It's Your Birthday

Today is my birthday! Perro wished me a happy birthday this morning and offered to split his Milkbone biscuit with me. I declined. Tonight I'm having dinner out, perhaps at Boca Chica. The noodle hotdish I planned is on hold until later in the week.

Today's fortune is: "Make yourself necessary to somebody." I've already done that - I'm necessary to four somebodies: Beaner, Mystic, Perro and Whippy. I was hoping my birthday fortune might be, "A new spoiler is coming to your Echo soon."

Follow-up Report on the State Fair

After visiting the technology building Saturday, I stopped by the MPR booth. Garrison Keillor wasn't there, and they were out of the book, "25 Years of A Prairie Home Companion". I was pretty disappointed, since I was looking for some before bed reading. (A Prairie Home Companion makes me drowsier than warm milk. It's relaxing!) Eating a giant pickle on-a-stick cheered me. The Pink Floyd laser light shown was cool, but the wind was quite chilly, so we left for the warmth of the animal barns during intermission.

In the swine barn we had a chance to pet Terry, Minnesota's biggest boar. He's around 1100 pounds, not quite as big as a Festiva. There was a 4-H dance happening in the swine judging arena. The DJ was playing "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC and the pigs were really shaking it. They were nosing at the bars of their pens and grunting. The 4-H teens were jumping up and down, enthusiastically dancing under the colorful spotlights beaming from the DJ's set-up. I was singing along and petting a sheep. A perfect ending to a perfect day at the State Fair.

Live from the State Fair!

I'm here at the State Fair right now in the Technology building. I just polished off a grilled cheese sandwich from the Lutheran Church dining hall. Yum! Now I'm off to see the tractors on Machinery Hill and hopefully, the Pink Floyd Laser Light show at the grandstand. Now, where's the all you can drink milk booth? I'm ready for a glass of the white stuff.

Election Year Grinds On

Yesterday my dentist was complaining about the excessive amount of campaign coverage on the news. I've just stopped watching the news, even CNN, because the election coverage is grinding on and on.

My only source of news coverage is the KQ morning show. Today Stretch gave an in-depth report on the biggest boar in Minnesota. (No, no, not Garrison Keillor. Get your homonyms straight. The report was on the biggest pig at the State Fair!)

While I was in Boston during the Democratic National Convention, I ran into a few individuals waiting for the train who were quite concerned about election news coverage. I included a photo of them here because I thought their costumes were pretty hilarious and odd. For me, meeting them has been the best part of the election year so far.

Election Year Nuts in Boston!

Whippy's New Chow

Lately Whippy developed a taste for the multicolored dry food that I asked the pet-sitter to feed her while I was on vacation. She'll gobble down several mouthfuls at a time, then she moves on to her regular iguana salad and greens. She likes to eat on the top shelf, but sometimes she drop-kicks her food plate and splatters pureed squash on the walls of her enclosure, so I've moved the food plate to the floor.

Drive-Thru Horror

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 08/19/2004 | Fast-food rage spurs arrests of 3 teens

This blog post isn't going to be about the McDonald's McRib sandwich (although that pre-formed patty of pork parts is pretty horrible.) No, this is about two guys who got mad over a botched drive-thru order at McDonald's in West St. Paul and beat someone with a baseball bat. I've been there before. I've felt the rage at a bad meal mistake. There was that time I decided to "Think Outside the Bun" and I ended up with bacon tacos instead of a bean burrito at the Taco Bell drive-thru. But instead of pulling out my baseball bat, I calmed myself down using a meditation technique, and I went inside and asked the manager for a fresh bean burrito. I got one, plus a few free coupons. The moral of the story? Now I order inside the restaurant. You can check your food right there, to make sure it's what you ordered, and it will save the interior of your car from dripped ketchup and bun crumbs. (My Festiva had a french fry permanently lodged deep in the plastic emergency brake cover, due to the carelessness of a former owner.)

