I have had an army of people take care of Naima while my Mom has been in an out of the hospital the last few months. I am in the debt of all those people:
Plus, I’m sure there are at least a couple of others that I am forgetting. Thank you and keep up the good work!
More pictures of my golden beast:
I’m sure there will be a ton more Naima pictures as the days, months, and years go by!
This post is somewhat bittersweet as these pictures were taken before my Mom’s diagnosis and while she was still being treated by the incompetent doctor. However, I want to remain positive and since things are progressing positively, there is no reason to dwell on the negative.
When she saw these pictures she was surprised by how thin she was in them, so we will be retaking these pictures again in the Spring after she has been able to put some weight back on and before Johnathan leaves for the Air Force.
Probably sometime around the time of Onion Ring Night.
On the Sunday before Labor Day I hosted a little Bennett Family Reunion. Although none of the Fort Dodge Bennetts attended, I think it was a rousing success. It was the first reunion of its kind in at least 20 years. I hope that we can have another one next year.
Here are a few pictures from the day:
Just a couple notes. This was Naima’s first family function and she handled herself wonderfully for only having been in her new home for 5 days. Amazingly, she had yet to discover human food. That turned out to be a short lived nirvana though.
Also, I only wore that horrible Chiefs shirt to honor my cousin Jordan who is the most realistic Chiefs fan I know. So thanks for giving me that shirts Mr. Baier. It was a hit.
I hate the phrase “things happen for a reason” more than I hate any other phrase in the world. That doesn’t mean that I don’t necessarily believe in fate, but for the most part I don’t like fate. Its plans run contrary to my plans, no matter how hard I work on my plans. So fate can go suck an egg.
However, sometimes fate works out in my favor, even though I don’t know it.
One of those fate just screwed me over, but it ended up working out pretty well for me moments was when my wheel flew off my car on my way to Minnesota a few weeks back. I had a pretty sweet vacation planned, but it all went into the ditch with my wheel and more money than I care to think about.
I rescheduled my vacation for the last week in August. That movement of my vacation just a few days allowed me to complete Operation Puppy sooner than I anticipated.
I knew when I finally got a puppy, it would be while I was on vacation and I didn’t think that I would be taking a vacation for several more months, but I still checked several websites and newspaper (okay newspaper websites) for the puppy that I wanted. A female golden retriever.
A simple enough request, but there weren’t many in the area. Then an ad for a bunch of puppies showed up in the Des Moines Register.
I wrote them and they gave me the sad news, all of their female puppies were probably claimed. 2 were for sure. The other two were most likely claimed.
I wrote them back and let them know that if one of the females became available, I wanted to be at the front of the list. That was on a Wednesday. I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be getting a puppy for several more weeks or months.
Then on Friday they wrote me to tell me that they thought that one of the females might be coming available, but could not make any promises.
I made plans to drive up near Hubbard on Saturday to see the puppies. I figured that it would be a fruitless trip, but it wouldn’t hurt to see some puppies. The cutest most adorable kind of puppy: golden retrievers!
Then on Saturday morning I got an email saying that they had a female for me.
That afternoon Jason, Alexis, and I drove up to see the puppies. I put down a deposit and set up a day and time to come pick up my puppy. I worked it out so that I could pick her up on the Wednesday of my vacation as I came back down from Minnesota.
The next step was coming up with a name. I struggled with a name, but eventually with the help of friends a name was found. Here are some of the suggestions I received:
Willy: Cuddles or Miss Wiggles
Faust: Steele & Melanie
Jen: Mila
Jill: Daisy
Sara: Astrid, Mahtob and then she sent me a list of about 200 other suggestions.
Carla: Chloe, then she went out and bought a puppy and named it Chloe.
But it was actually a suggestion by Derrick that put me on the road to the name. While we were sitting on a bench at the State Fair resting, he asked if there was a female character from a Kubrick movie that I liked. I have to confess that Kubrick movies aren’t filled with extremely strong female characters. If you take out the prostitute from Eyes Wide Shut or the sniper from Full Metal Jacket, that really leaves you with Lolita and I’m not naming a dog after Lolita.
