Hows my little corn harvester?

Today I got an exciting opportunity to climb aboard a real live combine, in action, harvesting corn, right by my house. Honestly who isn't at least a little bit intrigued by those giant machines seen at state fairs, on the back of semis, or if you're a rural dweller, on the road in a no passing zone, the one day you're already late for work.

This is what the ground looks like after a field has been harvested, shreds of corn husk, leaves, stalk, and cob all over the place.

I live just 4 blocks south of that combine.

This is Kevin driving past at nearly 4 miles per hour. The stuff coming out the back is everything but the corn kernels.

The window view of the hopper on the back of the combine, while emptying.

After the combine fills up he dumps his load into a different tractor who drives that trailer to a semi who then takes it over to the elevator.

A view from the cab of the combine. Those big teeth go between the rows and a chain thing grabs the stalk, and rips it straight down. Then some other grinding teeth de-husk it. Underneath the cab and hopper is where the kernel is magically separated from the cob and moved into the rear. Everything that isn't a kernel is shot out the back in a cloud of dust and debris.

Our gorgeous countryside here in IL.

There he goes, harvesting into the evening. Since it was a nice day today Kevin was planning on harvesting his corn from about 8am to 8pm.

It was impressive to see how sophisticated the interior of those are. The one I was in didn't drive itself but if Kevin found an extra $10k lying around he could make the upgrade. The downside is it still won't turn for you at the end of your rows. I'm not jealous of farmer's harvest, but I am pretty thankful I got to experience one for just a little bit.

Hows my little Great Pumpkin?

Last weekend Laura and I had a lovely time with my parents.

Saturday we headed over to the Great Pumpkin Patch in Arcola, IL. Laura and I got some free passes when we worked at a farm to fork dinner in the spring. It was a really cool place! I would describe it as a fun, quirky, whimsical, and friendly place to get to know your local and international cucurbits. I'd say a good portion of our fun was spend pointing and laughing at different members of the squash family.

I'm not sure how many different types they had but these next few pictures should help everyone gain perspective on the scope. They did have one display showing a different squash for every letter of the alphabet.

There were all sorts of clever uses of all sorts of things. Some of the squash dangling here looked like the saggiest testicles in the world. Those balls on the ground are made of barbed wire. 

Fluffy chickens!

Photo-op at the Mum wall!

I haven't seen too many giant pumpkins in my day so this one was HUGE! The sign said they can gain up to 25 pounds per day in last couple of weeks of growth.

The highlight of my trip I think was the ice cream sandwich I got. That is the most gooey cookie around the best pumpkin ice cream I've ever tasted. The ice cream was very popular tons of people had cones, but they were definitely missing out, the sandwich was the way to go.

It would have beeb tragic to not leave without something so we shopped for some punkins.

Look at that stem!

Our squash haul. That orange pumpkin is up to my knee for perspective.

After the pumpkin patch we had an excellent dinner at the Firefly in Effingham, IL. This is a super cool restaurant that emphasizes local and backs it up by using ingredients from their own garden. I loved it.

It was a fun weekend with the parents.

Hows my little TV hater?

Television.
Sometime in college I cut my TV watching back dramatically. I stopped watching almost anything. When Laura and I had cable down here I watched it more than usual because of one-off shows about home rennovation, food, gardens, history, interesting facts, DIY, and funny cartoons. After our cable bill doubled we cancelled cable and haven't looked back.

But every now and then I get the urge to see what all of the hub bub is about surrounding a current or past show. Many of you probably remember my pretty shitty experience with the train wreck LOST. I've argued this one countless times on why I didn't like it (it was boring). But since then and many arguments later I've come to realize, if I didn't like one of the 'best' shows to grace the small screen in recent years, I must just not like TV.

Sometimes in conversation I feel like I come across as a anti-TV supremest,

Person: "Oh, like that commercial for _______ that was funny and relevant to what we are talking about!"
Me: "Oh, I must have missed that one." (trying to be polite)
Person: "Really its on all the time."
Me: "Yeah...I don't watch TV."
Person: [blank stare] "Really? Not even..."

I'm not trying to sound better than my co-workers or friends. I've found other things to keep me busy, like this blog, or lots of movies, reading the news, exercising, problem solving things in the house, learning about homebrewing, actually homebrewing, talking to Laura on the front porch while watching the sun set. None of these things are really out there, I'm not learning a second language while attemting to understand organic chemistry, I don't even volunteer my time for a good cause. I'm still pretty average. I don't judge my friends on their TV watching, it's a normal thing to do and enjoy, it's just not for me.

So what started this post?

During the Super Bowl this year Laura and I saw a commercial for a new miniseries Under the dome. We both got the distinct impression that this was a miniseries based off of the Stephen King book of the same title I loved so much. I could handle this a 12ish episode series based off a good book that was long enough to support a show and a bit too long (and involved) to make a good movie. This was not the case. Under the Dome was awful, I wanted to like it so much and it dropped a giant shit pile instead of entertainment. After about three episodes it completely departed from the storyline of the book. Which at that point I was thinking OK the end of the book was pretty corny, TV could make it a little different and more interesting (of which it showed potential to do later on). But it kept deviating farther and farther out. Each episode was based around some really small insignificant incident. Like a fire, get the townsfolk together! We're going to pass buckets to put it out! This garbage hardly passes for news, let alone entertainment. When was the last time you heard of people of your town getting together to solve issues, our government certainly doesn't.
Regardless, by the time the end rolled around there were just a few characters loosely based on a book that involved a dome. With one episode left we were left wondering, there is a lot that needs to happen to wrap this up. Laura said, maybe it's a two hour finale, I thought that made sense and looked forward to it. Instead nothing happened. It was another boring episode with a poor excuse for a cliffhanger (Barbie won't end up dead episode 1 season 2. Fact.)
When the show ended I was mad, mad that I was decieved into thinking this was a miniseris, mad that it didn't follow the book at all, mad that I had wasted my time on this waste of time.

When season two rolls around I won't be watching it, the show's plot has clearly run its course around the Dome and with nowhere new to go it will be trapped in the steaming pile it had been building over the previous episodes.

Fuck you CBS and fuck you shitty TV you had another shot to make a regular viewer out of me and failed.

If A la carte programming doesn't make headway soon I don't think I'll ever be a TV watcher.