To counteract the bars open until 4:00 am during the RNC

Feedback

A fellow crop artist and I have been sharing media mentions about this year's crop art (or crap art) competition. A local writer for the national blog Daily Kos gave us a nice write-up, but thought all the entries were by kids and said that we were "young democrats with a promising future." Ha!

The Chaska paper had a nice article about the shortage of right-leaning crop art. The author actually undercounted the liberal entries by one.

Qapla' of sorts

I heard from first day fair attendees that my crop art entry got 3rd place in its category (amateur division with paint or dye allowed on 30% of the area). Some day I'd like to get higher than 3rd place, but I'm happy that my use of feathers didn't disqualify me entirely! Now to read what the right-wing bloggers have to say about me...

Kind of a downer

When shopping at Target last weekend, I saw, and bought, a new album by my fave John Mellencamp. The album is titled "Life Death Love and Freedom" but should more accurately be called simply "Death." Here are some of the lyrics (selected from multiple songs):

"All I got here is a rear view mirror
Reflections of where I've been
So you tell yourself I'll be back up on top some day
But you know there's nothing waiting up there for you anyway.

Nothing lasts forever
And your best efforts don't always pay
Sometimes you get sick
And you don't get better..."


"So if I die sudden
Please don't tell anyone
There ain't nobody needs to know
That I'm gone
Just put me in a pine box
Six feet underground..."


"Young without lovers
Old without friends"


"I don't care if I see tomorrow
If I had a reason I'd pretend
I know one thing for certain
I ain't a got no friends.

Well one of these days
my anger get the best of my soul
In one desperate moment
I'm gonna dig me a hole
I'm gonna lie down in it
And let be what will be
And when the morning sun rises
There'll be no one to mourn for me"


"I can't see much like I used to
And I can't run like the wind
I don't sleep more than just a few hours
I can't remember where I've been

Ain't gonna need this body much longer
Ain't gonna need this body much more
I put in ten million hours
Washed up and worn out for sure."


"You wouldn't know it by looking at me now
But I was showin some promise once upon a time
But it's gone now and it ain't comin back
My time's come and gone
It's as simple as that."

I could conclude that I should have read the reviews before purchasing this album, but when I read the reviews later they were very positive. The reviewers must have all been young whippersnappers.

Ten days until the MN State Fair and...

one week until I turn in this year's entry for the crop art competition!

I've had some interesting experiences bringing my entries to the horticulture building in past years. The first time, the woman checking in entries had brought her adolescent daughter to work; the bored girl grabbed my fragile terra cotta bird covered with seeds and proceeded to roller skate around the room with it(!)

Last year I had a great deal of trouble with trying to get my Wizard of Oz lion to look like Colin Powell. He's just too normal and good-looking a man to easily characture (not to mention doing this in the guise of a lion and with seeds). Although I had previously admired the man, I felt his touting of the Bush administration war lies to the U.N. fit the 'no courage' lion--however, I finally gave up on worrying about perfecting his look and just went to turn the dang thing in (I also had to redo his sunflower seed body after Koko chewed it off the canvas). I was waiting behind a young woman with a sweet entry (vase of flowers) who turned around to look at my two offerings. I didn't know her political affiliation, but first she laughed and said, "Cheney!-I love it" and then glanced (glanced!) and the Wizard of Oz parody and said, "Colin Powell, now there's a man who lost his soul."

Obviously, this bucked me up quite a bit (even though other bloggers afterward referred to this character as various people, including Rove and Rummy).

David Steinlicht, the founder of cropart.com is detailed his progress on his 2008 entry at http://www.cropart.blogspot.com/

Driving down the road and pondering life's mysteries

As Joel and I drove to Madison last weekend, we began to muse about water towers; specifically, how it could be cost effective to pump water up just to be able to use gravity to distribute it. Why it took us over 50 years to consider this, I don't know. Joel pretty much guessed the answer:

"One of the big advantages of a water tower is that it lets a municipality size its pumps for average rather than peak demand. That can save a community a lot of money. Say that the water consumption for a pumping station averages 500 gallons of water per minute (or 720,000 gallons over the course of a day). There will be times during the day when water consumption is much greater than 500 gallons per minute. For example, in the morning, lots of people wake up at about the same time (say 7:00 a.m.) to go to work. They go to the bathroom, take a shower, brush their teeth, etc. Water demand might peak at 2,000 gallons per minute at 7 a.m. -- there is a big cost difference between a 500-gallon-per-minute pump and a 2,000-gallon-per-minute pump. Because of the water tower, the municipality can purchase a 500-gallon-per-minute pump and let the water tower handle the peak demand. At night, when demand normally falls to practically zero, the pump can make up the difference and refill the water tower. "

http://www.howstuffworks.com/water.htm

The strange thing is that as we were talking about this, we realized that our CD mix was playing "John Deere Green"--certainly the only song written about a water tower!

And on a final water tower note, here is a picture of the one in Pequot Lakes... painted to resemble a bobber.