Oscar Pictures from Jen

I was sitting at work today minding my own business when an e-mail fluttered across cyberspace and into my inbox. Technically it was two e-mails. I now share with you what was contained in those e-mails, namely pictures from Jen’s camera of the Oscar Party.


Oscar Party - 2008
Jen in her Fur Coat

Oscar Party - 2008
Brenda

Oscar Party - 2008
I am Mine

Oscar Party - 2008
With the Guitar God

Oscar Party - 2008
Jen and Derrick

Oscar Party - 2008
Sans Beanie

Oscar Party - 2008
That Tie Deserves Better

I think for the 2009 Oscar Party I might switch to a fedora and bring a cane. Although with the beanie Jen says I look “very Mohammad”. I dig that.

I might as well throw up a few pictures I took on that night. I didn’t take a camera to the party. I’ve been considering buying a small camera that I can fit in a pocket for this type of event, but I haven’t done it as of yet.


03-07-08
Derrick Waiting

03-07-08

I know it is derivative, but everybody loves the bass picture so why not post this one?


03-07-08
Jackson

03-07-08
Bailey

If you are wondering, I will be buying a Sony. Carl Zeiss Lens! That is all I need to say!

Relay for Life

Lowell and I discussed putting together a Relay for Life team for 2008 shortly after the 2007 Relay for Life event ended. Then we did nothing.

A couple of Sundays ago they announced in church the need for members for our 2 Relay for Life teams. Lowell quickly signed us up for a team.

Last Sunday after completing my ushering duties, I made my way down to Fellowship. Once there I received my packet.


03-25-08
Methodist Team A Relay for Life Packet

As I’ve been going through some of the information in the packet I notice that there is a Team Spirit Award this year. The team with the most points wins this award. Some of the ways that teams earn points are:

  • Hold a team fundraiser prior to the Relay
  • Sell 15 daffodil bunches during Daffodil Days
  • Buy/Sell 20 Luminaries
  • Decorate your campsite
  • Have 1 or more team members in the frozen t-shirt contest
  • Have 1 or more team members in the Miss Relay contest
  • All team members attend the Opening Ceremony
  • 8+ team members attend the Closing Ceremony
  • Team member(s) walking every hour of the relay
  • Bring a survivor to the relay who has not attended before

Some of the Fun Laps include:

  • Masquerade lap
  • Safari lap
  • Reality show lap
  • Pirate lap

Perhaps my favorite part of the handout is the “Be Prepared for These Possible Activities…” section:

  • Miss Relay Competition (for Men and Boys only!!)
  • Frozen t-shirt Contest
  • Biggest Eater Contest
  • Dance Lap
  • Biggest Eater Contest
  • Water Balloon Toss
  • Shave a Balloon Contest
  • Fear Factor Challenge

The Miss Relay Competition intrigues me. I happen to know a very successful Drag Queen (albeit retired), but that might be considered cheating. I also happen to know a Dance Machine and a person with a competitive eating title to his credit. I also know a guy that has a lead on a pretty good pirate costume. Hmmm… some planning might be on the horizon.

Random Romantic Thoughts

During the week I engage in random intellectual discussions with Andree, Russell, and Jason Baier. The topics covered range from music to movies to politics to sports to religion to fine dining.

Yesterday Russell wanted to know what we considered to be the best romantic movies ever made. I thought I would post my response. Even though it is fairly random and just what I thought about off the top of my head.

In no particular order:

Casablanca– One of the greatest movies of all-time, period.

West Side Story– Greatest musical ever made, period.

Roman Holiday– Audrey Hepburn, what can I say Russell, when you are right, you are right.

My Fair Lady-My 2nd favorite musical. Very sexist ending though.

Singin’ in the Rain– 3rd favorite musical. Makes me wish I could dance in the way that West Side Story makes me wish I was in a gang.

King Kong (1933)- One of my favorite movies of all-time, but most chicks don’t dig it.

Beauty and the Beast– French version or Disney version.

Titanic– Badmouth the movie all you want. It won 10 Academy Awards and is the highest grossing movie of all-time, yet it isn’t cool to admit you like it. I love it.

