Planet Walt

Home Tour...one week later

This time last week we were in the thick of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour. The website currently says "Check back here soon for statistics from the Minneapolis & Saint Paul Home Tour April 26-27, ’08." We had 379 visitors, which is on the low end for a house, I think. Hopefully the overall Home Tour numbers were high.

Home Tour day 2

174 people came through our house on the second day of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour. Total number of visitors: 379. Now it's time to pass out until the morning....

Home Tour Day 1

205 people came through our house on the first day of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour. I went to bed this morning at 1:30 AM (after cleaning until 1:00 AM), then got up at 7:30 AM to prepare for the 10:00 AM opening. Now at 7:30 PM the adrenaline is gone.

Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour

If in the Twin Cities tomorrow (April 26) or Sunday (April 27) check out the Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour!

MSP Home Tour

In three weeks V and I will be on the Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour. We are also on Home Tour TV (segment 3). The Tour itself should be a piece of cake after doing all the photo/video shoots....

street observation I

Thursday on campus I watched a guy put up flyers that advertised student jobs. Each flyer had multiple tear-off contact info slips at the bottom, and the guy tore off the left-hand slip on each flyer. I suppose he did this to create the impression that at least one student was interested in the opportunity, but he should have torn off slips randomly, don't you think? A left-hand missing slip here, a middle slip missing there, a right-hand missing slip way over there.... This (non)pattern is much less suspect than slips missing in the same place on each flyer, I think.

Target at The Quarry

I just discovered that the Target at Minneapolis' Quarry shopping center is being expanded. I hope that it doesn't become a SuperTarget, which are insanely huge: items that you need are never close to each other, so you are forced to wander around searching for stuff....

first snow

This morning I looked out the window and saw some stuff floating past. "Hey," I grumbled, "I thought all of the leaves were down?" A closer look revealed that the stuff was snow flurries, the first of the season! Time to unpack snow shovels and ice scrapers....

Midtown Greenway bike bridge

Yesterday I forgot to go over to the grand opening of the new Midtown Greenway bike bridge. Dang!

bad movie theater design

Back in January the owners of the AMC Rosedale 14 admitted that its outdoor ticket office was a bad idea. I rolled past the theater this weekend and saw that construction on an enclosure has begun.

historic neighborhood destrict

My neighborhood of Prospect Park is seeking national historic district status on the National Register of Historic Places. This process has attracted the attention of the U of M student newspaper.

Ghostbox definition 2

I just learned that the title word of my memoir has multiple definitions. A ghostbox can also be an abandoned big-box store. Interesting.

bridge collapse

As you no doubt know, yesterday the I-35W bridge collapsed over the Mississippi River here in Minneapolis. Today I viewed the wreckage from a pedestrian bridge that crosses the highway not far from the river. The empty highway was eerily silent, and a lone white car clinging to the southern side was...I can't even describe it. See the second photo (labled "From University Avenue") on Lost Forest After Dark.

Stern Grove

Earlier in the week I was in San Francisco, and discovered a cool natural oasis in the midst of the dense built environment: Stern Grove. I visited it on Monday, one day after the weekly Sunday concert in the Stern Grove Festival. I'm tempted to fly back out later this month to catch one of the concerts! If only I had a private jet....

Gold Medal Park

On Wednesday Minneapolis opened Gold Medal Park. I went to check it out yesterday. It's very cool in the day, but might be even more stunning at night. Well, at least the twilight photos look great; I'll go back this weekend to see for myself.

a good mess??

Possessing a neat house may be an over-rated goal, claims an article in today's Star Tribune. That's blasphemy!!

first use of Go-To Card

Last Friday I posted a note about getting my Go-To card. I used it for the first time today, and it appears that there will be some permanent bugs in the system. When I first used the card it worked fine right out of the gate when boarding the train to the Mall of America, but on my return trip I got a "card read error" message, and then the machine read the card. Just before exiting the Lake St. station, though, when checking my account balance I had to get through seveal read failures before the amount was displayed. Oh well, I'm still glad to have my card!

Go-To Card in hand!

After an almost 4-year delay, I finally have my Go-To Card, which I bought downtown today after lunch. I didn't get to test it yet, though, as I had the car. I'll use my new card this weekend....

