Condo

It looks like there's a good chance I'm going to be moving into my very own condo this fall. Once it's all firmed up, I'll give you the dets.

Strange Craigslist Posting of the Day

good looking 35 year old male needs a private backyard for sunbathing
2006-07-22, 3:59PM CDT

Straight, athletic good looking male, 35 years old. Needs a private backyard to sunbathe nude. Non-sexual. I live in the Burnsville area.

Continental fires pilot removed from flight on suspicion of intoxication

HOUSTON — Continental Airlines says it has fired a pilot who was removed from a flight after another employee smelled alcohol on his breath.

The captain was riding to the terminal with another worker on Sunday, getting ready for a flight from Houston to Tampa, Fla. It was his first flight of the day.

He was taken off the airplane before passengers boarded. Continental says the pilot tested above the legal limit for alcohol for pilots.

UMMM, he was above the legal limit for alcohol for pilots? Is the legal limit not ZERO?

M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A!

Gophersports.com has been upgraded - lots of changes to make it look more 2006 than 1998. Nice work, whoever runs that site.

There's an updated 2006 Gopher FB schedule available - complete with a few game times / TV coverage dets filled in. Homecoming is late (Nov) and the game is slated for 2:30PM! Yipee! Mark your Saturdays and start figuring out where to tailgate b/c every lot has been filled in with a condo since last year!



UPDATE: I reposted the schedule because even more game times have been added to the site in the last 2 weeks...

Schnucks Employee Charged in Store Stabbings

JULY 24, 2006 -- LAKELAND, Tenn.

A knife-wielding employee of a Schnuck's supermarket here attacked eight co-workers Friday, seriously injuring five before a witness who pulled a gun was able to stop him. The attacker stabbed seven people -- two of who remained hospitalized as of Saturday -- while another victim suffered heat-related symptoms after being chased in the store's parking lot. Elartrice Ingram, 21, who was on duty in the seafood department when he allegedly began to attack the other employees, was charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder, according to local police.

The attacks apparently stemmed from a work dispute, the police said. Of the incident, Schnucks spokeswoman Lori Willis told Progressive Grocer "The suspect in this incident had not been terminated, nor was he the subject of any disciplinary action."

No customers were attacked in the rampage, which started shortly before 10 a.m. in an employee area of Schnucks' Stonebridge Store, located at 9025 Highway 64 in Lakeland on the outskirts of Memphis. Ingram chased one victim into the store's parking lot, where he was subdued by Chris Cope, manager of a financial services office in the same small shopping center, according to Memphis police officials.

Police recovered two large knives at the scene that were allegedly used in the attacks. Six store associates, including the suspect, were treated at the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center at The Med, while three others with less serious injuries were taken to St. Francis-Bartlett, according to Willis.

What is the strangest thing about this article? Your choice:

• Employee attacked with knives.
• A witness was able to end the attack by pulling out his gun.
• Those injured were brought to the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center at The Med.

The "I've been craving patent" new shoes

Wild Weekend

Pictures from the soccer game on Friday night and

downtown fun on Saturday night have been posted.

Definition of selflessness

Planning a super fun event I can't even attend. Hope y'all enjoy. Go Twinkies!

Word of the day

Paradox. Standing is more tiring than walking.

Which would you rather?

Have to fill in letter verification before you can publish your comment on the blog, or have no verification and then have assholes add their spam comments to every post?

Attention MADD

Last night we were drinking at the Drunken Elf (real name: Happy Gnome) and decided we'd head back to the West Side to Stella's (not the greatest decision but that's a whole 'nother story). I was asked if I could drive us back, and when giving a resounding "NO", got laughed at. Not because I failed to want to drive, but because most people asked if they can drive, slur "Oh yeah, I'm ottally fine".

Alicia is then asked if she can drive, and, again, a solid "NO" is the answer, as if this is the silliest question eva. We giggled, then decided MADD should spin this situation into a anti-drinking and driving ad campaign, based on the idea that it's cool to admit that after 5 beers you shouldn't drive.

PS Missy's answer, "Oh yeah, I'm good to go" helped get us back to Mpls, and proved she was from WI where no one ever says "No" when handed car keys.

UPDATE: Around 11am we got rolling outta Uptown, picked up Alicia, and headed to pick up her car. Except we drove to freaking St. Paul to pick up her car, not realizing our mistake till we pulled into the Happy Gnome. Her car was parked on 31st and Hennepin, less than a dozen blocks from her house. We obviously all had the dumbs.

S is for Solera

BREAKING NEWS

Suspect sought in United Prairie Bank robbery
July 19, 2006

JACKSON - An undisclosed amount of cash was taken by a man during a robbery Tuesday morning at United Prairie Bank.

