Filed under: St Paul
So we had the Election on Tuesday. It took me 15 minutes to vote – There was a line and that’s unusual in my neighborhood but 15 minutes isn’t bad. If I had waited until 10:00 I think I could have walked right through.
Throughout the campaign we had no phone calls and no door knockers contact us about the Election – until the last 48 hours. Then we had several door knockers, all for Obama.
The girls and I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the results. We started watching at 6:00, which is when the polls our East close. It looked like a close race for the first 2 hours. We got some emails from Ireland, which was fun. You kind of forget that people are watching from afar.
Nothing had been decided when I took off with Kathleen and Sheila to the DFL headquarters downtown. First it was fun to go with Kathleen who knows everyone. I knew a few online reporters but she knew everyone. Second it was fun to be with a big group when they called the winner.
One funny thing – the kids did nothing related to the Election at school. No mock debates, no mock votes. They were told that votes were secret, which I guess is true. I hope that the older kids did something. I’ll have to ask a babysitter. I think they missed an opportunity – but then my own alma mater made the same mistake on a much larger level.
Filed under: St Paul
So I had planned to see Kings of Leon on Saturday night, but they were sold out. So I looked around and saw that the Beastie Boys were playing at the Roy Wilkins. So I got tickets. What I didn’t know was that originally this show sold out in 3 minutes. I must have caught Ticketmaster at just the right time and they must have released tickets on the day of the event. (It was the Rock the Vote concert. So by the time they planned the event the big places in town were booked.)
So we got to go! The Roy Wilkins holds about 5,500 people. We were on the floor! And we got progressively closer to the stage as the bands progressed. So the video I got of Beastie Boys is better than Tenacious D. That being said, it’s still not the highest quality.
The Roy Wilkins is an amazing place to see bands because it is so small.
All of the bands were great –t he highlights were the Under Pressure cover by Ban Harper and Tenacious D and Sabotage by Beastie Boys – or maybe No Sleep Til Brooklyn. What was great was they prefaced the song by saying if you know who Rod Carew is, you’ll like the next song – making us old guys feel cool.
After the concert we went to a party and that was fun too.
And if you want to see more, here’s a link to my playlist from the show:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=24124269A3F88C3F
Filed under: Minneapolis
Saturday we spent the morning at the park behind Expo and then in the afternoon we went to see the new baby. They had just picked out a name, William Joseph, which was my grandpa’s name. They haven’t decided what to call him yet. I have a preference but I won’t say here.
He is beautiful. Anita looked great. He has dark hair, which was a surprise. Aine and Kate came with me – Aine loved the new baby even though she was only allowed to get so close to him.
Filed under: St Paul
Halloween was a big day of fun. Everyone got to wear costumes to school. It was an amazingly warm day, which never happens in Minnesota. I am sure that this is the first time it has been above freezing when the girls have been trick or treating here.
We went to a fun pizza party at a neighbor’s house and then everyone took off for the houses. Lily got 125 pieces of candy. I think she’s the only one who counted them all out.
So they were out for about an hour from 6:30 to 7:30. We had trick or treaters to the house pretty much over the same span of time. The last trick or treaters came at 8:30. At 9:00 we turned out the lights.
There were tons of parties going on – but I stayed home and worked. It wasn’t a lot of fun but it was nice to get caught up on a few things. Work has been amazingly busy!
Filed under: Minneapolis
On Thursday we went to a Halloween Party at Aunt Mary’s. It’s a tradition. It’s fun to get an extra wearing out of the costumes and to see my cousins and their kids. It’s funny to see how much the election is a part of conversation for everyone – even the kids. Pretty much everyone in the house will be voting the same way so there aren’t any arguments – but still lots of discussion. At least until the big news came…
Anita had gone to the hospital that afternoon. They were going to induce but it seemed as if it was going to be a slow urging. SO we were all pretty surprised to get the call that Baby Boy Birmingham had arrived.
We were all thrilled – for Baby Boy, Anita and Rick. The last few weeks have been pretty tough on all of them. Baby Boy clocked in at 5 lbs, 11 oz and was born at 5:58 on October 30.
Filed under: St Paul
Once again I’ve fallen down on blogging from home. Part of the reason is because it’s just not as exciting to talk about visiting every park in St Paul, which is a lot of what we’ve been doing lately – but I’ll try to come up with a few posts that are more specific.
On Saturday we ended up at the Halloween festivities on Grand Avenue. Those Grand Avenue events are always fun. The kids got their faces painted at Wet Paint, got flowers and candy from Johnsons Flowers and then we headed to Ramsey Junior High. We were just in time for the costume contest and Aine got to spend a lot of time in the bouncy castle. The weather was perfect!
Last Sunday we went to get our pumpkins with Grandpa. We went to Apple Jack’s in Delano. Unfortunately we went on the crappiest day of the year. It actually snowed – not snow that stays on the ground, but cold snow nonetheless.
So we were pretty quick about picking out our pumpkins. We also enjoyed some apple pull-aparts, which are really good. Then we went back to Grandma’s house for lunch.
Sunday night I went to book club. Luckily no one really read the book, so I didn’t have to feel bad. Kate, the host, made a super amazing meal, which ended with homemade bread pudding with caramel.
