I had decided to shave all the way down to a dirty naked face last weekend. It had been over 3 years since my chin had tasted air and felt the rays of sunlight. My chin was dreadfully dry and desperately in the need of some moisturizing. Lots and lots of moisturizing.

For some reason, I allowed myself to be sold by Jesse on shaving down to just a moustache for one glorious day. Despite my better judgment, I did it.

On Thursday night I spent close to an hour in the bathroom slowly trimming my beautiful goat down to a dirty stache. When I had completed my task, I had to make a conscious effort to stop myself from punching my reflection. I hated that dirty stache.

Although I had stayed up well past my normal bedtime to complete this mission from the devil, I couldn’t sleep at all. I knew that I had violated the natural order of things.

I showed up for work the following day and tried to avoid everybody. Well, I did stop to see Micky. He deserved to see the stache since he has been a rock for me in the Busted Furnace Support Group that we have with Vest every few days.

Jesse showed up at work about an hour after I did. He was still sporting a splendid goat. I felt that I had been had, but he showed me his clippers. He went to the restroom and came back looking like the same type of doucher that I looked like.

After taking those pictures of Jesse looking so wretched. I allowed myself to be photographed in this horrible state.

As I was posing for this picture, the World’s Greatest UPS Man came in with his daily delivery. He seemed to enjoy how wretched I looked.

Then Jesse and I posed for a picture.

I have known Jesse since I moved from unannexxed Boone to Urban Boone and enrolled in Mrs. Ford’s 2nd Grade Class. Over the years we have posed for many a photo together. But I have not a doubt in my mind that this is the worst picture of us ever.

That night Jesse and I went to Trivia Night for FNSC. We had 3 missions.

The first mission was to drink as much sweet tea out of mason jars as was humanly possible. Check and double checked.

The second mission was to pilot Team Stache from the complete and utter futility that has been its history all the way to mediocrity. Check and double checked. Team Stache (I’m not sure what they were known as before FNSC showed up and revolutionized the game) had never finished above 3rd to last. We piloted the team all the way to respectability. We finished almost exactly in the middle of the pack of 24 teams. Although we would have surely finished higher if the Sports category would have included sports questions. The Winter Olympics and NASCAR are not sports. Although I’m pretty sure that the judges would have given us points for picking Brewster Baker as the answer for the question about the winner of the 2010 Daytona Left Turnathon. But we were overruled.

Mission 3 was to be the table that had the most fun. Check, double checked and triple checked. I knew every member of Team Stache (Jay, Willy, Geri D., Shannon and Jesse) very well with the exception of Papa Smurf and his wife. At the end of the night I wasn’t sure if Mr. and Mrs. Papa Smurf loved or loathed us. They seemed to run hot and cold on us and certainly weren’t fans of our lengthy discussion of how great Kenny Rogers was in Six Pack. However, Mrs. Papa Smurf called Geri D. on the following day to tell her one and only one thing – She had never had so much fun at Trivia Night and it was all because FNSC is the bee’s knees! She wanted to make sure that we would be returing to Trivia Night in 3 months. I think FNSC might just make a return, but the moustaches won’t. I’m kind of thinking that our team theme on that night will be “lumberjacks”. A little tribute to my boy Steve Roberts.

After our team huddled up and put all of our hands in and shouted “Mediocrity!!!” I tried to convince Jay to come over in the morning to take a couple of photos of the stache before it was clipped from my face and washed down my sink into the dark, dank drain of history.

Jay insisted on taking the pictures that night because he couldn’t stand to know that this moustache was even in existence.

Jay came over and took some pictures of the porn alter ego that Micky wanted me to create with the moustache. He even named such a character “Hammer”.

Here are a few publicity stills for a movie that will never exist starring “Hammer”.

“Did you call a repair guy?”

“Mrs. Robinson, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this water heater…”

“It is kind of hot in here. Do you mind if I take off my shirt?”

Although I think most people were just being kind, the reviews on the moustache were mixed. Mixed between people who were honest and people who were struggling to come up with something that didn’t sound cruel.

