Tag Archives: featured

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Mr. 3000

May 11, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

So here is the first journal entry. I felt like having as pretentious sounding name as possible for my journal. I have a few goals about this journal. My main goal is just to actually write in it. My second goal is to be as truthful as possible towards my true thoughts and feelings. I have another journal on another website, but it is really just a collection of sarcastic statements and cheap jabs at open faced sandwiches. This journal is meant to be about what my achievements and failures are in the world of art. What projects I am working on and what I have accomplished and what I have failed to accomplish. What I am photographing and what I am thinking about entering in photo contests. What I am thinking about. It might not always make sense. It might just be things I need to write down because they strike me as poignant or inspirational. This is in a small way an online “idea box”.

I do also have a goal of producing something that makes me worthy of having a pretentious sounding journal title like: “An Artist’s Notebook”.

With those words on August 9, 2006 this blog burst into the world with the blog entry titled:

FIRST JOURNAL ENTRY

Now here we are 4294 days later and I’m posting journal entry number 3,000.

The blog has changed quite a bit over the years. It started out as a blog that I physically coded and added to a website that I physically coded back when my website was hosted on Frank’s basement server. Then, I moved it to a third party company called Blogger. If you visit this URL, you can still see its pathetic remains:

An Artist’s Notebook – Blogger Version

After that, I still used Blogger, but I published An Artist’s Notebook to the server that currently hosts my website. The content was the same, but the URL changed. If you click on the link below, you can still see it’s pathetic remains, that are identical to the Blogger URL remains:

An Artist’s Notebook – Photography 139 Hosted Version

Well before this, I had changed my website over to WordPress. Even though WordPress has very powerful blogging tools, it wasn’t until March of 2010 that I started using WordPress and An Artist’s Notebook moved to (hopefully) its final URL:

An Artist’s Notebook – Current Incarnation

Last time I posted that An Artist’s Notebook had reached a milestone number of posts, I received a bunch of congratulations. I was confused by this because I didn’t feel it was necessarily an accomplishment. After all, I basically was just too stupid to quit. Just plugging along in relative obscurity, with a few loyal subscribers that send me emails or leave comments on the blogs scattered across the globe earth. A smarter person would have just stopped by now.

But instead, other than a slight walking away from An Artist’s Notebook back in the spring of 2015, nevertheless he persisted.*

I don’t know if just persisting is an accomplishment, but looking at the earlier formats for An Artist’s Notebook, I see that I used to link to several other blogs, that have either stopped updating or are just simply gone with the wind.

The original Little White Lye Soap website is gone, but it has been replaced by the Franklin Broomworks website.
Act of Gravity – BrogFrog’s band at one time is gone. True I don’t think Act of Gravity every played a show, but you could pretend.
Waxen Media – Vest’s website is still up, but hasn’t been updated since 2015. Although I’ve heard rumors that a comeback might be on the horizon.
Lesser Known Saint – My friend Mike’s old band website is still up, but they broke up in 2012.
Impassioned Versifier – Dawn’s poetry blog is still up, but she hasn’t versified, impassioned or otherwise since 2011. Get it together Dawn!
Mayor Goldie’s Website – Jesse’s website is frozen. He must have done something bad. Like giving up his dream of being mayor of Hill Valley.
LowellDavis.net – Still up, but the last post was in 2015.
Carla’s Blog, Teresa’s Blog, and J- The Online Magazine are all victims to Windows Live Spaces no longer being a thing. I miss knowing what was in Jay’s fridge.
Live Like A Champion Today – Mark’s blog on his Missionary Work is still up, but he no longer posts. He isn’t a missionary any longer, but he could make stuff up.
Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century – Died on October 1, 2010. Sad. I think we all remember where we were when we heard the blog about 19th century mustaches stopped production. I was grooming my beard.
True Wife Confessions – Died on October 28, 2012
I Found Your Camera – Date of death, lost.