Meeting Metallica

Best concert ever! Metallica ripped through a string of favorites during the 2 1/2 hour show, including, Nothing Else Matters, "One" and "Fade to Black." I was suprised and pleased they played my favorite song of all time, Master of Puppets. I was doubly surprised when they played one of their oldest masterpieces, Creeping Death. The lyrics of Creeping Death tell the story of the Passover.

I was in the twelfth row on the side closest the circular stage, right by Lars' drums. Amazing! But of course the best part was after the show was over, I still had something to look forward to. I was headed over to First Ave to meet the band! The line to get in moved quickly, and before I knew it, we were inside watching the Cliff 'Em All video on a huge screen, in the famous black-walled interior of First Ave. Then they called our group to go into the 7th Street Entry, the smaller club room. A lady handed me my copy of the book to be signed, and I caught a glimpse of the guys sitting behind the table on the other side of the room. It was Metallica!!!! My stomach flipped over. I could hardly pull back the dust jacket so they could sign the cover of my book. I handed it to Kirk Hammett and thanked him for the great show. Then he passed it on to Robert Trujillo. Robert signed and passed it to Lars.

I thanked Lars for the great show and I told him that their music inspired me to graduate from college early. Without all those hours of listening to The Unforgiven, I don't think I would have had the courage to defy the advice of my counselor and my favorite teacher. "What I've felt, what I've known, never shined through in what I've shown, never free, never me, so I dub thee Unforgiven." I was determined never to be the Unforgiven. I've made sure that what I've felt has shined through in what I've shown.

Lars said thank you, and his voice was so humble, almost shy in tone. Then he said that that was the best thing he heard all night. He passed my book to James and he asked me how old I was when I graduated. I told him 19, and then he said, that he never got to college, he was "too busy rocking out." There was a subtle note of regret deepening his tone as he spoke. Then someone was ushering me along and before I knew it, handing me a new Metallica T-shirt. Then we were out the door, into the cool, dark.

I actually have a witness to this story, for those who don't believe it. But this was my proudest moment, as pure of a feeling as crossing the stage at graduation. Thank you, Lars, James, Robert and Kirk. I hope this memory burns within me forever.

Review: Metallica delivers pure therapy at Xcel

The Tale of the Altair 8800 and the Giant SCSI Card

I visited the Museum of Science in Boston a couple of weeks ago. Although the Museum was under guard by a SWAT team due to heightened security for the Democratic National Convention, I was still able to visit the computer exhibits and see the world's largest Van De Graff generator throw huge electrical sparks. Here are a few photos from my adventure.

Here I am hugging a chip on a giant Adaptec SCSI card (if you're not a geek like me, all you need to know is that a SCSI card is something inside of your computer).


Wow! I saw an actual Altair 8800, the first personal computer. It had a 2 mHz processor and 256 bytes (not megabytes) of RAM.


I had to sneak past a group of SWAT team officers to get this picture with the T-Rex.

Lutherans and Livestock

Dakota County Fair

Here's your chance to support Farmington Lutheran church and see some cows at the same time. Show your Farmington pride (Go Tigers!) and stop by the Dakota County Fair this weekend. I'll be selling water from 10 AM - 2 PM on Saturday at the Farmington Lutheran Church booth in the Red Commercial Building space 1.

Of course, I'll also be at the demo derby Friday night. Who can resist cars smashing into each other? The demo derby and the livestock are the best parts of the fair. Last year in the livestock barns there were rabbits bigger than Perro and a couple of 1000 lb pigs rolling around in the straw. See you there!

Manheim Steamroller Concert Pics

Check out the pictures from the Steamrollers' show in Watertown, SD. I'm in the audience picture somewhere. There's also a photo of Joey's grandparents hanging out with the Steamrollers.

Buckle Up the Pup

I recently read a moving letter to Dear Abby from a man who lost his best friend. His dog fell out of the back of his pickup truck and was struck by a car.

