Fair Blogging 2005

The Wege seems to hate Fair blogging. But some of us have a blog that's only partially politics and mostly other crap. Mine falls firmly into that other crap category. I long ago came to the realization that I'm not likely to become a full time political blogger (or political anything), I'm just not the type to up and quit my job in search of something supremely fulfilling - this means that traffic to my site to read about politics is correspondingly lower than searching for things like "breast squeezing" and "+cute +Eryn +Fair". I put far more stock in the hope that given the people I know might come to read about my family issues/events, my sometimes book reviews, and whatever else tends to bubble to the top of my head, if I drop the infrequent to frequent political turd in the middle of pictures of friends and family at the Fair and chili festivals, they might rethink an issue upon which they disagree with me, or at least be introduced to something new.

On to the cute kid pictures at the Minnesota State Fair 2005. Before we really get going - this is not a fair picture - it's Eryn at one of the local parks - a park that's over 2 miles uphill from my house (a little downhill too, but 2 miles+ of uphill). Tugging a Burley and 40# child to that park was some work. Note that she's not afraid of the mean dinosaur - her horrible ordeal at Wall Drug is behind her now.


We went to the Fair on Saturday with my friend Kyle and my father, John. We met my ex-coworker Mike there as well as TallBrad, who really seems to be everywhere I turn lately. I was denied the ability to use my coupons for both a huge pancake (it was "after breakfast") and toy Bobcat - my biggest complaints. We met John at the spire/needle, as we were sure he could find it. That meant that Eryn and I both got to take advantage of the free stuff at The City Pages booth. I got a Saw II t-shirt I probably won't wear in public, and Eryn got a "Free" button that fully incorporated her into the marketing ethos that pervades much of the Fair.


We hit the usual things kids want to do at the Fair. The kids farmer area where Eryn did some farming:


and rode a tractor powered the old-fashioned way.


But she also rode a real tractor with Grandpa:

And a snowmobile with mom.


We took Eryn's piture in her usual spot at the Fair - the same sign she stands in front of every year (at least for three so far). You know the routine if you have kids - try to get a picture of them in front of the same object every year so you can do a series of portraits that shows them growing. Ours happens to be in the very furtherest corner of the grounds - back by the vetinary area. This was the first year where she didn't have to sit in a stroller.


And she rode the rides at the Kidway. The bee was a hit, as was the big tugboat that whipped around. Eryn is over 36" tall, so supposedly she can ride most of these all by herself, which might be a good idea considering the tugboat made me a little queasy at first.


Kyle was at the Kidway as well. He was happy to see me. From the looks of him, he's happy to see everyone. That's 18" of corndog he's sporting. Sure, it wasn't the largest corndog we saw at the fair, or even the most unique way of eating one, but he is two-handed. Robert Fitzgerald's booth is right next to the Kidway. I've never seen a woman look so bored and thoroughly tired of carousel music as the woman staffing his booth. I went over to say "howdy" and mention Robert had gone to the same school as a coworker and chat her up a bit - she looked like she needed the stimulation.

The Fair was filthy with Guidant employees. My father-in-law works there, so we made sure to snap a few pictures for forms' sake - a montage if you will.


Eryn was staring to fall asleep before we left - her belly heavy with chipwich. But when we got to the animals she perked up a bit - she was excited about the sheep and pigs and bunnies this year. She was a bit surprised when this pig squirted a stream of water at her.


Finally, although she still doesn't like him, Eryn seems to have conquered much of her fear of "Steve Boston", alias Stone Cold Steve Austin. She was convinced this was him, and when we left wanted to go back and stare at him some more.