I toyed with the idea of Kubrick and then Coltrane as a name, but those were just too male sounding names. I was stalled.
Then fate took a hand again. Every morning I run shuffle on Media Player and then post whatever the first song that comes up to Twitter. Now, I know that nobody in the world cares at all what song I am listening to during that exact moment of the day. I do it as a reminder to the world that I have better taste in music than they do.
On August 24th a Miles Davis song was the song that shuffle landed on and I posted the following to Twitter:
“In a Silent Way/It’s About That Time…”-Miles Davis-In A Silent Way-If I were getting a male (puppy), I would name it Miles, Coltrane or Kubrick.”
Dawn replied to my tweet with this tweet:
“How about Naima? Unusual & fits the jazz theme…”
It was a great idea and while I marinated on the idea for a couple of days, in the end, I decided it was too great of an idea to pass up. So I named my puppy after one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite musicians.
I had a name and a week later I had a puppy. Here are a few of the pictures from my first few days with Naima:
Next week’s Wednesday randomness will feature pictures from the mini family reunion I hosted Labor Day weekend.
The best laid plans of mice and men…
I had written this journal entry several days ahead of schedule because I was planning to be in Minnesota right now. I made all the appropriate plans, but fate took a hand and forced me to cancel my vacation.
At about 3:35 last Friday, I clocked out of work and left the building fully expecting not to see it again for 9 days or so. I spent most of Saturday morning mowing my lawn and packing and running errands and doing everything necessary to leave my humble abode for 5 or 6 days.
I pulled out of my driveway at about 3:15 and headed north to Oakdale, hoping to knock on Jill’s apartment door* at about 6:30.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Oakdale. My wheel flew off my car. That’s right. It flew the heck off.
It was a surreal experience and one that words will fail to describe adequately. I’m cruising along at about 75 MPH when suddenly the front passenger side of my car is clearly on the ground. My first thought was that I had very badly blown out the tire. I have done that before and this is kind of what it felt like. So I took a gander out the passenger side window and I saw my wheel flying through the air.
I immediately thought, “that is my tire flying through the air.. it isn’t supposed to be doing that… it is amazing I haven’t lost control of this car… I’m not going to be eating chicken wings tonight… this is garbage.”
About 10 miles north of Mason City my car came to a stop on the I-35 shoulder. There I sat for four hours roughly… pondering the questions of life.
As much as this incident has sucked (and continues to suck as my car has yet to be repaired and the towing bill from north of Mason City to Boone, well folks, it isn’t cheap!) I should be thankful for having such wonderful friends and family.
I had a pretty sweet vacation planned. Among other things, I was going to go to a chicken wing place that serves over 60 different types of wings. I was going to go to the Uptown Art Fair. I was going to watch the Minnesota Vikings practice. I was going to get to hang out with Jill, Bethany, Becca, Nate, Dae Hee, Faust, and Jackson.
Instead, I hung out with mile mark number 200.40.
But this isn’t about spilled milk, or in my case, uneaten chicken wings, this is about amazing friends and family, after all I will still be able to eat those chicken wings in about 3 weeks or so. Teresa and Ernie offered to come get me. As did Lowell, Jesse, and Sara. Faust and Jay called to make sure I was okay. Derrick even took my call while he was at a wedding reception. Becca and Bethany offered whatever assistance they could provide. After towing arrangements and picking me up arrangements were made (Thanks Mom and Jason!) and I was able to find my wheel after combing the ditch for an hour, Jill kept me company on the phone for the last 90 minutes while I sat in a ditch.
Before we get into this week’s RWPE, here are a few pictures from my time in the ditch:
You may notice from looking at the pictures, the bolts were sheered off clean. Jason has been working on cars for his entire life. He has never seen anything like this before.
