I'm not much of a sports guy. I'll never be able to talk off the top of my head about how many home runs Justin Morneau hit last year, the Timberwolves' ability to attack a zone defense or the number of illegitimate children fathered by former basketball star Sean Kemp. I follow enough sports to know that when someone brings up Visanthe Shiancoe they're talking about a Vikings player and not a rare tropical disease, but that's about it.
All of which probably made me a bad candidate for watching the Vikings' first preseason game live at the Metrodome. The last time I saw a Vikings game in person Darrin Nelson was the running back and everybody seemed perfectly happy to be playing in the Metrodome. This was back in the days before the Internet when a surprisingly large percentage of the population still genuinely believed the mullet was a good look.
I was pretty OK with my long run of non-attendance. But the Town Pages’ parent company has season tickets, and they never seem to filter down to my level for the really good games. So when general manager Chad Hjellming offered me a seat for Friday's pre-season opener against the Seattle Seahawks, I couldn't say no.
Actually, that's not entirely true. I did say no. More than once. But when the end of the day came and nobody else had claimed the fourth and final seat I started to feel guilty. My reluctance to waste a perfectly good ticket won out over my otherwise complete lack of interest in discovering whether the Vikings' third stringers could outplay the deep reserves of the Seahawks.
"At least it will be fun to see Adrian Peterson carry the ball once," I joked. Who knew I'd be one carry high?
What I got in place of the star running back was a series of passes, a few fumbles and an air guitar competition that should have embarrassed everyone in the Metrodome that night. The PA announcer wanted the crowd to pick a winner, but much like "mullet" and "quality hairstyle," "winner" and "public air guitar" are two things that really never go together.
I also got a whole lot of noise. You know that scene in "This is Spinal Tap" with the amplifier that goes up to 11? I think the Vikings' amplifiers go up to 42. I'm not sure if the crowd ever actually cheered. I'm not sure I could have heard them over the classic rock blaring from the roof.
I saw a few exciting plays last week. In the end, though, my desire to preserve the integrity of my ear drums and my overwhelming lack of interest in just how many times the Vikings reserves could turn the ball over won over my lifelong belief a fan should never leave a sporting event early. I walked out the Metrodome doors and headed for home in the middle of the third quarter, just after fourth-string quarterback John David Booty fumbled the ball away for what was, I think, the Vikings' 17th turnover of the night.
I'm not sure quite what to make of my pre-season football experience. I know the results on the field will have little to no bearing on what happens once the games start for real. And I can't imagine I'll remember any specific plays.
If I can take one thing away from the trip, maybe it's this: Our fourth-string quarterback's name could lend itself to some pretty hilarious commentary. We're one sort-of game into his professional career and I can already describe his play with phrases like "Booty runs," and "Booty fumbles."
When you get right down to it, maybe that's enough.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Oops
I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but we got some good news a couple of weeks ago in the Independent office. Seems the National Newspaper Association, as part of its annual better newspaper contest, has decided our little paper is worthy of some recognition.
The Independent has won a general excellence award, though we won't know whether we took first, second or third until the NNA convention next month. We also took first place in our circulation category in the category of best editorial page, something that has become something of a tradition for us in both state and national competitions.
I mention this in part because we're pretty proud of the awards. Add in the general excellence award won by the Rosemount Town Pages, the other newspaper we publish with the same staff from our office in Farmington, and we took two of the three top awards in our circulation category. Throw in the awards the Rosemount paper won for design and local news coverage and the award I won for a feature story on a Rosemount triathlete and we're feeling a little bit like Lance Armstrong must have when he was winning all those Tours de France. Only, without the possibility of turning our success into opportunities to date a bunch of celebrities. And without anybody accusing us of using performance enhancing drugs.
Mostly, though, I bring up the subject of awards because these are the kinds of things I want you to keep in mind when I make small, hardly noticeable mistakes like, say, running the same column in this space two weeks in a row.
Granted, this isn't the kind of error the casual reader is going to pick up. You'd have to be a pretty attentive, pretty dedicated fan of this column to pick up on something so subtle as an entire column running word-for-word the same two straight weeks (Hello, family members.).
In my defense, the headlines were different each week.
What you should have gotten in this space last week was an hilarious column about how stupid contraptions called "Pedal Pubs" are. If you really want to see it you can catch it on the Independent blog at areavoices.com/independent. It's there along with pretty much every other column I've written over the last year or so. What you got instead was the second straight week of jokes about how confusing roundabouts are. Not that jokes about hit 80s songs aren't just as hilarious the second time around. But even the best humor needs a little time to breathe before you repeat a joke.
I'm not really sure how this happened. Things can get a little hectic around here at deadline time. But honestly, how hard is it to notice you're putting out the exact same material week after week? Are you listening, Saturday Night Live?
Then again, people keep going to see romantic comedies, so maybe it's not such a bad idea.
Maybe I'm just confused from spending too much time in roundabouts. Or from listening to too many hit 80s songs.
Whatever the reason for the mistake, there's something I think we need to keep sight of. No matter what we do from now on we can say we have the best editorial page in the country.
If you're not convinced now, just read this column again in next week's paper and I'm sure you'll change your mind.
----------------
Now playing: Dirty Three - Ends Of The Earth
via FoxyTunes
The Independent has won a general excellence award, though we won't know whether we took first, second or third until the NNA convention next month. We also took first place in our circulation category in the category of best editorial page, something that has become something of a tradition for us in both state and national competitions.
I mention this in part because we're pretty proud of the awards. Add in the general excellence award won by the Rosemount Town Pages, the other newspaper we publish with the same staff from our office in Farmington, and we took two of the three top awards in our circulation category. Throw in the awards the Rosemount paper won for design and local news coverage and the award I won for a feature story on a Rosemount triathlete and we're feeling a little bit like Lance Armstrong must have when he was winning all those Tours de France. Only, without the possibility of turning our success into opportunities to date a bunch of celebrities. And without anybody accusing us of using performance enhancing drugs.
Mostly, though, I bring up the subject of awards because these are the kinds of things I want you to keep in mind when I make small, hardly noticeable mistakes like, say, running the same column in this space two weeks in a row.
Granted, this isn't the kind of error the casual reader is going to pick up. You'd have to be a pretty attentive, pretty dedicated fan of this column to pick up on something so subtle as an entire column running word-for-word the same two straight weeks (Hello, family members.).
In my defense, the headlines were different each week.
What you should have gotten in this space last week was an hilarious column about how stupid contraptions called "Pedal Pubs" are. If you really want to see it you can catch it on the Independent blog at areavoices.com/independent. It's there along with pretty much every other column I've written over the last year or so. What you got instead was the second straight week of jokes about how confusing roundabouts are. Not that jokes about hit 80s songs aren't just as hilarious the second time around. But even the best humor needs a little time to breathe before you repeat a joke.
I'm not really sure how this happened. Things can get a little hectic around here at deadline time. But honestly, how hard is it to notice you're putting out the exact same material week after week? Are you listening, Saturday Night Live?
Then again, people keep going to see romantic comedies, so maybe it's not such a bad idea.
Maybe I'm just confused from spending too much time in roundabouts. Or from listening to too many hit 80s songs.
Whatever the reason for the mistake, there's something I think we need to keep sight of. No matter what we do from now on we can say we have the best editorial page in the country.
If you're not convinced now, just read this column again in next week's paper and I'm sure you'll change your mind.
----------------
Now playing: Dirty Three - Ends Of The Earth
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Pedal for your potent potables
I've never made any secret of the fact I enjoy bicycles. I've talked about bikes and bike trips and bike races so much in this space over the years I imagine there are some readers out there who would just as soon I suffered a sudden an inexplicable inner ear problem that made it impossible for me to ever again balance on two wheels.
Fair enough. A little mean spirited, but fair enough.
Still, there are some forms of pedal-powered transport even I want no part of. I've mentioned some of them here before. I think recumbent bikes are silly, and if I ever own a tandem bike I'll consider it a sign I've pretty much given up on life. And don't get me started on tandem recumbents.
Tall bikes, homebuilt contraptions that perch the rider twice as far as usual from the ground, are only for people who didn't get enough attention paid to them when they were children.
Now, I can add another contraption to this list of velocipedal shame. It's called the PedalPub and, as the name implies, it invites passengers to pedal their way around Minneapolis while throwing back a drink or two.
So far as I understand, it works like this: You gather 15 or so of your dearest friends. Ten of you hop onto bicycle seats. The smarter ones choose chairs in the back that don't require pedaling. The rest put their legs to work powering the 2,000-pound, VW bus-sized contraption at speeds of up to five miles per hour through the streets of the Twin Cities. For the rate of $150 per hour you get a driver, a bartender and the right to pedal yourself sweaty while you throw back a few cold ones. Because what's the fun of drinking if you can't do it while running the risk of being run over by a bus?
Oh, and you have to provide your own alcohol if you want to drink. Which, when you think about it, is a little bit like asking first-time skydivers to bring their own parachutes.
Actually, drinking on the PedalPub at all is a relatively new addition. Until May the mobile bar was defined as a motor vehicle and covered under the state's open bottle laws. As of May, the portable patio is in the same category as limousines and party buses. Personally, I'd categorize it somewhere between clown cars and medieval torture devices.
I admit there may be others who feel differently about this contraption. According to a story in the July 17 issue of Vita.mn, a 25-year-old pub pedaler called her group's ride — stocked with coolers of cheep beer, vodka slushies and snacks — "my favorite night of the summer so far."
And who knows? Maybe she knows something I don't. Maybe there's something magical about getting tanked while sitting on an uncomfortably wedgie-inducing seat and working up a sweat under a summer sun. Then again, maybe this news story has helped me identify someone whose idea of fun is so far out of whack with my own I need never worry about meeting her.
Thank you, news media.
----------------
Now playing: Dirty Three - Sirena
via FoxyTunes
Fair enough. A little mean spirited, but fair enough.
Still, there are some forms of pedal-powered transport even I want no part of. I've mentioned some of them here before. I think recumbent bikes are silly, and if I ever own a tandem bike I'll consider it a sign I've pretty much given up on life. And don't get me started on tandem recumbents.
Tall bikes, homebuilt contraptions that perch the rider twice as far as usual from the ground, are only for people who didn't get enough attention paid to them when they were children.
Now, I can add another contraption to this list of velocipedal shame. It's called the PedalPub and, as the name implies, it invites passengers to pedal their way around Minneapolis while throwing back a drink or two.
So far as I understand, it works like this: You gather 15 or so of your dearest friends. Ten of you hop onto bicycle seats. The smarter ones choose chairs in the back that don't require pedaling. The rest put their legs to work powering the 2,000-pound, VW bus-sized contraption at speeds of up to five miles per hour through the streets of the Twin Cities. For the rate of $150 per hour you get a driver, a bartender and the right to pedal yourself sweaty while you throw back a few cold ones. Because what's the fun of drinking if you can't do it while running the risk of being run over by a bus?
Oh, and you have to provide your own alcohol if you want to drink. Which, when you think about it, is a little bit like asking first-time skydivers to bring their own parachutes.
Actually, drinking on the PedalPub at all is a relatively new addition. Until May the mobile bar was defined as a motor vehicle and covered under the state's open bottle laws. As of May, the portable patio is in the same category as limousines and party buses. Personally, I'd categorize it somewhere between clown cars and medieval torture devices.
I admit there may be others who feel differently about this contraption. According to a story in the July 17 issue of Vita.mn, a 25-year-old pub pedaler called her group's ride — stocked with coolers of cheep beer, vodka slushies and snacks — "my favorite night of the summer so far."
And who knows? Maybe she knows something I don't. Maybe there's something magical about getting tanked while sitting on an uncomfortably wedgie-inducing seat and working up a sweat under a summer sun. Then again, maybe this news story has helped me identify someone whose idea of fun is so far out of whack with my own I need never worry about meeting her.
Thank you, news media.