I use a harness to buckle up Perro whenever we go for a spin in the van. Back in 1999, when I was researching crash test statistics on the Festiva, I came across description of French crash tests involving pets. The scientists executing the tests discovered that momentum caused an unrestrained pet to be hurled inside the vehicle with considerable force, enough to kill the pet and injure any occupant struck by the pet. They also tested pet dummies restrained by a carrier, and discovered that in a 30 mph crash, the pet struck the side of the plastic carrier hard enough to shatter it and send shards flying across the vehicle compartment. In one test, shards struck the human dummy in the head. These crash test results factored into my decision to use the harness.

There doesn't seem to be high level of awareness on this topic, perhaps since these type of crash tests are not performed in the US. I recently saw a Geico commercial showing a montage of scenes featuring unrestrained dogs hanging their heads out of car windows. Sadly, since even an auto insurance company seems unaware of the safety concerns involving unbuckled pets, I have to believe that most of the public is unaware.

So I'm going to use the bully pulpit of my blog to preach on this topic. If you don't have a harness, please pick one up to keep yourself and your pooch safe on the road. I have two, one for each of my vehicles. They cost between $12-$30 and are available at Petco. You might want to measure your dog before heading out to the store, to pick out the right size. Take care and buckle up the pup.


Perro Buckled Up for a Trip in the Van

Turtle-ly Awesome!

Last week on vacation in Boston, I had a chance to visit Myrtle, a giant 45-year old sea turtle.

She weighs several hundred pounds and likes to have her back scratched. While we were watching her, she burrowed down at the bottom of the tank and fell asleep.

Backstage with Manheim Steamroller

On Saturday I had a special evening - a chance to meet Manheim Steamroller at the VIP Party after the show in Watertown, S.D. I shook the hand of their leader, Chip Davis.

Sadly, this event coincided with the much ballyhooed American Rock Band show in Cambridge, MN, so I missed another great show. My buddy Rocky's band Dayfeed was playing there, so I could have partied like a rock star and met the guys from Slipknot. It's too bad, because although the chirping bird and cricket sound effects at the Manheim Steamroller concert were lovely, and the band was very nice, I'm sure the guys from Slipknot are pretty nice, too. (Well, underneath their masks and jumpsuits, of course.)

Next week I'm going to meet Metallica at First Avenue, so August will be a huge month for me. I won't share with you guys how I scored a wrist band, because then you'll all run out to get them and the line to get in will be too long.

Hehehe, just kidding. Email me if you'd like to come with me to meet Metallica, too.

Back in Black

Well, I'm finally catching up from my vacation in Boston. Yesterday I discovered that I didn't have any clean black t-shirts when I got home from work, so it was time to do the laundry from the trip. It's great to be back with Perro - I can tell he missed me. Whippy ate so much of the fresh greens I gave her yesterday that her tummy was distended.
My flight on Sunday took about 15 hours. Joey and I had food poisoning from some suspicious brown pasta we ate at dinner Saturday night, so we didn't eat too many of the little bags of pretzels. We left the hotel at 6:45 AM, but our flight took off late from Boston, and then had to fly to Philadelphia to pick up more people. We were delayed leaving Philly, so our connecting flight to Minneapolis had already left Atlanta by the time we got there. AirTran gave us some $7 vouchers for dinner, and then rebooked us on a flight leaving at 10:55 PM. So Grandma, Joey and I were stuck in the airport bar Atlanta for several hours, watching the Evil Knieval special on TNT. The night dragged on and on . . . and the 10:55 PM flight was late. The AirTran rep said that he needed to "dig up a flight crew" before we could leave. Scary! It sounded like something out of Forensic Detectives. Finally we got back to Minneapolis about 1:30 AM and MSP was as silent as a tomb.
It feels great to be home - I've been snuggling up with my giant stuffed sea turtle from the New England Aquarium. Last night Joey and I watched "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with John Candy. A wonderful way to cap off the adventure with a few laughs!