Q's questionable

Last week I borrowed a stamp set from my friend Casey for a project. On the night I returned them to her, I remembered hearing of a man on a bus with 'c-a-s-h o-n-l-y' tattooed on his knuckles, and I couldn't help but replicate that. I'd always wondered what line of work a man might be in that would prompt him to advise on his fists that his services are only available via cash payment. I'm sure it's questionable, though. Thanks to Casey for the help on it . . .

Ryan's "Questionable"

So I had the honor of attending a baby shower this weekend. Thankfully, scary games involving diapers and chocolate were only discussed, not played.

The father showed up wearing this shirt:


I though his chances of survival were pretty questionable.

/rl

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