Below the fold

The Uptown Neighborhood News for August, 2009 has hit the streets. My friend and ace newspaper reporter, Bruce Cochran, has published a story about my bodybuilding contest at the ripe young age of 50.

The newspaper is not available on-line yet so you'll have to get a "hard" copy, as they say.

The story with picture made the front page but fortunately it is "below the fold." The large quote Bruce decided to go with was "Of course, the big question was should it go straight down or to the left?" -- Yikes!

Irony

I'm working from home this week...at least Monday and Tuesday. Going to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on Wednesday with Jenny, Brian and Julie.

Here's the irony...it is warmer in Minneapolis today than it is in Dallas! We're in mid-80's up here in the upper midwest. Dallas is a cool and misty 76 degrees.

Backyard Project - update 07/26

Only worked on the backyard on Sunday and only a few hours. It was kind of hot and I was kind of tired.

Got the rest of the day lillies out. Anyone want some? They are the standard orange ones. Some are double blossoms from Virginia.

I dug the hole for the water feature. You can just see the black water tub to the left of the oak tree.

I filled up the raised planter bed with just the grass I had already taken up and the dirt from the water feature hole. Don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of the grass and dirt to make the area level.

Pruned the red currant bush. Big big pruning. Also discovered that there were two baby currant bushes. Dug those out. One went to Amy. Anyone want the other one?

Minneapolis Aquatennial 2009

This was the final weekend of this year's Aquatennial events. I missed the sand castles and milk carton boat races. They were last weekend though I thought they were this weekend. Rose went and said it was disappointing this year.

Rose, Amy, Bunny, Loretta and I went to Chang Mai Tai to celebrate Rose's birthday. Afterwards we walked over to Girard Street between Lake and Lagoon. This big ramp with water at the top and bottom was set up.

Don't know if you can see and it is difficult to describe. But these water boarders...I called it water boarding because it was snow boards on water...were pulled down the ramp into a big pool of water. There was really only one "good" ride while we watched. It was a lot of work for a very very short ride.

Christine, Rachel and I went down to the Mississippi River to see the fireworks that are the official end of Aquatennial. I bought a new digital camera. It has a bunch of different settings. One is "fireworks" so I set the camera on my knee and took the following pictures.

Am I getting used to it

It is in the mid 90's this week and, especially today, it actually felt kind of balmy. There was just a bit of cloud cover so the sun was so intense.

I walked to and from the car without burning up and then sweating for minutes after getting indoors.

Still a temperature that would be considered very very hot in Minnesota.

Way too coincidental

Flight to Dallas this morning. Tom at the American Airlines gate bumped me to first class...very nice.

The American Airlines in-flight magazine, American Way, comes out twice per month so a new one came out on 15th. It generally has interesting articles and I like to do the Sodoku and crossword puzzles. But this issue was way too coincidental.

Yesterday, for Kay's month-past birthday she wanted to have a game of croquet. Check out the article in the American Way magazine....Man With A Mallet.

Backyard project

As many of you know my plan for the backyard is to put in a stone patio. When the big maple tree had to come down last year, it seemed like a good time to re-do the backyard.

I've put in the replacement oak tree and reshaped the perennial garden bed slightly. I've also removed the pressure-treated wood border. I didn't want to just throw away the wood so I built a raised bed where the compost used to go.

I figure there is going to be a lot of dirt from the patio area and this raised bed provides a place for all the soil. It kind of looks like a coffin and is about that size.


The hostas have all been taken out from in front of the back porch. Some went to Sari and Mather across the street. A new planting bed was dug out in front of the garage peonies and hostas were put in there.

More hostas were moved to along the north side of the house. It is technically the neighbors yard but I've been putting hostas there for a few years.

I dug out the three large stones that were the path to the perennial garden. It was amazing how much of the stones had been grown over with grass. They are a good size and really flat. Just the kind of stone I'm looking for.

You can see them in the picture to the right.

My first clematis

I bought this clematis several years ago. I had two. One died a couple of years ago and I'd never seen either bloom.

Except this year! There are two small blooms. This is picture of one near it's end. The flower is much more than an inch across but very brightly colored.




And my tiger lily is in full bloom. I have to keep it "fenced" in the Spring to keep the rabbits from eating it.
The fence is visible in background. It is now protecting the white...can't remember name...which is being eaten by the rabbits.

Enough about the heat

I know I go on and on about the heat in Dallas. But it really is kind of phenomenal. It was probably 102 when I left this evening...with a heat index around 106.

When I was driving out of the Minneapolis airport, the time and temperature said it was 66 degrees. That is a 40 degree difference!

They are predicted cooler weather next week in Dallas....the mid-90's.

Ducks and Turtles

Went to Northpark Center, Dallas, TX. A very high-end shopping mall. My boss lady needed to go to Macy's - not so high-end - to get a birthday present for her sister-in-law.

