A little while back, I took a few images for a journal article on the Computer Mine’s lastest product. Here are a couple of the images:
The Image Used
The Product
More of the Product
I guess it would be the first time in my current job that I got paid to dink around with my camera.
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’m sure every Iowa State fan (even those in denial about their fanhood) has seen this video of Iowa State celebrating after their victory at Nebraska on Saturday. But I wanted to post it here, so I would always have a place to see it.
(Obviously if you subscribe via email or RSS Feed, you will have to go to the website to see the video.)
I don’t want to pile on to Chizik. It is obvious now that he clearly wasn’t the right fit here. Whether or not he succeeds at Auburn or how completely classless his departure from Iowa State was, the only thing that matters is that Iowa State now has absolutely the right guy as our coach.
Paul Rhoads says in that video that he is “So proud to be your football coach.”
I am so proud that Paul Rhoads is our football coach. Passion and enthusiasm are back in the Iowa State football program after a 2 year hiatus. It feels so good to see those two old friends again.
After the 5k concluded on Saturday – Sara, Jen, Karolina & Dionne huddled up to discuss where we should eat.
I asked Derrick what was going on over there. He explained the situation.
I stuck my head into the huddle and said, “You know what is the most important feature of the restaurant we eat at?”
They asked me to elaborate.
“A place where we can watch the Iowa State game.”
At first I thought my point had fallen on death ears, but Dionne also wanted to watch the game and Jen wanted to make Derrick happy, so we ended up at Legends in downtown Des Moines watching the game.
While we were walking to Legends, Jen (the Super-Wife) even offered to go get the car on her own so that Derrick and I could continue to watch the game after we were done eating.
So the 6 of us huddled into a booth at Legends and watched the first half of Iowa State’s first victory in Lincoln since 1977. First victory since 1977 despite missing their 2 best offensive players. Despite losing their nickel back with a broken leg. Despite having to separate healthy players from players with the flu for the ride over. I saw somebody write that ISU beat Nebraska on Saturday with 1/3 the talent and 5 times the heart. That heart comes from having a coach that actually cares.
Watching the first half with us was a good primer for Sara since she is going to go to the Iowa State-Kansas State game in Kansas City with us next year. She is big time excited about this new adventure and is counting down the days on her calendar.
As Jesse Smith pulled down an interception (the 8th Nebraska turnover of the game)I received several text messages. Including one from Tim, who was in Memorial Stadium indicating that it was “quiet” in the stadium.
I got a text from Bill (who lives in Omaha) saying that he was in a Best Buy “full of angry”.
Corey sent me a text message proclaiming that this game reinforced his theory of “The X”. Corey believes that the Kansas-ISU game was “The X”. After that game, Kansas would decline and the Cyclones would rise. Kansas did win that game, but since then they are 0-2. ISU is 2-0. I am a believer in “The X”.
I received a text message from Colleen that said simply: “Wow.”
I got a text from Baier proclaiming it to be one of the “5 biggest wins in Cyclone history”.
I got a text from Jesse asking if I “believed it”. Of course I believed it. I predicted it.
I got a text from Shannon saying that she broke the 1 day Little White Lye Soap sales record. I texted her back that it was a “truly great day”. She asked if that meant the 5K had went well. I responded that it had went well, but more importantly, ISU had beaten Nebraska. She merely texted back that she had “heard that”.
Then I talked to Jason and Derrick on the phone. It was a great day to be a Cyclone. Actually every day is a great day to be a Cyclone, but this day was a little bit greater than the norm.
I had sent a text message to Jill saying that Derrick and I had evened out the estrogen overload by making our party watch the ISU victory over Nebraska and now I was “so happy it hurt”. The response came back that this must the “good kind of hurt”.
Iowa State definitely put the good kind of hurt on Nebraska.
This is a video of Jesse eating an onion. Why? Because he said that he could and Schmidt and I doubted him. Well perhaps doubt is the wrong term, because we wanted to see him do it.
But now we have devised a new goal for Jesse. We want him to complete the Grand Slam of onions. He has taken a white onion down. It is time for him to step up to a yellow onion. Then a red onion. Then finally a green onion.
If you see 3 more videos, you know he was up to the challenge.