----------------
Now playing: Dirty Three - Sirena
via FoxyTunes
'Round and 'round we'll go
My day-to-day life got just the tiniest bit more annoying this week. Early Tuesday morning construction crews closed Highway 3 to traffic between Farmington and Rosemount to install a roundabout, a traffic feature that is part intersection, part landscaping feature and part carnival ride.
The Town Pages’ office is in Farmington, I spend a fair amount of time in Rosemount. I make the drive up and down Highway 3 several times a week. This is a project that affects me and that I can only imagine will frequently make me dizzy once it's finished sometime around the end of September.
Granted, a lot of people who know a lot more than I do about traffic management are convinced roundabouts are the future of keeping people safe on the road. And, sure, the roundabout concept has a long history. They've been used for decades in Europe, presumably with no significant ill effects. I think the hit Dead or Alive song "You Spin me Round (Like a Record)" might even have been inspired by a roundabout. And if a bunch of people who can't even figure out which side of the road to drive on can make it through in one piece, then why can't we, a nation with the skill behind the wheel necessary to eat a three-course meal, read a map and tap out text messages at highway speed?
Still, I have misgivings. Although they're based on nothing more significant than watching people try to drive through an actual roundabout.
There are two roundabouts I travel through on a semi-regular basis. The larger of the two is located between me and the Target and Home Depot stores closest to my home. In the weeks after I bought my house I went through it something like 16 times a day as I discovered basic necessities of life I was suddenly lacking. The other is on a route I occasionally take either to or from work. In recent weeks, as I found myself contemplating what will soon become of the main route between the two places where I spend the majority of my working life, I found myself on several occasions wanting to shout what we'll refer to here as helpful instructions to people who would come to a full stop at the entrance to the traffic circle when there were no cars approaching or slow dramatically while going around to let in someone trying to enter the circle. Sometimes I felt the urge to use what I'll call a friendly pointing gesture to accompany my instructions.
I should point out, the speed limit on both of these traffic circles is less than 35 miles per hour. I'm sure everyone will get it down when they're driving 55, though.
There are some reasonable-sounding reasons for installing more roundabouts. Roundabouts, the theory goes, do a better job than stoplights of both calming traffic speeds and keeping cars moving in an orderly fashion. After watching a parade of brake lights come on in front of me recently I can't argue the first part of that, though I might take issue with the second. People slowing for roundabouts (assuming they don't choose to simply throw their SUV into four-wheel-drive and go through the middle) also means the accidents that happen there will be less severe than what would happen if someone ran a red light.
And, who knows? Maybe that's all true. I just think we might need to spring for a roundabout instruction course for everyone before we open this sucker up to traffic.
The Town Pages’ office is in Farmington, I spend a fair amount of time in Rosemount. I make the drive up and down Highway 3 several times a week. This is a project that affects me and that I can only imagine will frequently make me dizzy once it's finished sometime around the end of September.
Granted, a lot of people who know a lot more than I do about traffic management are convinced roundabouts are the future of keeping people safe on the road. And, sure, the roundabout concept has a long history. They've been used for decades in Europe, presumably with no significant ill effects. I think the hit Dead or Alive song "You Spin me Round (Like a Record)" might even have been inspired by a roundabout. And if a bunch of people who can't even figure out which side of the road to drive on can make it through in one piece, then why can't we, a nation with the skill behind the wheel necessary to eat a three-course meal, read a map and tap out text messages at highway speed?
Still, I have misgivings. Although they're based on nothing more significant than watching people try to drive through an actual roundabout.
There are two roundabouts I travel through on a semi-regular basis. The larger of the two is located between me and the Target and Home Depot stores closest to my home. In the weeks after I bought my house I went through it something like 16 times a day as I discovered basic necessities of life I was suddenly lacking. The other is on a route I occasionally take either to or from work. In recent weeks, as I found myself contemplating what will soon become of the main route between the two places where I spend the majority of my working life, I found myself on several occasions wanting to shout what we'll refer to here as helpful instructions to people who would come to a full stop at the entrance to the traffic circle when there were no cars approaching or slow dramatically while going around to let in someone trying to enter the circle. Sometimes I felt the urge to use what I'll call a friendly pointing gesture to accompany my instructions.
I should point out, the speed limit on both of these traffic circles is less than 35 miles per hour. I'm sure everyone will get it down when they're driving 55, though.
There are some reasonable-sounding reasons for installing more roundabouts. Roundabouts, the theory goes, do a better job than stoplights of both calming traffic speeds and keeping cars moving in an orderly fashion. After watching a parade of brake lights come on in front of me recently I can't argue the first part of that, though I might take issue with the second. People slowing for roundabouts (assuming they don't choose to simply throw their SUV into four-wheel-drive and go through the middle) also means the accidents that happen there will be less severe than what would happen if someone ran a red light.
And, who knows? Maybe that's all true. I just think we might need to spring for a roundabout instruction course for everyone before we open this sucker up to traffic.
Bike racers can be exciting, too
The Tour de France, the world's most popular rolling drug test clinic, got under way Saturday and sports fans across the United States found themselves asking the same important question: "Which one is Lance Armstrong, again?"
Armstrong, of course, is not in this year's Tour. The seven-time champion who in the later years of his career inspired Americans everywhere to at least pretend to understand things like time trials and blood doping, has retired from competitive racing. These days he's mostly known for raising money for cancer research, dating a string of increasingly hot celebrities and hanging out with Matthew McConaughey and his pecs.
Meanwhile, concave-chested men with thighs the size of maple trunks continue to pedal their way over the Alps each year in hopes of getting to wear a yellow t-shirt.
This year's Tour is filled with questions, chief among them whether any of the sport's major figures will get tossed out on his spandex-clad backside for using performance enhancing drugs or injecting himself with goat blood or whatever else it is cyclists do in hopes of making it to the finish line first. Cycling's doping problem hasn't gotten the same attention in this country as drug problems in other professional sports — apparently no legislators believe they can score points with voters by going after scrawny Europeans competing in a sport most Americans gave up on around the time they took the baseball cards out of their spokes.
It's too bad the Tour doesn't get more attention, really, because there's just as much off-the-road drama in professional cycling as there is in any of our more popular sports. Last year several pre-race favorites were booted during the race for using illegal substances. Michael Rasmussen was leading last year's Tour when his own team booted him because they discovered he'd lied about his whereabouts when he missed a couple of drug tests. There were also reports he asked a former teammate to bring him a delivery of synthetic blood that was inexplicably packed in a shoebox. Which is kind of like the Yankees pulling Roger Clemens in the middle of a no-hitter in game seven of the World Series because he lied about taking his kids to Disney World.
And we're getting excited about what songs Alex Rodriguez has on his iPod?
Floyd Landis, the American who won the Tour two years ago, had his title stripped because he was found to have used synthetic testosterone on a stage in which he made a major comeback. But he didn't go down without a fight that involved a hearing in which one of his cohorts casually mentioned that Greg LeMond, another American Tour champion, was molested by a relative when he was child. Let's see you try that on Capitol Hill, Barry Bonds.
Alberto Contador, winner of last year's Tour, and Levi Leipheimer, the American who finished third, are both out of this year's competition because they joined a team that has been linked to doping, even though none of the current riders ever has. Tom Boonen, one of the sport's biggest current stars, is also out this year because he was busted for cocaine use.
A few football players take a boat trip and it's all we can talk about for months. How badly do cyclists have to behave to get a little attention around here.
Even if cycling never catches on here as a sport, you'd think it might at least win some viewers for its court proceedings.
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - Give Your Heart Away
via FoxyTunes
Armstrong, of course, is not in this year's Tour. The seven-time champion who in the later years of his career inspired Americans everywhere to at least pretend to understand things like time trials and blood doping, has retired from competitive racing. These days he's mostly known for raising money for cancer research, dating a string of increasingly hot celebrities and hanging out with Matthew McConaughey and his pecs.
Meanwhile, concave-chested men with thighs the size of maple trunks continue to pedal their way over the Alps each year in hopes of getting to wear a yellow t-shirt.
This year's Tour is filled with questions, chief among them whether any of the sport's major figures will get tossed out on his spandex-clad backside for using performance enhancing drugs or injecting himself with goat blood or whatever else it is cyclists do in hopes of making it to the finish line first. Cycling's doping problem hasn't gotten the same attention in this country as drug problems in other professional sports — apparently no legislators believe they can score points with voters by going after scrawny Europeans competing in a sport most Americans gave up on around the time they took the baseball cards out of their spokes.
It's too bad the Tour doesn't get more attention, really, because there's just as much off-the-road drama in professional cycling as there is in any of our more popular sports. Last year several pre-race favorites were booted during the race for using illegal substances. Michael Rasmussen was leading last year's Tour when his own team booted him because they discovered he'd lied about his whereabouts when he missed a couple of drug tests. There were also reports he asked a former teammate to bring him a delivery of synthetic blood that was inexplicably packed in a shoebox. Which is kind of like the Yankees pulling Roger Clemens in the middle of a no-hitter in game seven of the World Series because he lied about taking his kids to Disney World.
And we're getting excited about what songs Alex Rodriguez has on his iPod?
Floyd Landis, the American who won the Tour two years ago, had his title stripped because he was found to have used synthetic testosterone on a stage in which he made a major comeback. But he didn't go down without a fight that involved a hearing in which one of his cohorts casually mentioned that Greg LeMond, another American Tour champion, was molested by a relative when he was child. Let's see you try that on Capitol Hill, Barry Bonds.
Alberto Contador, winner of last year's Tour, and Levi Leipheimer, the American who finished third, are both out of this year's competition because they joined a team that has been linked to doping, even though none of the current riders ever has. Tom Boonen, one of the sport's biggest current stars, is also out this year because he was busted for cocaine use.
A few football players take a boat trip and it's all we can talk about for months. How badly do cyclists have to behave to get a little attention around here.
Even if cycling never catches on here as a sport, you'd think it might at least win some viewers for its court proceedings.
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - Give Your Heart Away
via FoxyTunes
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Heavy lifting
I am not built for manual labor. The kind of burly build necessary for jobs such as highway construction or ditch digging just isn't in my genetic makeup. Anyone who's seen me in a t-shirt can tell you that.
I'm OK with that. I've found ways to make my living that do not require me to lift heavy things. Tromp through fields, yes. And climb fences occasionally. But nothing that requires any degree of plain, brute strength.
Even in my personal life, I rarely have need of bulging biceps or rock-hard abs. Outside of moving things for my parents, who seem to have gone out of their way over the years to accumulate some of the heaviest, most ungainly home decor items available to the public (Honestly, a life-size chainsaw carving of a cowboy? Why don't I just carry a mature maple down to the basement?) I've always been pretty well able to get by with the underwhelming upper-body musculature ensured by Hansen family lineage and a general lack of interest in any formal weight training program.
There are exceptions, of course. And I assume that owning a house — and having to do home-related chores — means those exceptions will pop up at least a little more frequently.
Last weekend, for example, I might have wished, if only for a second, that my upper body was more Arnold Schwarzenegger and less Tom Arnold.
One of the less appealing features of the house I bought last November was a decrepit-looking swingset installed in the back yard. Judging by the rust on the main structure and on the metal seat of the swing it was installed sometime shortly after the Civil War.
The swingset had to go, but getting rid of the thing was a bit of a challenge. The structure was simple enough — just an arch of steel pipes braced by two more pipes angled up against it. But it was designed to stick around longer than Hillary Clinton.
The support pieces weren't too tough. Once I'd separated them from the main structure it was as simple as digging out around their bases and rocking them out of the ground. The main structure was another matter altogether. Anchored in two places, it didn't want to move no matter how much I dug.
Eventually, a neighbor loaned me a sledgehammer. Heaving a heavy piece of metal over my head was a challenge — I'm fairly certain one of my biceps ruptured — but I have to admit: breaking up concrete with a sledgehammer is about as much fun as you can have swinging a giant hammer without police officers getting involved. There's just something satisfying about shattering stone into tiny pieces.
