Confabulation

Entry #4 of 5 of the Group Shirts Series.

I may or may not be a member of a group known as “The Girls”. It seems to be somewhat dependent on the day, but for a long time, I was clearly on the outside of The Girls and then I was more or less told that I was in The Girls.

I had some objections to being placed in The Girls. Not because The Girls are bad people. On the contrary, they are all wonderful people. But the organization seemed to be sexist to its core.

It is possible that I operate under certain gender stereotypes, (girls should smell nice, guys should not drink wine coolers) but I wouldn’t consider myself to be a sexist person. At least not on a meaningful level.

It is for this reason that I can not condone sexist behavior.

Now some of this stuff happened several months ago, so there are gaps in the memories. I will do the best I can.

Before I joined the group, the group consisted of 5 people. Becky, Peggy, Shannon, Terra and Todd.


Kountertop at Ames on the Half Shell
The Girls plus some outsider at Ames on the Half Shell

Cherry Pie
Shannon

Vivace
Becky

Ames Party Bus
Terra

06-28-08 - Box Brothers
Peggy

06-28-08 - Box Brothers
Todd

For reasons that I cannot recall, when I was told that I was “now in the group”, I approached them with a rather simple request.

By my joining the group, the demographic would switch from a group that was at one time a “girls only club” to being 33.3% dudes. For that reason, I felt that a different moniker should be applied to the group.

I did not mind joining a group call “The Girls”, but it did seem to diminish the contributions made to the group by its male member(s). I wanted to know who got to decide the name.

Becky responded for the group by indicating that She, Shannon, Becky and Peggy got to make such decisions.

It seemed to me it was rather obvious that Todd was being singled out and only given half rights (if any rights at all) because he was a dude.

When I pointed this out, I was fed some hogwash about it not having anything to do with Todd’s gender, but about him not being a “Founding Member”.

Regardless of their “reasons” for persecuting Todd, I told them that I didn’t want to join a group that treated me like a halfling. I already had a group for that. I was willing to join the group (since they are wonderful people) and work on fixing the rotten core of sexism from the inside, if they made one, very simple conciliatory gesture towards me.

Change the name to: The Super Badass Action Squad

This would serve two purposes. First, I’ve always wanted to be a member of a group called The Super Badass Action Squad. Second, it would show that the group was willing to confront the demon of sexism that is threatening to destroy their group from the inside. Rather than just sticking their head in the sand and acting like nothing was wrong.

My initial proposal was received somewhat coolly. There was the usual recrimination that comes when people are at first forced to look at the light.

Shannon told me that I shouldn’t fear joining a group known as “The Girls” because nobody would consider me to be less of a man. Of course she is right about that. My levels of manliness are unquestioned. They have been unquestioned since the first Marathon of Manliness all those years ago. (Red car. Good point!)

But after the initial waves of resentment receded, the coolest thing happened.

A group float trip down the Iowa River was proposed. Reservations were made. Name on the reservation… The Super Badass Action Squad.

I was in.

Then the day before the float trip came and the weather was a little bit cold. Some emails were exchanged. Discussions were held. Float Trip canceled.

I don’t hesitate to note that if a squad of people were truly super and badass, a little dip in the mercury wouldn’t have stopped them from taking on that river.

A camping trip was proposed to take the place of the float trip.

I was back in.

Ledges was suggested. I left work early on that Friday to try to secure a campsite. This was the middle of the Summer. Every campsite in Ledges was booked for the weekend except for a couple of hike-in sites. I called Todd to clear this with him.

He asked, “How far do we have to hike?”

“A couple hundred yards.”

“I will call Peggy and then call you back.”

I waited.

The phone rang.

I answered.

“That is kind of far. We are just going to camp in our yard.”

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago.

I get an email from Shannon. She wanted to know what size of shirt I wear. This was a strange request.

I wrote her back: I wear an XXL. I can wear an XL, but nobody seems to like it. Including me. Why?

She wrote back that she would be getting me a shirt on that weekend. She doubted that I would ever wear it, but I would laugh when I saw it.

It was the weekend of the ISU-Baylor football game. It was a weekend where I was invited to 3 birthday parties. Being only 1 person, I could not make it to all of them.

I dropped by Shannon’s on the way to the game to give her Becky’s birthday present.

She gave me the shirt.


The Girls
Boys are dumb…

The Girls
… that’s redundant So it’s a good thing I’m one of the girls

I did laugh. Will I ever wear this shirt? Well clearly I wore it for these pictures. I will also wear it if there is ever a group photo of “The Girls” organized.

But that doesn’t mean that I have thrown in the towel on The Super Badass Action Squad. It is still a dream of mine. After all, I am Super Badass. For example…


The Girls
I can take a punch.