It Happened One Night– One of the greatest romantic comedies of all time. Clark Gable at his best.

The Philadelphia Story-My favorite romantic comedy of all time. Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. What more do you need to say.

Shakespeare in Love-Funny and sad and beautifully written.

The Graduate-Kind of creepy, but still a great love story with a great ending.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner– Another movie that trendy people don’t like, but you give me a movie with Poitier, Hepburn and Tracy and I’ll take it every time. There are at least 3 great scenes in this movie.

Sabrina (1954)- Audrey Hepburn, does it every time, except Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I really don’t like Breakfast at Tiffany’. Perhaps it is because of the overt racism.

The Apartment– Perhaps my all-time favorite Jack Lemmon movie. I think he plays a character that a lot of guys can relate to.

Marty– A chick flick from a guy’s perspective. The lesson of this movie is a great one and I wish more guys could learn it.

The Princess Bride-Still the best fantasy movie ever made. “As You Wish”

Lady and the Tramp– The spaghetti scene, come on!

Dirty Dancing– I hated this movie so much growing up, but it has grown on me over the years.

Grease-What happened to you John Travolta? Unfortunately spawned the worst sequel of all-time.

Jerry Maguire– “You complete me”.

Funny Face– Audrey Hepburn, say no more. Say no more.

Once– I repeat, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, do what it takes to see this movie.

Good Will Hunting-“Sonofabitch, he stole my line.”

Ever After-Not quite as clever as it wants to be, but still pretty good.

It’s a Wonderful Life-Best Christmas movie ever made.

On the Waterfront– Reveals how the love of a woman can push a man to new heights.

Forrest Gump– Glad they didn’t make the book straight up.

10 Things I Hate About You– Cute high school movie with an extremely talented cast.

A Beautiful Mind-Not a great movie, but I do like it. “I need to believe, that something extraordinary is possible.”

This is all I got for now. I’m sure when I get home and look through my DVD catalog something else will strike me.

I don’t care for Sleepless in Seattle or the remake, You’ve Got Mail.

I would point out that I do love Gone with the Wind, but I do not consider it to be a great love story. Unless you consider the love story between Scarlett O’Hara and herself. She is an evil person and the movie is about Rhett finally figuring it out. There is a reason why one of the greatest lines in movie history is at the end of this movie. No, Scarlett would have never gotten Rhett to take her back. Margaret Mitchell is on record as saying that and that is why she never wrote a sequel.

Tale from the Imperial

Last night when I got to bowling I was surprised to see the guy (Rich) that said the previous week was his last week because he had violated his probation and was being sent away to treatment. So I asked him why he was there and not in treatment.

He wasn’t in treatment because when he went to treatment they told him that they couldn’t accept him because he was on anti-depressants. Now he has 2 weeks to wait and then they send him to a different treatment center.

Then he went up to the bar and bought a pitcher of beer, for himself.

He took two drinks from it. Then his phone rang. It was his wife.

She told him that his Parole Officer had just came to their house to give him a breathalyser test to make sure he was sober. The Parole Officer was now on his way to the bowling alley to administer the same test there.

He slid the pitcher of beer over to his friend (Steve) and went up and bought a Pepsi.

A few minutes later the Parole Officer showed up and took him outside to give him the test. He passed, but only because his wife had called him.

This has been an interesting bowling season.

Going Broke

My sister Carla and her family have left for South Padre Island for the week. This means that I get to look after their two dogs Destiny and Shimmer. These dogs get very hyper when they haven’t had any human contact for several hours. I tried to get some pictures of them with the Dimage Z2 (4th String Camera), but they really didn’t want to cooperate.


03-22-08
Shimmer

03-22-08
Destiny

03-22-08
Shimmer

In a slightly related note, in the last few months the list of people who find it acceptable to text message me has grown to an alarming number. I’m throwing in the towel. I’m going to breakdown and get a text messaging package. You guys win.

I Need to Eat

See the insect in the picture below:


It resides up on the head of Jay Janson-Corporate Sellout. I can’t bring myself to post a full picture of Jay. He has decided that having a job and being able to support himself is more important than FNSC. The man got a job after almost 6 months of the hippie lifestyle. Due to this job he is taking a sabbatical from FNSC. When he puts his priorities back in order and comes back to FNSC I will consider posting a picture of him and not just the top of his head.

