Did Summer Make an Appearance?

Yesterday it hit 70 degrees here.  Mother nature is one crazy dame.  I'm sure we'll pay for it one way or another.  We put Makita's "environment" together last night.  Patio furniture, canopy and fire pit is ready to rock and roll.  It looks a little weird with no leaves on the trees.  We were going to finish my garage stairs but Makita got called to a grass fire (they're already pretty bad...we need rain).

Oopsie Stairsie

Big problem in my garage.  The stairs to the attic broke.  Ooooppps.  We're trying to put in new ones.  It's like the blind leading the blind on this.  You would be repulsed to hear us.  Every word in the book, combined with some occational yelling outbursts and a few Ouch's, as we insure ourselves.  Hopefully it's completed tonight.  Needed to go buy some shims and a new saw blade (don't ask).

Bob's Back in USA

I'm very happy to report that Bob has made it back to Minnesota save and sound and to stay! 

Whistle Booger

Let me play you a tune

Caribou Coffee

Love the coffee.  Hate the new logo.  I'm not sure what happened to the caribou but now it looks like an African Indian Warrior or something.  What was wrong with the woodsy one?

I also love dollar Mondays at Caribou.  Nummy nummy! For $2.00 you can get yourself a medium hot chai.  Then you can forget to put the collar thingee on the cup and walk home.  Without the collar thingee you receive second degree burns.  You could change hands if you weren't carrying a bag of groceries in the other hand.  You would actually have to stop, put down the bag, switch coffee hands and then pick the bag back up.  Too much messing around.  Don't worry.  I have ice on it now.

Fire in NE Brainerd

Makita (a Firefighter) had an "incident" in the yard tonight.  He must have been distracted by the WCHA Hockey Championship or maybe the PBR RE-RUN.  He put our super duper nice cast aluminum fry pan that Ellie and Dave bought us on the gas grill with a bunch of oil in it in an attempt to prepare to fry fish.  Well after lighting the grill to heat up the oil, he forgot to go back and check it.  It got hot.  It got really really hot.  It burst into flames.  Bottomline, I had to go online and order a new pan.  It's cremated. 

Be Prepared

Yesterday afternoon Makita rolled back into town after two days of Irish Drunkenness (aka St. Patrick's Day celebration) in St. Paul. He barely hit town and he had to go to Wadena to fix something at the radio stations there. I was worried he wouldn't make it back for our pre-planned outing of "Little Italy" night at the American Legion.

About 5:30 he called and said he was 25 minutes out. I decided I could use a little exercise prior to gorging myself with pasta, so I told him I was going to take a stroll toward the Legion which is in downtown Brainerd. So off I went.

I don't know what I was thinking but I didn't bring an "ear-brassiere" to cover my ears. The wind is howling and by the time I hiked a half a mile I have an ear ache and can't feel my face nor my earlobes anymore.

I also neglected to bring any Kleenex. Before long I have a serious snot problem. I believe if I could have felt my face I would have felt a steady stream of snot running down it.

At one point it starts to rain. This may have been a snot washing blessing in disguise. Although it didn't mix well with the hairspray I had sprayed on to what now is a rats nest of a hairdo.

I walk down cemetery hill. Nice and quiet. Walk up the other side. Burning calfs, freezing ears, snot faced and crazy hair'd. Then came a ray of light. The cutest little dog you ever did see being lead on a leash by what looks to be a nice young man. I'm a huge sucker for dogs. As they approach I start talking doggie (baby) talk to the little guy. The doggie lets me pet him. The doggie's daddy is terrified of me. Probably thought I was going to ask him for some money which he would decline to give me because he would suspect all I would do with it is buy more alcohol.

I made it all the way to Stella's house and was about to go beg for her to let me in but then here came Makita. He offered me a Hardee's napkin to clean off my face….must have been bad.

The Italian food at the Legion was good. The swelling of my ears went down after a horrible bout of red throbbing. So let this be a lesson, be prepared. I believe that's why they made backpacks.

This and That

St. Patrick's went by with little celebration.  I went to the Brainerd History Group monthly gathering.  We toured the old Carnegie Library Building on N 7th St. on Washington St.  Interestingly, all of the original paperwork starting in 1902 and leading up to its completion in 1905 followed all of the owners since its closing some 20 years ago, and is still there. This includes the first letter sent to Andrew Carnegie to solicit for funding and the corresponding responses, architect's bids, lists of building materials and costs, and more. One can find the signature of all of the who's-who of Brainerd of the day.

After that snoozer Stella and I went to the Log Cabin to grab a bite.  We were aiming for some corn beef and cabbage but struck out.  We were quite bluntly told "we've been out of that for hours".  Fine.  But in full Irish tradition I did have a black and tan.

I (with the help of Nick Alleman and Makita) finally secured an electrician today to change the electrical from 100 to 200 amp service in my house.  It's WOW expensive.  I may need to sell lemonade in the driveway at lunch time to help supplement that project.  I suppose there's permits and hermits and kermits and such that will need to be pulled for the city of "I HATE BACKWARDS BRAINERD" (notice I renamed it).  I'm thinking Baxter is looking more and more attractive.  Oh sure they're taxes are higher but they're future forward thinkers.  Not stuck in the past (old fart council - get a grip).  The only job left in Brainerd is working for the City of Brainerd and they're getting rid of most of those jobs.  But I digress.