The Girls
I can deliver a punch.

The Girls
I am not remotely ticklish.

The Girls
My vertical leap is 36 inches.

That is only to name a handful of my Super Badass attributes. So I will continue to carry on and maybe some day I will convert this group of The Girls into The Super Badass Action Squad that I know is in them.

The Good Kind of Hurt

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m sure every Iowa State fan (even those in denial about their fanhood) has seen this video of Iowa State celebrating after their victory at Nebraska on Saturday. But I wanted to post it here, so I would always have a place to see it.

(Obviously if you subscribe via email or RSS Feed, you will have to go to the website to see the video.)



I don’t want to pile on to Chizik. It is obvious now that he clearly wasn’t the right fit here. Whether or not he succeeds at Auburn or how completely classless his departure from Iowa State was, the only thing that matters is that Iowa State now has absolutely the right guy as our coach.

Paul Rhoads says in that video that he is “So proud to be your football coach.”

I am so proud that Paul Rhoads is our football coach. Passion and enthusiasm are back in the Iowa State football program after a 2 year hiatus. It feels so good to see those two old friends again.

After the 5k concluded on Saturday – Sara, Jen, Karolina & Dionne huddled up to discuss where we should eat.

I asked Derrick what was going on over there. He explained the situation.

I stuck my head into the huddle and said, “You know what is the most important feature of the restaurant we eat at?”

They asked me to elaborate.

“A place where we can watch the Iowa State game.”

At first I thought my point had fallen on death ears, but Dionne also wanted to watch the game and Jen wanted to make Derrick happy, so we ended up at Legends in downtown Des Moines watching the game.

While we were walking to Legends, Jen (the Super-Wife) even offered to go get the car on her own so that Derrick and I could continue to watch the game after we were done eating.

So the 6 of us huddled into a booth at Legends and watched the first half of Iowa State’s first victory in Lincoln since 1977. First victory since 1977 despite missing their 2 best offensive players. Despite losing their nickel back with a broken leg. Despite having to separate healthy players from players with the flu for the ride over. I saw somebody write that ISU beat Nebraska on Saturday with 1/3 the talent and 5 times the heart. That heart comes from having a coach that actually cares.

Watching the first half with us was a good primer for Sara since she is going to go to the Iowa State-Kansas State game in Kansas City with us next year. She is big time excited about this new adventure and is counting down the days on her calendar.

As Jesse Smith pulled down an interception (the 8th Nebraska turnover of the game)I received several text messages. Including one from Tim, who was in Memorial Stadium indicating that it was “quiet” in the stadium.

I got a text from Bill (who lives in Omaha) saying that he was in a Best Buy “full of angry”.

Corey sent me a text message proclaiming that this game reinforced his theory of “The X”. Corey believes that the Kansas-ISU game was “The X”. After that game, Kansas would decline and the Cyclones would rise. Kansas did win that game, but since then they are 0-2. ISU is 2-0. I am a believer in “The X”.

I received a text message from Colleen that said simply: “Wow.”

I got a text from Baier proclaiming it to be one of the “5 biggest wins in Cyclone history”.

I got a text from Jesse asking if I “believed it”. Of course I believed it. I predicted it.

I got a text from Shannon saying that she broke the 1 day Little White Lye Soap sales record. I texted her back that it was a “truly great day”. She asked if that meant the 5K had went well. I responded that it had went well, but more importantly, ISU had beaten Nebraska. She merely texted back that she had “heard that”.

Then I talked to Jason and Derrick on the phone. It was a great day to be a Cyclone. Actually every day is a great day to be a Cyclone, but this day was a little bit greater than the norm.

I had sent a text message to Jill saying that Derrick and I had evened out the estrogen overload by making our party watch the ISU victory over Nebraska and now I was “so happy it hurt”. The response came back that this must the “good kind of hurt”.

Iowa State definitely put the good kind of hurt on Nebraska.

Alligator Shirt Day

When I posted the picture below, I promised more information on Alligator Shirt Day.


The Car
Jill on the day that Alligator Shirt Day was invented.

The truth is that it isn’t much of a story.
A couple of years ago my mom went to Florida to visit some family. Of all of the places that they visited, I think that her favorite was St. Augustine. While she was in St. Augustine, she picked me up a souvenir. A black t-shirt with an alligator on its front.

If you can claim to know me at all, you know I am a fan of alligators. You also know that I have a severe weakness for monster movies.

When I was a small child I watched a movie called Alligator. Very few movies have influenced the man that I have become like Alligator. (Shaft, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Cannibal Ferox, Zardoz, Smokey and the Bandit, Every Which Way But Loose and The Duel to name a few.)

