Duct tape floats - spinning and weaving - turkey legs - a State Fair MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Goooooood afternoon, dudes and dudettes! I’m so dang far down the list that it don’t freakin’ matter. :smiley:

State Fairs. It helps that our State Fair is in downtown Jackson: considering we live an a suburb of Jackson, we go every year. Distance is no excuse. My favorite activity is the “Guess your age/weight” booth. It’s such a huge ego-boo to see that no one comes close to my age. I love it. Fair food? I used to eat everything I could: but last year I tried my best to stay away from most of it. I even split my funnel cake with another family member. A plain funnel cake is 760 calories! That’s over half my daily allotment!

The one thing I’m looking forward to this year is being more mobile. The past few years, I have had to rent an electric chair to get around the fair. Now I’m in much better shape physically, and I’ll be able to walk. I can’t wait.

42

BelZ you grew up in The Hog? Dang! I did not know that! Have I mentioned that I grew up in the big L?

Speakin’ of food on a stick, I have tried several times to make corndawgs and have always failed miserably. Thus when I get the once or twice a year gnawin’ and cravin’ for corndawgs I buy the frozen kind. Or just go somewhere and get me some corndawgs. I have decided that corndawgs are just not meant to be made at home.

43

Did you see my Mom there? She and her best friend went and left my brother and me with friends for a week or so.

Plumber has been here and updated the trim on my shower fixtures as well as replaced the faucet in the sink. It looks much purtier now.

Am wavering between doing something productive and goofing off. Napping is currently winning. I have an exciting haircut at 5:30.

Working on next post, also…

Hugs.

GT

44

Nope. Didn’t see her.

I don’t remember the fair itself (I was 9) but I do remember my dad driving the wrong way down a one-way street in New York City and having to back up quickly, while towing a camping trailer. :eek:

45

Don’t be so sure. If you get no bites, repost pointing out that it’s also a DVD reader and can be connected to a netbook.

Several people in my computer-aided translation course (yours truly included) had netbooks; the university’s computers had burners but we weren’t allowed to use them. The external burner one classmate had was a godsend… as was my actually knowing how to use it (unlike its owner, so I taught her). That class had a lot of surreal moments, of which this wasn’t particularly extreme.

46

Except that I don’t have the software anymore for it to be used with a computer (I never hooked it up to a computer, myself, and though I’m generally anal retentive about keeping software I seem to have lost both discs sometime in the past five years); the software isn’t available from Sony in any way, shape or form; and even if I had the software discs it wouldn’t work with Windows Vista or Win7. (All of which I disclosed in the ad.)

47

Yeah, but I haven’t done anything with it lately. You?

48

Growing up in the Dallas area, I went to the Texas State Fair (the best one!). The highlight was seeing Big Tex. I always hung around waiting for him to speak. No duct* tape though…
[sup]*Trivia -a strong case can be made that it’s original name was duck tape.[/sup]

49

I was there too! Maybe I saw you - what were you wearing?? I was in a gang of 8, including my mom who was preggers with my last sister. I was 10, and very mature for my age. :smiley:

**Missy **- are you a native Merrylander? I grew up in the Towson/Parkville area, but I’ve never been to the state fair. In fact, the first fair I attended was the Clay County Fair when we lived in FL. We went to that one most years that we lived there, even though it was always the same. Since moving here, we’ve been to the St. Mary’s County Fair once. It was OK. I can’t imagine we’ll ever go back - it’s not as much fun without a young 'un along.

**lieu **- I yanked my daughter’s turtle’s tail and all the glass is intact. You’re a liar liar pants on fire! :stuck_out_tongue:

Tomorrow, I have to make the much-dreaded trek to Chantilly. :frowning: However, my coworker and I looked at the agenda and we may be able to get out of there around lunch time. So yay for that! It depends upon if they need us for the working groups. It looked more like Wednesday’s working groups might be closer to what we might be able to assist. We shall see. I intend to speak with whoever is in charge and ascertain what the deal is. Meanwhile, I need to iron something so I can look semi-presentable after driving 2 freekin’ hours in DC’s morning rush hour… :rolleyes:

**Rebo **- good luck with Dipsey - hope you don’t get in deep doodoo with the doodooheads who used to have her…

**Doggio **- you passed that close to me and didn’t wave? I’m hurt!

Welcome all n00bs. Please make sure you submit your chocolate love offerings to me expediently. Most people put it off, then forget - can you imagine? So here I am feeling all unloved, when I know you all love me. Because I’m nice, dammit!

:smiley:

Supper was ribeye and baked N.O.T. and salad and onions-n-shrooms. I am beyond stuffded! Now I’m gonna finish reading the funnies then drag out the ironing board. rah.

