These Injustices Will Not Be Soon Forgotten

As some of you know I entered the county fair this month. Last year, my entries took a number of first place ribbons as well as the reserve grand champion ribbon. While certainly guilty of being argumentative, I am not usually very competitive which is why I've been a little surprised at the tenacity my quests for a grand champion ribbon has taken.

This year I pulled out all the stops and submitted the earlier posted about Almond Chocolate Cake from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. I also submitted a blue berry pie with a butter based crust. The pie received a first place ribbon having been beaten out for the grand champion ribbon by someone's cherry pie. The cake, however, was shamed with a white, third place ribbon behind a pistachio bunt cake which got second and an apricot upside down cake which got first. To add insult to injury this saltine cracker sucking judge wrote on the back of the tag "underdone". I may have over-reacted some and had some stern words with a group of the Beta Sigma-Phi ladies (the groups that runs our county fair), but really! under done! Admittedly this was probably the wrong kind of entry for a rural county fair. Your first bite is not what you're expecting for something labeled as chocolate cake. It takes until around the third bite before you realize that no matter what this is called it is amazing. I took the cake home and ate most of it to assuage my hurt pride. In my butter and chocolate infused coma I began plotting my assault for next year.

If You Have Some Time

This came up as an ad before a video on YouTube and I just couldn't hit the "Skip This Ad" button, and despite its 8+ minutes length I'm glad I didn't. I got a big kick out of it.

New Things

Granted, it's been awhile since I actually put a post up here. It's been a busy summer, but at any rate here we are.

First off, I finally talked my way into a job here. It's not a full time job yet, but my work schedule has been steadily picking up. The railroad also double my hours and pay at the beginning of the summer so I've been busy. I started with Reck Bros. in time to finish up the new county swimming facility. Below is the sign that was posted as you exit the job site. 

One should always be wary of children.

The house remodel is progressing. It's been hard to find time to work on it with all of the jobs going on at work, but I think I'm still making traction. 

New windows got put in all the way round.

Walls have gone up, floor repairs have been made and other adjustments made (hopefully I'm almost done with that). I also got all of the old insulation removed. A new power service and breaker box was also installed. The new plumbing has been started too.

I've been trying out some exterior paint colors. I think I'm going for the darker green. More work still to do. 

I also bought this:

It is that ugly in really life. It's a 1986 Tercel Wagon 4WD. It has has nearly 230,000 miles and nearly that many rattles and odd noises. It blows some blue smoke, but still gets better gas mileage than the Blazer for running around town. Not bad for a few hundred dollars (at least I think so).

We had a nice 4th of July in Ely with all of the usual events. Soon after that we had a fun Robertson family reunion camping in the Uintas over in Utah where I donated copious amounts of blood to the local mosquito population (aren't I generous).

The White Pine County Fair is coming up and I'll be submitting a chocolate almond cake and a blueberry pie with a butter based crust. Fingers crossed for the grand champion ribbon!

In other new:  This--

It's called a Cherpumple. It's a three layer cake with pie baked into each layer.

 

Pumpkin pie baked in a spice cake

Cherry pie baked into a white cake

and

Apple pie baked in a yellow cake

What will they come up with next? (I may have to try this)