Pelican on Lake Calhoun

Finally got a jog in this evening. Making my way around Lake Calhoun and see a lone pelican on Lake Calhoun.

The pelican is all white and of medium size. I've never seen a pelican on Lake Calhoun.

Spring Green, Wisconsin

Another fun road trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin. Got back later than usual yesterday, Sunday.

We stopped at Cranberry Fest in Warrens, Wisconsin. It was cran-tastic! Kind of hard to find any cranberry-based things. I have never seen so many vendor booths. The whole town is covered in booths of all different things. Just goes to show that people will buy anything.

The show this year at American Players Theatre was The Belle's Strategem. A comedy some 200 years old. Very funny. Very well done. Beautiful costumes.

The fire pit at the hotel was quite popular. In past years we've had to remind the motel to set it up. No longer. They now advertise the fire pit. Locals were actually coming to have a drink and set out by the fire.

This is definitely a trip I look forward to every year. Many many thanks to Rose for organizing the trip.

Heading home - but just for a minute

Heading home from Dallas on Friday morning. Only home long enough to exchange suitcases, give the cats their treats and clean out the litter box.

This is the annual American Players Theatre, Spring Green, Wisconsin road trip. We'll see the matinee on Saturday and head back to Minneapolis on Sunday.

Traveling this week

Back to Dallas on Monday.

I messed up my friends going to Spring Green, Wisconsin this Friday. On Tuesday last week when I checked for flights to Dallas (Mon - Thurs) the airfare was over $1,000.00. I told the project manager that I needed to come back on Thursday because Friday was a vacation day for me. I figured I would check later in the week to see if prices had gone down as they often do.

So I checked on Thursday and the same flights were now priced a little under $900.00. Then forgetting about my Friday plans I checked for early departure times. Flight leaving Minneapolis at 6am and returning Friday at 7am was priced at $384.00! Still forgetting about Friday plans to go to Spring Green, Wisconsin, I booked it.

My apologies to my friends. It is my fault we are leaving at 10:300/11:00am instead of 9:30am. Enjoy the extra hour and sleep in.

Squirrels 21; Jeffery 1

The squirrels won. They took the last apple.

I saved one that they dropped on the ground and didn't eat. I had part of one that they left behind and only ate small part.

Gonna have to come up with different strategy next year.

Some kind of record

I'm home again this week! This is some kind of record for not traveling -- 3 weeks in a row.

I've been expecting an email or another phone call from American Airlines. They have actually called me in the past when I haven't traveled for a few weeks asking me what's going on. I did get an email today asking if I wanted to try to go for Executive Platinum. That means 100,000+ miles of travel but there is no way I'm going to make that by the end of the year.

I'm appreciating my long stretch of no travel though.

Help the World

IBM has provided hardware for an effort to have personal computers all over the world assist in crunching data on diseases like AIDS and cancer and world issues such as rice production.

Follow this link to find out more: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

Oktoberfest - Old Chicago

The gang at Old Chicago for the first night of the Oktoberfest mini-tour.

There was free food and a three-piece polka band. Bunny and Rose knew a bunch of polka songs so the band loved us.

From Tic, Tac polka to polka and Apple, Peaches, Pumpkin and There's No Beer in Heaven polka to Ace is the Hardware Place (my own polka), it was fun fun fun.

"Classic!" -- twice

I went to Dunn Bros to get a coffee and take a mental break from work. Somehow I won a free beverage. As I'm walking down the street with my coffee, I realize my coffee cup has a leak. Classic!

Remember my comments about the copper tubing they used to wire the new trees along Lake Street. Well, he copper tubing is still there - renews my faith in man kind -- however, the cut down one of the trees! -- Classic!

The tree never did grow (dead) so was it stupid to wire the tree or stupid to cut it down? Now the copper tubing is tumbled on the ground.

Republican National Convention (RNC) - Gitmo

No, I didn't attend the RNC. I did finally go over to St. Paul to see Amnesty International's display of a Guantanamo (Gitmo) terrorist cell. They had the display in Denver at the Democrats' convention, too.

I was expecting to be outraged by some awful, cramped and dirty box. I wasn't. It wasn't dirty. It was small but not cramped. It was a Minnesota evening and not a hot and humid day in Cuba so that probably was not how it would really feel.

At the risk of offending at least half of the people who may read this (and I don't generally get political - at least not on my blog), I was reminded of the cell and its seclusion when the next night I listened to Senator McCain recount his story of being a prisoner of war. He talked about how much he loved his country due to his experience as a POW. I wonder if the men being held in gitmo feel the same way about their country.

Hate the squirrels

No matter how funny the squirrel was at my neighbor's walking up the ladder, I still hate them.

Of my four lonely apples left, they stole one of them. I'm down to three apples on my new tree.

Hate 'em!

Pedestrian's rights

I've commented a few times how much I like my neighborhood and walking to stores, restaurants and just walking. But it is getting more and more treacherous to do so.

If it isn't a driver completely ignoring me crossing the street while they are turning right into me. Or a bicyclist riding down the sidewalk when there are very clear signs not to. Or drivers and bicyclist who ignore stop signs...it is defensive walking all the time now.

Home this week - lack of blog entries

I'm home again this week. I really thought I'd be asked to go to Dallas....but I didn't.

The project continues to be a rough one. I ended up working quite a bit this weekend. And because of all the work I don't much feel like doing other computer stuff like creating blog entries.

I'll try to caught up on here this week.

Minnesota State Fair

I made it to the State Fair this year. It has been awhile since I've gone.

Christine, Kay and I drove to a park and ride in St. Paul. We got to the Fair around 3:30 I think. First stop was the dairy building to see the Princesses butter heads. There was one in progress. First food - a black berry sundae....yum.

I'm not going to remember everything. The weather was beautiful. Here's the food list:
black berry sundae
chocolate covered Belgium waffle on a stick
elk meatballs with mashed potatoes (very very good) with a beer
kettle corn (very fresh and oh so good)
fresh roasted corn on the cob (double yum)
chocolate covered bacon (actually very good)
beer

Here we are after the second beer:

Quick location update

I'm home this week. Short week because of Labor Day holiday. And I'm kind of restricted in travel to Dallas, Texas because of some IRS rules concerning working in one location that isn't your normal tax jurisdiction for more than a year.