chimesblog

Today is my first day at ISU. Which means no more commute and oddly enough that I have to get up EARLIER than before to get to work. I was leaving Ames to get to Drake at 8:15ish but I have to be at work by 8 today. Let’s see how I do. Also, I’m biking. This should be interesting.

Oddly enough this post is going to be mostly about my last day at Drake.

Here is my super-empty cube. Bye bye cube!

And Shelly is really sad to see me go. Mostly because this is my list of jobs. I got everything done that I could on all of my jobs, except a lot of them were stuck in limbo (ie. proofing internally or with the client). It’s color coded so she knows where everything is.

Okay, so she might be a little sad that I’m leaving because I won’t be there anymore.

Also, I will miss the “Can’t Touch This Award” — the weekly award given to somebody who kicked ass the previous week. I got it before I left and I passed it on one last time.

Also … I ran out of stuff to do by 10 AM. So I may have played an hour of N64.

After work we met at Star Bar for drinks. I had a Dirty Blue martini (um stuffed blue cheese olives anybody?).

I’m excited to start a new chapter in my life at ISU: Hopefully getting my grad degree (paid for), getting to spend more time with Mark and my Ames friends (LUNCH anybody?), biking or bussing to work and best of all 2 more hours added to my day every day! I will miss most everybody at Drake and I will most definitely miss having design as my major responsibility. But, I need to hone some of my other skills in addition to design if I want to be a well-rounded teacher some day.

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Oh boy.

In case you didn’t know, I hate the fair. It is absolutely NOT super-magical. Honestly, if I didn’t have to go for work, I wouldn’t go.  And I really should play state fair bingo when I do go (after my shift) because it would make the day so much more exciting.

Regardless: it’s over.

Well, my day there is anyway — the fair is still here for a few more days … blech.

First off, I must mention that I parked in front of the Slaughter residence. Yes. That is an epic last name. I wonder if they have a son around my age …

I got there and ran my shift at the Drake Day at the Fair tent. Check out the cool pix on our facebook! That was a lot of fun. My shift was slow, but we had a few awesome alums come through that made it totally worth while. Our theme this year was “Capture your love for Drake” and we were handing out pennants with a contest for the best fair photos with the pennant.  What a cool idea. Yay Drake!

I also worked at the VI building earlier that day and met a lady who graduated from Drake in 1930!  NINETEEN THIRTY.  She was amazing. She was an art teacher and a counselor for years. She also apparently has a golf cart with a bulldog on it that she wants to paint blue. Not just any blue, DRAKE BLUE. How cool!

Also, let me just say, I hate temporary tattoos. Most of my day was spent putting these on kids. Every time I put one on a kid, I felt like his mom was going to kill me. I had this one kid that asked for it on his FOREHEAD.  Seriously? I put another kid’s on the back of his neck. Honestly, he was out of room everywhere else. These kids went around to every station and got temporary tattoos. I’m sure to the delight of their parents.

Regardless. Adorable photo op!

Between my two shifts, I kind of geeked out over the quilts. I’m more of a fabric-a-holic than anything and the quilts at the fair never pique my interest as far as fabrics go, but damn. There is a lot of stitchery that goes into those quilts!

This one had a few fabrics I like and was a cute pattern.

Seriously. Look at that stitching!

All I have to say for this one is: wow. Those are a LOT of little tiny squares. This was a huge quilt. It didn’t even get an honorable mention. Really? Really.  I want to find out who did this so I can make him/her a ribbon because this is amazing.  Not as beautiful as some of the other quilts, but super amazing nonetheless. Can you imagine how much time and effort went into this? Seriously. CRAZY.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. Wait.  I almost finished my post here, but then I realized I didn’t mention food. You can’t blog about the Iowa State Fair without food, right? Yeah. Okay, so I’m a health nut. I found the ONE thing that probably won’t kill me (and it was cheap too!). I had an apple with caramel and peanuts. OM. NOM. and only 2 bucks! That’s cheap for fair food.

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On Sunday, Kelly and I took Barney for a walk.  She’s trying to cross off as many items on her 30-before-30 list and walking a dog was one of them. She’s always had cats, so she never had a chance to walk a dog. Plus, I think she might be scared of bigger dogs (as am I — only when I’m running or when they run up to me out of nowhere — hey, I’m tiny).

So, we went to Wal-Mart and got Barn a sweater (not as fancy as the coat I want to get him from Noodle and Friends).  Then came home and suited him up.

And we’re off. Well. Kind of. Somebody had to sniff everything and pee first.

This photo caught me pulling my shirt down and caught Barney at the beginning of a shake. He likes to shake off. A LOT.  He stopped several times during our short walk to shake.  Propeller ears!

Yay!  Kelly walks a dog for the first time ever! 

Proof that Kelly likes dogs. Well, at least this one.

We took Barney over to the Drake Stadium and had him meet up with the giant bronze bulldog statue.  He was pretty scared at first (that’s a HUGE bulldog!), but I got him to stand on top of the bulldog for a few pictures.

I’m not so sure about this, mom …

All in all, it was a pretty productive dog-walking Sunday.

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