Awkwardly Social

On permanent hiatus.  Maybe semi-permanent.  I don’t know.

I do a monthly photo scavenger hunt. It started after I asked for photo suggestions for a road trip, and went from there. The rules are simple. The game is fun. Everyone is encouraged to participate by using this flickr group.

November/December 2007

1. A house or building you’d love to live in
2. Something orange
3. Something old
4. A horse with someone riding it
5. Water
6. Something you do in your spare time
7. Sky
8. A fence
9. A clock
10. Something you’ve cooked

October participants

• BikerCandy did a great job - 10 out of 11.
• Jen (while pregnant!) also participated.
• Pam at BlogPressure has some lovely shots, too.
• EKG at Yet Another Librarian Blog accidentally participated. Heh.

October 2007

1. Something outside its natural environment
2. Urban wildlife
3. Something British (this should be easy for you Jen)
4. White picket fence
5. Food prep/cooking shot
6. A broken sign
7. An interesting entrance/door
8. A lit jack o’ lantern
9. Autumn color
10. Sunset

• Bonus - A kid in costume

September 2007

September participants -

• Biker Candy
• Blog Pressure
• Davah
• Yet Another Librarian Blog
• Me

1. Antique car, running or not (must be older than 1940)
2. A fountain, preferably with people sitting near or children playing in
3. Mode of transportation
4. Sign with a cool font
5. Christmas tree
6. Someone in red shoes
7. Nature’s wrath
8. Ceiling
9. Still life with fruit
10. Ridiculous lawn ornament

Bikercandy just reminded me in the comments that I haven’t posted the November Scavenger Hunt details. My reasons for not doing so are this crazy NaBloWTF (TM Jenny) and the fact that I think people are going to be busy for the holidays, so I’m going to combine November and December. Also, instead of drawing them randomly I’ve hand picked them, full disclosure in case you want Coopers and Lybrand to perform an audit or something. Best of all though, you have extra time to get your snaps. Yay!

Here’s what you’re looking for:

1. A house or building you’d love to live in
2. Something orange
3. Something old
4. A horse with someone riding it
5. Water
6. Something you do in your spare time
7. Sky
8. A fence
9. A clock
10. Something you’ve cooked

Have a great time!

You guys? I sucked on this one. Partially because I crashed my car and sort of gave up, partially because I just didn’t have it in me this month, and partially because when it all comes down to it - I’m LAZY.

• BikerCandy did a great job - 10 out of 11.
• Jen (while pregnant!) also participated.
• Pam at BlogPressure has some lovely shots, too.
• EKG at Yet Another Librarian Blog accidentally participated. Heh.

So! Put your suggestions in the comments for next month, and I’ll add them to the long list, randomly select 10 for November and post them next Monday.

1. Something outside its natural environment.

Shopping carts’ natural environment is not the grassy decorative plants next to a pathway, I think. I walk by this every day on my way to the bus. I actually was worried this evening that it would be gone and I wouldn’t be able to get my picture. Thank goodness no one decided to live in it in the meantime.

2. Urban wildlife - I was going to take a picture of a squirrel or a pigeon or something, but being lame, I never did.

3. Something British - There was even a British guy at Louie’s Birthday BBQ, but guess who didn’t get his picture? Me. The answer is me.

4. White picket fence - I could have sworn there was a house on my block with a white picket fence. It’s a good thing I didn’t bet my life on it because I would be dead right now.

5. Food prep/cooking shot

I refused to clean the kitchen before I started baking and this is what happened. I only had two feet to prep in and it was mayhem and chaos, but no cookies were harmed. Except the ones that never made it into the oven because they made it into my mouth first. They weren’t en-souled yet, the little fetus cookies, so it doesn’t count.

6. A broken sign

This is right across the street from my bus stop. And movie trivia buffs might be interested to know that they shot the diner scene in Pulp Fiction here, while it was still a working diner. Now it is just a movie location, with a broken sign.

7. An interesting entrance/door - Again, I got nothing. There is this amazing blue door on my old driving route to work that I meant to take a picture of. Then I crashed my car.

8. A lit jack o’ lantern

Aw… so cute sitting right in their lawn. I hope no one smashes it. We have some new hipsters in the neighborhood, one was either dressed up as Jesus or just sort of looks like him, and they seem kind of like pumpkin smashers to me.

9. Autumn color

We don’t have many leaves changing, so this is going to have to do. It’s butternut squash and that is very fall to me.

10. Sunset

With all the fires, I thought we would have amazing sunsets. I guess one needs to be outside before it is dark to capture those…. I am lame. This was the best I could do.

• Bonus - A kid in costume - at the moment I am hiding in my apartment with the lights off and the blinds shut because I forgot to buy Halloween candy. I can hear the little munchkins trick-or-treating my neighbors.

I vow to do better next month. I mean, I can’t do much worse.

