9th Annual Culture Fest - Lion Dance

Before this was a short intermission with snacks and food from a restaurant i forgot the name of. Very good though.

Here is the lion (with two people in it) from the Ha Family Lion Dance Troupe. There were musicians to the left, and both were very entertaining. There was candy and lettuce that lion ate, and then shared with the audience out his mouth, not vomiting, it should be noted. They told the story behind it all, and it was not something i was aware of, even though i love these along with the dragons.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Boxing

Here are the two kick boxers who did a great show. At first the guy whithout the shirt came out and told some jokes, showed off his new "tattoo" (not sure if it was painted on, think so) of the school logo and mascot, and then showed off some kick boxing. It was pretty amusing as at one point they played the theme from the Mortal Kombat movie, and fought in slow motion. Very impressive, funny, and made me feel very, very out of shape.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Twin Cities Group

This is just part of a very large group at the Culture Fest from the Twin Cities, i think University of Minnesota. Very good song, many different people singing different parts.

Happy Thanksgiving

Since Thursday is Thanksgiving, i thought i'd take a break and post one of the things i'm most thankful for, my bunny named Kitty. One of the four (the others are named Amanda, Emily and Jerry), and one of the most headstrong. She's got a skin condition at the moment that the vet can't figure out, but it doesn't seem to be serious. I'm thankful for them because no matter how low i get, how bad things seem, i just have to think about how they need me and care for me, and i can breathe again.

Now if i could just get them to help me clean, that would be perfect. ;)

9th Annual Culture Fest - Ukelele

Here is another of singers who also played a ukelele and guitar, and when he played the guitar he sung a very funny mix of modern songs that normally aren't sung with an acoustic guitar. Don't ask me to remember or know those songs by name though, not really my type of music, the originals i mean. He got a great reaction to his performance too.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Swing Dance

Here are two of the many swing dancers that performed at the Culture Fest. They were very acrobatic and energetic and impressive. Not sure what swing dance has to do with culture, but it was enjoyable.

Side note, looking around i saw that there was another event at the university monday night, Peace in the East, where the Jewish and Arab student groups got together and did things. It was smaller than this, but i got pictures of that and will most likely post those after these.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Three Singers

Another Culture Fest shot, this time three singers and a musician. I'm getting spacey on where they were from, what song was played, and all that other information. Not exactly sure why, but it's showing me i need to get better at making notes for these things. They were very good, like everyone there though, so you'd think i'd be better at remembering the names.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Dance

Here are three more dancers from Culture Fest, there were more in this part of it, but would move around a lot more. I'm kind of blanking on where they were from or names, another reason i wish there was a program or something, even if just online.

Unrelated note, very icy last night. My car was coated with ice, and the roads in the twin cities were very bad with lots of accidents. There is an article on the Star Tribune site about how many accidents on the road and even by people walking there were. Stay safe out there people, winter is here, although not everywhere.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Belly Dance

Here is the belly dancer that was the first "performer", after the fashion show. She is the same bely dancer that was at the Unity in the Community events the last few times i went. She's very good, but it was funny at the start of her dance that they had troubles with the music and she stood there for a while, waiting.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Fashion Show

This was the first part of the Culture Fest, but not the first country to show fashions. Here are two of the Japanese outfits. There were more, i believe five people total for there. Basically several countries came out showing traditional dress, do a little gesture type thing.

9th Annual Culture Fest

While checking out the website of the local university, i noticed an event posting about the 9th Annual Culture fest. This surprised me for a couple reasons, that i've lived here since 2002, and never heard about 1 through 8, and i only found out about this one a day or two before it happening. I'm not sure how these are advertised to the student body, but to the non-university people, it wasn't advertised at all. Not even on the local paper website, although i'm not sure if it was in the print edition, which is only out once a week. I debated going, as i wasn't familiar with the North Hall Auditorium, and if it would be good for taking pictures without bothering people too much, luckily it had a balcony that not many people used, and then after intermission, no one other than me. Hopefully the sound of the camera didn't disturb them.

I'll be posting pictures of the event for a while, even though i have a rather large amount of them in a flickr set here. Several of the performers were similar to the unity in the community events previously, but with some variations, hopefully enough to be interesting to those here.

Snow rabbit

Here is a snow rabbit-man. I guess i should just call it a snow rabbit. Whatever i should call it, it's cute, and quite big too, close to five feet tall or over. I saw it on the grounds of the apartment building i live by and go past on the way to the closest grocery store. I mostly find this funny as it's pretty well done, close by me (who loves rabbits) and not something i see everyday.

Injured squirrel

I saw this poor squirrel today, and tried to catch it to take to the vet, but even though he had a bad foot, he easily out ran me. Not sure how his foot got injured, but it looked like it was gone or close to at least. Hopefully it wasn't a person who did it, while i'm sad it was hurt, if it was other wildlife, it's more understandable. He would eat, and when he put is back right foot down, he could feel it hurting, and would  shake it out back and up a lot. 

Once when i saw a rabbit with a bad leg, i asked the vet what i should do. She told me that if it the wild animal can get away from me, it should be able to get away from predators and not to worry about it so much. Also that if it's eating, it's not fatally injured or sick. I feel less bad about wildlife doing what they need to survive, but when it comes to people, they can be cruel for no good reason. So hopefully it was an accident or such that caused this. 

First snow of the season

We had, and are having our first snow of the season, and it's a doozy. Winter storm warnings all over the area, currently snowing, but was sleeting and slush over night and into part of today. River Falls seems to have missed the brunt of it though, as parts of the twin cities is expected to get up to ten inches during it. I wouldn't doubt it, as it's one of those spiraling storms that seems to just linger, and the snow is coming down harder now here.

The picture is something i always dread happening to me in a storm like this. One of my neighbors got a flat and they were changing it in the wet snow. Not pleasant. Hopefully this storm will pass and we'll be back to the 70s, but i really doubt it, and should get used to the snow again. That's part of living in northern Wisconsin.

New Kwik Trip

There is a new Kwik Trip on the north end of town, and it has this "thing" blowing around by a fan at it's base. I'm not sure why, but it kind of freaks me out. Maybe it's the expression, or how it moves, but it does. Not sure how long they plan to keep it there. It's odd, i saw a ton of cars with people just hanging out on the backs of them, like Kwik Trip is the new place to 'hang out'. It is a pretty small town, but there has to be something more exciting to do in town, right?

A Crow on Halloween

Saw this crow on halloween in one of my trees while waiting for trick or treaters to show up. It was huge, which doesn't quite show how big here. It was a pretty impressive bird, and i've been noticing a lot more crows in the yard than normal for some reason. I do find them to be very interesting birds, especially after seeing the episode of Nature on PBS called "A Murder of Crows".

Speaking of trick or treaters, this year was an unusual i think, a lot, and i do mean a lot, of very young children, and not one high school kid. Lots of the young kids were in big groups of about four families, some single families, but pretty steady for a couple of hours. All had pretty cute costumes, not one an NFL team jersey which seemed rare from previous years. All and all, a good turn out, but then the weather was good, even if it got colder as the night went on.

I've been bad at posting for a variety of reasons, probably best to not go into them here, as i'm sure no one is really interested. Hopefully i can find the motivation to get back to posting regularly, although it's getting into that part of the year where things look and feel drab as leaves have gone, and everything is turning brown or grey.