At 10:21 a.m., police were notified of the robbery. No one was injured.

The suspect was described as a Caucasian man in his mid-30's, 5-foot-10 to 5-11 tall and 220-230 pounds. He was wearing a baby blue baseball cap with a colored stripe on the bill of the cap. He had a pull-over long-sleeve white shirt with wide pinstripes and blue jeans. The suspect had dark hair and a closely trimmed go-tee and sideburns and was wearing sunglasses.

The suspect gave the teller a note stating that he had a gun, although a gun was never shown. It's not known if a vehicle was involved. The suspect walked into the bank and walked away following the robbery.

Surveillance footage from United Prairie Bank show the suspect in Tuesday's robbery.

Kent Bargfrede, president of United Prairie Bank, said employees implemented what they had learned in training in dealing with such a situation.

Authorities canvassed the downtown area talking with businesspeople and checking alleys and unfamiliar vehicles. The Jackson Police Department, Jackson County Sheriff's Office and Minnesota State Patrol responded to the scene.

According to the latest information, the FBI indicated they would be in Jackson on Thursday.
The bank was closed, but the drive-thru and walk-up services reopened at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. The main lobby remained closed Tuesday afternoon, but will open for normal business Wednesday.

If anyone saw anything that may aid in the investigation, contact the Jackson Police Department, or the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

Been there, done that?

I've found a few fun things to do and wanted to know if anyone else has been?

Riverview Cafe and Wine Bar 42nd Ave S. Mpls - wine bar got a GREAT review

Finnegan's Events - they host / sponsor a lot of stuff - join the email list

Patina Outlet! - only open once in a while - last weekend they were open but another opening hasn't been announced - again, signup for the newsletter to get notification

Chicago spells beer G-O-O-S-E

A couple of notes about how to get your beer on in Chicago:

Join the Chicago Beer Society - or just attend their events!

Tour the Goose Island Brewery - $5 tours offered every Sun afternoon at 3pm. MMM beer.

I hate Rupert but

I really do love MySpace. I'm a late bloomer on MySpace, but it's quite fun. I still have minimal interest in fancying up my page, but it's quite fun to stalk people to be my friend.

My secondary interest is looking at people from my HS I wouldn't be friends with b/c I wasn't friends with them in HS, but I like to see what they're up to IF I can recognize them through a layer of fat they've gained (I'm sure they're thinking the same about me, too). I've found a couple of girls that appear to be on Prednisone they're so puffy but I doubt that's the case (if it is I'm a bad person).

My tertiary interest in myspace is playing HS English teacher and silently reprimanding people's grammar and spelling while reading their profile. I'm judgy like a cat.

You might be a nerd if...

you think it would be fun to read about about the interstate system in America. This Mpls Public Library article talks about the impact of Eisenhower's decision to create the interstate system, and suggests books on the topic. I'm requesting at least one - but can't decide which looks best. Your thoughts?

PS Think for 2 seconds about the impact of Eisenhower's push for the interstate system. What has Bush done for us lately?

Frequent reads

The Frequent Flyer Crier newsletter is one of my favorites - they seem to alert me of news and promotions the carriers are slow/unwilling to share with me. I usually ONLY read the newsletter, but checked out their website, which share this list of titles of books related to flying & frequent flyer miles. I'm adding them to my list of books to request from the library.

Ta Da

Never in the history of my blog have I posted pix from a night out to my blog as quickly as you're seeing right now. Yipee.

Last night we went to The Times to meet Rachelle and her crew for drinks as part of their movie and drinks themed evening, then headed to meet Nate and friends at a mini NE bar tour. I took only 6 pictures during the course of the evening and felt that each deserved to be posted here to give you an idea of the night.

Unfortunately, pix didn't start getting taken till after we left The Times, and I failed to get a team pictures (very unlike me) so I could've and should've taken more pix, but what are you going to do...

Nate's nipples

Captain of the Crew Rachelle

Greenies at Tony Jaro's
(note the poorly executed "cute" face I'm going for)

The 2 men on either side of this woman were both rubbing her ass but decided to stop RIGHT when I snapped this photo

Nate didn't briefly blink his eyes closed for this shot - he full out had his eyes shut for a while leading up to this picture being taken at Psycho Suzie's

Apparently I've never used or noticed the bathrooms at Psycho Suzie's -
left says Chicks, right says Dicks. At 2:08am, this was flippin hilarious.