50

My mom was seven months pregnant, too, with my little sister (who was born with Down’s and who passed away when she was six).

Gosh. I wish I could remember what I was wearing that day. Maybe you saw our car (a Rambler) towing a camping trailer. Maybe you noticed the Oregon license plates? :smiley:

51

That was you in the Rambler?? I liked the thing you had in your hair! I kept asking my dad why we just had a boring station wagon and not a cool trailer like yours!!

:smiley:

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My folks drove a Rambler - a Pink Rambler Wagon - to the '64 World’s Fair. I probably wore an age appropriate shorts outfit (I was six). I do remember daring Mickey Mouse to talk like a mouse

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The Rambler we drove 'cross country was one of their four-door sedan models but my parents had traded in the old red and white wagon for it.

My first car was a Rambler; so was my second (a 1960 yellow wagon with push-button automatic; I called her Blanche), and third car, as well. :smiley:

Did you happen to see Gypsy, the English Setter, looking out the window? :slight_smile:

54

Ruble, are these two getting married relatives of yours?

55

Way to ruin the surprise, DMark. :smiley:

Indeed, the duct tape floats were parade floats made of duct tape. This particular contest was sponsored by Duck Tape, even.

swampy, perhaps this family will adopt you so that you can work at their concessions and learn the secret of making corn dogs.

Jainie, Texas and Ohio used to both claim that they had the largest (and best) State Fair. Since times have gotten tough, I think we’ve given that up and are happy just to be able to have a fair. They cut it down to 11 days from 17 a few years ago and raised the admission prices (although there are still a bunch of deals that will get you a reduced price), but it’s still fun.

taxi: I know what you mean about the crowds. Around here it makes a big difference whether you go during the week or on the weekend. There were quite a few people on Friday, but not enough that they were getting in our way all the time…

Did I mention: welcome newbies!

Next post will have more fair info and pic links (I just finished uploading pics)…

56

Tomorrow is going to be a tough day… Wish me luck.

Maybe I’ll tell you all about tomorrow evening.

57

One of my favorite memories of my grandfather is of him taking my brother and me to the Ingham County (Michigan) Fair. I think it was one of those experiences that he thought we ought to have and when he didn’t see anyone else providing it, he took us himself. I don’t really remember what we did that day, but I remember having fun and really enjoying hanging out with Grandad.

So, when I moved to Ohio and had friends who wanted to go to the State Fair, I said “sure.” My first visit was for a concert (maybe The Pointer Sisters?); I think we wandered around a bit first, but mostly we were there for the concert. Last time I went, I was with friends who were visiting from Germany. What I remember most from that visit was riding the Skyglider (convenient YouTube video, not mine, of course) for the first time. It was really cool to be able to see the entire fairgrounds from above.

(Here’s a link to the whole photo set for the impatient; there are a bunch more than the ones I’ve linked to below.)

This time, we were in kind of a rush, so we split up so that we could all do what we really wanted to do. Faraway Best Friend and I wanted to see all the artsy-craftsy displays. We located the correct building and started walking around. We saw some of the expected items: baked goods and candy, woodworking projects, Ohio-State-themed items, and quilts. But there were some unexpected competitions as well: the aforementioned duct tape floats, carved watermelons - with an undersea theme, origami, and weather PSA drawings.

We also wandered through the sheep barn, saw sheep in costumes that reminded me of Mexican professional wrestlers, and wandered through the weaving and spinning demo where a very nice lady explained how she was spinning some yarn to use withthis other yarn in weaving a blanket.

After that, we decided we were all hungry, but as we are nutrition conscious (one of the kids has to be for medical reasons, so we all are), we went with turkey legs and roasted corn. Highly recommended, by the way.

So, even though we skipped the traditional fair food, we managed to have a lovely time. (Except for the lucky adult who accompanied the kids to the rides and returned an unflattering shade of green.)

So, that’s my fair experience for this year. I’m hoping to make it back again next year because I’d really like to ride the Sky Glider again and I want to see the butter cow. :cool: :smiley: The website says it’s only 351 days till next year’s fair.

58

Looks like fun gt! I bet the sheep was plottin’ its revenge on whoever did that. :smiley:

Dindin et and Vestry met. Thus endeth Monday.

Nitey Nite Y’all!

59

Yeah, none of the sheep in disguise looked very thrilled about it.

Hope tomorrow goes as well as it can, Sticky.

Off to read for a bit, then it’ll be time for beddie bye and then it’s back to work again. How come vacations are so short?

GT

60

No! Where was that? I’ve done historic site weddings and amusement park weddings and many an oddball funeral (you would have to know some of my friends to understand). But a zombie wedding? I would have paid them just to attend!!!

Our prayers and best vibes!