Why? ... or why not?

I think everyone has experienced the sensation of human interaction "silence." Huh, you ask? I'm not talking necessarily about unrequited romantic interaction, although that certainly would fall into this category if it applies to you. I'm talking about attempts at simple one-way social and business interaction. You know -- you put out the feelers, and get zilch by way of response.

It's happened to me more times than I can think, as I'm sure it has for many, many others. I'm stopping to compose this post because it seems to have happened to me such an inordinate number of times in the past month or two or three that, well, it bothered the hell out of me, and I figured I needed to vent somewhere. Somewhere privately -- I wasn't about to do this on Facebook, which I've come to realize is a place you cannot put your heart on your shoulder without being dissected every which way but loose ... or without being judged one way or another.

The funny thing is ... none of my recent overtures was of a romantic nature, which, I'm sure, is by far the most common of this type of social slight. To wit:

** I dropped an email inquiry to a mayor in the Indianapolis area, hoping he might be willing to help me get access for a photography quest I really wanted to accomplish. I sent the request three weeks ago. No response.

** In August, a community jazz band performed a free outdoor concert in a park near where I live. I attended, and took pictures. Afterward, I offered the band, via email, copies of my images to post at its website (do you know what's coming up next?) free of charge. I did so because I saw that they posted pictures of their performances at their website. I told them I'd burn the pictures onto a CD and send it to them. All I needed was an address. No response. Again, there were some very decent-quality images involved here. Nada.

** I sent a request to a guy, a front man of a pretty hip pop/soul band in the community, pitching a request to photograph his band's New Year's Eve performance (I figured, New Year's Eve -- what a great photo opportunity, right?) -- and at no cost to him or his band ... other than allowing me free admission to the venue). I even told him in my pitch that he would not have to worry any expenses to feed me for the night. I just wanted to shoot pictures. And, that I would get him a copy of my best images, on CD, at no charge. No response.

** I dropped a note to the editor and a columnist at the newspaper where I work, mentioning that I'd gotten pictures of a marching band of a inner-city public high school at a parade in September. This high school had been the subject of a yearlong -- and much read -- series of periodic columns about the struggles, trials and tribulations going on at the school, a school that -- among other things -- was strapped for cash, lacking seriously in academic success stories and had little community support. When I saw the school represented in the parade with a marching band, it occurred to me that the series we were running must have been doing some good; I would not have seen this a year ago. I offered to provide the editor and the columnist my pictures -- at no cost. No response.

** In September, I shot a ton of pictures of a play performed at an amphitheater near my house. The play -- a Shakespearean drama -- was produced by a fledgling theater troupe, to which I offered copies of my images -- at no cost -- to post at its website at no cost. I did so because I saw that they posted pictures of their performances at their website. No response. These involves some pretty decent quality images, mind you. I made copies of the images for the play's producer, in fact, and he lauded the professional quality of the photos.

OK ... I suppose I can "get" where some people might be suspicious about overtures of this sort, stuff being offered for "free" from someone you don't know -- and fearing there's got to be an angle. In the instances of my photographs, all I asked for -- if the images were used -- was a name credit. I sought only exposure. No cash. You know, something to add to my portfolio/resume. In return, these people -- certainly the play and jazz band -- would be getting something they could not ever again get, anywhere else. Not, at least, for those particular performances.

So, what am I not seeing here? What is the big "scare off" that I simply cannot grasp?

RIP Box Tops' Alex Chilton

A short post to note the passing of Alex Chilton, raspy lead vocalist of of the 1960s pop group the Box Tops, which scored hits with "The Letter," "Soul Deep" and "Cry Like a Baby." He was 59.

Those years probably were Chilton's best in the profession; he went on to perform with Big Star, which brought him less mainstream success but made him a cult hero to other rock musicians, as evidenced by the title of the 1987 Replacements song "Alex Chilton." Big Star's three 1970s albums all earned spots on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest.

"The Letter" undoubtedly was the Box Tops' biggest score. The song, composed by Nashville songwriter Wayne Carson Thompson, reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in July 1967 and stayed there for four weeks. "The Letter" went on to be recorded by countless musical artists, including the Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker (a fabulous rendition) and even a somewhat psychedelic version, in 1969, by the Arbors that charted modestly on Billboard.

