Category Archives: Monica

Bill, Brandon, Brog Frog, Derrick, Elainie, Faust, House, Jay, Jen, Jesse, Logan, Monica, Personal Photo Project, Willy

Personal Photo Project of the Week #148



Decoupage Experiment

This fits into a crafty version of the Personal Photo Project.

Even though almost everybody thinks it is a bad idea, except Michelle and Jesse, I’m really considering decoupaging a photo montage onto a wall or two or three in my house. I’m really considering doing the basement stairwell. I’m considering doing this even though I know it will make it more difficult to sell my house some day, but on the other hand, there is a chance I could live in that house the rest of my life. When I retire I could decoupage the entire house. Then when I die it would be one of those tourism oddities. I can almost see the entry in the tourism book now:

No visit to central Iowa would be complete without a stop at True Lone Wolf Manor. Thousandaire recluse, madman, artist, genius (by 2 standard deviations), and undisputed True Lone Wolf Christopher D. Bennett spent his retirement years decoupaging the heck out of his house. It is a must see for lovers of art, crafts, photography, and crazy old people. Head east on Union Street from Story Street…

I still have a little ways to go to master the craft, but my 2nd attempt worked, while my 1st attempt was an unmitigated disaster:




When you examine this work, you shouldn’t look at the design or the pictures so much. I basically stuck my hand into an old box of pictures and selected some that I could live without, but didn’t make me sick to look at and started gluing away. There really isn’t a design. This represents a mixture of glue, old photos, and chaos. When I take to my wall, there will be the outlines of an outline of a plan.

Andree, Becky, Calendar, Dad, Dawn, Derrick, Evie, Faust, Jeff Kewer, Jen, Linda, Monica, Personal Photo Project, Postcard, Robert, Russell, Sara, Shawn Lockner, Slice of Life

Personal Photo Project of the Week #144

This week’s Personal Photo Project is a blatant attempt at commerce. Good old fashioned in-your-face-capitalism.

I’ve been talking to Barb Henning of Everlastings about selling high quality Photography 139 products in her store for several years now, but I have always been unable to pull the trigger. However, I’ve turned over a new leaf and have decided to invest some money in “product” and we’ll see where that gets me.

Starting tomorrow (at least I’m 98% sure) a person can go to Everlastings Flowers & Gifts in beautiful downtown Ogden, Iowa and purchase a couple different products from Photography 139.

The first line of products:



Postcards!

This is not a completely original idea. This idea is both stolen from and an homage to my Dad’s line of Slice of Life postcards. Which incidentally will be incorporated into this line of postcards as well. The picture of the #1385 is my Dad’s picture.

The current pricing structure is thus:

1 Postcard = $.75
3 Postcards = $2.00
5 Postcards = $3.00

Series #1 of the Photography 139 line of postcards consists of 5 different images. My hope is that every 3-4 months, I will release a new series and 5 different postcards. The subject matter will mostly consist of flowers or local interest. Look for Series #2 to be released around February or March.

Thanks to all my Postcard Beta Testers:

Jen, Derrick, and Evie Gorshe
Sara and Shawn
Russell Kennerly
Andree Jauhari
Aunt Linda
Becky Perkovich
Dawn Krause
The Fausts
The Kewers
Robert Henning

The second line of products:



Calendars!

The second product line is a calendar consisting of high quality Photography 139 flower images. The first run of these is extremely limited, so the price structure is a little higher than I would like, but there is a chance that a second run of calendars will be printed and the price might go down slightly. No promises though.

Calendar Price Structure:

1 Calendar = $15.00

But what about the future? I’m also looking into releasing a line of holiday cards. Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day. It is somewhat dependent on how the first two lines of high quality products fare in the marketplace. I would consider it highly doubtful that there will be Christmas cards available for this Christmas, but stranger things have happened.

To repeat, these high quality products will be available at Everlasting Flowers & Gifts starting tomorrow.

Everlastings Info:

223 W. Walnut St.
Ogden, IA 50212
Store Hours: M-F 9:30 am to 5 pm; Sat. 9:30 am to noon
Website: http://www.everlastingsbybarb.com/
All major credit cards accepted

These products may come to other venues in the future, but Barb definitely gets to be the launching point for this commercial endeavor.

Yes, you can buy products straight from me, but I don’t accept credit cards at this time. If you need something shipped to you, there would be a shipping and handling fee.

You can find out that info by writing me directly at: bennett@photography139.com

Next week’s Personal Photo Project will either involve trains or mums. We’ll see.

Blogging, Derrick, Evie, Jay, Jeff Kewer, Jen, Jill, Monica, Movies, Nader, Russell

Movie Review: Hall Pass

4 Comments

EDITOR’S NOTE: SINCE THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION OF THIS BLOG IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT MONICA AND JEFF WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DELICIOUS FRUIT PIZZA. MY APOLOGIES FOR GIVING THE CREDIT TO DERRICK.
Movie – Hall Pass

Director: Bobby and Peter Farrelly (Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary)
Writer: Pete Jones, Peter Farrelly, Kevin Barnett, Bobby Farrelly
Starring: Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers, The Royal Tenenbaums, Marley & Me), Jason Sudeikis (Going the Distance, What Happens in Vegas), Jenna Fischer (The Office, Blades of Glory, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story), Christina Applegate (Anchorman, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, Married with Children)

Theater – Cinemark Movies 12 – Ames, Iowa

Companion – Nader

Food – Okoboji Grill

Intellectual Honesty

I like Jenna Fischer. I thought that the trailer looked funny.

