IT'S FUCKING RAGBRAI!

The awesomeness of RAGBRAI really couldn't be contained amongst the rest of the Iowa stuffs. We saw the first RAGBRAI bus in Iowa City on Thursday I think it was, and all the more we really thought of it was that it was a total hippie/party bus. I had seen a news headline about RAGBRAI, but didn't actually bother to look into it. Well, maybe I should've....20,000 people or more are expected in Sioux City this year. And damn, did it really look like it driving home. o.O

Why hello, this was about the last bus that we passed on the way toward Sioux City...there were some 4 or 5 total that we saw on the interstate. It felt like the only vehicles we were seeing either were semis, busses carrying bikes, or cars hauling bikes in some form or another. It was crazy. Although, this one was pretty entertaining. They scratched out the letters to spell "Cool Bus". On the bottom, it reads "lawful to ass flash".

Annd then we hit Sioux City.

COW BUS! :3

While I don't condone these drivers, I do appreciate the showing of patriotism...

......they were parking on both sides of the interstate. Pretty much wherever they could (which was usually around Argosy Casino and branched outward). Although the Tyson Center's parking lot was pretty crazy, too.

....and then the campers came. D:

.......fuck.

Iowa Jokes in 3...2...1....

All right, so this week was an interesting week. Not only was it my birthday, but it was decided that my dad and his siblings would get together for a family vacation. However, this was the first family vacation they've taken with all siblings together in about 50 years....which turned out to be interesting to say the least. But it was pretty fun! Minus the Spam Museum chatter...but anyhow. All of the randomness shall now commence with photodumping and much hilarity.

First, I-29 was road construction haven...more construction than I've every seen going on in SD at one time, mind you. So that was pretty much the gist of our Iowa exposure in the first hundred miles or so. Plenty of wind turbines too, and what they called "modern rest areas". How modern were they? They were so modern, that it resembled a parking lot with garbage cans place strategically along it. Srsly.

Past the wind turbines, we detoured to Winterset, which was pretty fun. Of course, as we detoured there, we detoured the detour to go check out one of the bridges of Madison County...we didn't actually realize what county Winterset was in until we saw signs pointing toward the bridges, so we figured why not. It was taking a little while to get there with the gravel roads and everything, but then my dad commented, "With our luck, we'd end up visiting the one ugly bridge out of all of them."

After that, it was predestined to be the ugly bridge. No matter what our opinions were after the matter. :P

This actually was one of the few bridges that still had a good amount of running water underneath it....at least that's the impression we got. In its original spot, too. Then right next to it was the also awesome NAKED bridge of Madison County! :D

And in between was Iowa's version of Stonehenge:

The rest of Winterset was driving past the birthplace of John Wayne (also caught unaware that there was more shit down here), and checking out the Fons and Porter store. All in all, very successful detour. Then instead of getting back on crappy interstate roads, we just headed straight east towards Knoxville. KNOXVILLE! One of the greatest dirt tracks in existence. It was actually a lot bigger than I expected, but then again, it's located in the middle of town, not built into a hill....I'll get to that explanation later. We also managed to stop by while their county fair was in session. Sweet!

After that, all we had to do was drive north to hit Newton, which is where Iowa Speedway was. Which turned out to be equally as awesome, and we got a shit-ton of stuff for only $70. The lady working at the desk (her name was Pam) actually gave us next week's sale prices on what we got just that Saturday, she was so awesome!!

A couple days later, I had my first ever motorcycle ride, thanks to my uncle. This was probably one of the biggest highlights to the trip, but it was awesome!! Plus, this is where I get to rub in the fact that my uncle is also in a motorcycle gang. And yesh, that's me in the awkward back. :P

We were heading off to the Amana Colonies, which was pretty nice. Only about 25, 30 miles from where we were staying in Iowa City so it was a decent motorcycle trip. However, there wasn't much to the Amana Colonies. :/

Yuup, that's a good portion of it. Then there were little random kitties all over, it was awesome!

Uhh, what else.....the next day we drove around some more, came across a pretty cool pond that was absolutely covered in lilies. But it was a bit rainy that day, so not many were in bloom. But still, pretty nifty.

.........and this just explains itself. /facepalm

Next day was the day we made the trek home, but of course we had to detour to some strange little town to visit! This time it was Kahlua, aka AMISH COUNTRY! Amg, buggy parking!! :D

And if you look closely, you can see a couple of the bearded Amish menz. lulz!