"Cry Like a Baby" reached No. 2 in 1968, and the Thompson composition "Soul Deep," in summer 1969, became the Box Tops' last single to hit the Top 40.

Chilton died at a New Orleans hospital after experiencing what appeared to be heart problems.

AOL has more on Chilton and some video and music clips. Click on the link on Chilton's name here.

LYRICS of "The Letter" by Wayne Carson Thompson:

Give me a ticket for an aeroplane
I ain't got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone
I'm a-goin' home, because my baby just wrote me a letter

I don't care how much money I’ve got to spend
I’ve got to get back to my baby again
Lonely days are gone
I'm a-goin' home, my baby just wrote me a letter

Well she wrote me a letter, said she couldn't live without me no more
Listen mister, can't you see
I’ve got to get back to my baby once more?
Anyway, yeah, give me a ticket for an aeroplane
I ain't got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone
I'm going home, because my baby just wrote me a letter

My baby just wrote me a letter

Battling cancer ... and staying upbeat about it

I'm at work, and probably shouldn't be trying to sneak in this post, but ... given the subject matter, and the the fact that it's fresh on the brain (no jokes solicited), I thought I'd do it anyway.

A work colleague, Carl Sygiel (pictured), has been undergoing treatment for prostate cancer for about a year now. He did the prostate removal surgery, went through a battery of chemotherapy and now is in the final stretch of a seven-week radiation treatment. Even though tests and image screens indicated his cancer had barely entered nodes and spread marginally outside the prostate, his doctors recommended the maximum treatment to avoid taking any chances.

Carl has held up remarkably well; he lost what little hair he had (he's mostly bald) during chemo, but that little bit is coming back now, and the only real "change" is that he's gained weight. Odd thing about that, too, is that his doctors don't want his weight to fluctuate during the radiation treatment. So Carl, who was pretty active in the years before he began tackling the prostate cancer (he's participated in several bike tours in recent years, including at least three or four annual 72-mile America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride in Lake Tahoe, Nev., to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). I'm sure Carl is not too thrilled about the weight gain thing, but he realizes it's a small price to pay to ensure he bounces back from this.

The reason I'm posting this is that Carl, who turned 60 last December, has taken an unusual step through all this: keeping friends and family informed with periodic -- and upbeat -- notes about his treatment and progress. His latest arrived today, and it was such a fun read, I thought I'd share it with any of you who might be interested. The accompanying picture is a bit dated; it's probably eight years old.

Here's Carl's update today:

Greetings all:

We are nearly two months into 2010, we've buried the Colts, the snow has buried us, the Olympics are in full swing, Tiger Woods has confessed his sins, and I hope by now everyone has decided how they are pronouncing the new year. Do you say two-thousand ten, or do you say twenty-ten? I don't know that it qualifies as the burning question of the day, but I guess some people do get worked up over things like that. But once again, I digress.

Whatever year this is, it has ushered in the final phase of my three-pronged prostate cancer treatment. I began radiation treatments in mid-January and am cruising down the home stretch. The schedule called for 37 treatments, and I've done 27 so far. It's every day, Monday through Friday, with weekends off for good behavior. The first few weeks, the treatment times were all over the map, but now I've settled in at 8 a.m. It means getting up early, but at least it doesn't interrupt my workday.

I had no idea how all this worked, but I've since learned, and actually, it's pretty fascinating stuff. Radiation beams are like powerful x-rays and they kill cancer cells. Unfortunately, they can also damage good stuff that gets in the way. Things like kidneys and colons and bladders and other, uh.... kinda important organs in the area. Radiation used to be doled out in sort of a one-size-fits all approach. The latest technology is called IMRT or intensity-modulated radiation therapy. The rays are delivered in varying doses and shapes from different directions by this enormous piece of equipment called a linear accelerator or more formally, something that looks like a giant water faucet.

In my case, the faucet head turns around counterclockwise and zaps me from seven different positions. There are 71 zappings each day. Trust me, I've counted them: 13-14-3-7-14-12-8. I've even gone so far as to play those numbers in the lottery. Hey, winning that would be one of those side effects everyone could like.

