Craig's Questionable

I love cats. I also love how they walk with their little question mark tails, as if to ask a question.

Here, Count Chocula asks "Are you sure you want to take my picture?"

Cory's Questionable

Most of the things that came to my mind for this week involved making Madeline do absurd things (like driving the Beetle), but in the end this one seemed safest and easiest. This one is titled "Questionable Parenting." I look forward to some parenting group contacting me shortly.

Next week - "Fractal"

"Questionable" due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's Questionable

I know we had an entry with cucumbers just a few weeks ago, but when I was contemplating this weeks topic, I happened to be picking some and found this critter wedged in the fence. Eureka!



Is a cucumber a fruit? That is questionable. Most of my relatives say it is a vegetable. The definition of fruit is: the ripened reproductive body of a seed plant. That makes a cucumber, tomato, or even a squash a fruit.

The definition of a vegetable is, however: edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant. Hence one could argue the case either way or that the cucumber is both.

Q's fashionably frowned upon

I actually made this mistake. This is an image from my phone shot in my office's elevator lobby after looking down and noticing my shoes.

Fashionably Frowned Upon

Bleah, I'm not happy with what I've got this week, but I'm tired of trying.

The World's Ugliest Shirt makes its reappearance, alongside the Brightest Vest in the World, combined with tattered denim shorts, black socks, and suede brown slippers for an ensemble I proudly own, but never put together all at once.

Until now.

Ryan's "Fashionably Frowned Upon"

High on the list of "fashionably frowned upon" items would be firearms. Even higher on that list would be firearms governed by the National Firearms Act of 1934, a group that includes machine guns, short rifles and shotguns, silencers, pen guns, and hand grenades among other items.

While everyone frowns in public when the topic of guns comes up, I have never seen anyone walk away from running a belt through a Browning 1919 without a smile on their face. Even Charles "I never met a gun ban I didn't sign" Schumer enjoys playing with "assault weapons " when he isn't busy restricting the commoners from owning them.

I went shooting with some friends last weekend. Several hundred machine guns were used to expend many thousands of rounds. At least 100 pounds of high explosives were used to reshape a small section of the sand hills. Everyone left happy, including this kid:




The above gun is for sale, if anyone is interested. It's located in Nebraska, transferable on a Form 4. $18k will get the gun, tripod, bipod, belt loading machine, a bunch of belts, spare parts, and around 10k rounds of .308. $12,800 gets the gun and bipod. Contact me in the comments if you want to be put in touch with the seller. NFA rules apply.


/rl

Mike's Fashionably Frowned Upon

There are many people in my family that I could have made fun of. Growing up, there was one set of cousins we called "The Plaid Family" because that's all they wore, both shirts and pants.

I decided to make fun of myself. I have no trouble being an idiot. I tried a couple of different approaches, and this is my entry. It's why I get beat up at biker rallies.



My other idea was at Click Here and was voted down by my family as emotionally disturbing.

Cory's Fashionably Frowned-upon

I was out in Rhode Island over the weekend, and on one of the days we went out and played in the bigger-than-normal waves that Hurricane Bill was causing. While there I saw gulls, more gulls, and a sea vessel the likes of which I have never seen before. I also saw a sight that I thought was rather fashionably frowned upon (as well as frowned upon in general).

Next week: "Questionable"

"Fashionably frowned upon" due in about 24 hours.

/rl

Q's architecture

I'm always the tardy one. I apologize. This week's excuse is that I lent my lens to a friend and didn't get it back until last night.

This is a dilapidated house a few blocks from my apartment, and has been on the verge of condemnation since I moved here. I think some community group ended up buying it and is trying to raise money to fix it up. But I think it looks cool even half-falling-down.

A closer look here.

Ryan's "Architecture"

I had a bit of trouble on this one. There is plenty of interesting architecture around, but it's often difficult to capture. Without a lens (or body) with tilt and shift adjustments it can be impossible to create photos that don't make the viewer dizzy. I counted my pennies and was only around $1898.23 away from being able to get a suitable lens.

I lucked out, though. A friend is moving into the old Columbian School. It was designed by John Latenser, Sr in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It still looks very much like an old school:



/rl

Cory's Architecture

I was kind of lazy on this one. Downers Grove was hosting the National Championships of Cycling races this weekend, so we packed up the stroller and walked downtown to watch them for a while on Saturday and Sunday. We saw a whole bunch of people riding around the streets while we were there, including a couple of impressive wipeouts and a first-place guy sprinting for the finish line. The sudden bursts of violent rain we got on Sunday made things all that more exciting.

