October 2007 – Page 3 – Not Content to Crawl

Scarecrow Festival

Posted onOctober 7, 2007July 19, 20081 Comment

St. Charles’ Scarecrow Festival is by far the best festival I’ve been to this year. It’s also enormous! We lucked out and found street parking 20 minutes after the festival opened and headed to the park where we checked out some craft booths to pass the time before the first Skydogz show of the day. I scoped out the location ahead of time so we scored seating with a good vantage point, including having the sun at our backs for optimal shooting. I’m really pleased with how my photos came out too, particularly considering my lack of experience with action photography. The dogs were so energetic and entertaining, we’ll definitely see them again next year.

After the show we took the pedestrian bridge over Fox River to check out all the scarecrows on display. What a madhouse! It was difficult to stop and get photos without being run down by all the people. Plus it was nearly 90° and we were tired from all the walking. We were hungry but man are the concession prices outrageous! We did try some roasted corn, however, and it was good. Then as we walked back to Joe’s truck we stumbled upon a booth selling homemade root boor and deep fried Snickers bars. We shared both and wow, they were yummy!

Full photo sets:
Skydogz
Scarecrows

Pumpkin Farm

Posted onOctober 6, 2007October 7, 20071 Comment

We ended up visiting Sonny Acres this morning even though it was far too hot for Fall day. Joe noticed on the girl’s volleyball schedule that she has a tournament the next weekend we’re supposed to have the kids so she’ll be busy with that all day and we wouldn’t have time for a pumpkin farm like I originally planned. So today was the only day we could do it before Halloween.

The place is much bigger than it looks from the street. They have a bunch of rides so the kids went on a few. They also had tons of concessions and I tried something I never heard of before – a walking taco. Apparently I’m out of the loop because the girl knew what it was.

We spent nearly two hours and only $32 so it wasn’t a bad deal after all. Nobody wanted to visit the Haunted Barn like I thought they would. I take that back – the boy wanted to, but I know him better than he knows himself, so I took him into the Spook Shed instead. It’s meant for children under 12 and even there he was a little spooked because it was so dark inside. Hehe.

I want to go back and go on the haunting woods hayride.

More photos from Sonny Acres.

Can I have your domain?

Posted onOctober 3, 2007July 19, 2008

I got an e-mail the other day from someone that said, “Can I HAVE ‘domain name I’m not sharing here‘? I dont plan on making $ from it. Thanks.”

Seriously, who does that? Just because I may have that domain pointing to another site because I’m not yet sure what I plan on doing with it doesn’t mean I’m just going to give it to someone. If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have bought it.

Ironically, the e-mail address of this person points to a site where he does try and make money. Based on my domain’s name, it could easily be used to point to his current domain to drive more traffic to his site. Who does he take me for, a moron? I haven’t replied to his ridiculous request, although I was tempted to write, “Sure, for $10,000 it’s yours”.

Fall fun

Posted onOctober 2, 20071 Comment

I’m trying to plan some fun things for the kids to do to celebrate the wonderful Fall season but it’s rather hard when the weather isn’t cooperating. It’s supposed to be in the mid-80’s this weekend; taking them to a pumpkin farm seems wrong. We might take them bowling instead since I have a coupon for a free game. Of course there’s still shoe rental. Why are those god-awful shoes so expensive when you’re only wearing them for an hour and a billion other people have worn them before you? It’s pretty gross if you think about it too much.

I’m really looking forward to when it gets a little cooler and we can take the kids to this place called Sonny Acres. We drive past it all the time since it’s close to home, but we’ve never stopped. We’re just not up to the apple picking trip this year (or last year, apparently, since we never went). I just can’t justify the cost of all those apples that end up rotting before we can eat them. There’s nothing else for the kids to do there so we drive 45 minutes one way for them to pick apples for 10 minutes and then we browse in the bakery and leave. Hardly seems worth it.

But Sonny Acres looks like it has a lot for the kids to do. The petting zoo sounds cute, and they have a spook barn which isn’t too scary for the boy, and a real haunted house for the girl. Not too sure about the hayride, although I think I’d enjoy it. They have concessions and whatnot too. I’m guessing we’ll drop $50 on our visit but I suppose that’s to be expected. Although, I must be cheap because that seems like a lot for 1-2 hours of fun. I’m just glad we only have two kids. When I see huge families at these places I often wonder how they can afford it. Or how they can stomach spending so much money on one excursion.

It’s kinda like those large families who I see at the movies from time to time. Each kid has a combo meal and the parents have a huge popcorn and pop, sometimes candy too. I marvel at what that one movie must have cost them. And there we are with our small popcorns, sneaking in candy and water bottles to avoid paying the outrageous concession prices. It’s kinda funny when you think about it.