Category Archives: Contests

Jilted

August 29, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

This is a second picture that was not entered.

This picture was created with an in camera zoom special effect. This picture was taken at The Venue when the Inebriated Saints were playing in a Battle of the Bands.

Mike contacted me to take pictures of the band. I went to The Venue on the agreed night, but the Fire Marshall had closed the place down because water was not hooked up to the fire extinguisher system.

This was the first time I had been to a Boone Bar in almost 2.5 years. I have yet to return.

Christianity, Contests, Night

Not Loved

August 28, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

It is that time of year when we are nearing the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. I took a different tact for selecting pictures this year. I am pleased with the results.

I will get into the process at a later date. But first, I want to reveal the pictures that were nominated, but did not get selected for entry this year.

Below is the first picture that I did not enter.

This picture is of the Downtown First United Methodist Church in Des Moines. I took this picture after eating at a buffet with Russell, Baier and Andree. I took it from the top of a parking ramp across the street.

Animals, Black & White, Boone County Fair, Contests, Iowa State, Night, Self-Portrait

Boone County Fair Pictures

July 24, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

These are the pictures I entered in the Boone County Fair.

Campanile Self-Portrait

VEISHEA Crane

Animals, Baseball/Softball, Becky, Boone County Fair, Candid Portrait, Contests, Formal Portrait, Jesse, Monica, Robert, Running, Willy

Images from a Saturday

July 20, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I had a rare busy Saturday. Although admittedly a lot of my Saturday was spent watching other people do stuff or sleeping on a wet lounger. Perhaps the highlight of my Saturday was trying the taco dip that spawned Monica’s world famous taco dip. I should have gotten a picture of that.

The first batch of pictures is from Willy running the 4K at the Iowa Games. Willy also ran the 8K. Then for fun, he ran 18 miles when he got home.

The next batch of pictures are from the Minor Girls State Tournament in beautiful Huxley, Iowa. I used to have a friend that lived in Huxley, Iowa. Maybe that guy will return a phone call some day…

Kalista’s team beat Madrid in the game that I witnessed, before falling to Grand View in their next game. Their game against Madrid was an excellent example of how positive energy overcomes negative energy.

Boone won the game. The deciding factor in the outcome of the game was positive energy. I do not think that Boone had the more talented players. I do not think that Boone had the superior strategy. I think the entire difference in the games was that positive energy was flowing from the Boone coaches and negative energy was flowing from the Madrid bench.

As many of you know I despise Little League. This comes from 10 years of coaching and many more years sitting in the stands. Little League is a shining example of how adults go out of their way to ruin children’s activities. There is some good, but it is usually outweighed by the bad.

An example: While the outcome of the game was still in the balance, the Madrid coach began yelling at her daughter as she was coming off the field for what she perceived to be a couple of mental errors on her daughter’s part. At about second #15 of the tirade, the 8 or 9 year old girl began crying. The Madrid coach’s response: “Don’t you cry. This is YOUR fault.” Another timeless childhood memory provided by Little League.

I won’t even get into the sequence where the Madrid coach began yelling at the Madrid fans.

The next batch of images comes from my trip to the Boone County Fair to visit Becky.

My favorite part about the Boone County Fair (besides getting the World’s Best Funnel Cake!) is the fact that the Boone County Democrats were giving away free gun locks.

The Fair was followed by a trip to the Henning household in Ogden. Christopher and Robert were both back in town. Christopher from Iraq. Robert from Wyoming. I wish I had taken some pictures, but I didn’t.

This was followed by a trip to Lone Wolf State Park AKA the McAlpine Lair to do some barbecuing. No pictures of this either, so you’ll have to take my word that it was a good time.

Animals, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Contests, Derrick, Flowers, Jen, Nature, Night, Pufferbilly Days, Shannon

Pufferbilly Day Photo Contest Entries

September 3, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

I believe I received feedback from over 20 people during the second round of voting. That was awesome and I appreciate all the time that everybody took to voice their opinion. In the end, I could only enter six pictures in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. So I now reveal the six pictures that advanced and a little bit about them.

I did not actually spend much time considering the names for each picture, so in the end the names are admittedly pretty lame. I can deal with it if you can.