There was plenty of stone to break up, too. I'm pretty sure they built Soviet-era apartment buildings with less concrete than I pulled out of my back yard. I don't know the kids that thing was built to support, but I'm glad I'm not responsible for feeding them.
I spent most of my Saturday breaking rocks and pulling at the aging play structure. Nothing. Ultimately, it took my neighbor and his truck to pull it up. The thing bent nearly double before the crossbar finally broke off. After that, we were able to pull the remaining pieces out of the ground without too much trouble.
I woke up sore all over Sunday morning. My arms responded only grudgingly to any request to lift anything and my hand seemed mostly unwilling to grip things. But at least I got the job done, underwhelming musculature and all.
Now, I just have to get the other one out.
----------------
Now playing: The Hold Steady - Southtown Girls
via FoxyTunes
I'm OK with that. I've found ways to make my living that do not require me to lift heavy things. Tromp through fields, yes. And climb fences occasionally. But nothing that requires any degree of plain, brute strength.
Even in my personal life, I rarely have need of bulging biceps or rock-hard abs. Outside of moving things for my parents, who seem to have gone out of their way over the years to accumulate some of the heaviest, most ungainly home decor items available to the public (Honestly, a life-size chainsaw carving of a cowboy? Why don't I just carry a mature maple down to the basement?) I've always been pretty well able to get by with the underwhelming upper-body musculature ensured by Hansen family lineage and a general lack of interest in any formal weight training program.
There are exceptions, of course. And I assume that owning a house — and having to do home-related chores — means those exceptions will pop up at least a little more frequently.
Last weekend, for example, I might have wished, if only for a second, that my upper body was more Arnold Schwarzenegger and less Tom Arnold.
One of the less appealing features of the house I bought last November was a decrepit-looking swingset installed in the back yard. Judging by the rust on the main structure and on the metal seat of the swing it was installed sometime shortly after the Civil War.
The swingset had to go, but getting rid of the thing was a bit of a challenge. The structure was simple enough — just an arch of steel pipes braced by two more pipes angled up against it. But it was designed to stick around longer than Hillary Clinton.
The support pieces weren't too tough. Once I'd separated them from the main structure it was as simple as digging out around their bases and rocking them out of the ground. The main structure was another matter altogether. Anchored in two places, it didn't want to move no matter how much I dug.
Eventually, a neighbor loaned me a sledgehammer. Heaving a heavy piece of metal over my head was a challenge — I'm fairly certain one of my biceps ruptured — but I have to admit: breaking up concrete with a sledgehammer is about as much fun as you can have swinging a giant hammer without police officers getting involved. There's just something satisfying about shattering stone into tiny pieces.
There was plenty of stone to break up, too. I'm pretty sure they built Soviet-era apartment buildings with less concrete than I pulled out of my back yard. I don't know the kids that thing was built to support, but I'm glad I'm not responsible for feeding them.
I spent most of my Saturday breaking rocks and pulling at the aging play structure. Nothing. Ultimately, it took my neighbor and his truck to pull it up. The thing bent nearly double before the crossbar finally broke off. After that, we were able to pull the remaining pieces out of the ground without too much trouble.
I woke up sore all over Sunday morning. My arms responded only grudgingly to any request to lift anything and my hand seemed mostly unwilling to grip things. But at least I got the job done, underwhelming musculature and all.
Now, I just have to get the other one out.
----------------
Now playing: The Hold Steady - Southtown Girls
via FoxyTunes
The people in my neighborhood
I've lived in my house for a little over six months now. That's half a year of making mortgage payments, fixing leaks and paying gas bills that at points during the winter threatened to go from merely unreasonable to Scrooge McDuck's money bin-level ridiculous.
All in all, it's been a good experience. It has not, however, been a particularly social experience.
In the more than half year I've owned my house I've met just three of my neighbors. Four if you count the conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with the neighbor who never actually told me her name. I don't, though, because the conversation consisted mostly of passive-aggressive questions about whether I planned to mow my lawn. In my defense, I did.
There are some legitimate reasons for this lack of interaction. For one thing, I closed on the house in November. We had our first significant snowstorm before I ever packed a box. I was shoveling sidewalks at my house before I lived there, and through the long and snowy winter there was never much reason for neighborhood residents to congregate outside.
Still, would it have been so hard for people to welcome me to the neighborhood with a cake or a pie or a four-course dinner? I don't think so.
I've started to meet the neighbors since spring weather started to show itself in the Twin Cities. And they've started to fill me in on a little bit of my new home's history. Mostly, they seem eager to tell me my house was used once upon a time as a practice house by the Minneapolis SWAT team.
Apparently this is one of the things that goes along with buying a house once owned by the city. On the positive side, I don't owe any property taxes this year. On the negative, on more than one occasion men in riot gear stormed through my house practicing R.T. Rybak knows what kinds of emergency scenarios.
At least I know if I'm ever taken hostage by Finnish terrorists demanding herring and sun lamps in exchange for my freedom my potential rescuers will know their way around.
I've learned a few other things about my neighborhood in recent months. I've learned, for example, that it's a pretty decent area, and that the problems my neighbors had a while back with people breaking into their garages is pretty much done now. I've learned that my neighbor to the south addressed the break-in problem in part by buying a pit bull.
I met that particular dog before I ever met a human neighbor, back before I'd even moved in. I was checking out the shed in my back yard when the dog lunged halfway into my yard with hate in its eyes. I've since learned from the dog's owner that the miniature Cerberus displays those kinds of face-eating tendencies only when its in the house or on the line in the yard. By my count that leaves "when it's asleep" and "in Milwaukee" as the only places this particular beast would not immediately try to disembowel me.
What a relief.
I'm sure I'll learn more as the months go by and I meet more of my neighbors. Maybe I'll discover my neighbors to the north have an unhealthy fascination with whether I've washed my windows. Or that the guy across the alley has a mutant parakeet just waiting to peck out my eyes. Or that Army Special Forces units still plan to use my basement as a practice facility for defusing bombs.
On second thought, maybe I'll just stay inside.
----------------
Now playing: Mason Jennings - Little Details
via FoxyTunes
All in all, it's been a good experience. It has not, however, been a particularly social experience.
In the more than half year I've owned my house I've met just three of my neighbors. Four if you count the conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with the neighbor who never actually told me her name. I don't, though, because the conversation consisted mostly of passive-aggressive questions about whether I planned to mow my lawn. In my defense, I did.
There are some legitimate reasons for this lack of interaction. For one thing, I closed on the house in November. We had our first significant snowstorm before I ever packed a box. I was shoveling sidewalks at my house before I lived there, and through the long and snowy winter there was never much reason for neighborhood residents to congregate outside.
Still, would it have been so hard for people to welcome me to the neighborhood with a cake or a pie or a four-course dinner? I don't think so.
I've started to meet the neighbors since spring weather started to show itself in the Twin Cities. And they've started to fill me in on a little bit of my new home's history. Mostly, they seem eager to tell me my house was used once upon a time as a practice house by the Minneapolis SWAT team.
Apparently this is one of the things that goes along with buying a house once owned by the city. On the positive side, I don't owe any property taxes this year. On the negative, on more than one occasion men in riot gear stormed through my house practicing R.T. Rybak knows what kinds of emergency scenarios.
At least I know if I'm ever taken hostage by Finnish terrorists demanding herring and sun lamps in exchange for my freedom my potential rescuers will know their way around.
I've learned a few other things about my neighborhood in recent months. I've learned, for example, that it's a pretty decent area, and that the problems my neighbors had a while back with people breaking into their garages is pretty much done now. I've learned that my neighbor to the south addressed the break-in problem in part by buying a pit bull.
I met that particular dog before I ever met a human neighbor, back before I'd even moved in. I was checking out the shed in my back yard when the dog lunged halfway into my yard with hate in its eyes. I've since learned from the dog's owner that the miniature Cerberus displays those kinds of face-eating tendencies only when its in the house or on the line in the yard. By my count that leaves "when it's asleep" and "in Milwaukee" as the only places this particular beast would not immediately try to disembowel me.
What a relief.
I'm sure I'll learn more as the months go by and I meet more of my neighbors. Maybe I'll discover my neighbors to the north have an unhealthy fascination with whether I've washed my windows. Or that the guy across the alley has a mutant parakeet just waiting to peck out my eyes. Or that Army Special Forces units still plan to use my basement as a practice facility for defusing bombs.
On second thought, maybe I'll just stay inside.
----------------
Now playing: Mason Jennings - Little Details
via FoxyTunes
Friday, June 27, 2008
The mystery of my pants
In the interest of fairness I should probably point out right at the beginning I have no clear proof a Rosemount-area skateboarder is responsible for what happened to my pants.
Here's what I know for certain: when I put this particular pair of pants on last Wednesday morning they were, so far as I noticed, free of any major blemishes. I also know that not long after I left a day camp held at Rosemount's skateboard park it was pointed out to me that the back left pocket of my pants looked like someone had used it as an impromptu canvas for some form of really simplistic abstract art. I don't mean a few stray marks. I mean all my backside needed was some PVC tubing and a black turtleneck and it could have jammed Blue Man Group.
Video evidence from the skate camp clips we recorded for our web page suggests the marks were not there when I showed up at the camp. Looking-at-my-butt evidence makes it pretty clear they were there a short time later.
The only one with a reasonable chance to scribble all over my rear between the time I left the camp and the time the marks were discovered is the band director at Rosemount High School. I do not suspect him.
Anyway, if anyone feels unfairly accused by this column I apologize. But a pre-teen skater with a hyperactive pen hand seems like the most logical explanation for this unexpected colorization of my kiester. In my mind it narrowly edges out other potential explanations, which range from an unseen pen hanging from the camera bag I was carrying to Gremlins.
None of which should suggest that a scribble-happy skater is an entirely satisfying explanation for the graffiti-fying of my sensible workday trousers. For one thing, the amount of drawing that was done would have taken some time. These were some serious pen marks. Put a white hat on it and my pocket would have looked right at home in the Smurf village. Just call me Vandalized Smurf.
I'd like to think I would have noticed someone putting in that kind of effort on my derriere, but it's possible I could have missed it. I had a calendar in that particular pocket, so it's certainly possible I wouldn't have felt the point of the pen as it sketched a work of modern art behind my back.
But it seems unlikely any young skateboarder would have wanted to devote that kind of attention to my pants when there were other skaters performing tricks with names like "Fakey Rock-it" or "Corkscrew Whackadoodle" or "Hey, I Didn't Fall Down This Time." Even if all the tricks looked, to me, like someone rolling up a ramp, stopping and rolling back down.
I don't get skateboarding.
With all that going on is it really reasonable to think someone would bother to take the time to attack my rear end with a pen?
To tell the truth, I'm not even that upset about the whole thing. All I lost was a pair of pants. And it gave me an opportunity to talk about my fanny in polite company. That can't be all bad, right?
I'm just confused. Outside of abduction by alien art students or marking by some trouser-related secret society I've yet to learn about I just can't figure out how this happened.
Those skateboarders seem like the most likely culprits (everyone knows kids these days are all up to no good, right?) but it's hardly an open-and-shut case. If the pen don't scribble you must not quibble, or something.
Maybe I'm just not meant to know. Maybe some mysteries are beyond the grasp of human understanding.
First Stonehenge, then crop circles and now my pants.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Skaters, you're off the hook.
----------------
Now playing: The Hold Steady - Lord, I'm Discouraged
via FoxyTunes
Here's what I know for certain: when I put this particular pair of pants on last Wednesday morning they were, so far as I noticed, free of any major blemishes. I also know that not long after I left a day camp held at Rosemount's skateboard park it was pointed out to me that the back left pocket of my pants looked like someone had used it as an impromptu canvas for some form of really simplistic abstract art. I don't mean a few stray marks. I mean all my backside needed was some PVC tubing and a black turtleneck and it could have jammed Blue Man Group.