4 women from work commented that it looked “good”.
Baier said, “Are you hosting a Do-It-Yourself show on channel 11 tonight? You look exactly like Al from that Home Improvement show.”
Jen said, “I’m totally laughing out loud!” I will point out that she actually typed out “laughing out loud” as opposed to “lol”. These mean two totally different things. Jen also admitted on Sunday that she had shown a stache picture to Dionne from work. Her response was perhaps the most honest. “He needs to shave that immediately.”
Shannon said, “The soul patch makes the stache work.” I still don’t know what she means by make it work. As near as I can tell it doesn’t work at all.
When I sent the picture to Jill, I warned her that it would make her want to punch me in the face. Her response. “U don’t deserve a punch in the face! It’s not bad, especially considering NO ONE should have a moustache long term in the 21st century.” Jill must be a pacifist because I definitely deserved a punch in the face for looking like that!

Although Jesse will be celebrating Moustache Day again next year, I will be passing. I don’t think I have the discipline to make it through the day without hurting myself and that wretched upper lip hair.

I haven’t been as active blogging lately. There are several reasons for this absence.

1. I have been spending most of my free time organizing the basement.  When I completed this project I moved on to the upstairs.  I am on the verge of being quite downsized.  Hopefully this project will be completed next Wednesday.  Or at least, I hope that the only room that I will have left to organize and downsize will be the office after next Wednesday.  There is always a fair chance that I will just give up on the office and declare it a permanent disaster area.  We’ll see how the other two rooms go.
2. When I haven’t been organizing, eliminating and donating I have been moving furniture around. True this doesn’t take much physical time, but it is emotionally draining.
3. I have been working on a personal facial hair project.  For one 36 hour period, I wasn’t intelligent enough to put a noun against a verb in a meaningful way.
4. The last couple of Friday Night Supper Clubs have been emotionally draining.  The night we viewed Free Walking at Jay’s apartment was a visceral experience.  What a great movie!  Then the Jucy Lucy replication Friday Night Supper Club was an overt failure that ended with My Great Shame.  It took me several days to recover from that shame.  At least Dawn got to become an auxiliary member of FNSC.  She allegedly doesn’t even mind that it is a “Boys Club”.  I will believe her when she makes a return appearance. Plus Trivia Night.  Well, I can’t even begin to discuss how emotionally draining Trivia Night ended up being.  Plus Trivia Night fell in that 36 hour period where I was a moron. However, Team Stache (Geri D., Willy, Jay, Jesse, Shannon, Papa Smurf and his wife) was an undeniable powerhouse.  I only wish I had pictures to share so that you could relive the experience.
5. The cleaning crew (Jill) for my Oscars Watch had to work at her “real job” and got stuck in Minnesota.  Therefore I had to do my own cleaning.  The bed maker (Sara) also got stuck working her “real job” so I had to make my own bed.  I tried to get that out with a straight face.  Sara had to work, so I just shut my bedroom door and pretended that the room was how it was supposed to be.  My kitchen crew (Jen and Derrick, well mostly Derrick) came through with flying colors though.  Still, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I should add that my neighbor joined the Watch and listening to his plan to get his life back together by finding a girlfriend so that he can have some self-esteem.  Well, that was psychologically draining.
6. Perhaps the most important reason why I haven’t taken keyboard in hand and banged out some words is because during the move from one blogging entity to a different blogging entity, I decided to completely recategorize my blog. I started this process with well over 770 journal entries to review. Through this process I eliminated several journal entries.  Things that I didn’t need any longer. Like videos that no longer existed or calls to donate to a “charity” that would lie and claim that your donation was tax deductible.  I even broke down categories by people and I left the number of blog entries by the category.  A quick glance down the left side of this blog will tell you who I seem to write about the most.  Are you surprised that Jay is number 1?

A surprising side effect of my reading is that I think I might have regressed as a writer.  I fear that I might have peaked and it is all downhill from here on out.  Some of my writings in the not so distant past were clever, witty and dare I say it – brilliant.  I fear if I was ever going to write a play for ACTORS that was going to revolutionize costumed (believe me I have tried – Geri D. will not let me put an all-nude play on her stage) drama in a meaningful way, I have missed my chance.  Rather than eloquently crafting phrases, I now rely on cheap tricks (like my over reliance on parenthetical statements makes me want to punch myself in the face almost as surely as if I had moustache) and broad allusions.  I have surely descended into hack-hood.  See, that isn’t even a real word.  It isn’t like the old days when I used to invent words that are sure to be the next surefire hits in our lexicon.  I can’t come up with a word so I throw out a dash and postfix and then I merrily go on my way.

