Felt like a busy weekend, even though not much got done. The oppressive heat had something to do with that. I got to see little details like the thermometer in my truck displaying a third digit (101 when I pulled out of the garage on the way to Sunday’s ball game), and was extremely happy I’d gotten one air conditioner installed on Friday evening (in my bedroom), and the other put in on Saturday before the day got too hot.
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I had been planning to spend Sunday afternoon putting plants into the space between the new retaining walls in the front yard, but with the brutal temperatures, I stayed inside and napped instead. I had also planned on spending some time relaxing on the brand-spankin’ new patio in the backyard, but again, put it off for cooler days. I’m hoping I can do both sometime this week, perhaps in smaller chunks, rather than an all-day orgy of planting that would leave me disliking gardening.
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Kudos to Jon and Drew from Finer Surroundings for the excellent work again. They modified my original ideas for both projects in a way that made me happy with the final result, and avoided flaws I hadn’t initially thought of. I recommend them again.
The Saints? Well, they lost two of three to the Fort Worth Cats. Not their best showing, and I guess I see why Fort Worth won their league championship last year. It was cool to get a copy of Twig’s Book, even if I didn’t start reading it until last night and then was up far too late. Some fireworks photos came out of Sunday night’s game. I’ll try to post them soon.
This week? Well, it’s a short week, but so far I’ve kept next weekend clear, so I’m hoping that I’ll have a chance to get caught up on the outside work, but if not, I’ve got a backup plan. As for photos, I’d really like to be able to post one a day for y’all, but I’m not sure what’s actually going to happen this week. If I don’t summon the energy and links, I guess I’ll see you in June.
Oh, one final thing. Back on Friday morning, I finally discovered what was causing my server to sometimes crash, and to often return weird “Internal Server Error” errors. It was a PHP script I’d written to auto-generate the sitemap, but my site has gotten so big that it was taking forever to run, and if someone called it a second or third time while the first one was still chugging along, it could crash the server. Ugh. I’ve disabled it for now, so things should be better behaved, but I’m going to have to put together a replacement one of these days, too.
- Can I blame some vast conspiracy for the fact that I didn’t hear about The Norman Rockwell Code until Dan pointed it out? [flutterby]
- jr’s got more on The Emperor’s New Ringtone that nobody over 30 can supposedly hear. Well, guess what, that’s because there’s no sound there. [jr]
- Is Ted Nugent Off his rocker?
He owns 350 guns, wants to nuke Iraq and makes his friend George W look like a liberal. Now 1970s heavy metal star Ted Nugent has his sights set on a new target: entering US politics,
with a run for the governor’s seat in Michigan. Good luck, Ted. [fark!]
Not much in the way of news today. A couple items and that’s it. The bigger one is the news of Twig’s book coming out this weekend at Midway. Of course I’ll be over there for the festivities, and will probably come home with a copy. Should be good reading.
Gonna head in to work today, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be done at noon. The week’s been too long, but there are a couple things I want to wrap up just so I don’t forget what I was doing over the weekend. And that’s really it for today. Seeya sometime next week.
- The article says Twig’s story is unique, and tonight at Midway, we’ll get a chance to buy the book chronicling it. I know the authors, and it promises to be a pretty big weekend for them and Twig. [press-patch]
- Need to do some HTML, CSS or JavaScript debugging? FireBug is apparently the tool for the job. [jr]
I think it’s time to admit that I’m not going to be doing daily updates this summer. Between work and the many social activities I’m trying to juggle, I think it’s a lot more realistic to expect twice a week. Which matches how things went around here last time I had a real job. And the first couple years of being self-employed, for that matter. It wasn’t until January 2002 when I went daily, and I think it’s time to scale back.
This week, I had two evening meetings at work. Monday and Tuesday, I was leaving work around 9pm, coming home, and pretty much straight to bed. The good part of that is that I got in enough extra hours that I’m not going to feel the least bit guilty about cutting out of work early on Friday. Or perhaps skipping the day entirely. And since the guys have been out working this week, perhaps I’ll have some photos of the terraced goodness in my front yard (which has all the neighbors jealous) or the new patio in the back yard that they’re supposed to pour today.
