Iowa State Walk – Beta

June 30, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Yesterday I pointed out that Pufferbilly Days was cancelled. Yesterday the Farm Progress Show in Boone was also cancelled. This is an event that brings over 100,000 people to Boone over 3 days. Cancelling it was the right move. Here is part of their press release:

For more than 65 years, farmers have turned to the Farm Progress Show and Husker Harvest Days for the latest information about new products and tools they can use to boost productivity and profit for their operations. However, for the first time in its history, the show won’t go on. In the best interest of our visitors, exhibitors, partners and staff, Farm Progress has made the difficult decision to cancel both shows in 2020 due to rapidly changing conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Show management had confirmed earlier that the two shows would be operated differently with physical distancing a requirement, along with other health and safety changes to the events.

While state and local officials had expressed support for both shows, Don Tourte, Senior Vice President, Farm Progress said that in a very short time it became apparent that the situation across the US had rapidly changed.

“We have been working with officials in Iowa and Nebraska for our shows, and we appreciate the support they expressed for us to hold the events,” Tourte says. “They are critical partners to us, and we are all disappointed to not host the events this year, but feel confident that this is the right decision for our community.”

Rising concerns

One of the key features of both shows is their attraction to visitors from across the country, and across the globe.

“Within days of our commitment to hold both farm shows, more than half the United States saw a significant spike in new cases of COVID-19. We have a multi-generational audience that travels from all across the country and around the world to attend the shows and based on that we felt it better to reconsider the traditional show for 2020 to prioritize the safety of all. Our community’s safety is our priority, always,” said Matt Jungmann, Events Manager, Farm Progress.

“Within the next two weeks tents and other work would be underway on site. We had to make a decision based on the current landscape so that our exhibitors and suppliers wouldn’t potentially waste valuable time and resources,” said Jungmann. “While we are hopeful that case numbers throughout the country will decrease soon, we felt compelled to make a proactive decision on our community’s behalf, given the information we have today.”

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This collection of pictures is the balance of images from a walk I took around Iowa State’s campus back in early May with Teresa.

It truly is the most beautiful campus in the world!

Andy, Becky, Black & White, Carla, Cathie, Elizabeth, Jen, Jesse, Michelle, Monica, Naima, Pufferbilly Days, Shannon, Tamara, Vest, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 250 – ABSTRACT

June 29, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The Boone Chamber announced on Friday that they are cancelling Pufferbilly Days. I think it is the only responsible thing that they can do. I was worried that they would hold it, after the Boone County Fair decided to go on. Pufferbilly Days worried more than the Boone County Fair because way more people come to Pufferbilly Days and from way more places. Put in conjunction with IMCA Super Nationals, it was not going to be a good situation for the Coronavirus in Boone.

Here is the press release:

After much consideration, deliberation, research and countless hours of working to find solutions that would provide a safe and fun environment for patrons that would attend the Pufferbilly Days™ festival, the Boone County Chamber of Commerce has decided to cancel the celebration for 2020. A number of factors played a part in arriving at this decision:

• Guidance from the Boone County Board of Health:

– Despite earlier projections in April and May of a lessening of COVID-19 cases to a level of nearly eliminating positive test outcomes by September, current case numbers have not declined to the levels previously expected and new projections show the potential for a reoccurrence by that time this year.

– With the Farm Progress Show and the IMCA Supernationals, two major events typically attended by visitors from outside Boone County and the state, and that immediately precede Pufferbilly Days™, the potential for a surge or hotspot of cases greatly increases and could substantially tax local healthcare resources beyond capacity.

• Currently two of Pufferbilly Days™ key festival buildings are in use by Boone County Public Health, providing drive-up COVID-19 testing, and we are committed to their continued use in this manner.

• Early indications show that it will be difficult to find enough volunteers to staff key locations for each of the planned Pufferbilly Days™ activities and across the festival grounds, making it difficult to operate events.

• Key event registrations are far behind normal numbers for this time of the year signaling the likelihood of considerable funding shortfalls and putting future festivals at risk.