We also stopped at an amazing cheese factory and some more quilting shops, and also a bakery, but it was the Amish people that were so awesome. Amish/Mennonite, but we've got our share of Mennonite colonies near home, also.

What can I say about Iowa? Well, for one they find just about every town as "historical," or a county that must have it's own museum...all right, but no one else really thought your land was very sacred or special. Drive down I-29 and look at how the Omaha and Winnebago reservations are all in Nebraska. Yeeeeeeah.... There's also a shit-ton more semis on the road than I'm used to seeing, as goes the same for the number of trees. Not just any special trees, basically run of the mill trees that no one cares to learn about. At least in the Black Hills, the trees are a particular pine family. :P This was also the first time ever that our camera has fogged up when outside, so the weather is a bit wonky. But it was a really unique experience...

Of course, there was a lot more to the trip than it appears. There were plenty of restaurant eating that my family would probably like to forget about thanks to my aunt, and there was plenty of shopping and touring and stuffs. I experienced Sioux City in the daytime for the first time ever, we bought a crapton of food, and our hotel was directly across the street from the ACT testing headquarters, which was pretty sweet for me! I know for sure I'm missing something, too, but it'll come to me--most likely when I'm more awake. In the meantime, posts of RAGBRAI and Huset's racing (and my new favorite driver) will be coming up soonish.

I'm Watching You.....

Don't fear the adult content button. Just a lame attempt at deterring anyone who may want to view this blog with malicious plans...and besides, my mind can't exactly be trusted with young ones. >:D

I had one of those moments today. Like when you're out shopping and stumble across a guy that's some 20 yards or so ahead, and he turns out to be the kind that makes you have to say "Holy shitttt..." out loud. Yeah...not gonna lie, I did that. But inside, I'm saying to myself, damn I hate attractive men. Because 1) I have zero chances, particularly when I'm in Walmart with my parents in a town I don't even live in, and 2) He just looks too damn lickable.

Yes, I said it. LICKABLE.

So I resort to covertly keeping an eye out for him. Unfortunately, I'm not the creeper type that will resort to following him around the store. So it was pretty much when we first entered, and then when we went to the checkout line that I saw the dude. I nearly tripped over myself once when he came up behind us and was walking off somewhere. Wasn't expecting him to be that damn close....grawr.

In other news, I picked up my quilt from the quilters today! I'm officially one step closer to having an entirely completed quilt now. Last step is to put on the binding, where it will look something like this:

I'm pretty excited to get it finished--I'll be even more happy/lucky if I can get the binding on BEFORE we leave for Iowa City, even. :O

What else....I'm having problems trying to finish Hard and Fast. It's a great book, and I really like the author...but damn, I end up stopping every time I come across an inaccuracy/similarity. In the case of similarity, I don't really know what to think when I come across a novel set in the stock car racing world and has a character by the name of Bodine...in the real racing world, Bodine's a pretty well-known family--albeit they're not the greatest racers ever. I used to hate them, actually. Ugh....it also doesn't help when the author uses names like Jimmie and Kyle as filler names in the novels. Jimmie and Kyle is blasphemous, BLASPHEMOUS! Gawd, now I can't believe I tainted my own blog with the name Kyle...

This isn't the first time the similarity thing hasn't passed my attention, though. In Pamela Britton's first racing themed novel (before the Nascar logo began gracing her covers, mind you), she actually had a character who was a widow of a driver. Well, the driver's name was Randy Newman. Very similar to Ryan Newman, who's legit. o.O Truthfully, I think this might've been a small reason why Britton changed the character's last name to Newell after that.

Now for the inaccuracy. Inaccuracies don't bother me too much usually, I mean what I'm reading is a fiction book. I think what bothers me the most is when the lines cross between fiction and truth, because there are times where an author will forget that there's a distinct difference. For instance, Hard and Fast has an extremely watered down version of what is the history of stock car racing. Because it's hard to describe in other terms, the quote about the history says, "...stock car racing got its start from guys taking a car they could buy at any dealer, tricking out the engine, then racing it on the beach initially..." Uhh, okay...if you want the less-than-retarded version of the truth. In reality, stock car racing got its start from moonshiners. Bootleggers! Not dudes going out there and buying cars just to trick them out and race them on the beach. They were guys trying to distribute what was illegal or untaxed alcohol, and unless you wanted to get thrown into jail by the police, you had to make sure your car ran faster than the cops. Therefore, souping up the engines was the way to go. That was when feature races began cropping up where the drivers could earn some money and show off their supercars. In a way, the part about racing on the beach is true. Daytona Beach was actually famous for speed long before the paved International Speedway cropped up. But Daytona was known for record-breaking land speed records. Not necessarily stock car racing.

