Still Surprising, Sometimes

Well, I’ll be diggidy-danged – they did make all the Slainte Surprises the equal amount! 800 for each of the Mattes, and 325 for each of the Glosses.

I was beginning to suspect that was the case; after the initial rush of horse trading, I noticed that the numbers seemed to be leveling out, and that no particular item seemed significantly “rarer” than the other.

Good!

It took a few years for the BreyerFest Surprise Special Run to evolve into what it has become today. With the first Surprise – the Quarter Horse in 2009 – we knew what the mold and colors were ahead of time. The only real “surprise” (aside from the Smoke, Charcoal, and Silver Filigrees that were supposed to be randomly distributed throughout the weekend, but were not) was in which one you’d get.

They switched it up a little bit with the Spun Gold Surprise Ethereals in 2011: we didn’t know the mold initially, but the quantities – again, aside from a Gloss Palomino Appaloosa that actually was randomly distributed – were more or less equal.

It wasn’t until 2012’s Stoneleigh Surprise on the Flash mold that the BreyerFest Surprise became more “standardized”: scarce Gloss variations of the Mattes were introduced, with variable amounts of each color (now four, instead of three). There’s been some variation since then – extra surprises for Anniversary years, the “Dark Horse” in 2018’s Dark Horse Surprise Smarty Joneses – but the formula has been more or less stayed the same.

I know some are lamenting the “chase” aspect, or the delightful mathematical models we build to determine which one is the rarest while we wait for Reeves to actually tell us, but I am perfectly fine with going back to equal quantities across the board. It’ll minimize scalping, encourage trading, and people who suddenly discover that there are eight variations of a mold they NEED NOW won’t find themselves maxing out their credit lines to do so.

It also doesn’t come as a surprise to me that the Glosses were at almost a 1 to 2 ratio compared to the Mattes – I figured there had to be more to my luck this year than The Universe glancing my way and saying “Fine, fine, humor her with a Gloss this time.”

I’ll still take it, though.

One of the other “surprises” this year – the Epona coming in two variations, both loose-maned and braided – is simply a case of Reeves catering to our fondness for variations, nothing more. I fully expect to see unannounced mold variations on BreyerFest Specials going forward, on any mold that comes with that possibility.

(Like most of the Special Runs, she is much lovelier in hand than the photographs suggested, though she is another I will wait a few months on before I even consider purchasing.)

As for the third Surprise – the Volunteer Model being a Gambler’s Choice – that was also something I did not find completely unexpected. With the increased need for volunteers, introducing variations to the Volunteer Special lowers the individual piece counts and therefore increased the potential resale value on the secondary market.

It seemed odd that they would introduce it this year, when the need for Volunteers was significantly reduced (therefore rendering the need for a lower piece count kinda moot). I suspect that this was something that was already planned ahead of time, when an in-person event was still on the table.

Trying to Summon the Lightning

For lots and lots of reasons I’d rather not get into, I am going to pretend that Volunteer Models didn’t exist this year. (Not that I particularly love the mold, but…  yeah, let’s not go there. Be happy with my Glossy Surprise and move forward.)

Recent BreyerFest Nonhorse Special Runs haven’t been much to my liking – and I was baffled by the inclusion of a Spanish Fighting Bull in the French-themed year, when there were so many more appropriate (and less controversial) options available – but I am quite delighted by this year’s edition Hamish:

Take a boring but competent mold that’s been out of circulation for a few years and give it a snazzy, shiny makeover!

As I’ve said before, I would have been happy if they had just given him an updated version of his original Solid Black paint job, add some shading, hoof and facial detailing, and wrap it up in a Gloss Finish. But Hamish in all his sparkly, splashy, glittery glory is more than fine!

This has gotten me to thinking. Who else is a boring but competent mold who hasn’t seen a lot of action lately? And who would definitely benefit from a sharp modern update?

(FYI: Not a typical Stud Spider.)

Stud Spider! We haven’t seen much of Spider in the past ten(!) years; the last time we saw him as a production piece was Stetson, a very nice Dun Micro Run (24 pieces) for the Lone Star Experience in 2009.

As for whether or not there’s a market for a new Stud Spider release, all I have to do is point to one of the Regular Run releases that immediately preceded Stetson: the #1236 Banjo in Buckskin Tobiano Pinto. He ran a remarkable five years as a part of the My Favorite Horses Series, from 2004 through 2008. That’s longer than his beloved original pinto release – the #88 Overo Pinto, that only ran for three years, from 1979 through 1981.

