Another Project Decades in the Making

Here is another project that has been decades in the making. The back story...

My oldest brother died of AIDS in 1990. Prior to his death, the AIDS pandemic was ravaging the gay community. In response the Names Project was started. In 1988 there was an enormous display of the Names Project Quilts in Washington, DC. I was living in DC at the time and attended.

Flash forward to my brother living with AIDS in Hollywood, California, in the late 80's. After working a couple of times in Minneapolis, I went to Hollywood to help take care of my brother. After he died in January 1990, I moved permanently to Minneapolis on an offer of work at the Guthrie Theater.

Garland Wright, Guthrie Artistic Director, always made sure that staff had the 3rd Sunday in May off in order to participate in the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP) Walk to raise funds and awareness of the AIDS pandemic.

I eventually was asked to chair MAP's AIDS Walk Committee. The t-shirts you see here are from years of volunteer work and the center is the Names Project Washington, DC event.

With this no-sew blanket, I discovered I could work on it in my lap. This was a huge help to my knees and back. I assembled and cut it on the floor but once it was ready for knotting, I could sit on the sofa with it in my lap and knot away.

This blanket is half the size of the theater blanket and went lots faster with the experience of the first under my belt.

In search of Spring

It has been a slow-to-come Spring here in Minnesota. The temperatures have been well below normal and the snow and wind have been insane.

But I was determined to find some Spring so headed to the Minneapolis Park system. Started at Theodore Wirth Park and the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.

Deer do not really qualify as Spring signs but the three I saw were very relaxed and a nice sign of life.

The heron rookery at Marshall Terrace along the Mississippi River was amazing.

There are so many herons nesting on two small islands that it was nearly unbelievable that this exists within the city.

I put together a video using a new editor, ClipChamp. Here is the link.

Cozumel March 2022

 

After boasting about getting these posts and videos out faster, I've procrastinated on this one. 

Cozumel with friends Bud and Dave. Also got to meet up with friends Adrienne and Shirley. And all the people I've met over the years (decades) of visiting the island of Cozumel.

This video does really cover this trip, click here. Best viewed landscape.

And the underwater photos are with my little Olympus Tough digital camera.

Forty Years in the Making

Most of you know that I had a career in the theater before my over 20 years in Information Technology. 

I was introduced to theater when I was in junior high school thanks to an amazing teacher, Carol Tomlinson, who I am lucky to still be in touch with via Facebook. 

The finished blanket

I also can vividly recall seeing Julie Harris in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" at the Kennedy Center when I was in junior high. That production and performance convinced me to pursue a career in the theater. I was also immensely fortunate to meet Ms. Harris and actually become acquaintances with her over the span of several years.

My theater career had an enormous impact on my life. The primary reason I live in Minneapolis is because of theater.

So I finally constructed this t-shirt blanket with t-shirts from my theater life from college to The Guthrie. Why I say 40 years in the making is because the college t-shirts are over 40 years old!

I owe the construction of this mostly to YouTube vloggers. You can find everything on YouTube. 

This is a no-sew blanket. The t-shirts are tied (knotted) together and the fleece back is attached using a no-sew/no-tie method.

The start with the t-shirts cut up

T-shirts tied and using no-tie technique for border

Retirement Trip 3 - Costa Rica

I think my video production is getting better. At least it is getting quicker. Click here for link to the video montage.

I had a few days between trips this time. Got back from the Palm Springs road trip on a Friday night. Departed for Costa Rica the following Tuesday.

It took about 12 hours and 3 different flights to arrive in my final destination: Quepos, Costa Rica. It wasn't too bad. I got a bit concerned in San Jose, Costa Rica with the time it took to get through passport control. I did not have the recommended 1 1/2 hours between arrival and departure. Fortunately the domestic terminal is an easy walk from the international terminal.

The metal detector at San Jose security was cranked because for the first time my shoulder replacement device dinged the detector. My Spanish is not good enough for me to try to describe why the detector kept going off. Pretty much everyone in Costa Rica speaks really good English though.

The mountain jumper flight from San Jose to Quepos is actually worth the price. It is a quick 1/2 hour flight, they give you beer, and the views are fantastic.

I stayed about 1.5 miles out of Quepos. While water in the form of a pool or river would have been nice, it was very close to a nature preserve and butterfly refuge. Y'all know how much I like nature.

I got to see three species of monkeys just by walking down the road. There were awesome plants, a friendly dog, a bamboo operation, and more.

I also so blue morpho butterflies simply enjoying the sunlight. If you don't know what they look like, click the link on their name.

The trip is pretty well covered in the video. If you ever get the chance to go, I recommend taking a tour at least on your first visit. I did back in 2015 and learned so much that really helped on this trip. You can see my blog posts from the 2015 trip by clicking here.

Let me know if you want to hear more details.

Road Trip (Palm Springs to Minneapolis-St. Paul)

Retirement trip number two. Home for less than 24 hours from Door County, Wisconsin, and hopped on a plane to fly to Palm Springs, California.

Friend Dave had spent the month of January (snowbird) in warm, sunny Palm Springs. He asked if I would join him on a road trip back to Minnesota.

From cold to desert to cold in a week!

Spent a day in Palm Springs hiking. Dave had been doing a lot of adventuring and shared some of his favorite treks with me. We did three hikes in one day!

We did not plan a definite route or timeframe back to Minnesota but I needed to get back by Saturday as I was scheduled to work at the hardware store on Sunday. The only sure thing was that Dave wanted to visit a friend and cousins in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

A major winter storm was forecast to pass right between us in Palm Springs and Minneapolis-St. Paul so we were going to have to be flexible as the storm's path kept being revised. We ended up going north through Colorado rather than east through Oklahoma/Kansas.

As is my custom now, I put together a video montage of the trip. It is available by clicking here.

A short recap and itinerary (though I won't guarantee my memory is serving me correctly):

• departed Palm Springs Monday, 01/31
• departed Santa Fe, New Mexico Thursday, 02/03
• departed Colby, Kansas Friday, 02/04
• arrived in Minneapolis-St. Paul Friday 02/04

We were successful in missing the winter storm. I love driving across parts of the United States. There is so much diversity. And with each season there are different things to see and do.

DIY - condo style

Living in a condo has greatly scaled down my DIY projects. That was intentional. So this project is small but one I've had on the short list for a while.

In my kitchen, there is only one lower cabinet other than under the sink area. It was sort of setup for pots and pans but wasn't very efficient or convenient for holding them or getting them in and out.

Of course, the solution was found on Amazon: a two-level pullout shelf system. It arrived in less than a week.

This photo is the before with my trusty assistant who appears to be laying down on the job. Maggie was super good at blocking any of the work that had to happen inside the cabinet :-)

The parts

The instructions said to be sure to align the center of the template to the center of the cabinet. The problem was that the template didn't have a center line.

I can measure and I can do math but it would have been way more simple if the template had a center line.

The other hiccup was the base (the part with the sliders) also did not have a center line. Measuring inside the cabinet was not simple.

As you can see, I did get everything assembled and working. Now the pots, pans and even lids are easy to reach.

My assistant ended up in her house while papa used the drill.