And there’s a long weekend just around the corner. I’m going to be very happy to have it arrive. Even with Saints games on three of the four evenings, I think it’ll be a chance to catch up on some of the work around the house, some laying about on the couch, and maybe even some sleep. Like staying in bed until the crazy-late hour of 8am or something. Wish me well, and if I don’t see you tomorrow morning, have a great weekend.
- There’s a nice series on The Luminous Landscape called Briot’s View, written by Alain Briot. Worth reading every last one of them.
- If you’re looking for a digital camera (and I know at least one reader is), PCWorld has their list of the Top 10 Point-and-Shoot Cameras. Looks like a pretty good list.
- Apparently it’s Time for a Facelift for the clock atop City Hall here in Minneapolis for the first time since 1949. The clock will be stopped, and work will be completed by June 2007. There’s more from the Star-Tribune. [press-patch]
- The City Pages has their summer concert and festival guide of 2006 up. I see that Alice Cooper is playing Taste of Minnesota? Okay, it’s going to be an odd summer, I think. [metro mpls]
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Lots to report since last I spewed stuff at you. Last week I was in San Jose for work. It wasn’t completely unexpected, but as usual, I didn’t say much about it here until I got home safely. And it was a welcome break from the usual blogging. I don’t think I could have maintained my sanity if I’d tried to write while I was out there. But it was a productive week of work, even if I didn’t always feel as though I was getting much done. And it was nice to be able to walk to work up Park Avenue in San Jose. My first morning there, the fog broke relatively early, and I got this photo of the walk.
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I have a few quick gripes from the trip out to San Jose. First is that the food court at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has had its windows walled off. No longer can you grab some breakfast while watching planes move to and from the gates. It’s a much more depressing place to eat now. Second, because we had a full plane, NWA was letting people who would check one of their carry-ons board early. Seems kinda wrong to me, but that’s probably just because I saw that the flight was full when I checked in, and checked my bag right then. Thinking ahead gets you no rewards at the airport, it would seem. Third, NWA’s two choices of snacks sold on the flight both contained nuts, to which I am allergic. That did not make me a happy camper. I think I’ll write them a letter.
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Wednesday morning, I woke up way too early, hearing a noise from outside. There was a falcon sitting on the ledge outside my window. I was staying on the 20th floor of the Fairmont, and there’s a 3′ wide ledge just outside my windows. But it was skittish, so when I moved the drapes to get a better view it took off. Wednesday evening, I heard a lot of noise. There were two of them, but as I opened the drapes (housekeeping had closed them during the day), one took off. But the other stuck around and posed for a while. 30 pictures taken, through a glare-filled window, with rapidly fading sunset light, and here are the results. I’m relatively pleased by them.
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On Thursday evening, after work, the falcon was back again, but on a more distant part of the ledge. That allowed me to catch a photo of him with work in the background. And later that evening, one of the highlights of the trip was dinner with jr. It’s odd, but he reminded me very much of Matt, my roommate from my senior year of high school. Good eggs, both of ’em.
Friday, I flew home, and spent the afternoon catching up around the house and preparing for that evening’s Saints game. Saturday saw a bunch of shooting with some co-workers, and another Saints game. Sunday, yet another baseball game, mowing the lawn, and then collapsing in front of the TV and (unsuccessfully) trying to figure out my schedule for this week.
Which basically catches you up to today. If I’m blogging regularly this week, I’ll go back and fill in some details, but it’s possible I’m going to be taking some more time off from the typing this week. There are some inconveniently scheduled meetings at work this week, plus the landscapers are still here (more on that for sure), and it could very easily be the weekend before I make the time to type at you all some more. See you when I get a chance.