Of course, if you subscribe to this blog via email or RSS Feed, you will actually have to go to the website to see the video.
There is an old Oscar Wilde quote that goes, “True friends stab you in the front.” This has and always will be the friendship philosophy of Christopher D. Bennett. But there is a better quote by a different writer that best encapsulates what happened to me on a morning a few weeks back:
“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”
Tennessee Williams
I have a few rituals I perform every morning when I get to work. But the most important is when I walk past Corey Schmidt.
I stop and I say, “Good morning friend.”
He answers back, “Good morning friend.”
I have to admit that this simple act of acknowledging a friend has made some people confused, angered and jealous.
Steve for example is jealous that I do not stop by him every morning to say those 3 simple words. I have pointed out to him that I always stab him in the front, but that wasn’t enough for him. So now I make time during his lunch break to listen to him regale me with stories from the old country (Mason City).
For example, he told me the story of when his dad took him to visit his grandpa at work. Only it isn’t a heartwarming story. His grandpa worked on the kill line in a slaughterhouse. You can imagine what watching cattle get strung upside down and having their throat cut can do to a small child’s psyche. It is why Steve is the way that he is.
But this isn’t a tale of jealous or killing floors. This a tale of friendship.
One morning I came into work and stopped and said, “Good morning friend.”
Corey retorted back, “I have something for you.” Then he handed me a grocery bag.
It was no longer a good morning. It was a great morning!
In my quest to catch up, I’m going to just copy and paste an email about a recent experience I had a new local pizzeria. So if you were the one who received this email, you might want to skip reading this and go back to your normal job duties.
This experience took place on Friday the 13th. Apparently not just a bad day for Templar Knights.
Earlier in the week, Jay brought up wanting to try this new pizza joint in Ames. I had heard the story of how it opened because it was on CNN. I had heard two reviews of the place. One from Jon who loved it. One from Corey who hated it. Corey’s main hatred was generated from the fact that they claimed to serve the pizza with “sauce” on top of the pizza. In actuality the sauce was diced tomatoes. I told this to Jay because he does not like tomatoes as a warning.
Originally we started with 3 people. During the day I sent an invite out to Jen and Derrick to see if they were interested. Then I went home from work to meet the cable guy.
That afternoon, Monica called and wanted to see if she could join us for FNSC since she wasn’t doing her normal birthday dinner.
I called Jay and we worked out a time for when we would meet there. He told me that Willy was not coming because he had run 35 miles that day and felt he should take it easy. He also had big plans for Saturday night. He was going to a birthday party on Saturday night for his friends that he goes to the fights with.
So it was going to be me, Monica and Jay. About this time, my internet was turned on and I saw that Jen had sent me a message saying that she would be interested, but Derrick was out because he was running sound for Dennis’ surprise birthday party at Deano’s.
I called Jesse to tell him what time we were meeting because he had expressed some interest in trying the new pizza place, plus he had my new speakers in his car. Jesse said that he was in.
About 5 pm, my doorbell rang. I went to the door and was surprised to see Willy there. I told him that Jay said that he wasn’t coming.
He said that he had decided to “Man up.”
Then he gave me a partial bag of ice. The rest of the ice from the bag he was using to ice his legs.
Then Jay came over. He was insistent that we leave right at 5:30 to hold to some schedule that he had made in his head. Willy and I told him that wasn’t “the way things worked”.
We eventually left and met Jen and Monica at the pizza place. FNSC was supposed to consist of Me, Jay, Willy, Jesse, Jen and Monica. 6 people. On the way there, Willy started to get sick.
We ordered two large Chicago Style pizzas. Mr. Meaty and Louie’s Supreme. The price: $69. That is not a typo. That did not include drinks. They told us it would be 1 hour 15 minutes. We asked if we could change the order to delivery and we would eat at Jen’s place. They said that would add 30 minutes to the time we got our pizza.
There was no place to sit, so we ordered the pizza as Carry Out.
Order was placed at 6:20.
Jesse called to say that he had called home and found out that he couldn’t come out.
Jen went home.
Jay, Willy, Monica and I went to Wal-Mart. I needed to buy a toaster and some microwave popcorn. Monica (not making this up) bought a rake so that they could rake up all of the cigarette butts in their yard.
Jen called and said that Jill would be joining us. Willy continued to get worse.
