to you of everything in my mind but sometimes I fancy from your look that you would only be bored by me. Anyhow, Nora, I love you. I cannot live without you. I would like to give you everything that is mine, any knowledge I have (little as it is) any emotions I myself feel or have felt, any likes or dislikes I have, any hopes I have or remorse. I would like to go through life side by side with you, telling you more and more until we grew to be one being together until the hour should come for us to die. Even now the tears rush to my eyes and sobs choke my throat as I write this. Nora, we have only one short life in which to love. O my darling be only a little kinder to me, bear with me a little even if I am inconsiderate and unmanageable and believe me we will be happy together. Let me love you in my own way. Let me have your heart always close to mine to hear every throb of my life, every sorrow, every joy."

From Sunday's The Writer's Almanac:

Today is Valentine's Day, the day on which we celebrate love, especially romantic love. The holiday was named after an early Christian priest, St. Valentine, who was martyred on February 14 in 269 A.D.

The tradition of exchanging love notes on Valentine's Day originates from the martyr Valentine himself. The legend maintains that due to a shortage of enlistments, Emperor Claudius II forbade single men to get married in an effort to bolster his struggling army. Seeing this act as a grave injustice, Valentine performed clandestine wedding rituals in defiance of the emperor. Valentine was discovered, imprisoned, and sentenced to death by beheading. While awaiting his fate in his cell, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with the daughter of a prison guard, who would come and visit him. On the day of his death, Valentine left a note for the young woman professing his undying devotion signed "Love from your Valentine."

Poets Robert Browning (books by this author) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (books by this author) carried out one of the most famous romantic correspondences in literary history. They first introduced themselves by epistolary means, and fell in love even before they had met in person. The letter that began their relationship was written by Robert in January 1845; it was essentially a piece of fan mail to esteemed poet Elizabeth Barrett. He wrote:

"I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett — and this is no offhand complimentary letter that I shall write — whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius and there a graceful and natural end of the thing: since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me ..."

Elizabeth Barrett responded right away: "I thank you, dear Mr Browning, from the bottom of my heart. ... Such a letter from such a hand!"

She continued, "I will say that I am your debtor, not only for this cordial letter & for all the pleasure which came with it, but in other ways, & those the highest: & I will say that while I live to follow this divine art of poetry, ... in proportion to my love for it & my devotion for it, I must be a devout admirer & student of your works. This is in my heart to say to you & I say it."

They continued writing to each other, clandestinely, for a year and a half, and then they secretly got married in 1846. Right before the wedding, Robert mailed off to Elizabeth a letter that said: "Words can never tell you, however, — form them, transform them anyway, — how perfectly dear you are to me – perfectly dear to my heart and soul. I look back, and in every one point, every word and gesture, every letter, every silence — you have been entirely perfect to me — I would not change one word, one look. I am all gratitude — and all pride (under the proper feeling which ascribes pride to the right source) all pride that my life has been so crowned by you."

And then, the day after the wedding, she wrote to him:
"What could be better than [your] lifting me from the ground and carrying me into life and the sunshine? ... All that I am, I owe you — if I enjoy anything now and henceforth, it is through you."

During their courtship, she was composing sonnets for him, which she presented to him as a wedding gift. The sonnets were published in 1850 and include one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's most famous poems ever:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

I know that there are some Scrooge McDuck's out there that loathe and hate Valentine's Day. I hope you can at least appreciate the great writing that was posted last week.

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..."

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.

A Phenomenal Week

Those with good memories will remember a few months back when I wrote a series of blogs about groups that I am in that have matching shirts. The keenly observant will recall that I said there were 5 such groups, but I only posted blogs about 4 such groups.

I was waiting until the final group had earned our way into being "blog-worthy". That group made that leap from anonymity to greatness on Sunday night. That was just the conclusion of what was a phenomenal week.

The week started out to be not particularly great. On Monday morning I was nursing a nagging foot injury in my right heel from Sunday night's brutal basketball doubleheader.