I have to give props to the other people who are also too dumb to quit:

Horror Movie A Day – Sure he isn’t cranking them out like he used to, but he hasn’t given up the ghost.
A Novel Blog – The writing blog of a person I actually knew in the real world once. A very talented writer named S.E. White.

I’m still here. Let’s not make a big deal of it.

Even though An Artist’s Notebook is meant to complement the rest of the Photography 139 website and universe, I actually didn’t post a photo in the blog until a good 3 months after I started it. On October 20, 2006 history was made with the blog post:

A GOOD DAY AT WORK

This was the first picture ever posted to An Artist’s Notebook:

A picture of a groundhog that lived behind the computer mine.

Although the seal was broken the floodgates didn’t exactly open. I didn’t post an image again until December 31, 2006. That picture was the back page of the the 2007 Photography 139 calendar.

Back from when I printed the calendars myself.

The picture flood gates really opened on January 5, 2007 with this post:

FAILED BEGINNING

And these 2 photos:

The rest, has been photographic history.

An observant reader of An Artist’s Notebook would have notice that my Saturday post walking down memory lane are partially done so that I can have a look at my old images and partially done so I can restore my old blog posts to their original glory. The reason why this is necessary is because in addition to having gone through several ways to post a blog, I also went through several hosting options for my photos.

The first one was a company known as Photobucket. Photobucket was a good free option. I used it from October 2006 up until October 2008.

I abandoned Photobucket because eventually I was going to outgrow their limits. Recently they stopped allowing people to embed images stored with them, so if you were to click on a journal entry from May 2008 to October 2008, you’d see something like this:

After Photobucket, I decided to host my pictures with a MySQL-PHP photo gallery called Coppermine. I ran with Coppermine from November 2008 until July 2011. I left those galleries up for several years, even though you couldn’t access them unless you had a direct URL. Also by leaving them up, pictures would still show up on the website. Unfortunately, those galleries were used to hack my website and take it down a few years back. As a result, I had to completely delete the galleries to close the security loophole in my website. So until I get the journal entries from November 2008 until July 2011 restored to their original glory, they will look something like this:

Then in April of 2011 I was hired to be the photographer for the American Red Cross Young Heroes event. They wanted to have a way that people could go to my website and buy pictures. I didn’t actually have a way to do that, so I needed to find one. I ended up with Smugmug. It was a service that a professional photographer I knew used and recommended. You can store unlimited photos there and people can buy them directly from your website.

It took me a few months to realize that the Smugmug was the future of my photo hosting. It has unlimited data storage and it stores full resolution images.

That unlimited full resolution pictures is a pretty big deal because I have currently uploaded 45,005 images/videos that take up 395.59 GB of hard drive space. Probably not going to be slowing down any time soon on that front, either.

Also, if anybody every wanted to buy a print or a coffee mug or a puzzle or a mouse pad or a ceramic tile or a mahogany desk organizer or playing cards or photo key tag or coasters or a phone case with one of my pictures on it, they can do it straight from the website. Don’t worry people who submit photos for the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. Those photos are not for sale on the website. Either are pictures from Graceland or of Iowa State athletic events. I can’t sell those for legal reasons.

While people can go to the gallery and leave comments on pictures and rate them up to 5 stars (hint: this will be how Pufferbilly Day Photo Contest and possibly Boone County Fair entries will be determined this year), the way I determine the most popular images is by views. Views statistics go back one year.

These are the 10 most popular Photography 139 Images (by views) of the last 10 Months:

WEEK 61 - STILL LIFE - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT

#10 – Sidewalk Chalk – 1,223 Views – Picture taken for STILL LIFE in the WPC. Taken outside of the Ericson Public Library

#9 – Johnathan Stensland – 1,261 Views – Taken for THE 9 EMOTIONS PROJECT in the Photography 139 Studio

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#8 – Brett Meyer – 1,403 Views – Taken at the Iowa State vs. Kent State football game in 2007

