Sunday, February 20, 2011

Young Farmer Leaders' Conference

Last night Kris and I attended some of the Young Farmer Leaders' Conference put on by Farm Bureau. It was fun to see the friends we met in Atlanta again! I also met a lot of Kris' friends from his Profile trip.

During dinner my friend told me that one of the members of the state board, Jeff VanderWerff, showed my blog during the section on social media. I was so happy! I thanked him afterward for the exposure. (Welcome, young farmer readers!)

One of the events was Casino Night. I am such a huge risk taker when it comes to fake money! Put down all my chips? Sure! This is the opposite of my gambling in real life. When I was in Las Vegas working at a tradeshow a few years ago, I was down $5.00 on a blackjack table. I was disgusted. I decided to quit ... even though I wasn't ahead. On the way back to the room, I found a nickel on the floor and picked it up, triumphant over having gotten back at least some of my money from the casino.

When I got back to my room, I called Kris and said, "I'm down four ninety-five."

He said, "What? You lost $495 dollars?!"

I said, "No - Four dollars and 95 cents!"

So you can see how I really roll. But last night we cleaned up at the fake tables and traded our chips in for some lovely pruning shears.

After that, we went to a bar called the Whiskey Barrel. It was my first time there and it was a real country bar! I'd only been to country bars in Colorado and Texas before - places I think of there being cowboys - but this compared with both those states. Cowboy hats, boots, and belt buckles everywhere, live band, and a mechanical bull. It was really fun to see.

Then today I saw in the newspaper that this weekend was the MSU Spartan Stampede Rodeo, which draws 8000 people. So now I don't know - is that bar full of cowboys all the time, or were they rodeo folk?

And am I the only young farmer still using the word 'folk'?

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