Before Alexis took off for the Navy, Elainie came home. We used this as an opportunity for an impromptu family photo.
Thanks to Ernie for taking the photo! More from this photo shoot coming at some point.
Looks like the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE went on Spring Break. Perhaps SILHOUETTE is too challenging of a theme. I’m not sure, but participation numbers this week are as low as they’ve ever been. Worries me that the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE might be on the way out. I guess we’ll see what this week brings.
But you don’t want to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You want to see this week’s submissions:
While they might be small in numbers, the submissions are spirited!
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:
I don’t think I need to define ORANGE. It is a color. Not a primary color. But a color. There are lots of things out that are ORANGE. Even some humans fake tan themselves into a strange, creepy ORANGE hue. Of course there is a fruit that is ORANGE. In fact, there are several fruit that are ORANGE. Or you could even take a picture of anything and slap an ORANGE filter on it. Of course 1 of my favorite movie of all-time involves the word ORANGE. I know more than 1 person out there that that does art with an ORANGE or two. I can’t envision a picture where my inbox is just packed to the gills with ORANGE pictures.
Happy photo hunting!
A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION
1. 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.
2. Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge. 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
Nothing new to report. I’ll try to do better next week.
Want your own Photography 139 email subscription? Call, email, or text me and I’ll get you the hook up.
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 orangish Monday!
I recently presented The Trophy for winning the 12th year of the Roundball Oracles to this year’s champion… Michelle Haupt
It was an exciting NCAA Tournament and an equally exciting Roundball Oracles NCAA Tournament Pool. If North Carolina would’ve won the NCAA Championship Game, Sara Lockner would’ve come home with the trophy this year. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Congratulations Michelle! May your reign be short.
2005 – William McAlpine
2006 – William McAlpine
2007 – Tim Peterson
2008 – Mark Wolfram
2009 – Mark Wolfram
2010 – Mark Wolfram
2011 – Carrie Baier
2012 – Lowell Davis
2013 – William McAlpine
2014 – Brandon Kahler
2015 – Derek Dohrman
2016 – Michelle Haupt
Here be the final standings.
1. Michelle Haupt – 275
2. Sean Clubine – 270
3. sara lockner – 259
4. Yours Truly 255
5. Micky Augustin 245
6. Angie DeWaard 241
7. Jackson Faust 241
8. Derek Dohrman 237
9. Frank Meiners 233
10. Toby Sebring 230
11, Lowell Davis 230
12, Mark Wolfram 228
13. Jason Baier 227
14, Corey Faust 221
15, Paul Golden 220
16, Wily McAlpine 218
17, Jordan Toot 217
18. Jesse Howard 216
19. Shannon Bardole 215
20. Benjamin Baier 214
21. Liz Nordeen 214
21. Jill Gorshe 214
23 . Jon DeWaard 207
24. JJ Baier 204
25. Dawn Krause 203
26. Nader Parsaei 202
27, Brandon Kahler 201
28. Carrie Baier 197
29. Jorge Rios 197
30. shawn lockner 194
31. Jen Gorshe 193
32. Derrick Gorshe 193
33. Andree Jauhari 193
34. tim peterson 192
35. Bill Wentworth 183
36. Olivia Baier 180
37. Russ Kennerly 180
38. Carla Stensland 175
39. William Baier 170
40. Rachel Johnson 167
41. Robert Henning 162
42. Joe Lynch 156
43. Laura Priest 152
Laura (Miller) Priest won the 3rd Annual “The Sara” for last place adult that tried. Joining the trophy’s namesake Sara Lockner and Derrick Gorshe as past winners. I don’t have a picture of Laura with her new trophy yet, but I will as soon as I get “The Sara” in the mail, it arrives in Manhattan, and she sends me a picture with her new pride and joy.
I’ve thanked all these people in person, but I’d like to publicly thank everybody that helped out in some either small or big way with my birthday party on Saturday.
Big shout out to Scott for making tons of delicious mouth watering chicken and jalapeno cream corn. I only wish I would have had time to help do more than just brine the chicken. If I am so inclined to do this again next year and you are so inclined to help with the food next year, I will have to schedule this so I can be more hands on with the process. I may have been The Master, but Scott was undeniably the Smoker Master. I just can’t overstate how amazing the chicken was people.
Much love to Scott’s (better-other-less high maintenance) half for making the Pick and Pluck. If I would’ve thought of it, I would’ve bought several gallons of ice cold chocolate milk to knock down while setting up shop on that thing.
