Time to reveal the October image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. The subject of the October image was taken of the Cliffs of Moher. The time of day we visited the Cliffs of Moher it was just crazy with people. You couldn’t throw a dead cat without hitting 20… Read More »State Fairin’: Trip 2
Time to reveal the Mach image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. MARCH – 2026 Technical Details This picture is the ocean view looking back from the ocean view of the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. If I was forced to pick my favorite part of the Ireland trip, I… Read More »State Fairin’: Trip 1
Every last 2026 Photography 139 calendar has been distributed as of roughly 5:30 PM last night. So now is a good time to start sharing the images from this year’s calendar. We will start with the front cover. FRONT COVER – 2026 Technical Details The subject of the picture is… Read More »525,600 Minutes – 2025 Year in Review
We made it! We finally have gotten to the food adventure where Jesse got injured. This was a bucket list item for me this year and one of only a couple I actually managed to do. One was the Decorah pizza farm. Another was Stroud’s Chicken. Then there was this… Read More »#LakeLife: Jackson County Field Work
It is Week 4 of Advent and I would once again like to light a virtual candle and use the script for it from the book we are using for our Advent Season at Boone First United Methodist Church this year. The book is “The Redemption of Scrooge” by Matt… Read More »Cluck! Cluck! Kansas City Field Work
It is Week 3 of Advent and I would once again like to light a virtual calendar and use the script for it from the book we are using for our Advent Season at Boone First United Methodist Church this year. The book is “The Redemption of Scrooge” by Matt… Read More »The Swell Season Road Trip
It is week 2 of Advent and I would once again like to light a virtual calendar and use the script for it from the book we are using for our Advent Season at Boone First United Methodist Church this year. The book is “The Redemption of Scrooge” by Matt… Read More »I Scream: Decorah Field Work
It is something I’d like to say I do every year, but I don’t. But I’m going to try this year. And that thing is to light a candle every Sunday during Advent Season. A virtual candle. Yes, but still a candle. So this week we are lighting the Peace… Read More »Big Pizza Pie: Decorah Field Work
This is the final collection of images from Day 1 of my work trip to Philadelphia. Lowell and I were still at Geno’s and this collection will finish up at Geno’s. Although there are plenty of images in this collection of Pat’s. I wasn’t sure I would actually make it… Read More »Philadelphia Day 1: Rest of Geno’s
Back in June I took a road trip up to Arnolds Park to visit the Stenslands at the Lake House. As an added bonus Sabas, Elainie, and Elawyn were up there. While Jason and Sabas were off playing gross golf, the rest of us went to a restaurant on the… Read More »#LakeLife: Arnolds Park Field Work
At the end of the last collection Lowell and I were wandering around Chinatown. In this collection we will finish up in Chinatown and then move on to the famous Philly Cheesesteak Square. Home of Geno’s Steaks and Pat’s King of Steaks. 2 of the most famous cheesesteaks in all… Read More »Philadelphia Day 1: On to Cheesesteak Square
Can you believe that this is the 5,750th entry in the blog known as “An Artist’s Notebook”? Every 250 posts or so I like to take a moment to reflect on where this post has been and post a lot of meaningless stats. As always on these posts, I like… Read More »Post 5,750
After the late night with Sarah and Tim was over, we went back to Newark. Crashed. Woke up in the morning. Ate breakfast. Took the shuttle to the airport. Flew to Chicago. Flew back to Fort Dodge. Drove home. I got to see Bokeh again. I loved Ireland. I loved… Read More »Travel Home Day 2
Now it is time to begin sharing the collection of cruddy cell phone pictures of the trip home from Ireland to the Cyclone State. We got up in the morning and headed to the lumber yard/cafe and then headed to a grocery store to find a post office so that… Read More »Travel Home Day 1
There aren’t many cruddy cell phone pictures from Day 6, the last day in Ireland to share. One of the things we did was far too dangerous to have a cell phone out. It wasn’t dangerous for us, but a cell phone would have definitely gotten lost. Plus I definitely… Read More »Ireland Day 6
Day 5 in Ireland. We took a different route on this day than the others. Rather than driving somewhere, we decided to take a tour bus over to Galway via the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren. We got on the same tour bus with Jon and Angie and kind… Read More »Ireland Day 5
On Wednesday, the Iowa Pork Producers Association released the finalists for this years Iowa’s Best Breaded Pork Tenderloin. For us blue-collar-to-no-collar folks this is the equivalent to the Beard Awards or Michelin stars. You can have your fancy pants restaurants. Give me a pork tenderloin, a side of onion rings,… Read More »Ireland Day 3
After we left Giant’s Causeway we briefly made a stop in a village nearby and then beat it to Carrick-a-Rede which is a park with a rope bridge that goes over the Atlantic Ocean. 98 feet above the Atlantic Ocean to be exact. After that we headed to Belfast for… Read More »Ireland Day 2: Part 2
I took a lot of cell phone pictures on Day 2 of Ireland. So many, that I’m going to split them in 2. The first part will consist of cell phone pictures I took at Giant’s Causeway. One thing about Ireland is that every day I saw something that was… Read More »Ireland Day 2: Part 1
Last Sunday we left off basically when I was getting ready to get off the plane. We will continue from there. The first day in Ireland. It was my first time really going through Customs in over 20 years. Getting into Ireland was pretty simple. They asked why we were… Read More »Ireland Day 1
Today’s food adventure covers the travel day Andy and I had that began in Fort Dodge, Iowa and ended in Dublin, Ireland. I was going to do a thing where I calculated how much money I spent on food on this trip, but I didn’t do a very good job… Read More »Ireland – Travel Day