The basic premise of Alligator is that a little kid gets a baby alligator as a pet at a fair of some kind. The kid’s dad is a big jerk and flushes the baby gator down the toilet. The baby alligator lives in the sewers of a major city. Then after 20 years the gator busts through a city street and crashes a wedding among other venues. It is basically Jaws with an alligator instead of a shark. It is not anywhere as well made, but that is part of its charm.

I watched this movie with my dad when we still lived on West 15th Street.

When we lived on West 15th Street, we had an aquarium in the kitchen. Well, where else would you put an aquarium?

Occasionally we would put newts in this aquarium. The interesting thing about newts is that they have no problem escaping aquariums. This freaked my mom out.

Although I have my doubts that she watched very much of Alligator, it left enough of an impression on her that she was always worried that these escaped newts were living under the house (it didn’t really have a basement, more of a cellar) and growing to monstrous proportions.

Maybe this is where you can measure the greatest distance between me and my mom. She was afraid that there were giant newts living in our cellar. I was hoping that there were giant newts living in our cellar.

That house isn’t there any longer and I never read any newspaper article claiming that giant newts went on a rampage in west Boone after being discovered under a demolished house.

Although the odds are against it, I like to think that the giant newts moved on after we moved out and are living in the woods just outside of Boone. Waiting. Just waiting.

I never wear the alligator shirt. Perhaps it is because when you have something that cherry, you live in a constant fear that if you take the shirt out of the closet something bad will happen to it. A sweet and sour sauce accident at Chinese Homestyle Cooking. A barbecue sauce accident at Battle’s. A bloomin’ onion sauce accident at Wallaby’s.

This brings me to the day of the picture above.

Jill and I were going to go cruising around in her car. But as it turned out it rained that day. This sudden unexpected rainfall was caused by Jill washing her car. She has those kind of powers. We still cruised the car, but with the top up.

We ended up at Jen and Derrick’s.

While we were conversing with Derrick, Jill brought up that their dad had brought her back 3 new shirts from his latest Boy Scout camping trip. 1 of these shirts had an alligator on it. She seemed less than impressed with this shirt.

I brought up the fact that I also had an awesome alligator shirt, but I never have a special enough occasion to wear it.

We struck a deal that we would declare one of the days of next year’s The Road Trip to be Alligator Shirt Day and we would wear our shirts.

When I returned home that evening I looked through my closet and found my alligator shirt. I looked at it and thought, “You will get to leave the closet in about one more year.”

A couple of days later I was wandering the shafts of the Computer Mine, when I ran into Coreen. She was sporting a shirt with a crocodile on it that came from the Vacation Bible School that she ran this Summer.

I commented on how I admired her crocodile shirt and I told her about my alligator shirt and the deal that Jill and I had brokered.

She pointed out that if I wore my shirt to work, she would also wear her shirt and we could have Alligator Shirt Day at work.

It seemed like a magnificent idea. So magnificent we had our picture taken to remember the day.


Alligator Shirt Day

Alligator Shirt Day

Alligator Shirt Day was such a success that Coreen and I decided to declare September 2 to forever be Alligator Shirt Day. In fact, if there is a 2010 Photography 139 Calendar, you can bet dollars to donuts that when you flip to September, you will see Alligator Shirt Day staring back at you on the 2nd.

I don’t know that this new holiday that I have invented will take off, but I have a good feeling about it.

Plus, how great is 2010 going to be? There will be not 1, but 2 Alligator Shirt Days!!

By the way, this is journal entry #2 of 5 that are about groups I am in that have matching shirts. The Knocker Walkers, The Alligator Shirt People…

Saving Second Base

On Wednesday, Jen brought me the super-cute Knocker Walkers shirt for the 5K on Saturday. I would have to say that the shirt was super-cute and ended up being the best shirt that I saw there.

The only shirt I saw that approached it was a shirt with a baseball diamond on it that said: “Saving Second Base”. But that shirt was a distant second.

I took a few pictures to send to interested parties and I am going to post some here. Remember that these pictures were taken with a phone, so they aren’t of the highest quality.


IMAGE LOST
Derrick registering for the 5K.

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Jen texting somebody to find out their location.

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Jen and Jessica. Jessica is one of the 2 founding members of the Knocker Walkers and is a cancer survivor.

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I call this picture “Estrogen Overload”. We arrived at the event about an hour early and proceeded to… well I’ll leave that alone and repeat that it was for a good cause.

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Sara seemed to insist that this was the first time she had ever seen my legs, even though I wear shorts constantly. This was the first time I have ever seen Sara in a ball cap.

