“The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.”
-Abe Lemons
Sunday was my Mom’s retirement party. Here are a few pictures:
There are more pictures from the party in the Mom’s Retirement Party Album.
Retired
Category Archives: Event
Cleanup
Here are some pictures from a couple of celebrations that I attended a long while ago, but never quite found the time to post:
Johnathan’s Graduation Open House
Shannon Birthday Campout
A Benefit
I was contacted a few weeks back by my old friend Kristine Langill about doing a little photography for a benefit she was helping run. The event was a Battle of the Bands, plus a date auction and a silent auction.
A few pictures from the event:
Strong Like Bear
Strong Like Bear
The Door
The Other Door
Strong Like Bear
Date Auction
Bartenders
I can’t remember the name of this band…
Burnin’ Sensations
Burnin’ Sensations
Burnin’ Sensations
Burnin’ Sensations
Dancing
Dancing
Scott up for Auction
Bidding on Scott
Auctioneering
Scott Hoping he isn’t Bought by a Dude
Scott’s Buyer – A Dude
The Dance Machine(s) – Next Generation
Trouble No More
Trouble No More
Trouble No More
Trouble No More
I forgot the name of this band as well, but this guy has an creepy resemblance to my neighbor.
I left shortly after the barfight left a decent sized puddle of blood on the floor. I missed the last band play, but I think the night was strangely productive enough.
Meth Men Saturday
I spent a large portion of my Saturday at the Methodist Men State Meeting. I ran the soundboard and the projector for the meeting. I was all alone in the balcony all day, so I also amused myself by taking the occasional photo.
Here are a few photos from the day:
Dave on the Organ
The Sanctuary
Window
The Sanctuary
Jeff Leading Hymns
Methodist Men State President
The Keynote Speaker
Phil and Jeff Preparing for Communion
Communion
Prayer
More Prayer
Windows
It certainly was an interesting experience.
16,896 Feet
I am officially signed up to “do” the Susan G. Komen Des Moines Race for the Cure 5K breast cancer thing on October 24. By “do”, I assume that means walking the 5 kilometers. Although it is a goal of mine to run a 5K, I am not quite ready for that quite yet.
I am walking with Sara, Jen and Derrick. We are part of Jen’s friend Jessica’s team. We are the Knocker Walkers. Our slogan is “Big or small, we walk for them all.”
I have been told that our shirts are: super cute, and long-sleeved
Both things being of the utmost importance to me.
I don’t expect anybody to, but if you like breasts (knockers, boobies, funbags) and hate cancer, you can donate some of your extra coin via my pledge page. You would get there, by clicking on the link below:
With some luck, I should have some pictures of the super cute shirts after October 24.
Des Moines Regatta
Admittedly, this is a series of very similar pictures, but I hope to convey the excitement and pageantry of the Des Moines Regatta.
I went down there on Saturday to watch Jen compete with Derrick and sara.
Some of these photos were taken by Sara who redeemed herself after last year’s incident.
It was one of my busier Saturdays. I hit the gym with Frank about 8:30. I failed to find a copy of the album “Giant Steps”, but more on that later. I met Sara at 11 to go to the Des Moines Regatta. I left Des Moines at 3 and followed the Army Football team all of the way from 141 up to 30. Hit the Mindy Vickers wedding at 4. Got to Jack Trice Stadium at 5:30. Watched the Cyclones win fairly easily while not looking remotely impressive. Made my way through postgame traffic and got to Hickory Hall for the Dustin Jackson-Danielle Schell wedding reception at about 10 pm. I got home about midnight and slept like a champ.
Raise a Glass
I went to a fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association on Friday night with Sara and Amy. It was an interesting evening. The basic point of the night was wine tasting and art for sale.
I don’t drink, so I mostly looked at art.
However, there was one point where I was sitting at a table waiting for Amy and Sara to comeback with food. It was then that I meant one classy dame.
Three people approached the table. A dude, a lady I will call Ms. Manners and the Classy Dame.
Ms. Manners said, “Can we sit at this table?”
I replied, “Yes.”
Classy Dame answered, “You don’t have to ask him if we can sit at this table. This is our table. We were here first. I marked this table. I peed all around it.”
I replied, “How lovely.”
Here are some pictures from Sara from the night.
Amy and I
Sara and I
I am by no stretch of the imagination a fan of Grant Wood, but I am a fan of wooden cutouts that you stick your head through.
Sara and Amy
This particular piece of artwork really stood out to me. This is not a particularly good picture of it, but that is most likely for the best. The artist had made mosaic type pictures out of old magazines. All of the pictures were like the one to the left. A nice picture of people or of flowers or something. But then I came upon this picture. A picture of a catfight that included a depiction of both sets of mammaries and the “V” of one of the combatants. Nicely played artist. Nicely played.