#7 – Sioux Falls – 1,428 Views – Taken on my South Dakota Road Trip with my Mom

#6 – Nora – 1,493 Views – Taken at the Irish Fair in Saint Paul, Minnesota

#5 – Graffiti – 1,707 Views – Taken in downtown Ames for ART for the WPC

#4 – Reflection – 1,762 Views – Taken in Ledges for REFLECTION for the WPC

#3 – Angel Ornament – 3,197 Views – Willow Angel Ornament taken in my Mom’s house

#2 – Ground Squirrel – 3,732 Views – Ground squirrel on top of a shepherd’s hook at my Mom’s house

#1 – With Alisa – 9,541 Views – Taken at Winter Jam in 2017 for THE SELFIE PROJECT

The following are links to the 5 Most Popular Photography 139 Photo Galleries:

#5 – 9 Emotions Project – 23,417 Views

#4 – Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 5 – Alternates

#3 – Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 5 (34,203 Views)

#2 – WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – YEAR 4 (52,673 Views)

#1 – THE SELFIE PROJECT – 2017 (62,509 VIEWS)

I also use a category system to organize my posts so that a person could find all the posts on a certain topic or a certain person. This is far from a scientific system and it is a moving target as I am re-categorizing old entries as I restore them. I’m trying to get rid of some of the more generic categories like “Photography” or “Life” or “Family” or “Friends” or “Religion”. But this is an ongoing process.

These are the 10 most popular categories on “An Artist’s Notebook”:

#10 – Jay – 262 Posts

#9 – Life – 274 Posts

#8 – Teresa – 282 Posts

#7 – Shannon – 289 Posts

#6 – Animals – 301 Posts

#5 – Portrait – 313 Posts

#4 – Jesse – 328 Posts

#3 – WPC (Formerly RWPE) – WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – 432 Posts

#2 – Flowers – 436 Posts

#1 – Photography – 440 Posts

10 Most Popular Not People Categories

#10 – Slice of Life – 189 Posts

#9 – Religion – 191 Posts

#8 – Road Trip – 217 Posts

#7 – Personal Photo Project – 259 Posts

#6 – Life – 274 Posts

#5 – Animals – 301 Posts

#4 – Portrait – 313 Posts

#3 – WPC (Formerly RWPE) – WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – 432 Posts

#2 – Flowers – 436 Posts

#1 – Photography – 440 Posts

If you are relatively new and are wondering what the heck a “Personal Photo Project” is, it came about at a time where I seemed to be working on a ton of other photo projects (for various entities) and seemed to be getting pulled a way from the pure joy of photography. At that time I decided to work on a Personal Photo Project once a week to keep photography from becoming a grind.

10 Most Popular People Categories

#10 – Vest 204 Posts

#9 – Jen – 205 Posts

#8 – Willy – 209 Posts

#7 – Derrick – 241 Posts

#6 – Mom – 247 Posts

#5 – Carla – 261 Posts

#4 – Jay – 262 Posts

#3 – Teresa – 282 Posts

#2 – Shannon – 289 Posts

#1 – Jesse – 328 Posts

You may be looking at the list and wondering, “what can I do to improve my Photography 139 Q Score?”

First, I should point out that these aren’t necessarily the people that have influenced by photography the most. That would be my Dad by having photography in the house. My Mom for buying me my first camera. Olivia for loving flower photography. The favicon on this website was her favorite flower picture. Carla and Teresa for doing photography with our Dad. The list could continue, but you get the idea.

However, these are the people that most influence this blog.

But about that Q-Score thing…

Obviously, the easiest way is to submit photos to the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. You could also volunteer to be a photo assistant on photo projects. Pose for THE 9 EMOTIONS PROJECT. Head out on the open road with me. Join an organization that I am in. Commission me to do work for you (i.e. photograph your baby, wedding, family, senior picture, work holiday card, church directory, soap, leather goods).

Follow those simple suggestions and someday, when we hit blog post number 3,500, you could see yourself in the Photography 139 Top 10. After all, Sara, you are knocking right on the door!

I also decided to update my profile pictures for Twitter and Instagram and Smugmug. Here is the new one below:

That should work for another year or so!