I was thinking a minimal frame overo would be nice (Blue Roan, or Sooty Palomino?), but the Collector’s Club “Picture This” Sweepstakes – where we had to choose one of four different molds to appear as a Special Run Frame Overo next year – tragically did not include Stud Spider as an option.

(I would have voted for him instead of... gosh, I don’t even remember now! Was it Latigo?)

So, not likely.

But stranger things have happened, and maybe whatever magic I seem to have at my disposal here might help make another Stud Spider happen sooner, regardless.

BreyerFest in a Box

More technical difficulties this week, that (I hope) are finally worked out.

On the plus side of being mostly offline, I’ve been able to (a) finish dusting, (b) clean the garage, (c) sort and “triage” my quilt projects and even work on them a bit.

(The situation there is not as bad as I thought – I may still be able to hit my original pre-pandemic target by the end of the year!)

I’ve also – mercifully – been able to avoid most of the Online NPOD/Grab Bag “reveals”, which have become something of a sore point with me this year. While I am glad that I managed to get what I could get when others could not, that was one thing I was really hoping to “participate” in this year.

But alas, like so many other things this year, I could not.

My “BreyerFest in a Box” arrived Tuesday, and I’ve slowly been opening pieces throughout the week, as my emotional needs warranted. The first model I opened wasn’t the Surprise, but the Thorn:

I knew when they revealed that the Thorn was the Gloss/Matte Split model that that meant I was still probably getting the Matte, because my lack of luck with Glosses extends even to releases where I have a 50/50 shot (or better, with Lancelot!)

And as chance would have it, the Gloss Thorns are especially nice, and all the people who had him as their 5th or 6th choice and ended up with the Gloss are now either deciding to keep him, or using his “new hotness” to procure something more to their likings.

As you know, I do not play that game, so it’ll probably be a while before I add a Gloss Thorn here. I’m hoping it’ll only be a year, maybe, but the prices for a lot of not-that-rare things are absolutely nonsensical now so it’s hard to judge. Either way, it means I’ll have to wait.

(I was not expecting to see Kochab – the Stablemate MiniMe of the Duende North Star – going for nearly a hundred bucks on eBay, but that’s where we are right now.)

So I didn’t have a whole lot of hope when I finally decided to open my Surprise Friday night. When I took off the orange outer bag I could see that it was the Silver Dapple Black, so I immediately and logically assumed it was the Matte – who appears to be the most common color/finish combo of the Surprises this year.

And I was fine with that, since the color is beautiful and something that they could definitely put on all the things going forward. So when I took off the inner plastic bag and discovered this instead:

My brother and I used to joke that if Mom ever had the luck of actually winning the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes, they’d never be able to use the footage in their commercials. Instead of immediately bursting into tears or screaming for joy, she would yell something along the lines of “It’s about [expletive deleted] time!” grab the giant check from the hapless Prize Patrol people, and slam the door in their faces.

And only then she would have cried.

Yeah, that’s what I did.

One tiny bit of redemption in a BreyerFest that was otherwise not what I wanted, or expected.

Sorting Things Out

Still not done dusting; I was distracted by the fact that my BreyerFest orders have been upgraded to “Fulfilled” on the Breyer web site, and now that’s all I can think about.

The rhubarb pie didn’t help, either. (I don’t know what magical ingredient my mother puts into it other than rhubarb, but it’s great!)

It’s kind of interesting to watch the transactions for BreyerFest Surprise models take place entirely online this year; it’s still not entirely clear to me (beyond what the most common color is) what their relative rankings are, and I think a lot of transactions are still being based strictly on past history and overall desirability.

(Actually, I would prefer that they make all colors in equal quantities and let hobbyists sort out them out purely by desirability like they did with the first couple of Surprises, but Reeves is going to Reeves.)

Keeping in mind that I have the annoying habit of picking the “rare” one out of the lineup right off every year when I go to take a look at the Silent Auction set first thing Friday morning: my first choice is the Roan Pinto because I have a thing for Roans in general and I think it’s the prettiest one out of the set, though the Silver Bay is a close second.

My second is the Appaloosa because it’s been forever since I’ve drawn an Appaloosa Surprise (the last being the Spun Gold Surprise in 2011) and that’s even longer than my Glossy drought (the last and only being the 2012 Stoneleigh Surprise).