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Me, Sara, Jen and Derrick

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Sara and Jen

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Dionne, Jessica (with her pink mohawk) and Jen. Even though we (Sara and I) just met Dionne, I think she might attend the Matisyahu concert with us on Thursday night. She will be a welcome addition to the concert, since of the 3 of us, she is the only one that can pronounce his name correctly on the first try. Although I have been practicing.

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This picture is supposed to show how crowded it was at the start of the 5K. We lined up about 2 blocks away from the starting line and it took about ten minutes to get to the starting line. For an event like this, that is a “good thing”.

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Jen waiting to get to the starting line.

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The starting line.
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This picture is supposed to show how far into the distance the crowd was this closely packed. You can’t really tell in this picture, but the crowd goes all the way to the buildings in the distance. The crowd was that packed almost as far behind us. 25,800 people.

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Derrick, Jen, Sara and Karolina nearing the end of the 5K.

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Jen, Derrick, Sara and Karolina crossing the finish line. 1 hour and 20 some minutes after the race had started.

It was an awesome event and I would encourage anybody to be a part of it next year.

I would also like to give a special thanks to Jason Baier and Geri Derner for making contributions to the cause through my pledge page. Special people, those two.

Coltrane’s 1st Wife’s Middle Name



Rarely when I publish pictures do I explain the thought process, the technical information or the inspiration. If somebody is confused by a picture or intrigued by a picture I want them to come to their own conclusions.

I feel by telling people too much about a picture, it cheapens the experience for them. That being written, I am going to part with my traditional way of doing things and give a rare glimpse into what happened before I created a trio of images.

The story of these pictures actually starts with the story of the picture above.

As you can tell, I am very pleased with the shirt I am wearing. It is an awesome shirt and if it isn’t the greatest shirt I currently own, it is certainly a top 5 shirt.

If you can read and have an adequate brain, you probably have deduced that this shirt was purchased at the Beaverdale Fall Festival. Good for you Big Brain! This shirt was indeed purchased at the Beaverdale Fall Festival.

Sara invited a bunch of us down to her house for the Beaverdale Fall Festival. Jen, Jill and I accepted the invitation.

This is the first thing that happened to put these events into motion:

Jill picked me up in her sweet car.


The Car
Picture actually taken on the day that the idea for Alligator Shirt Day was Born.
More on that at a later date.

We swung out to Ledges to briefly interact with Jay, Monica and Jeff.

Then we met Jen in Ames and went to Beaverdale to meet up with Sara.

At Sara’s house we were treated to steamed asparagus and the company of Cousin Amy. Jen gave Jill and I beaver tats with a sharpie to symbolize the importance of the event.

I know a lot of people that are really good at a lot of things, but I don’t think I know anybody who is as good at a given skill as Jen is at drawing beavers. I think she should go into business.

After a small amount of time digesting the asparagus we made the short 3 block walk from Sara and Jupiter’s home to the Beaverdale Fall Festival. Jupiter was left behind in the basement. That is the life of a dog, no matter how pretty.

Our first stop was a table where an elderly gentleman was selling Beaverdale Fall Festival swag. He regaled us with tales of past Beaverdale Fall Festival shirts. My heart was particularly broken because a couple of these shirts sounded at least as sweet as the Beaverdale Night Fever shirt he was hawking this year. One was a parody of album cover of “Let it Be”. The other was a parody of the album cover of “Abbey Road”.



2003


2005

But if I live by one rule it is this: Don’t waste your time lamenting the beaver shirts that got away. Be thankful for the beaver shirts that you have.

Feel free to use my rule as the center of your life as well. I guarantee you it will serve you well.

Jen, Jill, Sara and I each purchased a Beaverdale Night Fever shirt. Admittedly, we should have picked one up for Derrick, but having to stand at Sara’s birthday party and take the picture of the 4 of us in our beaver shirts was his punishment for choosing 35 South over us on that night.

Jen and I declared that we would wear our beaver shirts at work on Monday. Sara gave us no indication when she would wear her beaver shirt, but Jill announced that she would wear her shirt to work on the following Friday.

Jill works at one of those companies that has “expectations” and “standards” about the clothes that their employees wear. But on Fridays, they let there employees get all casual.

Monday came and I arrived at work sporting my sweet new beaver shirt. I had Jesse take a picture of me with my phone so I could picture message Jen and find out if she was also sporting her sweet beaver shirt.

Jen was sitting in her office explaining the beaver shirt story to Jessica (who is the person that is organizing the Knocker Walkers team) when my picture message came through. This apparently amused them both.

On Friday, my work soundtrack consisted entirely of John Coltrane music. I decided to follow-up on Jill to see if she was wearing her beaver shirt. As I was typing out the text message I had a strange flashback. I remembered sitting around Jen and Derrick’s living room this summer before their wedding.