- The Decade-long stadium logjam finally broken, as the state bends Hennepin County taxpayers over the barrel. We get an extra county-wide sales tax, and no referendum on it as was required by state law. [press-patch]
- The New York Times has the story: To Joy and Resentment, Bonds Matches Ruth, with an asterisk. The guy’s very talented, and while I’m torn on the whole steroid use thing, mostly I wish he hadn’t used them, so I could feel better about him breaking the record. Instead, I’ll be cheering against Barry Bonds all the way to 756. That’s the part that saddens me most about the whole thing. [scripting]
- A website: Dear NSA
is here to help harness the collective wisdom of everyday folks, just like you.
Funny! [boing boing] - Slate talks about The death of the independent bookstore, asking what they’re really good for. In many cases, not all that much, sadly. There are a few exceptions, but in general, if you’re looking for books outside the mainstream, you’re better shopping at one of the giants or going online. Dan had a Requiem for the Independent Bookstore back in 1999 that basically said the same thing. [flutterby]
- And to wrap things up for the day, Jim has a review of Cousin Dad at Dulono’s back on Saturday the 13th. [jim]
Rained at the Saints’ home opener last night. More on that later.
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Another morning when I haven’t found much to link to. It’s becoming obvious even to me that I’ve been having more fun with the photography lately than the blogging, and for whatever reason I’m not blending them as well as I might. I’m not sure what the answer to the problem is, so bear with me over the next while as I figure it out. I’m thinking that it’s past time to either update my photo-handling code or switch to one o’ them real bits of blogging software or something.
Aw, heck. I dunno. I’ll probably keep plugging along as I have been, but with a full-time job, Saints games, and bunches of other things going on in my life now, I bet I cut back from the “every weekday morning” routine. There just aren’t enough hours some days.
- The Saints’ yarn idea could be a ball, even though it came from the Mariners. As for last night’s game, well, the rain had stopped by 8pm when I took the photo above. I left a few minutes after nine, and they were just getting started again, and I was guessing it’d be about 11:30 before the game was done. Turns out that was pretty accurate. But hey, they eventually won, which is a good thing. And I got home before ten, and asleep early enough that I could type and post something this morning. [press-patch]
- It’s Hardyville vs. Illegal Aliens in the latest column from Claire. But it’s neither the aliens you were probably thinking of, nor the exact problem that had you worried. Got a chuckle out of me this morning. [claire]
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It felt like one. Then again, for all the things planned, I once again did surprisingly few. I got out on Saturday to take some pictures, and was happily surprised to see Jim show up, as well. Spent the late afternoon tweaking and posting them to flickr, and then called it a day, watching some more of Buffy season 5 on the DVD player before heading to bed.
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Sunday, as expected, was the trip up to mom’s. We had a pretty good mother’s day outing, going out for some lunch, shopping for some sundries, and then partaking of a time-honored Minnesota tradition, the “Sconnie Run” to pick up some brandy for mom’s after-dinner cocktail. See, there are no liquor sales allowed in Minnesota on Sundays, and I’d forgotten to stop ahead of time. When I got up to mom’s, I was informed that her supply of brandy was perilously low. Knowing that I won’t be up there next weekend, I figured it was best to just make the drive across the border. Plus it was nice being able to chat with mom while driving.
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As to the pictures, here are four of the more popular ones on flickr from the nineteen I posted. The first two were within half a block of the Panera in Uptown where we met, as I was warming up my photographic muscles, so to speak. I wish I’d gotten the focus right on the lime, but I didn’t, and people seem to like it anyhow. The colorful wall is behind the Lunds in Uptown, and was a very popular subject. But the last picture of the four is the most interesting according to flickr, mostly because many people have commented on it. I thought it was just a random snap of “taking a picture of people taking pictures,” but when I got home, I noticed that laggard had his head planted against the street sign, and that made the whole picture a lot more interesting.
Tonight, the Saints play the home opener. I have mixed feelings about it, since one of the weather forecasters said it was going to be pouring rain. The forecasts this morning look a bit more realistic, with the chance of rain this evening just slightly above the usual summertime 30% chance of rain
baseline. I’m torn. I want to go to the opener, but I also have a lot of things I should do this evening that I didn’t get to yesterday. Which I suspect will mean spotty postings this week, as I spend my mornings and evenings trying to catch up instead of poking around the web, looking for interesting things.
