A Fair Fair, Fairly
I was at the Minnesota State Fair yesterday. For the third year in a row, I volunteered to help run MTS’s booth in the Wonders of Technology exhibit hall. This year we brought out our tabletop earthquake simulator and enticed children of all ages to try to build towers of K’nex to withstand recorded earthquakes. Of course, since they have to take the building apart anyway, those structures that survive are subjected to the demonic “sine wave mode,” which can destroy practically anything. If plate tectonics ever figures out trig functions, we will all die.
I was going to take some pictures of the fair—I wanted to seek out and photograph everything being offered on a stick—but about the time I finished my shift at the booth, the rain began. My camera stayed in its bag, because it does not get wet. On the other hand, the rain was gentle in the early afternoon, so I enjoyed strolling down the avenues of the fair while all of the other fairgoers crowded under awnings as though they might melt (the people rather than the awnings, of course; I’m sure that the average fairgoer has the sense to stay away from melting awnings, even in the rain).
