"That there's an S.I., Clarke..."

What blog couldn't use a few more Cousin Eddie quotes?

:)

Sure I replaced R.V. with S.I... but when your senior is named Clarke, I had a hard time not thinking of Chevy Chase version from Christmas Vacation fame.

But back to the Clarke with an E.

I had photographed Clarke's older sis, Melissa a couple of years back in what was quite possibly the session with the most ever specific requests for poses in studio history. Mama Kim found out, like many before her... senior boys are a different ballgame.

What does that mean? Well... it's generalizing a bit... but for the most part it means that dudes are lower maintenance. :)

Not to be completely outdone, Clarke did have two specific requests, however. One involved M&M's and the other involved something special with basketball.

The M&M vision was originally to make it look as though Clarke was just chillin out in a massive PILE of the chocolate candies with a thin candy shell. When it became apparent that investing in what would amount to a grain bin FULL of M&M's wasn't practical... we went to plan B. And the second plan involved our senior guy "chugging" the candy.

We had a couple of fellas in the past who had dads that worked for Pepsi who wanted to be chugging soda, fittingly enough... so we did that back then. And this had a similar feel. It just involved Clarke pelting himself in the face with M&M's several times (and the resulting pick-em-up that was repeated several times).

The result is pretty sweet... pun intended.

I kinda stumbled into the other request as, like most athletes that pay visits to me, I had assumed that Clarke wanted some sort of basketball collage. Upon further review, however... Mr. Mossman didn't want that at all.... What he DID want, was for me to make it look like he was on an authentic cover of Sports Illustrated.

Being the sports nut that I am... I relished this challenge, and you mix in my journalism and layout/design skills from back in the day... and I dare say that if S.I. needs any help in their cover production department, I'm game.

The Mossman's make their home near Conrad... but instead of yet another BCLUW senior... we actually are dealing with a homeschool situation... which I've heard a lot about personally as my sister homeschools her eight children. While it's not for me, personally... I do admire those families that give it a run.

So, where does the Marshalltown Bobcat Basketball program come in? Home schooler? From Conrad? How does he end up at The Roundhouse? Clarke has designs on playing college hoop, and what better way to do that than to hook up with some of his Marshalltown friends that he's played AAU with over the years and turn around and play with the area's biggest school?

Not a bad plan of attack. Good luck to Clarke and the 'Cats and this season!