But anyway, enough of the blatherings. Here’s the situation with this year’s Samplers.

I’ll print up about 20 copies to start, and the rest on-demand, with the first batch ready to be mailed out on Friday. After that, they’ll be mailed out as my schedule permits.

All I am asking for is a dollar to cover the cost of postage and supplies, sent via the donate button off to the side here or via PayPal directly, using my Yahoo account (leeta87). With your address, of course.

I haven’t had a chance to pull out older copies out of my files yet; aside from the dusting, my other big project has been pulling and sorting all the unfinished quilting projects crammed in the nooks and  crannies not occupied by horses, and holy cats, that's a troublingly tall pile of work to do. It is almost as tall as I am, and I am not short. 

I do have several copies of the 2018 (I accidentally left a bundle at home that year!) so I can toss one of those in easy-peasy and at no extra charge, but the rest will take a little more time to sort out.

Dusting and Revelations

My weekend was messy and complicated. The Samplers will be done tomorrow, and I’ll give everybody an update on them then.

Anyway, the power kept flickering in and out, the computer was being glitchy, I lost an auction on eBay last night that was important to me emotionally, I developed a sinking feeling that my BreyerFest purchases are stuck in limbo for the duration, and I’m in the middle of dusting which is not exactly my favorite activity in the world.

While I am generally of the same opinion as most of you when it comes to dusting – I only do it when (a) I need to take a picture, (b) I am getting ready for a show, or (c) the spiders are starting to get entirely too comfortable in the house – my family has been most insistent that I get this done as soon as possible.

And of course, it’s the only project this weekend that I made any significant progress on at all. In fact, it is going well enough that I might be finished by tomorrow, and thus salvage my week, if not my weekend.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of one of my old favorites who did diddly-squat at the BreyerFest Virtual Show, my beautiful #54 Bay Trakehner who doesn’t look like an off-the-shelf Regular Run Trakehner from 1979, but he is:

It’s funny, when I used to show him in the 1980s, he’d either get totally ignored, or he’d attract a huge crowd that would stand agape at his insanely awesome shading and ask me how I acquired such an amazing specimen of Trakehner-ness.

(Santa. The answer was Santa.)

At Pansies and Ponies last year several people came over to my table to do much the same, but the judges had other thoughts on the matter. I had high hopes for him at the Virtual Show too, but again, he became invisible. I could see that other Hess Trakehners were considered but alas, my beautiful Revelator was not.

He’s one of those models that I keep going back to when I think about entering the actual live show next year, maybe. Would seeing him in person persuade the judges? Or is my time better spent focusing on winning the Customs Contest first?

Virtual Show Wrap-Up

One thing I was not counting on was being exhausted this week, even though I didn’t go anywhere, do much of anything, or even go outside and enjoy the heat all that much over my “vacation”.

(For the record, I actually do “enjoy the heat”.)

The Surprises are starting to show up, and as a courtesy to those who want to be surprised when they arrive, I won’t discuss them until mine does. (So… about another three days, at least.)

It’s… not a mold I expected (I had it pegged as an outside chance) but the ones I’ve seen are quite lovely, even (especially!) the one that seems to be the most common. As always, I’m hoping for a Gloss, but not counting on it. Like, at all. 

So here are my top three “winners” at the BreyerFest Virtual Open Show.

First is Winslow, a Collector’s Choice Sergeant who took Second in OF RR Donkey/Mules/Zebras/Primitive Breeds (Class #106):

I bought him years ago as a companion to a Sample of the release I found in the NPOD. There’s not a huge difference between the two - the Sample is slightly darker and pearlier, and has notations and signatures on his belly. I was rummaging around the display collection looking for last minute entries the Saturday before, and he caught my eye.

Second, my #103 Appaloosa Yearling Premonitions, who took Second in OF RR Stock Breeds & Types Foal (Class #503):

I bought her at BreyerFest years ago, in a room in the 200s. I had been looking to upgrade my big-blanket variation of the Appy Yearling: she was very pretty, with immaculate spotting, and her price was right! I almost entered my two-sock variation, but this girl was in better condition overall.

