Category Archives: House

2010-07-29 & 2010-07-30

Combining two folder as one folder only has a couple images in it. Most of the pictures from these folders are from an event know as Hedgegeddon. That was when I took out the hedge that surrounded my backyard. It was truly the battle of battles, but eventually with the help of a few great friends, the battle was won!

The other pictures are from what used to be annual meetup with Mark. We used to get a meal once a year when he would come back from his mission work in Taiwan. But now Mark is back in the United States and lives in the Dallas area. I think it has been 6 years since I saw Mark. I think his wedding was the last time.

Here are the pictures:


Mark and I

Mark with his 2009 Trophy

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Megiddo

Scottie D. likes to claim that he hated taking down the hedge, which he referred to as “Nature’s Fence”, but It was necessary to put up a fence so I could eventually get Naima.

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entriy to its original glory:

Megiddo

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve my Mom’s retirement.

2010-06-20

There were mostly a lot of flower pictures in the folder 2010-06-20. A few lilies. A few coneflowers. A few other flowers. Plus, a few pictures of some members of my church picking cherries from my cherry trees.


Unaffiliated Triad

Unaffiliated Triad

Unaffiliated Triad

Happy Things - 2010

Happy Things - 2010

Happy Things - 2010

WEEK 24 - COLORFUL - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT


By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entry to their original glory:

RWPE #24 – COLORFUL

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve lilies. Definitely lilies!

2010-06-14 & 2010-06-17

There weren’t actually a ton of pictures in either the folder 2010-06-14 or 2010-06-17, so I went ahead an combined them. Most are just taken around my yard, around the time that I was trying to tear the hedge out in my backyard. A terrible and long process. But so definitely worth it!


WEEL 23 - STRONG - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT

Nature's Amen - 2010

Nature's Amen - 2010

Nature's Amen - 2010

Nature's Amen - 2010

Nature's Amen - 2010

Holy Hollyhocks!

Holy Hollyhocks!

WEEK 23 - STRONG - ALTERNATE

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

RWPE #23 – STRONG

Holy Hollyhocks!

RWPE Outtakes

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve flowers and cherries.

2010-04-30

Happy Halloween! At the time of my writing this, the CDC has recently announced that Beggars’ Night should be cancelled. I have a feeling Boone will still be handing out candy, because if we allowed Super Nationals to happen… well the bar has been set pretty low and the greatest worry is not tripping over it. Either way, I’ll be sitting on my couch watching scary movies tonight. Maybe with a table of candy on my driveway. Maybe not. I guess we’ll see.


Happy Halloween - 2020
Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Which makes it time for me to reveal by 2020 Candy Bar Power Rankings. There are some changes from last year:

2020 Candy Bar Power Rankings
10. Baby Ruth
9. Rolo
8. Payday
7. Heath
6. Snickers
5. Twix Caramel
4. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
3. Take 5
2. Peanut M&M’s
1. Whatchamacallit

No interviews at this time. Please respect my decision.

Still, Three Musketeers and Milky Way are the most garbage candy that you will never see me handing out to trick-or-treaters.
+++++++

The pictures in the folder 2010-04-30 fall mostly into two categories. Pictures of Willy running. Pictures of frogs. Two pretty great subjects in my book!


Firetub

Linden

Loneliness is Underrated Alternate

Loneliness is Underrated Alternate

Loneliness is Underrated Alternate

Loneliness is Underrated Alternate

Loneliness is Underrated Alternate

Vacation Day 7 - Couch Time

Vacation Day 7 - Couch Time

Vacation Day 7 - Couch Time

Vacation Day 7 - Couch Time

Vacation Day 7 - Couch Time

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Vacation Day 2 – The Tub

Vacation Day 7 – Couch Time

PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK NO. 20

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve flowers, Alexis, and my Mom.