They asked the guests of their wedding to pick a song for the reception. We were going through the list of songs that people had picked and I had stopped on Jill’s song. She had chosen Naima by John Coltrane.

It was the only jazz song anybody had suggested. I remembered that.

Jill texted me back that she was wearing the beaver shirt and enjoying the many jealous looks she was getting from her co-workers.

I turned on the only copy of Naima that I possess and gave it a listen. The only version that I own is from the album Live at the Village Vanguard Again! It is 15 minutes and 10 seconds long. It is 110% chaos.

Now I know that the original is not chaos. The only other song on this album is a 20 minute 21 second version of My Favorite Things. It is also chaos. I have 3 other copies of My Favorite Things that are not chaos. This album is chaos. It is also genius.

I texted Jill and asked her why she chose the song Naima.

She answered back that it was her favorite Coltrane ballad.

I wrote back that I was going to need to find a studio version of the song because the only version I had was live and was chaos.

She wrote back that the studio version was “incredibly soothing and hopelessly romantic”.

I wrote her, “That is the single greatest description I have ever heard for a song.”

I told her I would find a copy of the studio version and give it a listen and then we could compare notes.

I did some research on the song to find out what album the original song was on. Turns out that it was Giant Steps. This was an album that I have literally held in my hands at least 10 times, but have never purchased because it seemed to me that I could wait for a remastered version of the album.

Ames is virtually devoid of music stores. I know that is partially because Ames didn’t support its music stores and partially because the internet and iTunes have so radically changed the market that music stores with inventory of not Top 40 (read crap) are not going to make it.

I remember when I was in high school – Bill, Lowell, Andy and I would load into Bill’s Ford Fairmont station wagon and drive to Campustown to visit the (not 1, not 2) 3 music stores located with a 3 block radius. There was Archives, Peeples and BHS Records. BHS Records wasn’t really called BHS Records. It went by another name, but we always called it BHS Records because it is where we discovered the Butthole Surfers.

Now they are all gone and if a person is looking for new, experimental, alternative music – good luck! I don’t know where this generation of kids is going to discover bands like Jerry’s Kids, Intense Mutilation, The Abortions, Dead Kennedys, Dead Milkmen, The Ramones or the Revolting Cocks.

The options in Ames for buying music are the big box department stores. That means virtually no choice at all.

But I wasn’t without hope. Best Buy has a small jazz section. Borders has a slightly bigger jazz section. Hastings has a slightly larger jazz section than Borders. But if you were to combine all of their jazz sections the term that would best describe the conglomeration is anemic.

That Friday after I left work, I did not have time to stop at Best Buy or Borders for reasons that currently escape me. After all, this was nearly a month ago.

Now I know what you are thinking… You are thinking that somebody that literally mines computers for a living must easily have the aptitude to download this song from iTunes, Amazon, Zune or illegally find it in one of the murky backwaters of the worldwide web.

It is true that I have that capacity. But I am also the guy who still wants CDs. I want liner notes and album art. I want to rip the CD to my hard drive. I want to be able to have a real CD (not a burned copy) to sit inside the 300 disc changer that resides at the bottom of my stack of audio equipment in my home.

On Saturday morning I had a fairly busy day scheduled. I woke up early and met Frank at the gym. This was one of his first times back to the gym since his NDE so it was a fairly light workout.

I left the gym with enough time to stop at Best Buy and Borders before I had to meet Sara in Beaverdale for our jaunt over to Prospect Park to watch Jen rip it up in the Des Moines Regatta.


Des Moines Regatta - 2009
Derrick and Jen at the Des Moines Regatta

I can write what I am about to write with a clear conscience. The dude that runs the Best Buy in Ames is one of my best friends and although he is not a reader (his term) he still is a loyal subscriber to this blog.


BK
Scott tenderloining.

Best Buy broke, no, shattered my heart into a million pieces. Not only did they not have Giant Steps, they didn’t have a single Coltrane album. I could understand that they didn’t have Giant Steps. Even though it is a fairly seminal jazz album. I mean I don’t own it, so I shouldn’t judge Best Buy too harshly. But they didn’t have a single John Coltrane album in stock. I know, pretty unforgivable. I mean to have a serious talk with Scott about this tragic oversight the next time that we are knocking down a tenderloin. (Yes, I realize that music and movies are loss leader items for stores like Best Buy and in a tough economy it is smart business practice to keep as little on hand stock as possible, especially items that aren’t exactly flying off the shelf like 50 year old jazz albums. But we’re talking about Coltrane, man!)