Video evidence from the skate camp clips we recorded for our web page suggests the marks were not there when I showed up at the camp. Looking-at-my-butt evidence makes it pretty clear they were there a short time later.
The only one with a reasonable chance to scribble all over my rear between the time I left the camp and the time the marks were discovered is the band director at Rosemount High School. I do not suspect him.
Anyway, if anyone feels unfairly accused by this column I apologize. But a pre-teen skater with a hyperactive pen hand seems like the most logical explanation for this unexpected colorization of my kiester. In my mind it narrowly edges out other potential explanations, which range from an unseen pen hanging from the camera bag I was carrying to Gremlins.
None of which should suggest that a scribble-happy skater is an entirely satisfying explanation for the graffiti-fying of my sensible workday trousers. For one thing, the amount of drawing that was done would have taken some time. These were some serious pen marks. Put a white hat on it and my pocket would have looked right at home in the Smurf village. Just call me Vandalized Smurf.
I'd like to think I would have noticed someone putting in that kind of effort on my derriere, but it's possible I could have missed it. I had a calendar in that particular pocket, so it's certainly possible I wouldn't have felt the point of the pen as it sketched a work of modern art behind my back.
But it seems unlikely any young skateboarder would have wanted to devote that kind of attention to my pants when there were other skaters performing tricks with names like "Fakey Rock-it" or "Corkscrew Whackadoodle" or "Hey, I Didn't Fall Down This Time." Even if all the tricks looked, to me, like someone rolling up a ramp, stopping and rolling back down.
I don't get skateboarding.
With all that going on is it really reasonable to think someone would bother to take the time to attack my rear end with a pen?
To tell the truth, I'm not even that upset about the whole thing. All I lost was a pair of pants. And it gave me an opportunity to talk about my fanny in polite company. That can't be all bad, right?
I'm just confused. Outside of abduction by alien art students or marking by some trouser-related secret society I've yet to learn about I just can't figure out how this happened.
Those skateboarders seem like the most likely culprits (everyone knows kids these days are all up to no good, right?) but it's hardly an open-and-shut case. If the pen don't scribble you must not quibble, or something.
Maybe I'm just not meant to know. Maybe some mysteries are beyond the grasp of human understanding.
First Stonehenge, then crop circles and now my pants.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Skaters, you're off the hook.
----------------
Now playing: The Hold Steady - Lord, I'm Discouraged
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, June 12, 2008
What's the cause?
I'm starting to think we've run out of really good causes for people to champion.
Voting rights for women? Done. World peace probably isn't going away anytime soon, but jumping on that bandwagon's hardly original. Equal rights aren't exactly sorted out, but the effort's there. Even the whole Save the Whales things seems a little played out.
These days, it seems like anyone who wants to champion a new cause left with previously unattractive options like laziness or eating other people's garbage, both of which are actual movements with actual names and actual media coverage.
CNN reported this week on something called the Slow Movement, an organized — if presumably lethargic — effort to get people to relax a little bit. Edgar Cahn, a 73-year-old lawyer identified by CNN as one of the movement's leaders (which I assume in this case means "guy with a web page") says people cause themselves stress by trying to cram more and more activity into their lives.
In response, Cahn has started something called TimeBanks, a nonprofit group through which members trade blocks of time with each other. So, for example, you could offer to go to the grocery store for some person you've never met (get them lots of Nutter Butters) in exchange for having some other perfect stranger come mow your lawn or walk your dog or clean your toilet. I don't understand this concept. Easing busy schedules by trading chores with some random person a little bit like easing the economic crisis by trading some dude on the street a $20 for two $10s.
Then again, Edgar Cahn is getting interviewed by CNN while I'm typing a column at home by myself at 10:30 p.m., so maybe he's onto something.
Getting together to discuss having too much on our schedules seems counterintuitive to me, but Cahn is apparently not the only one to have the idea. According to CNN, a group called Take Back Your Time has launched a campaign to address what it calls "time famine" with conferences and "teach-ins" to help people learn they don't need to be busy all the time. Here's my advice: try avoiding anything called a "teach-in." That should free up a few hours right there.
In San Francisco, a group called The Long Now formed to "provide an alternative to a 'faster/cheaper' mind set and promote 'slower/better' thinking. I have no idea what that means, but I imagine their meetings last forever.
Still, as silly as it sounds to organize entire groups around a messages as simple as, "Chill out, dude!" at least the time management people don't dig through your trash looking for a snack. That's a whole other movement. Something called Freeganism which, as far as I can tell, is based entirely on the idea that paying for anything — from furniture to clothing to salad fixin's — is for chumps.
Several years ago I had a roommate who announced proudly one night that he'd just had his first dumpster diving experience. I wasn't sure if congratulating him was the right response, but I made sure to have him point out exactly which bag of chips was his.
Look, I really don't care if you get all giddy about finding a slightly bruised eggplant in a grocery store dumpster. I don't want you to ever invite me over for dinner, but you do what works for you. I just don't think it deserves a whole movement. Freegans seem to believe what they're doing is some kind of statement against consumer culture or something. Mostly, though, I think it's a statement that they're less afraid than most sensible people of getting a stomach parasite.
Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe if these people had been born a few decades earlier they would have been marching to end segregation or trying to ban the bomb or staging sit-ins against New Coke.
Then again, maybe they've just got too much time on their hands.
----------------
Now playing: Massive Attack - Five Man Army
via FoxyTunes
Voting rights for women? Done. World peace probably isn't going away anytime soon, but jumping on that bandwagon's hardly original. Equal rights aren't exactly sorted out, but the effort's there. Even the whole Save the Whales things seems a little played out.
These days, it seems like anyone who wants to champion a new cause left with previously unattractive options like laziness or eating other people's garbage, both of which are actual movements with actual names and actual media coverage.
CNN reported this week on something called the Slow Movement, an organized — if presumably lethargic — effort to get people to relax a little bit. Edgar Cahn, a 73-year-old lawyer identified by CNN as one of the movement's leaders (which I assume in this case means "guy with a web page") says people cause themselves stress by trying to cram more and more activity into their lives.
In response, Cahn has started something called TimeBanks, a nonprofit group through which members trade blocks of time with each other. So, for example, you could offer to go to the grocery store for some person you've never met (get them lots of Nutter Butters) in exchange for having some other perfect stranger come mow your lawn or walk your dog or clean your toilet. I don't understand this concept. Easing busy schedules by trading chores with some random person a little bit like easing the economic crisis by trading some dude on the street a $20 for two $10s.
Then again, Edgar Cahn is getting interviewed by CNN while I'm typing a column at home by myself at 10:30 p.m., so maybe he's onto something.
Getting together to discuss having too much on our schedules seems counterintuitive to me, but Cahn is apparently not the only one to have the idea. According to CNN, a group called Take Back Your Time has launched a campaign to address what it calls "time famine" with conferences and "teach-ins" to help people learn they don't need to be busy all the time. Here's my advice: try avoiding anything called a "teach-in." That should free up a few hours right there.
In San Francisco, a group called The Long Now formed to "provide an alternative to a 'faster/cheaper' mind set and promote 'slower/better' thinking. I have no idea what that means, but I imagine their meetings last forever.
Still, as silly as it sounds to organize entire groups around a messages as simple as, "Chill out, dude!" at least the time management people don't dig through your trash looking for a snack. That's a whole other movement. Something called Freeganism which, as far as I can tell, is based entirely on the idea that paying for anything — from furniture to clothing to salad fixin's — is for chumps.
Several years ago I had a roommate who announced proudly one night that he'd just had his first dumpster diving experience. I wasn't sure if congratulating him was the right response, but I made sure to have him point out exactly which bag of chips was his.
Look, I really don't care if you get all giddy about finding a slightly bruised eggplant in a grocery store dumpster. I don't want you to ever invite me over for dinner, but you do what works for you. I just don't think it deserves a whole movement. Freegans seem to believe what they're doing is some kind of statement against consumer culture or something. Mostly, though, I think it's a statement that they're less afraid than most sensible people of getting a stomach parasite.
Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe if these people had been born a few decades earlier they would have been marching to end segregation or trying to ban the bomb or staging sit-ins against New Coke.
Then again, maybe they've just got too much time on their hands.
----------------
Now playing: Massive Attack - Five Man Army
via FoxyTunes
Friday, June 06, 2008
Words of wisdom
It's become something of a tradition, this column addressing another class of fresh-faced high school graduates. This annual attempt to impart some final words of wisdom to another class of students as they prepare to dress themselves in uncomfortable gowns, perch funny-looking cardboard caps on their heads and sit in the sun for a few hours in a bizarre ceremony designed to provide some kind of closure to more than a decade of learning, growth and Guitar Hero. As I write this I like to picture you graduates, swathed in polyester and sitting in folding chairs. In my mind's eye, you look like a box of black crayons. Very distinguished. There are reasons these columns pop up year after year, of course. Writing this, I have learned, is the closest I will ever get to actually addressing a graduating class in person. Because while I make my case year after year I have yet to be asked to give a commencement address. Honest-ly, I believe I could bring some real star power to a commencement exercise. I'm known nearly citywide. Columns like this are also easy. They're what idea-starved columnists like to refer to as a gimme. Who, after all, can't come up with a few words of advice for a group of people so unworldly they still believe tapping out misspelled messages on a cell phone keypad is an effective means of communication? Sharing the hard-earned wisdom we've accumulated in the years since we were in your gowns. Most of which consists of repeating the same things someone told us back then. Work hard. Have fun. These are the best years of your life. Small-town journalists get all the women. Granted, some pieces of advice are better than others. High school seniors are conditioned to accept advice this time of year. Studies have shown that high school students who do not receive a consistent supply of advice from parents, family friends or complete strangers on the street frequently develop unsettling symptoms that include an inability to dance like no one is watching. The advice is not all cliché, of course. The people who give it have all been where you will soon be. We've worn the flimsy robes and the dinner-plate hats and we've all asked the question you're bound to ask yourselves as you consider all you've done to this point and all that lies ahead of you: Now what? The prospect of leaving behind the safe halls of Rosemount High School to explore something unfamiliar can be frightening. Remember, though, this is the least frightening graduation you will ever go through. Most of you will go on to college next year. And for all the new experiences it offers college is not the real world. College is the real world with training wheels. You will make decisions there that will affect the rest of your life, but mostly you'll just make decisions that will affect whether you try to scrounge up quarters to do laundry or plan a trip home. Ridiculous outfits and diplomas aside, this isn't the end of the journey. It's just a stop along the way. So pick up your diplomas this week. Listen politely to all the people who want to give you advice. Then go figure it all out for yourself.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Slow ride
A lot of people took advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to relax. To welcome summer by getting together with family and friends. To eat large slabs of meat cooked over an open flame, drink cold beverages and think patriotic thoughts.
Not me.
By 8:30 a.m. last Friday I had embarked along with my father and brother on a leg-deadening, butt-numbing and ultimately frustrating attempt to ride a bicycle from St. Paul to Chicago.
That's 450 miles. In three days. I never said it was a good plan.
The trip started well enough. Aside from a steady east-southeast wind blowing in our faces the weather was about perfect as we set off down Summit Avenue with a mixture of enthusiasm and confusion about how, exactly, we had talked ourselves into this.
Day One was unremarkable. There were a few healthy-sized hills early on but the bulk of the riding was on relatively flat roads along the Mississippi River. If not for the 150-mile distance it was the kind of pleasant, scenic ride a sane person might take.
Day Two was another story altogether. At 130 miles it was shorter than the trip's first day. But it also took us through south central Wisconsin, a region with topography clearly designed by someone who enjoys pastoral scenery but hates bicycles and everything associated with them. We climbed more big hills than Sir Edmund Hillary. We were up and down more than John Travolta's career.
Put it this way, when something called Wildcat Mountain isn't even one of the day's five biggest hills it says something about the route. And not something encouraging.