Whatever the case, here's my architecture picture. Downtown Downers Grove is full of buildings that were put up in the late 1800's and early 1900's, and this is the cap of the entryway to the building at Curtiss and Main.

Mike's Architecture

I actually found this week hard. The word is almost as broad as "air". Old bridges, new buildings, my mind raced and raced, and punted and took this picture of the Joslyn Castle. click here if you don't know its history



I still went to Creighton and downtown, West Omaha, but I've always liked this eccentric "little" house.

Craig's Architecture

First!

Next week: "Fashionably frowned upon"

"Architecture" due tomorrow!

I need a vote - I took some photos earlier today that may be useful for this topic. Can I use them?

/rl

Q's big

The moon. It's big. And would be bigger if I had something longer than 100mm.

Ryan's "Big"

Smugmug has returned to the living.

Jenny spotted these sunflowers in the middle of the week. Up until Saturday night they were beautiful, but a large rainstorm hammered them pretty badly Sunday morning. I should have taken the photo Saturday, but it was 1,000 degrees (14 hectares for you metric folk) outside. They're still pretty big, though.






/rl

Craig's Big

I'm sick, and was traveling most of today, so I'm going into the archives. Sorry.

Seven years seems like a pretty big punishment for removing a survey marker.

Cory's Big

I'm not going to win any awards with this picture, but it does show off how big the things in our garden are getting. Lis plants cucumbers every year so she can make a big batch of pickles in the fall, and every year we end up with some big cucumber that doesn't get picked all season. So here it is: The Big Cucumber. For scale, this thing is at least a meter tall. At least.

After seeing Mike's post, I should have run down south and taken a picture of the Muffler Man that lives in Wilmington. Oh, well.

Mike's Big

He's the man with the hand, the big hand! He resides off of I-80 and Center by the car wash, and I consider him to be "The Father of all Chuckies". He is quite disturbing.



I also considered re-shooting this shot of the First National Tower, since its the tallest thing in town, but let's stick with the bizarre.

Next week - "Architecture"

"Big" due tomorrow!

/rl

Q's bird

The neighborhood I live in is called Goose Hollow. As the story goes, in Portland's early days, when this valley between downtown and the West Hills was undeveloped, neighbors let their domestic geese roam free. Eventually a feud began among their owners about which birds belonged to whom. The mayor stepped in and divided all the birds equally among the residents of the area, foreshadowing the city's socialist sympathies of the past few decades.

This is a little sculpture of a goose at a lightrail stop. Near the bird's feet, engraved in concrete, is a version of that story.

Craig's Birds

I had so many pictures to choose from, but I kept coming back to this one. These two guys were doing some weird digging and cuddling thing, and I just love the action shot. However, I was quite tempted to submit Fish Goo, Three Gulls II: Electric Boogaloo, Macaw Looking, and various photos from when a number of peacocks raided the food court.

In all, I took 226 photos today, of which 136 were of birds.

Fun day!

Cory's Birds

There's a pond a couple of blocks from my house that's full of geese, ducks, and the occasional gull that Lis, Maddy, and I like to wander down to sometimes. I specifically like to go down there and attempt to take pictures of ducks and geese landing, so I was hoping to get some good shots of that for this topic. Sadly, the runway was very empty this afternoon. We did see a bird bath party though, including a couple of teenage ducks that weren't quite ready for flying. We also saw a heron in the distance, a man-made bird dragging a banner, and a gull that caught a fish, dropped it, and went back for it a second time. But I think the above one is the prettiest and most artistic of the batch I took.

Ryan's "Birds"

I really wanted to post a picture that involves 3 generations of Lueninghoeners inviting 1 or 2 generations of turkeys to stay for dinner, but it was taken several months ago.

I searched high and low for birds, but none were to be found around here. Don't believe Mike's post claiming to show birds in Omaha - I think it may be photoshopped. There's some sort of bird famine on....

I decided that I may not stand a chance this week, but I could prepare for the future. I planted some birds:


I hope someday after my crop is grown we can revisit this topic.

/rl

Mike's Birds

Hi everybody, and thanks for letting me join your fun. I'm not sure why Ryan invited me, because I usually vote for him. --grin--

I had a bunch of bird pictures, but Ryan said I had to take the picture in the week of the contest, so I figured the easy way out was big tame birds.