Thanks to Logan and Corinna for holding down the grill and making an assortment of hot dogs and sausages to compliment the mouth watering chicken. I don’t really have any photos of the event, perhaps next year I can talk him/them into doing some candid photography for the party.
I’m always able to count on Dae Hee when I need some assistance. He came over and helped put up the canopies for the outdoor dining area, the tent for an additional child area, moved all the chairs from the basement to the outdoors, and watched 2 hours of GAME OF THRONES. A pretty solid effort!
Thanks to Jason for loaning me his Cornhole set.
Thanks to Shannon for loaning me her canopies, although I’m still unclear where one gets tailgating tents that don’t have Iowa State colors. Or why a person would even want such a thing.
Thanks to Jesse for laminating the beverage identification signs.
Thanks to Teresa for helping out in various tasks before the party started.
Thanks to my Mom for making a copious amount of side dishes and desserts. Nobody went home hungry. That is for sure.
Finally, thanks to everybody that took time out of their lives to come visit me:
A special thanks to Dae Hee, Bethany, and Nora who came from Minnesota. Aunt Linda who came from Kansas. Stephanie who came all the way from Brooklyn. I guess I’m morally obligated to visit her in October now. Right?
Since I think that this party was a success on some level, I am tentatively planning on doing it again next year. Tentatively thinking about some time on Memorial Day Weekend next year. We’ll see how the cookie crumbles.
Now to the less than stellar news…
The Photo Booth was a success, but far from perfect. It turns out that the photo booth program I used has a painful little quirk. If the “Finish” button wasn’t pushed at the conclusion of the photo session, the program timed out and didn’t save the photo strip! The good news is that it did save the original images. The bad news is that there will be a night in my future where I’ll be piecing together photo strips from saved images. Yeah me!
For that reason, I did load up all the images into the party gallery. Not just the “finished” photo strips.
To see those images, click on the link below… (You can also download them by clicking on the down arrow icon.)
However, thought I would share a few of them here as well:
But the good news is that I now have a thousand different ways to improve the photo booth for next year. Tentatively.
This is a look back at the photos from the calendar I gave as Christmas gifts in 2012. You’ll see many of the same images from the flower calendar. I have no doubts.
I’ve never done what one would call market research, but I did make a change to the 2015 calendar and then made a change back in the 2016 calendar. That is this. The 2015 calendar has big numbers for the dates. I found this to be aesthetically pleasing. However, some feedback I got was that this made it more difficult to write on the calendar. Therefore, I changed back to small numbers for the 2016 calendar.
I’ve also been asked why I don’t include birthdays or “different holidays” any longer. The reason for that is because of the diverse audience that the Photography 139 Calendar now reaches, I don’t know how many of those people need to know the date my nephew Brandon’s birthday (December 4). However, I could probably add International Talk Like A Pirate Day back to the calendar.
I’ve already stated that I’m going to go back to diversifying the subject matter of the 2017 calendar. I have this glorious plan of taking each photo for the 2017 calendar during the corresponding month of 2016. This means that my plan of going back to my plan of lining up certain subjects with certain months will probably go to the wayside. Sorry anybody that was getting jacked up for a frog in February of 2017. I’ll try to get a frog somewhere else… like April.
Any way, please leave any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas in the comments section. I might not act on them, but you don’t know until you try.
All the Bennetts were actually here for Thanksgiving this year, so we had to get a picture!
It might be the last chance to get a picture like this for a bit. With Alexis leaving for the Navy. Elainie already in the Navy. Logan getting ready to graduate from Iowa State University. But hopefully it isn’t!
My nephew Brandon recently add a new life into his life and therefore into my family’s life. He drove halfway across the state and picked up Ezra. Last Sunday he brought Ezra over to meet Naima.
It was late and it was dark and so normally I wouldn’t post a photo that is this poor, but it is the best I have to offer to record what was the initial meeting between 2 new friends.
The addition of this new companion reminded me of a video that recently went viral that a man made to help him say goodbye to his dog Denali.
The video ends with a quote from a scientist about what we can learn from dogs. While it has been well established that dogs are superior to humans in about every conceivable way, I had never heard this awesome aspect of dogs put so well. So I looked up the source of the actual quote and it is excellent advice on many levels.
“Everything you do for a dog to help them age well, you should do with them.
So eat the best food you can afford. Go for a walk, even if it’s raining. Take a lot of naps. Keep your teeth clean and your breath fresh, so that the people you lick will not flinch. And when someone you love walks in through the door, even if it happens five times a day, go totally insane with joy.”