It didn’t used to be like this.  (I just don’t mean that I used to not end sentences with prepositions.)  I used to be growing as a writer.  For example, when I was in the 4th Grade I wrote the worst creative writing stories ever!! They were based loosely on a pet rabbit that most likely died due to my neglect.  Only I stole some ideas from a few cartoons and movies that I enjoyed and out of my pencil and on to some poor dead tree came writing that was so dizzingly bad that it makes me want to vomit when I read just a few short passages:

When Fluffy found him he took him to Leo the Lion. Leo took care of him. Pucky told Leo his life story. Then he told Fluffy what Jack, Jill and Joan said. Fluffy said “I better get going” then he left. He hid in Raspberry Forest and said “By the power of Carrot Castle! I HAVE THE POWER!” Then he said, ”Up, up and away and he flew off to find Joan, Jack and Jill. When he found them he landed and said, “Pucky sent me.” Superfluff said.  “Let’s get that wimpy rabbit!” Superfluff picked them up and twirled them until they gave up and promised to stop picking on Pucky. Then he went after Swampfrog. When he was fighting Swampfrog he said a few words he shouldn’t of. When he returned he taught Pucky karate. When he stepped into the pond, Jack, Jill, Joan and Swampfrog were waiting for him but Pucky beat them up in 15 fish winks. Now everybody calls him The Karate Duck.

Fortunately I can still say that I’m a better writer than I was when I put that horrible drivel to paper. But I did slightly improve by high school:

Eric reached deep into his soul, past the candy wrappers and half-eaten bagels, to the insult department. Through the corridor with doors marked with signs that read “whites”, “blondes”, “Scott Kendall” and “dogs”.  He opened the door that read: “The Mother of All Insults”.

The glowing light almost blinded him. The brilliant shiny box in the room was his destination. He opened the box and was greeted with a cloud of rolling smoke. He reached into the box and grabbed a piece of paper. Eric read the paper and he knew he had his death blow!

Back in reality Eric stared at the landing party and said… and I quote… “Huh, freaks of nature!”

He was puzzled when this didn’t break their morale. They were laughing at him. This was the Mother-of-All-Insults and they were laughing at HIM!

Chris looked at Eric and broke into another 5 minutes of laughter. Chris controlled himself and said, “You sir are our inferior. You call us freaks in an attempt to manipulate reality. We have evolved into a place of superiority over you!”

“Liar! I’m not listening to you!” Eric screamed.

“Scott. Who-o-o-o-o-o is this m-m-m-an?” Captain Punjab whimpered.

As you can tell, I have clearly progressed from the terrible wretch that wrote those words. I just hope that I am not regressing to that level again!

This week’s submissions for WET:

Becky Perkovich

Michael Vest

Christopher D. Bennett

Shannon Bardole’s Artistic Appreciation Pick of the Week:

Springtime Haiku

Melting snow forms pools
Warmer days cause happy thought
Green grass from wet ground

The theme for this week is EXPLORE.

Seems like I will actually have to leave my house to take a picture this week.

Shattered Dreams

My mom came over to my house a couple of days after I made this image and was horrified to find broken mirror all over my dining room table. She asked how the mirror got broken.

“I hit it with a hammer. Well actually Jay hit it with a hammer and then I hit it with a hammer some more.”

This made her even more horrified. She pointed out that breaking a mirror was bad luck. I was horrified to be related to somebody that was this superstitious.

Willy chose the name Shattered Dreams. He likes naming his portraits. He also named Grizzly McAlpine:

Shattered Dreams was taken during a FNSC at my house after we feasted at La Carreta and knocked down Tab Cola.

Willy showing he lacks the courage of his convictions.

Willy texting like a teenage girl.