- Erica, from Metroblogging Minneapolis, saw us walking around on Saturday with All Those Cameras. The pictures are up on flickr, if you want to see what other people pointed their cameras at, and also check out the others from my day. I expect I’ll post more here sometime this week, with more commentary, but if you want to look ahead… [metro mpls]
- Via John Nack on Adobe, Devo is Dead. Long Live Devo. It caught his eye, because Mark Mothersbaugh apparently is a big fan of Photoshop, and shows off his work in his Beautiful Mutants project.
- The Internet helps analog photography hold on, too. It’s not just digital photography that wins in the digital age, but also people who are doing things like looking for weird papers, or no-longer produced film. [photoshop news]
- The Pioneer-Press says Fun, not game, draws avid Saints fans. Well, I suppose they’re mostly right, but the reporter clearly hasn’t done all his research. He says,
Games at Midway Stadium are often sold out far in advance — there’s a years-long waiting list for season tickets — and are often tough to come by on a walk-up basis.
I’ve never seen a game where someone coming to the park before 6:30 couldn’t get a ticket into the game (though a couple times it’s meant waiting for the “fashionably late” tickets to go on sale). Sure, you might end up paying full face value for it, or end up buying it from a scalper, but there are always tickets to be had. [press-patch]
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Sorry for the lack of postings the past few days. Things around here have been busy, plus the weather’s been crappy, and I just didn’t feel like spending the couple hours it takes every morning to put one of these together. Plus I was sleeping late, and basically rushing out the door to work, so it just wasn’t happening.
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Today I’ve got a few more pictures from the May Day Parade here in Minneapolis. More dancers and becostumed sorts. They were colorful and pretty and good to look at and photograph. And part of the whole point of going out to the parade was to spend more time taking pictures of people, so I did. I’m pretty pleased with most of them, too. But I think I’m nearing the end of the list for those pictures. Yeah, there are still a fair number of good ones I haven’t posted here, but I need to find some new subjects to mix things up a bit. Good thing there’s an outing planned for tomorrow where I’ll probably find some new stuff to goggle at through the camera lens. Heck, I’m not even sure if I’ll concentrate on people or buildings or what. I just hope the weather’s a little nicer than yesterday and today.
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But that brings me to the upcoming weekend. With tomorrow’s outing, two different folks out performing that I’d like to go see (Cousin Dad’s at Dulono’s and Karl’s playing at the Old Man River Cafe in St. Paul) Saturday night, Mother’s Day on Sunday, and the Saints kicking off the regular season on Monday night, there’s a good chance next week’s updates are going to be spotty, too. But with any luck, I’ll find time to slap some pictures up here for you to look at, and bitch about how I’m too busy getting out and doing stuff to post much around here. I guess there’s worse problems a guy could have, right?
But that’s definitely going to do it for this week. Have a good weekend, and perhaps I’ll see you around here on Monday.
- Jim says:
Call Dr. Bob! He may finally be able to retrieve his kites.
I’d completely forgotten about losing kites to the Bunge during our college days, but yes, many kites were sacrificed to the great white grain-handling god. And now the Great Kite Eating Bunge may soon be coming down. [jim] - Joe Soucheray says Nicollet Island street paved with phony intentions, talking about DeLaSalle’s request to get the city to vacate a section of Grove Street. His points about how
the island’s residents, led by Phyllis Kahn, have come to regard the place as their own private enclave
rings very true to me. That doesn’t mean I think the City should give up some public land to the (private) school, but I think the city’s lease rules that determine who got to live on the island are equally shifty. [press-patch] - jwz says we’re dooooooomed and presents some evidence. Gloomy. [jwz]
- But while the headline says Hyping USA Today’s “Big Brother” Bombshell: TV Jumps on Stale NSA Database Story, that’s just not news. It wasn’t news last December. Hell, that’s what the NSA does, and has done since as long as they’ve been around. [instapundit]
- Similarly, is it news that the Federal Income Tax System Is Highly Progressive After Recent Tax Cuts? Not especially. Both parties are fond of taxing and spending. And the rich have the most money to take. [instapundit]
- To end on a lighter note, Hargrave’s reprogrammed Electronic Road Signs. I always forget how much I like zug.com until something like this comes up and I fritter away an hour or two poking around to see what’s new over there. [boing boing]
I’m still alive. I just don’t have much to say at the moment.