Then several great things happened. In no particular order (chronologically or in magnitude of greatness):

• Bowling was cancelled so I got to nurse my foot injury, watch Hoarders and start on my basement sorting project.

• Visit the Baiers and Andree.

• Have lunch with Shannon at Dublin Bay.

• Talk to Jill on the phone, twice.

• Have three nights to work on my basement sorting project that allowed me to make major head way. Including creating lots of garbage, finding many an old artifact worth treasuring and creating a burn pile.

• Have supper with Nader and seeing Extraordinary Measures. An extraordinarily average movie.

• Made it to the gym twice, both times with the new fitness king Jesse Howard.

• Ate my favorite meal in the world, sauerkraut casserole.

• Visited Derrick and Dennis at work, where I got to listen to Derrick talk about guitars (one of my favorite things in the world to do) and where Dennis gave me a great description of what happened in the Personal Photo Project of the Week that I will publish on Friday.
• Ushered at church. This was a bonus because I love the extra legroom I get when I usher, plus I spent time before church discussing my backup religion (ISU athletics) with Angie's grandpa. It isn't rare when my two religions merge, but usually it is the other way around. I'm at an Iowa State football game saying a prayer like this: "God, I know that you don't interfere in the outcome of sporting events, but please let us make this PAT. I know that you are a Cyclone fan and isn't there a limit to how much you will allow your people to suffer?"
• Had lunch at Pizza Pit with Frank, Clarence and Derrick. Knocked down a substantial amount of drummies!
• Talked Willy into posing for my Personal Photo Project of this week. It involved breaking a mirror and that is always fun!
• Had FNSC with Willy and Jay at La Carreta.
• When I went to the flower shop to buy flowers for a subject for RWPE, they had exactly the type of flower I wanted.
• Took Nader to see Iowa State erase a 14 point deficit to beat Colorado on a miraculous finish.
• My RWPE project turned out very well and has a few different interesting variations.
  
• Introduced Jay to some of his old art that I found in the basement during my sorting.
• Got a company profit sharing bonus that was easily large enough to cover my recent furnace repair.
• The raise I gave myself (by canceling AFLAC and changing insurance plans) was on Friday's paycheck.
• Got an email from Sara where she quoted her instructor on how to do a pap smear. I won't repeat it here, but it was a hilarious description of where not put your thumb. I will share that her instructor likes to compare the vagina to a self-cleaning oven.
• Found out that I get to provide Jen with a tool that will help her with her stained glass projects.
• Saw a bald eagle.
  
• Came up with a new idea for an entertainment center for my living room. My Grandpa Bennett's old workbench. I know this idea is pure unadulterated genius because my mom hates this idea.
• Found out that I was born special and learned some family history to boot.
• Made a beard shaving pact with Tony and Corey. If we lost our Ames Rec League basketball game, we all agreed to shave out beards.
• Got some ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, phenomenal news from Jill.

My week concluded with my Ames Rec League basketball game. Our team, The Little Dribblers, has struggled mightily season.I We hadn't won a game yet this season. I had walked around the workplace guaranteeing victory, but Tony took my guarantee up a notch and suggested that we shave our beards if we lost on Sunday.

Based on how amazing my week had been, I was supremely confident that I wouldn't be showing up for work on Monday as a dirty naked-face. I pledged myself to the pact.

My week kept getting better and better after the pact. When I walked into the gym on Sunday night I had no doubt in my mind that me and my Little Dribblers brethren would be walking back out of that gym 60 or so minutes later with our heads held high for the first time all season.

I should point out that when I say that we haven't won a game this season, that doesn't mean that we get close and lose it in the end. We have been on the wrong end of some fairly brutal blowouts. It is not an exaggeration to say that we have obviously become the girlfriend game for most of the foes in the league.

Maybe I should explain the concept of the girlfriend game to those that aren't familiar with it.

