Stray Hawkeye

Last we saw our dino heroes, Parker was wrapping up an Orange Bowl victory in Miami, while Sinclair was still trying to figure out where Minne the Lake Creature had gone to.  Since then, I’ve found out that for dinosaurs to live to 65 million years old, they have to hibernate for a while every now and then.  It’s a rather sporadic schedule, but if that’s what it takes to live to 65 million years old and still keep your youthful vigor, I guess you can’t complain.

Parker has woken up from his hibernation with a lot of energy and ready to go, while Sinclair has still been a bit groggy lately.  Parker has also decided to have the tattoos on his back removed, so people don’t keep confusing him with his beloved brother, who he got them in honor of.  If that none of that makes any sense, you can catch up by reading the existing posts in the Dino Saga series.

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“Good morning Parker, what are you up to?”

“Sure Parker. Are you planning to buy some art while we’re there?”

“Maybe, what does it take to buy art?”

“Just some money.”

“Oh, let me go grab mine!  I’ve been saving up!”

“Um, I don’t think so Parker.  Most places don’t take bits of string as a form of payment.  But we can still go look.”

“Okay.  Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

And out the door we went.

“You know Parker, we’re going to be doing a lot of walking today.  I know you have the energy for it, but do you think you feet will be able to hold up?”

“Hmm, you’re right, they might get sore.”

Luckily, the first place in the Uptown Art Fair is the Uptown Running Room.

“Okay, we could always order something in your size, but for today maybe Kearn can just carry you when your feet get tired.”

“Yeah, I could do that.  Thanks for trying Running Room people!”

Parker was getting anxious, “Okay, now let’s go see some art!”  So, our first stop was Daryl Harwood and Kevin Murphy‘s booth.

They make Ikebana flower bases, which have little spiked clusters in them you can put the flowers on so they’ll stand up straight, and have water.

Next, we stopped by the music stage Old Chicago had set up, which seemed strangely empty.

After Parker’s set, and three encores, we continued on, and found a Volvo dealership had set up shop at the art fair.

“Hey Parker, how do you think the ladies would like you in this old car?”

“Hmm, but Parker, can you reach the pedals?”

“Well, let’s see what else they have.”

“Parker, could you come over here and jump up real high?  I want to get your picture with the Uptown Theatre sign!”

“Kearn, all this jumping is making me hungry.  Can we go back and eat those flower stands we saw earlier?”

“No Parker, I don’t think the artists would like that very much.  But, we can see if we can find you some real food.”

“Here, let’s ask this guy if he know where we could find some food around here.”

To be continued…

Organize a 5k race.  (Or whatever distance, but preferably something short.)  Have the proceeds from the entry fees / sponsorships benefit a local GLBT advocacy group.  Encourage cross dressing and flamboyant clothing.  Name the event “The Drag Race”.

You could probably even set it up as part of Pride weekend, especially since they tend to close some streets for that anyway for parades.

A potential multiple choice question for becoming a Minneapolis Police Officer:

It’s 3 degrees out and snowing.  It has been brutally cold for several days.  While driving along a narrow residential side street in your squad car, you come across a small SUV double parked in the street.  It has signs on it that say “Auto Rescue: Tires Changed, Jump Starts, Lock Services”.  It is parked next to a small legally parked car with it’s hood open.  There are two people standing in front of the car, one holding jumper cables.  You should:

A) Park in the open spot 3 car lengths back, get out, and see if you can help jump start the car.

B) Pull up behind the SUV and put your lights on so no one hits them.  Help to direct traffic around the SUV while the one lane is blocked to keep traffic flowing.

C) Park your squad car in the middle of the street, so it will block traffic coming from both directions instead of just one.  Stay in the warm car.  Announce over your car’s speakers that the SUV driver needs to move their vehicle because they are blocking traffic.  If the stranded motorist yells back that the SUV driver is giving her a jump start, repeat over the speaker that they need to move their vehicle because they are blocking traffic.  Note that no cars have pulled up behind you, in the lane that was already blocked by the SUV, though there are 3 cars now backed up in the oncoming lane, which only you are blocking.

D) A and B.

30 seconds.  Think it over.  As I saw tonight, the answer is apparently C.  Yes, that’s right C.  And they’re lucky you didn’t give them a ticket for being double parked.  Actually, he may have, I had walked further on by that point.

While we’re ripping on the Minneapolis police, on a more serious note, we’ve had a string of at least 10 violent, armed robberies on a main bicycle/running/walking thoroughfare recently.  And the police didn’t make any statement about this until there were 10 of them.  No warnings, no reaction at all.  People I know who work at a local running store, and bike on the route in question all the time hadn’t even heard about it.  (The following bit largely echos the sentiment of this post on The Deets.)  Then the police did finally issue a warning.  And it’s every bit as absurd as one might expect.  Do they give a description of the attackers?  Not really.  Three young males, that’s about it.  What is their first bit of advice?  Tell people to avoid going out after dark.  This trail is a main route for bicycle commuters.  Dark in Minnesota in the winter comes at about 4:30pm.  The work day ends at 5:00pm.  Anyone else see an issue here?

Another bit of advice from the police: “Pay attention to your surroundings. If you see people ahead of you, that make you nervous or uncomfortable, exit the Greenway at the nearest ramp.”  Apparently the police have never been on the Greenway (which would explain a lot).  There are very, very few entry/exit points.  It’s down in a hole that used to be a rail line, with bridges over it every block.  The sides are pretty much shear brick walls at several points.  There are several places where there’s no entry/exit for a least a quarter mile, and one I can think of off the top of my head that’s closer to a half mile.  (I hate running on the Greenway for just this reason, and avoid it even when there isn’t crime for this reason.  There’s also no water stops, but that’s another rant.)

Well, at least they tell the exact location of the attacks so people know where to watch out, right?  Nope.  “…on the Midtown Greenway. They’ve occurred in both the 3rd and 5th Precincts at different locations along the trail.”  All of the Midtown Greenway that is in the city of Minneapolis is in the 3rd and 5th Precincts.  It’s 5 miles long and spans the entire city, from one side to the other:

(base map from, that’s right, the police department)

And what do people do when the police aren’t protecting them?  They organize themselves:

(video via MN Stories)

Not that a big group of bikers all biking together one time really does much.  I would think something like a “riding buddy” program would do more, so people don’t have to ride alone.

Or have a regular police patrol or something.  There’s a good 10-15 cops standing in the intersections down town “directing traffic” every night during rush hour.  And by “directing traffic”, I mean standing in the middle of busy intersections waving their arms and blowing their whistles, telling drivers to do exactly what the traffic signals are already telling them.  Absolutely, 100%, exactly what the stop lights are already doing.  Except making people more nervous because there’s a cop waving his arms and blowing a whistle that you have to drive around in addition to the usual traffic and pedestrians.  Why not put a couple of them on bikes and run them up and down the Greenway in a loop.  They might not stop anything in progress, but being there, and on bikes, would at least show a good faith effort, and allow them to respond faster so there would be a better chance of catching the people doing this.

Generally when people lose faith in the police and try to police themselves, it doesn’t end well.

Dear Batman, are you there?  It’s me.  Kearn.