Borders used to have a fairly decent jazz selection. Unfortunately a few months back they decided to lower their inventory levels and concentrate on selling Top 40 (read crap) music. Now their jazz section is a disgrace on multiple levels.

Their first disgrace is the size. It is only about 1/3 of its previous size. Their 2nd disgrace is that their discs are randomly “organized”. I literally went through every single jazz album they had in stock to determine that they did not carry Giant Steps.

Disappointed I made my way down to Beaverdale to meet Sara for the Des Moines Regatta.

I was hoping to have time to hit a music store in Des Moines while I was down there, but it wasn’t to be. The Regatta ran a touch longer than expected and then after the portion that interested us had concluded, we ate at Zimm’s.

Sara contends they have the best nachos in Des Moines. I argue for Skip’s.

I left Des Moines at 3 and had to be at the wedding of Mindy Vickers in Boone at 4. I got stuck behind the Army football team on Highway 17, so I was not able to make record time, but I did get to the wedding only a handful of minutes late.

I grabbed a seat in the back of the church next to my old boss, the Son-in-Law. After the wedding concluded, the Son-in-Law set up shop on the Senile Old Man. It was awesome! I could have listened for hours, but instead I congratulated the happy couple and headed to the ISU-Army football game.

After the game, I went to Dustin Jackson’s wedding reception.



Dustin and I – The World’s Most Dominant Egg Toss Team

I just want to note that I miss those sideburns.

I had an awesome time at the reception, before returning home to sleep.

In the morning I attended church and around noon the family took my mom to La Carreta for her birthday.

At this feast, Teresa asked me if I would take Logan over to the art festival in Ames. He needed to go for extra credit.

I agreed to take him because I was going to Ames to check out Hastings to see if I could find Giant Steps. I could use the company.

Johnathan decided he wanted to go, so we met at my house and prepared to load up the car. But before we got in the car Logan insisted that he get to choose the music.

I told him he could choose the music on the way there, but on the way back he was in my world.

He asked if I had The Beatles One CD.

I asked him if he meant, “Like the Greatest Hits Album”.

“Yes.”

I was disappointed. My sister had failed in teaching him one of life’s most valuable truths.

“Greatest hits albums are for sailors and housewives.” I think we all know what terrible taste in music sailors and housewives possess.

I gave Logan a long lecture on the evils of the “Greatest Hits Album”.

Logan having the good fortune of me being his uncle his entire life, listened and took to heart the wisdom that I imparted to him.

The first stop in Ames was Hastings. As we approached the door I noticed that it was plastered with signs proclaiming that Hastings was closing on Wednesday.

Interesting, I thought. Then I entered the store.

“Bennett.” I heard called out to my left.

Ungs was working the Customer Service Desk.

“What is this all about?” I asked pointing to the sign.

“Our lease is up. We are closing down forever. They held a meeting and told us a couple of days ago.”

“Did they at least give you burnt cheese and pretzels?”

“Nope.”

I was disappointed. When we had been told that Campus was closing down, the Senile Old Man had at least provided us with burnt cheese and pretzels.

I worked my way back to the jazz section and surveyed the Coltrane albums. Giant Steps wasn’t there. But as I examined the albums I noticed that Naima was on The Very Best of John Coltrane.

Fate was laughing in my face. I wanted to hear the song, but I didn’t want the indignity of buying a Greatest Hits Album. But sometimes a man has to swallow his pride.

I looked around to make sure Logan and Johnathan weren’t paying attention. Luckily for me, they were quite enthralled with a pimp goblet.


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Might be what the Holy Grail looks like…

I picked up the CD and made my way to the checkout. They never noticed.

We headed up to the art festival.


Coltrane's 1st Wife's Middle Name

Coltrane's 1st Wife's Middle Name

They seemed to enjoy the art festival and after ambling around for an hour or so we headed back to Boone so Johnathan could go to work.

We dropped off Johnathan, then Logan and I made a brief stop by the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad so that we could see Thomas the Tank.


Coltrane's 1st Wife's Middle Name

Then I dropped off Logan and went home to prepare my house for Rabbit Feast. By prepare my house, I mean that I was home.

Becky came over and began her preparations. Jay came over and prepared his appetite.

Becky served so much food that I can’t possibly remember it all. I do remember that it turns out that I don’t particularly care for rabbit, stud rabbits aren’t treated with nearly enough respect and Becky made some kind of peanut butter glaze that was incredible.

After the meal, I amazed Jay and Becky with my ability to play YouTube on my Blu-Ray player. All things considered, I am more impressed by the fact that it plays Pandora. But to show them the YouTube functionality, we watched several clips from Robot Chicken. Becky was not amused by Robot Chicken. I feel bad that she doesn’t appreciate the greatness of that show.

