Friday, August 31, 2007

Blogging Break

We had a dragonfly in the classroom yesterday morning. At recess time, two students came in and released it unharmed. That gave me a chance to photograph it on the ugly ceiling. As soon as I have time, I am going to learn hot to put the dragonfly on a new background in GIMP.

Because of the big Labor Day weekend plans we all have, I won't be blogging until Wednesday, September 5. But I will be taking photos galore for next week.

I hope you all have the most wonderful Labor Day with great weather! Thank you all for visiting my blog.

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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Fires in Greece from Third Eye Dumb

There are some photos of the fires in Greece at Third Eye Dumb! that I just found. I have been a couple of days late going through my feeds; these photos were posted August 27.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Anna's Trips to Vermont and Bermuda

Anna (my oldest) and Aaron came to visit me in Vermont last January. They went to Bermuda in May. I got the photos last week. I have permission from Aaron (who is a professional photographer) to post these photos and share them. I skitched a shot of Anna to show you how good these photos are. Please go visit and view the photos. By the way: they will be here again this weekend for Andrew's birthday party at Amy's house on Sunday. Gee, I got them all into one sentence! Danielle and Wingnut will hopefully also be there!

All photos: © 2007 by Aaron Kotowski

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Street Prophets: We Are All Owen Wilson

Street Prophets: We Are All Owen Wilson

Compassionate insights on depression and bipolar disorder from someone who is there: Pastor Dan at the Daily Kos.

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Bird Photography

"Two robins appeared to be fighting in . . "

I suggest you travel to this blog to see the bird photos. Every photo is amazing. I want to grow up to be this good a bird photographer. I'm also learning interesting things about birds, including how to attract them.

Please stop by very soon. It's worth the time. These particular photos of robins that appear to be fighting are breath taking in their detail and action. I've never seen anything like it.

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CameraPorn: Shooting The Moon

Shooting the Moon: How I Shot The Lunar Eclipse and Tips For Better Moon Photography at CameraPorn
Shoot RAW (the higher dynamic range and detail will help for post-processing)
Camera set to manual mode 1/250th shutter speed
Somewhere in the neighborhood of f/8 - f/11 aperture ISO 100 for minimum noise Mirror-lockup enabled (when available)
Lens set to manual focus
NOW they tell me! I spent that evening before the eclipse taking 100 photos of the moon and they all were rotten. I see now that my first mistake was the 400 ISO. I don't know why I didn't change it. But I was convinced (am convinced) that higher numbers make better photos.

rygood includes info for point-and-shoots like mine.

I think this ISO thing will also solve my new problem of way too much noise lately in my photos. I thought it was the new iPhoto but now I'm convinced that I have to drop down as low as I can go for macros.

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Monday, August 27, 2007

Mac OS/OS X Welcome Movies Through the Ages

Mac OS/OS X Welcome Movies Through the Ages: "That’s the OS X Leopard welcome movie that you’ll be watching in the next few weeks once Leopard is launched. The new OS is sure to cure cancer, AIDS, and IBS, so you might as well go buy an iMac right now."

Heads or Tails: Hobby

New England Aster (Aster novae-angliae)

Black-capped Chickadee (Parus atricapillus)

Common Buttercup (Ranunculus acris)

Playing with iPhoto 7 from iLife '08. I'm getting different results and some I don't like, like the noise in my macros. I am posting these to see what they look like in Blogger and in different browsers.

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Cats Tuesday: Summer Sun



Buddy after the hunt, Sunday, July 15, 2007
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Greek Fires Satellite Photo from NASA

This is a satellite view of the fires in Greece. I'm glad the European Union is finally helping them. The story on NPR this morning was heartbreaking. At NPR is an mp3 file of this mornings show. If you click "related article" link near the comments, below, you will be taken to the NASA article with a hi-res image of this photo. Here is a BBC link to news, photos and stories.

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Sunday, August 26, 2007

I'm A Cat And I Knew It

You Are: 40% Dog, 60% Cat

You and cats have a lot in common.
You're both smart and in charge - with a good amount of attitude.
However, you do have a very playful side that occasionally comes out!
Are You More Cat or Dog?

You Are a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and you're opinions are probably well informed.
Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

I should save this stuff up for one post, like with my psychoanalyses.


Your Fragrance Profile

The best calming fragrance: vanilla
The best fragrance for everyday wear: orange
The best fragrance to boost your sex appeal: lavender
The best fragrance for energy: pine


Your Blogging Type is Logical and Principled

You like to voice your well thought out opinions on your blog.
And if someone doesn't what you write, you really don't care!
Serious and blunt, sometimes people take your blog the wrong way.
But you're a true and loyal friend to those who truly get you.

