Good heavens, how easily we fall out of habits -- when they're
habits.... Oh wait, I already used that one. Well, I've only missed 5
days this time, which is half the number I missed last time, so I'm
going to call that a victory! I'll just skip Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday and get straight to the weekend.
Friday night I watched Deconstructing Harry,
the latest Woody Allen movie. I really enjoy his movies, but this one
was slightly below average. I think it was probably far more pointedly
self-examining than most of his others, which is odd because his
character in this movie was probably the least like himself (or at
least, as I believe him to be). It was obvious that the movie is about
much of the criticism that he has suffered recently, some justified,
some not.
My favorite Woody Allen movies are (in order) Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan, Annie Hall, and Crimes and Misdemeanors. You were just dying to know that, weren't you?
Saturday
I went to the Jubilee Olde English Faire, held every year at the
Jubilee College State Historic Site in Jubilee State Park near Peoria.
I was hoping to get there by 10:00 AM, but was a bit too slow getting
started, so I didn't show up until 11:00 -- well, almost. See, I can
never remember exactly how to get there, so there's always a little bit
of fumbling at the very end. I expect it. This time was a bit worse
than most.
After getting off of the highway, I came to a T in the
road. The sign said that Jubilee State Park was to the east. However, I
had sort of been expecting to turn west, based on what I saw on the
map. Plus, quite a few cars in front of me had been turning west. I
headed east as the sign directed, but before long I arrived in
Kickapoo. (Yes, that's the real name of a town.) I knew that the fair
was held west of Kickapoo, so I decided I must have gone the wrong way.
Well,
I turned around and headed back west to where I saw all of those cars
going. They were all turning onto a small blacktop road, and near the
entrance were a couple of cops standing and watching the traffic.
Surely this must be the place. I drove along, following the line of
cars. After a bit, the line slowed to a stop-and-go crawl. "My," I
thought, "what a large turnout they're having this year! Either that,
or they've really messed up the parking system."
We continued
along, and eventually passed through a gate with a small sign that said
something like "Property of Caterpillar, Inc. No trespassing." That
seemed a bit odd, and I didn't remember it from before, but I decided
perhaps this was some back entrance to the park. As we continued to
slowly crawl forward, the small blacktop road became a small dirt road.
Hmmm.... Then I saw a large building with the "Caterpillar, Inc." logo
on it. We continued on past that building, slowly crawling forward. A
couple of times I worried about the fact that I had never seen a sign
at the entrance that said anything like "Jubilee Olde English Faire",
but each time I checked my map and convinced myself that this was the
right place. After all, where else could all of these people be going?
Eventually
we came to a grassy area where we were directed to park. At last! I
looked at my watch. It had taken a full 30 minutes to make it from the
entrance to the parking area. When, I got out of the car, I heard a
little boy say to his father, "I wanna go home." Ha! After sitting in
traffic for 30 minutes to get in here, there was no way his dad was
going to take him home anytime soon! His dad said something like,
"Don't you want to play on the big slide?" Big slide? I didn't remember
there being a big slide at the Olde English Faire? I grabbed my camera
bag and my tripod, and begin walking with the crowd towards the
entrance. And what an entrance it was! Two massive Caterpillar
construction vehicles sat on either side, with their buckets raised
high overhead to form an archway, like some industrial version of the
castle guards! Impressive! But very out of place. Then I saw the giant
inflatable slide, and all manner of fun carnival ride stuff -- and the
large sign welcoming everyone to Caterpillar Days! Okay, so maybe it
wasn't the construction vehicles that were out of place. And I had sat
in traffic for 30 minutes to get to here!
Well, getting out of
there took much less time. It turned out that, yes, the fair was held
west of Kickapoo, as I thought, but I needed to go east into the town,
then go north a bit, and then go west to the fair. Oops. So I showed up
around 11:40 or so. Bother. Other than that, however, the day went
well! The weather was warm, but not as bad as I had expected. It was
overcast, which kept the heat down, but it didn't rain.
I brought
along my Hi8 camcorder, with my new tripod and camera equipment bag.
That worked out rather well, particularly for taping the Knights of the
Silver Sword (jousting) and the SCA combat. I didn't do very much
taping of the one-man shows, vendors, etc, in part because a video
camera intimidates some people in a way that a still camera doesn't.
I'm not sure why, but I decided I would avoid any potential problems
this time.
While I was there, I saw (from our gaming group) Bill,
Mary, and Bob, as well as Sandy (from SCA), Bob (Mary's brother, also
from SCA), Eric and Patti (ex-SCA), and some girl who I recognized and
had a nice conversation with, but whose name I could never pull out of
my brain. Don't you hate it when that happens?
Sunday I slept and sat. My feet hurt from standing all day on Saturday, and I was basically beat! I watched the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
the one with Donald Sutherland. I've always liked it, but hadn't seen
it in years. I had realized before that one of the actresses, Veronica
Cartwright, was also in Aliens. Irony, eh? Or perhaps just typecasting.
My Life by the Numbers
Wednesday: 230 pounds.
Thursday: 230 pounds.
Friday: 230 pounds.
Saturday: 230 pounds.
Sunday: 230 pounds.
Today:
230 pounds. My weight seems to be stuck! Again! I'd try jumping up and
down on the scale, but I think that would result in the opposite of the
effect I'm looking for.
I haven't walked for several days, mainly
because I've been waiting for a boo-boo on my foot to heel. Er, heal.
The last time I went walking, when I got done the toe of my sock was
quite bloody. I have no idea why, since there doesn't seem to be
anything in the shoe at that spot to cause a problem. I'll start
walking again tomorrow.
As for learning Irish, I had repeated
listening to lessons 5-7 of "Irish on Your Own" numerous times -- but
always while driving somewhere. As a result, I wasn't able to study the
book and actually see how the words that I was saying were spelled! I
would like to study in the morning, before I go to work, but I'd have
to get up no later than 5:30 to pull that off, so I don't think it's
going to happen. Instead, I think I'll try studying on any morning that
I don't go walking (e.g. in case of rain). We'll see how that works. As
for today, I finally studied the book for lessons 5 and 6. I can now
tell you want kinds of television shows I like to watch and I can order
drinks. Isn't that nice?
Recent Comments