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.

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.

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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!!

No, Google is not opening up an office here just yet, but over at the Technology Evangelist they have a convincing argument going on.

Their thought is that Google should move into the Ford plant in St. Paul. Why?

• Well first of all it’s a large plot of land in the middle of the Twin Cities. It’s hard to find this kind of land in such a big city. Plenty of room for the volleyball courts and such.
• It also comes with its own hydroelectric dam which can help keep energy costs down, power search servers or Google Dances for days.

We’ve always known that Prince is from the Minneapolis area. More specifically Chanhassen. But where exactly?

This conversation was sparked by the Superbowl performance. After watching the half time show, the questions popped back into our heads. Since we live in the same general area, I want to know.

So I headed off to Google do do a few searches and found out.

I feel like I’m on a tour of the Midwest. We left out Minneapolis home on Friday and traveled to Iowa City for my wife’s family Christmas. It was a great time and we had lots of good food. As soon as that was over we drove back to Minneapolis and I hopped a plain to Chicago. I’m here for SES (Search Engine Strategies) and it should be a good conference.

So, if I don’t get back to your blog comments, form posts or email in the next few days, you’ll know why.

On Friday September 8th, 2006 American Idol is coming to Minneapolis’s Target Center! Get your voice in gear and then get a place in line!

If you can’t wait that long, you can get a guaranteed audition by visiting the Brookdale center on August 5th and 12th. There whey will be doing auditions and awarding passes that will make sure American Idol hears you.

I’m not sure what kind of zoo all the crazed wanna-be’s will make, but I’m sure it will be fun!

I’ll see you all on TV!