In attempting to stay on course for the 2020 Pufferbilly Days™ festival it was our hope and intention to provide a “light at the end of the tunnel”, a degree of normalcy, and an opportunity for the citizens of Boone County to finally get out and enjoy what makes our area special. In arriving at this difficult decision today we believe that the challenge to provide a safe and fun environment is unattainable, financially unfeasible, and would leave our loyal festival-goers too vulnerable to the transmission of the coronavirus.

The Pufferbilly Days™ Steering Committee sincerely appreciates the many hours and dedication from it’s event chairs and other volunteers in preparing for the 2020 celebration and plans to be back strong in 2021

This means all 3 of the photo contests I enter every year have been cancelled. Oh well.

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I thought this would be the theme that killed the double digit streak, but by the skin of our teeth, we made it to 39 straight weeks of double digit submissions!

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Monica Henning

Andy Sharp

Elizabeth Nordeen

Carla Stensland

Tamara Peterson

Christopher D. Bennett

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Michelle Haupt

Mike Vest

Becky Parmelee

Jen Ensley-Gorshe

Cathie Raley

Carla Stensland

Jesse Howard

But enough dwelling on the past. Time to look to the future. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future! This week’s theme:

BLACK AND WHITE

BLACK AND WHITE!!! I think you know that this is by far my favorite theme! It is simple. Just take a BLACK AND WHITE image and submit it. Boom! End of story!

I look forward to seeing your submissions!

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

The picture has to be taken the week of the theme. This isn’t a curate your pictures challenge. This is a get your butt off the couch (my personal experience) and put your camera in your hands challenge. Don’t send me a picture of you next to the Eiffel Tower, when I know you were in Iowa all week. I will point out that I have let that slide some in the past. I will not in the future. Since it is literally about the only rule.

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.

I now allow people to text me their submissions. In the past, I had made exceptions for a couple people that aren’t real computer savvy, even though it was an inconvenience for me and required at least 3 extra steps for me. I am now lifting that embargo because I have a streamline way of uploading photos. I’m not giving out my phone number, but if you have it, you can text me.

It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very monochrome Monday!

Drone, Formal Portrait, Panorama

Senior Sunday – Autumn – Volume 5

June 28, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The second to last Senior Sunday. This is the final collection of photos from Autumn’s photo shoot. These pictures were separated from the rest because they were either taken with the RXOII or Rodan139.

If you want to go back and look at all the Autumn photos, click on the link below:

Autumn

One last Senior Sunday!

Black & White, Derrick, Formal Portrait, Iowa State, Photoshop, Self-Portrait, WPC - Alternate

2010-01-14 & 2010-01-17

June 27, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folders 2010-01-14 and 2010-01-17 include the first 2 pictures I took for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. When it first came into existence, it was known as the RANDOM PICTURE OF THE WEEK. It was a project that was started jointly by me and Vest. Dawn was the first person to participate. The first theme was USE OF SPACE. The second theme was SOOTHING. I don’t know that either theme has been used since.

Also included in one of these pictures is the 4th PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK. A picture I took with Derrick as a tribute to the movie (500) DAYS OF SUMMER. Still one of my favorite movies and a top ten comedy for me.

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 4

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

RPOTW #2: SOOTHING

Soothing Photo Shoot

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Sara and a Bible, but not together.

Flowers, Lists, Still Life, WPC - Reminder

Frozen Fish Power Rankings

June 26, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

This is amongst the most important works I’ve ever done on this website. For Lent, I was going to attempt to rely as heavily as possible on fish for my protein. However, part of the way through Lent, the pandemic hit and my diet became a lot less discretionary. However, since I was doing way more cooking for myself, I did start eating more fish for my lunch.

It is not an exaggeration to say that since I started working from home, I have used my oven more than the previous nine years that I have owned it. You are thinking that is hyperbole, but I normally go months without using my oven. Now I use it at least 4 times a week. Sometimes, it is daily.

After trying a different types of fish, I decided to rank ten of them as a public service.