This is this weeks entry. "The Lead Goose in the Gaggle".



My favorite picture of the morning was Sociopath Goose but it was too out of focus to submit.

Greetings, Mike!

It seems my friend Mike Miller has joined us, so we should be seeing a fifth photo from now on.

Welcome!

/rl

Tomorrow: "Birds"

Next Sunday - "Big"

/rl

Craig's Buggie

I had a hard time choosing my favorite - I shot a bunch of this giant outside Cory's house. Cory believes it to be the same beast he captured and put in his lightbox.

I chose this one because you get a bit of a sense of the size of the monster, plus I like the way the sunlight plays on the rock and bug. I tried taking a picture of this guy with the ant parade that was happening, but you just can't see the ants. If only I'd brought my 200mm lens with me.

(Oh, and Q, your monster bug photo has given me nightmares since Cory shared it with me back when it was first taken. I think that might be the scariest bug I've seen outside of a Starship Troopers movie.)

Q's buggie

I struggled to find bugs this week (though I imagined to attract some fruit flies to my apartment, but they're not very photogenic), and I didn't want to miss two weeks in a row, so I pulled a photo from the archives.

This guy landed on my arm at a truck stop somewhere in south central Oklahoma or north Texas in the summer of 2003. He's pure evil, I think.

Ryan's "Buggie"

My long dead wasp, found in a window at the Peabody Estate.


/rl

Cory's Buggies

Buggies are something I've often taken pictures of over the few years I've owned a camera. One of my favorite early pictures is of a grasshopper, another is of a damsel fly, and yet another is of a dragon fly. Sometimes I take pictures of pseudo-buggies, and sometimes I even get real buggies and psuedo-buggies together in the same shot.

We had oodles of family in town this weekend, so we took them all up to the Peabody Estate for their air fair. While there I tried taking a new picture of some buggies over a lake, but I didn't really like how it came out. When I got home I found a GIANT beetle in the front yard, but since it was just one buggy it doesn't really count for "buggies". So I decided to post the picture above, which was also taken at the art fair. It's kind of a meta picture - a picture of pictures of buggies. If only it could have been a meta-meta picture - a picture of pictures of buggies made of buggies.

But this is good enough.

Next up: "Birds"

"Buggies" due in 4.5 hours.

/rl

Cory's Ordered Chaos

This is my little world of ordered chaos: my garage. It is a weird collection of stuff that was in there when we moved in, stuff we had before we moved in, and stuff we have collected since moving in. Everything has a slightly different amount of dust (both saw and otherwise) covering it, which makes it easier to put something back after moving it: just find the corresponding clean spot in the dust. It may look chaotic, but there is a very careful ordering scheme in use here. It revolves around the trash can being in its place on the left, and everything else going someplace to the right of that.

For completeness, here's a look from the other side of the garage.

Ryan's "Ordered Chaos"

While camping at Ponca State Park this weekend we discovered that the previous residents of our campsite had liberally sprinkled cookies about the place. Brief inspection showed that, when flung with the correct frisbee-like spin, I could hit my companions with them from across the campsite. Further inspection showed that they were covered in wee little ants.

Hundreds of little ants were swarming around the cookies - it was quite chaotic and difficult to photograph, so I moved one of the cookies and added a quarter to show scale. Despite the appearance of chaos, I am pretty sure it was quite orderly from an ant's point of view.

/rl

Next week: "Buggies"

"Ordered Chaos" due tonight.

/rl

Q's best of Q2

I feel a bit like Ryan, that there's nothing that stands out to me too much. But, I do like this picture from my trip to Ireland, on top of a cairn.

Ryan's "Best of Quarter 2"

I didn't really have too many truly great photos this quarter, but I had a bunch that I liked. It turned out to be a hard choice.

I met these guys while out looking for bagworms at work one day:

They cowered in the nest as I approached. As soon as I took the first photo they stuck their little necks out to the sky. Apparently they though I was going to feed them.

After looking at the photos at 100% on my computer I realized there was a bit of motion blur. I went back the next day to shoot a few more photos, but they would not respond to the flash. Perhaps Mom had warned them to beware humans with Nikons.

/rl

Cory's Best of Q2

This particular picture was just a test of the idea, but I think it is one of the best ones I took during Q2 anyway. Sometime I'm going to run down to the park and do it again, but I'll be more careful about not getting playground equipment in the background and trash in the tree.