The last line being the most poignant and obviously, the part where dogs have us beat. Every day of the week.
Why do I bring this up? Other than because I love dogs. Because it has given me an idea for a video project that I’m going to do with Naima in the near future. Some of you will be warned that you are in it. Some of you will just find out as it goes along.
Wow! What an amazing season of College Basketball. Especially in the state of Iowa. Almost everybody has something to cheer about:
The Iowa State Cyclones won the Big 12 for the second straight year. They are looking to make good on Hoiberg’s promise of a national championship.
The UNI Panthers won whatever backwaters conference they are in.
Iowa returns to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006. They have a chance at their first tournament win since 2001. Gold star for Iowa!
There are all sorts of great potential matchups all over the place:
Fred Hoiberg could coach against one of his NBA coaches in the second round.
Iowa State and Iowa could play each other in the Sweet Sixteen.
Another possibility would be a dream point guard matchup between the best 2 point guards in the country in Monte Morris and Kevin Pangos.
The Elite Eight could feature a rematch of the 1944 Final Four game between Iowa State and Utah.
However, if you want to place your name on the List of Immortals like these people:
Roundball Oracles Champions
2014 – Brandon Kahler
2013 – William McAlpine
2012 – Lowell Davis
2011 – Carrie Baier
2010 – Mark Wolfram
2009 – Mark Wolfram
2008 – Mark Wolfram
2007 – Tim Peterson
2006 – William McAlpine
2005 – William McAlpine
All you need to do is contact me and I’ll get you the information posthaste.
The only “buy in” is pride. First place does win a trophy. The last place trying adult, also wins a trophy. Small chance there will be a traveling trophy this year, but I’m not made of money. Maybe some of the rest of you need to start kicking in on the bills around here. I’m looking at you Naima.
In case you need a refresher on how last year’s Oracles did, look below.
Rank | Oracle | Score | Correct | Champion | Last Year |
1. | Brandon Kahler | 255 | 40 | Florida | 18th |
2. | Michael Augustin | 241 | 42 | Florida | 31st |
3. | Paul Golden | 235 | 41 | Michigan State | DNP |
4. | Jordan Toot | 228 | 39 | Florida | 9th |
5. | Jon DeWaard | 224 | 39 | Florida | 5th |
6. | Mark Wolfram | 222 | 38 | Florida | 8th |
7. | Lowell Davis | 216 | 40 | Florida | DNP |
8. | Andree Jauhari | 210 | 38 | Iowa State | 28th |
9. | Derrick Gorshe | 208 | 38 | Iowa State | 14th |
10. | Carrie Baier | 205 | 37 | Michigan State | 19th |
11. | Robert Henning | 205 | 36 | Florida | 10th |
12. | Bill Wentworth | 204 | 38 | Florida | 15th |
13. | Nate Miller | 203 | 36 | Iowa State | DNP |
14. | Frank Meiners | 201 | 38 | Michigan State | 11th |
14. | Jesse Howard | 201 | 37 | Kansas | 3rd |
16. | Corey Faust | 200 | 36 | Iowa State | 7th |
17. | Humble Narrator | 196 | 36 | Iowa State | 33rd |
18. | William Mcalpine | 196 | 38 | Florida | 1st |
19. | Angie DeWaard | 191 | 35 | Arizona | 6th |
20. | Sean Clubine | 189 | 36 | Syracuse | 13th |
21. | Carla Stensland | 189 | 35 | Iowa State | DNP |
22. | Ben Baier | 188 | 35 | Arizona | 32nd |
23. | Jackson Faust | 185 | 36 | Florida | 16th |
24. | Michelle Haupt | 181 | 35 | Arizona | 26th |
25. | Elizabeth Nordeen | 181 | 35 | Iowa State | 21st |
26. | Russell Kennerly | 180 | 34 | Florida | 24th |
27. | Olivia Baier | 178 | 34 | Arizona | DNP |
28. | Jason Baier | 175 | 35 | Florida | 24th |
29. | Tim Peterson | 175 | 34 | Iowa State | 22nd |
30. | Becky Perkovich | 175 | 35 | Iowa State | 27th |
31. | Shawn Lockner | 173 | 33 | Wisconsin | 4th |
32. | J.J. Baier | 164 | 24 | Michigan | 29th |
33. | Ryan Halvorson | 163 | 33 | Arizona | 18th |
34. | Dawn Krause | 149 | 32 | Arizona | 23rd |
35. | Will Baier | 147 | 23 | Iowa State | 34th |
36. | Sara Lockner | 143 | 28 | Florida | DNP |
Like I said, if you want in and have some extra pride to spare, you know where to find me.