We went inside. There were some tables available. I ordered some drinks and changed our order to Dine-In. They gave me a number after the lady stared at a computer screen for quite some time. I had no faith that the number she gave me was somehow connected to anything on her computer screen. Jay said that if the pizza wasn’t ready in 5 minutes, he was going to leave and take Willy home.
The pizza wasn’t ready in 5 minutes. Jay left.
Jen and Jill arrived. FNSC turned into Me, Jen, Jill and Monica. With two large Chicago Style Pizzas.
A little after 8 pm we were still sitting there (talking about hair) when one of the owners approached our table. He shook my hand and introduced himself to me. He asked how long we had been waiting. I said that we placed our order at 6:20. He asked what time it was. I didn’t not know. He looked at his cell phone and said “Is it really after 8?”
“If you say it is.”
He gathered some information and then went back and came back with a pizza. It wasn’t exactly hot. We told him we had two pizzas. He said, “I hope those dumbasses didn’t accidentally give it out.”
He came back with another pizza. It was not Chicago Style. Somebody pointed this out to him. He took it back and came back with the right pizza.
When he brought back the right pizza he said, “You must have thought we were running a special: 1 pizza for the price of 2!”
The Mr. Meaty pizza had next to no flavor. The Louie’s Supreme wasn’t bad. I like tomatoes, but I could have done without them on top of the pizza. Tomatoes are not a substitute for sauce, which the pizza had none.
At the end of the night, we had 9 slices of pizza left. I took 3 of them to Deano’s for Derrick. I later found out that he took 1 bite and threw the rest away.
Although this experience was very negative, I would be willing to give Black Market Pizza one more chance. I am not willing to give their Chicago style pizza a second chance though.
About a year ago I posted a comment on Shannon’s MySpace page where I was apologizing in advance for what Iowa State was going to do to her UNI Panthers IF Wesley Johnson played in the game.
Wesley Johnson did indeed play in the game and he played well, but UNI came into what was once the toughest building in the nation to play in and beat Iowa State rather soundly. Most disappointing about the game was the fact that ISU seemed to quit in the second half.
It was McDermott’s second team and for the second straight season he had to completely rebuild the roster in the offseason. It was a disappointment, but in retrospect it was to be expected.
Then in early January I was at the Jaycees Year End Banquet. I believe on that same night Michael Beasley was personally destroying the Cyclones.
I believe that it was at this point that Shannon made a rather snide remark about the Cyclones. I had to stand up for the Cyclones and we agreed to attend next season’s game with a friendly wager to boot.
It is a little known fact that I rarely lose wagers. In fact it has been about 5 years since I last lost a wager. I knew that I had, 11 months in advance, secured a victory for the Iowa State Cyclones. Don’t believe me?
Check the archives: I guarantee an ISU victory over UNI! (You will have to scroll past the pictures)
Or I can repost the pertinent part of the blog:
The first event occurred while I was talking to Shannon. Somebody came back from the bar side of the American Legion to announce that my beloved Cyclones were losing by 25 to Kansas State. Although it was sad news, it was to be expected. The simple fact of the matter is that they have Beasley and we do not. That fact alone will decide quite a number of games in Kansas State’s favor this season.
At this point Peggy (the 2008 Jaycees President with questionable taste in college sports teams) came over to point out that her Kansas Jayhawks also thumped Iowa State earlier in the week.
I responded that I wasn’t so sure that wasn’t to be expected. Right now Iowa State is held together by spit, baling wire and a walk-on point guard.
Shannon added that “He will defend Iowa State under any circumstances.”
What she said is undeniably true, but the way she said it indicated that she thinks that there was another way that it is acceptable to be.
Then she took it too far. She wandered down a road that is going to end poorly for her. Even though that road won’t officially end for several months.
She brought up that UNI had beaten ISU this season.
It is a fact. I can’t deny it, but I can make bold proclamations.
I made this bold proclamation:
“I guarantee that we beat UNI next year.”
There I said it. I got it out there. I might have went into some details about how next year’s Cyclone team would be essentially the first team in 3 years that wasn’t going to be built from scratch that offseason.
Then she made the mistake.
“That sounds like a wager.” Those words escaped her lips. I think she knew that she had a mistake as soon as the words had finished reverberating around the American Legion. Yet she gamely continued on and did not back down.