We decided to have dinner at one of the mall restaurants and ended up walking around the interior of the entire complex. It was 5,000 degrees outside so there was no thought of walking outside.

We passed this "water feature" that had real ducks and turtles. I'm not sure if you can see but the duck directly under the lamp is standing on a turtle! Does the duck want to get as close to the lamp as possible?

Busy weekend

It was a busy weekend.

Rose kindly invited me to the opening night of And When We Were Married at the Guthrie on Friday night.

Saturday, a group drove down to Cannon Falls for a canoe/paddling adventure down the Cannon River. It was an 8 mile trip and lots of fun. We saw a young bald eagle and one of its parents take flight from a tree right next to the river.

We also saw turtles and lots of ducks. There were some easy rapids to make it exciting but it was mostly a very easy paddle.

Sunday, got to meet Stella finally -- Andrea and Jason's new born. She is seven weeks old and very very cute. Andrea's mom, Kathy, was also there at breakfast at the Egg and I.

Then I met Bruce Cochran at Dunn Brothers for an interview for my local paper, The Uptown News. Bruce is doing a story on my bodybuilding competition.

Also on Sunday there was a garden intervention at Loretta's. She had gotten behind on keeping the weed trees away. Congrats to Bunny, Amy, Jackie and Linda for tackling a big project.


We went to Old Chicago afterward to relax, have a couple of beers and eat. While there my phone rang and I found out I won a $400.00 rod and reel from the community pool fundraiser in Ashland, Oregon. Alicia and Jill use the pool and funds were being raised to keep it open.

They float rubber ducks down the river in Ashland. My duck came in 5th!

And finally on Sunday, Jenny (Moose Stalker), Brian (Swims With Loons) and Julie (Eats A Lot) came over Sunday evening to discuss our Boundary Waters trip in a couple of weeks.

Now back to Dallas this morning.

Amazing degrees

It was hot, of course, in Dallas last week. One trick with driving is to open the door, stick the key in the ignition without actually getting in, and starting the car so the air conditioner gets going.

So before going to the airport on Thursday I followed the above procedures. My rental Chevy Cobalt had a temperature display. I noticed there was a 2 at the end from where I was standing outside the car. I though 102 degrees wasn't too bad.

When I got in the car, this is what I saw.

Not 102 but 112!

I figured that was the temperature because the car had been baking in the sun all day. It did cool off enough to head to the airport. The temperature display did not change. I got most of the way to the airport before it finally went down to....



And by the time I got to the rental car return, the temperature was a cool 106 degrees!

Storm over Dallas

This picture doesn't really show it but there was a rainbow all the way over downtown Dallas. Some pretty big gusts of wind, too.

24 out of 28 - a milestone

I thought I had traveled to Dallas every week this year except for three...the week before my birthday, the week of my birthday and the week of my competition. There must have been another week in there somewhere.

I have traveled, for business, 24 out of 28 weeks this year. In 2008 I traveled 24 weeks in total. We've only reached the half-way point in the year and starting next week I'll surpass all of last year's travel.

The month of July is my anniversary month. I have now traveled on the same project to the same city for two years.

Fireworks a plenty

Many thanks to JT and Linda for hosting a July 4th celebration at their home in Burnsville. JT and Linda's house is on Crystal Lake. There were boat rides and tons of food and more fireworks fired off around the lake than was possible to watch.

I was able to actually capture some on my cell phone. These are from a house about two down from our dock. They were really really close.

You can kind of see the reflection in the lake. The moon was nearly full and really lit up the night itself.


You can kind of get an idea of how close the fireworks were.


You can't see the colors in the cell phone pics.

Minnesota Friends

FRIENDS VS MINNESOTA FRIENDS

FRIENDS: Never ask for food.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Always bring the food.

FRIENDS: Will say 'hello'.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Will give you a big hug and a kiss.

FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr. and Mrs.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Call your parents Mom and Dad.

FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Cry with you.

FRIENDS: Will eat at your dinner table and leave.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Will spend hours there, talking, laughing, help you clear the table & do the dishes, then play dominoes or cards and just being together.

FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that's what the crowd is doing.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds' back-ends that left you.

FRIENDS: Would knock on your door.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, 'I'm home!'.

FRIENDS: will visit you in jail.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: will spend the night in jail with you.

FRIENDS: will visit you in the hospital when you're sick
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: will cut your grass and clean your house then come spend the night with you in the hospital and cook for you when you come home

FRIENDS: have you on speed dial
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: have your number memorized.

FRIENDS: Are for a while.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Are for life.

FRIENDS: Might ignore this.
MINNESOTA FRIENDS: Will forward this to all their Minnesota Friends and those who once lived in MINNESOTA.