After Sarah's race on Saturday, we went over to meet Maggie, Chris, Joel, and Gideon to make our way to New Ulm.  New Ulm is so German, that in World War One, the Governor and some of his cronies removed the Mayor of the town, and investigated many others in the town for not being patriotic enough and for possibly having German sympathies.  Oh no!  We figured that Oktoberfest here would be great.

Sadly, though we had fun, it wasn't the Germanofest we were hoping for.  The major part of the festival were a few different places with polka bands and food and beer in close proximity.  Watching/dancing/eating near by were masses of old people.  Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against old people, but they don't usually make for the most fun party crowd.  At the Holiday Inn (one of the venues) one of the highlights of sitting and watching, and ocassionally dancing to, the mildly entertaining bands was a suddens stream of vaguely pagan-masked characters dancing about.  I think this means the harvest will be good, and not very many of us will die from exposure this winter.

The best part of Oktoberfest, after going to visit Hermann the German of course, was the Schell's brewery tour.  While it would have been nice to see more of the nuts and bolts of brewing there, I really enjoyed the history of that brewery.  Of course, there was the beer at the end of the tour, but what made it so great was Chris's being assertive with our beer wench server, who agreed to give us about twice as much beer as we would have normally gotten... and in short order.  In no time, we were in fine shape and ready to party.

But as I said, there wasn't much partying to be had in New Ulm.  So we went to the Pizza Ranch buffet and ate too much mediocre pizza. 

It was a fun weekend, but perhaps next time, we'll go somewhere else.

Simple pleasure - walking in the rain
Peace

The Bell Museum, Minnesota's natural history museum on the U of M campus is showing a few campy old sci-fi movies outside and last night they showed the 1953 thriller The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.  Well, this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, so I decided to make an afternoon of it. I rode my bike to campus where I had coffee and read my book for a couple hours - delightful.  Around dinner time I rode to the downtown Minneapolis Farmers' Market, bought a VERY tart apple and some pull-apart bread then rode back to campus to find a grassy area to sit, eat, read, and maybe nap.

I had forgotten just how many squirrels there are on campus.  In one 360 degree sweep I counted 11 squirrels.  No wonder there have been rumors of a squirrel conspiracy to take over.  I've heard stories of squirrels on campus running onto people's legs and even grabbing at bags people were carrying.  True?  I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.  I have no love for those fuzzy-tailed rats.

It was cooling off, so I decided to spend the last hour before the movie started in Espresso Royale Cafe.  I spent tons of money and time (and as much time studying as not) there in college.  I was amused to see a couple people there that were there nearly every evening ten years ago.  One of them was reading Applied Somethingorother Geometry.  A riveting read, surely.  I like that shop.  Laptops seem to have made the place a little less inviting, but it's still a decent coffee shop.

Then it was on to the movie.  Since it started sprinkling, they moved it inside.  Here's the plot of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms:

• Nuclear test (Project Experiment) in the Arctic awakens a dinosaur
• The one surviving scientist who sees it is called crazy
• Nobody believes him except the pretty young paleontology professor's assistant
• They find another person who saw the beast after it attacked a boat
• The beast has an appetite for buildings and boats... 'cause it destroys/eats them
• This is enough to convince the professor and they figure it is heading for New York City
• Chaos and destruction in New York.  Eats people, buildings, and cars
  
• After shooting it, the army learns its blood has a lethal pathogen, so they can't blow it up.  Oh no! 
  
• Fortunately, the scientist from scene 1 is a nuclear scientist and he says that they can kill it by shooting it with the radioactive isotope
• The beast appears in an amusement park and is somehow stuck inside the track of a roller coaster... so proceeds to eat it.
• The radioactive isotope arrives, and is conveniently shaped like a little missile to fit on the end of a rifle.
• The scientist and a sharpshooter have to ride to the top of the roller coaster to shoot the beast
• They escape before the coaster burns.
• The beast destroys the roller coaster and collapses.
• The end.

