If anyone has followed me on Facebook, Twitter, read the most boring crap in the Internet, (otherwise known as this blog) or talked to me in person, you would have picked up some mention of the Rollag thing I attend every year and am overly obsessed with.

What Is It?
Rollag is the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion. It was started back in 1954 and has been going on every Labor Day weekend since then. It is one of the largest, if not the largest show in the region sitting on over 230 acres of land. We have a wide array of displays and exhibits to see. We have a complete horsepower and pioneer farmstead area, two steam locomotives that pull visitors around the showgrounds. We also feature daily parades, food, construction area, music, sawmills, foundry, ladies activities, miniature steam engines to see. There are so many things to mention I could go on for hours or days. One of the big draws to the show is our large collection of steam engines. Rollag owns a number of steamers, and many of our members store, or haul in steamers to Rollag for the show.

We operate the massive steamers for threshing displays, plowing and nightly spark shows which is a real treat to see. Most of the engines are 80+ years old, and are an impressive sight to see working. In addition to the engines, we have a great array of tasty food to enjoy. Local churches serve meals all day long, and are some good down home cooking. Full breakfasts with eggs, pancakes, sausage and coffee, to lunches and roast for supper, rommegrot, fry bread and steamer cooked corn are just a few of the great things you can eat while on the hill. We also have ice cream stands, hamburgers and other meals such as the Thresherman Special (Taco In A Bag to the commonfolk)

Why do I go there?
I was hooked by Rollag by my late grandfather many years ago, back in 1995. I started, along with my buddy Mike running the sound board for one of the music buildings at night. Since then, I’ve become involved in other areas of the showgrounds, such as the showbook photography, filming, editing and production of the annual Memories On The Hill DVD, as well as maintaining the Rollag website and e-commerce site. I do many other things around the grounds too, help with this that or the other thing, but my main contribution has been technology since I didn’t grow up around, or have much exposure to tractors etc.

I still go there as a homage to Grandpa, and will continue to attend until my name is carved into the memorial wall many years down the road. I feel it’s important to demonstrate how life used to be before cell phones, cars, automation and the other modern conveniences we’ve become accustomed to in our daily life. We would not be where we are today, without the progress from yesterday.

In addition to helping keep the show going, we’ve met a number of really great people at the show. Almost being like a second family, I really enjoy seeing these people as you don’t get to see them every day. As a whole, once you are inside the showgrounds gate, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what you do, or how deep your pockets are. We are all there for a common goal. We have tradesman, lawyers, IT people, truckers, farmers, doctors, military. You name it, they’re here helping!

Why should you go?
I think everyone should attend at least once, just to see the grounds, and all of the working history. Sure, you can go to the state fair and see a bunch of tractors, but they don’t run. They sit. Our displays are working, active, you can talk to the operators and get history on what the equipment was used for. Kids love tractors, plain and simple. We have LOTS of tractors for kids to look at, and even drive! All in all, it’s a great experience to come and visit, and you really need to plan on spending two days to see all of the show.

Rollag is near and dear to my heart, and comes first in pretty much all aspects of my life. I have missed birthdays, parties, weddings and other events because my role is very critical to this show, and many aspects would be significantly hindered if I wasn’t there. It’s also the only time I take a block of PTO of more than 1 day for an event. I take time off, to volunteer and work 10-12 hour days in the dirt and dust, for vacation.

If you are interested in coming to the show, check out Rollag.com, or drop me a line and I’ll feed you more information than you can digest.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the switch to the DROID coming at the end of March, however Friday morning I woke up to an ailing Crackberry. Having the TAC insurance plan, and pointing out my New every Two plan was due for renewal in two weeks, I asked about just pushing that date to Friday, vs. getting another new Curve on VZW’s dime. The agreed to this after a little back and forth, and by dinnertime on Friday, I had myself a shiny new Motorola DROID.

Since I had spent some time with in at the store, I was familiar with the basic operations and capacity of the device, however the more I’ve been using it this weekend, the more I am blown away by the abilities of it. While I can’t pass judgement on the battery yet, as it needs a few cycles to get fully up to capacity, It’s been holding it’s own so far, unless I have Meebo open for IM. – UPDATE: 3/10/10 – Battery is getting me thru a day, and I’m not carrying along my USB charging cable anymore. With ‘average’ use, it’s quite adequate when you’re in a metro area and not constantly looking for towers.

The interface is pretty slick and easy to use. While I did have to google the basic methods to get apps to the main screen, and other random functions, but overall, it’s been a pretty easy learning curve!

What has impressed me most, is the accuracy of the touch pad. While I’m really enthused to have a full QWERTY on the device, I haven’t used it as much as I thought I would. I’ve been able to easily add my IM, social media, weather and other basic apps to get me back up and running. I’ve also found Gmote, would enables you to control your music library on your computer via the DROID. Also, I’ve located a pretty decent VNC program, all available from the Android Market (short of Gmote). Short of being able to completely setup my VPN connection to my Untangle Firewall, the DROID pretty much removes the need for me to drag a laptop places with me and tether up to the Internet.

There are a few items missing from it that I’m hoping are resolved quickly are: No easy copy/paste in the interface I found if you longtap the content in question, you can copy it, moreso, you can longtap just about anything, anywhere for a host of options. No ability to add signatures on outgoing emails. Seeing as I use this for businesses, It’s critical that this feature be implemented soon. Maybe in 2.1.

Otherwise, the speed, usability, stability and overall performance of the DROID is pretty impressive. I opted for a slightly overbearing case on the phone, because I admit I’m a bit hard on stuff, and wanted to give myself the best chances to now destroy it. The one phone call I’ve made with it, I found to be exceptionally clear and crisp. The speaker actually had decent quality sound, not tinny or choppy like I’ve experienced with other phones.

Overall, I’m going to give the phone a 9 out of 10 review, only discounting it for the copy/paste and email signatures, two a pretty basic features on all other platforms of phones.

OK – So, if you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably had at least 1, if not 1,000 invites from your friends to play FarmVille, no need to be ashamed. I was sucked into the game last summer, and found myself spending more time than I should have been spending, plowing, planting, milking etc.. It wasn’t so bad, because you could plunk away at it while you watched TV or ate lunch at your desk.

Recently, You’ve had to become fans to get a bigger farm, and play some of the other Zynga games in order to get upgraded farm stuff. Sorry, I’m not playing Mafia Wars for a reason, I DON’T WANT TO.

I gave FishVille a try, because I like fish tanks. After about a week of feeding my fish, I tired of it, and currently have sold all my fish, and assume I have a very green tank.
Also, with all the recent upgrades, added stuff etc, it’s taking longer and longer to load, and now that I’ve upgraded to the largest possible field, and you cannot doing any farming function in mass *plow all* *milk all* etc, it’s becoming far too much of a time eater than it should.

I’ve started ignoring most of the requests and gifts I get, because, honestly, while it was fun in the beginning, The appeal is gone. It’s more of a task now than a fun thing to do on FaceBook. Also, with spring on the way, and warm weather activities, the last thing I want to do, is be tied to my computer on a nice day collecting chicken eggs.

What is your take on FarmVille, and the other Zynga games?