Wheel

The first image is from when the #844 stopped in Boone on its Midwest tour a couple of months ago. I took this picture in the Boone train yard while it was on display. The train was surrounded by other people so I made a conscious effort to find interesting angles to shoot the train while trying to keep the other humans around out of the shot. This picture was originally captured in color, but I converted it to black and white as the palette was already quite monochrome.

Last, Loveliest Smile Redux

This second image was created sort of out of a collection of follies. I had been wanting to take a hammer to a negative and then scan the negative with my home scanner, but I have never really found the time, proper negative, or hammer for the task. However, I do have a job where I get paid to play with printers and scanners. I had a copy of “Last, Loveliest Smile” hanging on the wall over my desk. I had printed this a long time ago with a Canon 1700 when we had first switched over to that printer after the Canon 1600 had been discontinued to see if the Canon 1700 lived up to the bold proclamation on the box that it was “photo lab quality”. For the record, the Canon 1700 does not print photo lab quality. It does make a decent appointment card printer if you don’t mind replacing it every 4 months when the ink trap gets full. However, it was a decent enough print for me to put some tape on the back of it and throw it up on the wall above my computer next to “Blue Steel” and “Kentucky Appetizer” and “Grizzly McAlpine”.

A couple weeks ago one of our customers ordered a pretty decent document scanner. (Truth be known they ordered a label printer and the order was filled out incorrectly so I shipped them a document scanner) While I was testing this scanner I wondered if it would scan a crumpled up piece of paper. So I pulled “Last, Loveliest Smile” off the wall and crumpled it up. Then I crumpled it up some more. Then I threw it against the wall and jumped up and down on it. Then I uncrumpled the sheet of paper and ran it through the scanner. That is the story of the creation of “Last, Loveliest Smile Redux”. The creation of “Last, Loveliest Smile” is a whole other story.

Labour of Ages

I don’t know if there is much of a story to this picture. I was given the charge of watching over my friends Jen and Derrick’s dogs while they were off having fun in Wisconsin. While looking in on their dogs I walked past the flower garden and noticed this little flower fighting through several larger flowers to get to the sunlight. This flower had yet to fully bloom and I have always loved pictures of flowers that were not fully bloomed, although I usually find myself in the minority. I guess I believe in the end that flowers that haven’t fully bloomed yet are similar to humans. In the respect that all humans fall short and are never really fully developed. All we can do is fight through to our sunlight.

Jen worked very hard on their flower garden this year and it certainly paid off for me as I found quite a few fascinating images in their garden this year.

1900

This picture was taken of Shannon at Living History Farms. I spent about half a day at Living History Farms when I was on vacation. I had always figured that Living History Farms was one of the most boring places on Earth, but Shannon argued that nobody that loved history could be bored by such a place. So I went to visit. Shannon works at the 1900 Farm so she gave me the tour. (However, I don’t feel it was the full tour because she would not take me to see the boars.) We went up to the hayloft and the lighting up there was magnificent. Not boring flat light, but a bright beam of sunlight broke through the doors at the top of the barn and shone down on Shannon like a spotlight. I don’t want to say that it perfectly lit her, because I don’t think that does it justice. I believe that the light illuminated her. She says that she thinks the picture makes her look like an angel. I’ll leave that for the historians to decide. I did change the picture from color to black and white even though I loved the original color image because the black and white helped hide a bit of lens flare that was clearly visible across the front of her skirt. Ahh, lens flare! One of the hazards of shooting directly into light.

Faux Sunset

This picture is somewhat of a miracle. Not in the respect that it exists, but in the respect that it made it to the contest. It came very close to not making it to Round 2. In fact the only reason it made it to the second round was because of a last second phone call from Jesse Howard saying that he wanted to vote for this picture as well.

Even though it limped out of the first round of voting, it was a juggernaut in the second round. Absolutely crushing the competition in the second round. At the top of most of the pages on my website is a quote from Picasso:

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.”

I don’t know if there is a picture that lives up to this quote on my entry slate than “Faux Sunset”. Most people have told me that it is a lovely sunset picture. It might be lovely, but if they were to concentrate more closely on the first word in the title, they would know that this is not a picture of a sunset at all.

I took this picture on a foggy night in Ledges back in April. The picture is of a street lamp. I became enamored with making a picture of a mysterious light in the woods. My hope was to eliminate the light source and just capture the light through the trees. I thought it would be a curiosity. What was making that light? I’m a huge fan of 50s Science Fiction. People who spend time with me inevitably end up sitting on a couch watching the original “The Outer Limits” on DVD at some point. Movies like “Forbidden Planet” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still” were my influences for taking this picture.

