Our State Fair is a great State Fair!

Enjoy the pictures! I'll come back in later and write the stories in.

--Alright, a couple of Saturdays ago three of my coworkers and I drove up to OK City for the State Fair.

Tim (from Louisiana/Missouri), Joe (New Mexico/Wyoming), and of course Jan (Canada/Netherlands) I was the only Okie. You know just this year I became a true Okie - I've lived here longer than anywhere else *sigh*.

We really enjoyed this one exhibit that was actually more for children. We got to see bugs, worms, and butterflies, and then they had various farm animals for everyone to pet. Like I haven't had my fair share of touching farm animals, but it was still a lot of fun.

Joe! These guys were great - they didn't mind posing for goofy pictures.

I learned how to spin wool. At one point later in the day, I complained about something that the guys were wanting to go see that I didn't have much interest in and Jan replied, "Jesse, we watched you spin wool." Ha, he got me there!

We watched a lumberjack show. Pretty corny but enjoyable. They asked for volunteers to come down and walk on the log (what is that called?) I really wanted to but the guy seemed to only be picking small children. I think Jan wanted to volunteer too. We meant to come back for another show but ran out of time.

Toyota had a little set up where you could test drive their vehicles in this "extreme" dirt course.

This motorcycle show was so incredibly cheesy, I couldn't stop laughing! The announcer kept building the acts up like they were super awesome, then they'd do something super simple. Like the girl that was going to twirl 24 hula hoops around her body - big production, drum roll, one revolution around her body, the hoops fall to the ground, her arms come up, TADAHHH!

While Tim and Jan were on a ride, Joe and I walked around. I hadn't played any of the games yet, so I didn't know how it worked, but Joe did. Apparently, you get several free tries until you actually make it, then the game costs 5 bucks and you win a prize. If you make it again, then the game cost 10 bucks and you get a bigger prize. So really, your just paying a high price for a stuffed animal. So Joe goes up to this booth and all he has to do is toss a ball into a big bucket about four feet away. He threw it way too hard and the ball came flying back out of the bucket. Joe claimed that there was a spring in the bottom of the bucket that popped the ball back out. The guy running the booth said, "Nooooo, you just have to hit the rim and the ball will roll right in!" Joe threw the ball again, but this time he completely missed the bucket. Anyway this went on for a while, and with each failed toss the guy became more and more exasperated with Joe until finally the guy was beating his booth yelling something about how stupid Okies are. And those carnival guys are freaky anyway! I didn't know what was going on! I was a little apprehensive at how Joe was going to respond to the man, but Joe just calmly walked away. It wasn't until later that I realized Joe had missed all those tosses on purpose because he didn't want to pay for his prize! Then it was funny!

Keelboat I Class

This weekend I went to Lake Thunderbird for keelboat sailing lessons. Friday night we had the classroom portion, where he taught us things like what the different parts of a sail boat are named and how to tie knots. Then we were supposed to do the sailing portion on Sunday. I asked if there was anyway I could sail on Saturday instead - he said I could sail with the Sea Scouts and him on Saturday - sounded like fun to me!

This is Rick Shaw my instructor in the above pic. I need to get a better picture of him, because he looks a bit like a modern day pirate to me, or maybe just very much like a sailor.

There was absolutely no wind on Saturday! We motored out of the marina, and then around some buoys to practice using the tiller. Then we headed out to the middle of the lake and put up our sails. But like I said there was no wind, so we just sat there. It got very boring. So we practiced reefing the main, and we put up the spinnaker in hopes of harnessing more wind which didn't work very well, but gave us something fun to do.

This was the crew on my boat from left to right: Drew - very quiet and inexpressive, Cordell - confident and knowledgable (punk kid was a know-it-all!), and Dave our skipper and instructor for the day and very enjoyable to be around!

Cordell brought out his candy ciggerette pack and we all had a smoke! I was supper excited about it too! I didn't think they made those things anymore - like maybe they contributed to the delinquency of minors or something.

Me at the tiller.

After a couple of hours we dropped our sails and motored back to the marina. Our sister ship was having motor problems and opted to just sail in. By the time we made it to the marina they decided there wasn't enough wind and they needed us to give them a tug. So we went back to haul them in. Our motor was already pitifully slow, and with dragging them as well - it took FOR-EV-ER to get back.

Study of Monkey No.2 in Black and White

We were at the park and she got sleepy all of a sudden while swinging - she just leaned over and rested her little head on the edge of the tire. Then Bo picked her up and swang with her.

My sister-in-law is teaching my nieces sign language. My second niece already sounds like a little cave woman when she speaks with her deep voice and single syllable words. The other day we were trying to get her to say "Ciao, Baby!" She would say, "oww (pause) Bay - bEEE!" Then watching her do all her little signs to go with her single words - well, it really fascinating and entertaining!

She's such a little joy!!! (And isn't it amazing how much we look alike?)