Memories of the night, in no particular order:

• Alicia got to tell the dumb Americans get their passports stamped in Iceland story
• We discussed good names (Adam) bad names (Jon with no h)
• Muck's cousin Nathan (whose actual job title is Assistant Scientist) is super fun
• Nate sent a text alerting me that my "black friends" had arrived at his mini bar tour
• I met a GMI sales girl that #1 knew 1/2 Dorey brothers and #2 is moving to Philly and I tried to give her advice on what neighborhood to move into without using any actual neighborhood names, just using scenes from Rocky to describe the different neighborhoods
• ONCE AGAIN Nate ended the evening by Houdini-ing the bar but does get a bonus point for answering his phone when called and somewhat coherently describing his current location
• Greenies are good - and cheap - and when they close at 1am (good to know) the waitress will yell "Drink muthafucka" at you till you down your Greenie and get kicked out
• Rachelle's friends are super nice and super fun and if you wink at Tom, you can get taxied home
  
• I learned that literally EVERYONE (Julie, my sister, Rachelle's PhD friend Laurent) that I've met that lives in Loring Park lives in the building with the Dunn Bros
• There is a bar in Mpls named Laura's - must track down friend of a friend John for the dets (guess what my xmas card picture will be of for 2006???)
• Joe C and I agreed to text each other more often to hopefully spur more fun nights of hanging out
  

Finally, I have to tell you that I have met my best new friend / new best friend Rachelle. Clearly I'm exagerating when I give this her this title, but it is justified by the fact that she and I are seriously creepily alike:

• We each do a "pink" load of laundry - as opposed to normal people's dark, light, white, etc. classifications of laundry
• We avoid showering daily only b/c it's a lot of work - and sometimes our friends call us out and ask us to shower more
• We are both obsessed with sending Christmas cards and postcards
• UDPATE - I forgot that we both have the same shower curtain. Considering it's a map of the world, it stands out as being a little quirky.
  
• A couple more things probably not mom read blog appropriate

In a surprise move, Rachelle and I had a sleepover last night at my apartment since I have A/C and she doesn't and it minimized the # of stops our "cab" had to make. We made pizza, drank lots of H20 to rehydrate, and stayed up and talked and looked at photo albums till 4 in the morning. Strange, but true.

R is for Red Dragon, Rudolph's

I don't think words would do justice to the night - these pix are self explanatory.

"Important" Issue - Your Opinion Needed

My mom has the opportunity to tour the Michelin Tire Plant in Des Moines next week. She's skipping it b/c she "can't think of anything less interesting".

I would LOVE to tour a tire plan; Alicia concurred. Our thinking is that we have NO idea how tires are made and it'd be cool to check it out.

To my mom's point, I LOVE brewery tours because the process is interesting AND the end product is yummy, but just because I can't drink a tire doesn't mean it's not a fun tour.

Chicago Price War Alert

Alicia and I figured out it's cheaper to go to Amy's bach party in Chicago by flying than driving. About $125 for gas, instead I spent $98 on my ticket, Alicia used 15,000 United miles to get there. Yipee!

So if you're planning on going to Chicago for a weekend trip between mid-Aug and the first weekend in Dec look at Orbitz for tickets NOW - there's a major price war going on and here's your alert so you don't miss it.

Not on My Space but

My cousin Adam isn't on MySpace that I can find, but he is featured on the West Point Cadets website. The stats on his Class of 2008 are v. impressive, damn people that go to West Point are smarties.

Or are they actually dumb for wanting to go to West Point? Hmmm...

Things change, and that's the way it is.

For y'all using RSS, I wanted to give you a heads up that I made some changes to my blog styling - I was planning on doing a major template change but couldn't find one I liked. I did add some peeps to my blogrolls on the R side - check it.

I love you David Wright

Clearly, I'm not the only girl in America to see David Wright play tonight and get a crush on him. The sad thing is that he was born in 1982, but I won't let that hold me back.

He is funny (there was a profile of him featured during the game and he did an interview after he hit a homerun in tonight's game), plays 3rd base for the Mets, and is from Virgina. He also has at least 3 brothers. That's all I know so far, but let the stalking begin.

Best NEWS eva

Want to shape up? Try sleeping in -- a growing body of research that points to sleep as a key player in hunger and appetite control.

Yipee! Yeah! Woo hoo!

Solera movies

I knew that Solera did movies on their roofdeck - but didn't realize they did this many! They begin at dusk, are free, and feature drink specials (and cancelled if raining) - all good things in my mind...

Check out the schedule for the rest of this year:


There are seriously 5-6 movies I'd love to go see - I'm gone for all Aug shows except the first weekend music store shows but am around for the rest. It'll be fun - who wants to go?