The Low Place

It is probably past time I shared photos of my basement clean up project. It isn’t really done, but it is pretty close to being in the ball park of being able to see the ending. Also, next Thursday the DAV (Disabled Veterans) Thrift Store is coming to pick up the donations that have filled up my guest bedroom. Plenty of which, came from the basement. While it should go without saying, veterans are not “losers” or “suckers”. Disabled veterans should be allowed to be in parades. Opinions of the current administration notwithstanding.

Here are the before pictures:


The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The Low Place - Before

The main thing I did was “finish” the wall in the basement. Paint it black. Then re-orient the Union Street Theater. Logan helped with the wall. Teresa helped paint it and move the screen. While it is possible that it won’t look much better to you. It looks WAY better to me!

Here are the after pictures:


The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

The Low Place - After

I also hung up some old dark room lights to provide a little bit of light for when the basement is in full theater mode. Also, the new movie posters came from Nader.

The idea of re-orienting the Union Street Theater is to be able to have a couple people over to watch movies or sports in a way that can be more physically distanced and with nobody sitting in front of anybody else. I eventually plan to upgrade my home theater screen and then in the distant future, upgrade the home theater projector to 4K. However, the new projector is well into the future. The new screen might happen later this year.

Also, the new sweet Hilton Coliseum rug? That was a sweet $40 pickup from the Furniture Zone. Brand new, that thing is almost $200. Bonus!

2010-03-17, 2010-03-20, & 2010-03-25

Covering 3 folders in this walk down to Memory Lane since a couple of them had barely any pictures in them. The pictures in the folders 2010-03-17, 2010-03-20, and 2010-03-25 involve mostly a series of publicity stills I took for an ACTORS production and a cruise around Boone County I took with Jay.


A Clockwork Couch

WEEK 11 - MOTION - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT

Geri Derner

Odie John Lofton

Cheryl Rogers

Melissa Krepfle

Amanda Green

Belinda Merritt

Josh Van Waes

Troy Rutter

Lanette Woodard

Jarius Davis

Toons Promo

Shannon Bardole

Christopher D. Bennett

Wild Goose Chase

Wild Goose Chase

Wild Goose Chase

Wild Goose Chase

Wild Goose Chase

Wild Goose Chase

This collection of pictures really made me want to support local arts more. I don’t know that was ever supportive of the local arts in a way I should. I want to go see some community theater productions. I want to go see live local music. When this virus gets managed, I think this is one of my goals. One of the things I want to do. Support some local artists!

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

RWPE #11 – Motion

A Clockwork Couch

ACTORS

Wild Goose Chase

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Shannon and Jill. But not together.

The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

Way back in May, Monica searched out my photo services. For probably about 20 years (no joke) to enter the Fine Arts Show at the Iowa State Fair. This year, the year the Fair got cancelled due to mismanaged pandemic, she finally entered. However, she needed an image to send to the fine people at the Fine Arts show. So she came over and I snapped some pictures for her. This painting is the one that ultimately made the show:



Yes, you heard that right. Made the Iowa State Fair Fine Arts Show. You see, despite there being no Iowa State Fair, the Fine Arts Show is still going on, via the interwebs. That means you should click on the link below:

Fine Arts Show

You should then find Monica’s painting and click on the “Vote” button below it and cast your ballot for Monica and the People’s Choice Award. I believe voting lasts until Sunday. You must have a Facebook account to vote, which sucks, because Facebook sucks. But you probably already have an account that Russia is mining for data right now. So you might as well use it to help out Monica. Who knows? Maybe she will get a big following in Omsk!

What are you still doing here? Go vote for Monica.

+++++++

Here is a collection of pictures I took around the Photography 139 Studio back near the end of June. Hollyhocks, daisies, lilies and a beetle that surpasses them all in beauty!


Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Nature's Amen - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Girl in the Blue Skirt - 2020

Last Penny - 2020

Last Penny - 2020

Last Penny - 2020

Last Penny - 2020

Last Penny - 2020

Last Penny - 2020

Last Penny - 2020

The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

That bowl of raspberries was made into a delicious pie by my Mom. Raspberry pie was my Grandma’s favorite and my Mom always used to make her a pie out of my raspberries. It wasn’t a great year for raspberries because of the drought, but there was still plenty enough for a pie. It is good to be a self-sufficient. I had a bountiful harvest of rhubarb, raspberries, and cherries this year. Looks like there will be plenty of garlic and maybe a record amount of grapes!

Derecho Alpha

On Monday, Boone and central Iowa got hit by a derecho. It was a term that was completely knew to me. It is basically tornado force winds, without a tornado. Recorded wind speeds hit 99 miles per hour in Iowa. Like a lot of natural disaster stories, it basically came out of nowhere. At least to me.

Boone County has been in a drought for weeks. My lawn doesn’t look the best. I’ve only mowed in the last couple months to knock down weeds. You know how I feel about weeds in my lawn. The sky looked gloomy on Monday morning. Which I took as a good thing because we need the water and a break from the heat.

I went into my office and started my remote computer mine work. I’m still working 8-5 as many of our collapsed mine shafts haven’t been fixed yet. One of them was supposed to come back online at 1 PM on Monday. If you may recall, at that moment, I was going to put in for some much needed vacation. I haven’t had more than one day off since the mismanaged pandemic started.

Naima was particularly clingy that morning. Even for a golden retriever with abandonment issues. She literally won’t leave me alone. She doesn’t like hanging out in the office much, but she actually came in and laid down in the office. I should have taken it as a sign, but I didn’t.

I was talking on the phone with one of the end users for the computers we mine when it started to rain. Apparently the tornado sirens went off in west Boone, but they didn’t on my side of town. I even stepped outside while my job became watching progress bars. No sirens. Then it really started coming down.

The wind was pretty incredible. I’d always heard that a tornado sounds like a freight train coming down the track. That is exactly what this sounded like. At first I thought it was just the sound of the nearby railyard, but it was consistent and louder and louder. Then I lost power. I thought it would be only a brief outage. A few seconds. Maybe a few minutes.

I texted Vest and Lowell that I had lost power and that the end user I was working with would probably be calling back and that I had put instructions on how to help them in Teams. 15 minutes went by and I still didn’t have power. So this was going to be a several hour thing. Great.

Then I heard that the Computer Mine had also lost power.

I took some pretty poor video of the tail end of the storm. Even at the end, the wind was powerful enough, it was a struggle to open up my back door. Here is that video:



You’ll have to be on the website to see the video.

My neighbor’s front tree had partially fallen on their house, but my house was fine. After it had slowed to a slow drizzle I helped the neighbor across the street move some of their lost tree limbs out of the street so people could get though. I talked with Stan and Noreen.

I called my Mom. She had been in Ames during the storm and had sat it out at her apartment. When she got home, she didn’t have power. A power line was down across her yard, so you couldn’t get in her back door.

After realizing that there wasn’t much I could do at my house I went down to her house and helped her clear up her front yard. I had some potato chips for lunch. I sure wish the storm had come after lunch. I had my eye on some Gorton’s Crispy Fish for lunch. I’m sure those are probably worthless now. I’d still rather eat them than SeaPak.

After clearing my Mom’s frontyard, I cruised around Boone and looked at the damage. Even though the city asked people not to do that. I’d heard that somebody had vandalized the Cadet Bone Spurs mural in town. I checked it out and it was pretty disappointing. They did what I can only describe as a piss poor job of it. I hope they get caught and sentenced to 2 years of art school.

Many streets were closed because of downed power lines. There were many lightpoles blown over downtown. Not the real ones. The ornamental ones that are supposed to make the downtown look classy. However, the downtown area seemed to still have power. Bastards!

I went home to do a full assessment of my property. I had one small branch in my driveway. My favorite zinnia had been blown over. I also lost 4 naked lady lilies. My birdhouse was slightly askew. The roof looked fine. Once again, I’m an insurance agent’s dream.

