Fail.

Guess who got a jury summons in the mail today?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

Guess what month they want it for?

October.

Guess who's not a resident of this county during the months of August through May?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

The form is hilarious to look at, as I can say that I'd have to travel oh, 70 miles to get there, and am employed by the university as a resident assistant who can't actually leave the dorms unless the other CA is present. Sucks to be you! :3

This Looks Nothing Like 5 Inches of Rain

It seems like this entire summer we have a few days of sun and massive humidity, then we have a day or two of absolute downpour. And not just a little sprinkling--as in INCHES of rain. Well, a couple weeks ago it was George and Mitchell that got 6+ inches of rain in an evening. Last night was our turn.

It wasn't quite six inches, but we did top 5 inches where I am. Which then either ends up in basements all over town, or into the Big Sioux and Skunk Creek....but even that has a limit. So where does it go?

FUCKING ALL OVER!

Just take a look...

AMG IT'S A PLANE! Although, these are pretty common. It's just kind of cool, and now you know just how low they fly over when they're about to land. :3

Despite initial opinion, these are not normally lakes.

No more day camp for the little children anymore, not when the entire land has ended up underwater... :/

And, because this is hilarious...

Long story short, everything's wet. Even when I went out to take a picture of that sign, the grass was soaking....and we sit on the side of a semi-inclined hill. The good news? My wedge sandals make me tall enough that my feet didn't get wet walking through water. The bad news? Nothing can protect you from wet grass.

And even more bad news, my favorite camera became borked during the picture taking today. I'm really going to be pissed and disappointed if it's unfixable now. D:

Histroplasmosis: Fun Word to Say, Baaad Repercussions...

I'm being unproductive today. Like I have been the past few days. Mehhh....

I was hoping I could start working on the binding for my quilt, but as I've never done binding by myself and it's an absolute BITCH to do....I have to rely on my mom to help me out. Because it's very obvious even if I tried to read directions for it alone, my smart problem solving skills won't be able to figure it out. Laptop won't let me log into the computer? Oh yes, I can kick ass and figure it out myself, no IT needed. But how to put binding on a quilt? Nope, not if I want the corners to turn out right and especially if I want to finish it off correctly. The thing is, my mom's been working on a quilt also, an adorable pink and green lap quilt for my cousin's little girl. So I'm going to have to wait. :/

Instead, I'm making a quick blog post, experimenting with TS3 because I haven't had the attention span to read lately (still having issues with Hard and Fast), and watching Billy the Exterminator on A&E. Which makes me laugh, just a little bit.

It boggles my mind that there are people out there who find all of these bats and snakes and rats and roaches cute, or think that they make wonderful pets, or other crazy ideas such as that. Then I certainly encourage them to watch a few episodes of Billy. Why? Because not only does he get rid of the animals the most humane ways possible (when they are possible, that is), he also explains why the hell these are not pets and why they are hazardous when inside a person's house. Just because an animal looks so goddamn cute, doesn't mean it should be allowed to live in your fucking house! Sure, bats seem cute to some people, and of course they're vital to the environment because they eat their weight in mosquitoes. But if they want to give bats the 'equality' they deserve, which means allowing them to live in their attic rather than removing them, then I hope those people are happy inheriting the guano that comes with bats. And where there is bat guano, there's histroplasmosis and other nasty diseases, yayyy!

Same goes for rats. No matter how goddamn cute you find them, their shit leaves behind hantavirus and other diseases. The problem is, these diseases take almost nothing to become airborne if disturbed. Also, rats and mice are attracted to places where there are food. Human food, dog food, horse feed....rats and mice have no control over their bladder. So what do they do? They're there shitting on and around these sources of food, further increasing the chances of contracting some disease or virus.

And if there are children around, then it's ESPECIALLY dangerous. Children are not smart enough to know that these animals can be dangerous. Why do you think people want the snakes, raccoons, and other wild animals gone? Because children think they are supposedly cute, and therefore harmless--they don't have the mental capabilities to know the difference between a venomous and non-venomous snake, or know when there's animal shit where they're playing, blah blah.....so when adults also share that 'adorable' opinion, it scares me. Don't people care for their health anymore? Don't they even care about what their children can contract? Children don't have the immunity of adults, which makes them even more susceptible.

These animals may seem harmless, but what they leave behind is not.

Regardless of animals, insects, roaches, and nasty little critters that roam around.....exterminators exist for a reason. Because maybe there's a nest of bees or wasps on a property where a person is deathly allergic to them; or maybe there is roaches/mice/whatever in someone's kitchen where their food has become inedible because of the pests; or maybe because there's a snake in the yard or house, and the home has children that are at risk of getting bitten, because children just aren't going to look around watching out for snakes all the time when they're outside playing. These animals are not meant to live indoors, they are meant to live outside. And Billy does a fantastic job at telling you why these animals are necessary for their existence, but why they should NOT be allowed in your home.

Again, watch Billy the Exterminator and educate yourselves for once in your goddamn lives.

But now I'm done ranting. I'm taking a break from the Exterminator until later tonight, they're going to have an episode about the oil spill. Plus I've watched every episode of the past seasons, and quickly catching up on the new episodes from this season. :X

Also, I must 1) Make a trip to the store for some more Dr. Pepper/Vanilla Coke, and 2) A post is in store soonish about my trip to the local racetrack Sunday night. Long story short, I got a REALLY cute driver's autograph, and his story is absolutely epic, as was his awesome sprint car with a wheelchair on it. Fucking hot drivers, why must you taunt me so.... >.>

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 ) :