You put the Mentos in the Diet Coke...

and shake it all around. You've seen all the "instructional videos" about the new summer pastime to create rockets using Mentos and Diet Coke. We talked about this in the lunchroom on Wednesday, and decided to try it out on Thursday afternoon at work.

Starring in our experiment is co-worker Doug, left, playing with the mentos, head of the office Steve, the "helper" in the middle, and co-worker Rob at right surveying the landscape.


We had 7 bottles of Diet Coke in total, so lots of opportunities to try out the experiment. The first time, Doug learned once you put the Mentos in the bottle, it blows up v. quickly. I learned I was videoing portrait instead of landscape.

By the 5th attempt, Doug got down the process of getting the Mentos in the bottle and getting the cap on realquick and then doing lots of shaking (including some dancing/shaking). My thought is the more shaking, the better the rocket launches. We also decided throwing the bottle against a rock in the rocky dirt pile behind our building was a good idea. You can see we didn't quite have the hang of it.

Finally though, we got our rocket in the air. From the sound of it, you can tell it was VERY exciting.

Marriage Proposal Trends in Kewaunee County

Luxemburg (hometown of Tim), Kewaunee (hometown of Missy), and Manitowoc (hometown of Angela Holschbach) are ALL mentioned in this article about a "corny" way in which a Luxemburg man proposed to his girlfriend. There's even a video clip at the link!

Who thinks Tim will know who this guy is? I do.

Questionable - I dislike LA and Philly is blah

American Cities That Best Fit You::

70% Philadelphia

70% San Francisco

65% Los Angeles

65% Washington, DC

60% Chicago

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

I love Zach Braff (it's like I'm Mandy Moore)

Zach Braff is starring in a new movie - the trailer was before Devil Wears Prada. You can see the full trailer on YouTube. It looks super fun and opens September 15, mark your calendar.

PS Why doesn't Star Magazine give us more Zach and Mandy???

Gay news

1. This Travelocity.co.uk tv ad is about 3 years old so it isn't exactly news - but the cheeky British humor is great.

2. Did you see the news research finds your sexual orientation is determined before birth? And here's the deal: the more older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay. Here's the theory behind the biological process:

"A woman's body may see a male foetus as 'foreign'", he says, "prompting an immune reaction which may grow progressively stronger with each male child. The antibodies created may affect the developing male brain."

Considering my two main gays both have older brothers, I'll buy the theory...

Strange Craigslist posting of the day

Pirates of the Caribbean Party!

Date: 2006-07-03, 9:29PM CDT

I am new to the area and really need to meet new cool people, so I want to host a Pirates of the Caribbean party, dress as a pirate best costume wins a prize type thing, watch the First one on DVD, then go to the movie type thing:)
I could use some help, and would love anyone man, women, single couple. whatever, 35 to say 35 young professional types to come.

Really could use some help setting it up if anyone is interested.

Let me know:)

Fancy

I love this holder for your iPod earphones - and it's award winning!

Sumajin's smartwrap stereo earphone cord manager, Smartwrap, winner of ID magazine's Design Distinction award, is a cord manager for portable stereo earphones. Smartwrap is easy to use and is designed for cords of ipods ,mini ipods, most Mp3 players and the standard walkman.

And it's only $5!!! plus $5/order for shipping and handling. Anyone want to get in on an order?

or iPod the baby

This iPod themed onesie makes me giggle.

If you know me...

you'll know that a chart like this makes me the happiest girl in the world.










Now, if only there was a chart like this only including US cities in addition to this nice and tidy world chart...

1950 Populations

Matt Flores had told me that at one point, St. Louis was one of the largest cities in the US. I couldn't remember the year, but figured it was in the 1860-1910 range b/c that's when people were headed west. PS Is that when people headed west??? I can't really be sure if that estimate is right or way off.

Anyway, I looked up Census data and St. Louis peaked in 1910, when it was 4th largest after NYC, Chicago, and Philly.

I thought 1950 data was especially interesting, think about this:

#1 NYC
#2 Chicago
#3 Philly
#4 LA
#5 Detroit
#6 Baltimore
#7 Cleveland
#8 St. Louis
#9 DC
#10 Boston

Granted, this is based on population in city limits, not in the metro area - which I think is usually more meaningful.

Text inbox?

This girl posted a list of text messages in her inbox/sent folders, and it's quite funny. Just think of all the funny things sitting in your inbox right now - almost always funny.