The rays come through tiny different shaped openings formed by small, lead Venetian-blind-like shades. Imagine putting a stencil on a paper and then scribbling over the top with a pencil. You lift the stencil and the shape is left on the paper below. It could be a circle, or a box or maybe even the state of Oklahoma. The rays race through like Danica Patrick and then crash into the area being treated --- come to think of it, also like Danica Patrick. Most of the radiation is absorbed, some is diffused, which is why all the techs scurry out behind a door that's about 8 feet thick.

The New York Times recently ran a frightening story on what can happen if radiation treatments go awry. Once the oncologist maps out a plan, the machine is programmed and pretty much runs on its own. The therapist is supposed to keep an eye on everything on their own computer screen and as long they aren't asleep at the wheel or sexting somebody, it all runs like clockwork. I brought the article in, however, just to keep everybody on their toes.

Remember the tattoos I wrote about? I've got 'em now. Three specks, one on each hip and a third in the groin. Laser beams come from the ceiling and the walls, hit the tattoos and line you up precisely on the table. I've been told not to lose weight or gain weight during the seven week process because it will throw off the dimensions. Like they don't want you eating a whole pizza before your treatment because your stomach will be bigger and closer to the machine, and they will have to adjust the table. Seriously.

They say radiation is supposed to make you tired and make your skin red. I've experienced a little of both, but for the most part, it's been pretty tolerable. The whole daily process takes about 25 minutes. I've done the math and at the end of the 37 days, I will have been zapped 2,627 times. If I've been glowing with excitement lately, you know why. I meet with the doctor every Wednesday, and when you go to the same place 37 times, you get to know the techs, the nurses, even the women in the office. I brought 'em all doughnuts for Valentine's Day, figuring they didn't have to worry if their stomachs got bigger.

Meanwhile, I'm still making monthly trips to Methodist Hospital for a Lupron shot and a Zometa infusion. That will eventually space out to every three months with a target date to finish of 11/11/11, about a year and a half from now. And of course, there are the daily pills (Casodex, Avodart, calcum, etc). I take about seven a day. It really is a long process, but they run blood tests every month and so far each time, the numbers are good: negligible PSA, good white and red blood cell counts, and whatever else they stick you for.

It's amazing how fast time flies. It's been just about a year since I first went to the doctor and got the news that started this ball rolling. I've been asked hundreds of times by friends, "So how are you feeling?" The answer is "Great," and to be honest, it's a question I never get tired of answering.

carl

A whistle out to Mozart ... and those like him

S o it’s a Saturday morning, and I’m sitting here typing this ... while whistling Mozart.

The great composer is my current obsession, and it isn’t the first time. I’d written a draft of a post for this blog in October that I never finished and, consequently, never posted, that was about the motion picture Amadeus. Which is about, of course, Mozart.

And a little over year before that, I went a solid nine months without listening to any music except Mozart  — not on my car CD player or at home on my computer media player or living room stereo. And to think that when I was a child, taking piano lessons that I absolutely detested, I had to play ... and practice ... so much Mozart. Such began my hate-love relationship with this fascinating composer.

Before I go further, in case you’d like to get in sync with me musically, the music I’m listening to while whistling is “Mozart: The Piano Quartets,” featuring instrumentalists Emmanuel Ax (on piano), Jaime Laredo (on viola), Isaac Stern (on violin) and Yo-Yo Ma (on cello). 

An acquaintance from a classical music discussion group at the business networking site LinkedIn pointed me to this recording about a month ago, and it’s been difficult for me to listen to anything else since. I absolutely adore it, which I’m sure explains why I’m whistling along right now.

Which gets me back to the point: love-hate relationships, or hate-love relationships. 

Most people, when they use or grasp that phrase, think of things that are simultaneous. You know, there’s someone you really love ... for reasons that developed over time in your interaction with him/her/them, but these also are people who tend to hurt you in ways they (and possibly even you) don’t fully understand or appreciate, so ... you keep distance between you and them, whether that distance is physical or emotional.

With me, and in the context of this post, the phrase refers to a “former/current” thing, and hence why I call it hate-love instead of love-hate:

** I used to hate Mozart, but now ... I adore him.

** I used to hate the Electric Light Orchestra’s song “Evil Woman” (and yes, there’s a bit of a story there, too); now I really like it ... and a lot of what ELO has done.

