Recently in Minneapolis Category

In order of deliciousness:

1. Gizmo Sandwich
2. Peach-glazed pig cheeks
3. Mini donuts
4. 1919 Rootbeer
5. Fry Dog
6. Pronto pup
7. Cotton Candy
8. Tornado potato

Buy it (or look at the other 49 states)

This morning the driver (mid 20s rich kid daddy's boy type: the kind you see shirtless listening to Jay-Z and with a backwards baseball cap) of that car hit me while I was riding my bike to work on Lyndale and 32nd. It wasn't really that big of a deal, he really just clipped my elbow, but it kind of pissed me off. I was just going to yell at him and go on with my life. It was actually the second time in a couple of minutes that I had had a close call with a vehicle, but in the case of the earlier one, the driver parked a block ahead of me and I stopped to let her know that it's dangerous to drive that close to a cyclist. She apologized and I wished her a good day and left, no harm done. That had me feeling pretty good; you don't normally get to calmly talk to these people and have them calmly respond. Anyway, this guy hits me, and drives off. I caught up with him at the next stoplight, and I slapped the side of his car so he'd be paying attention when I yelled at him to "watch where yer going, willya?". I turned the corner and went into an alley so I wouldn't get hit again.

So the dude chases me down 32nd St and throws his sports drink at me, and nails my chainstays. Then he speeds off. Sounds like somebody needs to grow a pair. KZA 439. Hopefully somebody will pee on his car.

I have my vacation this week. We don't have any money because we still haven't sold the house, so we went to Milwaukee for a couple of days and slept on Elizabeth's floor in Bayview. When you drive through Milwaukee (as I often have), it looks pretty much like a more industrial version of St Paul. Having spent a couple of days (there's really only a handful of small neighborhoods worth checking out), I'd have to say that I can't imagine a city more the complete opposite of the Twin Cities.

Milwaukee almost has a skyscraper. The Twin Cities are littered with them. Between skyscrapers we have a lot of surface parking lots (and the ugliest building ever, Block E). Downtown Milwaukee was almost completely filled with old 5-8 story buildings that had been kept in great shape.

The neighborhoods we spent the most time in, Bayview and Eastside, have narrow lots for the mostly single family homes, so that they were often only a couple of feet from each other. Maybe three feet on one side and six on the other for a shared walkway to the backyard. Houses in Minneapolis's urban core are so far apart it could be Eden Prairie. The houses were only setback about 15 feet, which just makes your neighborhood look that much more coherant. Minneapolis's streets feel like highways in comparison. Kinnickinnic St in Mke curved through Bayview, but it wasn't the only street with retail. There are galleries and shops a couple of blocks over and people actually spend time away from the main drag. It had narrow lanes and people actually drive between 25-30, without any traffic to speak of. There are no parking problems either. There weren't many bicycles, but there were a lot of bicycle lanes. I saw a lot of freds on sunday morning. The roads are at least as unkempt as Twin Cities roads.

For a city that prides itself on it's beer and sausages, the offerings at Miller Park are disappointing at best. The darkest beer I could find was an amber lager. The famous sausages that race each other turn out to be lukewarm little half-inch-thick weenies with a soggy bun squeezed tight around it. Nothing like our dome dog.

As you can see, Twin Cities are Cream City's evil twin.

We ate breakfast at Hi-Fi in Bayview - awesome egg sandwiches. Lunch at Cubanita's downtown - incredible cuban sandwiches and pretty inexpensive. LuLu Cafe for dinner - pretty good, I'd recommend it. That reminds me of a small difference between the cities. There are still way more natural food coops in Milwaukee than you'll find in your average American city, but they're not quite as nice as ours (It is, admittedly, tough to beat the Wedge). We stopped at one in Madison on the way back, and that one was up to snuff. They make up for it by selling beer. We got Furthermore IPA brewed with black pepper. Mmmmmmm. Neat labels, too. They have it at Surdyk's and Blue Max. Also a New Glarus cherry thing.

On the way back we stopped at the Weary Traveller in Madison. Good prices, we just had a drink and coffee with Jon (who may be moving back to Minneapolis - sweet). I ordered a "Lake Louie" IPA that was just delicious.

I thought that after a few days out of town, I'd come back and not be so constantly disappointed by Minneapolis. Now it's even worse. We got beat by Milwaukee.