I used the random number generator, and it gave me some weird results so I tweaked it. I tried to make it a little easier this month, but I think there are still a few hard ones on this list.

• Something outside its natural environment
• Urban wildlife
• Something British (this should be easy for you Jen)
• White picket fence
• Food prep/cooking shot
• A broken sign
• An interesting entrance/door
• A lit jack o’ lantern
• Autumn color
• Sunset

• Bonus - A kid in costume

Have fun! And let me know if you posted your September shots on your blog and I missed it.

Today is the last day for Scavenger Hunt suggestions. Put them in the comments on this post or over here, either way, I have no preference. I’ll post the randomly selected results tomorrow.

This list was hard! I hope you guys had an easier time of it than I did. If you want to check out the flickr group - it’s here. If you want to add suggestions for the October Scavenger Hunt that post is here.

So far I’ve only seen one other participant’s post (I’ll add to this list as I see them)

- Yet Another Librarian

- Biker Candy

- Blog Pressure

- Davah

September 2007

1. Antique car, running or not (must be older than 1940) This was actually tougher than I thought, but I lucked upon an auto body shop on one of my lunch time walks and was pleasantly surprised to see this little jem. I’m not entirely sure it’s older than 1940, maybe someone can let me know?

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2. A fountain, preferably with people sitting near or children playing in I have a fountain right down the block from me, there is always a wedding party or quinceañera getting photos taken around it. In the summer there are always kids swimming in there, even though the rules prohibit it. I love that.

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3. Mode of transportation I made a special trip downtown to get this very standard subway photo. I meant to catch the Gold Line in Chinatown, but I was too annoyed to deal with parking down there. Oh well..

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4. Sign with a cool font This was my favorite of the choice (partly because it was my suggestion) mostly because I’m obsessed with typography now. I think it started when I was looking for a font for the header on this very website and now it’s spiraled into me wanting to pull my car over every five minutes to take a picture of a cool sign. As you’ll see from my flickr stream I took several photos of signs with cool fonts, but this one is my favorite.

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5. Christmas tree - I got nothing. This one was the only one I couldn’t find. Granted I actually didn’t look that hard..

6. Someone in red shoes I had sort of resigned myself to thinking I wasn’t going to be able to get this. I missed snapping the bride of the San Francisco wedding, it was so awesome her red shoes peeking out from under her white dress. Then I saw the twins out riding their tricycles and Zoe was wearing her red shoes, but I didn’t have my camera. A half hour later I heard them outside my house so I ran out and snapped this photo.

7. Nature’s wrath This one was probably the hardest for me because LA doesn’t really have much in the way of wrath, unless you count the wilting basil and sunflowers on my balcony… We had one really good rain storm that I slept through, and in the morning as I was walking around I saw a pot that had been knocked over and a palm frond that had been dislodged. It was very anti-climatic. Here’s the sad little pot.

8. Ceiling Since I was down at Union Station already, I decided to take a photo of the ceiling in the waiting area there. I’m still really shy about taking photos in public. I have no idea why.

9. Still life with fruit Oh ho! Olives aren’t fruit you say? Well, I looked it up and they most definitely are. Now I can tell you I get at least one serving of fruit a night in the form of a dirty martini. (I don’t really have a dirty martini every night but I would if I could afford to keep myself stocked in Grey Goose. What am I made of money?)

10. Ridiculous lawn ornament Beverly Hills is such an easy target for this. I think the combination of too much money, bad taste and children off to college makes for a perfect storm of ridiculous lawn ornamentage. I drive by this house every day and marvel at the amount of money they must have spent on these bronzed animal sculptures. It’s stunning.

I totally forgot that I needed to solicit your October Scavenger Hunt suggestions. Please put them in the comments below and they’ll be added to the list that didn’t get picked from last month.

My two are

• Something old
• Something British

If you have no idea what I’m talking about - go here and read all about it.

The September Scavenger Hunt is on, people! Sorry I’m late getting it together. It’s been too hot to think in Los Angeles, much less hold a hot laptop on my computer computer on my lap (durrr).

I used the Random Number Generator to get the results after assigning all the suggestions a number in the order in which they came in.

For September you will need to find these 10 things. I have set up a flickr group to join. (If you have trouble joining that group, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to figure out what I did wrong.) You can upload your finds as you snap them, wait until the last minute, or just don’t do it at all because you hate flickr (and me, and my dog).

Have fun!

1. Antique car, running or not (must be older than 1940)
2. A fountain, preferably with people sitting near or children playing in
3. Mode of transportation
4. Sign with a cool font
5. Christmas tree
6. Someone in red shoes
7. Nature’s wrath
8. Ceiling
9. Still life with fruit
10. Ridiculous lawn ornament

All the unused suggestions will go back in the hat for next month.