I think that more than covers where the Photography 139 community currently sits. Until next time!

*I hope Elizabeth Warren doesn’t mind my appropriating this phrase. I guess it was accidentally created by a half man-half turtle creature and I am at least half a man. No turtle. I’ve had a grudge against turtles since The Great Turtle Race was fixed back in 2016. Sorry Mitch.

Event, Politics, Street Photography

Not One More

May 10, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

Here is another trickle of pictures from March for Our Lives:

More images will continue to trickle out in the coming weeks.

Animals, Black & White, Mom, Nature, Road Trip, Vacation

Badlands Vol. 1

May 9, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

Time to hit up the backlog again. This time, to my quick trip through Badlands National Park with my Mom:

More pictures from Badlands are in the hopper. Same Photography 139 Channel. Possibly a different Photography 139 Time.

Black & White, Brandon, Formal Portrait, Logan, Mom, Photoshop, Russ, Teresa

Tomorrow Belongs to the People Who Prepare for it Today

May 6, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

Every day is a good day to start a post with a quote from Malcolm X.

Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.

I start with this quote because yesterday, Logan graduated from the finest university in all the lands. On flat earth and on globe earth. Iowa State University. To celebrate Logan I’m releasing some photos from a head shot photo session that has been in the back log for almost a year.

This is probably exhibit 45 as to why I’ll never get heavily into the portrait business. I like to take 5 times more pictures than necessary. Half of them strange. Then half of the other half I like to edit in what I’ll call a non-standard style.

Now that Logan has a degree from the finest university, he will be looking for a job in his field. He has also started his own photography business called Third Generation Thumbnail. He is currently specializing in real estate photography and videography. Although, we are shooting a wedding together at some point in the near future.

These photos were taken for his professional pursuits.

If you have any real estate photography needs, I can hook you and him up!

Here are a few cruddy cell phone pictures from the Graduation Ceremony:

Maybe someday, you’ll be lucky enough to be related to somebody that graduated from Iowa State University!

Becca, Bethany, Colleen, Event, Jonah, Nora

Birthday!!!

May 4, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

Several weeks back I headed up to Minnesota to celebrate Nora’s 2nd birthday. Took a few photos. Thought I’d share a few photos:

Nora is so impressed with my gift!

She is so cute! I can hardly wait until Christmas when I can giver her more books that don’t excite her.

Event, Politics, Street Photography

Skinhead Lesbian for Gun Control

May 3, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

In case you don’t follow politics closely, one of the leaders of the March for Our Lives Movement is Emma Gonzalez. She is a survivor of the Parkland shooting in February. She has a very short haircut. Her sexual orientation is none of our business.

You may remember her from her March for Our Lives Speech for its 6 Minutes of Silence. You can watch it by clicking on the link below:

Emma Gonzales March for Our Lives Speech

A Republican (surprise) candidate for the Maine State house named Leslie Gibson called her a skinhead lesbian because he doesn’t know what the terms “skinhead” or “lesbian” mean.

He also called David Hogg, another Parkland shooting survivor and leader of the March for Our Lives Movement, a “moron” and a “baldfaced liar”, because this is how he thinks adults should treat children who had 17 of their classmates murdered in front of them.

These comments (made on Twitter) by Leslie Gibson created a quick backlash against him. He had to end his candidacy. There is justice in this world, at times. Or as Martin Luther King Jr. put it much better than I*:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

Amen.

You will see this unfortunate phrase tweeted by a bigoted politician in an attempt to demean a school shooting survivor in one of the pictures below. I want you to have it in the proper context.

Back on March 24, I went to the March for Our Lives Rally in Des Moines. Here is the beginning of what will become a wave of pictures from that event. Don’t worry, I will spread them out over the next few weeks.

If you aren’t familiar with March for Our Lives, here is a copy of their Mission Statement:

Not one more. We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of an assault rifle to save the lives of students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes. Our children and teachers are dying. We must make it our top priority to save these lives.