** I detested hip-hop music when it first hit the scene; now, I can abide some of it ... most of it, even. Recently, I even spent an hour plus watching a cable channel documentary on Tupac Shakur and another on one of the HBO channels, the 2009 motion picture “Notorious,” a biopic about the late Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls, real name Christopher Wallace). B.I.G. and Shakur were the coastal focal-point stars of the much-written-about East Coast/West Coast hip-hop feud/war.

** I used to think gardening was something for people who had nothing better to do; for the past five years, however, I indulge the activity quite earnestly in warm weather months.

** I used to detest spicy foods, but now I put black pepper on lots of things, I season my frozen pizzas with hot pepper flakes, love cajun spicing and put hot mustard (if I have it) on my Chinese meals. I will note that despite this turn-around, I still cannot stomach foods prepared with or containing very strong or high concentrations of garlic (e.g., garlic bread) or raw onions. At all.

** I used to think reading fiction was a waste of time. You know — it’s fake, so why bother? So whenever I’d look to find reading material, the books I’d line up would be only non-fiction — history, biographies and such. Alas, for the past 15 years, it’s been largely the other way around, and it opened my door to John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Clive Cussler, Lawrence Sanders, Daniel Brown and their ilk. In that 15-year period, I've probably read fiction to non-fiction in a 15:1 ratio ... a ratio that might have to slip a bit because of my reading material of late. The last two books I finished — and the one I'm reading right now (“Open,” retired professional tennis player Andre Agassi's autobiography) — are non-fiction.

You get the idea. I’m sure there are others. Again, characteristic of each item on the list above is that they are all hate-love situations — things I once disliked but I now like a lot. Are there any love-hates I can site, you might ask? Sure.

Foremost are professional sports, with baseball, football and basketball right up there at the top ... primarily because of how the business and commercialization sides of them have transformed the importance and relevance of each into something astronomically beyond what they deserve and, as a result, have warped the reality of so much of our populace.

The sad part is that the vast majority of people can’t and don’t see it. Collectively, these sports-as-a-business have sucked valuable community resources from areas where such resources are far more deserving and needy — education, welfare, education, infrastructure, education, public safety, education, and the arts, to name a few. Oh, wait. Did I mention education? If not, I apologize. Please add that to the list, and send it to the top with a bullet.

Which kind of gets me again back to point (yeah!). Mozart struggled financially in his short life (35 years and 11 months) on this earth. And yet, he amassed a voluminous, and quite stunning, body of work in operas, symphonies, concertos, minuets, quartets, sonatas and liturgical works. Unfortunately, he never enjoyed the wealth that should have come with such profoundly meaningful art; tragically, he was buried in a pauper’s grave. But I bet he would be pleased to know that there are people like me — some 200+ years later — sitting at a fancy, high-tech piece of equipment like a computer and listening to his works on a media player.

Obsessing, enjoying his music ... and whistling while they work.

Note: All of the images in this post are in the public domain and can be found at Wikipedia’s entry for Mozart.

A job Teddy just missed seeing accomplished

There have been so many topics I've wanted to delve into here since I last posted. I just never found the time to actually ... well, delve.

So, before we bid farewell to 2009, I thought I'd make an appearance to at least touch base on one of them.

I just finished reading "True Compass," the memoir of Ted Kennedy, who by the timeframe mentioned in the book, must have wrapped up his work not long before he died. He alludes to the brain tumor in the final chapter, along with his appearance at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and Barack Obama's inauguration early this year, and there is a picture of Kennedy with Obama (and a couple other congressmen) from April of this year at the White House.

The above is actually beside the point of my post today. The book did allow me to look at Teddy in a slightly different way. I found his candor on a lot of the book topics, whether it be related to the Congress and legislative issues or his personal life, refreshing. I'm sure staunch Republicans or Kennedy haters will find the extent of candor insufficient, or aver that Kennedy's version of Chappaquiddick was hardly thorough (or even complete). But that, too, is not the point of this post.

I actually found myself most interested, throughout the read, in the extent of Kennedy's involvement of some his pet legislative projects, the foremost of which -- one that goes back decades and, alas, one he will not see to fruition -- was health care.