Third, my Riegsecker 1984 Red Chestnut Draft Horse Joonas, who took Second in OF SR Mini Draft Breeds (Class #613), showing as a Jutland:

I have the complete set of seven Riegsecker Stablemate Drafts. When I used to show some of these Drafts before, I’d always go with the flashier ones - the Red Roan, the Palomino, sometimes even the Steel Gray - even though I always thought the Chestnut was the nicest one in the set I received. Glad I decided to go with my gut!

Since, like most folks, I couldn't get anything to function properly on Friday, I spent most of my day refreshing the show results. I was pretty pleased that I hit my “target” (10 placings) by lunchtime, and the placings were fairly evenly distributed through the entire ribbon spectrum, except for the utter absence of Firsts.

I totally tanked in Special Run OF (only one ribbon out of 30 entries) and did best in Collectibility (14 out of 65) and Foals (5 out of 22).

If you factor out the OOAK/Test Colors Classes - I had only one placing out of 12 I entered in that section, partly because the Test Colors I do have are on older and less flashy molds that I bought second hand for cheap - I did quite well statistically, though I was hoping for better (one First!)

Some of the placements I found… uhm, interesting? That’s something that's always been a thing, both at live shows in general and BreyerFest shows in particular, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Judge’s prerogative and all that.

And it benefited me in some ways: I entered my pretty Bay PAS Witez II in OF RR Arabian Stallions because I couldn’t fit him in anywhere in Collectibility. While not normally considered a competitive mold since the introduction of Huckleberry Bey, it has been getting a positive reevaluation in recent years.

Combine that with the fact that his paint job is flat out gorgeous (he finished fourth in a very competitive OF RR Collectibility Class at Pansies and Ponies last year!) I thought he’d have a shot at a lower placing - but he finished third!

As someone whose hobby preoccupation is history, I did wince at some of the documentation that I saw in some of the Collectibility Classes, and cringed even more when some of those models placed over mine. I know other factors are in play when it comes to those class placements, but some of them did feel like tiny little stabs in the heart.

On the other hand, in regards to my breed assignments, I thought I did pretty well. Before I became obsessed with Breyer History, I use to obsess over horse breeds, and I used to look forward to buying the October All-Breeds issue of Western Horseman every year.

If I do pursue Live Showing more actively in the next year or two, I think the best use of my time (other than taking my customizing more seriously) may be in focusing on the breed assignment aspect.

Technical Difficulties

Let me apologize for my general absence over the weekend. Like many of you, ended up spending way too much time trying to buy any. darn. thing. during the Virtual BreyerFest Online Experience.

I have some other commitments to take care of over the next few days, so I will have the physical Samplers ready by the end of the week. I’ll let you all know when they’re ready and what to do.

Back to the actual official BreyerFest stuff….

While I eventually ended up getting almost everything I wanted/needed, and a Cheesecake too because he was actually available one of the times I refreshed the Store page and I went for it, it took me most of the weekend to accomplish this.

Benelli never showed as being available, Kelpie was available only once (and gone when I clicked on it), and while I did manage to “get” a Grab Bag once, it was cart-snatched from me during the checkout process.

Overall I found it to be an unpleasant experience that left me unable to enjoy most of the video content. Once I even got them to work. (Refresh. Reboot. Switch browsers. And so on.)

Anyway, I did get my four top choices for Ticket SRs, which was nice, though it did take an extended phone call to Customer Service to figure out what the heck went wrong with my second ticket time.

It gave me five choices, I picked the two I had originally selected, attempted to check out, and… then nothing. Everything disappeared. I think everything is fine now, but I can’t access my bank account at the moment to make sure there aren’t any outstanding issues because of course I can’t.

I can only imagine what kind of week everyone is going to be having at the Reeves HQ as they sort all this nonsense out.

I did better at the Virtual Show than I expected - either 31 or 32 placings out of the 182 photos(!) I ended up entering. No firsts, but three seconds, two thirds, and only one tenth!

I’ll talk in more detail about the show in my next post, because I haven’t quite finished processing/analyzing it all. As far as participating in the “actual” show next year, that I have not decided. (It’s simply not an analogous experience; if there’s another online photo show, yeah, maybe…)

Since the show was the only moderately successful/pleasant aspect of this event for me, in lieu of making a memory box of the event like I usually do, I’m going to make a quilt inspired by the ribbons I won, incorporating the fabric I purchased that never got made into Ninja Surprise Bags.

(Not using the actual ribbons themselves, because I like my quilts machine washable.)