This is not just schools, though. This is churches, nightclubs, concerts, movie theaters, airports, and more. A child should not fear a bullet on their walk home. We may be children, but we are not fighting for just children. All lives are precious, and our country must make the safety of its citizens a number one priority.

March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students of all ethnicities, religions, and sexualities across the country. We will no longer sit and wait for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass shootings.
The mission and focus of March For Our Lives is assure that no special interest group or political agenda is more critical than timely passage of legislation to effectively address the gun violence issues that are rampant in our country. We demand morally-just leaders to rise up from both parties in order to ensure public safety.

Specifically, we are working towards…

1. Universal, comprehensive background checks
2. Bringing the ATF into the 21st century with a digitized, searchable database
3. Funds for the Center for Disease Control to research the gun violence epidemic in America
4. High-capacity magazine ban
5. Assault weapons ban

We came together on March 24th and through continued unity, we will save lives. We will not stop our advocacy until we see the change we demand – a change that is necessary in order to save innocent lives across our nation.

More pictures from the March will trickle out in the next few weeks.

*Martin Luther King Jr. was probably referencing a sermon by 19th century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker who wrote:

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Jefferson trembled when he thought of slavery and remembered that God is just. Ere long all America will tremble.

Basketball, History, Iowa State, Road Trip, Town Sign Project

The Town Sign Project Vol. 6

May 2, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

On Saturday I decided to look for Town Signs for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT in the Story County area. Here is what I was able to track down:

Roland, Iowa

McCallsburg, Iowa

Zearing, Iowa

St. Anthony, Iowa

Bangor, Iowa

Clemons, Iowa

State Center, Iowa

Colo, Iowa

Collins, Iowa

Maxwell, Iowa

Cambridge, Iowa

Zook Spur, Iowa

Xenia, Iowa

A few things of note from this collection:

Roland has a “nicer sign” than the Roland Rocket sign, but if you think I’m going to choose a nice sign over a sign that celebrates one of the greatest Cyclones of all-time, you don’t know where you are.

Velkommen to Not Making the Cut Sign!

Zearing used to have a sweet sign:

Then they replaced it with the lameness that is their current sign. This is the worst sequel since GREASE 2.

Bangor isn’t a town. I’d say it is a place where an agriculture company stores trucks and a park with a creepy swing set.

I literally couldn’t find anything that said Bangor. There were the remains of a sign post that may have held a sign at one time in the park. There is a Bangor church and cemetery just outside of what I would consider Bangor.

I just can’t figure out why there are several signs directing people to Bangor, but nothing telling you that you are in Bangor. I don’t know another unincorporated town that gets that much love!

Zook Spur and Xenia are both ghost towns. The best way to describe them is that there are maybe 3 or 4 houses that are closer together than is normally the case in the country. Zook Spur is just south of Madrid. Xenia is just east of Woodward. I wish somebody cared about Jordan enough to put a sign up around there. Unfortunately, Jordan wasn’t too tough to not die.

I don’t know that I’ll have time to go sign hunting again this weekend. I start a bunch of consecutive weekends of graduations and birthday parties and more graduations and Mother’s Days this weekend. But we’ll see. We will see.

++++++++++++++++++++

When I road trip on SaturdayS I listen to NPR. If you’ve spent time in a car with me on a Saturday morning, you already know this fact.

If you know that fact, you also know that one of the purposes of this here blog is for me to store things that inspire me, so that I can reference them again at a later date. Sort of an online idea box.

While I was cruising around the back roads of Story County (I was desperately looking for a Bangor sign) I was listening to the conclusion of THIS AMERICAN LIFE. The episode began with the story of a group of students of color, mostly black, that were painted as anti-Semitic by the media after a field trip to see SCHINDLER’S LIST went awry.

While this story was fascinating and scary, it isn’t the story that hit home hardest with me. That was the last story of the show.

The last story of the show was about the experience of a man, who’s sister was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11, visiting the 9/11 Memorial a few days before it opened to the general public.

Part of it I found really poignant and I think it will strike a chord with anybody that he been through tragedy, which means pretty much everybody.