The book laid the foundation for why all the Kennedys embraced issues and legislation directed at the downtrodden as so important to them. Yes, the Kennedy family was very well off, but Ted Kennedy and his siblings were raised by two very resolved parents to never brandish their wealth. In fact, the Kennedy siblings were strongly and repeatedly encouraged to seek out those who were far less fortunate, to strive to understand those people's plights and to invest whatever clout their societal or political stature allowed them toward helping the disadvantaged secure and enjoy every right that was enjoyed by the privileged.

Ted Kennedy embraced health care for the masses as an issue early in his Senate career. It was incredible -- and very sad -- to read how presidential administration after administration either shot it down or simply refused to consider it, thanks in large part to the extraordinarily powerful insurance and medical lobbies.

So it was with this fresh read in mind that I've been trying to follow Obama's attempts to make happen what Kennedy tried to bring to so many millions of Americans -- affordable health insurance. The strange perks we're seeing key legislators wresting in return for their votes for the legislation should tell you plenty about how difficult it had been through the years to extract elected representatives in both chambers from their comfortable and cozy beds with the insurance and medical lobby.

Equally telling is the degree of dilution of some key points of both measures in the two houses, the foremost of which being the one-payer option that would have totally removed control of funds to pay for health costs from the coffers of stingy, profit-hoarding private-sector insurers.

In the interim, I marvel how, as Obama gets farther than any president has ever gotten to reaching out and helping the giantly, under-insured lower class (and probably a good amount of middle-classers, too) people in our nation, he also is taking a political hit for doing so. Granted, the timing of funding the health care measure -- so soon after someone had to do something to bail out the tanking auto industry -- is not ideal. But if the uptick of Wall Street in the past six months is any indication, the president's move to revive the country's financial health should give us hope that there will be something of merit to come from the health care legislation.

My only regret, and probably a regret shared by those who knew how passionate Ted Kennedy regarded health-care coverage for the masses, is that he will not be here to see it finally arrive.

Call if you must ... but please, not while driving!

Thirty-two countries in the world -- including Germany, Ireland, Denmark, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, China, Egypt and the United Kingdom -- either ban all use of a phone or just a hand-held phone (read: cellphone) by anyone operating a motor vehicle. Four Canadian provinces, including the largest, Quebec, do likewise.

In the United States, no state imposes a blanket use of telephones while driving, although six states -- California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands -- do ban the use of a hand-held phone by a vehicle operator (which means the use of phone earpieces while driving in those states would be OK). Only six states. Six other states have laws prohibiting local jurisdictions from enacting any restrictions on phone usage while driving.

Are legislators and the people in this country really that naive to trust the majority of people to drive undistracted while talking on the phone at the same time? I realize that I'm only one voice, but I find such trust incredulous. Blind, even. I don't even think it's a close call. I don't think half of the vehicle operators in this nation can drive and talk on the phone simultaneously without significantly diminishing their focus and attention to where it belongs -- the road.

To me, that's scary because it also means the likelihood of serious consequences on the road are significantly greater. As if we need another good reason -- aside from drunk drivers, who we already have a challenge trying to police and eradicate -- to be fearful about being "caught" driving while sober and phoneless.

Why is it our nation cannot put the hammer down -- much harder than it does already on drunk drivers, and simply "at all" on people who have to operate cellphones while behind the wheel? This is a rhetorical question, of course, because I don't know the answer -- other than to say Americans so value their right to get liquored up and to jabber away with their fancy hand-held electronic devices, the latter because it makes them look important. Hey, that's all that I can come up with. Important -- and deadly.

Perhaps you think I exaggerate, or am beating the drum to a pointless issue. I don't think so. I can't tell you how many times I -- just me, myself and I -- have come across a cellphone-using driver making a bonehead maneuver with the vehicle that I'm pretty certain was made because his or her attention was totally fixed somewhere other than the road or traffic.

I consider myself an accomplished multi-tasker. And yet, while I'm driving, and especially while driving in heavy traffic (e.g., rush hour or locales I'm not familiar with), I have trouble holding a simple conversation with a passenger in my vehicle -- someone sitting right next to me -- because I feel that to do so significantly affects my ability to remain adequately attentive to driving. As a result, I'm sure many passengers have thought me to be an antisocial while driving ... and certainly one who has trouble composing intelligible responses or comments if I do try to communicate.