Ugh. Aren't we finished with sandstone in this damn city yet? At least it's outdoors and they didn't waste our money on a $100 million roof that might be used a handful of times per year. Perhaps it should be noted that the extra millions don't include climate control, so if similar weather to last week's cold spell (that was worse in most of the country, including Texas) came up we'd all be sitting in 25° F temperatures with a roof over our head (blocking the warmth from the sun? maybe). Now, I may be strongly grouped with the tax and spend crowd, but there's no way that's a good investment. $500 million for a public trust, good urban design, and a cultural institution in one shot is a good idea. $100 million for a roof that will not keep anybody warm, will stop about 4 games per year from being rained out, and will hang out over the next block like Mr Burns' sun blocking apparatus (or the stupid library) is ridiculous.

Do they have outfield wall dimensions posted anywhere? [Update: They do.] It's not quite as small as it looks. Those 40 feet concourses are going to be enormous. What's with the knot holes?

Ramon Ortiz is awesome. It makes me feel smart when my baseball predictions from January are still true after one week of the season.

I'm going to see the Brewers and Astros in Milwaukee next week. Sweet.

Here's Craig Finn doing Take me out to the ball game (video), and it's better than Boys and Girls in America

It's snowing today, and, while it made for a very nice ride home tonight, it's probably going to bring out the complainers (aka Minnesotans) regarding the new Twins stadium. It's as if people here think it actually doesn't precipitate anywhere but Minnesota. A whole season of rainouts (or snowouts) is still better than an indoor stadium.

The best part of snow in April, especially a week after an 75° day, is when funny people show how little they actually understand about the idea of climate change. On the one hand you've got pretend hippies complaining about an 75° day in March because all they can think about is coal exhaust instead of just enjoying a nice spring day, and on the other hand, you've got people who also can't think for themselves yammering about a little bit of snow in Minnesota in early spring just proves that there hasn't been an increase of greenhouse gases because of humans and their machinery (did I mention that it's Minnesota?). I just shake my head and wonder about these people. Then, I complain about it on my blog.

Regarding the Twins radio home, I love the new Gluek scoreboard, but I hate the horrible reception of the new radio station. Normally, poor reception on 1500 AM is something I'm not to worried about because it just means fewer people can hear the right wing Ahmadinejad wackos (somehow only the third most extreme station in the local market), but now we're stuck with them for Twins games. And without Herb.

Today I was on call at work. I normally do four hours on the 115, which is an express route from the University of Minnesota to Uptown and Kingfield. This week the university is on spring break, so the work was cut, and I'm on call for that time. Today I was sitting there reading a book, a guy I went to high school with walks up. He works there now. He turned in a week ago. Scuzzie from high school. Crazy.

And now for the opinion: Saint Paul is so much better than Minneapolis that it hurts. Minneapolis still has no idea. No longer 'Second City', Saint Paul has they're act together. They're narrowing streets, filling in parking lots, attracting businesses and turning into a cold Portland, OR. Minneapolis is removing crosswalks, widening streets, pushing automobile ownership, and turning into a cold Kansas City.

I just hope we can someday sell the damn wiener house (clarification: it's a nice house, it's just a damn wiener because 1] it hasn't sold yet and 2] "damn wiener" is a hilarious adjective that I use for everything, especially the kid) and move there.

I love the new ballpark plan. Not only is it great from a baseball point of view, it's great from an urban planning perspective. Take out everything about baseball, millionaires, public subsidy, referendums, and what you've got is somebody finally realizing that they nearly ruined the Warehouse District with their Interstate building and surfact parking lots. I view it as not only an apology, but also as a sign they're going to put us right again.

Now to the baseball. I'm hoping those mockups are true to the real deal. TC logos instead of those ugly M's is just the tip of the iceberg. Anybody else notice the complete lack of foul territory? And that looks like a short fence down the left field line. Looks to me like somebody's planning of keeping their left-handed power pitchers for awhile and giving their boys a shot at 30 homeruns for the first time in twenty years. I love the asymmetrical outfield fence. That's some character. It'll be a nice centerfield to watch Torii Hunter make his highlight reel catches seven games per year in his Red Sox jersey. I'll also like being able to watch the game while in line for hotdogs and beer. I'm excited. The best part is there's no retractible roof. When I come to Minneapolis to visit familiy and friends in 2010 from my new home in Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, or Portland, we'll definately go to a game.

[Via Twins Official Site (complete with new pics)]

We got a new tree as a gift from the city on Saturday. We even got a tree-loving DVD on how to care for it. As much as I think that anybody who has ever carried any power at all in Minneapolis in the last fifty years wouldn't know what to do with a city even if it was written in an easy to read book and read to them, I have to admit that the city of Minneapolis does trees better than anywhere.

Anybody else notice that two of Tapes 'n Tapes to Tour, Get Hyped 'n Hyped I like the band just fine, but the hype is ridiculous.