The Plow Man Comith

Lastnight Megan and I saw "9" in wich humanity has been wiped out by robots, save for a few rag-doll creations who are tormented by the self replicating evil robot brain. It was based off a great short film by the same name, that you can watch here.

So big mechanical apocalyptic robots chasing small little creatures around and trying to eat them.

Then, later on we encountered one of the downsides of our apartment perch. Sure nice men from the city of St. Paul (I think) with huge machinery will come and plow your sidewalk for you for free. But, you don't get to decide when they do it! at 12:00 they rumbled in, with a huge plow, a little bobcat, and a few plow trucks to clear off the bus stop and corners. They would draaaaaaaaaaaaag their shovels over the pavement and BANG them down again, shaking the whole building! Needless to say, we thought that the giant robots had come to smash our house down and eat us. I shot some video of their work, which was quite interesting to watch.

1 Year on University

Where were we one year ago? Well here of course! The anticipation was killing us. The U-Haul transmission nearly exploded on 35 driving north so it was 35 mph on the shoulder with smoke pouring out the back. School was still going in full swing, Smidgen had her weird eye problem, and the Ham Lake fire was about to start. I had not heard that Macalester was hiring. Winnie was still having anxiety problems. 

Now it is a year later and we are much more settled and secure with lots of questions answered, and more yet to be. Winnie loves it here and we do too. We are looking forward to another summer and the end of the school year. I can't wait to see what another year brings! 

One more year

We renewed our lease for the loft for another year! I guess it's about time to get around to painting the place, huh?

Winnie says it's starting to smell like spring....

Rock Tenn is on fire!

Our neighbor Rock-Tenn Recycling is currently on fire. I was on my way home which takes me along its east side and saw lots of flashing lights and lots of steam/smoke. Well that's normal because the place always looks like its on fire but just then on the radio I hear that its a 2 alarm fire.

So, our neighborhood smells like you would expect when you burn 100 tons of wet cardboard. Kinda gross.







EDIT by Megan: Here's a photo I took of Rock-Tenn in October. Like Chris said, it sort of always looks like it's on fire.

Extreme co-op-ing

Today Megan and I took the training course to become certified Co-op volunteers! Now our organic fair-trade hemp byproduct granola hippie sandals are 15% off! Kidding aside, I have grown very fond of our co-op and found out that it is the only co-op left in the metro area that runs on volunteers since the recent shutdown of North Country Co-Op in Minneapolis. Our lesson tonight gets us the discount and the exclusive blue card for this month. I am signed up to cook on Wednesday morning and that will take care of December.

Megan and I have been trying to seek out as much locally grown food as we can lately, mostly from Minnesota and Wisconsin. We are not that strict but this summer we ate lots of corn and tomatoes, and now things are moving on to potatoes, yams, and squash. It is really very interesting to watch what changes in your diet with the slight restriction of what we see as normal - having anything we could ever want whenever we want it. Ironically it makes you try new things. Like yesterday we had Kale instead of mixed greens and it was great! And today I saw the local cranberries were in and got excited because it was something new. Never mind the 20 lbs of apples hiding in the back of the fridge. Living where we live in the concrete jungle the seasons can kind of slip by if you let them. But if you are eating tamari covered pumpkin seeds and curry with stewed onions and yams you can't forget! We will see how we do when real winter gets here and "local" will be Florida, but it has been going good so far.

And as for why we are doing this, that might have to wait for another post but eating local just keeps coming up as one of the best things to do if you want to live a low impact life, and improve the economy around us. The food is also fresher and tastier in my experience, since they can harvest it closer to when it needs to be on the shelf rather than calculate long shipping time and spoilage.

One more note, today is our six month anniversary of moving into our dream-come-true apartment. That seems like no time at all, but then Northfield feels like a lifetime away too! Things take time, but we are definitely settling in here well.

The Power!

We have been getting constantly high electric bills since moving in, and in doing some research I found that we are using above the average electrical usage for Xcel. They say average is 650 kWh, High is 1,000 kWh - and our last bill was 820 kWh. For a 940 sq foot apartment.

We have turned the temp up to 78 all the time, instead of 74 when home/ 78 when away. That saved 95 kWh so obviously AC is a huge draw. But what else could run things up that high?

I went to the Xcel energy analyzer page, and they estimate that pr year AC should cost $40, lighting should cost $66, the refrigerator should cost $60, the stove is $67, and all other is $140. That is $373. Our monthly bill have been around $100 since we moved in.

Having never owned a home, or seen an electric bill before (our landlord just told us in northfield, and that included electric heat and water) I have a feeling that this is a rip off.

There is also a addition on our bill for a $.035 pr kWh"Adjustment factor" that really kicks the bill into high gear. Looking at the Xcel page again, 100% wind power is an adjustment of $.0113 kWh! So what kind of super fuel are we using?

To complicate things, our bill comes from "CONSrve" billing that just is a middle man for Xcel. They have no web page for us, just for apartment landlords and such.

So what gives? What do you pay for electric?

National Night Out

Yesterday was National Night Out and another get together on the rooftop deck. Mostly the same characters as usual but we got to meet a few more of our neighbors. Megan came late and missed the obligatory hot dogs but did catch the watermelon. It was fun!

Not much blogging from me as of late, I guess things are in the middle of the lazy days of summer. Brother Cletus was in town last weekend and got to visit the apartment, and the next day it was a snuggle fest with Aria. Here is a photo of her adoring uncles. She is getting big! I also managed to feed her almost all of her dinner. She wanted to feed her self already too, grabbing the spoon and shoving it in her mouth. You have to be careful she doesn't eat too much of it!