Cost of Living - Quality of Life

I'm guessing you saw the news that Moscow leapfrogged Tokyo as the city with the highest cost of living in the world. US cities in the top 50 included:

#10 NYC
#29 LA
#34 SF
#38 Chicago
#39 Miami
#43 White Plains, NY

A more fun list I believe is the Quality of Life sister survey, where the following US cities landed in the top 50:

#27 Honolulu
#28 SF
#36 Boston
#41 (tie) DC
#41 (tie) Chicago
#43 Portland, OR
#46 NYC
#47 Seattle
#48 Lexington, KY
#49 (tie) Pittsburgh
#49 (tie) Winston-Salem, NC

Full rankings for the world for both surveys can be found here. As usual, I've linked to the methodology of the survey so Kerry can determine if it's bunk or not :) Look at a sample report for Geneva and all the stuff they price out to look at cost of living!!!

Nice work NWA

I chucked when I found out this story involved an NWA flight - they always seem to be at the wrong end of public relations issues. This is what happened on a LAX-Hawaii flight in December:

Tizol (a Guatamalan man who doesn't speak English) paced the aisles of the Dec. 9 Northwest Airlines flight bound for Honolulu from Los Angeles and didn't return to his seat when flight attendants yelled at him in English. At one point, passengers heard Tizol use a Spanish word they thought sounded like "baby" and believed he was going to strangle a 3-year-old on the plane. When he headed toward the first-class bathroom near the cockpit, at least four passengers tackled him. Tizol had accidentally spilled water, drenching his clothes and seat, and was walking around because he was wet, the attorney said.

I'd say this incident was more passanger paranoia than NWA error (assuming "baby" is a cognate between English and Spanish, and then assuming he was going to strangle a toddler - good lord people).

However, you'd think at least 1 person on a jet could speak half-ass Spanish enough to figure out the senor poured agua on his pantaloines...

Earn a Literary Latte!!!

I LOVE the Seattle Library's Adult Summer Reading Program. You get to read a few books, turn in your sheet, and earn a $4 Starbucks card. How fun that they do an ADULT program :)

An unwelcome invasion

I am SO SICK of one Taylor Hicks invading my living room with his freaking Ford Model Closeout ugly dancing. Can't wait till he is a has-been and outta the spotlight.

City of Festivals

Did you know how many festivals Milwaukee hosts annually? Loads, including:

Polish Fest June 23-25
Festa Italiana July 20-23
German Fest July 28-30
African World Festival Ausut 4-6
Arab World Festival August 11-13
Irish Fest August 17-20
Mexican Fiesta August 25-27
Indian Summer September 8-10

I knew the city's nickname was City of Festivals, but wowsers, they really live up to it!

July 3 - PTO or co holiday?

I'm taking an informal survey to see if people's companies give them Monday, July 3 as a company holiday, if people are working (like me), or if you're taking it as a PTO. My friend Natalie #1 has it as a company holiday (per her out of office reply), Alicia has a company holiday... what about the rest of y'all?

UPDATE: Today is not so productive at work... This article makes me think companies should just give people the day off and make us muy happy rather than having a somewhat unproductive day for workers who do work today...

With the July Fourth holiday falling on Tuesday this year, today will be an orphan workday for many people who can't take the day off. Although other national holidays are usually moved to the nearest Monday, Independence Day is always observed on July 4. And while some companies are giving their employees an extra day off, many other people who do have to work might not be as productive as usual. Some may be a little out of sorts, knowing they're stuck on the job while friends or relatives are at backyard barbecues. Workplace experts say that it might not entirely be their fault that they're less productive -- a lot of tasks require collaboration and many co-workers, customers and other business associates won't be there.

"By and far, the American work ethic and the productivity consciousness still leads the world, so the fact that we have a day that may not be as productive as every other Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, I think that that's not so daunting," Paul Sanchez, the director of organizational research at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, said. "It's not a threat to the entire economy."

Knocked up?

If so, chances are this is the gift you'd get from me (unless you're not hot). I just found this on Cafe Press, where you can find this and loads of other funny, cute, and inappropriate onesies and bibs for babies. It's no "Baby, Mix Me a Drink" but I thought it was fun w/out being offensive.

I like him even more...

I've always been a fan of Kevin Spacey because of his acting. However, after seeing him on The Daily Show on Thursday night, I'm an even bigger fan.

Did you know he's been living in London for the last 3 1/2 years? And one thing he loves is the perspective on the news about America that he gets living in the UK. AKA American news is crap.

He also informed me that you can get The Daily Show in Europe on the Intn'l CNN channel. Good to know.

Am I right?

I saw this Tag Heuer ad in a magazine and initially thought it was Jonathan Antin from Blowout featured in the ad. Nope, turns out it's Jeff Gordon.

But as you can see below, the two look similar enough to be confused.

Above: NASCAR Jeff -- Below: Stylist Jonathan