Rock Snot


ABC News: Icky Algae Alarms New England Fishermen

When I went to Dixville Notch, I stopped near Moose Bog at the Silvio O. Conte National Fish & Wildlife Refuge outside Island Pond. On the door of the welcome center was a sign saying beware of Rock Snot algae. I thought I had taken a photo of the sign, but I guess not. Rock Snot sounds funny and looks awful. It's a real problem. Now I know what it looks like because of this article.

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My Monster Profile

Your Monster Profile

Omega Professor

You Feast On: Grass

You Lurk Around In: Olive Gardens

You Especially Like to Torment: Blondes

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A Doe Came Back

Remember me writing that a bunch of deer had been by? One came back after the linemen were here. You can read about her and see another photo of here on my photo a day blog. She looks pretty plump here. I hope it is apples and not babies. Isn't it a bit late for deer babies? Snow will be here in two months. She does not have a tag on her ear; it is reflection of something.

When clicked, this photo will open, full size, in a new window.

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The Face Behind This Blog

<---- Yes this is me, myself, meeyauw.

Mousey tagged me with The Face Behind The Blog meme. Normally I wouldn't do this one (I feel my anonymity slowly disappearing), but this is intriguing me because of its origins.

David Airey began this meme in May 2007. It is growing and he is keeping a record of its growth around the world. My interest? Graph theory. It would be grand to mathematically graph the growth of this meme. Quite a few of my blogger friends have posted their photos (but not in response to this meme): Robyn, Sharala, Ruth, and Dorothy are four that I can recall.

I tag:
Karen at A Strange Life
Expat Traveler
Blur Mommy at Just My Rambling
Peppylady
Patricia at Pollywog Creek

Be brave, ladies! I did it, so anybody can do it.

Step 1: Post a short article with you photograph(s).
Step 2: Include links to other people that have displayed a photo, or include their photos in your post, adding a reference. Include a link back to Airey's post.
Step 3: Tag as many others as you like in your post to spread the meme.
Step 4: E-mail Airey and he will list you on the original post. (This step is not required but unless you do this step, the whole point of the network is gone.)

Me in Photo Booth with reading glasses.

Zorro and me. I can't remember but I think this was digital camera.

The Photo Booth me always comes out too red in the face.

My father (now gone), step-mother, sister, and me standing up in front of my house.

Buddy and me in Photo Booth and I'm all red again.

Now I have to quick run and post something so all these photos go below the fold!

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Halp! Backlinks Don't Work!

Safari does not see the Lat Long backlinks.

I want my backlinks to work on my blog. Right now, I am using the "related article" in the post-footer that gives an actual link to an article that I may have done a "blog this!" to. Or to any article that I want to put in the link field when I create a post.

But there is supposed to be a way to get backlinks to show up on your individual post page and mine don't. And before you ask, yes, I have enabled backlinks in the settings section of my blogs.Firefox sees the Lat Long backlinks.
Early in August, I posted a Google Earth Challenge story about Google Earth and am still getting a lot of traffic off of that (over 200 hits because of my article). The reason? The backlink at the Lat Long Blog. Using Safari, I went to see the backlink to me on the original post and could not see any backlinks. I went there with Firefox and saw all the backlinks. Sometimes Safari does see the backlinks (sometimes it sees them but they don't work, too).

Safari sees the Blogger Buzz backlinks:
Part of the problem is the browser. Hopefully that will be fixed in October with OS 10.5.

But the basic problem is still my template. Firefox does not see any backlinks (and I know they are there after a Google blog search for links). Vin has told me to use Firefox on a PC to see my backlinks. That isn't going to work. I only see a PC at work, and the school took Firefox off of all the PCs after we had huge problems with java scripts.

Google has the backlink code but I haven't been able to figure out where to insert it in my template. I always get parsing errors because I put it in the wrong spot. The instructions are not clear about where to put it.

Ever try to get in touch with anybody at Google with a question? It don't work. There is no e-mail spot to ask. The moderators on the Google Groups are becoming rude and unmangeable. So if any of you know how to fix this frustrating backlinks thing, please let me know.

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More Internets-Analysis Continued

Well, You Know What a Blog Is...

You got 4/8 correct!

But, truthfully, most blogs probably bore you.
(THEY DON'T BORE ME! HONEST!)



This was for the NameThatDisease Quiz.
I got 100% on this test! But the site is gone
(probably infringement problems).
NameThatDisease.com - Test your disease knowledge
That "test your knowledge" link works
but goes to a different spot.