I followed the baking instructions to the letter. Feel free to make fun of my cruddy cooking pans. I don’t take pride in my pots and pans. It is one of the great things about being me.

Without further adieu, I present:

FROZEN FISH POWER RANKINGS

10. SeaPak Budweiser Beer Battered Cod

SeaPak Budweiser Beer Battered Cod isn’t just not good. It is terrible. It doesn’t taste like “beer battered”. It tastes like you are holding a swig of beer in your mouth and then somebody has shoved a little bit of fish in your mouth.

I don’t have any more pictures of it, because I decided to do the Power Rankings after I tried it and it is so terrible (and also crazy expensive) that I couldn’t bring myself to buy it again, just to photograph it.

9. Van de Kamp’s Crunchy Fish Fillets

Van de Kamp’s Crunchy Fish Fillets are a marked improvement over SeaPak, but still not very good. Despite claiming to be crunchy, they were a touch soggy. Which is a common theme with Van de Kamp’s products.

8. Trident Pubhouse Battered Alaskan Cod

I picked this fish up because I wanted an even 10 fish in The Frozen Fish Power Rankings. I had high hopes for it because the fish lacked any form of uniformity. Looks like it was made by the hardworking indigenous people of wherever. Like the well-established champion breakfast pastry, Toast ‘Ems. However, they just aren’t good. I still have a bag of these in the freezer weeks later.

7. Hy-Vee Crunchy Fish Fillets

One thing I liked about the Hy-Vee Crunchy Fish Fillets is that they were inside a plastic bag, inside the cardboard box. I’m normally not a fan of excessive packaging, but that plastic bag allowed me to store leftover fish safer. Unlike Van de Kamp’s that when you open the box, those leftover fish are on their own. The Hy-Vee Crunchy Fish Fillets are the first one on the list that I would buy again. Although, I’ve seemed to discover that I’m just not that big of a fan of “Crunchy” fish.

6. Van de Kamp’s Beer Battered Fillets

Finally, a beer batter fish where the beer taste isn’t overwhelming. Still perhaps a little too strong, but manageable. A good frozen fish product here.

5. Gorton’s Crunchy Breaded Fish Fillet

As you will find, Gorton’s dominates the list. They are a good 45% more expensive than Van de Kamp’s, but they are worth the premium. Maybe it is because they use pollock and Van de Kamp’s isn’t all that forthcoming about what type of fish they use. Maybe it is the superior resealable bag packaging. Maybe it is because the Gorton’s fisherman definitely knows what you did last summer. Whatever it is, they are the best fish brand and Crunchy Breaded Fish is their worst offering.

4. Gorton’s Beer Battered Fish Fillet

As a general rule, frozen beer battered fish didn’t score great on this list. This is the highest ranking achieved by a beer battered fish. But of all the beer battered frozen fish, this was by far the best. The batter was on point and you can taste the lack of mincing. Nice job Gorton’s!

3. Van de Kamp’s Crispy Fish Fillet

This is by far Van de Kamp’s best offering. It also turns out I’m a bit of a sucker for crispy fish. Van de Kamp’s isn’t very forthcoming with what kind of fish they us, other than it is wild caught. But I can says that their crispy batter is solid.

2. Gorton’s Crispy Battered Fish Fillet

This is where Gorton’s really nailed it. It is really a coin flip between this and the top ranked fish on this list. Once again, pollock. Battered. Crispy. A little slice of fish heaven.

1. Gorton’s Potato Crunch Fish Fillet

Breaded. Not battered. Gorton’s isn’t real forthcoming about the type of fish. Don’t care. It is 100% whole fillet and 100% delicious. Trust me. Next time I see that Gorton’s is on sale, I will be packing my freezer!

A word about tartar sauce.

I tried to use the same tartar sauce for every fish that I tried. I am a big fan of the Hy-Vee tartar sauce. It is reminiscent of Long John Silver’s tartar sauce. I was going to use the Bennett Family Tartar Sauce recipe, but that involves the Bennett Family pickle relish. It is delicious, however, you wouldn’t be able to duplicate it at your homestead. So I decided to go with the Hy-Vee brand tartar sauce.