I think now of every war memorial I ever yawned through on a class trip, how someone else’s past horror was my vacant diversion. And maybe I learned something, but I didn’t feel anything. Everyone should have a museum dedicated to the worst day of their life and be forced to attend it with a bunch of tourists from Denmark– annotated divorce papers blown up and mounted, interactive exhibits detailing how your mom’s last round of chemo didn’t take, souvenir T-shirts emblazoned with your best friend’s last words before the car crash. And you should have to see for yourself how little your pain matters to a family of five who just need to get some food before the kids melt down. Or maybe worse, watch that pain be co-opted by people who want, for whatever reason, to feel that connection so acutely.

There are three recording booths for people to tell their own stories of the day or remembrances of loved ones who were lost. A man exits one of the confessionals, sees me, shakes his head and says, “Amazing idea.” I enter, sit down, and stare at the screen and say Shari’s name and how I was 3,000 miles away that morning and didn’t even know she was working there until I got the call at 6:00 AM, and that I wish I had seen her more in those last years and remembered more about her and had something better prepared to say, and that I wished my kids would have known her, and that she’d think it’s pretty f*cking weird that I’m here talking about her to an invisible camera in the bowels of a museum dedicated to the fact that she was killed by an airplane while sitting at her desk. And at some point, the timer is up.

When this story was over, I just sat in my car. In Bangor, Iowa. Realizing that the way I look at certain museums has been changed forever.

Art, Christianity, Dad, History, Jesse, Mom, Music, Russell, Travel

Graceland

April 29, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

Time to hit up the back log. These pictures are from Russell, Jesse, and I’s trip to Memphis to watch Iowa State stomp the Memphis Tigers in the Liberty Bowl.

I am a fan of Elvis. I get that from my Mom. From her I grew up listening to Elvis and Kenny Rogers. I love them both. I never quite inherited her love of The Beach Boys, but I do also enjoy them. From my Dad I got my love of old country. Johnny Paycheck and Tom T. Hall in particular. If you don’t love Tom T. Hall, you’re doing something wrong.

Before we left for Memphis I had done some research on places to visit. Graceland was number two on my list behind Beale Street. My research showed that an actual tour of Graceland can take over 3 hours. While I was willing to spend the small fortune it costs to tour Graceland, we just didn’t have that time.

However, I read that they open up the grounds of Graceland from 7:30 – 8:30 for people to pay their respects to Elvis’ grave, for free.

I convinced Jesse to wake up early and check this out with me. Russell wasn’t buying waking up early on his vacation. He stayed at his hotel.

Here are pictures from Graceland:

When I was trying to figure out where in the back log to hit up, I was considering the trip to Mount Rushmore, March for Our Lives, or the flowers of Donna Jones. However, recently HBO has been playing a 4 hour documentary on Elvis called ELVIS PRESLEY: THE SEARCHER. I knew it was time to reveal my photos from Graceland

If you are a fan of Elvis, music, or history and have access to HBO or HBO GO, I can’t recommend it enough. I’ve learned quite a bit about Elvis and his musical influence. I think it is unfortunate that because of the way he dressed, the antics, the way he died, and the horrible movies, I think sometimes it gets lost what an extremely talented musician he was. Also, what a completely unique voice he had as an artist. I don’t mean that in the way that his physical voice was unique. I mean the way he expressed himself as an artist.

Can you imagine an artist in modern times that would record entire gospel albums at the height of this popularity? Some Christian artists will crossover, but they certainly never come back. I don’t know of an artist in modern times that could weave so many musical influences in to their own unique sound.

Could you imagine going to a modern rock concert and then BOOM! here is one from the hymnals!

Elvis Presley is the only royalty that I will ever recognize!

Any other Elvis fans out there? Let me know what your favorite Elvis song is in the comments section of this here blog!

I’ve decided when I start working on the party soundtrack for my birthday party in 2019, there will be a full hour of Elvis music.

Andy, Animals, FNSC, Mom, Movies, Naima, Willy

No! Not Bird Defecation AND Excretion!