NameThatDrug.com
NameThatDrug.com - Test your drug knowledge

The End?

North American Wildlife Wants Your Photos

North American Wildlife
Your Photos Wanted: The site includes nearly all of the large mammals, but there are still a few gaps. There are more gaps in the coverage of smaller mammals - rats, mice, voles etc. If you have any species that are not shown on the site, please send them to me and I will include on the site.
All I have are dead things: star-nosed moles, shrews, jumping mice, bats. I don't think they want the critters dead and chewed.

But if you have a photo and live in North America, send it to them.

I don't think will pay you, though.

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A Sad Night

It never entirely stopped raining last night. The mist and clouds moved slowly through the meadows and the sky. Late at night I heard an animal dying in the woods. This doesn't happen too often, but it continued for a long time last night. It went on for so long that I went to the door to look. I wouldn't have seen anything because of the distance and the dark; but I could not just lie there and listen.

As I looked out, the moon had lit up the thick mist in the southern sky. Lightning flashed off in the far southwest of the sky. And then I heard gun shots. Whatever was dying had died. I felt overwhelming sadness, but gratitude, too.

We got up very late this morning (7 AM). It is still humid, but much cooler. In fact, the temperatures have gone down since I got up. It began to rain. The cats went out, and all have returned. It is a cat sleep-over day today.

k k k k k k

Five deer came down my drive this morning. One adult and four young little ones. I doubt that one mother had quadruplets, so now I am wondering how they bond together in herds for the winter. I startled them, so just as they were going to cross the road, they turned left and returned to the wild apple orchard. I'm glad they will be here for the winter. I have apple trees all over in the woods for them. The apples seem especially abundant this year.

After the deer left, Barton Village Electric came. There is a right-of-way on my property for them (or for somebody). The man went up the ROW a bit (how, I don't know, since it is all underground springs and very seepy). Then he drove off. Less than 30 minutes later, a big electrical utility truck with a cherry picker came. They put a man in the bucket and raised him higher than the phone pole. He used binoculars to look up the mountain. I heard mention of getting a helicopter to check on something. Then they drove off.

I need to close the windows and pick up the house. I am looking forward to returning to work tomorrow.

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Nice Matters Award

Peppylady of Almost Perfect World has awarded me the Nice Matters Award. Thank you so much, Peppy. We all know how being nice matters to others. It can give people a boost if they are down (as I have been lately since Wingnut went home), it can make a day sparkle. Being nice can give others confidence and courage to move on.

There are so many wonderful bloggers out there and I can only choose eight to give this award to. This was so difficult to do.

Jennifer at Sob'ah My Soul because of her phenomenal compassion.
Barb at Skittles because her outreach and courage.
Dragonheart, whom we all love, because he gives me a smile nearly every single day.
Ruth is another widow who is just starting out but continues to give to others.
Dorothy at Scrungy's Creator because she never stops giving.
Robyn at Kat's Cradle because she is there day after day after day.
Hummie at Hummie's World because she always reaches out.
Suzanne at New Suzanne R's Life because as another widow she knows what it's like.

Thank you all for your kindnesses. You have all probably won this award already. If so, please accept it a second time because you deserve it.


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The Good News

Spotted Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens capensis), also called Jewelweed

Some good things happened today. I have a new site for my photos. It is meeyauw photo gallery at dot Mac. You can view my photos in a slide show, carousel, and other ways. If you double click a photo, you can see it full size. It seems to load fairly well. If it continues to do well, I will renew my dot Mac subscription in October.

I got some good wildflower photos today. Be sure to check out my photo of the day for Sunday. Please.

Buddy took off again for another forty-eight hours. Being me, I presumed him dead. But he is home again, asleep here on the table next to me. His disappearance was reason #2 why I did not go to Rutland.

Best of all: Possum and Turnip are home after nearly three weeks in Amy's cattery at Oasis Pet Resort while they were treated for chronic bowel inflammation (Turnip) and bladder inflammation (Possum). They are doing well and are on prescription food which they won't touch. It was wonderful to have them in bed again at nap time. I missed them badly. Their homecoming was reason #3 why I did not go to Rutland.

A field of New England Asters

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Saturday, August 25, 2007

A Spider


I don't think this is a barn spider because of the pretty furry cat-like marking on its back (see today's photo of the day for another view of it). I have submitted an ID request to bugguide.net. Be sure to click on the photo so that you can see it full size. This one spider, which is pretty big, is making a web around the damaged hornet nest that I have been chronicling this summer. But the web is not enveloping the nest: it is around it, so that when the hornets fly in or out, they could get caught. Two have died so far. The nest is still active but does not seem as healthy as it did. The eggs that were visible when it first broke are now a darker color.

