hamstah this!

It's a bit late for me but I'm surfing my cute animal sites in search of uplift and found this awesome bit of genius, which is the perfect response to the original hamstah.

Oktoberfest dogs

I recently attended a fairly lame Oktoberfest in Vail, Colorado. I say lame because it was very small and had no real German flare. I mean the beer offerings were bud, bud light and Beck's. So while Sandy and David, our guest from Texas for the weekend, drank a beer and tried out a variety of meats, I tried to get pictures of small dogs. But first I got this picture of a shop dog hanging in and out of a store:

This one had a wee fountain of hair on its head due to its person putting a rubberband in it.
This one was fairly agreeable but had its tongue sticking out all the time.

This one has a great little doggy fro.This floppy hound was hard to resist.
I got all of these photos while the owners were looking the other way. I didn't want to get into any long conversations about their dogs or the breeds or whatever. I just wanted to pet the dog and get a photo. Success!

Tube postcards

My friends Nadine and Ted recently traveled to London. Not only did Nadine bring me a cool bike postcard but she also brought the postcards below back for me! These hilarious postcards are referring to how one should behave on the Tube.

Colorado State Fair and Camping

This past weekend our niece and nephew, Morgan and Jake, were out to visit (with their parents) from the east coast. So, of course, we all went to the Colorado State Fair to get some real western culture.

The animal stuff was the strangest. I mean the fair with the rides and the greasy food and the people, some of large size, was no surprise. Here is a sheep being prepared for show and judgment:
We came across a sheep contest and I swear as we passed by the only words I heard were "...and the body cavity..." I have no idea what this has to do with judging the sheep and I don't want to know.

We also saw swine in repose:

This one is called "Sandy with Swine":

The cows were also present - here is a choice image of the view:

I found this odd but it was very popular, one of the "interactive" things kids could do was milk a cow. Now, I'm sure this is a great experience, perhaps once in a lifetime, and educational for the children but it sure seemed...I don't know just odd to watch. What also caught my attention was the look on the cow's face as she was handled by one child after another:

Unfortunately we missed the "mutton busting" which was on Friday night. This is basically small children competing with other small children - who can stay on the running sheep the longest...



Other than animals there were marching band complete with color guards competing for some trophy or other. Here is a view of the tortured kids in their marching band outfits in the heat of Pueblo, Colorado.

Then there were the rides...this is the "Wacky Worm." Sandy got to ride it with Jake.


As you can see it was a pretty scary ride:

After the day at the state fair we took Jake to Jellystone campgound just south of Castle Rock, Colorado. The main event was a campfire and roasting marshmallows. Jake didn't like his very toasty so he held it pretty high over the fire:


Sandy on the other hand likes his burnt. Not really but I think Jake found it amusing to see three marshmallows on fire.


Jake wanted to stay up late but it was a chilly night. Sandy put him in his rented REI kids sleeping back and put him on the picnic table.


It was a pretty tiring weekend for kid-less folks like ourselves.

Bento

I got my bento box in the mail today! According to the interwebs a bento box is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. I can buy that (literally) but it also happens to be a cool snack container for American goods. As some of you probably realize, a bento box owned by me will not be used to carry Japanese food.

But anyway, my bento box is decorated with birds and leafy twigs but it is also two tiered. Yes folks that is two containers stacked and clipped together. Check it out:



For all of you who can't wait to get one of your own you can go to Iloveobento.com. Other than Japanese food, I am open to food suggestions to carry in my bento box.