Boobs

Does anyone else find it funny that the world's biggest boobs belong to a woman from, where else, Texas?

Too Much Blue

<---------------------How do I get rid of all this blue space?--------------------->
EDIT: Or never mind. If I visit on my desk top there is much less space at the margins. Never did much care for Internet formatting standards!

New Brudaimonia Post

I've posted a short entry over at the Brudaimonia on a bill the Minnesota legislature introduced to prepare for the challenges of peak oil. Check it!

Worst. Weekend. Ever.

I don't want to use this space to write out bitching sessions, but the events that came to pass this weekend have to be recorded so that I can look back on them later and laugh. Probably after I get this month's credit card bill paid at the earliest. Last weekend started off well enough with a happy hour Friday night with some coworkers and hanging out with some people I haven't seen in quite some time.

I went to an event Saturday night north of downtown St. Paul to take pictures for campaign literature. I asked to borrow my moms car as my Saturn was not running so well and I knew wouldn't make it. Drive to the event, do my thing and head out to leave. I stick the key in the ignition and it wouldn't turn. I realised I had stuck the key to my Saturn into the Mazda ignition. An hour later and the key still hadn't come out. It was well stuck in there.

So... WTF?! I get picked up and head to dinner to think about what we can do and to make arrangements to get this situation sorted (wrong key stuck in ignition, gear shift locked in park, steering column locked) so my mom has a car to drive come Monday morning. I google and find a board with someone asking about what to do when his wife stuck her Saturn car key into his Mazda tribute (ding ding ding!!!). Of course, there was no reply and the Internets didn't turn up much else.

My mom and I went back Sunday morning with tools and a few ideas (and a AAA card) to try getting this key out. I used some pliers, a screwdriver, pulled some fuses, disconnected the battery. Nothing worked. A couple hours later we were heading home in a borrowed car while the Mazda was being towed to a dealer in White Bear Lake. Forgot to mention - the AAA tow truck driver snapped my only key off in the ignition, so now my car sits locked on the street at my mom's house with snow in the forecast. Dealers of course aren't open Sunday. I continue borrowing this car while the car's owner carpools. I stay at my moms, get up early to drive her to work, then drive myself to work (for the first time I have worked at HGA this go-round!). Work, pick my mom up, drive to WBL, where the Mazda remains in disrepair, acquire a loaner, drive back to Bloominghood, get clothes, supplies and bicycle and go to lovely girlfriend's apartment in mpls so we can both get to work in the morning.

Today, the correct parts arrive at the dealer and hundreds of dollars later it's fixed. Well goody, the Saturn is still immobile. I get a lift in the newly repaired car to the Saturn dealer, title in hand, and have keys cut from the VIN. $15. That is about the only good thing that has come out of this weekend! I think (pray, hope) this chapter has closed.

But let's go back to before the beginning. Saturday afternoon. The Saturn was still sitting at the train station from the previous day. I had a flat front tire on my bike so walked to the bike store, bought a few spare tubes for my bikes and fixed my flat. I ride to the station to get my bike when I notice I have another flat tire. Shove bike in the car, drive home, inspect wheel, discover piece of glass on the inside of bike tire. Damnit! No time to re-do the flat as I have to go render two cars useless by sticking the wrong key in the ignition!

Fast forward through the bullshit to Sunday where I have to take care of the domestics and have a bit of time to kill (waiting for laundry, etc.) so I work on the flat front tire. Swapped tubes, started pumping, pump, pump.... BOOM! goes the tube. Sigh. 3 flats and 2 useless cars in a matter of days.

Everything I touched I destroyed. Had I known this about myself I could have had a key position in the Bush administration.

Am I in the United States?

My president speaks complete sentences, and is of mixed race. There are orders coming out of said president's office closing down prisons that hold people without trial and check the wages of the highest earners on his staff. Word on the street is the war in Iraq is ready to enter a new phase: the beginning of the end. Pinch me, I am dreaming. For this is unreal.

My front tire went flat yesterday riding home - right as I rode up to Hennepin Ave station. I don't want to sully my road bike and have been rather lazy to walk over to the bike store by my house to buy a new tube so I have been using my car to get around. I hate the thing. Ice builds up on the inside of my winshield so that I have to use the scraper to get it off. And that barely works.

I signed up for a photography newletter that assigns a weekly homework assignment and offers tips, tricks and other ideas. I figure if I read about it and am reminded by it, perhaps I can keep up with my resolution. I was walking through downtown during lunch today through one particular building and realised I have to come back and shoot some photos - it has a rather unique interior (Butler Sq. Building). I remember walking through it with my dad as a kid getting to the Target Center via the skyways. It still looks impressive!

Here are some cool things I found on the interwebs today:
Obameter: Tracking Obamas promises.
Zip (de) Code fun!

