minneapolis sees spike in dutch elm disease [kare11] # (0)
1000 cases this year vs. 500 last year. i think i read somewhere that lake calhoun is getting hit hard. in related news, when is the ash beetle going to get some press already? that little dude is going to rawk us and nobody is talking about him. huh.
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19 jars of jam in the pantry and I'm done for the season
june 28, 2007 @
13:33
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According to the kids holding walkie talkies and directing traffic at the berry patch, 2007 has been the worst year for berries in the 57 years the farm has been operating. Something about the heat and lack of rain, I think. Personally I found the picking a little slow, but the fruit was nice and it was still well worth the trip.
The season ends soon. Get out to your patch before it does.
edina adopts 'massing ordinance', monster houses surrender [mnsun] # (0)
"massing refers to the issue of homes being built or renovated that are larger than surrounding houses and may be out of character with a neighborhood." that's more or less codespeak for "monster house". nutshell: no formal height restrictions, but this nonsense about building up the grade so that a two story house is still 8 feet taller than everyone else in the neighborhood has been put to rest. hooray for that.
sur la table update : opens friday @ 50th and france [strib] # (0)
"karl benson, president of st. paul-based cooks of crocus hill [who has a store like three doors down from the new surlatab], said he is concerned about the effect the larger store will have on his business in edina." doodledave, local cooking rube, looks forward to the competition.
dude can't sell house in edina, blogs about it, gets noticed [worsthouseinedina] # (2)
link goes to blog, but there's other background and stuff on the homepage. nobody - and i literally mean nobody - ran the numbers harder than i did when we sold our house. and note than when i say 'i ran the numbers', i mean 'i asked my agent to keep sending me the numbers she was running so i could rerun them and make sure she ran them right', because that's what you pay your agent to do. and get this: my agent was right. because she was awesome. at least this dude has an fun attitude. but come on, standing firm after no offers in 10 months is a little nutty. it smacks of not having a plan, and that's just anti-doodle. hope for the best, prepare for the worst, young padawan. yet another topic i could do 10000 words on sometime.
lake calhoun tree graffiti update - it's dutch
june 22, 2007 @
08:14
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In case you didn't notice, the northwest corner of Lake Calhoun has been outfitted with a hot new wardrobe for summer. It's mostly orange - so it won't rhyme with anything - and it was hand delivered by the local dutch elm police.
I counted something like 16 trees that'll be coming down, including many of the largish variety on the boulevard between the paths and the parkway. Bummer.
Here's to hoping it doesn't go crazy and lay waste to that whole section of lakeshore. I know further south it's mostly oak, but there are a lot of elms up that way and in a couple of years it could easily go from shade to savannah. Then again, elephants like the savannah, and it sure would be cool to have some elephants in town for a while. They could wander around and eat peanuts and go sailing and maybe jump off the dock over by the Tin Fish a few times. They could even put together a team for the pond hockey championships. I bet they'd just own the ice.
Hope elephants like milfoil.
rex breaks down placeblogging and the people who do and don't get it [mnmon] # (1)
lots of talk about mnspeak. also this: his comments about a site needing to have a 'voice' to be successful are dead nuts on target. in particular, a 'good' voice. garrick may or may not agree with this, i forget.
smithers 2007 tour de france pool is live [smithersmpls] # (0)
entries due by friday, july 6 2007 @ 16:00 central.
on city-dwellers and the phenomenon of urban chickens [mpr] # (1)
i would so totally do this, but i'm thinking this is so totally much more work than i think it is that i most totally will keep buying my eggs at the store. or from that egg dude at the farmers market. that egg dude has nice eggs, btw.
neat fluff piece about changes in how far kids are allowed to roam from home [dailymail] # (1)
me and my neighborhood buddies would ride our bikes all over the southside of rochester: the pool, the pizza place, the mall, the pizza place, the movie theater, the fair, the pizza place, you name it. it didn't seem crazy at the time, and i gotta admit that it still doesn't today. now if you'll excuse me, i need to get back to work digging a moat around my house. (fd: a british buddy of mine insists the daily mail is "a veritable paranoia-machine and possibly the most obnoxious newspaper in the country". i still think it's an interesting story, though.)