Happy St. Patricks Day

Life Without the Internet

Who would have thought that we would become so dependent on the internet? Probably just about everyone. We’ve become very dependent on it, not unlike like the automobile, electricity and the telephone (kids, that was a thing we had wired in the house to place and receive phone calls).

So here I sit, an hour into my work day and without the internet. I’ve taken up writing as an optional career, just in case the internet never comes back and I’m not able to work at the job I would usually do.

I have to say it’s very hard not to go bizerck waiting. Bizerck, by the way, isn’t in the spell check of Word. Well it shows its spelled wrong but it won’t show the correct spelling. If I had internet I would Google the word and Google would ask me “Did you Mean Bezerk?” or whatever it is.

I just checked again to see if it’s still out. It is.  What shall I do with this idle time?

I can’t read the paper because I’ve elected to read it online each day instead of physically receive it.

I can’t pay my bills because I do that online as well.

Internet is rather expensive too. I have Charter (I thought they filed bankruptcy…I’d check that out on the internet if I had internet right now). If you bundle Charter internet with what amounts to basic cable, it runs me about $120 per month. That seems high to me. I use the internet all day long while I’m working, so that’s probably worth it. But you can’t just buy internet. You have to buy the digital cable to get high speed internet. So then I find myself watching the TV because I’m paying for it. This may be contributing to my weight problem. I wonder if I could sue Charter for making me fat. Other people have tried to sue the fast food franchise for making them fat.

Still no internet….. arrrrrrr.

I have a group of radio stations in Marshall MN that are schedule to work with me 25 minutes from now. I typically would use the internet to tap into their computer so I can see what they are doing. We’re kind of in crunch time on this project also. I wonder if I could drive there faster then the Charter service guys get this fixed. If I had to guess, Marshall is probably 4 hours away.

I just went and updated my Facebook using my cell phone (kids, you’re familiar. It’s for texting). That’s very interesting. The cell phone has internet but the house doesn’t.

It’s still out. I called Charter again. They kindly told me in English and thank God, Spanish that they are having trouble in the area. I better call Marshall.

Well Marshall is on stand by and I’ve started painting my nails.

Can”t type very good now. Don’t want to mess up nails.

Calling Charter again. It’s been over two hours now. I’m evolving from bizerck to cry baby. Whaaaaaaaaa. Stomping…ranting…crying. Same darn message.

Here’s insanity. The freak’n TV works. Maybe I’ll have to watch it and eat something and get fatter. Bastards.

You may have noticed I’m getting more and more hostile.

Maybe I should go for a walk or something. No wait … a fellow trainer called me and wanted me to look up something on the internet. Good grief. More crying.

Eat a pickle and watered a plant. Still no internet.

Holy Hannah…finally it’s back! 2 and a half hours later.  Well life is back to normal.  Gotta run.  I have things to surf.

Crosslake St. Patrick's Parade

Saturday we went up to the St. Patricks Parade in Crosslake and marched with the radio stations.  You can't believe all the people that show up to watch.  It was a fairly nice day.  No sun but temps in the 40's.

I'm handing candy out, mainly to little kids but sometimes the teenagers think they're little kids.

Makita and Linda Andrews are ready to march.

Danny Wild and Makita.

Mac attaked the Budweiser truck.

There's Always Some Idiot That Ruins Your Photo

Famous Food Fest Judge

Minnesotians are famous for finding things to do to  make winter go a little bit faster.  This past weekend it was the Gull Lake Frozen Fore.Stella asked us to help out and be judges at the Food Fest on Sunday.  She didn't have to twist my arm.  We sampled five soups and five entrees and picked one winner in each of the two groups.  I was stuffed!  There was some really good food!

The weather was out of this world.  We're out maybe about a quarter mile on Gull Lake and it's so bright and sunny you could hardly see.

This guy brought his red baron, beer drinking mutt.

Iditarod Starts this Upcoming Weekend

You can follow all the action at http://www.iditarod.com/

I can't find where or if there's going to be any television coverage yet, but I'll keep looking. 

And FYI: it's on the bucket list to be in Nome one day to see the first team finish.

Winter Camping in Thor

Winter camping at Thor was a blast.  Saturday we went up to Dave and Ellie's place in Thor.

During the afternoon Dave, Makita and I went out in the woods on snowshoes hunting for a "poke-a-pine".  We found sign but never found the dirty bastard himself.

Oops...somebody fell down!

Ellie stayed behind, sat by the fire and read her book.  She seemed very relaxed.

Nikki is a bad dog.  She thought my shoulder was her chair.  Kept her paws out of the snow.

Maggie is a good dog.  She took a little nap in Dave's bunk.

In celebration of Ellie's birthday we had a little toast.

Ellie and I enjoying the fire by night.

The fellas also enjoyed the fire (in the fire ring and in their bellies).