In the end, people didn’t find this picture mysterious at all. They saw it quite clearly as a sunset. I haven’t decided if fooling people is good enough when what I wanted to do was make people wonder.

Franklin

The final picture to sneak in is “Franklin”. This picture was taken back in June. I had committed to helping Shannon make soap, but at that time I had not realized that the soap making day was on the same day as Brian Beavers’ wedding.

I showed up to help make soap, but I had to leave early in the process to drive to Grinnell to attend the wedding. I wanted to take a few pictures of the soap making process because I thought that it made an interesting subject.

Shannon had let her cat Franklin wander around outside in an effort to make him tougher. The lessons weren’t sinking in because he spent a good portion of his time outside begging to be let inside. He stuck his head through the railing bars of the front steps and I took this picture.

There have been times in the past where I have been accused of not liking cats. Whether or not that is true, I have never denied that cats had interesting eyes. For that reason I chose to keep Franklin’s eyes in color and change the rest of the picture to black and white. I was hoping that because Franklin was already black and white a person giving a cursory glance to the image would not be able to tell that the eyes were the only part of the image that is in color. It would take a deeper examination of the image to reveal this fact.

This is a technique I have used before with “Outburst of the Soul” and “Lost Dreams”. I do like it, but hope not to over use it as its effects can be almost too obvious sometimes.

I end this entry with an e-mail I got from Derrick Gorshe. I don’t want to say that I rate or rank the correspondence I have with my amigos, but I would say that this e-mail he sent me is one of my favorite e-mails I have ever received. He was casting his vote in the second round:

When Storm Thorgerson of “Hipgnosis” (the man and company responsible for most of Pink Floyd’s cover art)was questioned about his design of the late sixties albumn “Atom Heart Mother”, he said that that particular photo of a cow was the most perfect cow photo ever. No photo before and probably ever would convey “Cow” as much as that particular photo, and while it really had nothing to do with the source material within the record, that was enough to make it memorable.

It is this reasoning that leads me to my two choices.

“Franklin” is truly a picture of a cat. And while that statement says very little in and of itself, that is enough to make it memorable. The other choice falls between two of the other photos.

I really like “Clouds with Color” for the same reason….it is the ultimate picture of clouds and as such is very memorable, but I also really like “Faux Sunset”. It may not be the definitive picture of a sunset, but it really is quite beautiful, and conveys a feeling of peace and a quiet end of the day. A little mystery remains with that sunset though. The day has closed quietly, but the night remains open to unlimited possibilities and anything is possible. Good or bad, it’s an evening you likely will never forget.”

Animals, Black & White, Contests, Nature, Night

The People’s Choice – Round Two

August 27, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett 24 Comments

I appreciate the input from the ten people who answered my call to help select my entries into the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. Thank you.

After one round of feedback, 4 pictures have been overwhelmingly voted into the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. However, I can enter 6 pictures. So I’m looking for feedback on those last two pictures. I have placed the 5 pictures that all tied with the same amount of votes for 5th place. Please take the time to select two of those 5 pictures that you think I should enter into the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. The five contenders are:

2007 - Pufferbilly Days Contest Nominees

Cloud Sans Color

Faux Sunset

Franklin

Darrell’s Place

Clouds with Color

One last request. Please don’t vote for both cloud pictures. It might muddle the issue.

Animals, Black & White, Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Contests, Flowers, History, Jen, Night, Pufferbilly Days, Railroad, Ruins, Shannon

Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest

August 24, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett 6 Comments

So I’ve weened the field of contenders down to 16. What lies below are the 16 photos I’m considering for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. I can enter six images, so please feel free to give me your opinion on what pictures you think I should enter. It really isn’t difficult or hard to leave comments on this “blog”. If you don’t have a google account, just select anonymous. I look forward to hearing some feedback . . . he said wistfully.

Ant

Jen’s Flower

Night Cross

Faux Sunset

Franklin

Epson 350 Scanner Test

Frogtography

Darrel’s Place

Intermediate Creature

Clouds

Same Clouds – Sans Color

Another One of Jen’s Flowers

Time Filler

Wheels

Yellow Rose

Shannon

It should be pointed out that these are not the actual names of the pictures, but just something to call them by at this time.