Baggage

Owen Wilson is pretty much always terrible unless he is in a Wes Anderson movie. The Farrelly brothers movies have been pretty blah since There’s Something About Mary.

Synopsis from IMDB

A married man is granted the opportunity to have an affair by his wife. Joined in the fun by his best pal, things get a little out of control when both wives start engaging in extramarital activities as well.

Review

Let’s face it, there really isn’t much to say about this movie. If you take out the Kathy Griffin jokes at the end of the movie, almost all the funniest parts are in the trailer.

Save the money and the time and watch the trailer.

Rating
1.5/5.0 Caramels

Buy on DVD
Nope.

2011 Ranking
I’ve seen two 2011 movies. It is the 2nd best. The other one I saw (The Dilemna) was nothing special either.

Bonus Information
I saw previews for several movies. They all look terrible. Thor. Cowboys & Aliens. The Hangover Part II. I wonder if Hollywood is even trying this year.

I got an email from Russell referring to me as Movie Man and asking kindly if he could get my opinions on the Oscars or if he would have to wait for a journal entry.

Since most people don’t possess the bravery of Russell, I’ll just paraphrase the email I sent to him about my Oscar experience.

I can’t complain about most categories besides Best Picture and Best Director.

Some of the people I was rooting for didn’t win (Michelle Williams and James Franco), but I can’t really argue with giving the Oscar to Natalie Portman and Colin Firth.

I was sad to see Randy Newman get an Oscar, but this was a pretty weak year for Original Song.

I prefer How to Train Your Dragon over Toy Story 3, but I knew that was a lost cause.

The King’s Speech is kind of a glorified made for TV movie with two exceptional performances.

It is a good movie, but not the best movie of the year. That was clearly The Social Network, but what I think happened is that the older members of the Academy just didn’t get The Social Network and they swung the vote for the much safer The King’s Speech.

Because of the type of movie he makes, I hope this wasn’t David Fincher’s last chance at an Oscar. But if it was, he’ll be in good company. Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles never won an Oscar (for director). However, one Alfred Hitchcock movie did win Best Picture. Rebecca if you really must know.

I was glad that The Kids are All Right didn’t win anything, but now I’m also having to re-watch it to figure out if I think the daughter in the movie is a lesbian or not. I was glad that Jeff Bridges didn’t win. Mumbling is not acting.

I would have been happy to see Amy Adams win, but I freely confess that Melissa Leo was better than her.

The Oscar Party I attended was successful and I had lots and lots of very tasty food. Derrick made some kind of shrimp and cream cheese dip kind of thing that was phenomenal. Plus he made fruit pizza, which is one of my all-time favorite foods. Plus Derrick also made a mean batch of little smokies. There was soup there as well, but I forgot to sample its undoubtable goodness.

I got to give Nader a ride in Jill’s Solstice and this seemed to be one of the biggest thrills of his life, so that was a bonus as well.

I don’t know that I really have an opinion on any of the speeches because truthfully I didn’t really pay much attention to any of them.

Everybody at the gathering seemed to agree that Kirk Douglas’ presentation was painful to sit through. I love you Spartacus, but that was almost as bad as watching Dick Clark on New Year’s.

I don’t have much of an opinion on the hosts. They weren’t so terrible that I noticed them, but they weren’t so funny that I’m dying to have them back. Jay seemed to like them. He said it was the best Oscars he had ever seen. I definitely wouldn’t go that far.

As far as fashion goes, I don’t really have opinions on fashion. So I will relay to you what the fashion expert Jill liked. She liked some of Anne Hathaway’s outfits. I can’t really remember which ones. She didn’t like the Black Swan looking one or the one blue one that looked like it was made of vinyl or the one that she was wearing at the end that made her look borderline naked. She did like Amy Adams’ bluish-sparkly dress. That is all I can recall of fashion conversations.

On an unrelated fashion note, Evie wore pajamas with guitars on them. They were clearly the fashion hit of the evening.

We also watched a little bit of Freakonomics afterward. I wanted Jen to watch it so I could show her the part on whether or not what you name your children has any effect on whether or not they are successful in life. It reminded me of her job.

More Bonus Information

I’ve been messing around with the website and I have added a few little dodads that you should checkout. For example all the pages except the home page have sidebars now. I’m still tinkering with the sidebars, but they currently include links to the last 5 Journal entries and the last 5 pictures I’ve uploaded to the Artistic Gallery. The header now changes as well. Although at this time, there are only two headers. There will be more in the future. I’ve also widened the website so that it looks better on widescreen monitors. I’ve also changed the menu system, but you probably won’t notice any changes in that respect. I’m sure I’m not done tinkering, but those are the recent changes.