I would love to know how audiences received this movie in the 50's.  It was pretty goofy and got lots of chuckles from the audience.  It was a pretty good time.

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Now I'm off to the state fair.  Since I have more of an appetite for wandering around for hours, I'll go and spend the morning there and Sarah will meet me in the afternoon.  I think I'm going to take in a live show of Midmorning with Gary Eichten and his guest, Senator Klobuchar.  Should be fun... yes I am a news and public radio geek.

Simple pleasure - goofy dreams
Peace

It was a beautiful day yesterday, and since Joe is only in town for a few days this whole summer we went for a bike ride.  It wasn't long or hard, but it was nice.  Afterwards, since neither of us had really eaten anything that day, we went to Town Hall for some food and some whiskey. 

I met one of my life goals (as if I have a list) of drinking something older than I am.  Both Joe and I had the Laphroaig 30, and it was incredible.  Complex, not too smokey, not too peaty, a wonderful aftertaste.  I could certainly get used to drinking something like that.  I was telling Joe though, that if I had a bottle of something like that at home I don't think I'd ever drink it 'cause I'd always be waiting for the most special occasion.  That being said, what we paid for our whiskeys yesterday was totally worth it.  Sittin' outside, having a meal and a drink after a nice ride... couldn't think of a much nicer thing to do that day.  Bonus at Town Hall yesterday was watching a sewing club leave... and one of them rode a bike there.  Little old ladies (well, not quite little, and not too old) biking to a bar to do and talk sewing is pretty cool.

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Yesterday afternoon the cable guy came over to our place.  We've had only the most basic cable since don't really have much for broadcast reception here and we don't particularly want to spend a ton of time watching TV, not to mention that 70 channels doesn't necessarily mean more quality programming.  BUT, Wimbledon is finishing up right now, the Tour de France starts tomorrow, and the Olympics start in just over a month and we enjoy those events quite a bit and want to be able to see as much as we can so we upgraded our cable for the present time.

It appears that we might be going through a cable bender this weekend.  It's a little sad... and a little fun.  Added bonuses to cable that we (or at least I) didn't think of initially - Twins baseball, The Daily Show, The Food Network, and the always interesting - if often unexplainably so - Discovery Channel.  Yes, we saw how Pontoon boats are made.

Ok.  Time to go make some delicious quinoa tabbouleh.  Yum!

Simple pleasure - an early morning trip to pick strawberries... and then engorging myself with them.
Peace

Sarah is home and pretty sick today, so while going out to get her a couple sick day movies, I went to pick up our first CSA box.  We've been looking forward to this for quite a while.  In our first box is ~.5 lb asparagus, a green onion, a bunch of red lettuce, and a bag of mixed greens.  It's a small box, but it's early too.  Our goal this summer is to not let anything go bad before we get the following week's box.  We certainly ate a lot of veggies last summer, but we also had to toss more than we would have liked too.

This evening, I'm going to make a citrus salad, and some pasta primavera.  Yum!

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Went out with Brent and Connie last night to the Twins game.  That was a lot of fun.  They're a great couple and we had a nice time visiting and cheering on the Twins.  Since Sarah wasn't feeling well, Brent's mom came with us to the game.  After the game we went to The Nomad, had a beer and played bocce with some random people. 

We're possibly going to go on the Summit tour this afternoon (maybe the 10th time I will have done it).  I am also going to make Sarah a rhubarb custard merengue pie too.

