Stray Hawkeye

You may have heard we had a bit of snow here in Minneapolis.  Enough, in fact, to collapse the Metrodome (pretty cool video there).  So, what does any sane person do when there’s 16 or 17 inches of snow on the ground, 20-30 mile an hour winds, and bitter cold?  Go for a walk and take some pictures of course!

Pretty average car in a parking lot

If nothing else, it's sort of a cool shape for a hatch back. Unfortunately the car underneath was a sedan.

Street parking wasn't much better.

This is on Hennepin, and was about as good as any road looked.

You can see the plume of snow blowing straight sideways off of this roof - it was pretty much constant like that. If you look at the edge of the roof, there's an overhang of snow that's built up from the wind.

This is someone cross country skiing on Hennepin - on the road. There were a few people doing this, and a few bikes as well. Also note the complete lack of moving cars. There was one stuck about every two blocks on just about every street though.

I just thought this was really pretty.

And if you happened to be watching the Weather Channel at about 6pm Saturday, while they were talking to their correspondent in Minneapolis, you can see me walking in the background.  That settles it, I’m famous.

Also, while I was walking home, I was helping push a car that had gotten stuck in an intersection, the third one in five blocks.  As it got some traction and started moving my feet went out from under me and I slammed down on my knee.  I got up, brushed myself off, and kept going.  Then I heard someone from behind me yelling in a very Nelson from the Simpsons manner, “Haha, wipeout!  Hey Wipeout!  Hey WIPEOUT!! hahaha”.  Ah, Minnesota, always someone there to kick you while you’re down.

So, once I got back to my place and finally warmed up, my knee started hurting, a lot.  And it had one big spot where I had hit it on the pavement that was starting to bruise and swell a lot.  So, as a final indignity, I had to pack it in ice for a while.

While I was laying there, I heard a plow going through the alley to make a first pass at clearing it out.  When I looked out, it was actually one of those giant end loaders – the kind where the cab is about five or six feet in the air and has three foot tall tires and you sort of wonder how it fits under the phone and power lines.  In the course of trying to plow through our alley, or the part of it I could see, it got stuck and had to back up and make a running start to keep going.  Six times.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go limp out into the sub-zero wind chills and start digging my car out of the piles of snow the end loader and the wind left, so I can hope to actually have it out by time I have to go to work on Monday.  My car, unfortunately, does not have three foot tall tires.

Could someone remind me why I live here?

Anyone?

Anyone at all?

In case you were planning to go to Tuba Christmas this year in the Twin Cities, it has been postponed due to the snow.  It will be held next Sunday – December 19th, with the concert at 5pm in the same place.  Full details from the organizer are below:

Due to the 17+ inches of snow from which we are all digging out, the TUBACHRISTMAS concert is postponed to Next Sunday, Dec. 19. with registration at 3:00, rehearsal at 3:30 and concert at 5:00. Note time changes are an hour later then previous. Location, the same is, Central Presbyterian Church.
See below for details.

TUBACHRISTMAS 2010

The 23rd Annual MINNESOTA TUBACHRISTMAS Concert will be Sunday,

December 19, 5:00 p.m. at Central Presbyterian Church, 500 Cedar St., St. Paul.

This year’s concert will be a memorial for TubaChristmas founder Harvey Phillips who died Oct. 20.

Audience Admission Free.

Free parking (see directions)

For directions and parking info see:

www.cpcstpaul.org/directions.html

To Play the Concert:

If you play Tuba, Sousaphone, Euphonium or Baritone you are invited to play.

All ages welcome. There will be over 100 players. (Players age range from 10 to 80+)

Registration:   3:00

Rehearsal:   3:30

Concert:   5:00

Registration fee is $5

Music book $18

Hats & Scarves available $15 each.

Head bands $10 each

Decorate your instruments.

Bring a music stand if needed.

I know I’m behind the times on this one, but have you seen the cover for 89.3 The Current’s Live Current Volume 6 CD:

No idea how the music on it is, but with a cover like that, it can't be all bad

As best I can tell, the cover was made by local graphic designer Miss Amy Jo.  The rest of her work seems to be somewhat sousaphone deprived, but I’ll take what I can get.

Tuba Christmas in the Twin Cities this year will be held December 12, at 4:00 p.m. at Central Presbyterian Church, 500 Cedar St., St. Paul. Admission and parking are free. What’s Tuba Christmas? Why would I want to go? Can I play there? How can I get more details? See my previous post on the subject from two years ago – all the details are the same except that it’s on the 12th this year rather than the 14th.

In case you’re having a hard time getting too excited about the Iowa vs Minnesota game this weekend, you’re not alone.  The Gophers have been horrible and even fired their head coach half way through the season (a danger here in Minnesota apparently).  The Hawkeyes, though bowl eligible (my goal for every year) and not a bad season, have been a bit disappointing given the expectations coming into the season, which was basically to go to the national championship game, and as it stands a BCS game is pretty well out of the question, by a fair margin.  Beyond that, (knocking on wood until my knuckles bleed) it’s a reasonably safe bet we know how the game will turn out, we hope.  Minnesota has no chance of a bowl game.  Iowa more or less knows where it’s going as much as one ever can until they announce it.  It’s right after Thanksgiving.  And it’s going to be outside and cold.  And basically every other Big Ten game is of more consequence.

So, now that I’ve got you sufficiently hyped up, there are at least two points of interest for the game.

Iowa has shut out Minnesota back to back the last two years (55-0 and 12-0), which has only happened once before (1955-1956) in the series.  So if they do it again, it’s a first (and great salt to pour in the wound).

