NYS Fair

So yesterday the wife and I took our 4 kids to the fair. We, fortunately, went with no expectations beyond chasing our kids and making sure they were hydrated and well worn out. My parents (being the kind of grandparents that want to spoil, but lack the energy to do it in person) happily donated a set of all day ride passes for the kids.

My 8 year old neighbor, meanwhile, showed my kids the massive stuffed monstrosity that her dad won via some carnival game. My boys, especially Z, entered the fair with the idea that we had to leave with some prize.

I was fortunate to find a sympathetic game worker that just "happened" to have a good deal that day. The two boys just *dying* to come home with a Pikachu... did. (And thanks to smartphones, I knew I spent just about Amazon prices to get them, with the extra going toward the fun of the game)

Becka and I each wore a backpack full of lunches, snacks, and water bottles. Being in a group of 6 that spent $0 at the fair on food feels accomplished All credit to the wife on that one. Meanwhile, wearing a small backpack all day took a toll on my shoulders of all things.

Sliced

Important things not to cut:
1: Live wires
2: Connections to decent people

New things added to list this week:
3: The fiber optic cable connecting my house to the internet.

ANY other kind of cable, I can repair. This requires either a complete replacement, or a very expensive set of tools.

Old photographs

It's a strange thing, looking at old photographs. You can tell when they weren't taken with ultra HD digital cameras. Old middle of the road 35mm cameras where you couldn't see the picture until a week later when they were developed, so you were stuck with what you got.

Mostly it's the lighting and color. I honestly don't have the language to describe it, but you can tell when it was a film camera that used chemicals to develop vs a digital image, the colors are different. They don't have as wide a range; shadows are darker, and bright lights overwhelm. Colors seem a bit more muted.

And when you get 24 shots you get to see a week later? It's more raw. There's less refinement to the subject. People blink, the shot is blurry. A bad picture of your friend on vacation was kept because it was your *only* picture of your friend from that vacation.

It's a strange thing, looking at old photographs. Some old friends will post an old pic on social media, and I seem to have gained a sense of when they were taken even without a caption.

Tenflower

Like the subject line says, ten of them are now blossoming.

Looks like all I had to do was wait another week. Still, I'm going with a different variety next time.

Oneflower

Look at this disgrace. I planted these in mid-May. It's been over two months, and I get ONE FLOWER. JUST ONE FLOWER. My kids already figured out what they were, before this embarrassing display manifest in my front lawn.

My wife likes the shade on the front windows. It's nice, but it's SUPPOSED TO BE A COLLECTION OF BRIGHT YELLOWY GOODNESS. A COLLECTION OF SUNSHINE RADIATING FROM MY HOME. Instead I got a bunch of tall green stalks.

Whatever I quit.