Of course this was probably one of the nights where my furnace was on the fritz, so Jay cuddled up in my Snuggie and donned a mullet wig to keep warm.

Jay

It might just be me, but I think this look isn’t half bad for Mr. Janson. I’m so glad Jen gave me this wig, but I think I might just have to pay it forward.

The Taiwan Times

by Mark Wolfram

Reporting on God’s Mission in Taiwan

February 2010

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year to all of you!  The month of February provided a time for travel and relaxation, as Taiwan celebrated its biggest holiday, Chinese New Year.  I was blessed with the opportunity to go to India on a short term mission trip, with a little extra time spent in the country for vacation.  It was an amazing experience that I am excited to tell you all about, however I think I am going to save it until next month. In this newsletter, I would like to share with you a few shorter stories that have taken place in the last month or so.

Barber Shop Ministry

While doing presentations this summer, I know that one person I specifically mentioned was my barber:  Sue Hway.  She often asks questions about church and talks about how she would like to be a Christian someday.  Her husband and relatives all practice the traditional Taiwanese folk religion.  I know that many of you have been praying for her, so I wanted to give you an update on the situation, and show the power of prayer as God continues to work in her life.

First, praise God that he puts many people in her life to witness His love to her.  About 7 or 8 weeks ago, I was in getting my hair cut, and Sue Hway commented that she has many customers who are Christians.  Two specific people she mentioned were Pastor Alex from Salvation Lutheran Church and another woman who attends Bread of Life Church in Chia-Yi.  My conversations with Sue Hway are all in Chinese, so this presents a little bit of a problem.  While I am able to use my Chinese on a functional level, I lack precision and command of the language to always be able to communicate with her in a clear way.  But praise God that he has put other Taiwanese people in her life who come as customers but also testimonies to God’s goodness.

While we were talking, she mentioned that she had began to pray.  I was very excited to hear this and inquired more about the situation.  The lady who attends the Bread of Life Church in the city talks with her about faith, and prayer while getting her hair cut.  This lady had given Sue Hwaye a prayer book, and began talking to her about prayer, and how Christians pray.  Sue Hwaye said that she had begun praying since early December.

I was very excited to hear this and asked her if she wanted to attended church.  She said that she was too busy, and that she had to have her shop open on Sunday mornings.  I then asked her if she had a Bible, which she said she did not.  As I left, I remembered that I had a Chinese-English New Testament in the trunk of my scooter.  I gave it her and suggested the Gospel of Mark as a good place to start reading about the life and work of Jesus Christ.  It was an amazing opportunity that God gave me to share God’s word with her.  I told her if she had questions about what she was reading that she could ask me, or Pastor Alex if she needs a better explanation in Chinese.

Two days ago I went back get my hair cut and asked her about how she was doing.  She said that she still prays every day, but has not had time to read the Bible.  Please continue to pray for her.  God is definitely working in her life, but pray that she will be connected with His word and will come to faith.  Your prayers have made a difference over the course of this year, so keep it up prayer warriors.

8th Grade Baptism

In early February, our 8^th Grade Bible Class curriculum began studying the life of Jesus.  The students study more Old Testament stories in 7^th grade and the first semester of 8^th grade.  However, beginning 8^th grade through 10^th grade, the focus shifts to the New Testament.  Our first lesson of the new semester was Jesus’ baptism and temptation.

After completing the lesson, one of my students, Jack, came up to me and told me that he wanted to be baptized.  I was really excited and surprised by this, as I had never had a student say this after a lesson before.  I asked him some more questions, and found out that he attends the Lan Tan Lutheran Church here in the city.  I told him about the great gift that baptism is, and encouraged him to talk to his family and pastor.

After class today, Jack came up to me again, and said that he would start school on Sundays.  I was confused by this and asked him to clarify a little bit.  Eventually, I figured out that he will start classes on Sunday in preparation for his baptism.  Praise God.  Jack didn’t know how many weeks the classes would take, but he was starting them next week.  Please praise God for Jack’s faith and pray for him as he prepares to be baptized later this year.

It’s Prayer Time!