Filed under: Minnesota
I don’t usually blog about work here – but work was kind of interesting this week. On Monday night I headed to Brainerd to talk to the Minnesota Resort and Campground Association. My friend Jan and I talked about Web 2.0 stuff for tourism. On Tues I met up with my friend Bill to do some work with the Blandin Foundation in Grand Rapids.
But the fun (and noteworthy) part came Tuesday night. We heard that Hillary Clinton would be in Hibbing – so we headed up there. It’s not too far from Grand Rapids. I had never been to a rally like this before. It was held in the hockey arena and the place was jammed. We saw the line to get in and were worried we wouldn’t get in.
But we got it as did 5,000 or so other people. The place was filled but it wasn’t overly crowded. Everyone was friendly and I think every Democratic politician past or present within a 200 mile radius was up on stage. 
The strangest thing was a guy with a cowboy hat with McCain stickers in the middle of the room. He didn’t say anything and I think he eventually took of his hat – but it was strange to see him.
Also the security was pretty light. After the RNC demonstrations I pretty much expect a full militia at any public event. There were a few guards but that was it.
I taped most of Hillary’s speech.
See Amy Klobuchar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQZlIFafQOo
Jim Oberstar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3LTxokeqTM (I think)
Filed under: SE Minnesota
We’re on the way home now but here’s our vacation in a nutshell, minus the posts I’ve already done.
We drove down 52 on Thursday and stopped for lunch in Chatfield and headed to Preston. We stayed at a hotel in Preston because it was the only place I could find with a swimming pool. And now after driving around there for 3 days, I’m still sure that it was the only place with a swimming pool. We went swimming every day we were there. I have to say a swimming pool was something we really missed traveling in Ireland. A pool can take the edge off a rainy day and helps to make up for the dramatic increase in calories due to vacation mode.
We had dinner Thursday at a supper club in Preston. It was pretty good although I have to say it’s the first time I’ve ever had deep fried scallops. Luckily they were pretty good if you just peeled off the deep fry batter.
Friday night we went bowling. Lily rocked! She scored 130 on the first game. Patrick won the second game but the night really goes to Lily.
Filed under: SE Minnesota
On Saturday we stopped in Lanesboro for a quick tour and lunch. Lanesboro must be the official or unofficial cycling capital of Minnesota. It is the center of tons of bike paths. We saw people off all ages on or near their bikes.
We took a trolley tour of the area. Lanesboro was settled around 1865 by some folks from NY. The goal apparently was to create a vacation spot for New Yorkers; but it’s a long way from NY to MN so it didn’t work out well – until about 100 years later when they started building the bike trails.
We stopped at the Lanesboro fish hatchery; it’s one of eight in the state. We had never been to a hatchery. It’s kind of cool – especially since we recently saw a movie about the Great lakes and sturgeon. This hatchery bred rainbow trout and brown trout. They can keep the rainbow trout outside but not the brown trout as they get sunburned. We fed the tiny fish in the ponds. I took a video, I hope it works out; I have never seen so many fish in one place.
It was amazing to see how big they rainbow trout get in three years; that’s when they release the fish to northern lakes.
In the trolley we got to tour the area and to see a survey of the local B&Bs. There are tons of them. We also saw a waterfall. Energy is created from the waterfall. There is also an ethanol plant in Preston and wind turbines nearby – so the tour guide pointed out that they were in good shape. There is clearly a focus in the area environmentally friendly behavior and alterantive energy. It was good to see.
We had lunch at the start of the bike trails and headed back home.
Filed under: SE Minnesota
It’s MEA and we’ve decided to go to Southeastern Minnesota. Our neighbors came here a few weeks ago and loved it. We had planned to go somewhere so here we are.
The main reason we came was to see the Niagara Cave. It is one of the top 10 caves in the US. It’s cool. It’s just outside Harmony Minnesota, which has an Amish community. (You can tour the Amish community but that felt a little voyeuristic, so we just took pictures from afar like regular stalkers.)
Anyway back to the cave. It was discovered in 1924. A farmer lost a few pigs. They were eventually found in one of the first chambers of the cave. A couple of years later spelunkers came to take a closer look and eventually open the cave to the public. At its deepest point, it’s 150 feet below the ground.
We took a guided tour of the cave; I think that’s the only way you can visit it. It’s pretty well lit, for a cave. The tour guide offered to turn off the lights but the other (smarter, kinder) mom on the tour thought that would be too scary. I was disappointed.
The tour is about an hour. You climb a lot of stairs and walk through some pretty tights walkways. We saw the wedding chapel, where they have had 400 weddings. Apparently there are still a half a dozen or so a year. There’s an underground waterfall. There are a bunch of fossils, which are very cool. We saw the stalactites and stalagmites.
We saw huge stalactites; the tour guide guessed that they were a million years old. He was funny and clearly had grown up around the cave. He told us that while no one had ever been lost in the cave his brother had been stuck – twice.
Last June there was flooding in the area and apparently much of the cave was filled with water. They pumped much of it out. The guide said there were climbing around and that it was pretty cool when they suddenly noticed that the lights were on , which meant obviously that the electricity was one – so they hightailed it out of there.