I know, it's a fictional book, but come on...the author tries so hard to be accurate, you can really tell, but it just doesn't work...It's sad to say, but Roxanne St. Claire and Pamela Britton both had more accurate stock car racing novels than Erin McCarthy's...at least that was my interpretation. Maybe I'm just biased because McCarthy tries to slip in that apparently the wives or serious girlfriends get to go up on this stage with the drivers and how they all stand there on the stage for introductions blah blah....I get freaking confused. Dude, if this really is the introduction stage, there won't be any women joining the drivers unless the driver is a woman herself. Nor do they stay up there. AND, why the hell do you make the families/women have tickets to watch the races?! Families and spouses watch from the motorcoaches, or from the pitbox. No tickets or press booth necessary.

Grawr...okay, I'm done ranting. I'm behind on Shaycarl and PhillyD videos, then off to bed. :3

One More Thing...

There's one other thing that's been bothering me as of late. Katy Perry's "California Gurls." Now, I know that Daisy Dukes fits in so well with the song...I'm surprised they're still even using the term, usually we call them what they really are. Short shorts. But, uh...does it really fit in with the whole California thing?

I mean, last time I remember, Daisy Dukes were short on the legs but almost looked like they were a bit high on the waist....not exactly the low-rise shorts and jeans these days. But maybe I've been watching The Dukes of Hazzard wrong all these years? Bahaha...

And, of course, just look at who the clothing's named after. The awesome Daisy Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard. Played by the awesome Catherine Bach. This may come as a surprise to Katy and most of the world, but Bach is from South Dakota (and where most of her family is still located, last I heard). So does this mean we scream California Gurls? Then again, Dukes of Hazzard was a show set in Georgia, so is it California trying to claim a Southern inspiration? Hmmmm...

Sorry, but California shan't take credit for everyone else's trends...come on!

Oh, and just for some entertainment (it's becoming a little catchy... :x ) :

Rambling. It's Fun. :P

I have a horrible love affair for Matt Bomer. But that's not really a secret, now is it? But anyway, with this love affair comes a love for most anything that USA Network will put out. I grew up watching Monk reruns for years, and now cannot get enough of White Collar and Psych. So of course, I'm a little giddy when I see an article that agrees with my perspective of USA awesomeness.

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/revealed-how-to-make-a-hit-usa-network-series--1385

Well, at least I'll agree with most of it. So, what do they say makes a worthy USA show?

Cast Beautiful People as Your Stars
Ok, not gonna lie, this one's actually pretty true...right up until I look into the face of that guy on Burn Notice. Speaking of which, his female counterpart isn't much to look at, either, in my opinion. Royal Pains? Not much for that dude, either. Mostly I'm partial to my Matt Bomer...ahhh...but anyhow. I guess this is appropriate for the more recent shows, but if they threw Monk into the mix? Honestly, I don't think many would look at Tony Shaloub and scream SEX APPEAL....so there has to be more than smexy Matt Bomers in every show. :P

Make Them the Best at What They Do
I have no objections to that. The way I see it, if this is a fictional show, then why can't there be a little bit of perfection to their line of work? We want to see how they get out of sticky situations! And if it happens to be being the best at being amateur detectives, then...sweet!

...Then Have Them Pretend to Be Other People
Con man in White Collar? Yes. Witness protection in In Plain Sight? Yes. Whatever the hell is going on in Burn Notice? Yes. Uh.....Psych? I don't really think they apply, but OK. I think the fake names are meant to add awesome hilarity to the situations. I mean really, does anyone think that John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt is going to be a suitable pretend person? :P


Give Them a Sexy Partner of the Opposite Sex
Mehhh. The opposite sex is almost always a woman. And when they aren't women, they aren't much to look at. And besides, how many of these does it actually apply to? In Psych, O'Hara isn't exactly the obvious sexy opposite partner....does White Collar even have an opposite sex partner? Maybe it'd be Peter's wife, but I don't think so...anyone on the whole FBI team thing just doesn't seem to stand out enough as an obvious partner...Kate? Who we so very rarely see but hear about all the time? The Kate who looks like she could be Peter's wife's sister/daughter? Yeah, the similarities are just that close...but in a good way. Makes me like Kate a little more, lol. Monk would easily fall under this one with Natalie, but otherwise, meh.


