doodledee

Check this out. A couple weeks ago I dropped my indestructible old-school brick of a cell phone on my concrete driveway and, while it didn't technically break, it would only stay powered on until it rang. Not exactly optimal phone behavior, so long story short, I got a new phone. I also switched providers. Not because I had anything against my old provider [Cingular], it's just that Verizon had a better free phone offer that week, and I wasn't really interested in paying for a phone.

Then today I got a *full monthly bill* from Cingular. I was all "huh", so I called them and waited on hold to ask the customer service lady why they were sending me a full bill when I had only been a Cingular customer for like 3 days of the billing cycle before I switched to Verizon. "I figured you'd prorate it or something," I say. That's when she politely explained that if you're a customer for even a single day, you pay for the entire month. I just laughed and said "that's so stupid and mean spirited" and she said "that's our policy" and I said, "ok, well have a nice night" and I hung up the phone.

That one surprised me. Now you won't be surprised. You're welcome.

Hey look, it's Libby sailing again for the first time in a couple of years. Woohoo!

We've finally found a suitable home for the boat, up north at Libby's parent's cabin. Before that it spent a lonely season parked in my parent's backyard, unused and far from water, but still loved when we remembered to think about it. Before *that* it spent a couple of lonely seasons moored to [frickin' expensive] buoys in lakes around the Twin Cities. Nice locations, sure, but none of them were really that convenient, so again it wasn't used as much as it should have been. (The buoys on Harriet, for example, are given out based on a tiered seniority system, meaning first-timer renters from outside the city of Minneapolis are given buoys like 4 miles from the dock. Brutal.)

The new home will be ideal. Libby can use the boat, her dad can use the boat, it's right next to shore, it's a perfect sized lake, and the list goes on.

Still to do:

- find the keys to the lock on the cutty
- if unable to find key, buy a bolt cutter
- figure out how to cover the boat
- figure out how to auto-bilge when we're not there
- winter storage

It's been a great spring for strawberries, or at least that's what they told me when I called the berry farm to ask how the season was progressing. It was so good, in fact, that the girl on the phone told me that the peak had come a week or so early this year, and that the end of the season was maybe only two weeks out. That was all I needed to hear. I had a date with a berry patch, stat.

Like every other year, we way, way, way overpicked. I've made a double batch of jam and vacuum sealed a few pounds worth and Libby made a pie and we've eaten them with most every meal and also managed to squeeze in a couple of killer late night world-cup halftime ice cream sundaes and we still have a TON left to eat. I'm going to knock out a few more batches of jam and try and freeze a bunch more and then call it a season. The crazy part is we picked them all in like 45 minutes. And that includes like 38 minutes of sitting in the patch stuffing my face with "free" berries. I must pick fast or something.

For those of you who haven't jammed yet, I had great luck with the liquid pectin this year. Both batches were set before morning. I'm never going back to powder. I'd post the recipe, but I just follow the one in the box, so just look for it there.

Berry on.

Bauer Berry Farm [bauerberry] - this is where we go
Pick Your Own [pickyourown] - more local places; lemme know if you find a good one

Over the last few years the Nature Valley Grand Prix bike race has easily become one of my most looked forward to events of the summer. In fairness, I've only ever been to the downtown Minneapolis stage, so maybe the other stages are lame, but the downtown race is a blast to watch. The riders go hard, the people cheer loud, and it's held in a neat downtowny type of environment. What's not to love?

Libby and junior came down to meet me after work. We hung out and walked around for a while. Then the skies grew dark. And darker. And darker. Then we felt a drop. Good time to go get some dinner, we figure. We run down to Chipotle, which I can eat at now that McDonald's spun them off. Maybe 4 minutes later the weather went gonzo. Huge thunder and lightening, tons of hail, sideways rain, display tents flying through the air, your basic everyday storm of the century.

Fifteen or so minutes later it was over, at which point dozens of race volunteers scampered around setting everything back up and pretending that nothing had happened. It was kind of hard not to, though, seeing as streets were soaked and full of slippery leaves and branches and all sorts of other debris that you'd expect to see if a small hail-spitting tornado roared through downtown. "No way they can race," I say.

But wouldn't you know it, the ladies race only started 15 minutes late. And around and around they went. A little more cautiously than in other years, and I'm certain there were at least a few wipe outs, but they raced just the same. Proved me wrong.

As the men were warming up the skies got dark again. They started the race anyway. The rain was already falling during the first lap. By the second lap I was heading for my car. I'm guessing they raced for maybe 3 minutes after I left, because the sideways rain from a few hours before had returned for an encore by the time I walked through my first skyway. Ouch.

Here's hoping for better weather next year.

Nature Valley Grand Prix [minnbikefestival]

I took junior over to see the sights at the St. Louis Park fire department open house the other night. I remember going to the Rochester fire department open houses when I was a kid and I gotta admit they're just as cool now that I'm an adult. They had hot dogs and cookies and punch and you could spray a fire hose and look inside all the trucks and all kinds of neat stuff. They were even giving rides in a bunch of the different trucks, but I decided we'd pass because the lines were kinda long and it was getting late. Also, some of the trucks were from Hopkins, and seriously, who wants to ride in a stupid Hopkins fire truck?