That being said, I’m proud that this is the first time in the storied 10 year history of the Roundball Oracles that somebody that shares my DNA has been able to hoist the unnamed championship trophy.
Past winners have included co-workers, high school locker partners, former roomies, father-in-laws, and once… even a woman!
So I’m excited this year that somebody with Bennett DNA coursing through their veins will be the reigning Roundball Oracles Champ! All is right in the world.
I know that there is a fair chance that you are wondering: “That is great, but I’d really like to know how some of my other favorite Oracles fared this year. I really root for Russell Kennerly. I like underdogs. He is like the Mid-Major of the Roundball Oracles.”*
So without further adieu, I present to you the final ranking of Year 10 of the Roundball Oracles!
Rank | Oracle | Score | Correct | Champion | Last Year |
1. | Brandon Kahler | 255 | 40 | Florida | 18th |
2. | Michael Augustin | 241 | 42 | Florida | 31st |
3. | Paul Golden | 235 | 41 | Michigan State | DNP |
4. | Jordan Toot | 228 | 39 | Florida | 9th |
5. | Jon DeWaard | 224 | 39 | Florida | 5th |
6. | Mark Wolfram | 222 | 38 | Florida | 8th |
7. | Lowell Davis | 216 | 40 | Florida | DNP |
8. | Andree Jauhari | 210 | 38 | Iowa State | 28th |
9. | Derrick Gorshe | 208 | 38 | Iowa State | 14th |
10. | Carrie Baier | 205 | 37 | Michigan State | 19th |
11. | Robert Henning | 205 | 36 | Florida | 10th |
12. | Bill Wentworth | 204 | 38 | Florida | 15th |
13. | Nate Miller | 203 | 36 | Iowa State | DNP |
14. | Frank Meiners | 201 | 38 | Michigan State | 11th |
14. | Jesse Howard | 201 | 37 | Kansas | 3rd |
16. | Corey Faust | 200 | 36 | Iowa State | 7th |
17. | Humble Narrator | 196 | 36 | Iowa State | 33rd |
18. | William Mcalpine | 196 | 38 | Florida | 1st |
19. | Angie DeWaard | 191 | 35 | Arizona | 6th |
20. | Sean Clubine | 189 | 36 | Syracuse | 13th |
21. | Carla Stensland | 189 | 35 | Iowa State | DNP |
22. | Ben Baier | 188 | 35 | Arizona | 32nd |
23. | Jackson Faust | 185 | 36 | Florida | 16th |
24. | Michelle Haupt | 181 | 35 | Arizona | 26th |
25. | Elizabeth Nordeen | 181 | 35 | Iowa State | 21st |
26. | Russell Kennerly | 180 | 34 | Florida | 24th |
27. | Olivia Baier | 178 | 34 | Arizona | DNP |
28. | Jason Baier | 175 | 35 | Florida | 24th |
29. | Tim Peterson | 175 | 34 | Iowa State | 22nd |
30. | Becky Perkovich | 175 | 35 | Iowa State | 27th |
31. | Shawn Lockner | 173 | 33 | Wisconsin | 4th |
32. | J.J. Baier | 164 | 24 | Michigan | 29th |
33. | Ryan Halvorson | 163 | 33 | Arizona | 18th |
34. | Dawn Krause | 149 | 32 | Arizona | 23rd |
35. | Will Baier | 147 | 23 | Iowa State | 34th |
36. | Sara Lockner | 143 | 28 | Florida | DNP |
This year might have been the closest year ever. It literally came down to Wisconsin’s last second shot rimming in and out, giving Kentucky the victory in the Final Four. If that shot drops, Micky wins.
But the shot didn’t fall and Micky waits another year, while Brandon’s name is carved onto the List of Immortals!
Roundball Oracles Champions
2014 – Brandon Kahler
2013 – William McAlpine
2012 – Lowell Davis
2011 – Carrie Baier
2010 – Mark Wolfram
2009 – Mark Wolfram
2008 – Mark Wolfram
2007 – Tim Peterson
2006 – William McAlpine
2005 – William McAlpine
However, there is 1 more bit of business before I let you go about your merry business. In the pre-tournament post I indicated that I might create a travelling trophy. I am not doing that… at least not yet. I did award a trophy for last place this year. It is an experimental tradition. But I may in the future present a last place trophy to the lowest placing adult that gave full effort to win.
This year’s winner…
*Inside joke that 3 people will get and 1 of them doesn’t even subscribe to this blog!