The terms of the wager have not been set, but I can hint at what I’m leaning towards. Let me just say that I think Shannon is going to look good in Cardinal and Gold.
Wednesday was indeed the night that we made our way up to Cedar Falls to witness the game.
I don’t think I need to go into details about the game. UNI fought their hearts out. They were able to force overtime, before the Cyclones were able to finally secure the victory by 5 points.
My impressions of the night are that McLeod Center is an impressive building. It gets surprisingly loud in there. UNI’s program is way better than Iowa State’s program, for the same price. It has pages. Iowa State’s program is a page. Their scoreboard is a little strange. It is split into two separate scoreboards, so it is a little difficult to find the score of the game. It was quite an experience.
I don’t want to go into the details of the wager, because I am not somebody that needs to gloat… but I would like to share that one of the outcomes of the wager was my acquisition of this sweet beanie that Shannon made.
On a related but unrelated note (that might have been the equivalent of using the nonword irregardless)a fellow miner by the name of Schmidt (I have too many friends with the first name Cory) has designed the ISU Basketball equivalent of an Advent Calendar. We figure that Iowa State needs 20 wins to make it to a tournament this year.
He has placed 20 post-it notes next to his desk in the Mine. Every time ISU wins we take down a post-it note and celebrate with some candy.
Shannon probably won’t be happy that I share this fact, but when we were looking around the UNI Book Store for a food item that would be Panther related for the Cyclone Advent Calendar we failed. Then she noticed that there was a purple package of M&Ms (dark chocolate) and a gold package of M&Ms (peanut) she suggested we use those. In fairness she also said it would be a moot point.
Well, it was not a moot point…
… it was an excellent idea. Panther candy was tasty!
We are planning on celebrating our victory Saturday over the Oregon State Beavers with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Mmmmm…. I wonder what Jayhawk is going to taste like.
Friday night was another successful Ames on the Half Shell. The band was Kountertop and they were phenomenal. I even had a chance to catchup with an old chum named Todd Sawyer who is a Kountertop roadie. That was pretty sweet.
I haven’t loaded any images into the Snapshots Gallery yet, so don’t go running over there. That will happen in due time.
Friday may have been my Half Shell swan song. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to this Friday’s Half Shell. I’m going to spend Thursday and Friday in Cedar Rapids with a small group from my church getting covered in dry wall and black mold. I’m not sure I will make it back to Ames in time to work Half Shell. Even if I did, I’m not sure what I would smell like.
So that means at least a couple of you are going to have to go to Half Shell and drink my share of the Red Monkey Root Beer. This week’s band is the 3AM Band. As always the event runs from 5-8 at Bandshell Park near beautiful downtown Ames, Iowa.
A few months ago Nader gave me a camera to test for his trip to London. I put in a roll of film and took some test shots. Then I put the camera away and forgot about it. I finally finished off the roll and got it developed. I thought I would share some of the images, not because of any of them are particularly interesting, but because maybe they are interesting as a whole. A study of intermittent shots taking over time from a forgotten camera.
Flowers
Flowers
Self Portrait
Fat Jake
Jay Snuggly
Fat Jake
Willy: Keeper of Fat Jake
Fat Jake
Experiment
Vest
Frame
Party in Jesse’s Office
Cory
Deer
Deer through Windows of “The Quad”
Computer Mine Basketball Hoop
Most of my Saturday was devoted to Jaycee activities. It started out with the Super Shooters competition. This is only the second Jaycees activity that I have had a chance to work. I was planning on taking a few pictures there, but as it turns out, I left my memory card sitting at home in my memory card reader. I did have my film camera, so I took a few B&W photos. This wasn’t the ideal situation, but I made do.
It had been awhile since I have had REAL B&W film developed. I went to a local camera shop that I haven’t visited in some time to get prints made. I would like to say that I was impressed by their work, but the prints that came out are filled with a myriad of scratches and dust spots. I don’t know what to make of that, I surely don’t.