Only a funny thing happened…

I wasn’t paying attention and when I bought tartar sauce and I accidentally picked up Kraft. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but turns out it was a big deal. Kraft Tartar Sauce is wretched. It requires spitting it in a garbage can and then scrubbing your tongue down with boiling water.

I quickly changed to Hy-Vee Tartar Sauce. I haven’t looked back.

I think I might do a power ranking of frozen sausage pizzas next.

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A reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is ABSTRACT:

ABSTRACT

Remember an ABSTRACT picture is a picture that breaks the subject down into shapes and colors. It does not look like the subject.

The easiest way to do this is to take an out of focus picture of a subject.

You can also take a picture of an existing piece of ABSTRACT art.

Happy photo harvesting!

Animals, Art, Black & White, Flowers, Iowa State, Macro, Nature

Iowa State Walk – Alpha

June 25, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Back in early May, I took an early afternoon walk around the Iowa State campus with Teresa. It was a good replacement for going to Pella, since going to Pella in early May, in the middle of a pandemic seemed like a terrible idea. Plus, how snooty are the people of Pella?

This isn’t completely a collection of tulips, but there are many tulips in this collection.

I reserve comment on this “art”.

There is one more collection of pictures from this walk still in the hopper.

Candid Portrait, Event, Jesse, Politics

Black Lives Matter – Boone – Four

June 24, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I had two major concerns about the Black Lives Matter protests that are sweeping our country. First was that they would end before they had a chance to tear down every monument to a racist, traitor a-hole that committed treason against our country to fight for the subjugation of other human beings through slavery that were erected in the 1900s and again in the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to intimidate African-Americans seeking equal rights and trying to perpetuate a future of white supremacy.

Chris Columbus and his genocide-bringing-ass can go to hell as well.

My other concern, is that the Black Lives Matter protests would lead to big spikes in Coronavirus, particularly in a community that due to economic inequality, has had high mortality rates. However, a recent study shows that this has not been the case.

From the study:

6. Conclusions
This study is the first to empirically examine the linkage between the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the spread of COVID-19, which has been a point of concern among public health officials and the media (Bacon 2020; Goldberg 2020; Harmon and Rojas 2020). While it is almost certain that the protests caused a decrease in social distancing behavior among protest attendees, we demonstrate that effect of the protests on the social distancing behavior of the entire population residing in counties with large urban protests was positive. Likewise, while it
is possible that the protests caused an increase in the spread of COVID-19 among those who attended the protests, we demonstrate that the protests had little effect on the spread of COVID19 for the entire population of the counties with protests during the more than three weeks
following protest onset. In most cases, the estimated longer-run effect (post-21 days) was negative, though not statistically distinguishable from zero.

While the exact mechanisms for these findings cannot be conclusively known with the data available, the results are consistent with avoidance behavior on the part of the non-attending population. This is consistent with the literature on crime, violence, and perceived safety
amongst the general population, who in the presence of crime or violence choose to remain home more often (Bennet et al. 2007; Stafford et al. 2007; Chalfin 2008; Janke, Propper and Shields
2016; Yu and Lippert 2016; Stolzenberg, D’Alessio and Flexon 2019). While Black Lives Matter protests are protected speech and not criminal activities, they may still be viewed as dangerous by non-attendees due to the occasional presence of violence, including police response to these protests, and elicit avoidance behavior.

There are other possible explanations for our findings as well, such as avoiding travel outside the home due to additional traffic congestion or street closures, or due to lack of available activities from businesses closures near protest sites. Additionally, non-attendees may perceive a higher risk of COVID-19 infection due to the protests and choose to stay home.

Finally, it is possible that the result of suggestive lower spread of COVID-19 relative to non-protesting cities is due in part to characteristics of the protesters. For example, protest attendees may have mitigated the spread of COVID-19 via infection countermeasures such as wearing masks. The attendees may further be a selected subpopulation of younger individuals who if infected have less severe symptoms (Liao et al. 2020) and thus may never get tested and not show up in the official COVID-19 numbers.

