The Minnesota State Fair

Boulder On A Stick!

Welcome to...
the Minnesota state fair!
This wonderful conglomeration of people, food, objects and entertainment can be found at the fairgrounds in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is my second trip ever to state fair.. but I haven't been in over ten years.
I went with Liz and a few of our friends.
We first went to the Republican party booth to pick up balloons to carry around the fair..Liz's friend Dan and I decided to be a happy couple for those few moments to get our balloons from the lady handing them out

They didn't taste very good.. imagine that


We ate foot-long hot dogs and had apple cider popsicle things, I ate some lefsa too! Fortunately we went on a Tuesday, I don't really want to imagine what it would have been like on a weekend!

Oh, almost forgot, we got sweet Martha's cookies (a bucket full of cookies) and all the milk you can drink for one dollar, YUM!

We stopped by the Dems booth to pick up some stickers and sign up for volunteering stuff, I also am now registered to vote!
I thought this was an amusing set up of artwork- life size panels of politicians.. oh Barrack

I got to hug a giant french fry man... and saw butterheads of the dairy queens (if somebody knows what that is.. please inform me!)



We went home for a bit to rest and get out of the hot sun. But Liz and I returned later that evening to go to a concert at the Grandstand- we saw Phantom Planet, Jack's Mannequin, and Paramore.
Phantom Planet is a band from California and were touring with Paramore and Jack's Mannequin. They are most famous for this song (used on the t.v. show The O.C.)

Jack's Mannequin gave a pretty good show as well, though I did have to wait for about 45 minutes in the pit because the front of the pit was having problems (some girl got pulled out of the front, waving the bird.. quite amusing)

The pictures are of the lead singer/piano player, the guitarman, and the bassist. The one below I like a lot because it is of all three rocking out :)I was up pretty close for the first two bands but got too hot so we stood a bit further back for Paramore.
When the two lead guys from Paramore came on stage sound just exploded.. they walked down those planks, pretty ridiculously cool


I really liked to combination of these two songs, both Hallelujah.

I got some pretty neat pictures of the night.. of the crowd and of the stage. One of my favourite concerts so far.

Camp wonderpants

It's that time again, the summer where days fly by so fast you can hardly believe it's August and that you start real life again soon. The time where you get to live in the woods and wonder why people would ever want to change that. I'm at camp this summer again and it could be for the last time, for many reasons but I hope not. I can rest here, though I work harder than I think I do throughout the rest of the year. I can love my life and my friends and my family and my girl, and be happy, even if I am ignoring the tenseness and the discouragement that goes on around the world, I can make things change her. I can make young women smile and laugh and can give them hope.
That is a rare thing
I am leaving here soon, for the cities and for the U of M. Sometimes I get truly terrified, of not being in the woods, of being around people all the time. But that's not really what I am scared of facing, because there are places to be alone, no matter where you go. I am scared of feeling like I did before, like I don't belong. I want to feel the way I did in high school. That even though i'm not quite the same, though I'm not like the others and I don't fit in.. that I belong. I want that.