Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged new york state fair
2009 New York State Fair
Sep 6th 2009
I went to the state fair on friday with my Mom. We managed to catch some really nice weather and had a good time. Unfortunately, I accidentally left my camera in the car and my cell phone pictures didn’t come out all that great. I also left a lot out, I know. Too much stuff to write down and remember. If I think of anything else, I’ll edit it in later.
We went up early, before the buildings open since we’re both up early anyway. That turned out to be a really good idea since we were able to hit all the stuff in the buildings before it got way too crowded to move. We did the Center of Progress building first to check out the sand sculpture and see what products were being hawked this year. They had an amazing amount of dog themed booths this year and my Mom, being the crazy dog lady that she is, ended up almost buying several Maltese related items. Eventually she bought a hat. Mostly because it was really sunny out.
We made sure to grab some milk from the dairy building. The best milk ever. I have no idea how they make it taste that good, but…they do and it’s awesome. I wish I could have milk that good all the time…
One of the unexpected highlights was running into a guy who was doing a one man band type show. He had a drum kit strapped to his back, controlled mostly by his feet, a guitar and a harmonica. He was pretty goofy, but it was cool watching him play. You’ve gotta have a good amount of skill to play drums, guitar and lay a harmonica solo on top of it all.
We randomly ran into my uncle Dan and his family while we were looking at the chickens. Surprisingly we didn’t see them again for the rest of the day. Usually when something like that happens you tend to follow each other around (unintentionally or not). We also made stops over at the dairy barn to see the cows, and we also saw the sheep, goats, pigs and llamas.
The horse barn was closed for the day pretty much due to the fact that it was a horse team competition and it takes forever to prep for those shows. At the middle of the day we grabbed some ice cream and settled in to watch the horse show. My mom and I managed to randomly pick the top 2 finishers even though we had absolutely no idea what the judging criteria was.
We also wandered around the midway for a bit. I almost won a game of bouncy ball bingo or whatever it’s called. Tossing balls into an area with a grid. I managed to get 4 balls in a row but then somebody won. Boo. I also spent about $2 on a game where you had to roll a bowling ball down a track and get it to stop at a certain point. I was so close but didn’t manage to win.
As far as food goes, I mostly avoided eating stuff that was TOO bad for me. Specifically I didn’t get anything fried. Mostly because I had some cheesecake on a stick… I had some cotton candy too. My first bit of cotton candy ever. It was a bit weird but tasty.
We had planned on eating dinner there (at the awesome sausage place that sets up shop every year) but by the time that came around we were tired and hot and just wanted some quiet, so we left early and went to Tully’s for dinner.
It was a fun time this year. Very glad I was able to go to the fair and also glad to spend some time with my Mom. My fractured foot held up pretty good. It was my knees that were killing me by the end of the day. I’m becoming an old man. I even have a streak of grey hair now 
Limbo
Aug 28th 2008
Nothing much is happening around these parts that's of note. It's kinda like I'm in limbo, just waiting for it to hit this weekend so I can head out to the state fair and give summer the proper goodbye. However there's a couple of random things that are worth mentioning.
First up, I got an extra GB of memory for my laptop. I was having some problems in City of Heroes with my existing 1GB and checked to see how much memory various things were using and it totalled up to something like 1.8GB. Which explains why I was having so many performance issues… So I went over to crucial and picked up a 2GB kit for $40. I got it last night and installed it. Everything is running MUCH smoother now, so that worked out.
Another thing was an expansion in my world of tea. I've been drinking green tea for a while now and I've been happy with that, however, I decided to branch out a bit. So In my latest tea order I picked up a sample of Earl Grey (for Wassy as I don't really enjoy black tea) and some Oolong to try out, as well as a wild strawberry herbal tea that I had last night. The strawberry herbal tea was quite nice. And it seems I can brew a good cup of black tea too as that went over REALLY well.
And a quick one: I tried Sushi for the first time last night. Very tasty although it took me a few bites to get used to it. I think there will be more Sushi in the future.
Is it the weekend yet?
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Random Dump O' Stuff
Sep 5th 2007
I'm still alive! Honest!
I just really haven't had much to talk about since the state fair. Or much that I'd like to throw up on the internet anyway. There have been a few things going on but nothing that I could make a full post out of, but now that there's enough collected random stuff…
- I got sunburned at the state fair, just below my eyes. That was annoying. I guess I forgot to put sunscreen there.
- I've determined my Dad should purchase all concert tickets for me from here on out. First 2nd row at the Porcupine Tree show, now we've got 4th row center seats to see the Blue Man Group in October, a week or two after seeing Porcupine Tree. Next up, Trans Siberian Orchestra tomorrow.
- Apple is going to be releasing new iPods today based on popular speculation. Several of my friends are on strict orders to knock me unconscious if I even imply that I'm putting my credit card into any web forms.
- My apartment has a new green screen door and will be receiving a brand new front door at some point in the future. Also green.
- My software engineering professor is really hard to understand, and he says "ummmm…ah….errrrrr…" every 2-5 words.
