Minnesota State Fair

Saturday was Boston Scientific Day at the fair. We got our 3 dollar discount tickets and yellow Boston Sci T-shirt so that hopefully a wandering company person would give us a prize. Neither of us won, surely because there were seemingly thousands of yellow Boston t-shirts. They were everywhere you could look. Linda and I both had people as us about whats up with all the yellow t-shirts. Some even wanted to know where we got them! This year I made sure to photograph everything we ate.

Ironically this year we really didn't eat as much as usual. The big item we were looking for was the hotdish on a stick which probably needs some explaining for some who are reading this. Hotdish on a stick is meatballs and tatertots covered in batter and deep fried. 1.) Hotdish, a uniquely midwestern term for cassaerole, often containing cream of mushroom soup. 2.) On-a-stick, many food items at the fair are served on a skewer like a corn dog for the ease of eating and walking. Now it's the theme to have every food on-a-stick. I liked it better then Linda despite the way she is chowing down in the photo.

In order here is the food we ate; Deep fried cheese curds, Sweet Marthas chocolate chip cookies and all-you-can-drink milk, a gizmo sandwhich, and finally a vanilla and strawberry shake.


















No trip to the fair would be complete without a trip to the dairy building to see the Princess Kaye of the Milky Way sculptures made from 100% butter. Each finalist in this beauty contest gets to keep her likeness in butter.








On the way out of the fair I grabbed a huge bag of kettle corn to take home. This place makes it fresh in this big kettle. I love this salty sweet treat.










And finally, after a long day of walking and eating, we felt just like this guy, the largest boar pig in Minnesota. I think he weighed around 1000 pounds.

Tokyo #13: Station of the Future

This subway station looks like it could have been a set for 2001; A Space Odyssey. It's obviously quite new. The walls are glossy and signs are all very graphic and high tech looking. Like the movie it shows a hopeful future - for public transportation.

Race Report; Heart of the Summer 10K

My company is a major sponsor of the race so I was able to register for free. Can't beat that. It was a 10K race (6.2 miles). The night before I started to get a slight cough and sneeze nose so I was skeptical about the race. As it turns out we are into a major ragweed bloom so allergy suffers are doing just that - suffering. However the race went really well.
At start time I was getting my watch ready when, BANG!, the start pistol went off. I think the suddenness surprised everyone. Usually there is the typical "Welcome, yadda, yadda, yadda". I didn't get my watch set right till mile marker 1 but I got someone to yell out something that sounded like 6:15. Excellent! I continued to clear my thoat for the entire run but otherwise felt really good. I was with a group of young people that maintained a steady pace. I was averaging about 7 minutes per mile so I was feeling good about my goal of sub 44 minutes. On the final lap (we did 2 laps around Lake Nokomis) I saw a big group of people gathering along what I thought was the finish line. So I started to really pour it on. Well, it turns out it was the start of the 5K race. My finish line was a quarter of a mile past it. Oh, no! My heart rate was way up and I was feeling the pain. But I backed off just a little, lowered the HR a few beats, and managed the last stretch. Into the chute I can see the finish clock already at 43:30. 30 seconds left! Can I do it! Yes! I cross at 43:40. A personal best in 10k racing. And with an allergy flareup!

Results: (the overall is only the men not everyone, weird)
overall place: 119 out of 311
age division place: 20 out of 42
gender place: 119 out of 311
time: 43:37
pace: 7:02

Race Report: Withrow TT, Aug

Time again for the monthly time trial in Stillwater. Same course as before. This time out I was more conservative and felt much better on the course. In the first 4 miles I caught the person 30 seconds in front of me and past him. After the 3rd corner, now heading into some good rolling hills, he had caught back up to me and was just behind me. Drafting is not allowed in time trials or triathlons so I was bugged that he was right behind me and staying there. To be fair, he might have been the 15 feet behind me, which is the rule, but it sure felt like he was closer. I backed off a bit and yelled at him about drafting but he didn't feel he was wrong. Who knows who was right. I was annoyed so I sped up to clear him. Now we are starting to catch the guy that's 60 seconds ahead of us and we pass him. 30 second man finally passes me. Then for the next 2-3 miles it's cat and mouse for the 3 of us. At one point I was behind one and boxed in from the side by the other. I decided to sprint clear of both of them but wasn't able to maintain the lead. My heart rate has been around 190 by this point. On the final corner the 30 sec guy is finally clear ahead of me and I make one last push past the 60 second rider and stay there till the finish. My finish time was mostly likely better then the other 2 because I had caught them.


In the end I probably worked harder and rode faster because of the 2 riders then any time I might have lost because of them. At 23.55 mph it was my fastest time of the summer but not my best ever. Steve the organizer took pictures of everyone as they started out. It was a good chance to look at how aerodynamic we all are. As you can see above, my back is hunched over which is bad for aerodynamics although fairly typical of normal road biking. A good aero position would have my back almost parallel to the ground.

After the race there was a raffle for prizes donated from Now Sport. I won a small bike pump.

Tokyo #12: Big Buddha

Ok, so I've been a little light on the tourist attractions. Here is one of the big ones - literally. We traveled about an hour south of Tokyo to the seaside city of Kamakura to see the 37 foot bronze statue of Buddha as well of some large temples and shines. We once again walked way to much. We bought a map of the area and figured it was an easy walk from one place to another however we found out it was drastically not to scale.
After Kamakura I decided to take us a like farther south to the island of Enoshima. The weather started to get kinda rainy so we only stayed of a short time before making our way back to Tokyo. A long day.

Tokyo #11: Miss Okinawa

While walking about in Shinjuku we came across Miss Okinawa. She was very pretty. So were the other 3 Miss Okinawas which made us wonder if they were really pageant winners or just hired beauties there to promote the island. Actually there was a lot of Okinawa things going on in Shinjuku that day.

Tokyo #10: Dinner

After one long hot day of walking around Tokyo, Linda and I dragged our sore feet back to our neighborhood to look for a nice place to have an ice cold beer. We ended up peeking into a nice looking izakaya called Umisen Yamasen which I believe means ocean spirit mountain spirit. Before we knew it the restaurant obasan (old lady) was seating us. We were the only people in the place of about 8 tables. Each table had a charcoal grill on it with large vents overhead to carry away the smoke and, more importantly, the massive amounts of heat coming from the habachi. We ordered up the combo platter of beef, fish, and vegetables - all uncooked. We then grilled everything ourselves. The fish were a bit disconcerning because they were whole, although they were completely gutted and looked very fresh. The problem was that we could not determine when they were cooked enough to eat. The beef and sausages were more familiar. Everything was delicious and the whole experience was novel and fun. FYI, I have a couple free beer coupons to the place if you're ever in the Shibuya/Shinsen area.