Regardless of the underlying mechanisms, our findings show that the protests and the fight against COVID-19 were on net aligned. It is important to underscore that our findings do not imply that that this was the case for all parts of the population. The net effect of increased
sheltering and decreased case growth could mask adverse outcomes within a subset of the population (specifically protest attendees). This could hypothetically cause a redistribution of public health benefits (and costs) across demographic groups, and could only be measured with more granular data that to our knowledge does not exist at present.

However, when considering the results’ implications for the entire population: public speech and public health did not trade off against each other in this case. Our findings also highlight the importance of understanding the behavior of all relevant populations when conducting analysis in the realm of social science in general, and public health in particular: the most visible portion of the population is not always the primary driver of the outcome of interest.

SOURCE: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408.pdf

While Coronavirus cases are spiking in places like Arizona, Florida, and Texas, this study is pretty indicative of how effective wearing a mask and being outside can be.

So, WEAR A MASK IN PUBLIC!!!!

Here is the final collection of images from the Boone Black Lives Matter event from a couple of weeks ago.

It was interesting to see such an event in Boone. It is a hopeful sign.

Animals, Black & White, Naima, Nature, Night, Self-Portrait

Keep Me in the Moment

June 23, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Since they announced that the Boone County Fair was a go, I have been on the fence about entering photography contest. Fortunately, that decision has been made. The contest has been cancelled. So has the Open Horticulture contest and the Open Home Division. Don’t have to worry about that and since Elizabeth pre-volunteered to be one of the Boone County Fair entrant selectors, she will have that spot reserved for 2021. That spot is based on a ton of assumptions on the state of the world by then.

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Here is a collection of images from April that were mostly just test shots for testing new equipment. Some were testing taking pictures at night and couple others were playing with controlling a camera with a computer.

That poor guy working from home. He thought he would be going back to the office to work in just a couple more weeks. Middle of May. June by the latest.

Aaron, Andy, Cathie, Elizabeth, Flowers, Jesse, Kim, Micky, Monica, Naima, Road Trip, Shannon, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 249 – ROAD TRIP

June 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Once again, no problems reaching double digit submissions! 38 straight weeks! Once again, I didn’t have to send out any reminder text messages this morning.

Not going to lie, even though this week’s theme couldn’t be easier, I worry that the streak might end at 38. I guess we’ll find out.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Kim Barker

Monica Henning

Andy Sharp

Kim Barker

Andy Sharp

Elizabeth Nordeen

Tamara Peterson

Micky Augustin

Aaron Barnett

Christopher D. Bennett

Jesse Howard

Cathie Raley

Shannon Bardole-Foley

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT! What a great theme! But what is an ABSTRACT picture? Think of it like this, rather than taking an accurate picture of a subject, you are taking a picture that breaks the composition down to colors and shapes.

There are a couple of easy ways to do this. First, take an out of focus picture of something. Bright and colorful subject work best for this method. The reveal picture, for example, is an out of focus picture of flowers.

Another method is to take a long exposure and move the camera around.

Another suggestion is to just take a picture of an existing ABSTRACT piece of art. Once again, ABSTRACT is where the subject isn’t depicted as it actually exists. For example, there are a ton of ABSTRACT pieces of art hanging up all over the walls of just about every office. Including the computer mine.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.

It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very abstract Monday!

Black & White, Formal Portrait, Photoshop, Taylan

Senior Sunday – Taylan – Volume 7

June 21, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Here we are, another Senior Sunday. Only a couple of them left and then you will be able to have your Sabbath back. Down to 6 blog posts a week. Seems like just a couple of weeks ago we were at 11 blog posts a week.

Here is the 7th collection of Taylan pictures:

Only 2 weeks left of Senior Sundays!!

HOUSEKEEPING

FROZEN FISH POWER RANKINGS

HOUSEKEEPING

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