Madison's State Street

Late last week (Thursday through Saturday) I was at the University of Wisconsin for a conference. I was able to walk down State Street several times. That is one cool strip!

house lemonade

Yesterday I noticed a drip in my kitchen's ceiling, which turned out to be a broken drain pipe from the bathroom sink directly above. While my contractor and I were tearing out part of the ceiling to investigate things I said, "well, this will be a good time to install a range vent hood since we now have this channel for the exhaust duct work." Yes, I like to make lemonade out of busted-up lemons.

Go-To card test

I can't believe that I missed an opportunity to participate in the latest public test of the Go-To card system. Metro Transit says that the mass release of the cards is "coming soon," but I've heard that for almost four years now. I just hope that the latest bus violence doesn't cause a significant additional delay....

inventing the city street

This morning I learned about the development of the city street system. Interesting stuff!

new pedestrian bridge

I just learned that next year a pedestrian bridge will be built to span a highway that cuts through the Midtown Greenway. (For even more info, click here). The bridge design is very cool; I can hardly wait to bike it!

bus shoot-out

Last night a guy was shot at a downtown bus stop. The story does not say which bus routes were involved, though. I thought about hopping on the #16 last night to go downtown; I wonder if that was one of the routes!?!

UMore Park community

One of the proposals for The U's UMore Park is to develop it into a visionary planned community. That would really be a key to Transforming the U!

urban racoons

At the tail end of a major home renovation, there are 3 trash bags in the yard behind my house. This morning a hole was poked in one, and some leftover food pulled out. Another bag had the top untied, but nothing was missing. My contractor thinks that some racoons are the culprits. I can buy that with bag #1 (with the hole), but these critters can untie a knot?!? Damn!

light rail accident

Yesterday there was another accident on Minneapolis' light rail line. Be careful, people!

the endless bridge

Yesterday I experienced the Guthrie Theater's Endless Bridge. Wow!

go-to card in September?

Last week V heard that Metro Transit's Go-To Card will finally be available to the general public in September. I hope so, but I won't hold my breath, as the full rollout is two years late.

light rail vs. bus

A proposed light rail line on the Central Corridor between Minneapolis and St. Paul will be slower than current express highway bus service, according to a new study. Yeah, but speed is not everything!

Empire of Care

Just before my achilles tendon surgery on Tuesday, two nurses were discussing how lucky Americans are to have great medical facilities instead of the scarcities experienced in the Philippines (one Filipina nurse had just returned from a trip there). I started to tell them to check out Empire of Care to read about how more than "luck" is involved, but since they were about to pump me full of drugs I figured that I should keep my mouth shut....

Nicholson Hall

I just walked through recently renovated Nicholson Hall, which looks amazing. I think I've found my new favorite building on campus....

home milk delivery

This morning a truck labeled "MILK MAN" rolled down my street. Wow, I thought that home milk delivery was as extinct as wood tennis racquets. Seeing the truck brought back memories of the 70s, when my Dad would put a banged-up red cooler by the door the night before deliveries, and I would wake up early to try to spy on the milk man inserting ice-cold glass (!) bottles. In all the years of trying, though, I only saw him once or twice....

preparing for winter

It's that time of year again: winter in Minneapolis! The first snow storm of the season is predicted for tomorrow, along with low temps in the teens. So today I went around the house closing all the storm windows, and last weekend we cleaned out the gutters to cut down on ice dam growth. Gutter cleaning and storm window closing time are the only days of the year when I wish I still lived in an apartment....

the Hi vs. BART

I'm sitting at a computer in San Francisco's Hotel Vitale at 1:45 AM PST (3:45 Central time... to which my body is still synched). Why am I doing this? I'm all worked up that I had to waste $40 on a cab because I missed the last BART train from the airport into town. It left at 11:45; I got to the station at 12:30. I can NOT believe that a major international city has a crappier subway schedule than a system in "fly-over land": Minneapolis' Hiawatha line runs 'till 1:00 AM. Sad....