Contests, Music, Nate, Sara, State Fair, Steph

The Past

August 21, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett

I can hear out of my right ear!!! That doesn’t seem like such a big accomplishment, but I have been stuffed up lately and my right ear has been pretty much useless as a result for the last few days. It finally seemed to unclog tonight. Hearing rules.

I’m posting a few pictures of my trip to the State Fair with Sara. There aren’t many pictures, so it didn’t seem like a gallery was necessary.

In the last couple of days I’ve participated in providing music for people going on long moving trips. Stephanie has moved to Pittsburgh to pursue her education. On Monday night she had a going away party where she had the most ingenious idea. Rather than people giving her going away presents, she requested that people make her a mix CD of some of their favorite music for her to listen to on her way to Pittsburgh. I think that this is a brilliant idea and think that there is a fair to excellent chance that I will steal it in the future.

I wish I could remember what I put on the CD I made for her, but my head seemed like it was on the verge of explosion. I can remember putting on a song by Buddy Guy, Melvin Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Jars of Clay, The Donnas, Harold Melvin, Sam Cooke The David Crowder Band, and Otis Redding. I think in retrospect I could have done a better job, but I think that I did a fair job considering my weakened condition.

In exchange, Stephanie gave everybody who gave her a CD a CD in exchange. This is another part of the idea I like. There is many a time when I’ve looked at somebody and thought, man this person could really use a listening to “Right Off” by Miles Davis off the album “Tribute to Jack Johnson”. However, I didn’t put that song on Stephanie’s CD. That song is 27 minutes long. It wouldn’t have left much room for the theme from the original “Planet of the Apes”. If you are wondering, I chose “Prince of Darkness” off of “Sorcerer” to represent Miles Davis.

Unfortunately I only was able to make the CD exchange because of my pulsing head. I bid Stephanie a fond adieu and headed home to nurse my pounding gulliver.

Nate is currently in the process of moving from Mendota Heights to Tuscon. He is doing a 3 month internship in Tuscon. Due to the length of the drive to Arizona, Nate purchased an iPod. He needed help getting songs on to the iPod. I told him to bring his computer over while he made a quick stop in Boone. I don’t want to go into to much detail about why we were doing this, but the short version of the story is that when I turned on his computer, sparks shot out the back of it and I got quite the electric shock. To add to the pain, my middle finger was bleeding when it was all said in done.

As enjoyable as the electric shock was, I was able to salvage his music by putting his hard drive into my computer. Nate got his iPod filled up with music and I only received a small injury.

Now that my head is beginning to clear, I can start putting some energy into the Pufferbilly Day Photo Contest. I might post the finalists on here before I enter them.

>I haven’t been to many weddings in the last couple of years. I went to one in June. I went to one on Saturday. I have 3 more to attend in the next month. I get the pleasure of doing the photography for two of those weddings.

>While I was under the weather, I was able to finish reading the last two Harry Potter books. I had stopped reading the Harry Potter books after the third book. I didn’t really like the third book and didn’t see a need to continue. The movies seemed to satisfy me, but after I saw the fifth movie, I was left with several questions and I decided it was time to finish reading the books. I am left with quite a few thoughts about how the 7th book ended, but I’ll save those for another time.

I would like to point out that the new Iowa State football helmet options are absolutely terrible. Absolutely terrible. I don’t think I could be more disappointed.

I’ll just finish off with those State Fair pictures.

Animals, Becca, Black & White, Contests, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Macro, Photoshop, Teresa, Vacation, Vest, Work, Writing

Vacation

August 15, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett

I am on vacation this week. I have not taken a vacation since before Christmas last year. It has become apparent in the last couple of weeks that I was in a desperate need of a vacation. I had become burned out. I was no longer looking forward to coming to work every day. I was definitely looking forward to every weekend with increasing desire every week. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to concentrate and the easier the task, the less desire I had to complete the task.

This came as a surprise to me. I did not think that you could become burnt out at a job where on most days it is fun to show up to work and there is next to zero stress. As it turns out, I could get burned out. It turned out that I did get burned out.

So I’m taking this week to recharge my batteries. I’m taking this week to sharpen my saw.

The need of a vacation was not merely derived from my waning batteries. It also came from the need to stop answering the same question over and over.