And maybe the rain will hold off so I can go for a ride this evening, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Simple pleasure - a cool summer morning
Peace

• I made cardamom bread yesterday evening.  I really like the process of opening cardamom pods and the grinding up the seeds in the mortar.  It smells really good while baking too.  I searched the kitchen for something tasty to put on th bread when I found some blackberry jam that Sarah brought home from Oregon.  The fragrance of the cardamom works so nicely with the bittersweetness of the jam.  What a treat.
• I played poker at the Kom-On-Inn.  It is this dive bar in west Duluth that has been patronized by the working-class folk of that area for decades and decades.  The great part of the bar though, are the big panels around he walls that have paintings of many of the old mills and factories of the town - steel mills, ore docks, refrigerator plant, the cement plant, etc. - many of which have long since been torn down.  That bar, though perhaps lacking in refinement, is a historical treasure to Duluth.  My poker playing wasn't great, but drinking cheap beer and talking with the locals was pretty great.
• We were given the soundtrack to "Once."  It is a great movie, and the soundtrack is wonderful - great Sunday morning music.  If you haven't seen this movie, do it.  Do it soon before you forget about it.
• My baby sister has mono.  She wasn't able to go to school all last week, and even had to miss out on some of the homecoming funness I guess.  Poor girl.  She looked miserable.  Boo.
• It will be in the 30s today.  Sarah suggested that I go biking outside today since I complained of horrible boredom after my ride on the trainer in the basement.  I really want to ride outside, but I don't want to deal with cleaning the bike, nor with being so cold since I don't have much for cold-weather bike gear.  Maybe I'll go anyway.  My bike needs some cleaning anyway.
• It is good to be home after being in Seattle (a post for later) early this week and then going straight up to Wrenshall.  I'm glad I got to visit family, but it is good to see my wife and have a quiet morning with her in our home.
• Yeah, this soundtrack is really good.  It gets extra points for having several songs in 3 and even at least one song in 5.

Simple pleasure - sitting by the wood stove in Burnell's A-frame and visiting with him amid the sawdust and building materials
Peace

Chris and I went out to play poker at a local bar tonight.  The poker there is free, so I was just expecting to buy a few beers and to play poker for an hour or so.  When I went with Ed a month ago or so I had a good time, but it didn't take very long before I was out of the tournament.  I wasn't expecting to do any better this time.  Then, just as I expected, I went out first on the table I was assigned to.  A short time later I was able to join the consolation table where I was lucky enough to be seated with a few people who went out quickly, and a few drunk people who got lucky.  Being patient, I eventually beat the remaining drunk people at that table and was then invited to join the final table... with the small stack of chips.  A couple good hands later, I was in the final four.  I knocked out Chris where my pocket kings only beat his queen jack on the river.  A few minutes later and the 3rd place person went out.  It was just a very cocky and very good poker player and me.  I don't think he knew what to think of my quick play (I don't know how to play any other way).  While I didn't always know what to do with my cards, I held out for a while.  But in the end, my pocket 5s lost to three 2s. 

Oh well.  $50 would have been great, but I was more than happy for a $20 bar tab for second place.  2nd and 4th place for Chris and I, the super-casual poker players among all those serious players.  We got a pretty good chuckle... and free drinks.  I am so amused right now I don't know what else to say.  I guess I'll go to bed.

Simple pleasure - left over torte
Peace

Check this out: http://www.mplsbikelove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5796



Minneapolis has a pretty active bike/punk, bike counter culture (bicycle anarchy collectives, etc.), messenger crowd. There are ally cat races regularly, among a fair number of other gatherings.

After an invitation from Joe, last night I made it to my first session of Cold Sprints at a hip bar (dirty-hip, not that fake uptown hip) on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. In a long, narrow back room of the bar there are two fixies with their forks clamped into a roller frame. There are sensors on the rollers that measure the "speed" of the person pedaling the bike. In front of the bikes is a throng of PBR-drinking mix of bike messengers, fixie hipsters, bike punks, and even a couple local bike club members hooting and hollering at the riders. Giant beards, tattoos, dreads, counter-culture stickers and patches abound.

The qualifiers are 20 seconds of riding for distance followed by a head-to-head single-elimination bracket. Grudge Matches are either distance for a selected time, or time for a selected distance of 50 to 2000 meters.

I did a grudge match with Joe. The problem I found was that with the gear ratio that was set up, we got to a very high cadence rather quickly, so it was more about spinning than pushing. And spin, we did. So much fun!