The other thing is, it’s the 75th anniversary of Floyd of Rosedale.  Who is Floyd of Rosedale you ask?   Only the best rivalry trophy in college football:

Floyd, right where he belongs

I may be a bit biased in saying a 98 pound bronze statue of pig is the best college football trophy, but really, the story behind it is about as good as they come.  MPR has a great recounting of the origins of the trophy (which admittedly I’ve pointed out before, but it’s worth the repost).  Totally worth the read.

If there’s a better back story for any trophy in college football, I’d love to hear it.  I mean really, compare that to the Heartland Trophy – a statue of a bull with a giant head it can’t lift off the ground (why a bull?  who knows!) that Iowa and Wisconsin have played for since the distant history of… 2004, when someone said, hey, this is a always a good game and an incredibly even rivalry, there should be a trophy for this.  A rivalry so bitter in fact that a former Iowa player with a Tigerhawk tattoo is the head coach at Wisconsin and feelings have gotten so harsh they’ve decided to suspend the rivalry for at least two years because the new divisions resulting form the Big Ten conference expansion suck so bad to let things cool off.

So, happy birthday Floyd.  And Go Hawks.

You might live in Uptown if…

• Your car has at least 30 bumper stickers on it, including “start seeing bikes” and “keep your rosaries off my ovaries” and “Wellstone!”
• You have a shiny new mac laptop and an iPhone with a $100 a month plan, but have trouble getting the rent check in on time.
• You believe you have eaten or drank something ironically.
• You don’t understand what the word ironically means, but you use it at least once in every conversation.
• You think a bike is a valid main form of transportation when it’s 10 degrees out.
• You can’t even imagine that someone would own a gun that isn’t either a gang member or a deer hunter.
• When they seal coated Hennepin, it was the closest thing you’ve ever come to a gravel road.  You had trouble driving biking on it for the first couple weeks.
• You’re male and your pants are skin tight, black, and only go down to mid-shin.
• You have full sleeve tattoos and a toddler.
• You live in Minneapolis and know how to parallel park.
• You love the Walker Art Museum and get violently angry if anyone criticizes it in any way.
• You wear bug eye sunglasses.  And are male.  And they have gold frames.
• You understand the conditional no-left turn signs on Hennepin and Lyndale.
• As best you remember, Obama got about 70% of the popular vote.
• You get excited at the state fair when you see a real live cow.
• You forget that the houses around Lake of the Isles are unreasonably large.
• You believe bicycles always have the right of way.  Even if they’re running a stop sign, going the wrong way, down the center stripe of a one way street, in rush hour.
• You have gone more than six months without going outside the 494 / 694 loop.
• You consider Burnsville to be rural.
• You believe free wifi is a human right.

If you’ve been reading the site for a year or more, you may remember the State Fair Bingo cards I posted last year.  If not, go read that and come back.  K, back now?  Good.

As you may notice on reading the cards, a few (read: almost all) of the squares on that version are vaguely to really, um, not so nice.  And, the squares are mostly the same across cards, just a little shuffled.  Well, Lazy Lightening to the rescue!  (via Because Emily Says So)  Lazy Lightening made up a whole, whole bunch of new ones, with way more options.  Also, there’s a kids edition, which, though less amusing, would seem like a good option for those who don’t want to keep them tucked away for most of the time.  Don’t worry, the new grown up version has some new squares that fit well with the old style ones too (I believe “Cougar on the prowl” is new, among others) though on the whole, it’s a bit more tame (for better or worse, depending on your view).

There’s now a part of me that, knowing these cards are at least reasonably well known now, wants to get together about 5 to 10 people, and dress up to make a complete blackout of one of the cards of the old version and walk around the fair for a day together, just to see how many people get it.

It’s art fair weekend in Minneapolis again, with art fairs this weekend in Uptown, Powderhorn, and Loring Park.  I did a pretty complete write up of them last year beforehand, and having made the rounds again last year, I’d say it all still holds true.  Get out and enjoy some art!

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows falls firmly into the category of things I don’t think I really understand, but I’m pretty sure I like.  It’s a list of terms and definitions.  Each is a sort of poem about some feeling or situation, which the term labels.  A sort of free form modern poetic dictionary of life.  Or something like that.  Perhaps an example:

cumulostalgia

n. self-aware satisfaction with discussing the weather, which although a well-worn marker of shallow conversation thwarts the suspicion that any day now our fragmented and variegated selves will no longer overlap long enough to maintain a working definition of ‘we.’

Or:

anti-aliasing

n. -soc. psych. curiosity about the real flesh-and-blood people behind internet usernames, whose vivid individuality suggests that when our parents were tracing their fingers along our nameless faces looking for some hint of who we were to become, they really should have gone with Mr. Cookieface, Unicornpuncher, Dutchess Von Whatever, or Wookiegasm.

Or:

contact high-five

n. an innocuous touch by someone just doing their job—a barber, yoga instructor or friendly waitress—that you enjoy more than you’d like to admit, a feeling of connection so stupefyingly simple that it cheapens the power of the written word, so that by the year 2025, aspiring novelists would be better off just giving people a hug.

Intended or not, some of the best contemporary poetry I’ve read since college.

Via Kottke.

Ps – So, after writing this, I clicked the little information button at the top of the page, and it turns out the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is not only cool (and has a bit better definition of itself than what I came up with above), it’s also local, written by John Koenig of St Paul.  Adding local tag…

If you’re in Minneapolis, there’s a Nerd Party going on all this week and weekend at the old Arise Bookstore on Lyndale.  I haven’t gone to it, nor do I really know who’s putting it on, but it sounds like it could be a good time from the list of scheduled activities.

Via Boing Boing.