Here are some of the images from Super Shooters:
Before I discuss the Year End Banquet, I should point out that I have excellent news for Cyclone fans. I can pretty much guarantee a Cyclone victory over the UNI Panthers next basketball season. You will understand in a moment, but it is important for you to understand my reasoning for making this claim. You see lately I have been hotter than a firecracker when it comes to wagering. I have been so unstoppable that I have had to turn down my friends’ offers of wagers because I fear them going so deeply into debt with me at which time I will have to swear out a warrant for their arrest and they will rot away in debtors prison.
For example, just this Saturday I have won yet another wager with Russell. It was so obvious I was going to win this wager that I almost turned down his wager. He bet me that Hillary Clinton would defeat Barack Obama in the South Carolina Primary. Not only did he defeat her, it was something of a woodshed beating. His vote total more than doubled her vote total.
I could have won a second wager this weekend with Jason Baier. He wanted to bet me that Rambo would make more than 40 million at the box office this weekend. Even though he pursued this wager aggressively, I had to turn him down. I don’t like to make wagers with people when they can’t win. Even if they don’t know they can’t win. Well almost never as it turns out.
For the record, Rambo grossed 18.1 million at the box office this weekend.
I don’t really need to go into much detail about the banquet. I think that I can break the event down to the two core events that left the deepest impression on me. I can say that before I went to the banquet, I could place a name and a face together for about 6 or 7 Jaycees. After the banquet I think I can up that number to about 12 or 14, but sadly for me, that number should be much higher, but I think I’m starting to suffer from Jay Janson’s Disease. (The inability to put names with faces)
The first event occurred while I was talking to Shannon. Somebody came back from the bar side of the American Legion to announce that my beloved Cyclones were losing by 25 to Kansas State. Although it was sad news, it was to be expected. The simple fact of the matter is that they have Beasley and we do not. That fact alone will decide quite a number of games in Kansas State’s favor this season.
At this point Peggy (the 2008 Jaycees President with questionable taste in college sports teams) came over to point out that her Kansas Jayhawks also thumped Iowa State earlier in the week.
I responded that I wasn’t so sure that wasn’t to be expected. Right now Iowa State is held together by spit, baling wire and a walk-on point guard.
Shannon added that “He will defend Iowa State under any circumstances.”
What she said is undeniably true, but the way she said it indicated that she thinks that there was another way that it is acceptable to be.
Then she took it too far. She wandered down a road that is going to end poorly for her. Even though that road won’t officially end for several months.
She brought up that UNI had beaten ISU this season.
It is a fact. I can’t deny it, but I can make bold proclamations.
I made this bold proclamation:
“I guarantee that we beat UNI next year.”
There I said it. I got it out there. I might have went into some details about how next year’s Cyclone team would be essentially the first team in 3 years that wasn’t going to be built from scratch that offseason.
Then she made the mistake.
“That sounds like a wager.” Those words escaped her lips. I think she knew that she had a mistake as soon as the words had finished reverberating around the American Legion. Yet she gamely continued on and did not back down.
The terms of the wager have not been set, but I can hint at what I’m leaning towards. Let me just say that I think Shannon is going to look good in Cardinal and Gold.
The other event that left an impression on me at the banquet also involved Shannon. I think it was the previous weekend that Shannon won an award at a Jaycees convention known as All-State. She won a pretty major award. She was declared to be the Secretary of the Year in the entire state of Iowa.
Part of the banquet was devoted to handing out awards and re-presenting the awards that various chapter members had won the previous weekend.
Something interesting happened when Shannon got her award. Everybody else got a “clap”. Just one clap. It was confusing to me, but I learned this morning that “the clap” is known as “Rally Applause” or something like that. Everybody got that. However, when Shannon got her award, the room spontaneously broke out in the wave.
I’m not making that up. I’ve been in several crowds where the wave has broken out. Almost all of them have been at sporting events. A couple times it has been at political rally. Sometimes I’ve seen it forced upon a crowd at a corporate brainwashing seminar. I’ve never seen this happen at a formal banquet before. I can only say that this turn of events was very impressive to me. I still can’t quite get my head around it.
This isn’t to say that she doesn’t deserve it. From what I know, she is hyper-organized and put in tons of hard work at that position. The wave was an interesting way of showing admiration for her hard work and skills.
After the banquet, several Jaycees retired to a bar down the street. The name currently escapes me, but my best stab at it is DG’s Tap House. It is in a commercial space that was formally known as The Zone. This makes me wonder where all the women that have graduated from Club Element go now.