And finally, to address an issue/question that might be coming up over the next few weeks regarding my absence from another part of the “Model Horse Internet”.

All I will say in public is (a) it was not my decision, (b) it is not likely to be resolved any time soon and (c) I am currently exploring other avenues to interact with hobbyists online. (I have a lot of my plate for the next two weeks, so it’ll be a bit before decisions are made.)

Being unable to be with most of my co-hobbyists in a meaningful way the one week of the year I want (and need!) to be actively social was probably the roughest part of this whole… thing. It’s been something I’ve been wanting to work on anyway, but just like this year’s BreyerFest, circumstances are forcing my hand.

The Online Experience: Now With Sampler!

This year’s Sampler is done and… it was an interesting experience. On the plus side, the software upgrades forced me to finally clean up the Sampler’s master file, so future issues will have… fewer issues, going forward.

Anyway, the link to the PDF for the 2020 Sampler is on the right; that box will be a permanent feature here as I slowly convert and upload as many older Samplers as I can. I still have the files for everything up to 2001, but some of them are either in Adobe PageMaker, or may involve fonts that don’t exist anymore, so I’ll probably end up having to scan a bunch of stuff anyway.

It’ll be a couple days before I have physical copies of this year’s Sampler available because I ran out of both paper and toner, and I have no plans of venturing any farther than the local gas station through Sunday afternoon.

I’ve already bought all my snacks, so I am good to go! (Frozen pizza, frozen lemonade, taffy, and a fine selection of cheese and crackers from the British Isles!)

If you want a physical copy of the Sampler, feel free to shoot me an e-mail so I can put you on the list. That way when I am ready to print, I will have a good idea of how many copies to run and how many envelopes I need to buy and/or dig out of storage.

Heck, if you’re local and you just want to stop on by, you can also send me an e-mail - I won’t be far from the computer all weekend so my responses may almost be in real time! However, since the weather here is being BreyerFest-like (upper 80s, with high potential for horizontal rain), I may occasionally be wandering outside to simulate that particular aspect of the convention experience.

I also bought a few horses Wednesday afternoon and left them in my car (I park under a tree, they’ll be fine!) and will open them later in the weekend. My purchases included some Surprise Stablemates, a pretty nice Favory Ariella set, and the Harley; there’s a story to tell about the Harley, but I’ll do that another day when I’m feeling a little less scattered.

As far as additional shopping goes, other than my Ticket SRs, all I will probably buy this weekend will be the Classic Greenman, the Stablemates (though I agree on everyone about the price on the “Best of BreyerFest” set - yikes!) and (gosh, I hope) an NPOD box. I do have my eye on a couple of things on eBay; I haven’t been shopping on there in a few months, so I need to do a bit of poking around to see if I can uncover any hidden treasures.

I am not putting any faith in the Raffles. I don’t think I’ll even watch that part of the festivities. They will e-mail me if I actually happen to win anything, right? Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

I don’t know if I’ll watch the auctions or not. If I had the money (I don’t!) I’d bid on either that pretty-pretty Gloss Pinto Shetland Pony or the Very Metal Purple Nevermore, but both are now well over what I’m willing to pay already.

I do like how they tried to have an auction piece from every decade of Breyer History. Props to whomever painted that Stock Horse Stallion - I don’t think he’s ever looked better!

I never got around to getting any of my sales items up because I don’t have that much to sell right now. I never felt a pressing need regardless, since I don’t have either a hotel bill or travel expenses to worry about covering, and the bank account are in good shape.

As for the rest of my plans… I’ll probably be winging it, like everyone else. I’ll get up early, put on my Purple Breyer Spirit Jersey, pull the snacks from the fridge in the basement and see what the heck happens.

(I also wish I could have had more active involvement in all this, but... well, let us not go there this weekend. Focus on happy thoughts and pretty ponies.)

Final Thoughts on the Photo Show

I think I ended up with somewhere around 175 pictures uploaded for the show? I was getting kind of tired and cranky and the end of the process and every time I tried to take a count I got a different number, and then finally decided it didn’t matter because I hit my goal more or less and I needed to focus on putting out other fires.

(Like the Sampler. That I appear to be significantly rewriting again because I can’t help myself.)

A few final observations on the Virtual BreyerFest Open Show, at least until the judging begins/happens (I’ll probably wait until the end of judging before I look at any of the results, just to keep my anxiety and/or personal outrage levels to a minimum.)