Fill Out the Cast With Familiar Faces
Of course! Let's put Sharon Gless on Burn Notice! Sigh.....it's a technique they put on so many shows, I don't think this one makes it stick out much. Just look at Mark Harmon and all of the shows he's done (although he doesn't really pertain to this whole deal. I just like mentioning him). Then there's the real old veterans, like Kevin Tighe on a few episodes of LOST. In all honesty, the people that are watching these shows probably have no idea what all the other actors/actresses were even on before that show. But they are a nice touch.


Set It in a Scenic Locale
Dude. Manhattan isn't exactly scenic, nor all that gorgeous to look at. Even from the sky. Miami, sure. But I don't exactly watch White Collar for the pretty scenery. If you want pretty scenery, set it in the Black Hills sometime. Kthxbai. ;)


Gunplay, Gunplay, Gunplay
All right, that one's fine. We must have MAYHEM! Solving murders is fun and all, but there's got to be just a little more adventure in it. Just sayin'. :3


Find Your Season-Long Story Arc
YES. This one is critical. It's all part of the writing; what's the point of watching a show that doesn't wrap itself up before its season hiatus? It's one thing to have a story that is left in a cliffhanger for months and months like LOST, but they had to do a crazy amount of wrapping up in their final episodes. And people have to admit, it didn't turn out wrapped up in a cutesy clean finished bow. But with USA, they know how to create a story that has an ending, and a satisfying ending at that. With Monk, they couldn't have ended the entire show in a better fashion, and that is largely because they didn't have many holes to fill from previous seasons.


Keep It Light and Humorous
YES. YES. FUCK YES. This one is even more critical than the previous point! And this one ties in again with the writers--in order to make these shows worthwhile, they can't be heavy on the drama or attitude. Lighten up! Psych has so many hilarious moments, and White Collar has some awesome moments of dialogue that just make me have to giggle. Even Monk, with its poignant story lines and sad situations, they really knew how to incorporate the humorous parts. Humor mixed with drama, it can't get much better than that. And makes it much more worth my time. :P


Well, now it makes a ton more sense as to why I love Psych & White Collar! I think....mmmm, Matt Bomer... :3

Once In a Blue Moon

Well first of all, say hello to the new banner up above! Since Blogger widened their blog sizes, it was beginning to bother me that my banner wasn't stretching all the way across....so I made a new one. Which of course led to more feelings of "OMG I HATE GIMP!!one!1!", but I think I did pretty damn well for such a simple program. I still wish it was able to do all of the things that Paint Shop Pro 7 was able to do, but whatever...

I think it should also be mentioned that the photo itself is one that I've taken. It's of Sylvan Lake in the Black Hills, originally a panoramic shot that I shortened up a little bit. I was also experimenting with lighting and exposure on this particular trip, which is why the sky is white instead of blue. :/ But it's why I love South Dakota. Like my old banner, it was a lame picture taken out of the windshield of our car. We were in the Badlands, though, and with that little bit of curvy road in there, with the song lyrics so directed towards cars, it ended up being perfect. This is a very photographic state that I'm lucky to live in.

Don't be surprised if the banner changes again, though. I'm looking for a suitable quote to put in the lower right hand corner. For some reason, something from the Sleep Talking Man is calling out to me...even though the quotes would probably be entirely opposite of anything that ends up here. Egotistical quote up there? Not really reflective of what this whole thing is...but it would match my sense of humor perfectly. Hmmm.....just had a thought. "Learning to live like the hamster, with hamster virtues." Now THAT would be perfect. Much different from the cheesy song lyrics that I had up there before. Granted that's the entire inspiration of the blog title, but hey, sometimes change is for the better. :3

And now for the reason of this post. It's spotty at most for me to remember any of my dreams, and most of the dreams I do remember aren't really worth remembering because of some very uneasy feelings afterwards. Whether or not they're nightmares or not is yet to be decided....like a short while ago I had a strange dream. I had purchased my first house. It was a small house, but it was cute and clean, even though the neighborhood was really strange and was apparently the area to drag race. Ironically, the street I live next to currently? Very much loved by the drag race kids. Yeah. :/ Long story short, I had this moment in my dream where I sort of realized "What the hell? I'm too young to be buying my own house! This isn't the time for me to be buying my own house! What about my parents?!" In hindsight, it wasn't that bad, but I think the fact that I had no roommates either seemed to only extrapolate those feelings of loneliness....So when I woke up, I did have that sort of nightmarish tug.

