President 2008

While at the MIMA Summit on Wednesday, I got to talk with Ryan Evans.  Little did I know at the time, he was running for president!

Since I’m still an undecided voter, Ryan Evans is as good as any.  His lack of political experience and ability to dodge questions is on par with any other candidate.  He takes on real topics too, like the Facebook re-design.  Plus he’s a local guy (Minneapolis) so I guess that makes him an even better choice.

If you want to check out Ryan Evans, go to www.helpryanevans.com and vote for your right to not change a thing.

It’s been one year since the 35W bridge gave way and it’s still unbelievable.

WCCO has a great retrospective on the survivors, the responders and others at the scene of the bridge collapse. Especially moving to us is the Coulter family and Paula, whom my wife use to work with.  The doctors didn’t think she’d live, let alone walk and talk.  It really goes to show you that the impossible is possible.

On Dec. 24th, 2008 the new 35W bridge will open.

To all the responders & rescue crews, the doctors & nurses, the thoughts & prayers and the construction workers bringing the bridge back to life, Thank You.

Last night (March 19th) we enjoyed Daughtry and Bon Jovi in concert at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN.

Granted our seats weren’t that close, and digital zoom isn’t the best, but I was pretty happy with my pictures.  View them all.

And the concert ROCKED!  Daughtry is awesome and Bon Jovi sings non stop.  His vocal are great yet his dance moves are corny as can be.  Still, one Wild night.

My wife and I went downtown Minneapolis today not knowing anything was going on. We did a little shopping and then had lunch. After lunch we noticed a line was forming through the shopping center. It was across the street from the Target Center and we had no idea what everyone was there for.

Taking a look around, we started to see a lot of Barack Obama stickers and shirts. Sure enough, he was coming to town. 30 minutes later, the line extended through the Minneapolis skyway system for almost three blocks.

When severe storms rolled into my hometown of Chatfield the other night, they can with a great lightning show. So, I decided to try and catch some action on my camera.

Now, I’ve tried this before and it’s not an easy task unless your camera is setup to automatically take a picture every few seconds. Mine isn’t, but I was still able to get a few great shots due to the large amount of lighting and lots of patients.

Most of my 200 pictures turned out like this:

However, I did manage to catch lightning a few times:

This is our backyard, can you tell what’s wrong with this picture?

What if I said I live in Minnesota? What if I said we are in the mist of a severe drought?

For some reason, there are parts of our lawn that are bright green and don’t dry out. Not even in a severe drought. I haven’t watered but I did have to mow today and it just doesn’t make sense. How can lawns and crops be dying across the state and parts of our backyard is alive and well!

Tonight, just after 6pm, the interstate 35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi river in Minneapolis.

Please keep those affected in your thoughts and prayers.

I once lived just a few miles from that bridge and drove it quite often. It’s hard to believe that it’s now gone.

We visited Valleyfair for the first time this weekend in about two years and tested out some of the new rides. Much to our surprise, the new wooden rollercoaster Renegade is awesome!

Now, I’m not tying to say that I thought Renegade wasn’t going to be good. It just wasn’t that tall and you didn’t look at it and say ‘wow’. It just didn’t look overly amazing. However, once we started down the first hill, we screamed our way though all the twists and turns and didn’t slow down to the very end. It was one awesome ride! Even my wife, who’s not a big fan of coasters, loved it!

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If you are in the Minneapolis area, tonight is the best fireworks show you may ever see! The annual Minneapolis Aquatennial fireworks shoot off the Hennepin Avenue bridge over the Mississippi and they are amazing.

With Target as the sponsor, you know it’s going to be good. They have 10,000 pounds of explosives and 45 miles of wire making it the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi!

Get there early though as parking and viewing spots fill up fast!  I know we’ll be there!!