I'll tell you though, after a day of not having enough water to drink on a very dry winter day, not having enough to eat, and then having a PBR tall-boy, about 10 to 15 minutes after our race I felt rather ill. Neither of us felt good, and I was wondering if I would wind up puking. It felt like I had been drinking for hours on end. A bit of fresh air and time and I felt fine though... and I am looking forward to going back and competing some time. What a good time.

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On a completely different note, Sarah did the Frozen Half Marathon as a part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival this morning.  She kicked ass and beat her old PR by 10 minutes.  I was very proud of her for running so well on a difficult course.  Go Sarah!

Simple pleasure - falling asleep to This American Life

I will start this post as I start so many conversations...

So I heard on public radio, this morning, about a new program that the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has started.  They are selling tickets to any and all of their shows for $10 for people aged 20-39, AND they will sell the best seats available for those shows too.  This is a great deal.  All you Twin Cities folks should go to http://www.thespco.org/ and sign up.

Simple pleasure - Wind and snow!
Peace

Last night Sarah and I went out for a little while.  Big Walter Smith was playing at Famous Dave's, there was some good acoustic music at the Acadia, and some folk music at Ginkgo, but we decided to go to Nye's Polonaise Room instead.  Some time in the last couple years, Nye's was called the best bar in the country by some organization.  While it is a quality place, I don't know that it is the best.  That the supper club side of the place is probably decorated in the same way it was 35 years ago and includes a round bar around a piano that blue hairs crowd around to sing to is pretty great.  The other side of the bar often has other bands too. 

Last night The Most Dangerous Polka Band on Earth, or somesuch, was playing.  It was pretty funny, but funny in a good way.  Ruth Adams had to be pushing eighty, was missing a good number of teeth, had a perma-scowl, and played accordian.  Then there was the singer/trumpet player who has probably had the same haircut since the 60s and only seemed to smile when the amp started making some loud and unplanned noise.  the drummer was the youth of the band, probably in his sixties and really didn't have to play much aside from a standard polka beat.  While it didn't seem like the band was all that pleased to be there playing, it was still pretty fun.  They played a pile of songs, all in the same key, and seemed to enjoy it when people would dance.  One of the highlights was when Ruth "rapped" 'I don't want her, you can have her, she's too fat for me.'

Goofy.

It is a pretty unique place, full of character.

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Today, a well-deserved, lazy Saturday filled with cooking and travel shows in PBS and going to a late Halloween party tonight.  Sarah is going as a corpse bride, and I'll probably go as a bum.

Simple pleasure - that great Danish cooking show
Peace

Tuesday night, Joe and I had a fire on the bank of the Mississippi for the first time in way too long.  That is, we had a fire after we fawned over his new bike, smoked a hookah, and just sat for a while.  It is funny just how nice it is to have a little fire now and then.  A short scramble down a rather unmaintained trail towards the river, and it is almost hard to tell that you're even in the middle of a city any longer.  We just sat there, enjoying our little fire, passed  bad bottle of wine back and forth, and talked about this and that.  I think escaping (at least nominally) development and staring into a fire every now and then is good for your health.  I know I feel good, after I have a fire.  I just wish the shirt I wore smelled more smoky.

While talking with Joe, he convinced me to start a facebook account.  There are a few people from camp that are there that I would like to keep in touch with, but I'm not convinced that facebook is really any different that myspace.  We'll see. 

Teaching today involved watching The Nightmare Before Christmas... with Spanish subtitles.  Now there's some good teachin' goin' on.  Sure is.  I'm in an econ class tomorrow, so hopefully there will actually be a lesson of some kind - and one I could steal at that.  This will be my first week where I will have had sub assignments each day.  That's a good thing, but I still want to turn in some applications to a few other districts to ensure weeks like this are more typical. 

I wish I hadn't finished the last of the left-over Halloween candy already.  Nutrageous bars are good.

Simple pleasure - prep periods at the end of the day
Peace