I heard that the Computer Mine still had no power. So I decided to take a nap. Then a shower. My neighbors with the tree problem started working on getting the tree off their roof during my nap. So I decided it was time for a shower. As I sat on my couch preparing for the shower, I heard a woman scream, “Somebody call 911!”

I quickly put my clothes back on and went outside. When the tree had come off the house it hand landed on one of their friends that was helping. Apparently, the friend had been on the ground pulling on the tree with a rope. Meanwhile, the neighbor was on the roof hitting the tree with a sledgehammer. The neighbor didn’t know the friend was below the tree. When the tree came down, the friend didn’t have a chance to get out of the way.

When the first responders showed up, they immediately determined that the friend would need Life Flight. They eventually got him loaded up and he was helicoptered down to Mercy. Last report I heard was that he was in bad shape, but he was in stable condition. I know more than a few of you have said prayers for him.

I took my shower and then went over to my Mom’s for supper. After eating, I went over to the Sharps to take some pictures of their damage for their insurance company. Then Teresa and I drove down to Luther to look at their damage.
Eventually I got home and tried to sleep, without power. Listening to the not so gentle hum of all the generators in the neighborhood.

Here are some pictures from the day:


Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho

Derecho


And that is the story of my first day of power.

East of Omaha

About 10 days ago I replaced the sink in my kitchen. By replacing the sink in my kitchen, I mean that Duncan’s came in and replaced my sink.

Now I’m not a person that is particularly passionate about my sink. However, my Mom is for some reason. So she really wanted me to replace my sink.

Once it became something that was going to happen, I was surprised about all the opinion I suddenly had on my sink. I’ve always hated my sink. Once you have used industrial sinks (like in a restaurant) home sinks do really suffer. I didn’t get a sink like that, but it did influence the sink I did get.

Here are some pictures of the old sink:


Old Sink

Old Sink

Old Sink

Here are some pictures of the new sink:


New Sink

New Sink

New Sink

New Sink

I got a white sink to match the counter. I got one big compartment because I wanted to be able to soak big thing in their entirety. Like frozen fish cooking sheet and grill grates. Then the last thing that mattered to me was that I wanted the faucet to also double as a sprayer.

Any ways, I like it.

+++++++

Today is a cleanup of a few small picture collections from April and early May.


East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

East of Omaha

Still Laughing - 2020

Still Laughing - 2020

Still Laughing - 2020

Still Laughing - 2020

Okay. These are the last tulips pictures from 2020.

Chris’ New House 2009

This is a bit of a different walk down memory lane. One of the first things I did when I started working from home was cleaning out what I guess what you would call my spare desk. I didn’t want to dump a bunch of work stuff on my normal computer. The computer I do all my photo editing on. So I built a computer to me a dedicated work-from-home computer and set it up on the desk that I have had since I was a child.

This started a massive office cleaning project that was at least 7 or 8 years overdue. In fact, when it was finished, Willy couldn’t get over it. During Friday Night Skype Club, he commented on it at least 5-6 times.

I began this process by cleaning out the drawers in my old desk. One of the things I found was a disc of pictures of the work that me and a bunch of friends and family did before I moved in.

I was ecstatic when I found these pictures because I thought they were lost. While I’ve been going through and fixing old “An Artist’s Notebook” posts on these Saturdays I have come across several pictures that were certainly lost. But none that really tore a hole in my soul like losing these pictures.

Now they have been restored to me and now I get to share them with you:


More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

More Day 1 Fun

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Day 2 - Things Start to Look Different

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Primary Painting Day

Painting

Painting

Painting

Painting

Painting

Painting

I’m very thankful to all the people that helped turn my house into a home. Many of those same people also helped me move a week later. Such wonderful and tremendous people.

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

More Day 1 Fun
Friday Night Paint Prep Club – Part B
Friday Night Paint Prep Club – Part A
Day 2 – Things Start to Look Different
Primary Painting Day
Last of the Pictures

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Johnathan, at least.