This was my first appearance at a bar in 2008. I made 3 bar appearances all of 2007. Cory, a co-worker from the Computer Mine, has made it one of his goals this year to get me to the bar 4 times this year. We’ll see how that turns out.
The most interesting thing to transpire at the bar was running into Julie. I haven’t seen or talked to Julie in several months and it was awesome getting a chance to talk to her and catch up with her. Although I think she was quite shocked to actually see me at a bar. In fact, I know that she was surprised. It took her a little while to actually convince herself that she was seeing me. Of course Julie also thinks that her house is haunted, so I’m not sure why seeing me at a bar would be so hard for her to believe.
I think I was at the bar listening to some band until about midnight. Then I took off to get some sleep. I had a big day ahead of me on Monday. Rambo and There Will Be Blood weren’t going to see themselves.
I was counting up the ways that a person could make contact with me and I decided that I needed one more way. So I actually took the time and energy and told the guy that hosts my website (Frank) to give me an address at my own domain. So now if you want yet another e-mail address to write to me at:
There might* be a prize for the first person that e-mails me at my new address.
I am excited that this weekend will be the peak of fall colors this year in Central Iowa. I hope you are able to spend some time outside this weekend to enjoy the beauty of nature. I think I might just celebrate by taking a train ride.
The Fausts are going to be joining FNSC this evening. They have been given the rare privilege of picking the location for FNSC. This is a very rare honor only given to the most highly regarded. They did not make a mistake with their choice. They have chosen the West Street Deli, which is home to the world’s best club sandwich. I’m not joking about it. If you haven’t had the club at The West Street Deli you are missing out.
Tomorrow is an exciting day as well. The Iowa State Cyclones will attempt to BBQ the Texas Longhorns. I have little doubt that the Cyclones will leave Jack Trice Stadium victors, but that isn’t why tomorrow is so exciting. Tomorrow is exciting because Jay and Derrick are attending their first Faust tailgate. They will get to witness first hand Faust doing his Johnny Cash impersonation (it involves standing on the cooler) and after the game, they might get to see him bust out the Humpty Dance. Although the real highlight of any Faust tailgate is watching him yell at Bret over the music selections. Nothing is better than Faust getting mad when Bret won’t play “Not as Good as I Once Was”. He points at his damaged foot and screams, “That’s my song. I’m not as good as I once was”. Priceless merrymaking.
I should make a confession. Almost a month ago, Stephanie gave me the Sufjan Stevens album Illinoise. She was really interested in me giving her feedback on my thoughts about the album. I think she was hoping for me to just agree with her that it is one of the greatest albums of all time. The problem is that she also gave me a copy of the Eric Lindell album Change in the Weather. I just can’t bring myself to listen to the Sufjan Stevens album because I LOVE the Eric Lindell album so much. In fact, I’ve taken to surrounding myself with a constant flow of music from the following albums: Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace** by the Foo Fighters, Change in the Weather by Eric Lindell, Once the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, and Every Second Counts by Plain White T’s. I hope to add Shannon Curfman’s album Fast Lane Addiction to the mix, but I have to find some place that is selling it first. Stupid Best Buy. Stupid Target. I’ll get to Sufjan, I swear it. Just not on anything important.
I received some exciting news this week. I’m not ready to share that information yet, but if you want a sneak peek, you can head over to the FUMC in Boone on Wednesday night at 7 pm. You will want to go to the parlor. There are a couple of strings attached. You have to be a woman, lady, female, or girl and you have to be interested in knitting, crocheting, quilting or something of that ilk. I’ll just leave this tease stand for now. Hopefully I will have a picture next to make you understand why I’m excited. Well I can’t make you understand anything. It will be an illustration of my excitement though.
I got another new toy for the “rig”*** a couple of weeks ago. I’m hoping to go out tonight and get some use out of it. If everything works out there might be some interesting night pictures in our future. Makes you wonder what toy would help with night photography, doesn’t it!
*By “might”, I mean there isn’t a prize.
** Even though Schmidt from work disagrees with my assessment, I think this album is pushing “The Colour and The Shape” for the title of the best Foo Fighters album.
*** Terminology used by the dude who annoyed me a couple of weeks ago.