Saturday, September 8, 2007

Highlands festival...

So, still no camera cable, try to pick that up tomorrow so can add pictures. Went up to Estes Park to a Scottish/Irish Highlands festival that I guess is world famous. Lots of people. Saw some guys do the caber toss, but the one they were trying to flip over I guess was too much and none of the guys succeeded when we were there. Just saw the amateurs though, the world championship professional types do it tomorrow. One of them came on and flipped it a couple times for the ESPN cameras and made it look pretty easy, which I'm guessing it is, just a big stick after all.

Attempted to find some seats for the jousting competition, which led to the heartwarming/reassurance about the goodness of humanity moment of the day. Single grandstand overlooking the rodeo circle where they have the joust. As noted above, lots o people, which meant there were no seats, though the friends I was with (including my Scottish boss in his kilt) walked around trying to find a spot, then gave up and headed for the exit. Upon reaching the exit came across a bit of a jam of people trying to get in and us trying to get out just as the joust started. I have never been the central focus of so much hatred in my life. People began to scream at us to get out of the way, in spite of the fact that at the moment there was no place for us to go. Topped by one lady standing up, giving me a look like I had just kicked her dog, and yelling that she had been waiting in her seat an hour and a half to watch the event, which immediately brings two questions to mind, do you have nothing better to do than wait 90 minutes for a joust? and if this is the culminating point of your life couldn't you pick a better seat than one that would obviously be blocked by anyone walking on the walkway(intended, coincidentally, as a place for people to walk from one place to another)? When the path finally cleared, we made our exit with a smile and a "have a nice day", though my voice tone may have given away the sincerity of that statement.

Other than that, currently listening to some acoustic instrumental guy at the coffee shop and the hawks are up 28-0 on syracuse, so today is good

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