mpr picks up the kg trade rumors - yes, i said mpr [mpr] # (0)
this is like my mom sneaking out of her book club luncheon to call and ask if i heard that wittman just hired bickerstaff as his final assistant coach. only this is even weirder, because the kg story is just rumors, and the bickerstaff story actually happened. on a more predicatble note, iheartkg has been blogging the details of the kg-non-story in near real time, and i've been consuming it like a turkey burger combo.
todoodle : great river bike festival - especially fri night [minnbikefest] # (0)
one of my favorite events of the summer returns on friday. start searching for your cowbells now. and focus your energy on keeping the rain away. and hail. because last year it hailed, and that was just obnoxious. we're also thinking of heading over to stillwater for the sunday stuff. i heard the hill climbs are really fun to watch.
ical feed : lake harriet bandshell concerts [google] # (0)
kudos to whomever made this. saved me the time. not that i really ever would have taken the time to type all these details in. but it's fun to pretend i would have.
pinch! overwhelmed by the sight of people saving baby ducks [pinchtc] # (0)
the other day i was down at lake harriet and it was super windy and this group of maybe 10 little baby ducks were crashing up against the shore. the momma duck was right there, too, paddling around in the high waves looking confused and maybe a little desperate. literally 25 people gathered round to help. i watched on and off for maybe 30 minutes as the mob shuffled slowly down the shore, shouting words of encouragement and ferrying the ducklings back to the water when a wave would wash them onto shore. it was a crazy scene. there's a thesis-worthy social commentary in there somewhere.
robson's take on the james/juwan trade [rake] # (0)
"bottom line, i think this trade was made for chemistry reasons, and to begin to correct the backcourt imbalance on the roster that plagued the team last season. juwan howard is not the piece that cements a playoff contender." he's right, you know. i have no idea what happened to james this year... chemistry, baggage, whatever; all i know is i'm glad we're trying something else.
the current in studio: madeleine peyroux # (0)
verdict: good.
state fair food update: sloppy joes on a stick on the way for '07 [kare11] # (0)
it's by those same clowns who tricked me into buying macaroni and cheese on a stick back in 2002. (which, you may remember, was an experience that earned them disappointment of the year.) also new this year: "scones with chocolate chips, caramel and marshmallows; butterscotch cake; s'mores; and fruit covered in batter, deep-fried and coated with powdered sugar". nostradoodle predix all will be gross, advises you to stick with the corn dogs, foot longs, and 96oz fresh cut fries. fair on.
stp asks state for $25mm for midway stadium redo / new soccer complex [bizj] # (0)
"[the] $40 million [total] initiative [will] renovate midway stadium and build a new 332,000-square-foot open-air soccer stadium to host the minnesota thunder." $25mm from the state to fix up some shabby old baseball stadium in saint paul?! please, you had me at 'soccer'. now which legislator would you like me to call first?
feed housekeeping
june 13, 2007 @
15:22
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I changed some stuff with the feeds so that if you subscribe to the main feed you'll be getting everything now. If that's a huge problem - and it shouldn't be, because honestly, who doesn't like links to Dead videos from 1968 - then by all means update your reader to point to the 'entry only' feeds. URL's to the right.
If something formats weird in your reader, please shoot me a note. I know it's just name value pairs, but that doesn't mean it can't be buggy.
pohlads are buying b96 [bizjournals] # (0)
early reports say the format won't be changing. in other news, i'm pretty sure this means ton.e.fly will get to throw out the first pitch at the new twins stadium. sorry, sid, maybe next time.
mr. wizard is dead, long live mr. wizard [strib] # (1)
easily my favorite show from childhood. if they had tivo back then, i would still have every episode today. and i would watch them all the time. remember when nickelodeon was young and raw and weird? i do. (fd: for all i know it still is, but for some reason i doubt it. sorry, dora.)
observations only valid on odd numbered days
june 12, 2007 @
22:17
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I've been having fun breaking down the different ways in which people walk by the house when I've got the sprinkler on and it's maybe kinda spraying the sidewalk a little bit. Here's how I see it:
- Timers - Probably the largest and most traditional group, Timers simply wait until it's "safe" to pass before they proceed down the sidewalk. It's basically a game. Personally, I'm not very good at it, but advanced timers scout keep an eye to the horizon and continually tune their pace such that they never actually have to break stride when they pass by your sprinkler. It's amazing to watch. Like the Blue Angles with water. Or maybe Shriners in golf carts. With water. Either way.