My day wasn't the best day. My trip to Rutland had to be canceled because of the weather (mostly). The heat here was bad: a high of 83°F (28°C) with a dew point so high that my bathroom mirror was fogged up all day and the linoleum floor was actually wet. Rutland, I heard, was over 90° (32°C).

The storms this afternoon were very bad. The first one blew in directly from the north, over the mountain, and woke me from my nap. I watched as the clouds descended and the sheets of rain advanced. The lightning was dangerous again: constant flickering in the sky. The thunder echoed eerily this time, sometimes it sounded like a roar. A different roar than the wind was making.

There was a lightning strike on my property again. When it happened, I heard a huge POP and of course I lost all power. But it was out for only about two hours. It came back in the middle of the second storm.

Buddy and Charlie were out there somewhere in the weather. Zorro had the sense to come in where it was safe.

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Scattergories Meme

Dorothy tagged me for the "Scattergories" meme.
Here are the rules:
Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the questions.They must be real places, names, things . . . nothing made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.If your name happens to start with the same letter as mine, sorry, but you can't use my answers!
First of all, which name? My real name or meeyauw? I could play dirty and use both if the going gets rough! No: I'll use A for my real name. Some of these were rough but I found a couple of interesting sites when I googled stuff. I also learned how to make quick and dirty tables in Blogger. (Note: you cannot use TAB to make your columns; you have to use the space bar for this to work.)

Famous Singer Alison Krauss
Four letter word amen
Street Albany Avenue
Color azure
Gifts/Presents alarm clocks
Vehicle Acura
Things in a Souvenir Shop agates
Boy's Name Andrew
Girl's Name Anna
Movie Title Apollo 13
Drink apple juice
Occupation agrarian
Celebrity Alicia Silverstone
Magazine Architectural Digest
U.S. City Adamant, VT
Pro Sports Atlanta Braves
Fruit apples
Reason for Being Late for Work another snowstorm
Something You Throw Away ads
Things You Shout AHA!
Cartoon Character Angelica Pickles
Update: I failed to pass this one to seven other people. I tag:
Musings of a Manic Mom
Frances at blogjem
Amy in NY
Amy of Amy's Blah, Blah, Blogging
Feathers of Junk In My Trunk
Daisy the Curly Cat
BirdieRoark at Who's The Boss?

Have fun, guys!


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Friday, August 24, 2007

Photo Hunters: Happy



I've had a bad night. Mathematics is soothing. I found this puzzle at Let's Play Math and solved it. It's an easy one and has made me happy. I played with my demo of iWork '08 to make this slide. There is no save function on my demo, so I used Grab to make a screen shot of my work. Then I had to use iPhoto to crop it. Click on the jpeg and it will open in a new window, large enough for you to read it.

Happy Hunting. Hope you are all doing well.

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Egyptian Geometry and Other Challenges: Let’s Play Math!

Egyptian geometry and other challenges: Let’s play math!:
(1) Ahmose calculates the area of a circle as equal to a square with sides that are 8/9 of the circle’s diameter. This is the same as the standard formula for the area of a circle, , if we use an approximation for pi. What is Ahmose’s value for pi?
Stuff like this is great for those times you are not feeling on top of the world. But I found pi. Try it. Share your solution. Make me happy tonight. Ahmes's papyrus puzzles are relaxing.

I have my photo hunt for tomorrow now because of this. Geez this new project will keep me occupied all night long. Time for more diet Coke and some Mendelssohn piano stuff. 

I never told you that I bought Songs Without Words (opus 19. 30, 38, 53, 62, 67, 85, 102, etc; the whole shebang; Daniel Barenboim because Andrew said to get his recording).

When I get another piano I am getting the score of Songs so that I can play it. It seems as good as Chopin and Beethoven for these moody nights.

But I recommend it: see my iTunes widget on the left sidebar. Select "music" on the drop-down and "albums" in the tab. The Barenboim is there somewhere. Click it. Buy it. You need it.

And hurry up with your pi solution; mine will be up tonight.

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Parker Pie: The Kingdom's best pizza, subs, sanwiches, soup, and salads


View Larger Map
Parker Pie: The Kingdom's best pizza, subs, sanwiches, soup, and salads
I continue to forget that this pizza place is on Lake Parker in West Glover. We have to go there next weekend (this weekend I'm off to Rutland for some photo walks). This weekend there is, of all things, a Reggae Festival here in West Glover. The Caledonian Fair is also on. There is always so much going on here that I can never get to all of it.