PDA subway maps

The map above is of the BART subway system in San Francisco, posted to iPod Subway Maps. I don't have an iPod, but I'm gonna put the SF map in my WiFi-enabled Sony PDA for a trip that starts tomorrow. BART also has the map on its website, which includes a wireless PDA section that I'll also play with when I arrive. Isn't technology fun?!

suburban dreams/new urbanism

I live in a 93 year-old house in the Minneapolis neighborhood of Prospect Park. Every once in a blue moon I wish I lived in a new house in a new suburban subdivision, one where I'd be long gone by the time house repairs are due, like today's replacement of a dead hot water heater. Wait a minute, I just remembered that one doesn't have to give up all the quirks and charms of city life for a new house, s/he can opt for New Urbanism-inspired developments like Minneapolis' Heritage Park or The ATL's Glenwood Park. Cool. I, however, will stick with 90 year-old+ houses for now. There's just something about them that can't be replicated in new construction....

open house

Yesterday I went to an open house for a large commercial property in my 'hood, 2929 University Ave, owned by Prospect Park Properties. The building used to be the headquarters for Kemps Ice Cream, but now is being renovated into a multiple use facility. The highlight of the tour: a walk through the 15,000 square foot freezer where ice cream was formerly stored. It would make a great setting for a horror movie, with its burnt out lights, large puddles of murky water (I think that the power had been off for a few weeks prior), and creaky/rusty chains swinging around. Several of the leasing agents thought I was there scouting out a business location vs. being a curious neighbor, so maybe I should set up an appointment and pretend to be a Hollywood location scout? Hhhmmm.

I want my Go-To Card!

Today I took the Minneapolis Light Rail train to check out a new place for lunch, and almost had to use my credit card to pay the fare, 'cause I forgot that the cost of a ride went up 25 cents. I left with $1.25 in my pocket (plus a twenty in my wallet), but found another quarter in my bag for the $1.50 fare. Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to just swipe the Go-To Card, which is a year overdue. Hurry up, Metro Transit!

walking across the Mississippi

This weekend I was at a cabin in Nevis, MN with friends and family. On Saturday we went to Lake Itasca, which is the source of the Mississippi River. At the point where the river starts as a shallow stream, one can walk across a series of rocks from one bank to the other. Of course, this is an artificially created experience, but it's fun to walk across the headwaters!

Twin Cities hidden places

The latest TV commercial in the "searching for Mr. Goodwrench" ad series is supposedly set in Minneapolis-St.Paul, but there is a mountain range in the background. Since moving to the Twin Cities in 1999 I have never spotted any mountains, but today I rolled over to St. Paul to look for some. No luck with that, but I did discover a cool hidden neighborhood in the Summit Hill area. I'm calling it "hidden" because I've driven past one of Summit Avenue's unnamed side streets (it actually looks more like an alley) hundreds of times, but today followed it down a steep hill to a few houses that are barely visible through dense foliage. I've got to get some more 411 on this place!

good, bad, and ugly on the Hi

Riding the Hi (Minneapolis' Light Rail system) was very eventful today. I'll break observations into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good: At each station are several interactive audio/visual art kiosks, but the ones I find are usually either broken or play stories that are irrelevant to life in the Twin Cities (for example, a piece about fog rolling in to San Francisco). At the 38th St. station two of three kiosks were busted, but the third played a nice story about a promotion at a 1984 MN Twins baseball game: one could win a car by landing a paper airplane through the sunroof; after only a dozen or so planes from the thousands launched from the stands reached the field, the author jumped down, ran to the car, and slam-dunked his plane in.

The Bad: Two transit cops harrassed a young bearded guy who appeared to be of Middle Eastern ethnicity. Wait, make that three officers, as backup was called in. For twenty minutes they went through his bag, examined several types of ID, and asked a steady stream of questions before turning him over to a G-man in an unmarked car (who interrogated him for at least another 25 minutes; was ongoing when I split). His crime? Taking pictures as the train rolled out of downtown. Did the Po-Po take a White guy off who was doing the exact same thing?! Frell no. Gotta love the Patriot Act!

The Ugly: After turning the "terrorist suspect" over to the government official, the cops turned their attention to pre-9/11 usual suspects: pulled a Latino and a Brotha off the next train and frisked them both before issuing citations. Another great day in the U.S.A....

real estate on the web

One year ago today I closed on my current house. When searching for stuff in January and February of 2004 I used Edina Realty's search engine. They've recently added a "Radius Search," which allows the user to very narrowly target properties around a desired location. Cool, but they will really be the shits if they can figure out a way to help folks use tools like this to fight redlining.