So if someone who otherwise is a darn-good multi-tasker cannot, in good conscience, feel comfortable simultaneously driving and talking WITHOUT jabbering into a hand-held device, how many people are out there to you suppose are fooling themselves into thinking they can? Or simply ignoring the fact ... and risking so much -- like, oh, human lives -- doing so?

The latter two questions are what scare me the most. I suppose I could dismiss this fear by chalking up myself as a human anomaly, but I really don't think so. My years of observing human nature tell me too many people who feel the need to use phones at all times and places also fool themselves into thinking they jabber and drive without sacrificing the needed attention required of the latter.

I have no quip-laden ending for this. Except, please, don't ever try to call me if you're driving a vehicle. I'm likely to launch into the rant above. Do you really want that?

A somewhat long hiatus

Yeah, I know. It's been over two months since I stopped to post an entry here. But I know "bloggers" who've been away from their writing or posting far longer, so I guess I don't quite feel so bad.

I'll try to summarize the busy-ness that's kept from being "regular" here in those weeks since I wrote about the Tour de France.

*** On Aug. 7, my second granddaughter, Addison Elyse, was born at St. Francis Hospital - South in Indianapolis. Two days later, Addison came home, and two days after that Addy's mother, Kelly Anne, noticed Addy had a fever and was twitching unnaturally. After a brief visit to the St. Francis emergency room, staff there had Addy transported to Riley Hospital for Children in downtown Indianapolis, where Addy remained -- invariably in the pediatric intensive care unit and the newborn floor -- until this past Monday, Sept. 28.

It'd be difficult to summarize the roller-coaster medical issues Addy weathered during her stay -- and she's still not totally over the hill yet. But it entailed seizures, infant apnea, three blood clots, a blood infection (MRSA) and a lower-extremities hematoma. She had ultra sounds, X rays, MRIs, blood tests, a spinal tap, antibiotics (intravenous and needle-administered), tubes coming from every place visible and temporary loss of vocal cords.

Family members made regular visits to Riley during the period, and I will cherish my several post-work, late-day few hours alone cuddling with her for a long, long time -- the almost perfect ones (where she slept in my arms start to finish) to even the ones where nothing could seem to comfort her. I was still with Addy, and I knew she was in far more discomfort than I.

*** Work has dealt me yet another formidable challenge. My staff merged with another in our features department, and I've been left to figure out how to make it work. People's work shifts and days off have changed, we're finding Tuesday nights and all day Wednesdays incredibly overwhelming because of the onerous workload. But this weekend, our two desks are now physically merging (from mid-July until now, we'd still been operating in separate locations in the newsroom), so I'm hoping the proximity and ability to have access to all staffers to throw on the sundry triages that surface on those Tuesdays and Wednesdays will give us a little better means to deal with it all.

*** I had my first public display of my photography in an art gallery show for a one-night, monthly First Friday art tour along the Massachusetts Avenue cultural district of downtown Indianapolis. Actually, I was among five members of a photo club who contributed images for the display. That occurred Sept. 4. At my photo blog, Photo Potpourri, I have a picture of one of three walls from our photo club's exhibit (which was at the Art Bank gallery).

*** A staffer at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library called me last month to seek permission to use six images from my Irvington neighborhood gallery (at my Fototime.com online site) in a display the downtown main library plans to put up in January to represent the Eastside of Indianapolis. The display will be available on the sixth floor of the library's new wing throughout the month of January.

*** I spent last Saturday at Faught Stadium on the grounds of Franklin (Ind.) College, shooting photos of an exciting football game between the host Grizzlies and Trine University (Angola, Ind.). The Grizzlies came from 13 points down late in the third quarter to win it 30-29 on a 13-yard pass from Nick Purichia (a graduate of Cardinal Ritter High School in Indianapolis) to Adam Mellencamp with only 2 minutes and 25 seconds left in the game.

Pictures from my shoot there can be found also at my online gallery at SmugMug; a few of the images and a text summary also can be found at Photo Potpourri. I include this shoot in this summary because I took more than 1,000 images at the game, and the process of editing them all ... and selecting the 150 I decided to post on the online gallery was time-consuming. But it was worth it; it was a beautiful day for a college football game, I enjoyed the small-college atmosphere there (reminiscent of my years at UW-Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconson), and, perhaps most importantly, I was extraordinarly pleased with with quality of images.