It was kind of unexpected, and the existence of it in ink-on-paper form lies squarely on the shoulders of the newspaper's online editor, Mr. Matt Sanders.

My wife loved the arty photo I had created for this blog. I believe that after the first initial shriek, the words "hate it" and "you look like a thug" came from her lips.

When I got to work, I had an email from a co-worker saying that my "surly mug wouldn't look out of place on a gangsta rap album jacket."

And our long-time editor, now editorial page editor Joe Sullivan succinctly put it, "Good blog, bad photo."

OK, I get it. My art experiment was a flop. I will refund everyone's money.

I made do with what I had at hand when I created the photo (queue the violins). No photographers were around and I needed a photo. What do you know, my laptop has a built-in camera and comes with software that lets you apply various effects on-the-fly to photos. So I took matters into my own hands.

And my inner geek got the best of me.

Now, I've got a normal photo. No arts and no farts. Just a plain old mug of yours truly.

My Original Blog Photo

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