My favorite part was the free cookies and/or the conversation I had with a goofball stranger who decided to spontaneously lecture me on how the whole thing was a waste of taxpayer dollars. I was confused at first, so I asked him "you mean the open house or the fire department in general?" and he said "the open house" and I said "lighten up" and I reminded him there were free cookies and balloons inside the station. He didn't seem interested, though, so we said goodbye and he left to circulate his downer message throughout the rest of the crowd.

Those are some big hoses.

It's only been four of days of World Cup soccer and my faketivo is already threatening to melt down from the stress of trying to keep up. (My marriage is also threatening to melt down, but for now I'm focused on the tivo. It's all about priorities. I keed, I keed.)

So far I'm still liking the Dutch a lot. I also liked what I saw out of Italy in tonight's game against Ghana. And who doesn't like the Mexicans and the English and the Trinidads and Tobagans. What a hoot. Way, way out on the other hand, I didn't especially care for the US's performance against an admittedly superpower Czech team today. Sure we had some bad bounces, but for the most part we just got steamrolled and looked stupid. Kind of like when my team has no subs and has to play when it's 90 degrees out against a team of iron men with 9 players waiting on the sidelines. Ouch.

But really it's all about Brazil. They're going to be fun to watch like the Yankees are fun to watch in the playoffs. Superstar after superstar after superstar. Only these guys aren't the best team money can buy, they all just happen to be Brazilian. And they play a happy game. And you've gotta love that. Because I'm not sure it gets better. So tape their games and make some time to watch them. Seriously.

Only 27 more days. Yee haw.

• If you're thinking of going down to the new Trader Joe's to check it out, keep waiting. While running around the other day I stopped in for a quick peek and found the place to be a) packed and b) basically out of everything. I stopped in again a few days later and the situation hadn't really changed. I'm giving it at least a few more weeks before I try again. And let me also say this: TJ's is not really "destination shopping". Just because it got a ton of press and happens to be the hot spot du jour in the foodie community doesn't mean you have to drop everything and go there. It's a lot smaller than you'd think, and the produce, meat, and dairy are ordinary at best. That said, in a couple of months, I'm sure I'll be addicted to something they sell.
• Libby, junior and I checked out the new Midtown Global Market for lunch today. It was surprisingly busy, so clearly the word is getting out. We walked around and checked out the various options before ordering up a bunch of food and settling in to pig out. Here's my nutshell take: go; go now; they have ample free parking; they have good food; go go go. It's not blow your mind good or anything, but it's a lot of fun and it's unique and it's totally worth supporting.
• I'm thinking local prices have bottomed for this year's Copper River salmon. I've seen it as low as $8.99/lb, so if you've been waiting, now's the time to pounce. Yum.
• Per the Strib, the first weekend of the new Mill City Farmer's Market was a reasonable success. I was going to wait for it to prove itself before I made the trek down there, but after reading the article I'm thinking it may have already done so. Kudos to them.

Last weekend I was out of town on a business trip to lovely St. Louis. I spent most of my time in a Courtyard by Marriott and/or a small business park conference facility participating in series of meetings called "breakout sessions". Lucky for me, there was also a 'social event' that involved a couple of rented buses and a luxury suite at the New Busch Stadium. Play ball.

The local baseball powers that be have branded the new stadium "Baseball Heaven". (The irony that much of the urban core of St. Louis is "Wasteland Hell" has apparently been lost on them.) But to be fair, it was a pretty bitchin' stadium. All the bricks and the great sightlines and the arch looming over the outfield add up to quite a fan experience. Seriously, it was so, so, so much better than going to Metrodome. It was only natural, then, that as a future contributor to the new Twins stadium and as someone with a commitment to quality - sorry, breakout session flashbacks - I kept my eye out for things they did wrong so as to mitigate the risk of our local stadium builders making the same mistakes. Here's hoping they read my stupid blog.

Here's a few for starters:

• Yes, it's outdoors. And that's mint. Seriously, it is. And the weather was awesome, which made it even better. But having all the concourses outside, apparently means it's ok to light up a cigarette basically anywhere you'd like. In a word: lame. All this beautiful ballpark to soak in and everywhere you walk you're surrounded by a frickin' cloud. I'm not saying, I'm just saying, but find a better way to deal with it.
• The suite we were in was between the 'main' seats and the first level of upper deck. There was concrete above us and seats and stuff below us. It was kind of like we were at the small end of a funnel made of cement. And it was LOUD. I'm talking "shout at the person next to you just to be heard" loud, and that was between pitches, not during a big cheer or anything. They needed some sound insulation in a bad way. Or at least some throat drops. It was also maybe 15-20 degrees hotter than the ambient air temperature, but I was too busy shouting to notice.
• At $7.75/beer, Baseball Heaven offers the highest prices for beer of any park in the majors. I tried to think of a place in the Twin Cities that would charge that much for a Bud Light and I couldn't come up with anything. Even Maynard's is only like $6.50 or something. Good thing the boss was paying.
• I'm no construction expert, but a lot of the workmanship seemed kind of shoddy. They used a lot of brick colored cinder blocks around the inside of the place and in many areas it looked like it had been mortared by someone on their first day on the job. I'm sure they had to build super fast and stuff, and as a whole the stadium looks amazing, but there were a few times my eyebrows went up when I focused on the details. Minnesotans will notice that stuff.

That's good for now. If you're in STL, I highly recommend you take in a game. It's a neat place.