It was certainly a memorable night.
Bonne Finken
Friday Night Bonne Finken played Ames on the Half Shell. Here are a couple of images.
For about 50 more images, click on the link below:
Bonne Finken
This Friday the band will be Kountertop.
4th of July
I had a pretty great 4th of July!
I woke up in the morning and headed to Ames at about 9 am. I met Shannon and her cousin Matthew for a pretty sweet breakfast of biscuits and gravy that Shannon made.
Then I headed over to Jen and Derrick’s to drop off some cherry ice cream I made the night before for their annual 4th of July barbecue.
I got to Bandshell Park at about 10 am and worked on Ames on the Half Shell until about 7 pm.
I got a few photos of the event, but I’m just going to post my 5 favorite.
Peg and Angie with Mike Butterworth of The Nadas
Me with Teresa and Logan
Me with Willy
Geri D. re-enacting the stamping of Matthew’s Tongue
Matthew and Shannon’s Annual 4th of July Portrait (Destined to be used as a Facebook Profile Picture with the cute part cropped out of it.)
After Ames on the Half Shell, I headed over to the fireworks firing grounds. Lighting off fireworks was quite a bit more dramatic this year. I saw quite a few fireworks do things that they weren’t supposed to do.
Becky signed up to do fireworks, but after the very first one that Shannon lit blew up only a few feet in the air and flew all over the shooting area, she changed her mind.
I have to admit, that was pretty exciting. The next day I talked to Melissa. She did security for fireworks, so she wasn’t at ground zero. She told me that when she saw that first firework blow up and shoot fireworks all over the area, she said a little prayer. But figured everybody must have been okay, because the fireworks didn’t stop.
Shannon never knew that her firework malfunctioned, but that is part of the training. You don’t watch your firework.
After a couple of minutes, Becky changed her mind and joined in the fun.
Here are a few pictures from the fireworks:
Scott showing off our massive amount of communication technology we had a ground zero.
Hammering Rebar. Rebar is hammered in between mortars to prevent them from falling over and firing into the crowd. Or worse, at the shooters. This is an example of what went wrong in Charles City last year. They used rebar, but they only hammered it in a few inches into asphalt. Because all the mortars were chained together, when one mortar fell over, they all fell over.
Joe unpacking fireworks.
The 10 minute warning. This was the very first firework that Becky ever lit.
Last year, Sara asked me what fireworks look like from the other side. I don’t have a good answer for that question, but this is what fireworks look like from underneath.
Shannon lighting a 5 inch shell. The 5 inch shells were the biggest that we lit off this year. I think this is actually my favorite picture from the day. Even though I’m sure critics will claim that it is slightly derivative of my earlier work.
This is an example of what it can look like when something goes minorly wrong. It might look to some people like this is a series of fireworks going off, but it isn’t. This is what it looks like when a firework doesn’t go up high enough before it blows up. It comes back to the earth before it has completely burned up. The strange thing about this picture is that if you look closely, you can see aluminum foil on top of the mortars. These are the grand finale mortars and they are covered by aluminum foil in case something like this happens. All the grand finale fireworks are fused together, so if 1 of them goes off, they all go off. If you look even closer, you will notice that there is not aluminum foil covering all of the mortars. This happened while people were removing the foil and getting ready to set off the Grand Finale. If you look very close, you can make out Joe on the very right side of the picture. Shannon was also in the middle of this, but she does not appear in the picture.
The Grand Finale going off.
There are a ton of other great pictures from the day. I suggest you either click on the picture below or the link below and check them out:
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It was a great and safe fireworks show. It was a spectacular show and nobody came close to getting injured!
I concluded the evening hanging out with some wonderful people at Jen and Derrick’s barbecue. I didn’t leave there until a little after 2, but I still woke up in time to usher at church. Take that sleep! Who needs you any way?
Ames on the Half Shell
Last Friday was the first Ames on the Half Shell of the season. There was a pretty impressive turnout. I personally think that this can be connected to the incredible improvement in marketing between this year and last year.
For starters, there is a sweet new logo:
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There is also a sweet new look for the poster:
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Of course the website has been quite a bit revamped since last year, but I hate to toot my own horn on that one:
Ames on the Half Shell – Website has since been redesigned.
But about last Friday, I have posted some pictures in the Snapshots Gallery. Click on the picture or the link below to have a gander:
Ames on the Half Shell – Vivace
This Friday the Burnin’ Sensations take the stage and they are an incredibly fun band to watch play.
So come out this Friday and I will see you there!