Sorting Mail

I was told a few weeks back that I had made an appearance in the Ames Jaycees Newsletter. I had kind of forgotten about that news until today when I was doing my monthly mail sorting and I saw my mug on the back of the newsletter.


03-22-08
With Becky

Currently I think there are only 6 Jaycees that can identify me. I’m quite certain that most people that examined this newsletter and looked at that picture and wondered why they included a picture of some random guy from the bar in the newsletter.

Oscar Party Pictures

I got some pictures e-mailed to me from Brenda of the 2008 Oscar Party. These are a little bit small, but I think you will get an idea of the glamor of the event. This event is also doubles as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.


Oscar Party - 2008
Brenda

Oscar Party - 2008
Jen & Derrick

Oscar Party - 2008
Brenda with her Beau

Oscar Party - 2008
Jen in her Fur Coat

Oscar Party - 2008
With Jen and Derrick

I’m still waiting to get some more pictures from Jen, so there may be more pictures posted in the future.

Mmmm…. Eel!

Last week I had a heated debate with Andree, Russell and Andree about what is the best Asian restaurant in Ames. This happened because Andree had the temerity to badmouth Hu Hot. Somewhere in the debate, the good name CoCost was slandered, everybody agreed to the greatness of CHC and the restaurant China One International Buffet was discussed.

China One International Buffet was brought up by Andree as a place that I would love if I loved Buffet City. I do love Buffet City and sometimes I’ve been known to take their crayfish home to photograph, but that is another story.

A plan was hatched. Last night Jay and I met Jason, Andree and Russell after they concluded their work day at Principal and hit China One. We hit it hard. It was everything that Andree had hyped it up to be and I ate eel sushi.

After the meal was completed and we parted company with Andree and Russell, Jay, Jason and I loaded up into the Rideshare van and headed towards the Des Moines River because I wanted to snap off a couple of photos.

As we headed in that general direction we passed a parking ramp. I remembered a night after Sara’s graduation party where I stood outside that parking ramp in the middle of an ice storm lamenting the fact that this parking ramp was locked down tight as a drum.

I pointed out the parking ramp to Jason and told him how I wished that I was able to get to the top of that parking ramp.

He looked at me and said some magical words:

“I can get into that parking ramp with this card.” Then he picked up a card that was sitting near the dash.

“Then lets go to that parking ramp.”

We made a quick turn and entered the parking ramp. When we got to the top after about 10 minutes, the view was even more beautiful than I had dared hope. We were right across the street from the cheesy*, rotating cross that adorns the FUMC of Downtown Des Moines.

My only problem was that I wasn’t prepared for such a development. The lens that I wanted for this moment was sitting 30 miles away, in my car, in Huxley, attached to the Maxxum 5 (not to be mistaken for the Maxxum 5D). I was also planning on using a polarizing filter for when I came face to face with this beauty.

However, I shouldn’t complain. This was not the ideal circumstance, but I could get some shots and be satisfied with the knowledge that I could come back at a later date all prepared and with more time. As it turns out, Jason Baier makes a poor photo assistant with all of his whining about wanting to get home to see his family before he has to go to bed because he works at 7 in the morning.

So I present some of what I got on top of that parking ramp and some of what I got down by the river.


03-12-08

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03-12-08

You might notice that some of these pictures are a bit crooked, more than usual. I broke the piece of my tripod off last night that I would use to straighten out the camera. I decided not to fix the slant in post to remind me of how angry I was when that piece broke of my tripod. I hope nobody thinks I’m into Dutch Angles.

*I do not condone the use of the word cheesy in connection with this beautiful cross, but I would not know this cross existed if Shannon wasn’t complaining about it being cheesy.

Mortars

Last night I attended a meeting where they handed me this map:



Map

It was the first time I’ve ever been handed a map that indicated where we were going to put mortars. A new life experience for me.

Another highlight of the meeting was hearing that we would be blowing things up the size of my head. Now I need to measure my head.