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I’d hoped to have some pictures from last night’s “Meet the Saints” picnic for you today, rather than more from the May Day Parade, but a quick peek at the weather radar before I left work yesterday convinced me to head home instead of to the ballpark. The actual thunderstorms didn’t hit until the picnic probably would have been over, but I was glad to spend the evening at home anyhow. The Saints are just starting too early for me this year (because high schools in Texas start earlier in the fall, which means the Texas teams pushed for an earlier season), so missing some pre-season events is in the cards for me.
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Instead, I’ve got doggie pictures from the parade. Yes, the humans were generally more interesting to watch, but I like taking pictures of dogs, too. And they generally don’t get weird or camera-shy when you point a big lens at ’em. About the only worry is having a dog get too close and then you need to clean the slobber off the lens, but there was none of that on Sunday. Instead, most of the dogs were well-behaved, and kept on a pretty short leash by their humans.
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Tonight, the Saints are playing another pre-season game over in St. Paul, and there’s also a forecast of evening thunderstorms again. I don’t know whether I’ll make it to the game or not, but I remember getting rained on in May from previous years, and it’s pretty easy to get chilly, even if the weather isn’t that cold. Plus I’ve got a couple loads of laundry here at home that should be run through the washer and dryer. On the third hand, the rest of the week actually looks clear of obligations other than work, so I’m going to have a few evenings to be around home. Maybe I can actually get started on my garden this week, rather than trying to do that during an already busy weekend? So what’s the plan for tonight? I guess I’ll figure that out about quitting time.
- The PiPress wonders What happened to the inside pitch? It’s a darned good article explaining why pitchers need to pitch inside to be effective. [press-patch]
- St. Paul bar and restaurant Servers prep to fight city smoking ban. They’re going to circulate a petition to get the smoking ban on this November’s ballot. [press-patch]
- The leader of the Senate DFL ready to deal on stadiums legislation. DFL gubernatorial candidate Steve Kelley says he’s ready to
compromise
in figuring out how to spend our money. The Twins, meanwhile,have problems with the Senate bill, too. It calls for a referendum on the tax, which the team calls a deal killer.
Yeah. If people actually get to vote on an added tax to finance a stadium, the team won’t take the money. Of course given their record so far this year (13-19, ahead of only the Royals), I guess putting anything in front of the fans is out of the question for the team. [press-patch] - The US Patent Office is going to hold Open Source 2006 on May 12, 2006. It’s an
Online Peer Review Initiative Meeting
that will kick off the project of letting people peer-review patents, rather than having overworked patent examiners rubber-stamp them and let the courts sort it out later. [boing boing] - Finally, something I should have linked to before the parade: this Very Brief Model Release Primer looks useful, as does this other, longer tutorial. I’m in the clear for pictures here, since this is non-commercial use, but if someone were to want to buy the pictures I’ve taken, I might have some headaches. One of these days I’ll get some printed releases in the camera-bag, I expect. Just not today. [holy schmoly]
It was, indeed, a big weekend. Oof. Friday I pondered heading out to the Cinqo de Mayo stuff, but pretty much headed home and had a quiet evening watching some Buffy. Saturday, the day was consumed with getting ready for tailgating because I hadn’t done that on Thursday or Friday. And then there was the Saints game. They lost, but I seem to have remembered to bring everything I needed for tailgating except the salt. That was not a huge problem to deal with. No pictures from either Friday or Saturday, though.
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Sunday, there was the May Day Parade. Laggard, Surlygrrrl and frippscratch from flickr joined me at the Franklin Ave LRT station at noon, and we hiked over to the parade staging area.