The girlfriend game is the game where you force, bring or allow your girlfriend to attend. It is a game where you are fairly certain that you will win by a healthy margin. You will look impressive and it will reassure your girlfriend or wife that she made a wise choice in selecting you from the herd.

This is the way that men think. I'm pretty sure most women would rather be at home watching Gray's Anatomy or whatever it is that women like to do on Sunday nights. Either way, it is not paranoia that forces me to make the observation that when teams play us, there are lots of lady friends in the other team's cheering section that aren't there when they are playing other teams.

For the record, only Donner has ever brought his lady to one of our games. She came to our first game and hasn't returned since. Yes, the Little Dribblers have been sans female fans since our first game. It is a sad state of affairs, but it is understandable.

That isn't to say that we are devoid of fans. Both Doug and Joe have brought their sons to our games. Thankfully they are both too young to lose respect for their fathers based on what has transpired on the court before their innocent eyes.

Based on how awesome my week had been, I warmed up with extreme amounts of confidence. The only thing that gave me cause for pause was the fact that Tony did not show up. Why had Tony suggested a beard growing pact and then failed to even show up? Did he know something that I did not?

We still had plenty of firepower. Firepower we didn't have the first time we locked horns with our opponents. A game where we fell in OT after running out of steam because we only had 6 players.

This time we had 9 guys. 9 guys with a wide range of talents.

The game started out with the Little Dribblers jumping on our opponent. We opened up a quick 7-0 lead. But our opponent didn't show any quit. They rattled off 9 straight points to grab the lead, but an old-fashioned 3 point play by Donner put us up for good.

The game turned into a defensive struggle with neither team able to score much against the other team's tough defense. The Little Dribblers settled into halftime with a 19-16 lead. Not a comfortable lead, but we were clearly in control of the game and it was our first halftime lead of the season.

During halftime I collected my thoughts and sent out a score update text.

The third quarter was all about defense for the Little Dribblers. Our tough 2-3 zone suffocated the paint and our quick guards closed out quickly on their outside shooters to prevent any open looks.

We held our opponent without a single point for the entire third quarter. We were forcing our will on them, but there didn't seem to be any quit in them. It wasn't until the final few seconds of the third quarter when you could finally feel the air come out of the gym.

Memory is a funny thing and I can't swear to every detail that I'm about to describe, but it is not the exactness of the details that is of the most importance. It is the general idea of what happened that is of consequence.

With about 7 seconds left we missed a layup. Our opponent rebounded the ball and headed up court. A little in front of the three point line, Chad knocked the ball free from the man he was guarding. The ball bounced to another one of our opponents, but Corey was there playing in the jersey of his man. Corey knocked the ball free and start dribbling towards our basket. I saw that there wasn't much time left on the clock so I sprinted towards our basket and called out for the ball. Corey, with his legendary court awareness, spotted me out of the corner of his eye and burned a pass through 2 (maybe 3) defenders. Despite the smoking velocity I caught the ball and took a dribble and went up for a layup on my weak side. The ball left my hands and banked off the backboard and through the hoop. As my feet (still nursing an injured foot) landed on the court the buzzer sounded signifying the end of the third quarter. The Little Dribblers bench jumped up and celebrated in pandemonium. Our opponents lowered their heads and walked back to their bench. There was still 10 minutes left to play, but that play effectively ended the game. We had crushed their spirits.

The last quarter played out. The buzzer sounded (after a strange player where one of their players came completely across the court to foul me, while I was just dribbling out the clock after securing the final defensive rebound of the game) and the scoreboard shouted, "Little Dribblers 43 Other Team 23". End of losing streak. End of frustration. End of being the girlfriend game, well maybe not the last one.

We sat on the sidelines and soaked in the feel of victory for awhile. I grabbed my phone and fired off a few texts to interested parties. Perhaps they weren't all that interested, but they got a text message any way.

It didn't take long for the accolades to come streaming in:

"WOW!!! U guys creamed them! CONGRATS 2 U, UR TEAM, AND UR GOATEE!!!"