Through it all the wind kept blowing in our face. It was like pedaling a stationary bike in a wind tunnel, but more painful.
In the end, the wind and the hills were too much. At least with the prospect of a 170-mile ride looming on the third day. Eighty miles in, demonstrating for the first time in the weekend something resembling common sense, my brother and I called for a ride. Our father continued on. He might say he was more determined than we were. I can think of some other words that work better.
I was disappointed with my decision almost immediately, even though I knew saving energy for the third day's ride made sense. And that's what I told myself right up until the time we decided a third day of riding unreasonable distances into yet another stiff east wind was more trouble than it was worth.
It seems like we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble and figured that out at the beginning. Better late than never, I guess.
The trip ended with a Sunday morning car ride from Madison to Chicago. We ate lunch at a restaurant rather than standing outside a convenience store. We sat on seats designed for comfort rather than weight savings. It was an imminently more sensible way to travel.
There were bumps the rest of the way. The hotel didn't have our rooms ready when it was supposed to. The bar wasn't open when it was supposed to be. But at least we could sit without pain.
Despite the hard work, it wasn't a bad way to spend the long weekend. We didn't get to grill or sit in a lawn chair, but we accomplished something, even if it wasn't exactly what we set out to do.
And we woke up Monday morning to a strong west wind.
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - Aeroplane Blues
via FoxyTunes
Not me.
By 8:30 a.m. last Friday I had embarked along with my father and brother on a leg-deadening, butt-numbing and ultimately frustrating attempt to ride a bicycle from St. Paul to Chicago.
That's 450 miles. In three days. I never said it was a good plan.
The trip started well enough. Aside from a steady east-southeast wind blowing in our faces the weather was about perfect as we set off down Summit Avenue with a mixture of enthusiasm and confusion about how, exactly, we had talked ourselves into this.
Day One was unremarkable. There were a few healthy-sized hills early on but the bulk of the riding was on relatively flat roads along the Mississippi River. If not for the 150-mile distance it was the kind of pleasant, scenic ride a sane person might take.
Day Two was another story altogether. At 130 miles it was shorter than the trip's first day. But it also took us through south central Wisconsin, a region with topography clearly designed by someone who enjoys pastoral scenery but hates bicycles and everything associated with them. We climbed more big hills than Sir Edmund Hillary. We were up and down more than John Travolta's career.
Put it this way, when something called Wildcat Mountain isn't even one of the day's five biggest hills it says something about the route. And not something encouraging.
Through it all the wind kept blowing in our face. It was like pedaling a stationary bike in a wind tunnel, but more painful.
In the end, the wind and the hills were too much. At least with the prospect of a 170-mile ride looming on the third day. Eighty miles in, demonstrating for the first time in the weekend something resembling common sense, my brother and I called for a ride. Our father continued on. He might say he was more determined than we were. I can think of some other words that work better.
I was disappointed with my decision almost immediately, even though I knew saving energy for the third day's ride made sense. And that's what I told myself right up until the time we decided a third day of riding unreasonable distances into yet another stiff east wind was more trouble than it was worth.
It seems like we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble and figured that out at the beginning. Better late than never, I guess.
The trip ended with a Sunday morning car ride from Madison to Chicago. We ate lunch at a restaurant rather than standing outside a convenience store. We sat on seats designed for comfort rather than weight savings. It was an imminently more sensible way to travel.
There were bumps the rest of the way. The hotel didn't have our rooms ready when it was supposed to. The bar wasn't open when it was supposed to be. But at least we could sit without pain.
Despite the hard work, it wasn't a bad way to spend the long weekend. We didn't get to grill or sit in a lawn chair, but we accomplished something, even if it wasn't exactly what we set out to do.
And we woke up Monday morning to a strong west wind.
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - Aeroplane Blues
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Spend for America!
My economic stimulus check has so far been less than stimulating.
I was as excited as anyone when I found out a few months ago that $600 would soon show up in my bank account. Who wouldn't be? Someone wanted to give me money not because I contributed anything of value to society but simply because I exist. It's like any given day in the life of Paris Hilton.
At the time, I had visions of making calls on a shiny new iPhone, finally framing some of the posters I have stashed in the closet of my home office or undergoing unnecessary surgical procedures, all in the name of shoring up the strength of the dollar. Who needs a spleen when the American economy is hurting?
But a funny thing happened between the day the free money was promised and the day it actually appeared in my bank account. I paid bills. Lots of them. And with each mortgage payment and natural gas bill and insurance premium I watched my bank balance fall lower than the Timber-wolves chances of getting a decent player in the upcoming NBA draft.
I wasn't having MC Hammer-level problems or anything, but all of a sudden I didn't feel like I was in the kind of position where frivolous spending seemed like a good idea. Not even in the name of spreading truth, justice and the conspicuous consumption way.
So, ever since that money showed up in my checking account it's done nothing but sit there. It has not brought me high-end consumer electronics products. My walls are still largely bare. And I haven't had so much as a mole removed.
I bring this up now because I feel like I owe America an apology. I was not given this money to selfishly save for my own future. It did not appear as if by magic in my bank account so I could buy boring things like food or gas or beef jerky. When my bank accepted that electronic transfer on my behalf it came with an unspoken demand: in the name of all that's mass produced and disposable, spend like a drunken socialite. And in that I have failed miserably.
I want to make up for my shortcomings, America.
Well, one of my shortcomings. We really don't have time to go into everything else right now.
America, I will shop like I've never shopped before. I'll buy things I never imagined I needed, like a pet urn with a built-in digital photo frame. I haven't had a pet in years, but if I get a dog someday and it dies tragically in an incident involving a clown, a pony and an ill-timed game of fetch (Or something. I don't know.) then what better way to pay tribute than a $250 wood box with a built-in screen that displays low-resolution photos.
I will spend $300 on ESPN's so-called ultimate remote control, because I've lived far too long without a device capable of simultaneously changing the channel to SportsCenter and sending angry e-mails to Kevin McHale.
I will buy things I don't need. Things I don't want. I will buy things nobody could ever possibly use. Why just get an iPhone when for just a few thousand dollars more you can get one encased in gold or caked with crystals? Horribly ugly, sure, but think of all the economic good you'll be doing.
I might even buy a copy of Windows Vista.
We're all in this together America. Now, what do you say we all go out for ice cream. I'm buying.
----------------
Now playing: Fountains Of Wayne - The Valley Of Malls
via FoxyTunes
I was as excited as anyone when I found out a few months ago that $600 would soon show up in my bank account. Who wouldn't be? Someone wanted to give me money not because I contributed anything of value to society but simply because I exist. It's like any given day in the life of Paris Hilton.
At the time, I had visions of making calls on a shiny new iPhone, finally framing some of the posters I have stashed in the closet of my home office or undergoing unnecessary surgical procedures, all in the name of shoring up the strength of the dollar. Who needs a spleen when the American economy is hurting?
But a funny thing happened between the day the free money was promised and the day it actually appeared in my bank account. I paid bills. Lots of them. And with each mortgage payment and natural gas bill and insurance premium I watched my bank balance fall lower than the Timber-wolves chances of getting a decent player in the upcoming NBA draft.
I wasn't having MC Hammer-level problems or anything, but all of a sudden I didn't feel like I was in the kind of position where frivolous spending seemed like a good idea. Not even in the name of spreading truth, justice and the conspicuous consumption way.
So, ever since that money showed up in my checking account it's done nothing but sit there. It has not brought me high-end consumer electronics products. My walls are still largely bare. And I haven't had so much as a mole removed.
I bring this up now because I feel like I owe America an apology. I was not given this money to selfishly save for my own future. It did not appear as if by magic in my bank account so I could buy boring things like food or gas or beef jerky. When my bank accepted that electronic transfer on my behalf it came with an unspoken demand: in the name of all that's mass produced and disposable, spend like a drunken socialite. And in that I have failed miserably.
I want to make up for my shortcomings, America.
Well, one of my shortcomings. We really don't have time to go into everything else right now.
America, I will shop like I've never shopped before. I'll buy things I never imagined I needed, like a pet urn with a built-in digital photo frame. I haven't had a pet in years, but if I get a dog someday and it dies tragically in an incident involving a clown, a pony and an ill-timed game of fetch (Or something. I don't know.) then what better way to pay tribute than a $250 wood box with a built-in screen that displays low-resolution photos.
I will spend $300 on ESPN's so-called ultimate remote control, because I've lived far too long without a device capable of simultaneously changing the channel to SportsCenter and sending angry e-mails to Kevin McHale.
I will buy things I don't need. Things I don't want. I will buy things nobody could ever possibly use. Why just get an iPhone when for just a few thousand dollars more you can get one encased in gold or caked with crystals? Horribly ugly, sure, but think of all the economic good you'll be doing.
I might even buy a copy of Windows Vista.
We're all in this together America. Now, what do you say we all go out for ice cream. I'm buying.
----------------
Now playing: Fountains Of Wayne - The Valley Of Malls
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Name that tune?
I feel like I used to know more about music.
It's not that I was ever any kind of expert. I could never have told you who else was on the bill when Dylan went electric, or what the Kingsmen are singing in Louie Louie or what, exactly, living la vida loca entails (presumably a lot of ointment). But I used to at least know the names of the songs I was listening to.
Set the bar low. That's what I always say.
These days, though, I struggle to maintain even that much knowledge. I've bought three CDs in the last month or so and listened to each of them multiple times. I've enjoyed each of them, some a lot. And yet, off the top of my head I can come up with the titles for maybe four songs. And to be fair, that's largely because in three of them the song's title is featured in the song to an almost ridiculous degrees. For example, here's the chorus to the Black Keys song Lies: "Lies, lies, lies, oh lies." Taking credit for getting that one right feels a little like taking credit for predictions like, "I bet we'll have a new President in January" or "I bet some celebrity will get a lot of publicity for doing something embarrassing this week." It just feels hollow.
There are songs I like a lot on each of those three CDs but I'll be damned if I could name them for you.
By contrast, with roughly the same amount of thought I was able to come up with five song titles from REM's 1992 classic Automatic for the People even though I haven't listened to that CD in at least a year.
I'm not sure what this says about me as a music listener. I still believe music is important, and I still enjoy discovering new artists. But the way I listen to music is different than it used to be.
Back in my younger days I'd get a new CD or, let's face it, cassette — but only rarely an eight-track — and pop it into the player. I'd sit and listen to it while scanning through the liner notes to see if they'd included lyrics or photos or free gum or anything.
These days the liner notes don't always even make it out of the case. That is, if I have them at all.
Technology has changed things. With more and more people buying their music online, physical packaging is becoming less common. Those last three CDs I bought all involved me going to the store and bringing a CD home, but the purchased music file in my iTunes player has more than 250 songs. And even when I buy an actual CD the second thing I do usually involves transferring the music to my computer.
The first thing I do is listen to the CD in my car on the way home, but that's a process that doesn't much lend itself to in-depth reading.
The third thing I usually do is dance around in my underpants like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but that's really neither here nor there.
One by one, it seems, song titles are being moved out of my brain and into my iPod playlist. They're still there, but I'm usually devoting my attention to something else, anyway.
I suppose this isn't all bad. Eliminating the song title section of my brain frees up more space to remember things like credit card numbers or recipes for mixed drinks.
And sure, it can get a little challenging when you want to tell someone about a song you like and can only describe it as, "You know, that one with the guitar?" But honestly, which would you rather have: A song title or a well-made mojito?
That's what I thought.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Everywhere You Turn
via FoxyTunes
It's not that I was ever any kind of expert. I could never have told you who else was on the bill when Dylan went electric, or what the Kingsmen are singing in Louie Louie or what, exactly, living la vida loca entails (presumably a lot of ointment). But I used to at least know the names of the songs I was listening to.
Set the bar low. That's what I always say.