Next week

Next week: Ordered Chaos

Best of Q2 due today!

Also, it was a year ago today that this little Weekly Photography thingy started. Happy birthday!

Q's Fourth of July

I'm late!

Craig's Fourth of July

Hey, I got net, maybe it's not too late to contribute!

Here's where I spent my Fourth of July - De Garre Pub, in a tiny alley off a street between the two main squares in Brugge. Snapped with my iPhone, stitched with an iPhone app called Autostitch.

Ryan's "Fourth of July"

This was my view of the 4th of July. Scroll down and read Cory's story - mine would be similar.

/rl

Cory's Fourth of July

Back when I was in high school, my parents got a "cabin" that I like to refer to as the "trailer by the sea". It is located at Lake Platteview, an exclusive gated community out on the Platte River. The playplace of the rich, we have a big party with a bunch of people out there every Fourth of July. This year the partygoers at a neighboring cabin spent their inheritance on fireworks, which they began setting up around sunset.

After night fell and everybody nearby had their lawn chairs set up, the show began. I got a few shots of nice fireworks, but I think the picture above best displays the craziness that was going on during the show. Amazingly, there were no reported injuries.

Then, after the show was done, we found the GIANTEST SPIDER EVER on the wall of the cabin. That's when we decided it was time to go home.

Next week...

Next week: Best of 2009 Q2.

Fourth of July due today!

Q's darkness

Yet another view from my bedroom window.

New Topic - "Fourth of July"

Cory wants "Fourth of July." Craig is heading across the pond to hang with the people the "Fourth of July" celebrates kicking out, and Quentin is incommunicado. Everyone have a great Fourth!

Cory points out that the end of the quarter is upon us - maybe next week will be "Best of Q3." We'll get around to "Organized Chaos" once the chaos is organized.

/rl

Ryan's "Darkness"

After many shutter actuations in search of a photo that illustrated "Darkness", I have given up. Instead I give you a moth that is soon to meet darkness. At least, I assume Loki's belly is dark on the inside.

/rl

Craig's Darkness

When I suggested the topic Darkness, I'd hoped it would sit around in the bucket until October. That's when Surly Brewing in Minnesota releases their imperial stout named, you guessed it, Darkness.

However, I'm going to the beer well once again anyway, because this is something I think of when I hear "darkness".

The area in which I shot this was obscenely bright what with all the lights and the light box (thanks, Ti!), and yet the darkness of the elixir remains intact.

It is Guinness. It is Dark.

I'm out for the next three weeks. I may post something just for kicks from my phone if I feel like I get a shot that's worthy, but next week's deadline will find me in Bruges, the following week's deadline puts me in London, and the week after that we'll have just returned home.

Cory's Darkness

Every year, Downers Grove celebrates its town heritage with a festival that is, appropriately enough, named Heritage Fest. For this fest they block of five or so blocks worth of Main street, bring in carnival rides and games, and sell anything you can think of to deep fry and put on a stick. My favorite part of the weekend is walking down after dark with a fast lens and taking pictures of the various food and game booths with their high-powered lights on. The game booths have vividly bright stuffed animals to win with darkness behind them, while the food booths have exciting lit workers like seen above.

Next week: "Fourth of July"

"Darkness" due tomorrow night.

I had considered "Fourth of July" for this week - if you guys would rather do that, let me know!



*******Topic is changed - now "Fourth of July"**********

/rl

Recession

Where once a proud and populous army stood, there now stands a weakened front, and few reserves holding up the rear.

Maddy stole my idea, but I still ran with it.

Also, frogs!

Ryan's "Recession"

Fighting back the urge to be lazy and photograph my own receding hairline I made a trip to the former site of Metro Mitsubishi, a failed dealership near Westroads Mall. The general manager was a friend of mine, but I have not seen him in months. At a stoplight on the way to the mall, I noticed he was sitting in the car next to me! He followed me to the dealership to catch up for a few minutes. I found less to photograph than I had hoped, but I came away with this photo and a self portrait.

/rl

Cory's Recession

Downtown Downers Grove saw a pretty big building boom over the last few years, with several new large condo/storefront buildings going in near the train station. I don't know how the condos are selling, but there are still plenty of storefronts to rent. Anybody want to open a business?

Lis thought that Maddy's hairline warranted a mention for this topic too.

Q's recession

This scene is from my window. The letter "o" in the sign has been turned or burned out for a couple of months now. and for a while, the "l" was, too.

