Practical Failure

OK, so the 4th of July Photo Contest was a complete bust for me. If you can't already tell: I didn't win. There's no value in discussing the details of the winning photo or how the contest was run. All I can say is congratulations to the winner, I bet that made them feel great. The only real lesson for me on this is that I can't go into these things expecting anything.  Neither should you.

I honestly expected to do better. I figured that given the day, a patriotic theme would have played well. After all, the winner was chosen by popular vote.  Sadly it did not.

What went wrong?