Also, because of my cancelled vacation, I did get to go to the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon Reception. So now I know if I won an award besides the Superintendent’s Merit Award. Hint: I did!
Here are the submissions for LEADING LINES:
Mike Vest
Next week’s theme:
That is a new theme for this year, so there is no looking back. Only looking forward. Good luck!
*This is hyperbole. Jill lives in a secured building.
I’d like to give a big thanks to my fence crew that over the course of 4 intense work days over the last couple of months built a fence for me.
Thanks to:
Jason Stensland
Jay Janson
Andree Jauhari
Joshua Kraushaar
Derrick Gorshe
Scottie D.
Here are a few pictures from the project:
Me and my friends put a lot of sweat equity in this project. The heat index was well over 110 on at least 1 of the days we worked on this project. But I’m sure it will be worth it when I finally complete Operation Puppy!
Seems like most of my folders have a subfolder named New Folder. This New Folder contains some pretty random pictures. Some of these were taken by Carla.
This week’s folder:
Backup/Old My Pictures/New Folder
Next week’s folder will be:
Backup/Old My Pictures/New Photos
These pictures come from the following folder: Backup/Old My Pictures/Family/2004 McHose
I think these pictures are fairly self explanatory.
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Next week’s folder will be: Backup/Old My Pictures/Family/Teresa & Ernie
These pictures come from: backup/Old My Pictures/Family/2004 B&W
One of the things I take from these pictures is that I have progressed in my knowledge of lighting quite a bit.
Plus I owned a pretty terrible scanner.
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Next week’s folder: backup/Old My Pictures/Family/2004-McHose
Movie – Exit Through the Gift Shop
Director: Banksy
Starring: Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Thierry Guetta, Space Invader and Rhys Ifans
Theater – Bennett’s Union Street Theater – Boone, Iowa
Companion – Flying Solo
Food – I had dinner with Nader at Mongolian Buffet.
Intellectual Honesty & Baggage
Sometimes I feel that I’m the only person I know that LOVES documentaries. One of my all-time favorite movies is Born into Brothels and I can barely get anybody else to touch the DVD case, let alone actually watch it. Usually when I try to suggest watching a documentary to somebody else, they act like I asked them to sit through 90 minutes of riding the lightning.
For the most part I’ve given up on trying to get anybody else to watch a documentary with me. I say “for the most part” because I’m not a quitter. I just don’t get why most people hate documentaries. The world is just an extremely fascinating place, I don’t know why people don’t want to learn more about it.
I know most documentaries tend to make people angry or sad, (besides the sickest bastards in the world, who wants to watch the Japanese chop up a bunch of dolphins) but they are also so enlightening. If they are done properly.
True the most famous documentaries are usually thinly veiled propaganda, but even the works of Michael Moore are educational if you are intelligent enough to be able to sift the gold from the muck.
Synopsis from IMDB
The story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. The film contains footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the world’s most infamous graffiti artists at work.
Review
I admittedly live in very small town Iowa. My exposure to street art is very limited, but even I am familiar with and appreciate the work of Banksy. I am familiar with Shepard Fairey because he created the single most iconic image of the last at least 20 years: The Obama Hope Poster. But I knew nothing of any of the other street artists in the movie.
However, the movie does a very good job of introducing the viewer to the world of street art, before it really starts to focus on its subject Thierry Guetta.
Guetta follows around many of the most preeminent street artists in the world filming them under the pretense that he is making a documentary, but it seems that he doesn’t really have any intention of making a movie. He just films everything that he does.
Eventually he ends up in Banksy’s fold. Eventually Banksy pushes him to make his movie, but when Banksy see the finished project he realizes it is a complete disaster. He sends Guetta home to work on his art and remakes the movie himself.
What Guetta does when he gets home is a little mindblowing, but not in a good way.
