To dhowe.com Click on pictures to see a large version. August 2009 Back to journal index Friday August 21 - A visit to the State fair. We skipped horses for the day and joined the crowd to see the State fair.  At the gate a man walked up to Linda and said he accidently ordered one too many tickets on-line.  Would we like one?  Sure - it was a free $12 ticket for admission - WHAT a bonus!  Then, at the ticket booth we discovered it was senior day so I was elegible for an $8 ticket (instead of $12).  We were off to a good start. Inside the gate we stopped by the channel 10 booth and both picked up red tote bags.  Inside were cupons for a free corn dog, one of our fair traditions.  It was another SCORE!  THEN we came upon the M&M booth and they handed out free ice cream treats - YUMMY! The fair was sparsely populated, good for us but bad for the fair.  Once inside we went to the crafts buildings and Linda bought a beautiful, hand thrown container.  The artest agreed to hold it for us until we were ready to leave.  A few snapshots are HERE. We visited the livestock building - today was for pigs and sheep.  Then we discovered one of our favorites, the SPLASH DOG competition.  Dogs jump into a swimming pool to retrieve a toy.  They are judged on how far they jump. Tuesday, August 18, 2009:   Golf in Arbuckle.  I joined Janine, Mom and Dad for golf in Arbuckle.  We arrived at the golf club at 9:30 AM in time to beat the heat.  Dad drove the cart while the other three of us played.  The complete set of pictures is at: http://www.pbase.com/dave_7hi/golfaug09   Click on the upper right corner once you arrive for a slide show.   Here are a few selected pictures. After golf we drove to Williams the back way and inspected the new olive groves.  The valley used to have almost as many olives as almonds, but because of the labor intensive harvest the olives gave way to almonds.  This grove of trees was planted very closely together and appeared to be ready for a mechanical harvester.  Then we drove on to Granzellas where we enjoyed a picturesque lunch.   August 18, 2009:      It's hard to believe it is more than half way through August and I haven't updated the journal.  The fact is, we have been enjoying August doing what we like most; riding our horses.  Each day we go to the ranch right after breakfast and ride until it is time to come home for a late lunch.  For us it is quite exciting and fulfilling.  for readers of the journal I'm afraid it might be a little booring.        I did manage to play golf in Arbuckle last Tuesday with Mom and Dad, but didn't take pictures.   There is a separate entry above for golf on Tuesday the 18th.      I got the genealogy portion of the web site working again.  You can check it out at:  http://dhowe.com/genealogy What makes it special is that it uses some advanced computer techniques - similar to those I supported at work but even more advanced.  The data is stored in a SQL server and the web pages include some PHP code.  Getting it all to work took several days of troubleshooting.      I have also updated my KIVA web page.  I have always wished I had the ability to contribute to the less fortunate but I felt my limited resources wouldn't make a difference.  With Kiva individuals can band together to make loans to entrepreneurs around the world.  After four months some loans I made have already begun to be paid back - so I have loaned the money out again.  For August we chipped in to loan fifteen hundred dollars to a Mexican family who needed to buy a heater for their chicken farm.  If you haven't checked out KIVA yet I encourage you to do so.  My web page is at:  http://dhowe.com/kiva   To dhowe.com Click on pictures to see a large version. August 2009 Back to journal index     This website is created and maintained by Dave Howe (  )  using KompoZer, an open source web editor.  Hosted at HostGator.