I type all day at work, and it’s hard to find the motivation to go home and type one of these at night, after typing all day at work. But certainly, avoiding losing touch with family and friends outweighs a little more time in front of the keyboard, so… Happy Holidays!
Aug 1 – One day after I sent out the last Big Life Update, the bridge on Interstate I-35W over the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis collapsed. Big news, and we had news crews from all over the country descend on the city and stay for days on end. You saw the footage on TV, and that’s pretty much all we got to see as well. With the entire area roped off as a police scene, access by foot was limited to the point where you really couldn’t see anything.
It messed up traffic pretty bad, although I’m luckier than some in their commutes. My house, my job, and the radio station are all on the south side of the bridge, so I didn’t have to take any major detours after the first week or so. Same with Liz. The radio station is really close to the bridge, and the KFAI building was within the Department of Transportation’s original circle of “ground zero” of limited access. It turned out to be fairly painless, and we could come and go as we wanted. They estimate that the new bridge will be done by the end of 2008 – pretty optimistic.
Late August – Our friends Kris and Marie got married, then honeymooned in Canada. They’d been dating for about a year longer than Liz and I had, and we’re really happy for them. Unfortunately, they got married in Rochester, MN during record-setting rains. The day of their wedding, Rochester got about 7 inches of rain, and some of the surrounding small towns got over a foot! It caused some major flooding to the southeast corner of Minnesota, but Kris and Marie’s wedding went off without a hitch. Unless not getting any outdoor photos is a hitch…
Late August – State Fair time! Food on a stick! Liz and I broke our previous record by splitting a total of 15 food items. There was a period around dinnertime when Liz was ready to throw in the towel and go home, but I forced her to hang on to that proverbial towel, in case of… well, anyway. Overall, the food was not as good as last year. The pizza-on-a-stick guy was replaced by a different pizza-on-a-stick guy, who was careless enough to leave out the big cardboard boxes that showed that his pizzas-on-a-stick came pre-made and frozen, and he just heated them up. Not good. I was crushed, since the old pizza-on-a-stick was the highlight of my State Fair visits. Oh well. This year’s highlight was the nut roll, of which we had two, and Sweet Martha’s giant cone of chocolate chips cookies, of which we also had two. Near the end of our stay at the Fair, we wandered through the “Miracle of Birth” exhibition, and saw some recently-born baby pigs that were at the Fair about as long as we were. We finally gave up and went home around 10pm, although Liz claims that she got her second wind and could keep on eating. I doubted it, although I was low on cash at that point and had no way to check. A good time, and I’m already looking forward to next year’s Fair.
Late September – If you can believe it, we actually sold Liz’s condo. It was on the market for just over a year, with multiple price reductions along the way. Dollarwise, we really took a beating, with a substantial net loss on the place. Not a life-threatening amount, but it will take a few years to pay off. We took extra pride in knowing we brought down the numbers for our real estate agent; I guess having property on the market for 54 weeks really hurts your averages!
So we moved all of Liz’s stuff into my house, then went through the fun process of merging the two sets of stuff and keeping the better of the two. Her stuff won, in almost all cases. We got rid of a lot of junk in the process, and I learned that you can get rid of literally anything by putting in at the end of the driveway. People don’t seem to care how old or ratty things are, and usually cart stuff off within 24 hours. We “disposed of” a tiny little couch, a wheely office chair, a computer desk, a rug, a few plastic milk crates, an old jigsaw, and a few lamps. No matter that some of those had gotten rained on while they were out there – someone actually took the dripping wet lamps that only cost Liz $5 when they were new. At least they’re all getting a good home now.
Early October – Our favorite bakery, Patrick’s in Edina, expanded their menu to include burgers and fries. This was a major jolt to our systems. We understood that they wanted to draw in a larger crowd for lunches and dinners, but it seems like they did it by dumbing down their menu. The place used to smell like just-baked bread when you walked in; now it’s, well, burgers and fries. Fortunately, they kept all the baked goods intact, so you can still wander in and get the best butter cookies in the world.