Jay and Becky left around 11 and I immediately crashed.

The next day I brought my CD to work to listen to Naima. This is not how I like to listen to music. I like to not have any distractions and be in complete darkness. I don’t know, light distracts my ears. Nothing I can do about it. I have to live with this brain.

While I was perusing the liner notes, I learned that the version of Naima on this greatest hits collection was live.

Fate was laughing at me again. This time, I had to laugh with the stupid jerk as well. Then I went to Amazon and downloaded the Giant Steps version of Naima.

I made a CD of the studio version of the song and the two different live versions of the song. That night as I went to bed, I put the CD on “Repeat Disc” and listened to the disc until I fell asleep.

I’m not going to go into details about my exchange with Jill about the song. It was mostly me making references to other forms of art and a discussion on what it means to be “hopelessly romantic” and whether or not that is a bad thing.

But I will share the one paragraph that Jill sent that inspired me to make these pictures:

I believe that you do not need to be an accomplished musician in order to be an accomplished music lover. Actually, I think knowing too much about the technicalities can ruin just purely loving to listen to music. I luckily never cared too much about music theory so I don’t think I’m part of that group, but I would much rather go hear music live rather than listen to recorded music. That is probably why my favorite genre is jazz because it’s so spontaneous and so great live. Unfortunately I no longer have any of my jazz cds, but I will slowly rebuild my collection. I’m not going to pretend to know a lot about jazz because I don’t. I played in jazz band only because it was just so much fun. I was never great at it by any stretch of the imagination but I simply didn’t care. I’ve heard a lot of it, but honestly can’t name every standard or tell you who performed them all. I do know what I like when I hear it though, and I can usually explain why I like it. I think that is all that really matters.

I should state for those that don’t know, Jill is an accomplished musician and played the most rocking piccolo solo I ever heard in my life this Summer with the Boone City Band.

I think you know that I am not an accomplished musician. In fact, I could hardly be described as a musician at all. But I do still have my old slide trombone sitting in my basement from my days at dear old BHS.

But after being inspired and somewhat liberated by reading those words, I decided to take a self portrait with my trombone in homage to a couple of my favorite musicians (Miles Davis and John Coltrane) and two of their seminal albums, Kind of Blue and Blue Train.

So that is the story that lead me to sit in my basement one Thursday night and make these images with a beat up trombone that has seen better days, but will never see better days again.


Coltrane's 1st Wife's Middle Name
Kind of Blue Train Series – 001

2009-10-01

I know it is a lot to get through just to see 3 pictures.

Mt. Lovemore?

I know the title of this blog is slightly beneath a wordsmith of my caliber, but I feel that I have limited capacity today. I am somewhat spent.

Last week, my sister and Ernie went to South Dakota. Periodically I would get a picture message of Falls Park, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse and yes the desert bar of a Golden Corral. I would mock my sister for sending me a picture of a dessert bar in a Golden Corral, but I once took a picture of a taco bar in a gas station in eastern Iowa with my camera phone. The list of things Carla has sent me pictures of would fill a book. I guess this might be a genetic characteristic of the Bennett family.

On Wednesday of last week I was toiling away with the tools of my trade at the Computer Mine when I turned around and Teresa and Ernie were standing behind me.

She told me that they were engaged.

I said, “Awesome!”

She said, “That was the right response.”

But as glad as I am to have Ernie officially joining the family, my favorite moment of the announcement came next.

She held out her hand and showed me the ring. I did the guy thing where I looked over the thing and acted like I had an opinion on jewelry.

Then Teresa said, “I know I shouldn’t want a diamond. I have seen Blood Diamond.”

My constant preaching on how the diamond industry is one of the greatest evils in the world had finally made a convert, sort of.

At least that is what I tell myself. The truth is that Teresa was probably just trying to avoid the lecture.

Either way, it is exciting news.

So we got together on Saturday and took some pictures.


IMAGES LOST

No words on wedding plans yet, as the wedding is probably 2 years off in the future, but I’m sure I will get a sweet job. Something like “Guest Book Attendant”. Don’t even think you will get into this wedding without signing the Guest Book!

You Probably Think this Song is About You

In anticipation of a weekend filled with numerous social engagements, I went to see Monica on Thursday for my quarterly shearing.

I brought along a camera and her intern (she really has an intern) snapped a couple of pictures.


IMAGES LOST

I wanted there to be documented evidence that when Monica trims my facial hair, she does not wear safety glasses. There was a terrible internet rumor circulating that this was the case and I wanted to squash it.

On an unrelated, but semi-related note, I was challenged to a beard growing contest last week.

