Delaware County Fair

Right next to Minnetrista is the fair grounds, and the whole last week the grounds were filled with rides, locals, and greasy expensive food. I spent Monday through Thursday in Oklahoma for a contractor bid meeting at one of the Saint Gobain plants, and when I got back, noticed that the fair was in town!



I walked down Friday, but nothing was really going on. I didn't want to spend my money because of the prices, didn't want to spend money on tickets, and didn't want to spend money to get into the grandstands, so I left and got chinese food at the corner (I was in the mood for unhealthy food at this point).

I went online and found that the derby was on Saturday, the last day of the fair, so I walked over yesterday and got myself a wristband for the grandstand. Quick sad story: the women working the booth said I was the only person to ask how they were doing all week!

I accidentally arrived early, and hour early, so my butt was about as sore as it could be without falling off before the event even started. However, my time advantage put me in a great spot for viewing, and the stands were completely packed for the show.




I stayed for the whole event, which was a lot of fun, and come to think of it, the only derby I have ever watched. Below are some more pictures, which I will talk about a little bit. All pictures can be clicked on to enlarge them, which come out pretty well for a cell phone!




From the first derby picture, this car did not make it, among a few others. It was fun to watch the carcasses be pulled out of the pit.




This was round two. The poor guy almost behind that pole was hit so hard (by a few cars) he pushed the wall out and got shoved on top so that all 4 wheels were off the ground.



This was the deciding round. At this point, all cars are out of commission except the two head to head smoking furiously. They fought and fought for first place, getting stuck multiple times on each other. They got stuck again, which meant the last car to hit the other would win. The drivers communicated to each other from their cars, and called it quits, shaking hands after. The green car on the left won!



This shot is of the last round. All the working losing cars got one more chance to be runner up. 10 cars competed. One car drove away.



I didn't stay to watch cleanup, or eat disgustingly good food. I was ready to go home and fold my laundry.

Apartment

Real quick, these are a bunch of pictures I took with my camcorder and stuck together so you can see the whole room. The first conglomeration is my main room (standing at front door) and the second is my bedroom, from the corner.






Yes, the white square is odd. To lazy to get rid of it.

Town of Muncie (and then some)

I am doing well in Muncie. Work seems very slow at times. I'm constantly looking for something to do, and the guys I am working with/for are looking for things for me to do. I'm really hoping things will pick up at some point. They want to find something for me to do, there just isn't anything available. I'm trying to bother them enough to know that I'm looking for work, while also keeping from getting on anyone's nerves. Hopefully Ruston will keep me busy, but its two months off, and at the moment I don't feel like it will be much different.

Muncie is an odd town. It has Ball State, whose campus looks REALLY nice, but not many students at the moment. Downtown has a street with a few resturants, and I just drove through another part near the campus that has some more "college friendly" shops and food. I have to check that out more later.

There are probably almost a dozen parks set up all over the place. Very nice parks, half with frisbee golf courses. I haven't yet found much reason to venture out to them. Planting letterboxes in them would be a kool idea, since there are maybe 2 in town.

There's probably lots to go out and do, I just need to motivate myself to go out alone. You don't get lonely until the weekend, and then you notice how quiet the apartment gets, so I tend to venture out then. Two weekends I spent at my cousin Bobby's (non-consecutive). It's fun to go down there to watch movies, eat great pizza, cruise around in the jeep, and jam out in his basement (I'm getting better at drums!).

Sarah just visited for the 4th of July weekend, which I took off Thursday and had a company holiday on Friday. We drove aimlessly around Muncie, visiting some of the parks, finding nice locations for meals, and went an a walk to this nice development right around the corner. I suggest you look it up. It's called Minnetrista, and used to be the neighborhood the Ball family lived in. It has their old mansion, along with a cultural center, nature preserve, gardens and the Saint-Gobain guest house I stayed in during my first visit here.


Sarah and I drove over to their cultural center to see fireworks we heard would be nearby. There were lots of people, there, and in the surrounding areas (sports fields and the county fairgrounds). The fireworks were right in front of us! We had a great view, and a great night (she was willing to play a racing game on the PlayStation, so of course I bought one immediately).

I took these pictures with my new phone, and they actually came out a lot better than I expected. I can take decent pictures without my camcorder now. Maybe I'll take some pictures of town and put them up here!

That's it for right now.