1.     Pray for Sue Hway.  Pray that God would continue to connect her to His word and work faith in her.

2.    Praise God for Jack’s faith.  Pray for him as he takes baptism classes.

3.    Praise God for His guidance and safety on the excellent trip to India.

4.    Pray for me and the other missionaries as we start the new semester.  May God give us renewed strength and energy, and bless all of us as we work together and share the Gospel.

5.    Pray for me as I consider where God would want me to be next year.  I am prayerfully considering a return to Taiwan, or pursuing a teaching job in the States.

Happy Chinese New Year, and may God bless you all,

Mark

Final Reminder

This is the last blog that will be posted to:

http://www.photography139.com/index_files/artistsnotebook.htm

Don’t forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS Feeds to the new URL:

http://www.photography139.com/notebook/

Last week’s theme was SELF-PORTRAIT. Although there wasn’t any new people to submit pictures, there were still several submissions. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was hoping that more men would submit pictures now and again, but we aren’t very far into this project, so maybe a few more guys will ante up in the future.

This week’s submissions:

Monica Henning (Fairweather Friend)

Julie Johnson

Dawn Krause

Becky Perkovich

Michael Vest

Christopher D. Bennett

Dawn’s Weekly Poem includes an Artistic Adaptation.

Self Portrait

A rose
yearning to be a daisy
vulnerable and
open for the world to see

Glass
shattered into pieces
broken, mended
brought together in new form

Steel
smooth and resistant
with scars
damaged but still strong

Sunlight
full of hope
warming souls
joy with simple pleasure

The theme for this week is:

That is a theme that would have probably been more fun to do in the summer, but what can you do? The Random Generator has spoken!

Hearts Beat High with Joy

When I took this picture I went down quite the long journey of family history in family Bibles. One of the most important things I discovered was that I was born special.

The Bible in the picture belonged to my Grandma Bennett. My birth announcement was taped or glued to the front of her Bible. I wasn’t the first grandchild born. I wasn’t even close to being the first grandchild born. However, I am the only grandchild that had a birth considered worthy of having the birth announcement glued into the front of the Bible.

The Bible used for Hearts Beat High with Joy was my Grandma Bennett’s Bible. The smaller Bible pictured in the last picture was my Dad’s Bible. The Bible in the middle of the stack was my Grandpa Bennett’s Bible.

Daily Reminder

Don’t forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS Feeds to the new URL:

http://www.photography139.com/notebook/

Last week’s theme was OUT OF FOCUS. I’m very excited to have Monica Henning as a first time contributor. Monica was so excited that she submitted four photos. She did violate the one and only rule of RWPE and that is that the picture has to be taken during the week of the theme, but I will let it slide.

Monica Henning A (Don’t Take Me for a Loop)

Monica Henning B

Monica Henning C

Monica Henning D

Dawn Krause

Christopher D. Bennett

Michael Vest

Dawn’s Poem of the Week

Out of Focus

The future’s a blur
and rather hazy
Energy gone
and feeling lazy

The edge is gone
turned to soft gray
Watching the hours
pass away the day

Next week’s theme is:

I hope there are plenty of first time contributors next Monday. After all, almost everybody owns a camera and everybody has a “self”!

The Lovely Silhouette

I finally found a use for this window that I like. Sara agreed to pose for this picture before we went to the movies one snowy Monday night. This pose was not without some danger. The lights behind Sara are extremely hot, but she managed not to burn herself. This was a victory of some kind.

Daily Reminder

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

The theme for last week was ADVENTURE:

Jesse Howard

Michael Vest

Christopher D. Bennett

It is my custom not to explain much about my RWPE photos and I will not break with that tradition, but I will at least state that there is a small back story as to why I took a picture of me scrubbing the toilet for the theme ADVENTURE. This picture was not out of laziness. It exists for a reason.

Dawn’s Weekly Poem

Adventure

Let’s skip a stone on the pond
And run the forest wild
Have a sword fight in the woods
And fight the king so viled

Build a clubhouse in the tree
And mighty dragons slay
Lay in the meadow to watch the clouds
And pass away our day

Let’s push the limits of our minds
And spill our hearts desire
Play in the spirit of our youth
And pray we never tire

This week’s theme is:

Hopefully some fun can be had with that!