These days, though, I struggle to maintain even that much knowledge. I've bought three CDs in the last month or so and listened to each of them multiple times. I've enjoyed each of them, some a lot. And yet, off the top of my head I can come up with the titles for maybe four songs. And to be fair, that's largely because in three of them the song's title is featured in the song to an almost ridiculous degrees. For example, here's the chorus to the Black Keys song Lies: "Lies, lies, lies, oh lies." Taking credit for getting that one right feels a little like taking credit for predictions like, "I bet we'll have a new President in January" or "I bet some celebrity will get a lot of publicity for doing something embarrassing this week." It just feels hollow.
There are songs I like a lot on each of those three CDs but I'll be damned if I could name them for you.
By contrast, with roughly the same amount of thought I was able to come up with five song titles from REM's 1992 classic Automatic for the People even though I haven't listened to that CD in at least a year.
I'm not sure what this says about me as a music listener. I still believe music is important, and I still enjoy discovering new artists. But the way I listen to music is different than it used to be.
Back in my younger days I'd get a new CD or, let's face it, cassette — but only rarely an eight-track — and pop it into the player. I'd sit and listen to it while scanning through the liner notes to see if they'd included lyrics or photos or free gum or anything.
These days the liner notes don't always even make it out of the case. That is, if I have them at all.
Technology has changed things. With more and more people buying their music online, physical packaging is becoming less common. Those last three CDs I bought all involved me going to the store and bringing a CD home, but the purchased music file in my iTunes player has more than 250 songs. And even when I buy an actual CD the second thing I do usually involves transferring the music to my computer.
The first thing I do is listen to the CD in my car on the way home, but that's a process that doesn't much lend itself to in-depth reading.
The third thing I usually do is dance around in my underpants like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but that's really neither here nor there.
One by one, it seems, song titles are being moved out of my brain and into my iPod playlist. They're still there, but I'm usually devoting my attention to something else, anyway.
I suppose this isn't all bad. Eliminating the song title section of my brain frees up more space to remember things like credit card numbers or recipes for mixed drinks.
And sure, it can get a little challenging when you want to tell someone about a song you like and can only describe it as, "You know, that one with the guitar?" But honestly, which would you rather have: A song title or a well-made mojito?
That's what I thought.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Everywhere You Turn
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, May 01, 2008
One big biking family (jerks and all)
There are a lot of things I like about biking. I like that it keeps me in shape, that it allows me to go fast and that it provides an excuse to wear stretchy shorts in public.
I'm not crazy about being honked at or run off the road by drivers with more pent-up anger than common sense, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
I also like the fact just about anyone can do it. Outside of foot power, a bicycle is just about the most universal mode of transportation around.
I was reminded of this last Sunday morning as I shook off the effects of a Saturday night dinner that prominently featured Belgian beer to ride in the Minnesota Ironman, the popular bike ride that begins each April at Lakeville High School.
Pedaling the 100 or so miles of my particular route provided a pretty fair overview of the bicycle community. As I rode I passed entire families on bicycles, mothers and fathers pedaling full-size bicycles while children pedaled furiously to keep up on their BMX bikes. I passed fit men and women wearing high-tech bike gear and pedaling bikes that cost as much as a decent used car and others who appeared to be making an effort to get into better shape, toiling on bikes that hadn't left the garage in months. Some of the latter reminded of that song about the ant and the rubber-tree plant. I'm not sure if they had high hopes of finishing or of just avoiding the emergency room. For a few, either one might have been an accomplishment.
I passed more than one person making the ride in jeans, which brought to mind horrifying visions of the chafing that no doubt awaited them.
About the only thing missing was a senior citizen on one of those gigantic tricycle deals with the basket on front.
We were like one big family out there. Together we braved wind and cold and red, stinging thighs. I'm sure we didn't all finish, but we all tried. And that's worth something.
Bikers get a bad rap sometimes. As I write this, KSTP TV is preparing to air an investigative report it has titled, "Bicyclists breaking the law." In it, the station's hard-hitting investigators point a long, shaming finger at cyclists who don't come to a complete stop at intersections.
Fair enough. I'll admit I haven't stopped at every single stop sign I've seen — momentum is a beautiful thing. But I also know as a driver I've never once been inconvenienced by a biker breaking the rules of the road. I have, however, been riding my bike legally only to have an angry motorist flash me an obscene gesture and threaten to run me off the road. I've had a driver yell at me for running a stop light while I was stopped at a light. And my brother once smashed his bike into a car when it made a last-second right turn from the left lane in front of him.
There are bikers who are jerks just like there are drivers who are too aggressive. Maybe this isn't as obvious as I think it should be, but the average bicyclist has no interest in being hit by a car. The odds just aren't in our favor. We just want to ride.
Well, ride and wear stretchy shorts.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - How To Disappear Completely
via FoxyTunes
I'm not crazy about being honked at or run off the road by drivers with more pent-up anger than common sense, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
I also like the fact just about anyone can do it. Outside of foot power, a bicycle is just about the most universal mode of transportation around.
I was reminded of this last Sunday morning as I shook off the effects of a Saturday night dinner that prominently featured Belgian beer to ride in the Minnesota Ironman, the popular bike ride that begins each April at Lakeville High School.
Pedaling the 100 or so miles of my particular route provided a pretty fair overview of the bicycle community. As I rode I passed entire families on bicycles, mothers and fathers pedaling full-size bicycles while children pedaled furiously to keep up on their BMX bikes. I passed fit men and women wearing high-tech bike gear and pedaling bikes that cost as much as a decent used car and others who appeared to be making an effort to get into better shape, toiling on bikes that hadn't left the garage in months. Some of the latter reminded of that song about the ant and the rubber-tree plant. I'm not sure if they had high hopes of finishing or of just avoiding the emergency room. For a few, either one might have been an accomplishment.
I passed more than one person making the ride in jeans, which brought to mind horrifying visions of the chafing that no doubt awaited them.
About the only thing missing was a senior citizen on one of those gigantic tricycle deals with the basket on front.
We were like one big family out there. Together we braved wind and cold and red, stinging thighs. I'm sure we didn't all finish, but we all tried. And that's worth something.
Bikers get a bad rap sometimes. As I write this, KSTP TV is preparing to air an investigative report it has titled, "Bicyclists breaking the law." In it, the station's hard-hitting investigators point a long, shaming finger at cyclists who don't come to a complete stop at intersections.
Fair enough. I'll admit I haven't stopped at every single stop sign I've seen — momentum is a beautiful thing. But I also know as a driver I've never once been inconvenienced by a biker breaking the rules of the road. I have, however, been riding my bike legally only to have an angry motorist flash me an obscene gesture and threaten to run me off the road. I've had a driver yell at me for running a stop light while I was stopped at a light. And my brother once smashed his bike into a car when it made a last-second right turn from the left lane in front of him.
There are bikers who are jerks just like there are drivers who are too aggressive. Maybe this isn't as obvious as I think it should be, but the average bicyclist has no interest in being hit by a car. The odds just aren't in our favor. We just want to ride.
Well, ride and wear stretchy shorts.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - How To Disappear Completely
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The myth of a job well done
Somewhere along the line, and I can't say exactly when, I convinced myself that if only I owned my home the chores that might otherwise seem tedious and unpleasant would be magically transformed. Somehow, I reasoned, otherwise unappealing jobs like mowing the lawn, raking leaves and making mortgage payments would be rewarding when I was performing them in the interest of my own home. I believed the sense of satisfaction that comes with a job well done would outweigh the drudgery involved in getting the job done.
I am quickly coming to realize that this line of thinking is what the great philosophers refer to as "total bunk."
I moved into my house in November and, honestly, winter wasn't too bad. I don't have a lot of sidewalk to clear, and it seemed like half the time one of my neighbors would use his snowblower to clear most of it before I got home. Apparently when you have a home with 20 feet of sidewalk frontage you need to do something to justify owning a gas-guzzling snow throwing machine. Whatever his reason, I was fully in favor of the results.
Spring has been a different matter. I haven't had to mow the lawn yet — we'll talk more about that in a bit — but I've spent a fair amount of time already raking. It's a job made more challenging by the fact I have several large trees in my back yard. And by the fact the home's previous owner didn't bother to do any raking of his own last fall. My yards, front and back, were covered with a thick coat of leaves that had spent months under a blanket of snow. The leaves seemed perfectly happy to stay where they were.
I made a first pass at the back yard a few weeks ago, but that was more out of curiosity than any interest in actually getting the job done then. Once the snow had melted I started to notice there was a decided lack of grass in the yard. Turns out, the grass in my back yard is thinner than Nicole Ritchie on a diet. By the time I was finished the tips of my rake tines were encased in fair-sized balls of mud and my shoes were caked with enough gunk to make me a couple of inches taller.
I made another attempt at the job on Sunday. The front yard was easier. There are fewer trees there, and there was at least a respectable lawn underneath the leaves. In two-some hours of work I filled 10 bags — all I had — with leaves. I'd also developed a sore back, a twinge in my right shoulder and a healthy skepticism about the true value of pride in a job well done.
I can take pride in painting a room or building something. Those jobs take at least a little skill. Even if its your own yard you're cleaning up, raking is just dragging around a fancy stick. There's no pride to be found there. A moderately intelligent monkey could do it.
In fact, if you know any particularly sharp monkeys I've got more leaves to clear. I'd be happy to provide the bananas.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Morning Bell
via FoxyTunes
I am quickly coming to realize that this line of thinking is what the great philosophers refer to as "total bunk."
I moved into my house in November and, honestly, winter wasn't too bad. I don't have a lot of sidewalk to clear, and it seemed like half the time one of my neighbors would use his snowblower to clear most of it before I got home. Apparently when you have a home with 20 feet of sidewalk frontage you need to do something to justify owning a gas-guzzling snow throwing machine. Whatever his reason, I was fully in favor of the results.
Spring has been a different matter. I haven't had to mow the lawn yet — we'll talk more about that in a bit — but I've spent a fair amount of time already raking. It's a job made more challenging by the fact I have several large trees in my back yard. And by the fact the home's previous owner didn't bother to do any raking of his own last fall. My yards, front and back, were covered with a thick coat of leaves that had spent months under a blanket of snow. The leaves seemed perfectly happy to stay where they were.
I made a first pass at the back yard a few weeks ago, but that was more out of curiosity than any interest in actually getting the job done then. Once the snow had melted I started to notice there was a decided lack of grass in the yard. Turns out, the grass in my back yard is thinner than Nicole Ritchie on a diet. By the time I was finished the tips of my rake tines were encased in fair-sized balls of mud and my shoes were caked with enough gunk to make me a couple of inches taller.
I made another attempt at the job on Sunday. The front yard was easier. There are fewer trees there, and there was at least a respectable lawn underneath the leaves. In two-some hours of work I filled 10 bags — all I had — with leaves. I'd also developed a sore back, a twinge in my right shoulder and a healthy skepticism about the true value of pride in a job well done.
I can take pride in painting a room or building something. Those jobs take at least a little skill. Even if its your own yard you're cleaning up, raking is just dragging around a fancy stick. There's no pride to be found there. A moderately intelligent monkey could do it.
In fact, if you know any particularly sharp monkeys I've got more leaves to clear. I'd be happy to provide the bananas.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Morning Bell
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Do you have the status of the daylight?
It's hardly my place to tell other people how to spend their money. If you want to fill your home with expensive art and take luxurious vacations, more power to you. If you want to pamper yourself with lavish meals, well, I'm sure that steak was totally worth $150. And if you want to spend your hard-earned cash putting spinning rims on an otherwise stock Toyota Camry, well, go find your inner Sprewell, baby.
There comes a time, though, when you start to feel like the super-rich are just messing with the rest of us. A time, for example when you see something like Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome's Day&Night watch.
Now, I can appreciate a nice watch. I could have spent $5 at a drugstore when I bought my last watch but I didn't. I wanted something nicer. I didn't get anything extravagant. It looks nice, but when you get down to it it's just a way to tell time, something I figure is an important feature of any watch.