This map is embedded so that you can interact with it.


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Thursday, August 23, 2007

Blogger Buzz: Happy Eighth Birthday!

Blogger Buzz: Happy Eighth Birthday!

They are going to give us a present "later this afternoon."

Well, I love presents. I just wish Google was on Eastern time, instead of Pacific time, like the rest of the civilized world. My cats have been keeping me up late. It has been in the mid-thirties (1°C - 3°C) at night and I want them in. They disagree and want to stay out. So I stupidly wait up till midnight waiting for them; they never come; and now I am exhausted. If Google's Blogger only knew that, I am sure they would give me my present now.

Thank the Lord for diet Coke.

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Field Of Sunflowers

On my break I took a ride and found a field of sunflowers. They were not at their peak but were wonderful to see nonetheless. I also saw, and photographed, my first indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea). It was a good day.

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Fire

I was detoured through the village of Barton this morning because of a fire that destroyed this house. It was not occupied that I know of; it had been abandoned years ago. The owner then lived in Florida during the winters. One winter, unknown to the owner, a homeless family moved into the house. When the owner got notice that his village water would be turned off because he had not paid the bill, he said that he shouldn't have a bill, because he lived in Florida. I don't know the outcome of that legal battle but the house has never been occupied since then. It had been vandalized over the years, also, and was a sad shell of a once stately home.

I took the photos from the railroad tracks that overlook the house on Rt. 5 (the upper road of the village).

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

MathNotations: How Recursion Is Tested On The SATs and much more...

MathNotations: How Recursion is Tested on the SATs and much more...

MathNotations is another blog that has become important to me. This post is a perfect problem-solving exploration for my eighth grade class.


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Writing To Learn Math? Let’s Play Math!

Writing to learn math? Let’s play math!

Let's Play Math! is great blog for mathematics teachers. This post about writing math (math journals) is important to me because of my problems successfully implementing math journals. I want to develop metacognition in my students and that is a difficult thing to do. With all the stresses and pressures to increase scores and performance in a huge curriculum, metacognition gets pushed off to the side. Yet without it, I don't believe students will succeed as well as they can. Knowledge of their own thinking will also help many math phobic children overcome their anxiety.

Another excellent resource at this blog is Free (Mostly) Math Resources On The Internet. These are valuable sources, not just a long list of sites with replicated material.




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Romlet Top Articles

romlet: Top Articles

If you want to find some great blog content, go here. Romlet is a new site that I found. It shows you where your blog traffic is coming from. I have their widget on the right sidebar underneath "Recent Comments." It is very interesting to see where my readers are finding out about my blog.

Go to the Top Articles link here and view some new content. Add the Romlet widget to your blog. You even get some more traffic just by having the widget.



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Tom Lehrer Collides With The Periodic Table Of The Elements On YouTube: Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub

Tom Lehrer collides with the periodic table of the elements on YouTube: Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub is a great blog that you should check out.

This post I am linking to is fun for me because I love Tom Lehrer and because I just saw the Pirates of Penzance.

See also:

The Pirates of Penzance by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
TomLehrer.org The Tom Lehrer Web Site


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Monday, August 20, 2007

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Barton Fair

Click on each photo to see them full size in a new window.

Four month old beefalo. Part of a herd of 200 in Barton.
They hope to begin selling meat in a year (I think).
(Note: read this very short piece about buffalo in the United States.)

She laid the egg right in front of our eyes!

This guy was plenty surprised, too.


She's very proud now.

Another breed I like.

A band in the mini-theater show.

They charged $2 to see the demo derby trials this year. The man at the "gate" to keep people out (I can't believe there was such a gate) of the grandstand was very rude. I asked the old grouch how we were to get into the grandstand and he muttered something. We couldn't hear what he said so we politely waited while he kept the gate open for those who were leaving the grandstand. By the time I asked again, he was nastier than before. He told us "the middle" (which I at least understood because I live here. But what if I didn't live here?). I said, "Oh! OK, thank you." As we turned to leave I saw a security guard approaching us. He backed off as we turned to go. What were they going to do? Bust two middle-aged people for not being able to hear? It was very crude behavior on their part.

I won't pay for what used to be free (unfortunately hundreds of people did pay). So we watched from outside the grandstand.

Below: the rides. I always like how the hills and the trees are the backdrop for everything at the fair.

Lovely.

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