- Obliviots - These are the people who just walk right into the water without realizing what's happening. They never saw it coming. There are way more of these than I would have thought. Often it seems as though a cellphone or iPod is involved. Good thing it's illegal to drive and do that stuff.
- Soakers - Usually kids, a Soaker will take 20 or 30 trips back and forth under your sprinkler. I've seen kids just park it for a minute and just cool off. You'll get no arguments from me on this one.
- Strollers - Probably the sentimental favorite, a Stroller just strolls on. If they get wet, hey, it's just water. If they don't, hey, maybe next time. Also probably the most fun to watch. Sometimes you cheer for the water, sometimes you cheer for the Stroller.
Most of the time I just scamper. Nothing like a good sprinkler scamper to get the heart pumping.
the pipress has a local blogroll thing [pipress] # (0)
nobody has done it as well as rex did at mnspeak1.0 (remnants here), but at least it's not just a link dump of random local blogs, so hey, that's something. except there's no doodle on the roll. so maybe it's nothing.
how big is your stack of phonebooks? [buzz] # (1)
we got ours yesterday. they set them on the curb. right next to the recycling bin. which is where they ended up. total time at our house: 3 hours, give or take. remind me why we can't opt out of these things again? in other news, lileks is already having an impact on buzz.
some new-to-me footage of the grateful dead in may of '68 [youtube] # (0)
what a great clip. jerry all rock-n-roll superstar with his stage moves and stuff (~6:00 on)... seems totally out of character, but it probably wasn't. for those of you wondering, that's santana on stage during the first minute or two of the vid. and in related news, a good new potato can still get my heart pumping and my feet dancing. and this one ain't bad. also this: modern new york hippies are self-righteous douchebags. but maybe that's just my flyover modesty talking...
minneapolis looking to unload the impound lot land [strib] # (0)
included in the offering is the land next to 394 that currently serves as a concrete recycling facility. if you bike downtown on the cedar commuter trail, you may also know this area as "the craphole toxic dust factory" that slowly poisons you as you pedal by. there's a neat little train station from yesteryear on the very sw tip of that land (linden station?). here's hoping the developers can find a way to work it into the their project.
homemade pizza co coming to the twin cities [rake] # (2)
it's going in near the lunds on hwy 7 in minnetonka. doodlesources tell me this place is legit, as does the linked article. this would stand in contrast to papa murphy's, which has done more to destory the soul of homemade pizza than anything else in the last quarter century. yuck.
3 questions with jennifer menkin, bioblitz coordinator [cp] # (0)
"a yearly occurrence, the bell museum's bioblitz is a 24-hour event where students, children, scientists, and nature fanatics race to document as many species as possible within a small area of town." they should come to my backyard. i have about 2000 different types of ants. and a chimpmunk.
the most underrated things in minnesota sports [10ktakes] # (0)
i'm not sure the staints are really 'underrated', but it's a neat list. i would add skiing at lutsen, doy.
maybe all those out of work strib writers will end up online? [mpr] # (0)
i wondered that, too. i mean, all we ever hear is that the internet is kicking the ass of traditional print media, so what's stopping all these 'professional' journalists from just starting their own online gig? baaaaaalk balk balk balk.
hawkins quits the city pages [mmonitor] # (0)
i'll miss her bad math and her soccer mom rips the most. it's like the bursting of the .print bubble around here lately. seriously, wtf.
wilco selling out 'blue sky blue' songs to volkswagon [stereogum] # (0)
link includes comments from tweedy's brother responding to people who are calling it 'selling out'. in other news, despite what the pitchfork haters say, blueskyblue is amazing. a-may-zing. my initial over-the-top enthusiasm has been somewhat tempered after a million listens, but it still feels like it was made just for me. in a past life i would have done 5000 words on this album.
more info on who is taking buy-outs at the strib [cp] # (0)
today was the deadline for accepting the buyout offer and jay weiner, deborah caulfield rybak and joe kimball are amongst the latest names. there's so much [misplaced] rage in this town about the strib and it's a real bummer to see it start to nosedive. in other news, lileks is going to run buzz?! here's hoping a massive ui overhaul is his first order of business. clutter much?
kare11 launches interactive webshow [lostremote] # (0)
you watch online (or on teevee) and you can chat it up with the show in real time via the web or something. finally, i can tell diana pierce to tell julie nelson how i really feel about her.