First, I was not expecting it to be quite that competitive, especially since the prizes are basically one-tenth the value of actual In-Person BreyerFest Live. This is not necessarily a bad thing: back in the old days of Live Showing (for me, the 1980s), the best we could hope for was usually a trophy and a fancy rosette. The competition was still pretty tough, especially in this part of the country.

(I still have all those rosettes, FWIW.)

So the possibility that others were also doing it purely for the love of the game is kind of heartening. Then again, the lack of reading comprehension skills I’ve witnessed on Breyer’s social media outlets does make me wonder what the expectations are as far as prizes go…

(... and also leaves me wondering what the Kentucky Horse Park is going to do with all those angry BreyerFest fans who will be turning up on Friday anyway.)

My dreams are modest, and small: I am psyched at the possibility of getting a padded envelope of assorted flats!

Second, my photography skills did definitely improve over time, but I still don’t enjoy the process. I have no idea if the exercise will translate into better pictures here either, because most of the time I don’t have the patience for it. I was especially proud of how the picture for my Man of the Hour turned out, though:

It just… perfectly captures what he looks like, why I think he’s special, and why others should love him, too. That’s everything I could hope for in a photo show picture, basically.

I also liked how this sassy little brat’s photo turned out:

I don’t particularly have high hopes for either, but I’ll find out Friday, I guess.

Third, I think this show might be persuading me to take my customizing more seriously, more than the Customs Contest ever could. I know the entrants here are not necessarily representative of the competition in a more normal setting, but I think I could be competitive and successful here, so that’s something I’ll definitely take into consideration when this week’s drama is all over.

Which brings me to my final point. I know it’s something that’s an uncomfortable subject for many in the hobby, so I’ll just put it the most gentle and euphemistic way possible: the show also bolstered my opinion that the upper end of the model horse economy is, in a number of ways, probably unsustainable in the long term.

I am glad that I have the resources that I do to be able to even compete, but I can definitely see why others get discouraged, especially in Collectibility classes. It makes me an all the more enthusiastic proponent of live shows that completely negate the Collectibility factor altogether and just focus on breed assignment and research.

Anyone who has access to a library or the Internet, and some spare time, can do that. And that’s one of the things that drew me in and kept me in the hobby all these years: I’ll probably never be able to afford the upkeep of a real horse, but by golly, with a little hard work and mad research skills I should still be able to show the plastic versions!

(And I’d still get to do tons of research which is, you know, what I am all about.)

Glamour Shots

So far I’ve uploaded about 100 pictures, which means that I’ve met the bare minimum of entries that will leave me satisfied; another 50 more and I’ll be happy. That goal is entirely within reach as long as I don’t do too much fooling around over the weekend.

Here’s another rejected entry, a glamour shot of my Showcase Collection Grazing Mare. Apparently I have way more rare packaging than I realized, and condition-wise she doesn’t quite make the cut anyway.

And looking over the entries in that particular class, it’s only confirmed my suspicion that - taken as a group, rather than model by model - they are not as rare as other lesser-known packaging experiments, like the 1984 Olympic USET packaging:

I was super tempted when a sealed Halla from that assortment showed up on eBay a few weeks back, but I managed to maintain my cool - and my PayPal balance! I already had a Morganglanz one anyway - opened, of course - which certainly helped with my fortitude.

(Also not one of the ones I entered in that class, by the way, because seriously, it’s a Morganglanz. I love the homely guy, but even I know his limitations. )

Working on my entries for this show has been… and interesting experience, but I’ll be glad when it’s all over. As I said before, I’m shooting for ten placings: anything more than that is gravy.

I don’t know if this will quite count as my “official” attempt at showing at BreyerFest, or another thing entirely, especially since any wins in this show won’t necessarily count against you for the next. (Not counting on that being a concern, though.)

I can also say that I can now see why some people complain about money being a factor. As someone who thought she could compete in some of those classes, I’m just taking a deep breath, taking the best pictures I can, documenting the heck out of things (my thing!), and hoping for the best.

I mean, what else can I do? I don’t have the resources to do otherwise. Part of the reason this blog exists is help and inspire those of you in the same boat.

Besides, I think I’ve set myself for very modest expectations: even ten tenth place finishes would be fine. Weirdly coincidental if that happened to be the case, but fine.