I remember another dream I had a month or so ago, also. It was weird, because it was set on campus, and there was snow everywhere. Snow? I think it was snow....I think it was a blizzard. Sadly it's been a while now since I last thought about it, but all I remember was people everywhere indoors and really shitty weather outside. Sort of like a blizzard/tornado warnings. It was one or the other. But that one really sucked, really. I hate winter...mostly because I have to walk in it to get to classes. Grawr.

The dream I had last night, however, was a lot different. It was actually pretty awesome, and I don't remember my awesome dreams. If I do, it only happens once in a blue moon or so. Anyhow, I was going on a plane trip to someplace in California with some small group of kids. I'd say about five of us total. We had some older guy that was leading us around and stuff. Now the dream was set in what I would describe as an airport/college campus. The campus part was mostly because towards the end, I ran into a guy I know from college at this same and/or similar location. That was only a small snippet, though, so I think it was mostly an airport. A very pretty airport, with lots of windows. It also had multiple floors on one side, sort of like there were three stories or more. Definitely not any airport I've ever been in. It was a very pretty building though, almost business-like. I think it was the windows and openness of the building that didn't give me any uneasy feelings. And it was sunny! :D

Now for the fun part. This little group of five of us were on this special secret trip. Super secret! We were on a manhunt. I don't know why, but we had to go find this particular dude amongst a crapton of other people. There was even a fun chase, where we had to jump from floor to floor to try and catch the dude. It was pretty intense, but we did get them. The whole thing just felt very FBI-ish? I don't know, maybe White Collar's premiere got to me the other night, even though I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to it, lol!

I think the best part of the dream, though, came at the end. We were heading back to the plane and stuff, and that older dude who took us on the trip? He said something about having another whole mission thing back in that same city or something like that. And I was totally thinking HELL YEAH SIGN ME UP! So that is pretty much how my dream ended. Very optimistic that I was going on this awesome adventure soon, and had just completed an awesome adventure. It was so very strange....but damn, was it fun.

Catching Up With, Well Me

Note to self: I really must blog here more often.

Things have been going smoothly over here. Currently I'm spending my summer doing what I like to call "As little as possible while accomplishing as much as possible." How do I do this? By spending my days playing Sims 3. When I'm not playing Sims, I'm busy reading or sewing. I've finished about five books and almost one quilt since college let out.

Speaking of books, this week absolutely killed me. Yesterday I went out and bought five more books to read:
Hard and Fast - Erin McCarthy
In Other Worlds - Sherrilyn Kenyon
Cupid Cats - Katie MacAlister & Vicki Lewis Thompson, et al
An Unforgettable Lady - JR Ward
The Know-It-All - AJ Jacobs

(Guess which one is not like the others....)

So I have a bit of reading ahead of me for the next month or so. Then when I'm not reading, I'm busy sewing. I like to think of my quilts as coming together in three parts: the Quilt Top phase, the Quilting phase, and the Binding phase. So far this summer, I've got one quilt top finished and is off at the Pin Cushion to have the amazing ladies there quilt it for me! Which is actually about the farthest I've gotten on my own...now I have a second quilt, which I actually had nearly completed last summer, that I want to finish. It's at the final stages of the quilt top, and then I can give it to my grandmother for quilting. She knows some ladies that do hand quilting three days a week at the senior center, and I think this quilt will be perfect for that. Once that one past the quilt top stage, THEN I want to start on a Rhythm & Blues quilt with this awesome frosted fabric I got....yeah, I have plans. But so little time for them all, lol.

Lately, though, I haven't had the motivation to do either, really. I seem to spend the most time playing Sims 3, which really is a bad habit to get into. I did get a break with the latest Nancy Drew game, but I really need to go through it a second time because I missed so much the first time around. Gahhh...

On the upside, both White Collar and Psych are having their season premieres this week. Yes! And both of of those shows have their season DVDs releasing on Tuesday. Double YES!

But anyhow. I guess the biggest hurdles to cross will come the 16th on. Sam is going to be spending the night at our house for her birthday, so we're talking probably the night of the 17th & 18th busy. Then on the 20th we're driving to the Amana Colonies. It wasn't my original plans for spending my birthday, but it's better than nothing really. And it's not like I'm turning 21 or anything major....I'm easily pleased. I remember for a few years straight my birthday plans were to curl up on the couch and watch Dale Jr's DVD. I can't even remember what it was called, but I was young and appreciated the sight of his shirtless, all-too-skinny ass...gawd.

I don't want my summer to disappear so fast. But I sort of miss my Verm friends, too. :/