Week 57 - Buses

The first county fair for Hannah continues this week with the cattle shows, and two livestock sales. Now that the weather is starting to cool off, we get to dress her up in fun little sweatshirts like the owl at right (I think it looks a bit more like a dinosaur...) Not many babies can say that they were already at 2 livestock shows before they were even 3 months old. But not many are progeny of these parents. A long time ago, people started calling us the "power couple" in the 4-H circles. I'm not so sure about that, nor do I think that A. B. Graham would approve of that designation for anyone. But I do think that 4-H will have a strong influence on our little girl's life, like it has for both of us. Heck, it's the whole reason my wife and I are even together or met each other in the first place. And I am grateful that I was led down this road to this lifestyle. I have lifelong friendships of depth and quality that some people will never experience in their lives.

My home base as a county fair photographer.

This week was also our baby's 3 month birthday!

This week was also Hannah's 3-month birthday. It is absolutely unbelievable to me that so much time has passed already; every day is such a treasure and I try not to think about how we will never get to rewind this experience. Instead, I focus on capturing the memories and holding on to them so I will remember in my older age when my wife and I are sitting out drinking tea on some porch. And she is growing so fast! Hannah was able to sit up (sort of) long enough to get the picture taken this time, and while we got lots of smiles and giggles out of her (she is always such a happy baby), I kind of like the serious picture for a change. She exhibits such diversity of emotion and personality for a baby that it surprises me often. We will need all of God's loving support - she is going to be a spunky child, just like her mother.

This week we dressed up to support MSU over those Irish.

A pretty good view of the game, so long as it was this side of the 50.

This weekend was my first and possibly only game at the Horseshoe. I wasn't going to go because it was essentially against a highschool team, but my wife insisted that we go and enjoy the good seats that my long years of strife in grad school has earned in credit hour rank. Plus, I had to go to work on campus anyhow with the fermenters running and me bound and desperate to wrap up this trial. So we went, visited with my wife's dad and sister, and had a nice brunch with them before going in to the game. There was a pretty good crowd turn out for the game, and a special halftime show recognizing our local school for the blind with a braille script march. Oh, and we dominated the competition - 'nough said. The Urban revolution has certainly been exciting. Let's just hope that we will still be rocking when we play real teams.

A few observations that I would like to make with pictures, but before you get a bad impression I want to be clear. I really enjoyed going to the game and the view was right down by the turf and personal. Plus, it's great to get out and enjoy a sporting event with my football-crazy wife. She sure does love her Buckeyes. And she knows far more than I ever could about the stadium, the band traditions, the "superfans" like Buck-I-Man/Guy (who is super obnoxious and entitled) and the rules and flow to the game itself.

Not sure who dressed the cheer team... but great view when the team was on our end.

And then there were the perv Indians in the row in front of us. Always standing to take pictures, shooting a hundred awkward photos of the cheerleaders in weird positions, and then spending lots of time looking at them on their phones.

More of the same. Dominative play, bad cheering, and a complete rout.

Tried to get a picture of the team scoring on our endzone. Instead you can see a ref getting run over near the 3 yd. line.

As we say in EL: "A BEAUTIFUL DAY FOR FOOTBALL!"

Not chronological, but the band entrance is always so impressive and exciting.

Favorite part of this spot. Singing the "Carmen Ohio" after a victory with my wife.

As the county fair wrapped up, I made the journey up to the dirt track with the family to celebrate what has become a sort of red neck/white trash tradition. And does it ever bring the best out of the locals! Schoolbus races basically work in a figure eight pattern and can be simply put as a race to get a set number of laps completed without wrecking your bus beyond repair. It's like the greatest game of "chicken" ever, with the big time consequences of flipping, rolling, burning, crunching or ejecting each time you come around and try to get past the other guys. And man does the crowd love some good old bus crunching. In the past couple of years, we have expanded entries to pickup trucks, and I capture a few videos of this to share with you. Just scroll through for the full experience.

You can see the buses skidding around the tractor tires. Earplugs optional.

This is one of the vans on my way out - all dinged up from being the skidder and skiddee.

You can see the guys scrambling round and round. And you thought NASCAR was redneck.

More of the same experience. Round and round she goes - when the truck blows, nobody knows. But we'll all wait around and see, just hoping. It just gets so much better when the rain starts drowning us and the trucks are sliding uncontrollably to where it's faster to drive in reverse once you're spun.

And all the meanwhile, these folks behind us are screaming and cheering like banshees on heroine. Let it never be said that they lack an enthusiasm for life. Just loving it.