April 27, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

Since the weather outside has been turning less frightful, I’ve been trying to take Naima on a walk or at least an adventure about every day.

At last week’s Friday Night Supper Club, I nearly nodded off after consume massive amounts of Casey’s Taco and Hot Sausage pizza, while watching the Academy Award winning documentary ICARUS. When Willy knocked off to call it a night, there was still enough time in the day to take Naima for a walk. Which she badly wanted to go on.

However, I needed to crash. The excitement of buying King Kong Cola at the area’s premiere craft soda proprietor earlier in the evening had wore me out. I made the following deal with Naima. On the morrow, we would go on TWO walks.

She doubted that I would follow through on this deal as sometimes I’ve been know to welch on our deals, but she reluctantly agreed.

Saturday morning at 6 AM I sprung out of bed, clapped my hands and said:

“This is going to be a great day!”

I looked at Naima and poked her in the heart and said:

“If this is empty.”

Then I smacked her on the head:

“This doesn’t matter.”

She doesn’t love Dicky Fox quotes as much as I do, but she was excited to load up in the car and we headed to Dickcissel Park for an adventure.

Once we got there, I was excited to to see that there were geese on the pond. Last time we had come out there with Willy, there were no geese. I wanted to see how Naima reacted to the geese. She was moderately interested in them. They were infatuated with her. They followed us all around the lake. Honking at us. Naima would occasionally stop and look at them. Sometimes getting in the pond, but they never held her interest for long.

As we were walking along the south shore of the pond, Naima came across a smell that intrigued her. Intrigued her enough that she decided to flip on her back and start rolling in it. I made her got up and realized quickly that what she was rolling in was some form of bird poo. It was all over her back. Great.

We finished our walk. Got loaded back up in the Camry. We stopped at my Mom’s house, so I had some help in getting her cleaned up.

I was pretty sure we got her cleaned up, but it was hard to tell because Mom also sprayed her down with Febreze, so that is all she smelled like.

While writing this blog I found out that the reason bird poo is booth white and black is because birds both defecate and excrete.

The defecation is the black part.

The white part is the excretion. Excretion is the getting rid of metabolic waste products.

Knowledge bomb coming your way:

Here’s the chain of events: an animal eats and the food is being digested. Whatever content can be used is absorbed from within the digestive tract into the blood in the form of molecules. Whatever food content cannot be used is thrown out through defecation. The molecules that were absorbed from the food travel through the body in the blood system and then enter the cells. Here they are used for all sorts of things, e. g. to generate energy, build proteins, whatever. And of course, this means the molecules will be split and changed in many ways. This creates molecular waste products, in particular nitrogenous wastes. And this waste needs to go, pronto. From the cell into the blood and through a filtering device (the kidneys in mammals, birds, and birders) to the outside world. That’s the clear, transparent pee in mammals. And the white mushy part in bird poop.

Thanks to the following website for this bird poop knowledge:

Source URL: http://www.10000birds.com/what-is-bird-poop.htm

Here are some cruddy cell phone images from our adventure:

Naima rolling around in bird poo was not how I wanted to start my day, but as Dicky Fox would say:

“Roll with the punches. Tomorrow is another day.”

BONUS NAIMA PHOTO

Sunday’s adventure was taking Naima to Andy’s farm. Naima met a goat! They weren’t exactly fans of each other, but they didn’t hate each other. I feel with time, they could become friends. Naima also met some peacocks, chickens, and horses. The peacocks and chickens were terrified of her. Naima was terrified of the horses. I don’t think they will be friends any time soon.

I’ll just close with wishing you “my kind of success!”

Bethany, Black & White, Carla, Mom, Naima, Nate, Ruins, Still Life, Street Photography

Miller Estate Auction

April 26, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

This is one of probably 2 entries for An Artist’s Notebook about my Saturday morning last. This is about the later part of my morning, but you must know a little bit about the early morning to understand how this strange turn of events happened.

