20 February 2010 --- Winter Fest

Alright. I'm trying a piece of technology from Picasa. It generates a snipet of html that should embed a slide show into this page. I think I'll add a few of my favorite pics as regular link by itself, but I took a lot of photos, and I liked a lot of the ones I took. You can always click on the slideshow to go to the Picasa albumn.

My day started pretty early for a Saturday. My plan was to go the winter farmers market. I got up and headed toward the capitol square. I met my neighbor outside my building and had a nice chat about my recent trip to watch the Shuttle. She was out walking her dog, just like a lot of people I saw that day.

I walked to the Monona terrace. Once there, I quickly figured out that the farmers market wasn't held there anymore.  It moved to the Madison senior center a few years ago. Darn memory! What was going on a the convention center however, was some sort of gay pride conference. After snapping a few shots of some of the characters there, I made my exit.

I stopped by the Winter Fest, where the organizers had trucked in snow and coated the entire capitol square with it, making a cross country ski track, right there. It was early but after walking around for a while I saw that a race was starting. It was the High School kids racing. There were teams from all over the state present. Like I said, most of my photos from there are in the slide show, but I'm going to put a few in here, cuz I like 'em a lot.

 

  

  

  

After the race, I asked a group of racers, how it went. Guess which one didn't do well.

Then I asked, who did better than they expected. Now that's happy!

Like I said, the dogs were definitely out that day.

 

 There's apparently even a Madison Winter Festival mascot. I was originally thinking that there was a resemblence to the Sexual harrasment Panda, 

 

but then I overheard a passerby say "I love your beer, man", and it hit me, it's the Hamms beer mascot. Kind of fitting, but unintended, I'm sure.

Later, when walking down State street, I took more photos. I like this one of a group of girls eating pizza in the front window of Ians Pizza. I think they may even be eating the famous mac-n-cheese pizza.

 

I watched the skiers and snowboarders grinding down the rail on MLK street. I even got a neat photo of a guy taking a photo (I don't know why I like those so much)

 

 
 

And just a few feet closer to Monona Terrace was the sled hill for the kids. So cute. I really liked the way the line formed, going up the hill.

 

  

There was also an ice sculptor there. I got a bunch of photos of him doing his thing, look in the slide show, but this one I like. There's a strange resemblence, I think.

 

As I was walking by Teddywedgers, I pointed out the store and asked Lisa if she'd ever had a "Pasty" from there (or anywhere), when I noticed this hand written sign.

I spent many mornings BS-ing with Myles as we waited for his first batch of Pasties of the day to come out of the oven. You see, his shop, Teddywedgers, opens at 6:30, and I have to be at work by 7. It was always pretty tight, time wise, for me. My on-time status for work was often determined by when the first batch of pasties were put in the oven. I'd show up and stand outside, trying to look pitiful and cold until Myles would unlock the door and let me inside while we waited together for that first batch. The smell is great.  We would talk about traveling, and the places we've been, or where he was planning on going. He was a good man, and like me, he liked to tell stories. Unfortunately for me, I came a little too close to being late for work, too many times. While I enjoyed talking with Myles, and I really loved eating those delicious pastys, I had to stop going by on a regular basis. I would occasionally get a pasty if I were driving to work (thus negating the time issue), but my desire to cut out food that I don't make myself (on a regular basis)It was a bit of a shock to see that sign. RIP Myles.

OK, here's the slide show, with the rest (of the decent ones)