Filed under: Minneapolis
Last week we went to see Imelda May. We kind of discovered her over the summer; she is from Dublin. I had hoped she would play while we were in Ireland. No luck – but when we got home we saw that she was planning to play here.
Imelda May plays rockabilly. She was great. As Patrick put it – she did a stadium performance in a night club setting.
Filed under: Minneapolis
The Weisman Art Museum is the very funky building on the University of Minnesota campus. It overlooks the River and has been closed for a long time. They reopened in October and we were there for it.
Aine and I were super into it. Patrick and Kate were not. Aine and I got brand new silk screened T-shirts. They did not. Aine and I saw all of the art. They did not.
Filed under: Minneapolis
Patrick and I attended opening night of the Burial at Thebes at the Guthrie Theater. Opening nights always include a little reception – think free wine or champagne. And think attended by people link the playwright – who was Seamus Heaney.
Guthrie artistic director Joe Dowling introduced Patrick (and me but that’s not such a big deal) to Seamus Heaney. In the picture, Patrick is actually standing near Seamus and is talking to his wife.
Filed under: Minnesota
OK it may seem sad that I have more than one post that’s work related. It’s a sign of a few things – September was very busy work-wise, I like my work and home life was pretty status quo.
I spent one week on the road touring small towns and hearing about their fun work with broadband. (You can check my work blog is you want those stories.) But here you can see the great pictures we took. Special nod to my friend Mary who turned to see the gnomes of Dawson faster than you can say Jack Robinson.
Filed under: Minnesota
As most readers will know – I work a lot of hours. I love what I do but some days are better than others. The highlight of my year was Tweeting at the TEDx conference in Detroit Lakes. It was the best. There were about a dozen speakers. The event was super classy. The talks were very thoughtful.
You can check out most of my thoughts on the TEDx web site or Tweets – but I will say that I thought Chuck Marohn was a standout speaker.
He spoke about the difference between a road and a street. A road gets you from A to B. A street is part of the community infrastructure. You meet your neighbors on a street. You talk to folks on a street. And streets are a vital part of community vitality that have been lost to development.
I just realized that I totally blew it not having someone take my picture on the stage. Maybe next year.
Filed under: Minneapolis
My favorite art event of the year is the $99 Art Sale at the Soap Factory. They get artists from all walks of life to create unsigned art. The art is all the same size and the price is $99. You buy it ‘cause you like it – then you tell you who the artist is. Then you research the artists to see if you have any taste.
My bit of sadness is that they changed the size of art this year. It’s bigger – not like 8 x 11. More is not always better.
I got a fun picture of Patrick by the modern art. I think it’s his future. (The grey beard, not modern art!)
Filed under: St Paul
Do you remember tubes of plastic you could use to make balloons? They came in primary color and the deal was that you squirt out a blob, put it on the end of a straw and out it up? If you used these you can probably remember the very strong, very toxic smell. It kind of make me light headed just to think about it.
Well we found this for sales in Hamley’s in London and saved it to share with our cousins. They were as much fun as we remembered – in that it’s nearly impossible to blow up the balloons. They are weirdly slimy and sticky and after about 20 minutes you feel a little sick and dizzy.
Filed under: St Paul
Just a quick nod to our visit to the food trucks in St Paul. They are there Wednesdays at lunch time. We went with Grandma and Uncle Billy. I love the idea of the food truck. Affordable, fancy-ish food in bite-sized portions.
Filed under: St Paul
So it’s mid-October and ai realize I’m woefully behind on the blog so it’ll be lots of quick posts (hopefully with pictures) of life since school started. We’ll start with pictures from the Fair.
We are the family in the matching t-shirts. This year we let everyone decorate their own t-shirts. Uncle Dan and I let Bridie do our decorating. I think Dan’s shirt will be one of the most memorable highlights from the day. Let’s just say, sometimes you have to be careful about where you plant your flowers. They can bloom in mysterious places.
We did all of the usual fun stuff – the giant slide, the education calendar, the arcade, the water rid. Our favorite food was – (*not* fried Twinkies) Sweet Martha’s cookies. Kate has a friend who works there and let’s just say our bucket runneth over!
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