- I met up with a friend from my high school who was also taking software engineering. Which is handy because the course requires group work.
- I'm currently in the process of eBaying the more expensive cards in my Magic:The Gathering collection. I used to be big into it but they've sat in a closet for a couple years and I figure I should sell them before people stop playing the game. Looking back at my last 31 days of eBay history, I've sold $768.53 total worth of magic cards so far, bringing me to the realization that I spent wayyyy too much money on that hobby.
- My Belkin iPod car adapter (charger + line out) has been on it's last legs for a while after the casing got broken on the dock connector part, leaving just the bare connector and the wires. Yesterday wires started falling off, until finally, it killed the sound, so I need to get a replacement at some point.
- Another one of my Zebra Danio's vanished. This time it wasn't in the filter. I have no idea what happened to this one. Vanished like ol' one eye.
And there we go. Random facts related. Now to tag that mess…
The Great State Fair
Sep 2nd 2007
Yet another day in recent memory that I can post saying I'm so exhausted.
Yesterday my friends and I went out to the New York State Fair. I haven't gone in a couple years and this is my first time going in a long time with people who actually enjoy the fair itself. I went with my dad 3 years ago or so and we went just to go to a concert.
We had perfect weather yesterday. Lots of sun, but not too hot, with a slight breeze going through. Of course that means it was crowded as heck there. We got there around 1-2pmish since we intended to stay later.
I'm not even sure where to start describing stuff. Once we got there we cut through the Center of Progress building just to get to the meat of the fair, passing by all the infomercial people. Once we grabbed some stuff to eat we began the quest to see all of the animals that were on display.
First up…cows. I wasn't too excited about this one, considering I live practically across the road from a cow field. There were some cool varities though. I particularly liked the cows that had borders on their spots. Three color cows, if you will. Then we tried to locate some horses, but there was a show going on and they had closed the horse barn for an hour or so. We went for the goats/pigs/llama building in the meantime.
Now, I've got a problem with this goat/pig/llama experience. I was promised Llamas! There were no llamas to be found. Just…goats. Lots of goats. Although it could be entirely possible we missed the llamas… Oh well.
We went to the Poultry building next, which also had ducks and rabbits in it for some reason. I took some pictures of a couple chickens but they didn't turn out so well. The hazards of using a camera phone to take pictures…anyway, I was excited to see they also had Pigeons! Although as we were looking at them this crazy pigeon lady person came up to us and started explaining stuff…two pigeons were picking at each other through the cage bars, and she told us they were trying to be a couple, but one was a long beak and the other was a short beak and they would make a really odd pair…or something to that effect.
I believe at this point we stopped by the Dairy Building in an attempt at visiting the Rainbow Milk Bar for some milk, but the line was long, so we dove over to the Wine Court to do some wine tasting. Oh yes, and some wine slushies. Don't as me who came up with that idea…but they were a genius! Mmmm…Sangria slushie…
I think we went next to the Horticulture building with the intention of checking out the sand sculpture. I totally missed this the last time I went to the fair and I wasn't quite expecting what we saw. It was a lot larger than I thought it would be, although my friends informed me that this year's was pretty small in comparison with past years.
It was quite impressive. I did take some more pictures of it that showed it better, but the sun was shining through a window and made the picture not so good. There was a lot of frogs and a wizard reading a spell book and stuff. I wish that pic didn't turn out so horrible. I'll include it here anyway…but…it's not the best. Then we went back to the horse barn because it was open to check out all the horses.
Then back to the Milk Bar to stand in line to get some milk. And what milk it was too. I was told it was the best milk you'll ever taste, but I'm not sure I believed them about it. But…it was. That was the best chocolate milk EVER. And only a quarter a glass too. Mmmmm…
Of course I had to go over and see the butter sculpture. It wasn't as impressive this year as it was the last year I went. That year it was a whole farm…this year it was just a couple farmers and 2 cows. Bah. And after seeing what the sand sculpture people do…come on! You can make it bigger!
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur because I can't recall the order of events. We did a lot of eating, interspersed with some trips to the Wine Court (Niagara wine is goood…) We also swung through the Infomercial Building…er…I mean the Center of Progress building. When I was younger, we didn't have cable. So if you wanted to watch TV at certain hours, you were going to watch Infomercials. And watch them I did. So walking through this building was like walking down memory lane. They had people selling knives, mops, vacuum cleaners, kitchen ware, pet groomers, monkeys with elastic arms that let you shoot them into the air…it was awesome!
Oh, right…before I finish my post, I need to mention one last thing…In the poultry building (the one with the rabbits) they had two of those little wood cutout things where you can stick your face in the hole and then from the other side it looks like you're a bunny or something. Classic photo op stuff here, for kids anyway. I turned to my friend Jason and said "Go stick your head in the hole and I'll take your picture!" He replied "I'll do it for $5". Five bucks was a little expensive…but I managed to talk him down to $1. He even gave me permission to post the picture! So…here it is…
I feel that I received $1 worth of value out of that. At least.
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