Mid October – Our long-haired orange cat, Noodge, was especially furry. He was shedding everywhere, and had some mats in his fur. I, being the primary vacuumer in the house, was fed up at the orange fuzzitude everywhere, and I suggested to Liz that we get Noodge’s hair cut. I’d heard about the “lion cut”, which basically shaves off all his fur except for his head, his legs, and the poofy tip of his tail. Liz didn’t really like the idea, but she was a good sport and brought Noodge in for a lion cut. It didn’t go very well – Noodge was traumatized, to the point where the grooming people called him the “cowardly lion”. Plus, they bathed him so that he smelled good to people. Normally, this would be a good thing, but because he looked and smelled different, the other two cats didn’t recognize Noodge when he came home and hissed and growled at him for two days. Poor, traumatized Noodge. And on top of all that, he looked utterly ridiculous! So we write this one off as a failed experiment, and I’ll just have to vacuum more often.Late October – My birthday was decidedly low-key this year. We took over the back room of a really good Chinese restaurant (Great Wall in Edina) and ate with a few friends. Very nice. I got a cake from Sam’s Club that was literally twice as much as what we needed, because I wound up taking the other half home with us. Liz and I ate nothing but birthday cake for an entire week after that. Which is a perfect transition into…
Late October – … Halloween! Or, more precisely, the start of Weight Gain Season! I just love the seasonal Vanilla Tootsie Rolls, courtesy of one of my co-workers. I dressed up as a bowler this year – shirt, ball, glove, shoes, bag. Liz found a skeleton costume, and looked splendid in her bones.Mid-November – We heard on the radio that Hennepin County was sponsoring a 3-day recycling event in the parking lot of the Mall Of America. Bring in your old TVs, computer monitors, electronics, etc., and drop it all off for free. That’s it – no strings attached. They also announced on the radio that businesses were free to do the same – no strings attached, which I found unusual but most welcome. A great idea that would discourage people and companies from dumping their old monitors at the bottom of a lake somewhere.
So with my company’s permission I loaded up my Corolla to the roof with 6 old CRT monitors, two old servers, CD-R drives, old wiped-clean hard drives, and any other piece of electronic crap that Altera no longer needed. I waited about 90 minutes in my car in line at the recycle dropoff, and drove away happy, knowing that I helped de-junk my office and knowing that the stuff was being disposed of properly. That was Thursday.
On Friday, I loaded up my car with round two for recycling – 6 more monitors and whatever else didn’t fit the first time. I drove out there after work, in really bad rush-hour traffic, mind you, to find that the event was closed. They were completely overwhelmed by the response, and had exceeded their allocated space on day 1, leaving nothing for days 2 and 3. All done, the sign said, so I turned back around and headed back to the office, across town, and also in really bad rush-hour traffic. I unloaded the car back at the office, in a pretty rotten mood, and eventually found my way home. I think it’s great that the county would sponsor such an event, and I’m hoping that they’ll do it again, based on the huge response from the first attempt. Recycling = good.
Late November – Thanksgiving at Liz’s parents’ house again. My favorite holiday of the year, made extra-wonderful by Liz’s parents’ incredible cooking skills. Liz and I contributed desserts this year. She made a candy apple pie, and I made a pan of unbelievable brownies. (Don’t believe that brownies can be unbelievable? I got the recipe from my coworker, Mary, and it’s easily the best brownie recipe I’ve ever encountered. You should definitely try making it – even I can do it, and I have no discernible cooking skills. The recipe’s attached below.)
I think I figured out why everything at Thanksgiving tastes so good – everything has butter in it. (Except the cranberry sauce, which is half sugar, and the homemade ice cream, which is half heavy whipping cream and half half-and-half!) And not just a hint of butter here and there, but a WHOLE LOT of butter! We tallied it all up, and if you include the turkey and gravy, potatoes, sweet potatoes, dressing and both desserts, that works out to about 12 sticks of butter. Which was then eaten by six people over the course of two days. Maybe three days. All the leftovers were gone by the time we drove back to the Twin Cities on Sunday, and we were as fat and happy as you can be…
We even got a good picture of Arthur, Liz’s parents’ cat, sitting in a box, mid-yawn. Cats love boxes. Don’t know why.Early December – We celebrated a friend’s birthday at one of those Japanese hibachi-style restaurants, where they cook everything in a big, flat grill right at your table. Knives flying everywhere, salt and pepper acrobatics, lighting things on fire, flipping shrimp to and fro – all in all, lots of good fun.
And it occurred to me that more restaurants could benefit from the showmanship of these hibachi places. In particular, I thought that a breakfast place would be the perfect outlet for such mad cooking skillz. Imagine your pancakes and French toast made on the grill right before your eyes, with cinnamon, chocolate chips, blueberries, and every other ingredient under the sun all flung together in the most exaggerated and delightful manner. Black olives freshly de-pitted and sliced right in front of you, before being flung into your omelet!
Oh yeah, this thing could be huge. I just need to come up with a snappy name for it, which isn’t as obvious as it seems. (Please think of something clever and send it to me. So I can be rich.)