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There was the usual amount of chaos as groups tried to get organized, and we walked up and down 25th taking pictures and trying not to get in the way. After about a half-hour of that, we headed over to Bloomington and 25th and grabbed some seats next to the tall-bike staging area and waited for the parade to start. This turned out to be a decent plan, since we got to see each of the groups heading out while they were still full of energy. The pace that some of the dancers were setting was such that I’m not sure how they could have kept it up through the whole parade.
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After a little more than an hour, the parade had completely passed us by, and we called it a day. I headed home and edited and uploaded the photos to flickr. If you want to check them out, I’ve got a set from the day. Or you can watch around here as I upload them one or two at a time. Yeah, there were a lot of left-wing politics I didn’t agree with out there (Impeach Bush
was popular, but I just don’t see what that’s going to change), but generally everyone was in a good mood, and I enjoyed the day. Lots of groups were handing out leaflets or postcards or whatever, and the Hare Krishnas gave me some nuts, which made me laugh at the time.
Of course now I find myself beginning a work-week with a lot of “weekend things” remaining undone, but overall, I think it was worth it. I had a lot of fun over the weekend, and would like to think I took a few good photos. And I’ll either figure out a way to catch up this week, or just start scratching things off the list, figuring they’re just not that important.
And that’s going to do it for today. Have a good week!
It’s a busy weekend around town. Tonight there’s the beginning of the Cinco de Mayo celebration over in St. Paul. Jason’s going to be checking out the lowriders. Tomorrow, the Saints are playing the first pre-season game. Sunday, there’s the May Day parade. Lots of good opportunities for pictures of pretty things. And not so pretty.
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Currently my plans for the weekend involve getting to at least two of those three things, but we’ll see how that plan changes as the weekend evolves. In any case, I figure you’re probably tired of ferns by now, so I should find another subject to photograph. And the mallards left my yard this morning before I could get outside and harass them with the camera.
And I think that’s going to do it for the week. I’ve been trying to think of something else to ramble on about and am coming up empty. Have a great weekend, and I’ll be back on Monday, probably with something fresh from the camera.
- Today is No Pants Day. Sadly, the dress code at work… And, well yeah, I’m a wimp.
- Like father like son: Kennedy Says He Was Disoriented From Prescription Drugs when he almost slammed into a police cruiser and then crashed into a security barrier. At least he didn’t give some gal swimming lessons, too. Nope. He was just
late for a vote.
[fark!] - Over at the Porkbusters site, there’s a pork report card. Not surprisingly, both of Minnesota’s senators are
pro-pork
, voting against all three of Tom Coburn’s anti-pork amendments. [instapundit] - Meanwhile, House Speaker Hastert: Senate Spending Bill ‘DOA’; Disappointed by Out of Control Spending. He’s not the only one disappointed by the pork-fest. And I don’t mean that in the delicious bacony kind of way. [instapundit]
Running late again today. Yesterday it didn’t rain, and the lawn had finally dried out enough that I was able to mow the lawn for the first time of the year. And in the process, stir up a bunch of grass mold, which I’m allergic to. So after a shower and an anti-histamine, I headed out for dinner and a couple beers. Slept soundly for eight solid hours when I got home, which has been something of a rarity lately.
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The weather so far this May has felt more like April than April did. Pretty nice, other than the long patch of rain beginning last week, but I’d gotten used to daytime highs in the 70s, and now they’re in the 50s, which means maybe it’s not quite hawaiian shirt season after all. Dag-nabbit.
But the trees in the yard have been blooming, each in their turn. The crab-apple in front still has lots of flowers, and provides today’s picture again. And another tree that I don’t know what it is has just started blooming. It’s probably next in line for being a subject. Plus the ferns continue to change.
And this Saturday, the Saints play their first pre-season game for everyone. Today’s actually the first game, but it’s the kids-only game, during the day. Time to start sorting out all the tailgating equipment and getting it loaded up for the season. Hopefully this evening. I think I’d rather spend Saturday afternoon playing in the garden than looking for the tongs for the grill. Plus there’s the May Day Parade on Sunday. Are there baseball pictures in your future? Or will it be giant puppets? Find out next Monday!