Next week - "Darkness"

Recession due within 24 hours or so.

/rl

Ryan's "Surplus"

Once upon a time Uncle Sam allowed citizens to purchase ammunition that the nation's armed forces no longer wanted. While not nearly the deal it seemed (said citizens had already paid for the ammunition once), it still beat commercial prices for reasonable quality bulk ammunition.

This is not a photo of any such ammunition. In an effort to make things less efficient, laws were passed requiring surplus ammo to be de-milled. This generally involves separating bullet, powder, and primer. After being broken into components, each separate component can be sold for reuse. Military components being supplied by the lowest bidder, no one can tell what sort of powder is used, so it is tossed. The primers probably don't survive the de-milling process (they are rather sensitive to shock and other forms of abuse.) Sevaral companies purchase the remaining components (bullet and case) to reassemble them with commercial powder and primers.

The head stamp on the case facing the camera shows that it was manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in 1969. The bullet is likely of similar vintage.

I've now spent far longer typing background info than I did taking the photo...

/rl

Craig's Surplus

I'm annoyed. Ask me why I'm annoyed. Go ahead. Say "Craig, why are you annoyed?"

...

I'll tell you why I'm annoyed. I was a good boy this week. I planned my shot well in advance. Then, on Thursday, when I was to take my shot, I left my SLR home accidentally. Okay, I thought, not a big deal. My P&S is a pretty nice little kajigger, so let's do that.

So I arrive at my destination, and line up for my shot. And the dude next to me at the bar is freaking out. And he calls the bartender over to warn him that I'm taking pictures of their taps. The bartender doesn't mind, even offers to line them up for me, but by then I'm too weirded out. On top of that, I had my camera in the wrong mode. Sigh.

Anyway, my submission.

I like beer. A *lot*. Every Thursday evening, I spend about 90 minutes at my favorite watering hole, Poor Phil's in Oak Park while Tisha attends piano lessons across the street.

I like Poor Phil's for a number of reasons. The atmosphere is great -- if I ever were to open a bar, I'd want it to look like that. Big wood bar that has stools on three sides, and serves the waitstaff on the fourth. Clientele is generally good, the staff is awesome. They know me there.

Oh, and the beer. Poor Phil's has a surplus of beer. Bottles upon bottles, plus over 30 taps. And every tap has something good (except for one, which you can see in this picture). I thought it would be nice to capture some of the taps to demonstrate this surplus.

From left to right, Smithwicks (Ireland), Metropolitan Brewing's Dynamo Copper Lager (Chicago!), Three Floyds' Gumball Head (Munster, IN), Southern Tier Unearthly (NY), Two Brothers' Hop Juice (Warrenville, Chicago suburb), Original Sin Cider (NY), Goose Island Matilda (Chicago!), Blue Moon (CO), Rogue Dead Guy Ale (OR), Bear Republic IPA (CA), Surly Furious (MN), Hoegaarden (Belgium), Samuel Adams Boston Lager (MA), Miller Lite (Hell), and Bass Ale (UK).

And that's just one section of taps.

Cory's Surplus

The little magnolia tree in our front yard has a surplus of leaves this year. It couldn't find anyplace else to grow them, so it grew two from the base of its trunk.

Next Up: Recession

Let's see some "surplus" soon!

/rl

Craig's Brick

For 12 years, I've worked in the same building. Building 221 at Argonne. It is an old brick building built before I was born. It's the bricks you see on the left.

This campus has a lot of building like this. Red brick buildings, interior cinder block walls painted a glossy off-white.

It does not scream modern.

The forefront of this pic is our new building, to which we'll be moving in 2 months. Nary a brick to be seen, it's made form poured concrete and glass. Alas, the less interesting southern face of the building is what we are seeing here, and not the very cool western, eastern, or northern elevations.

Cory will also bee in this building. I'm really looking forward to it.

Bonus parking violation, too! (That's not me.)

Cory's Brick

After Dad and Kelcey left on Saturday morning, the rest of us took a tour of Graue Mill. Here's a small snippet of wall and window that happens to have some bricks in it.

Ryan's "Brick"

A stretch of the Lincoln Highway between Elkhorn (now Omaha) and Omaha (still Omaha), Ne.

/rl

"Brick" due tomorrow!

Next weeks topic is surplus.

No, I don't mean we have a spare topic. I mean the topic is "Surplus."

/rl