I have been thinking a lot about this scavenger hunt project and how to make it fun and how to have guidelines (not rules) and how to maintain my interest past the first month, and my conclusion is that having you guys involved is going to do that. It’s really occupied all my brain space, that is, all the brain space that wasn’t being used for writing that 2nd draft.

Here are my initial thoughts -

1. I’ll create a Flickr group for everyone to post their pictures to, so if they don’t have a blog (*cough*Davah*cough*) they can still participate in the challenge.

2. I’ll post a link on my side bar (or in my header if I can figure out how to do another tab. Jen, any idea how to do that?) to a list of the participants, and at the end of the month links to their results on their blogs.

3. I’ll open the floor for picture requests 3 - 5 days before the month begins (post as many as you’d like) and then pick ten (that’s manageable right?) randomly from a hat. The unused suggestions will remain in the pot for the next month to be added to the future suggestions.

4. The only rule is there is no rule. Take the suggestions literally or metaphorically. Post a link back to this blog or don’t. Do it methodically and artistically or scramble around at the last minute and finish it in one day. Don’t do it at all and skim past this post to the next one which is almost guaranteed to have me talking about being drunk, again. It’s up to you.

5. The best part about my impromptu scavenger challenge was how it opened my eyes to my environment, and how I spent less time thinking about how slowly the time was passing and more time thinking about how to take a picture of a brown cow 100 yards away from a speeding vehicle that I was driving. (DANGER: Don’t attempt!) I hope that it’s the same way for you.

So, without further ado, I am opening the comments section for photo requests, and on September 1st, I’ll post the results.

I’ll start -

• A ridiculous lawn/yard ornament
• A sign with a cool font
• A house or building you’d love to live in

Before my trip to Oregon I asked for song recommendations, and on a whim, photo requests - the latter sent me on a makeshift scavenger hunt. I didn’t get everything requested. I did pretty poorly overall, actually. But it definitely was a fun challenge and opened my eyes to the environment around me.

Here are the results.

Davah asked for:

1) A cow that is not black and white.
2) An actual piece of fruit or vegetable still hanging on orchard tree or vine.
3) Local food find.
4) A tear from a unicorn.
5) A funny or unusual bumper sticker.

I saw plenty of brown cows, but I was cruising along at about 75 miles per hour and never really stopped when they were moseying around. - Result NADA .

I was thinking of stopping at my favorite place on my route up the 5, called the Olive Pit, to see if I could get an olive shot, but it was 93 degrees outside and Lula nixed it. Much to my delight there were blackberries growing right outside our rental’s front door. - Result SUCCESS!

A local food find - I am usually all about ordering something off the menu that I know I like and not risking having an unsatisfying meal. I’m picky and a horrible dinner mate but I decided that this was an easy one to accomplish on our trip into the little town of Cannon Beach - Result SUCCESS.

A tear from a unicorn. She was joking about this, I think. But I gave my niece a My Pretty Pony coloring book, and there was TOTALLY a picture of a unicorn in there. I just forgot to take a picture of her coloring it in and drawing in tears. Boo. - Result NADA.

A funny or unusual bumper sticker. I was surprised I didn’t see more bumper stickers. I hardly saw any - I blame the price of gas. People aren’t dragging their old beaters out for a road trip to Northern California anymore. I risked my life (and Lula’s) to get close enough to take a picture of this guy, so it counts. Result - SUCCESS (sort of).

Beth asked for: “cheesiest local-flavor touristy wind chime you can find, please,” and boy were there some cheesy wind chimes. I think the sea gull takes the cake though. Result - SUCCESS.

EKG asked for:

1. “Welcome To…” sign. Has to be a town. Bonus points if it says “population”
2. Farm/roadside stan

I saw a ton of standard California regulation signs giving the “Now entering ____ Pop. ____” signs, but I really didn’t see anything funny or authentic. Probably because I was driving too fast. - Result NADA.

The farm stands were a plenty. If nothing else it showed me the bounty our country puts forward for easy consumption along our highways. I caught this one on the way out of town. Result SUCCESS.

Mags asked for “a picture of you with one of those garden gnome thingies.”
I found a gnome, it wasn’t in a garden, and I wasn’t in the picture. But I’m counting it! - Result SUCCESS (sort of).

Jen asked for a shot of “your feet hanging out the car window (passenger side only, of course) as you sail past a “Welcome To… Population…” sign.”

Sadly, I was driving myself, and I didn’t really see any signs as I mentioned before. So… - Result NADA.

Doahleigh asked for:
1. Inside of a closet.
2. Interesting door knocker.

And I got neither! How is that possible? There were plenty of closets in the house I was staying, though zero door knockers. - Result NADA

Finally, as a random bonus shot - I got a picture of some starfishes snacking on a crab. Enjoy!

I think I might try to set up a monthly scavenger hunt - everyone participates and posts their results to their blogs. Fun? Would you do it?