I have yet to accept the challenge because I don’t know if I can emotionally handle shaving off my facial hair and becoming a dirty nakedface. I know that I will only be a dirty nakedface for a day, but it will still be fairly traumatic.

If I decide to take on the nakedface demon, the contest will start on January 1, 2010 and last 1 month. Frank, the guy that challenged me, wanted to start on December 1, but there was no way that I was going to sport an untamed full beard for Christmas.

I think all of you know how I feel about people under the age of 40 sporting beards. I want to be a nice guy during the Christmas season.

16,896 Feet

I am officially signed up to “do” the Susan G. Komen Des Moines Race for the Cure 5K breast cancer thing on October 24. By “do”, I assume that means walking the 5 kilometers. Although it is a goal of mine to run a 5K, I am not quite ready for that quite yet.

I am walking with Sara, Jen and Derrick. We are part of Jen’s friend Jessica’s team. We are the Knocker Walkers. Our slogan is “Big or small, we walk for them all.”

I have been told that our shirts are: super cute, and long-sleeved

Both things being of the utmost importance to me.

I don’t expect anybody to, but if you like breasts (knockers, boobies, funbags) and hate cancer, you can donate some of your extra coin via my pledge page. You would get there, by clicking on the link below:

With some luck, I should have some pictures of the super cute shirts after October 24.

What is He Getting At?

I want to dip back into the archives one more time.

Tenderloin Quest: The Beginning

Monday night, Scottie D. and I hit the open road on our first foray out into the backwaters of Iowa to find the best tenderloin in the state. We had a little pre-season hiccup out to the Lake Shore Cafe, but now it was time to get serious.

Last year BK’s tenderloin placed second in the state according to the Pork Association. Well BK’s is in Ogden and Ogden is virtually Boone’s backyard. It seemed a very logical place to begin our quest.

However this tale was almost a sad tale. A sad tale that could be recounted with bitterness by an old man in a bar. “Yes, it’s very pretty. I heard a story once – as a matter of fact, I’ve heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. ‘Mister, I met a tenderloin once when I was a kid,’ it always began.”*

You see it occurred to me that many small town drinking and eating establishments close on Mondays. I suggested to Scottie D. that we should call over to Ogden and confirm that BK’s was in fact open.

Scottie D. thought it was a wonderful idea, so he called ahead.

At first it was bliss! They were open until 11 PM.

Then there was agony! They were out of tenderloins.

The place had been ransacked during Ogden Fun Days and the woman that made the tenderloins would not be in that day, but they would have tenderloins again starting Tuesday. Oh the humanity!

This is Iowa and we were not without options. I suggested we try The Suburban in Gilbert. Their tenderloin placed third either last year or the year before. However, I noted this was another small town restaurant. It might not be open on a Monday.

Scottie D. called up to Gilbert.

Agony again! The Suburban is not open on Mondays.

However, we were not to be denied.

Scottie D. suggested that we call back to BK’s and see if we could sweet talk them into making a special exception for us. We aren’t John Q. Public after all. We are the Society for Tenderloin Excellence.

Scottie D. dialed BK’s back up and gave the lady on the other end of the line a sad tale about 2 guys traveling the state looking for the best tenderloin. His sad song must of worked. The lady said that she would call the woman that makes the tenderloin and see if she would be willing to come in and make us two special tenderloins.

We gave them 5 minutes to make arrangements and called them back.

Oh sweet bliss! The genius behind the BK tenderloin agreed to come in and make 2 tenderloins special for us.

I can’t tell you too much about the tenderloin. Most of that will be saved for the final reveal when we proclaim one tenderloin to be the king of all tenderloins. I can share some pictures from the event though.


BK
BK’s Sports Bar & Grill – Ogden, Iowa

BK
BK’s Tenderloin with Waffle Fries

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BK’s Tenderloin with Waffle Fries (Ranch Dressing is also homemade)

BK
Scottie D. with BK’s Tenderloin

BK
BK’s Tenderloin, the Awesome Lady that invented it and made it and Scottie D.

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Enjoying BK’s Tenderloin

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Downtown Ogden Near Sunset

I will tell you the following things. BK’s earned big time points for serving the tenderloin with homemade ranch and mayo. Of course they also get big time points for the tenderloin mastermind coming in and preparing us a tenderloin when she definitely did not need to do such a thing.

While we were talking to the owner of BK’s, we learned that it is a firmly held belief in Ogden that this tenderloin would have won the top prize from the Pork Association last year, but the mastermind wasn’t there to cook it for them. Sadly, the guy who did cook the tenderloin for the judges burned it. It still took second place though.

You have to love a tenderloin that is served with a side order of town lore.

*Also extra points go to anybody that knows what movie this references.

My memory fails me, but I think only Dawn picked up the reference last time.