I’ll give you this much of a clue. A long time ago Jill loaned me the movie Factory Girl. Factory Girl follows the story of Edie Segwick, a socialite that falls into Andy Warhol’s flock. Edie’s father is a complete piece of garbage that sexually molested Edie when she was young and dumped her into a mental institution when she walked in on him having an affair with their neighbor.
However, during one scene in the movie he is having dinner with Edie and Warhol and says the most spot on thing to Warhol:
“You’re really more of a print-maker than an artist, aren’t you?”
That is what I would say to Guetta if I ever met him.
This is a very well crafted movie and follows some very fascinating people. The end of the movie is actually a brilliant statement on our culture’s ability to buy into hype over talent. Although I’m sure there are some that would call me an elitist for thinking that way.
If I could get somebody else to watch a documentary out there, I would highly recommend this flick. It is on Netflix and is available on DVD.
Rating
4.0/5.0 Caramels
Buy on DVD
Probably not. I have it on Netflix, so I can watch it any time I want.
2010 Ranking
Number 10. It knocks True Grit out of the Top Ten.
Bonus Information
Since both Ames and Des Moines have decided to not bring any new movies worth seeing to their collective theaters, I just had dinner with Nader on Tuesday night and went home and decided to start getting caught up on my Oscar nominated Documentaries.
Movie – Restrepo
Directors: Tim Hetherington & Sebastian Junger
Theater – Bennett’s Union Street Theater – Boone, Iowa
Companion – Flying Solo
Food – I had supper at my Mom’s with Alexis, Johnathan and Jason before I watched this movie. She made Salisbury Steak and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was awesome!
Intellectual Honesty
I am a fan of Sebastian Junger’s writings. I was very legitimately excited about seeing this movie as soon as I heard about it.
Baggage
I’m not a big military guy. I understand the reason for the military’s existence, but I don’t get all excited when talking about the military like many of the men I know do.
Synopsis from IMDB
Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s year dug in with the Second Platoon in one of Afghanistan’s most strategically crucial valleys reveals extraordinary insight into the surreal combination of back breaking labor, deadly firefights, and camaraderie as the soldiers painfully push back the Taliban.
Review
One of the reasons I was excited to see this movie is that it is supposed to be a very neutral portrayal of the war in Afghanistan. I had read an interview by the filmmakers about how both sides of the political spectrum had attacked this movie for being too pro-war or too anti-war.
If both sides were attacking the movie, I figured it must be fair and balanced. I mean legitimately fair and balanced, not like how FoxNews is fair and balanced, using the words like some kind of extremely ironic tagline that they themselves are privately surprised that they have the balls to use in public.
I come from more of the war is “old-men-talking-and-young-men-dying” frame of mind rather than the “war!-what-is-it-good-for?-absolutely-nothing-except-ending-slavery-and-stopping-Hitler” frame of mind.
Because of that, when I watched this movie, I saw more of the anti-war side of the story. Even though, this isn’t what the movie is trying to do. It just covers one platoon for one year and shows the facts. But in my mind, it is rather clear that the facts are that war sucks!
When I turned the movie off, I could only feel bad for these young men that they had to be put through this because of our glaring foreign relation mistakes since… probably since the end of WWII.
It is an interesting movie and it is graphic in its depiction of war, so there are definitely scenes that aren’t for the faint of heart. But I would highly recommend it because it is a view of the war you won’t see on any news network.
It doesn’t preach one side or the other. Which is very refreshing.
I would probably rate it higher, but there are moments where the movie drags on a little bit.
Rating
3.5/5.0 Caramels
Buy on DVD
No need, I can watch it on Netflix anytime I want. Although I might buy the corresponding book.
2010 Ranking
I would put it just outside of my Top Ten.
Bonus Information
Looks like Ames is bringing in only a steaming pile of poo for movies again this week: Just Go With It, Just Beiber: Never Say Never and Gnomeo and Juliet, I would have to be paid and paid well to endure any of those movies. Looks like I’ll be watching more documentaries next Tuesday as well.
