Horse Manure Park

At last I am in the waning hours of this long working weekend.  I believe I am fully recovered from Farm Fest, back in the swing of things again so to speak. Just eight more hours of work to go, though, then I have a delicious three weeks off.  Oh yes, that's worth repeating: THREE WEEKS off, kids.  I took a week of vacation during my next regular stretch to work, so I've got a nice, long break coming.  And as you are muttering it under your breath, I'll just say it out loud for you:  Why, yes.  Yes, it is nice. These three weeks are going to be filled up with all sorts of things to do, but (for once) it does not suck to be me.  We are going to Bismarck, ND, next week to spend some time with the Baumann's.  They've got a fun three or four days planned and it will be nice just to get out of town for a while. The week after that I have not one, but two fantasy football drafts.  Yeah, hard work, I know.  The only pressing issue is...

It seems to be Monday - so I think I should update a bit.  Farm Fest 7 is in the books and what a terrific weekend.  I was absolutely exhausted when I got home yesterday afternoon.  How tired was I?  I didn't even stay up to watch the end of the Vikings game last night.  That is nearly unheard of, but three nights of staying up way too late, imbibing in too many cocktails and getting way too little sleep will do that to a guy.  I am so thankful that Beth and I had the foresight to take today off.  Some times I'm smarter than I look. But as I said during our performance Saturday night, I think this was the most fun I've ever had at any Farm Fest.  There were many special moments during the weekend which made it especially memorable. The first special moment was right away on Thursday after getting to the farm.  Our good friend Scott ("Scooter") is serving in Iraq and he came home on two week leave just to be at Farm Fest, so it was fantast...

My niece Lisa always finds funny stuff on Facebook.  She posted this and I just had to "steal" it and share it with all my blog readers... especially my brother Dale, the ultimate fisherman.  Dag Gummit!

Humor me and take a look at this great fan-created video of Brian Ray's new single, "I Found You."  He asked that fans make a video of the song and then the best stuff submitted to him was edited into one continuous video.  Makes for a pretty interesting and humorous four minutes! Great song... and I love how the song takes a left turn at about 2:10.  And this is by no means the best song on the album. Hey, maybe Brian should be paying me to be his PR man?? And here is one of his best, "I Liked You Better," from his first album.  I hope you are offended by the naked dolls; but I guess if you are, you better not watch prime time t.v.  You'll see much worse.  I think this is hilarious! And here he is at his "day job" with the legend himself.  I saw this concert.  They closed with this song and it blew the roof off the place! Okay, two more nights of work.  As you can see, I'm trying to keep my sanity.

I got a very unexpected night off last night.  I signed up to stay home if the patient census was low and I got that magical phone call asking me if I wanted to do just that.  Oh happy day night!  It worked out well because Beth picked up today for a co-worker whose father is very sick, so I would have gone on little sleep today.  I guess everything has a way of working itself out. I downloaded Brian Ray's new album "This Way Up" last night.  It is excellent !  I posted a comment on Facebook telling him so and he actually took the time to respond to it.  How cool is that?  I took a screenshot to share with you: That's pretty awesome, if you ask me.  You can find the album right here .  I would highly recommend it as well as his first release "Mondo Magneto."  Both are terrific, guitars and drums rock-n-roll.  Real people playing real instruments; musicians who have worked their way through the trenches to get where they ar...

How in the world can it be August 9th already?  It seems like I just updated my blog and here it is 11 days later.  We had some good days off - we stayed close to home since one or both of us are not going to be around for our next three weekends off (the next six calendar weeks).  We finally finished up our landscaping projects around here.  Beth put some more touches on "Sanity Square."  Sara and the kids visited.  I got the farm mowed, and I pushed mowed about 80% of it.  The riding mower at the farm, which my dad bought in 1990, doesn't back up and doesn't turn to the left very well (or is it the right?).  Anyway, you can only go one direction and turn one direction - makes you feel like a NASCAR driver.  So, I brought my own push mower...  Ya know, when I was 17 years old and in shape, pushing-mowing the farm didn't seem like a big deal.  Twenty-three years and 60 pounds later, I can honestly say it sucked didn't seem as e...