The earliest part of my morning was spent at Dickcissel Park with Naima. Things there went slightly sideways and I ended up having to be late for my normal Saturday morning breakfast with my Mom. We normally breakfast at The Whistle Stop Cafe because they have tasty pancakes (and I’m what you would call an expert on tasty pancakes #pancakelife), good service, and they are literally the only breakfast game in town since The Legal Limit shuttered their doors.

I mean, a person could lower themselves to eating at The Avenue of the Saints Cafe, but it is the answer to the age old question:

Is it possible to make something worse than Golden Corral?

Answer: Yes, The Avenue of the Saints Cafe.

The main drawback to The Whistle Stop Cafe is that it is tiny. There are maybe 4 booths, a couple of tables thrown up on the side, and maybe 10 or so counter stools. When we drove by the Whistle Stop Cafe, we were saddened to see that it was overflowing with customers. We needed a new plan.

We decided to head out to the Don Williams Clubhouse. It is about a 15 mile drive from Boone, but it served breakfast and it is under new management. We wanted to see if the new management has game.

The easiest way to get from the Whistle Stop to Don Williams is to head by Water Works and on past Fraser. However, on Wednesday night, Carla contacted me to let me know that there was a flock of swans (possibly) at the J. Carlson Wildlife area, between Boone and Ogden.

On Wednesday night I went out there and had a peek. It turned out that it wasn’t a bevy. It was a brief or a pod or a pouch or a scoop or a squadron. It was a group of pelicans is what I was getting at. On Wednesday I efforted to get a photo of them, but I couldn’t get a good angle on them.

On Thursday, I went back. They were gone. However, I did get a photo of an egret, so not all was lost.

On Saturday morning, I decided to take Old 30 to Ogden and then up County Road P70 to Don Williams to see if those pelicans had returned. They were, but none of that is important to the story.

Due to the chosen route, we picked up Carla and made our way towards breakfast.

On our way through Ogden, at the intersection of Old 30 and P70, we stumbled across a sizable auction. My people have auction in their blood from way back*. Possibly why I had a cousin once state:

I’m impressed how well you and your siblings turned out, considering the white trash you come from. #neverforget

But you know that he has the complete and utter moral ground to make statements like that. It isn’t like he ever ended up in prison or anything like that. I can’t hate.

While my tummy made the decision that we didn’t have time to stop at this auction at this time, there was little doubt that we would hit this auction on our way back to drop Carla off at her home.

Breakfast went fine. The new management serves a tasty breakfast. My one critique would be that portion sizes are somewhat small. However, the small portion sizes are reflected in the prices. The 3 of us ate breakfast for something like 18 dollars, American.

On the way back we stopped at the auction and this is where things got a little bit strange.

As I was walking around the auction, I noticed that some of the stuff seemed a little familiar. There was a Patio Pros (represent!) car in the driveway. There was a ton of plumbing and heating and cooling type stuff in the auction.

I began to suspect that this was an estate auction for Olivia’s Grandpa Dean. He passed away a few months back and I was a pallbearer at his funeral.

I saw Olivia’s cousin Jim there and approached him and he confirmed, this was indeed Grandpa Dean’s Estate Auction.

I took a few photos while I was there:

I never would’ve stumbled upon this auction IF:

+There weren’t pelicans at the J. Carlson Wildlife Area on Wednesday.
+If the pelicans would’ve been there on Thursday.
+If Naima hadn’t decided to do something stupid on Saturday morning.
+If the Whistle Stop Cafe wasn’t super packed.
+If Carla didn’t move out between Boone and Ogden.
+If the Don Williams Clubhouse hadn’t just re-opened for the season.

It was not the Saturday morning I envisioned when I closed my eyes and went off to slumberland on Friday night.

I didn’t buy anything, but Carla purchased a few nuggets. Grandpa Dean had his own plumbing business. Carla purchased a whole package of his business calendars from 1975 and 1976. Never opened. I’ll be giving some of those to Nate and Bethany next time I see them.

*I was almost born at the Hillbilly Auction after all.