The subtitle for this one is “… next to a Giant Blue Bear.”
Someone explained the giant blue bear thing to me at one point and now, a year or so later, it’s long gone from my recollection. Denver!
Originally posted to social media accounts on June 7th, 2017.
I honestly couldn’t tell you why I held off posting some of the IT Nation 2016 shots until mid-2017, but here we are.
The Dodge Charger was part of a very poorly thought-out contest involving both the convention’s dedicated social media app and Twitter. It’s a good thing I didn’t win, though… what would I do with a muscle car?
Originally posted to social media accounts on Jun 7th, 2017.
This play structure is another feature of the Orenco Woods park. I had to wait for kids to vacate, and I had to do so without looking like some creeper with a camera hanging around where kids were playing.
I mean, I’m a 45-year-old man taking pictures of rubber ducks on things, I’m probably creepy enough already… Sigh.
Originally posted to social media accounts on April 21st, 2017.
One fine day, I took the new camera and a bag of ducks to the Orenco Woods park. The entire facility is a work in progress; many trees and bushes and flowers are recently planted, the walkways are new, and so forth.
My timing was good. The sun shone, and some folks were assembling… things… out of sticks. I later learned that this is part of Patrick Dougherty’s “Stickworks” project. (Here’s the link for the Orenco Woods installation.)
They were nice enough to let me put a duck on one of the wooden Moai-looking structures. I hadn’t yet gotten the hang of the new camera, though, so this is a bit more blown out than expected.
Originally posted to social media accounts on April 21st, 2017. Yes, this marks another long break between duck-on-stuff activities.
If you want to tilt your head and squint a bit, you could view this film as Vin Diesel earning a spot in the list of all-time great film portrayals of Superman.
(…I am a bad man. I know this.)
The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated film based (somewhat loosely) on a book written in the late 1960s.
It’s all about the kind of shenanigans a boy and his toy robot get up to in rural America during the age of the Red Scare.
You might laugh when I call a story about a giant alien robot a “down to earth” tale, and yet. The movie’s not really about the Giant, it’s about all the various reactions people have to the Giant. This is a fun and heartwarming experience, if you don’t count the part where you’ll bawl like a broken-hearted child.
Fair warning: You will bawl like a broken-hearted child at one point.
Also, this movie is gorgeous. Whatever one might think of the story or characters, visually it’s a feast.
There’s some unsubtle political commentary going on, and several key characters are more like caricatures. It is a kids movie, ostensibly, but your mileage may vary.
The Iron Giant is another case of “good movie, bad marketing.” It deserved to make lots of money and get all the critical acclaim. I guess it’ll just have to settle for being a “cult classic” instead.
You can rent or buy it for streaming on several of the usual for-pay suspects (Amazon, Google Play, etc) or you can fork out for a shiny platter edition. Try it then buy it, is my recommendation.
I wish I could remember whose booth this was. They were nice enough to let me put a duck on their display piece, after all, and I should be able to thank them properly.
C’est la vie.
Originally posted to social media accounts on November 11th, 2016.