On a related note, my brother came up with the idea of the donut truck, which is kinda like the hot dog carts that you see on downtown streets. They make the donuts right there in the truck, and you buy ‘em for a buck. And I even came up with a snappy name: “Go-nuts!” See? The catchy name wins you over every time! I just need to come up with one for the hibachi breakfast…
Early December – My tiny law firm moved to downtown. Out of all the occurrences over the past few months, probably none has affected me as much as my office moving from Eden Prairie, a distant southwest suburb, to downtown Minneapolis. We moved officially on December 1, but there was quite a bit of prep in the weeks leading up to Dec 1, including getting rid of the 21 CRT monitors and other unwanted electronic flotsam.
There are only seven employees in our little firm, and we had more space than we needed. By moving out of our palatial office building in Eden Prairie, which had enough office space for about 40-50 people, to our downtown location, we were able to slash our rent expense by a factor of 6. In other words, our old building in the ‘burbs was costing us 6 times more than our new space, which we’re sharing with a few other firms.
Major change #1: I now take an express bus to and from downtown. There’s a park and ride about a mile from the house, which makes life very, very easy for me. After I park my car, I put on my little radio with headphones and zone out for a half hour until I get dumped downtown. There’s a bus stop right in front of my building downtown, but I choose to get off a little earlier and take a ten-minute walk through the downtown skyways to get to my building.
What are the skyways, you ask? Most of the downtown buildings are connected to each other by a series of second-floor skyways that cross over the streets. You can get from one building to another without ever going outside. And this brings up major change #2: I feel like I’m taking part in actual activity, as opposed to the sleepy nothingness of suburbia. Things are actually going on downtown, with real hustle and actual bustle. Especially during lunchtime, when the skyways fill up with other worker people just like me. There are restaurants everywhere in the skyways, which are all designed for weekday lunchtime, and not much else. Most close around 2 or 3pm during the week and don’t open at all on weekends.
It’s funny, I lived here in town for over ten years before I realized how much is going on during the workday downtown. A walk through the skyways in the evening or on weekends is just a bunch of closed-up shops. But during the lunch crowd, you can get literally anything you want. Banking? Found a branch of my credit union in the skyways. In hot water with the spouse? Plenty of florists in the skyways. Buying/selling gold coins? Need your taxes done? Dentist? Shoe repair? Keys made? Hair coloring? Chiropractor? Dry cleaning? It’s all available in the skyways. And you’d never know it from the street level, either. This may very well be the best kept secret of the Twin Cities: the ‘burbs are pretty dull during the workday, but downtown Minneapolis totally rocks!
My office is 17 floors up, facing due east, with a wall of windows that stretch from desk-level to the ceiling. I overlook the Metrodome, which looks a little like a giant marshmallow from up here. I can clearly see the space needle thing at the state fairground, and I can see the building silhouettes of downtown St. Paul, which is about 15 miles away. I can clearly see where the I-35W bridge was, and I’d be able to see the KFAI building if the Metrodome wasn’t in the way. And to make life even sweeter, out of all seven Altera employees, I have far and away the nicest view. I brought my camera to work to take a picture of the view for you, but the forecast for the entire week is overcast, and it doesn’t quite do justice to the view. I’ll have better pictures in the next Big Life Update.
I have four friends who all work downtown, and I’ve already had lunch with two of them. I’m probably going to see them more during the work week than on weekends!So I am one happy camper. Great view, public transportation to get to/from work, no wear and tear on the car, meetin’ friends for lunch. Oh yeah! Life is very good indeed.
Mid December – Don’t see “I Am Legend”. Thoroughly predictable, start-to-finish, and the lamest deus ex machina ending I’ve seen in years. If you really feel the urge to watch an apocalyptic, humanity-may-end movie, then rent the brilliant “Children Of Men” from a year or two ago. Now THAT’s some magnificent filmmaking!
Hope you all have a happy and healthy holiday season! May you be filled with butter!
Ron & Liz
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MARY’S BROWNIE RECIPE
BROWNIES
1 cup cocoa (Mary uses a little less than a full cup)
1 cup butter (softened)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs (Mary beats them a bit before adding)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
Mix and bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes. (Mary bakes the full 30 minutes and has left them in for up to 35 minutes)
FROSTING
1 cup sugar
5 Tbls. margarine (Mary uses butter sometimes)
1/3 cup milk
1 cup chocolate chips (Ron uses semi-sweet)
In small sauce pan, combine sugar, butter and milk. Bring to boil, stirring constantly, and boil for one minute. Remove from heat, stir in chocolate chips and keep stirring until frosting is smooth. Pour over warm brownies. (Mary usually stars preparing the frosting right after she takes the brownies out of the oven.)
Enjoy!
