As mentioned earlier, I submitted a number of photos for consideration in a call for art for UMM’s new Welcome Center. Much to my delight two photos were in fact chosen, being I think the first two pieces of mine to ever be purchased as art (as opposed to illustration or journalism). The first is the train panorama above, and the second is the turbine shot below.

Michael Eble (the curator for UMM’s HFA Gallery) also asked if he could exhibit four other photos (below) that I submitted in the 2010 Celebration exhibition in the HFA Gallery! They’re hanging now (in the upper level down at the end). There will be special showings during Founders Weekend, September 23–26 and Homecoming Weekend, October 8–10, and the exhibit closes on 16 October.

I took over 1,000 pictures at yesterday’s 2010 graduation ceremony at UMM, and will sometime be putting the least bad of them on my events account on Flickr, but at the moment I have a ton of deadlines looming (grades, etc.) so that’ll have to wait a bit.

The wind ensemble and choir both did an excellent job (as they always do); these are from before the ceremony started while people were filing in and taking their seats. I really loved the reflection in the euphoniums, especially the mirror sharp reflection of the Student Center, trees, and sky in the silver instrument.

I took quite a few pictures of that reflection, and struggled a bit with the final presentation. It’s not clear to me whether the emphasis provided by the desaturation above, or whether I’m better off leaving the color alone (below).

The top one makes a really nice desktop image, by the way :-).

I did indeed take a bunch of photos, and posted just over 600 of the least blurry of them on Flickr yesterday. This is no big deal – I do lots of events and post piles of photos like this all the time.

Except this time the view count just went totally through the roof. My events account typically gets a few hundred views a day, with small spikes when I post a new set. 1,000 views, though, would be a big day for that account.

I’ve had over 5,000 views today, the vast majority of which have been on the Fashion Trashion photos.

I’m quite thoroughly gobsmacked, and not entirely sure where all the traffic is coming from. I’m thinking a lot of it is via Twitter, but it’s not really clear.

I suspect that the total lifetime views of my photographs pre-digital/Flickr might have been than 5,000, so to have 5,000 views of my work in one day is pretty amazing. I’m most grateful for the attention – thanks!

Flickr’s “day” just rolled over, and we peaked at 5,600 views for the 24 hour period. I’ve probably never seen anything close to that, and may never again. Crazy.

Thomas qualified for the state finals last year (along with MAHS student Alex McIntosh), so we had the good fortune to attend last year’s event. The quality of the performances was really exquisite, and I highly recommend the event to any fans of poetry and literature in the area.

Tim Ostby (the other MAHS student this year) placed fifth at the regional. Congratulations to him and all the other students that performed last night! While there were fewer competitors at the regional than last year, the quality of the performances was considerably stronger, and the venue (A Center for the Arts in Fergus Falls) was vastly better than last year’s (a classroom at a regional community college).

A huge thanks to David Johnson, drama coach and english teacher at MAHS. Dave’s been a huge influence and support for Thomas in both theatre and Poetry Out Loud. It’s greatly to Dave’s credit that MAHS has had a student in the state finals of Poetry Out Loud each of the last four years (which is every year MAHS could have competed), with two in last year’s finals. Further, every MAHS student that’s gone to state has placed in the top 6: Anika Kildegaard took 2nd in 2007, Mary Hu won the state competition in 2008 and went on to the National Finals, and Alex McIntosh placed 4th and Thomas McPhee 6th in 2009. In fact Morris is the only high school in the state to place four students in the top 6 from 2007-2009, with no other school has placing more than two. Not a bad track record for a small rural high school. Thanks a ton to Dave for all his support and assistance!

The event will feature the 18 first and second places from the nine regions, each reciting one, two, or three poems depending on how far they get in the finals. Two of the 18 are from Morris: Alex McIntosh, son of Alisande Allaben (UMM Alumni Relations office) and Gordon McIntosh (UMM Physics); and Thomas McPhee. Having 11% of the finalists be from our little town is a pretty good showing, so we’ll definitely appreciate any Morris fans that are able to come out and join us.

Based on what we’ve seen getting this far, and what we’ve heard about past finals, the quality of the recitations should be really high. At the risk of being an immodest dad, I think that this should be a real artistic performance, and certainly not a painful “We’re only here for the kids” kind of experience.

The state winner goes on to the national finals next month in Washington D.C., with a chance to win a $20K scholarship!

Apparently we had an earthquake here in the UK last night around 1am, and Sub-Evil and I snoozed through the whole thing! WeatherGirl, however, was still up and reports on the not-exactly-harrowing experience, complete with links to other sources of info.

This is the second earthquake she’s experienced and I haven’t. (I was in Texas at a workshop when we had a small tremor in Minnesota shortly after we moved there. There’s a wonderful story there, but it’ll have to wait until for another day.)