As many of you know, I was rejected by the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon this year. I haven’t written about this rejection yet because I’d been working on this blog about the Des Moines Arts Festival and the difference between liking to take pictures of naked chicks as art and pornography. I was hoping to write a really clever blog that included some examples of parody, but it just seems that my heart isn’t in it. I might later today publish my weak attempt, but it might just be better for the world if this poor attempt never sees the light of day.

I believe because I haven’t written about my rejection, some people feel that I am ashamed or angry about this snub. This is not the case, but because of my silence on the subject, I see how people could have reached this inaccurate conclusion.

So I’ll break my silence.

On the Saturday of the Boone County Fair, I woke up and went to the mailbox. There was a letter in it from the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. It read as follows:

Dear Mr. Bennett:

There are days when it is great to be the all powerful judging committee of the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. Those are the days that we discover new talent or days that we see things that we have never seen before. This letter is not in response to one of those events. It is our duty to inform you that you are not a startling new talent. Your work is not revolutionary. In fact, the only thing startling about your work is its decided lack of talent. You sir suck! We take no joy in pointing out your numerous inadequacies as a photographer. However, we would be derelict in our duties if didn’t beseech you to never pick up a camera again. It would be better for you if you pursued a different hobby that isn’t so demanding. May we suggest playing the keytar. We feel it is an instrument poised to make a comeback.

If you have not yet picked up what we are laying down, let us quote the immortal Marty McFly:

“Get out of here kid, you got no future.”

If you decide to ignore our advice, we have done some research and found out that one of your co-workers, a Mike Vest, is a very talented photographer. We feel that your only chance is to study at his feet and maybe some day you will take a picture worthy of being in our Salon.

Good luck next year you no talent hack,

2007 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon Judges*

How could I be angry? They were so nice about it.

The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t bother me that a co-worker got a picture in and I didn’t. Truth be known I always get it handed to me at the Iowa State Fair. I had a streak of two years in a row of getting pictures into the State Fair. That was a good run.

I start over again next year.

I don’t get angry or upset because I know that this is a hard competition. Only 20% of the pictures entered get displayed. Whether or not you get a picture in is kind of a crapshoot. Who knows what the judges are going to like and not like? I have theories about it, but I’m not going to go out my way to make a “photo contest” picture.

I make the kind of pictures I like. I figured out a long time ago that these aren’t the type of pictures that do well at photo contests. I try to make the type of picture you would want to put on your wall. These are not the type of picture that do well at photo contests.

So be it. The end result of this rejection is that I will end up entering the Pufferbilly Photo Contest this year. I was slowly entering a mindset that I was “done” with photo contests. However, I realized this past year that what I don’t like about photo contests (the competitive part) is outstripped by what I like about photo contests. What I like is people seeing my work and reacting to it.

These are my favorite photo contest memories.

A few years back at the Boone County Fair I entered a picture of Karma. The picture was a macro image of her mouth. I was standing nearby and these people stopped and looked at my picture and insisted that the photographer must have “brushed this dog’s teeth” before taking the picture. Karma was a great dog and companion. She never had her teeth brushed though. Although in retrospect, she might have liked it.

Last year I won three trophies at the Pufferbilly Day Photo Contest. That was not my favorite moment.

My favorite moment was when I was standing next to the photo display with Jay. A couple of ladies came down to look at the displays. One of the ladies had drug her friend down with her just to point out one picture to her. It was my picture. It was not a trophy winner, but it made such an impression that she had left to bring her friend back to see the picture. That was a great moment.

The question about my co-workers success and my failure are not quite extinguished by these answers. People feel I should be jealous or angry about this situation. I ask you, what kind of person is angry about somebody else’s success. I’ll tell you what kind of person. A small person. A prick. A software support person.** I am none of these things.

As humble as I might be, I do have some pride in my work. So before the failed images get locked in a trunk for the rest of time I would like to put them on public display here. I could go into theories about why they were rejected, but I’ll let you postulate on your own.

Throes

Ant Food

A Deceptive Likeness

Lost Dreams

The good news is that my family is only tainted with one loser. My sister Teresa did very well with her crocheted projects. She did thusly:

1. Snowmen Ornaments – First place
2. Blair the Bear – Second place
3. Felted purse – Third place
4. Felted bowl – Third place
5. Crinoline Lady – Third place
6. Grab Ball – Fourth place
7. Heart doily – nothing
8. Baby afghan – nothing

*Just for the sake of gullible people. I didn’t get this letter. Just a post card saying that all my pictures were rejected.