The folks at Romain Jerome appear to disagree. Their new showpiece, which at $300,000 costs as much as a pretty decent house in this market, will not tell you whether you're running late for your dentist's appointment or your tee time at the club. It doesn't have a calculator or a Dick Tracy-style radio or even anything to show you the date. It just tells you whether the sun is up.
And according to Reuters, the time — er, daypiece? — sold out within 48 hours of its launch.
It's an admittedly striking watch, presuming you like the "left to rust for three years in the bottom of a rain barrel look. But is a pitted, grimy-looking exterior really enough to explain why people are dropping the equivalent of a nice split-level on a piece of jewelry that tells them something they should be able to figure out simply by opening their eyes.
I can see how the Day&Night watch might be useful for a race of well-to-do mole people, but is this really a reasonable purchase for any of us who lives in the surface world?
To be fair, the watch apparently uses something called Tourbillon movement, a complicated mechanical something-or-other designed to counteract the effect of Earth's gravity on the watch's accuracy. Which means it can tell you with astounding precision whether there's enough light out for you to see your wrist in front of your face.
What is the justification for this extravagance? Romain Jerome chief executive Yvan Arpa told Reuters it's because people want a trophy. And what better way to tell everyone around you you have more money than you could possibly spend than spending more than a decade's worth of minimum wage salary on the equivalent of a window?
I'll tell you what, ridiculously rich people of the world — if you really want to show off, you can hire me. I'll give you my cell phone number and guarantee I'll pick it up any time, day or night. If you're ever uncertain whether the sun is up, you call me and I, using a series of complex mathematical computations — or maybe Google Maps — will tell you whether you should be eating breakfast or dinner. And I'll do it all for the bargain price of $250,000.
How can you beat that?
There comes a time, though, when you start to feel like the super-rich are just messing with the rest of us. A time, for example when you see something like Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome's Day&Night watch.
Now, I can appreciate a nice watch. I could have spent $5 at a drugstore when I bought my last watch but I didn't. I wanted something nicer. I didn't get anything extravagant. It looks nice, but when you get down to it it's just a way to tell time, something I figure is an important feature of any watch.
The folks at Romain Jerome appear to disagree. Their new showpiece, which at $300,000 costs as much as a pretty decent house in this market, will not tell you whether you're running late for your dentist's appointment or your tee time at the club. It doesn't have a calculator or a Dick Tracy-style radio or even anything to show you the date. It just tells you whether the sun is up.
And according to Reuters, the time — er, daypiece? — sold out within 48 hours of its launch.
It's an admittedly striking watch, presuming you like the "left to rust for three years in the bottom of a rain barrel look. But is a pitted, grimy-looking exterior really enough to explain why people are dropping the equivalent of a nice split-level on a piece of jewelry that tells them something they should be able to figure out simply by opening their eyes.
I can see how the Day&Night watch might be useful for a race of well-to-do mole people, but is this really a reasonable purchase for any of us who lives in the surface world?
To be fair, the watch apparently uses something called Tourbillon movement, a complicated mechanical something-or-other designed to counteract the effect of Earth's gravity on the watch's accuracy. Which means it can tell you with astounding precision whether there's enough light out for you to see your wrist in front of your face.
What is the justification for this extravagance? Romain Jerome chief executive Yvan Arpa told Reuters it's because people want a trophy. And what better way to tell everyone around you you have more money than you could possibly spend than spending more than a decade's worth of minimum wage salary on the equivalent of a window?
I'll tell you what, ridiculously rich people of the world — if you really want to show off, you can hire me. I'll give you my cell phone number and guarantee I'll pick it up any time, day or night. If you're ever uncertain whether the sun is up, you call me and I, using a series of complex mathematical computations — or maybe Google Maps — will tell you whether you should be eating breakfast or dinner. And I'll do it all for the bargain price of $250,000.
How can you beat that?
Friday, April 11, 2008
Ah, the spring bike ride
Early season bike rides are always tricky business. The weather's unpredictable. The equipment is usually in need of a tuneup and the physical fitness of the previous summer has gone the way of the dodo and Britney Spears' dignity.
Take Sunday. It was 40-odd degrees and rainy when my father, my brother and I set out from our respective homes. Each of us knew the experience would be unpleasant, but nobody wanted to be the one to actually call it off. I suspect this is how Two and a Half Men stays on the air, give or take a detail or two.
Anyway, there we were. We were all soaked within minutes. We were cold. And our faces were steadily being caked with mud kicked up by the person riding in front of us. It was the kind of ride where you start anticipating a hot shower roughly 15 minutes after you start.
Then things started to get bad.
The first flat tire happened about 10 miles into the ride. We were headed south on Highway 13 when my dad announced his rear wheel had sprung a leak. We stopped under the overhang in front of a Mexican restaurant to repair it and, having given our bodies an opportunity to vent any spare warmth they'd built up to that point, set out again into the mist.
Here's the other thing about early-season rides in the rain. Rain, it turns out, fills up the multitude of potholes that develop on Minnesota roads over the winter. This makes the potholes difficult to see, which in turn leads to an uncomfortable number of jolts as you ride into holes large enough to swallow mid-sized dogs.
I don't know if those bumps were the cause of the next flat, but for one reason or another my front tire started leaking air a few miles after our first stop. Air was jetting out of the tire fast enough to make bubbles in the puddles on the road. That leak blew harder than Memphis' free throw shooting Monday night.
At this point, we started to worry. Each of us carried one spare tube. My brother's was the only one left. And considering we had something like 30 miles to go, that suddenly didn't seem like good odds.
We didn't beat the odds. Just over 30 miles into the ride, my back tire suddenly went softer than the Twins' bats this season. My brother grudgingly gave up his spare. I put it on the rim and started to pump it up. I got it about half full before all the air rushed back out, leaving us spare-less on Old Shakopee Road in Bloomington. When a self-adhesive patch I carried with me failed completely to adhere, my ride was officially over.
I spent the next hour and a half waiting in an Oasis Market in Bloomington while my dad finished his ride. My face was caked with mud from forehead to chin. I looked like a Navy Seal getting ready for a night mission. A scrawny, ineffective Navy Seal.
I was wearing spandex shorts, bike shoes and a close-fitting rain jacket. I felt, I have to say, a little out of place among the people stopping in to buy cigarettes. Or the college-age clerk who spent the entire time listening to Beatles music who said at one point he would have been taller but all the drugs he'd done stunted his growth.
My dad finally made it back to get me, but not before getting one last flat half a mile from home forced him to call for a ride of his own. By the time I got home it was nearly 5 p.m., roughly five hours after I'd rolled away from my front door. I was wet and cold and tired and generally uncomfortable.
But, hey, at least it's supposed to snow this weekend.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - 1972 Bronze Medalist
via FoxyTunes
Take Sunday. It was 40-odd degrees and rainy when my father, my brother and I set out from our respective homes. Each of us knew the experience would be unpleasant, but nobody wanted to be the one to actually call it off. I suspect this is how Two and a Half Men stays on the air, give or take a detail or two.
Anyway, there we were. We were all soaked within minutes. We were cold. And our faces were steadily being caked with mud kicked up by the person riding in front of us. It was the kind of ride where you start anticipating a hot shower roughly 15 minutes after you start.
Then things started to get bad.
The first flat tire happened about 10 miles into the ride. We were headed south on Highway 13 when my dad announced his rear wheel had sprung a leak. We stopped under the overhang in front of a Mexican restaurant to repair it and, having given our bodies an opportunity to vent any spare warmth they'd built up to that point, set out again into the mist.
Here's the other thing about early-season rides in the rain. Rain, it turns out, fills up the multitude of potholes that develop on Minnesota roads over the winter. This makes the potholes difficult to see, which in turn leads to an uncomfortable number of jolts as you ride into holes large enough to swallow mid-sized dogs.
I don't know if those bumps were the cause of the next flat, but for one reason or another my front tire started leaking air a few miles after our first stop. Air was jetting out of the tire fast enough to make bubbles in the puddles on the road. That leak blew harder than Memphis' free throw shooting Monday night.
At this point, we started to worry. Each of us carried one spare tube. My brother's was the only one left. And considering we had something like 30 miles to go, that suddenly didn't seem like good odds.
We didn't beat the odds. Just over 30 miles into the ride, my back tire suddenly went softer than the Twins' bats this season. My brother grudgingly gave up his spare. I put it on the rim and started to pump it up. I got it about half full before all the air rushed back out, leaving us spare-less on Old Shakopee Road in Bloomington. When a self-adhesive patch I carried with me failed completely to adhere, my ride was officially over.
I spent the next hour and a half waiting in an Oasis Market in Bloomington while my dad finished his ride. My face was caked with mud from forehead to chin. I looked like a Navy Seal getting ready for a night mission. A scrawny, ineffective Navy Seal.
I was wearing spandex shorts, bike shoes and a close-fitting rain jacket. I felt, I have to say, a little out of place among the people stopping in to buy cigarettes. Or the college-age clerk who spent the entire time listening to Beatles music who said at one point he would have been taller but all the drugs he'd done stunted his growth.
My dad finally made it back to get me, but not before getting one last flat half a mile from home forced him to call for a ride of his own. By the time I got home it was nearly 5 p.m., roughly five hours after I'd rolled away from my front door. I was wet and cold and tired and generally uncomfortable.
But, hey, at least it's supposed to snow this weekend.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - 1972 Bronze Medalist
via FoxyTunes
Friday, April 04, 2008
Seasons change; people change
Dear Winter,
We need to talk.
I know what you're thinking. I can see it in your eyes. You're worried this is one of "those" talks. And, well, it is. Because as important as you are to me, I think it's time I moved on.
I'd like to start seeing other seasons.
Hey. No. Don't do that. Come on. Dumping six inches of snow on everyone isn't going to change things. You can't hide the distance that's grown between us. You can't bury feelings under ice crystals. Things between us have grown cold, and I need something warmer. Something greener. Something that doesn't cause me to injure my back heaving wet snow off my sidewalk.
We had some good times, Winter. Remember a few months ago when I slipped on some ice and got bruises all up and down the side of my body? That was a hoot. I ached for days.
But, Winter, I need to move on. I'm a different person now than I was five months ago. I'm in a different place. I've put away my shovel. I've stored my bag of sidewalk salt. I bought a garden hose. I bought a lawn mower. That means I need a lawn, Winter. And I'm never going to have one if you don't stop dumping snow all over my yard. Given my past demonstrations of gardening skills I might not have one anyway, but you've got to let me at least try to grow.
I've got my bike out, Winter. You know what that means? It means slushy streets and sub-freezing temperatures are not cool. Spandex and sleet do not mix, Winter. I need you to understand that, because the way I've been eating these last few months — it's because I'm uncomfortable around you, I think — I need to get out there and get some exercise.
It's not just me, Winter. You've worn out your welcome here and people are starting to get uncomfortable. They're too polite to say anything, but there are a lot of people who are ready to trade in their boots and snow pants for flip-flops and cargo shorts. You've got to let them go.
If it helps, I have a feeling this isn't the end for us, Winter. People change, you know? Sunny skies and warm weather might seem good now, but who knows if it will last. We might feel very different in a few months. We'll have tired of swimming and walking in the park and long for an opportunity to ski or snowshoe.
We've been through this before, Winter, and somehow we always end up back together. Pretty soon we'll realize life in Minnesota just isn't the same without you. Let's face it, you're as iconic in this state as lutefisk and underachieving football teams.
For now, though, you need to go. Take your things with you. Yes, the toothbrush, too.
It's been fun, Winter. But you've got to go.
Love, Nathan
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - I Got Mine
via FoxyTunes
We need to talk.
I know what you're thinking. I can see it in your eyes. You're worried this is one of "those" talks. And, well, it is. Because as important as you are to me, I think it's time I moved on.
I'd like to start seeing other seasons.