- Apparently the New Monopoly game messes up Minneapolis, asking you to vote to choose between Summit Avenue and the Mall of America, neither of which are in Minneapolis, and showing a picture of the Tenth Avenue Bridge and calling it the Stone Arch Bridge. [fark!]
- Is it a hot new scent aimed at the pedophilia crowd? Play-Doh scented cologne just seems wrong to me. Maybe it’s aimed at the same people making leather chaps for little girls that make Davezilla say What the…? [boing boing and davezilla]
- Jim points me to a New Movie Called ‘Soft Core Eco-Terrorism’ for Kids. Sounds like a hoot. [jim]
My computer clock and TiVo all seem to agree that it’s Wednesday this morning, but it sure doesn’t feel like it to me. Not sure what day of the week it actually feels like, but I’m not looking forward to the four hours of meetings scheduled for me at work today.
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On the home front, I heard from the contractor again last night. Turns out the patio pavers I wanted don’t seem to be available anywhere locally, so we’re going with a poured and stamped patio. Yeah, it’ll be impermeable, and make more water runoff, but after spending a couple evenings trying to find the nice permeable, hexagonal pavers I was looking for, I’ve just given in. If it increases my sewer bill (which I think it will), so be it. There’s only so much a guy can do, and damnit, I’m going to have the patio ready for Memorial Day weekend, so we need to get started soon. Now I just need to pick the color they’re going to mix into the concrete, and wait for the ground to dry up a bit, and the project can begin.
Today’s picture? Even More Ferns. They’ve been growing at a crazy pace, and the same plant (or alien pod) looks vastly different from one day to the next, so I haven’t gotten bored with taking pictures of them yet. I might have to take more pictures of them this morning, too. Hopefully I’m not boring you any more with the pictures of ferns than I usually do with my writing.
- Over in St. Paul, the Senate has proposed One tax for two stadiums, retractable-roof stadia for both the Twins and Vikings, financed with a half-cent seven-county metro sales tax. At least they’re putting the tax to a referendum (for now), but this doesn’t sound like a plan that’s going to make anybody happy. Which is perhaps the best thing going for it. [press-patch]
- Glenn’s got a Porkbusters update that makes it sound as though things are coming to a head in DC. I’m not hopeful in seeing any spending cuts or earmark reform (Washington’s idea of reform usually being to make the problem worse), which I sure hope means bad things for the Republicans in November. [instapundit]
- Popular Mechanics Crunched The Numbers On Alternative Fuels. Interesting results, especially since everyone’s been talking about biodiesel and hybrids and hydrogen. I’m pretty sure the only technology of the lot that’s worth buying right now are the hybrids, but electricity and natural gas are the most efficient, followed by biodiesel and gasoline. Ethanol, once again, looks to be a big loser, costing more and using more resources than gasoline. Booze is for drinking, not driving. [instapundit]
Not an incredible amount of progress yesterday, but enough to make me feel better. I got a few of the most critical things done, put in a full day of work, and when I got home, met with the landscaping guys to pick out the blocks that will make up the retaining wall across the front of my yard. Still working on picking out the patio blocks, but hopefully that won’t be too bad. They’re going to get the work done before Memorial Day weekend, too. Schweet.
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The rain, it’s started to feel unrelenting. But today we’re supposed to get a break, which will feel nice. The good thing about rainy weather is that colors look nicer, like the blossoms on the tree in my front yard. Strangely enough, it’s only the top of the tree that’s flowering, so I had to take pictures out of my bedroom window.
And once again, I’ve discovered that the squirrels in the back yard are pretty smart. The squirrel-proof bird-feeder cut way down on the number of times I had to refill the feeder until recently. I was wondering what trick they were using to get at the seeds, and saw a squirrel hanging upside-down from the roof of the feeder yesterday morning, so his weight wouldn’t close the little door that’s meant to keep the tree-rats out. I’m wondering if extending the roof on the bird-feeder might do the trick, or if I’m going to have to resort to more drastic measures. It’s not that I particularly hate the squirrels, but I’d much rather watch birds eating the bird-seed, and not have to refill the feeder every single day.