** I say this because I recently went to a bachelor party for a guy from work and a good portion of my party experience was spent listening to the people from software grousing about other people in software. Come on people!!! It is a party, leave the office at the office.

Becca, Christianity, Contests, Derrick, Eric, Faust, FNSC, Frank, Jay, Jen, Jesse, Mark, Monica, Movies, Music, Nate, Politics, Road Trip, Robert, Shannon, Steph, Steve, Willy, Work, Writing

Time to Come Clean

July 18, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett

Over the last week I have had to face a couple of hard truths. The first truth is that the Pope isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Or perhaps I’m wrong and during this time of religious bickering, it was a smart thing to piss off Jews and Protestants and unify them against him and the Catholic Church.

The second truth I’ve had to face is that I’m not going to finish my 14 part blog. Or at least not any time soon. So I’m going to break the silence on the things of done since May 19th. So these are the things I’ve done since that day, in no particular order:

I’ve went to the following movies:

Pirates 3 – Very disappointing ending.
Oceans 13 – Better than Oceans 12, but what wasn’t?
Ratatouille – Easily the best movie of the year thus far.
A Mighty Heart – Not as good as I had hoped.
Waitress – Also not as good as I had hoped and the doctor gets off way too easily.
Transformers – Easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen. What passes for wit in this loserfest is the racial stereotype transformer tells Megatron “You want a piece of me?” Megatron rips the racial stereotype Autobot in half and says “No, I want two pieces.” This movie is even bad by Michael Bay standards.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – A lot more fulfilling if you have read the book, other wise many sequences are just confusing.
I talked to and shook hands with Barack Obama and told him about my job.
I helped set a sales record for Little White Lye Soap.
Walked a few laps with Willy at Relay for Life. He walked 31 miles.
Went to the 2nd oldest restaurant in Iowa (Stone’s) with Jay.

Had lunch with Faust in Mankato.
Visited the National Hobo Museum.
Took pictures of flowers.
Saw Buddy Guy in concert with Derrick and Jen.
Turned in my photo entries for the State Fair.
Attended a birthday party for Jen.
Took the Henning family picture.
Watched K-Dawg’s team get smoked by Jefferson in the Little League tournament one day and come back to do the smoking a few days later to advance to the state tournament.
Took Jesse to the emergency room.
Bought a sweet new monitor for my home computer. (I’m not normally one to brag about my consumer tendencies, but I really love this monitor.)
Watched Killdeer lay on eggs and the eggs hatch a few days later.
Went to the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Brian Beavers.
Saw the world’s largest strawberry.
Saw the world’s largest bullhead.
Saw the Jolly Green Giant.
Despite have to walk a half mile due to a guy’s gastronomical difficulties, watched Willy complete the 5K at Midnight Madness.
Had lunch with Mark before he returns to Taiwan.
Went to Backbone State Park with Shannon.
Helped Stephanie pick out a camera for work.
Went to the State Center Rose Garden with Jay.
Attempted and failed to make Mentos/Diet Coke rockets with Eric.
Took pictures of the “844”.
Enjoyed several Friday Night Supper Clubs with Jay and Willy.
Enjoyed several New Taste Tuesdays with Frank, Jesse, and Steve.
Went to the Company picnic. Seemed like people were actually excited to see me.
Drove to Minnesota to see Nate and watch Harry Potter.
Watched a slide show of pictures from Willy’s trip to Spain.
Attended a pretty sweet Memorial Day barbecue.
Set up a new squirrel feeder and two new bird feeders.
Changed the oil in my car. (personal reminder, change oil again at 161,000 miles)
Helped make soap.
It is most likely I did more than that, but that is all that comed to my head at this time, with one exception. One major exception.
I went to the Des Moines Arts Festival with Rebecca and Jay. I would have to say first and foremost, what a dog that was. What a major disappointment.

However, it did inspire me to put together the blog that I will hopefully post on the morrow. I can’t say that it is a good blog. In fact, it is probably the type of blog that makes one lose friends and gain enemies. It is the type of blog that may make people stop returning my e-mails or phone calls. The type of blog that may make people move to the other side of the street if they see me walking down the street. It frankly might be a subject that will make some people uncomfortable. Yet, that is for tomorrow.