Hey. No. Don't do that. Come on. Dumping six inches of snow on everyone isn't going to change things. You can't hide the distance that's grown between us. You can't bury feelings under ice crystals. Things between us have grown cold, and I need something warmer. Something greener. Something that doesn't cause me to injure my back heaving wet snow off my sidewalk.
We had some good times, Winter. Remember a few months ago when I slipped on some ice and got bruises all up and down the side of my body? That was a hoot. I ached for days.
But, Winter, I need to move on. I'm a different person now than I was five months ago. I'm in a different place. I've put away my shovel. I've stored my bag of sidewalk salt. I bought a garden hose. I bought a lawn mower. That means I need a lawn, Winter. And I'm never going to have one if you don't stop dumping snow all over my yard. Given my past demonstrations of gardening skills I might not have one anyway, but you've got to let me at least try to grow.
I've got my bike out, Winter. You know what that means? It means slushy streets and sub-freezing temperatures are not cool. Spandex and sleet do not mix, Winter. I need you to understand that, because the way I've been eating these last few months — it's because I'm uncomfortable around you, I think — I need to get out there and get some exercise.
It's not just me, Winter. You've worn out your welcome here and people are starting to get uncomfortable. They're too polite to say anything, but there are a lot of people who are ready to trade in their boots and snow pants for flip-flops and cargo shorts. You've got to let them go.
If it helps, I have a feeling this isn't the end for us, Winter. People change, you know? Sunny skies and warm weather might seem good now, but who knows if it will last. We might feel very different in a few months. We'll have tired of swimming and walking in the park and long for an opportunity to ski or snowshoe.
We've been through this before, Winter, and somehow we always end up back together. Pretty soon we'll realize life in Minnesota just isn't the same without you. Let's face it, you're as iconic in this state as lutefisk and underachieving football teams.
For now, though, you need to go. Take your things with you. Yes, the toothbrush, too.
It's been fun, Winter. But you've got to go.
Love, Nathan
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - I Got Mine
via FoxyTunes
Friday, March 28, 2008
A lovely shade of Social Butterfly
I feel like I've spent a lot of time since I bought my first house last November about my ineptitude when it comes to doing household projects while simultaneously describing my successful home repair projects. Frankly, it's starting to seem a little disingenuous. I feel like I need to set the record straight.
Yes, I can use a circular saw without bashing my thumbnail, and I can swing a hammer without cutting off any limbs. Given enough instruction and enough help I can build a sofa table that is functional, if not necessarily a work of furniture art. And I was able to figure out why I had water in my basement and fix the problem by caulking a window in my shower.
I'm not exactly Bob Vila — or even Bob the Builder — but I know which way to point the sharp end of a drill.
None of which made me particularly confident when I set out to paint my living room last weekend.
Painting is intimidating. I lived for three years in an apartment with awful floral wallpaper on one of the living room walls because I couldn't bring myself to face the possibility of painting.
It's never been the work itself I've objected to. I actually kind of like that part, at least on a small scale. And while I'd never painted an entire room on my own before I was pretty sure I understood the underlying concepts. Where I really got lost was the color selection. Not the number. The names. I didn't realize until a few weeks ago just how far out of control the paint color namers have gotten.
With my new house I knew early on I wanted to paint my living room a kind of dark yellow. No problem there. But then I had to find a name I could live with. I don't care how much I liked the color, I don't think I could ever tell my friends I'd painted my walls First Light. Or Uplifting. Or Champagne Sparkle. I definitely couldn't go with Newborn. Way too creepy.
What if I'd chosen something browner? Could I live with myself knowing I was surrounded every day by shades of Cotton Field? Or Cozy Melon? I really don't think so.
Ultimately I settled on a dark yellow called Sunflower. If you ask me, though, it's more of a cheddar cheese color than anything flowery. It's definitely cheesier than the sample I've got of Sharp Cheddar. Explain that one.
Some names are definitely better than others. I can live with the Smoldering Red I got for another room in my house, but I'm not going anywhere near Shy Cherry. I grudgingly settled on an orangey brown called Tangerine Dream for my bedroom, although based on name alone I was tempted to go with something called Butterscotch Tempest. I'm still holding out hope I can find some Chocolate Thunderstorm or Tapioca Hurricane for the dining room.
The painting itself was uneventful if not exactly flawless. By the time I was done there was paint on my hands, on my clothes and on the bottoms of my shoes. There was paint on the baseboards and on the ceilings, although I think I've mostly gotten that off. I think the room looks good. But let's just call it yellow.
----------------
Now playing: Jurassic 5 - In The House
via FoxyTunes
Yes, I can use a circular saw without bashing my thumbnail, and I can swing a hammer without cutting off any limbs. Given enough instruction and enough help I can build a sofa table that is functional, if not necessarily a work of furniture art. And I was able to figure out why I had water in my basement and fix the problem by caulking a window in my shower.
I'm not exactly Bob Vila — or even Bob the Builder — but I know which way to point the sharp end of a drill.
None of which made me particularly confident when I set out to paint my living room last weekend.
Painting is intimidating. I lived for three years in an apartment with awful floral wallpaper on one of the living room walls because I couldn't bring myself to face the possibility of painting.
It's never been the work itself I've objected to. I actually kind of like that part, at least on a small scale. And while I'd never painted an entire room on my own before I was pretty sure I understood the underlying concepts. Where I really got lost was the color selection. Not the number. The names. I didn't realize until a few weeks ago just how far out of control the paint color namers have gotten.
With my new house I knew early on I wanted to paint my living room a kind of dark yellow. No problem there. But then I had to find a name I could live with. I don't care how much I liked the color, I don't think I could ever tell my friends I'd painted my walls First Light. Or Uplifting. Or Champagne Sparkle. I definitely couldn't go with Newborn. Way too creepy.
What if I'd chosen something browner? Could I live with myself knowing I was surrounded every day by shades of Cotton Field? Or Cozy Melon? I really don't think so.
Ultimately I settled on a dark yellow called Sunflower. If you ask me, though, it's more of a cheddar cheese color than anything flowery. It's definitely cheesier than the sample I've got of Sharp Cheddar. Explain that one.
Some names are definitely better than others. I can live with the Smoldering Red I got for another room in my house, but I'm not going anywhere near Shy Cherry. I grudgingly settled on an orangey brown called Tangerine Dream for my bedroom, although based on name alone I was tempted to go with something called Butterscotch Tempest. I'm still holding out hope I can find some Chocolate Thunderstorm or Tapioca Hurricane for the dining room.
The painting itself was uneventful if not exactly flawless. By the time I was done there was paint on my hands, on my clothes and on the bottoms of my shoes. There was paint on the baseboards and on the ceilings, although I think I've mostly gotten that off. I think the room looks good. But let's just call it yellow.
----------------
Now playing: Jurassic 5 - In The House
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Life story? Say it in six
Rumor has it someone once challenged Ernest Hemingway to write a story using just six words. The result, or so the story goes, was this: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
I have no idea if this story is true, though I've seen it recounted several times in recent years. For all I know the whole thing started because some guy sitting around in his underwear felt some sudden literary inspiration on the same night he cranked out an e-mail about Nigerian princes who want to give you money and an inspirational story about a kitten rescuing a firefighter.
I'd like the story to be real, but it doesn't really matter. Whether or not it was Hemingway, somebody wrote that tiny little story, and it fascinates me. A big part of my job involves finding ways to squeeze people's stories onto the ever-shrinking pages of this newspaper, and seeing someone — whether it was Papa Hemingway himself or the anonymous underpants guy — pack so much emotional significance into so few words is remarkable. I'm better at that kind of thing now than I was when I started in this job a little over a decade ago, but clearly I've still got a ways to go.
The first time I heard the Hemingway story was in November of 2006, when Wired magazine posed a similar challenge to a collection of professional authors. Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card submitted, "The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly." Foulmouth director Kevin Smith added, "Kirby had never eaten toes before." Some of the entries were good. Some weren't. Some were funny. Some were serious. But none had the same kind of impact as the original.
More recently, an online publication called Smith Magazine made the experiment more personal, asking celebrities and readers alike to submit six-word memoirs. The results were published recently in a book called Not Quite What I Was Planning.
That's what got me thinking about all of this. Could I tell one of my subjects' stories in so little space? Could I tell my own? How would I even start?
I could focus on work, I suppose. Keep it simple. "I came. I saw. I reported." Or, "Excuse me, but I have to ask...." But does that capture the fact I'm doing a job for which I never received any formal education? That I never took a journalism class, nor worked on a school paper? How about, "Journalist? Me? I don't think so."?
I could write about the things I do for fun: "Biked far. Rode fast. Butt sore." Or I could try to convey the emotions of owning my first home: "I pay the mortgage monthly? Ugh!"
There are plenty of options, but I'm not sure any of them really captures every aspect of my life. There's just too much there. And my life isn't even that interesting.
In the end, maybe I'll just go with this: "Had fun so far. What's next?"
So, that's mine. Now it's your turn. Starting this week there will be an opportunity on our web page, www.farmingtonindependent.com (or www.rosemounttownpages.com), to post your own six-word memoir. Make it funny if you want, or keep it serious. Write one or write a dozen. Do it online or mail them to me at PO Box 192 in Farmington. Heck, you can even call and ask us to transcribe them if you want. We're going to post a few of our own, too, but we really want to know how you define yourself.
----------------
Now playing: BT - The Antikythera Mechanism
via FoxyTunes
Just keep it short.
I have no idea if this story is true, though I've seen it recounted several times in recent years. For all I know the whole thing started because some guy sitting around in his underwear felt some sudden literary inspiration on the same night he cranked out an e-mail about Nigerian princes who want to give you money and an inspirational story about a kitten rescuing a firefighter.
I'd like the story to be real, but it doesn't really matter. Whether or not it was Hemingway, somebody wrote that tiny little story, and it fascinates me. A big part of my job involves finding ways to squeeze people's stories onto the ever-shrinking pages of this newspaper, and seeing someone — whether it was Papa Hemingway himself or the anonymous underpants guy — pack so much emotional significance into so few words is remarkable. I'm better at that kind of thing now than I was when I started in this job a little over a decade ago, but clearly I've still got a ways to go.
The first time I heard the Hemingway story was in November of 2006, when Wired magazine posed a similar challenge to a collection of professional authors. Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card submitted, "The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly." Foulmouth director Kevin Smith added, "Kirby had never eaten toes before." Some of the entries were good. Some weren't. Some were funny. Some were serious. But none had the same kind of impact as the original.
More recently, an online publication called Smith Magazine made the experiment more personal, asking celebrities and readers alike to submit six-word memoirs. The results were published recently in a book called Not Quite What I Was Planning.
That's what got me thinking about all of this. Could I tell one of my subjects' stories in so little space? Could I tell my own? How would I even start?
I could focus on work, I suppose. Keep it simple. "I came. I saw. I reported." Or, "Excuse me, but I have to ask...." But does that capture the fact I'm doing a job for which I never received any formal education? That I never took a journalism class, nor worked on a school paper? How about, "Journalist? Me? I don't think so."?
I could write about the things I do for fun: "Biked far. Rode fast. Butt sore." Or I could try to convey the emotions of owning my first home: "I pay the mortgage monthly? Ugh!"
There are plenty of options, but I'm not sure any of them really captures every aspect of my life. There's just too much there. And my life isn't even that interesting.
In the end, maybe I'll just go with this: "Had fun so far. What's next?"
So, that's mine. Now it's your turn. Starting this week there will be an opportunity on our web page, www.farmingtonindependent.com (or www.rosemounttownpages.com), to post your own six-word memoir. Make it funny if you want, or keep it serious. Write one or write a dozen. Do it online or mail them to me at PO Box 192 in Farmington. Heck, you can even call and ask us to transcribe them if you want. We're going to post a few of our own, too, but we really want to know how you define yourself.
----------------
Now playing: BT - The Antikythera Mechanism
via FoxyTunes
Just keep it short.
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