-Jill Gorshe

"You really 'dominated' them!"

-William McAlpine

"Awesome! As it happens peggy didn't end up getting the tickets."

-Shannon Bardole

"Congrats!"

-Jen Gorshe

Jay said something cool as well, but I accidentally deleted his text message. Sorry Jay.

Jesse asked very kindly if he could touch a Little Dribbler jersey so he could know what it feels like to touch a winner. I obliged him in this request.


Now that the Little Dribblers are winners, until we take the court again on St. Valentine's Night, I can post a picture of the Little Dribblers jersey.





I'm sorry, the jerseys are not for sale to the general public.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

I've often heard that the saddest thing in the world is unrequited love. Unsolicited love on the other hand...

I've never been a Christmas card person. My thoughts on cards is that when somebody sends you a card, what they are really saying (with apologies to Mitch Hedberg) is: "here, throw this away for me."*

Apparently my bah humbuggery has gotten around and this year I think I hit a new low for Christmas cards received.





However, even though I don't participate in the tradition I took Christmas card photos for 4 sets of people. That made me think that maybe I should get into the act.

But I don't know how far I want to take it. I could certainly send a picture card of me that says, "Merry Christmas! Please, throw this away for me." But I began to wonder if I have it in me to write the perfunctory Christmas letter.

You know, the whitewashed version of people's lives that some people put in their cards. I didn't think I was capable of this level of lying, but then I opened the theme Christmas letter from Geri D.

It was inspiring in its creativity. Maybe inspiring enough that some of you might just get something in the mail from me in December of 2010.

Since I have already covered the Christmas card photo shoot for the Howards, I am going to spend the next few days covering the other 3 photo shoots.

The other thing I want to cover today is a new photo project I am entering into with Mike Vest of Waxen Media. (Jesse Howard has also agreed to participate, but did not submit a photo for this week.) It is the type of photo project that I hope some of you choose to also participate in.

We came up with 52 photo "subjects" and entered them into a random generator. Every week on Monday we will randomly be given a new subject to photograph.

On Mondays I will post the previous week's photos and that week's subject. Anybody that would like to participate can. You can participate as many or as few weeks as you want. The photos don't have to be taken with a fancy camera or have to be high art. Pictures with a camera phone are perfectly acceptable. The only rule is that the picture has to be taken that week.

Just email me your picture before noon each Monday.

Last week's subject was "Use of Space". Here are our pictures:



Christopher D. Bennett



Michael Vest


The subject for next week is "SOOTHING". I know this to be short notice, but snap something off and email it to me at bennett@photography139.com.

This weekly random photo subject should NOT be confused with my ongoing Personal Photo Project of the Week that is one of my goals for 2010. I should hopefully start publishing some of that work next week. After I cover the other 3 Christmas Card Photo Shoots.

Of course there is one last subject that needs to be covered. It has been exactly 1 week since my old friend college football left me until next September.

The Gridiron Bowl Prophets made many wild predictions and this time, Yours Truly came out as the Champ.

Gridiron Bowl Prophets Final Standings:

1. Christopher D. Bennett - The Insight - 23 of 34 - 429 Points
2. Corey Faust - In It To Beat Bennett - 20 of 34 - 393 Points
3. Jason Baier - Hokies - 21 of 34 - 367 Points
4. Jesse Howard - Bowl Prophet - 20 of 34 - 341 Points
5. Toby Sebring - I Love Lamp - 17 of 34 - 323 Points
6. Lowell Davis - AC000000 - 0 of 34 - 0 Points

It is only my incredible modesty that prevents me from pointing out the thorough dominance of my performance.

*Despite my bravado, I don't really throw anything away. If I'm ever on Hoarders, it will be because of the boxes and boxes of cards I have in my basement.

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 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 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 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.

Happy Birthday Jesse!

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Jesse Lee (Lex) Howard. Here is but a poor sampling of pictures of the times we have shared in recent years.



