The food … the food … the food. The biggest thing I was looking forward to on the food side of things was the funnel cake. I love me some funnel cake. I’m craving one right now just thinking of it. My funnel cake cravings even got us (me, Lisa, Robin, and Neal) backstage to meet Emerson Drive 3 years ago. This year, I got my funnel cake on Wednesday nite when we (Robin and I) went to see 32 Below. As for the other food, I always go for a brisket sandwich. I got that Thursday nite. The only thing that I didn’t get that I wish I had was cheese curds. There’s always the fair to get those tho.

The music … the music … the music. Who can beat a concert for only $3 (or $5 if you don’t have a discount coupon). They usually always have someone there that I want to see. This year it was 32 Below on Wednesday and Rodney Atkins on Thursday. I’ve seen 32 Below so many times that I’ve lost count. But I will always go see them every chance that I can. Since I’ve seen them so many times, I didn’t take my camera with me. I have enough pics of them as it is.

This was the first time that I’ve seen Rodney Atkins. He did not disappoint. We were fairly close to the front (thanks to the fact that I was there early and staked out a spot), so I took a TON of pics. I ended up with 90 pics. I would have had more, but I deleted the ones that ended up blurry or had hands or heads in the way. The pic to the left is just a sample. You can find more in my photo gallery. I also took 4 videos. Unfortunately I don’t have any software to process the videos to put online. The only thing I have is Windows Movie Maker, and that crashes every time I try to save a video.

Overall, it was a good RibFest this year. And I’m glad the crappy weather waited until AFTER the concerts that I wanted to see. The weather was beautiful on both Wednesday and Thursday nites. There was a while on Thursday where I thought it was gonna rain … it sure did get windy. But no rain fell. I got my funnel cake and brisket sandwich … I got to see 32 Below, October Road (they opened for Rodney), and Rodney Atkins. I can’t wait to see who they get for the concerts next year.

My plan was to do some research online to figure out what I wanted. Well, I never got around to doing that. But I was looking through the Best Buy ad and noticed that they had several kinds on sale this week. I did check out a couple of them online and decided to get the Western Digital 250GB My Essential Portable Hard Drive. So I went to Best Buy this afternoon and bought it. I couldn’t pass it up. It’s normally about $150 and it was on sale for $99.99. I also bought a case for it. That way I can take it with me if I go on a trip and not have to worry about keeping it safe.

I couldn’t believe how small it was. I have an external hard drive for my work laptop. It’s HUGE. And it has to be plugged in. The one I bought is tiny (see the pic below). It’s not much bigger than my digital camera. The pic shows it relative to my mouse and cell phone.

Click to enlarge

And the other thing that I like is that it doesn’t have to be plugged in. It’s powered just by plugging it into my laptop via USB. It’s exactly what I wanted. It did have some software installed on it to set up a sync program as well as a few other things. I removed all that stuff … didn’t want it. I did copy it to my laptop in case I change my mind later. But for now, I just want a hard drive that I can copy my stuff to. I don’t want to set up any syncing software.

I copied all of the pictures I have on my desktop to the drive this afternoon. That didn’t take long. A while back, I burned a bunch of pics to CD because I was running out of disk space. So I don’t have much left on my desktop. Now, my mp3s on the the other hand, that was a different story. I have around 5GB on my desktop. That took a while to copy over. But it’s all on the portable drive now. I need to get busy ripping the rest of my CDs. I have a bunch that I wish I had on my computer. I’ll get to that eventually.

I sure have been busy getting tech toys lately. Since Christmas, I have gotten my laptop, my digital camera, and now the portable hard drive. My next new toy will come toward the end of July. I’ll be eligible for a new cell phone (using Verizon’s ‘New Every Two’ program). I’m contemplating getting a ‘fancier’ phone … one with a qwerty keyboard, maybe even a BlackBerry or a phone like that. I just don’t know that I need one that fancy. And I don’t know if I could justify the cost of a plan for internet access. But I have time to decide.

This is the lineup for RibFest this year:
Wednesday: Sawyer Brown
Thursday: Johnny Holm
Friday: Diamond Rio
Saturday: unknown

Diamond Rio was supposed to be here last year, but we had a bit of a weather issue that nite, and the concert was canceled. I’m glad they were able to add this year to their schedule. I was really looking forward to seeing them.

Sawyer Brown. OMG!! I love Sawyer Brown. I guess if I had to give you the name of my favorite band, and I could only have one, it would be Sawyer Brown. I have seen them several times … I’ve lost count actually. I can’t wait to see them again. And I can’t wait to try out my new camera at the concerts. I should be able to get some really good pics.

Speaking of my new camera, I did get it yesterday. But that’s another post.