Things to do this week: get my library card. I've been stalling on that for 2 months after not having on since junior high.

Wolf Creek Waterfall at Banning State Park, MN.

Pic O' the Day

So far I'm doing rather terrible with my resolution to take photographs regularly. It may be due to the lack of space to bring my camera with me (all I have is a backpack, it gets quickly filled with clothes) and also because if I don't have room for my camera, I definitely don't have room for my tripod. Sadly enough there was a building down the street from me I wanted to photograph and there were two times that were perfect to go capture it (lighting, clouds, time of day, etc) but just couldn't get over there.

The Obama inauguration is this week. Sweet as! It will be warm that day too. A good thing as there are a couple of celebrations to attend. So many people have waited so long for this day. Bush will finally be gone. This is the biggest change to happen in my political life and I gladly await Tuesday.

Lakeside campsite on the Superior Hiking Trail. Bear Lake, near Tettegouche State Park.

Snow plow

Not quite sure what I was thinking today when I woke up and looked at the forecast. I knew it was going to be windy -gusts up to 40 MPH- I knew it was going to snow -4 inches- I knew the windchill was going to drop -down to 30F below or more- yet I still hopped on my bike and made the easy ride to the station and then to work. I watched the snow fall and wondered why I did rode in. I knew it was going to be tricky getting home. I left work at 5 and had an ok time getting back to the station downtown. Nothing had been plowed obviously and my front tire was sucked into the mush created by car tires driving over fresh snow. My rear tire spun with any pedaling. I tried to find the shallowed parts to get traction and any sort of solid connection. I had to walk over the narrower bridges by the new Twins stadium. When I arrived at 28th st. station I made it a couple blocks before I was unable to go any further. I had to walk about a mile along American Blvd. as there was no way I was riding in the street with moronic drivers. I plowed through the snow with it eventually reaching the bottom of my fork (middle of the wheel!) and snow up to my shins. Riding past the airport plains the snow tends to drift and pile up. It just so happened to pile up on the sidewalk where I was walking. The last couple streets I take were OK to ride on without fear of death by auto. I was biking along Old Cedar Ave through the snow moving faster than people going south on HWY 77. It was a parking lot. That's my favorite part of the ride. In the end, my commute took about 15 minutes longer than usual because of the on and off walking.

Cullen and I at our start of the Superior Hiking Trail outside Two Harbors, MN. September, 2008.

Resolute in my resolutions

Here we are well in to 2009. Happy New Year btw. 2008 went by awfully quick but it was by and large a pretty sweet year. I spent nearly half of it unemployed. I spent nearly all of it with a torn ACL but tried hard to let that not affect what I did with my leisure. It was a bad year for blogging. Looking back I was pretty god damn lazy with posting and content (as Dan rightly pointed out at the end of the year). While getting ready for the countdown at the party we went to, I thought about what I could do for 2009 resolutions. I don't make all those bullshit get-in-shape self-promises I know I'm not going to fulfill. Here was what I came up with:

1. 5000 VMT. The average car owner drives 12,000 miles. That's ridiculous, unsustainable and can't continue into a future of depleting fossil fuels. (I hope I have made my thoughts on that crystal clear over the last 4 years!) I won't put more than 5,000 miles on my car this year. That's 400 miles/month or 100/miles a week, roughly. I'll track them on a spreadsheet and everything. As of 1 January, 2009 there was 184,050 miles on my car. When 31 December, 2009 rolls around I should have less than 189,050 on it (if it even lasts that long!).

2. PotW. Picture of the day. I got this from someone else, who's friend takes at least one picture every day. I'm not going to be that gung-ho about it and probably knock it back to a picture of the week. I have a nice camera, and will be getting a better lens so there is no reason not to let it sit under my bed. This is a good reason to get it out and use it!

3. Limit the # of flights I take. There are a few places I'd like to travel to this year (L.A., London, Oregon?). I know a few years back I took over 25 flights in an 18 month period. This is also something that is not sustainable and won't be able to continue into the future ala resolution 1. I've heard both good and bad about long distance train service in the US but it can't be any worse than the Ghan in Centralia. And I think I can get a coupon for the daily out to Seattle with companion fares.

4. Fix my knee. Doable with my knewly acquired health insurnace.

5. Expand my garden to grow a good portion of food during the 2009 growing season. The only thing that really worked out last year was basil (which remains as frozen pesto and a slowly dying plant in the kitchen) and jalapenos with absolutely no heat to them and tiny, funny shaped onions. It was a steep learning curve in extremely poor soils with lots of rodents attacking my small garden at night. This year I will try my hand at square foot gardening, planter boxes for herbs, peppers and other small plants and a few stalks of corn.

A very low Gooseberry River. Taken from the Superior Hiking Trail bridge. September 2008. You can see the storm coming in from the West. It rained on us about an hour later as we hiked down to the visitor center for water and electricity.