- Because they’re getting screwed out of royalties for songs sold on iTunes, Cheap Trick, Allman Brothers Sue Sony. Sony says to the bands that they selling the songs, not licensing them, which means a different (and much lower) royalty rate than if the songs were licensed. Hmm. And yet Sony tells me I’m just licensing the song when I buy it from them on iTunes. They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. [boing boing]
- Yesterday the Minnesota State Senate dealt Twins a defeat, when
the Senate Taxes Committee voted unanimously Monday to give Hennepin County residents the right to vote on a sales tax to build a ballpark.
Maybe they actually remembered that people get crabby about taxation without representation. [press-patch] - It says Coburn anti-pork strategy to be front and center this week. I hope that’s the case. It sounds like he’s prepared his amendments as carefully as possible to actually have a chance of continuing to fight pork this week. [instapundit]
- A new mission from Improv Everywhere: Best Buy.
Everyone in this goddamned store is wearing a blue shirt and nobody knows a thing!
So just like any other day in Best Buy, except you can actually find someone helpful in a blue shirt. [fark!] - Callous is Guilty (with NAND gates, baby) of being an engineer, or
too lazy not to do the job right the first time.
I know that feeling. [jr]
Things don’t always go as planned. Take this weekend, for example. Saturday I looked out at the rain and decided to postpone my trip up to mom’s until Sunday. Which meant missing the photowalk on Sunday, but it was going to be raining anyhow. Of all the things I wanted to get done over the weekend, I made it to the party on Saturday night, and to mom’s and that was it. Plus a fair amount of sleeping. Apparently I was pretty darned tired.
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But I did manage to take some pictures over the weekend. There were a few things in my yard worth looking at. I tried another take on the ferns, but since they’ve grown a lot in the past couple weeks, the picture that was in my brain when I headed outside wasn’t to be found. But the rain meant that the blossoms on the apple tree in the front yard looked prettier than they do in direct sunlight. Look for them later this week.
This week? Well, if this morning is any indication, it’s going to be another week made more busy and confusing by last minute changes to plans. Things I’d planned for the weekend still need doing, and there’s a whole new raft of obligations coming for this week. Guess I’d better quit my griping and just get to work so I can get started on ’em. Oh, and if you look closely at the garage wall behind the ferns in this morning’s picture, you can see that I need to add “paint garage” to my to-do list.
- Today PMA kicks off National Photography Month. Good thing I’ve got a camera, eh? [dpweblog]
- Adam Greenfield takes a look at Micropatronage, through a different lens , comparing Jason Kottke’s shot at making money from his blog to Joshua Ellis’ trip to Trinity. Ellis was relatively unknown but did okay on his trip. The big difference? Ellis writes. Kottke blogs. [flutterby]
- Michael J. Totten’s Middle East Journal is another example of writing that’s supporting itself. He may use a blog to publish his writing, but he goes into a lot more depth than most bloggers. And he’s making money in the process.
- This flash-based quiz on manners in The Victorian period is more interesting, and more time-consuming than similar flash-based quizzes I get hit with at work in the name of “training”. Dan says that
The game was a good reminder that such silliness transcends generations,
but I got 490 out of 500, making my only mistake in choosing the proper clothing for dinner at a friend’s house (I went slightly too casual). I found it interesting just how little polite behavior has changed over time. Sure, the details are different, but the principles are the same. Putting other people’s comfort ahead of your own is the core of being polite. Then again, I’m also prone to pointing out, as Oscar Wilde did, thatA gentleman never insults anyone unintentionally.
That even goes for those hippies out in San Francisco. [flutterby] - Chuck’s MNStories video on March’s Flickr Photowalk is kinda cool, and I get a fair amount of screen time. Huh!
- This year the May Day Parade at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis is actually on May 7th. Bet that’s another opportunity to take some pictures.