After beating that net!



In Clinton, Iowa on The Road Trip - 2006



With the World's Largest Cheeto



Jesse's Picture on The Friend Wall. Eating a Bob's Dog - LeMars, Iowa



Wearing an Old Lady's Hat



Before Jen and Derrick's Wedding



With Lowell in Arizona



Hanging Out at Snookies after lobbying Tom Harkin's staff.



With his Family



Disappointing Steve.



In the Denver airport.



With his Duke Burger



Enjoying the View of the Falls with Jackson, Faust and Jay.



In Mallard, Iowa



Failing to tickle me.


Of course there are many more pictures of Jesse in the Friends Album of the Snapshots Gallery. (Recently downsized)

Or you can click on the link below:

Jesse Howard

One more time, Happy Birthday Jesse!

Proust Questionnaire Number Four

Marcel Proust Quote:
"A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves."

Confessions Question:
Your favorite motto.

Confidences Question:
My motto.

Proust's Answer:
I should be too afraid that it bring me misfortune.

The truth is that while I learned many a thing this year, I still think the words that make me think and motivate me haven't really changed.

In reality it is rather difficult for me to pick just one motto. I certainly attempt to adhere to the words on a Del Taco cup that urged me to "Go Bold or Go Home." I certainly ruminate on the Thomas Merton words that: "The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little."

But I think the words I think about the most still come from a religious writer whose opinions and theories are far from my beliefs, most of the time. The words of Everyday Grace written by Marrianne Williamson in her book A Return to Love.

The quote that is most famous is the one that was slightly modified for Akeelah and the Bee:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I have found this to be the case. I am reminded of my favorite church service of the season. Candlelight Service on Christmas Eve. I love seeing a whole room of candles lit by just one candle. I am reminded of the wisdom that points out that when one candle lights another candle, the first candle doesn't dim.

As I'm sure many people have read or heard the quote, let me put it in slightly more context with the paragraphs that surround it.

We're tempted to think that we're more impressive when we put on airs. We're not, of course; we're rather pathetic when we do that. The Course states, "Grandiosity is always a cover for despair," The light of Christ shines most brightly within us when we relax and let it be, allowing it to shine away our grandiose delusions. But we're afraid to let down our masks. What is really happening here, unconsciously, is not that we are defending against our smallness. The ego is actually in those moments, defending against God.

As I interpret the Course, 'our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

A miracle worker is an artist of the soul. There's no higher art than living a good life. An artist informs the world of what's available behind the masks we all wear. That's what we're all here to do. The reason so many of us are obsessed with becoming stars is because we're not yet starring in our own lives. The cosmic spotlight isn't pointed at you; it radiates within you. I used to feel like I was waiting for someone to discover me, to "produce" me, like Lana Turner at the drugstore. Ultimately I realized that the person I was waiting for was myself. If we wait for the world's permission to shine, we will never receive it. The ego doesn't give that permission. Only God does, and He has already done so. He has sent you here as His personal representative and is asking you to channel His love into the world. Are you waiting for a more important job? There isn't one.

I love the phrase artist of the soul. I love the concept that there is no higher art than living a good life. It reminds of the Picasso quote that used to reside on the top of this website:

"Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."

I am also reminded to be thankful for the soul artists that are in my life and motivates me to be one for the people that surround me.

Happy Birthday and a Farewell

Today is Carrie's birthday. Happy Birthday Carrie!





Carrie got to spend a good portion of her birthday with her family and with me in Ledges. I will post some of those pictures in January. It will include a picture of the aftermath of my falling through some thin ice past my knees into Pea's Creek. That was on the chilly side.

But today is also a day for wishing an old friend good luck as he embarks on a new adventure. Shadi is returning to Jordan to continue his academic career.





I had a farewell lunch with Shadi on Thursday. It was a welcome walk down memory lane. Although he is coming back to visit now and again (he is refusing to say "goodbyes"), I'm still going to miss the guy.