Minneapolis has a YellowArrow!

Someone has posted the first Minneapolis YellowArrow. In my neighborhood of Prospect Park there is a grass maze at the corner of Franklin and Bedford. When the snow melts I'll have to go over and slap up the city's second YellowArrow....

intrigue on The Hi

Last week something unusual happened on The Hi (Minneapolis' light rail train): the police removed an abandoned mountain bike and bookbag. I must admit, when the officer rummaged around in the bag I got nervous: "what if the bag was intentionally left and will release some kind of toxin when touched!?" One of the episodes of the CBS show Numb3rs contained a storyline of a mad scientist releasing a virus on a public bus. Maybe I need to quit watching that show...

sushi in the snow

Last week Minneapolis received its first significant snow storm of winter '05, piling up about 7 inches. Yesterday, however, we lost a lot of it, as the afternoon high temp was 45 (!). At 1:00 yesterday I ate lunch (sushi from Byerly's) on the front porch. Some say that one becomes a true Minnesotan the first time s/he complains about being hot on a 20 degree day following several sub-zero ones, but maybe that should be amended to lounging outside in the 40s with an open coat and no hat or gloves....

Parking for The Hi

So far when I ride The Hi I usually bike from my office to the Cedar/Riverside station. Now that it's getting cold out (6 degrees today) I'll drive to a station and park. Last week and today I parked at the new Lake St. station parking lots . The smaller, closer lot was about half full today, but the bigger one was almost deserted when I used it last week...even though only a slightly longer walk is required to access it. I don't think that Minnesotans were scared off by an extra minute or two in the cold; but slushing through an unpaved lot is another matter. I know that Metro Transit is running short on cash money, but what were they thinking?!? That lot's gonna be empty until May....

Target store design

Yesterday I popped in to a Target that I've never been in before, and after wandering around for 10 minutes looking for lint traps, gave up and went home. I have often noticed that each Target has a slightly different layout but never gave it much thought until the ride home, when it suddenly struck me that maybe Target does this by design vs. idiosyncracies of each store manager. The reason? If a shopper is not in his/her normal Target they have to seach for items and during this time may see other stuff to add to the list, so end up buying more than they intended. Wow, are Capitalists really that ingenious, or was it my Triskaidekaphobia in operation yesterday, December 13?

Riding the Hi (part 2)

On Saturday Minneapolis' light rail system opened a new segment, serving the airport and the Mall-O (Mall Of America). Yesterday I rode the Hiawatha line to check out its 5 new stations, despite the objections of my grrrrl Connie ("Why don't you wait till you actually have to go to the airport or mall?"). Now being the fan of light rail that I am I've got to check it out while the paint's fresh, right?!

Of the 5 new stations, only one (Airport-Lindbergh Terminal) was really interesting, maybe because it's unique in that it's the only one that's underground, like my favorite Atlanta MARTA station, Peachtree Center. MARTA, by the way, is an acronym for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, but suburbanites call if "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta." One of them must have been on a trip to The Twin Cities yesterday, as before siting next to me a White woman asked (a bit nervously), "Is anyone sitting here? Can I sit down?" The proper etiquette is to just sit, or -- if someone is sitting on the aisle and the window seat is open -- say "move before I put my foot in yo' ass, fool!" Try it next time you're on the bus or Hi....

Bring Yellow Arrow to MSP!

Yellowarrow. [noun] A Collective symbol for personal communication. [verb] To leave and discover messages pointing out what counts.

Yellowarrow.org is a movement active in several cities...but not Minneapolis/St. Paul! We've got to get it going here....

Here's an example of what one could post:

Advice to new arrivals looking for housing: This sunroom looks enticing at first glance, but make sure it has a heating source, otherwise only Frosty the Snowman will enjoy it when winter rolls in....

Riding the Hi

Last week I took a couple of pictures of the art work at the 38th St. station of the Minneapolis Light Rail system (Hiawatha line):

All of the stations are supposed to reflect the character of the surrounding neighborhoods. 38th St. station is in my old 'hood, Longfellow, known for its Arts and Crafts style architecture. I think that this roof sculpture fits in with that theme!

Check out an article about LRT stations as places, featuring the 38th St. station.