I am also wrapping up my time at St. Olaf. I just have about six more days left! Now I am training in my replacement and wraping up some loose ends. Thats just 600 miles of driving to go. The Volvo is still up to the task. With its new alternator it is running like a champ now with 271,347 miles on it no less! That is like driving around the globe 10.9 times. I have also put on 13,000 miles since I bought it last may.

Tonight is a dinner with Dan and Dave - tuna steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and greek salad. Yum!

History is right here

Megan and I have been looking into the history of our building and today confirmed something that Megan first thought of weeks ago. Our little apartment overlooking University Ave used the be the Minnesota headquarters for the presidential campain of Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and the senatorial campaign HQ of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone.

Woh!

Not only that, but Megan and I visited the Kerry HQ to buy some bumper stickers or something back in 2004. We walked in the front door, walked up one set of stairs, took a left and were in the HQ main room. There were Kerry posters all over the windows. Our windows.

Why didn't we recognize it when we moved in? Well they tore off the modern construction you see on the left of this picture, and renovated much more to return it to a historical site. What would we have said in 2004 if some one told us that we would be living in that space a short three years later?

EDIT: • Some photos from the impromptu Wellstone memorial that was built at the site. Still very emotional for me after all these years.

• More photos from the webs past.
From this webpage.

• Terry Gydesen took these photos of the 2002 Wellstone campaign.

Edit: • More photos and information as we go back in time...

"Standing outside Sen. Wellstone's campaign headquarters on University Ave., Sen. Ted Kenney and Rep. Betty McCollum listened Friday to Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Roger Moe talk about the Minnesota Senator's death." Link to more

• And a video documenting Wellstone's political life and tragic death. From carryitforward.org

New Sign

If you have had any trouble fining us, there is a new resource for you. A huge sign, right above our windows.



The only thing funny is that right now it is the "Carleton Artist Lofts" but they put up "Carleton Place Lofts." I think this has to do with the future of the buildings not being artist only, but that is still 15 years off so we are quite set. We even get our own "Carleton" all to our own!

Megan (and Winnie) had the day off today, and thus were home once the air hammers started drilling holes in our outer wall installing the letters.

BAM!BAM!BAM!
BARK!BARK!BARK!

Needless to say they took a long walk.

Also, a few weeks ago there were also some workers who came by and water blasted the light poll outside our window, and then re-painted it a nice gloss black. You could see the old colors it has been over the years too. Green, brown, red, and black showed through. It's nice when they spruce up our neighborhood!

Co-op

We have finally become members at our little local co-op! I know you don't have to be a member to shop there, but it feels funny going in so often and saying no, we are not members. So for $30 our guilt is removed, we get discounts, and at the end of the year we get dividends on what profits they make in relation to what we spend. Additionally, if we volunteer for 3 hrs a month we get 15% off everything. It is a really nice shop and it feels good to shop there. They are relatively inexpensive and have a ton of stuff packed into their little shop. We are celebrating with curry, yum. 

DSL monday

We are getting DSL on monday! Theoretically honking fast 7 megabit DSL too, thanks to the fact that we are just 2 blocks away from our routing station. Right now we are on "Multiband" for free thanks to their 60 day promo. They are the folks who wired (ie monopolized) this building so you can just plug right into the ethernet in the wall, no modem required. However, it says a lot how good their internet is when we are willing to end our contract with them before the freeness is over to get DSL. Yes, it is worse than free. I just ran a test and since it is the weekend and there are lots of people on, I got 38.8 KB a second down and 3.9 KB a second up! Is this 1997 or 2007? They want to charge us $32 a month for that too. So for just $10 more a month we are getting 20x the speed. Wohoo!
!

Brewing!

After a long hiatus Dave and I finally got a brew in yesterday. It took a very long time partially because we had to get together all our equipment that has been in boxes for months, partially because we have not done it for so long, and partially because we were being tricky about it! This was the long talked about lavender beer. Yes we have attempted to imbue the flavor of the lavender flower using .2 oz of dried flowers to 5 gallons of liquid.

Here is a photo of it bubbling away in our laundry room here. It smells distinctly like juniper and lavender right now, who knows what it will taste like!

You can also see that I am going to need to build some more shelving in the brewing nook. Its kind of a pile right now.

Tonight Megan and I had a ridiculously balanced and responsible night. After I got home from work we...

- Walked to our local co-op to buy some local organic turkey (using our own bag) and bread crumbs
- Cooked dinner
- Cleaned the apartment
– Worked out at the exercise room they have here (very nice)
- Came home and did our finances

I feel like I should eat some ice cream mixed with beer or something just to mess things up a little. Well come to think of it...

Northfield blogging

Ahh blogging in the slow lane lately. I am hanging out in Northfield right now at the old and now empty 1740 doing even more cleaning. My life right now is all about streamlining. At the start of this week I had 2 homes (Northfield and St. Paul), 2 jobs (St. Olaf and Macalister), a dirty studio, and a show up in Northfield. The final goal will be end all business in Northfield.

But yesterday I took down my show in Northfield (the webpage is still up of course), am going to be out of my studio today, and hopefully out of my town house here today as well. I just made a big trip to the Rice county recycling center to drop off all the toxic stuff I have accumulated from car repair since last May! They took it all for free, go recycling. On June 1 my lease here runs out, and on August 31 st my contract with St. Olaf runs out, and that will be that for now.

I also signed the paper work for my Macalister job this morning. Way more than St. Olaf! I had to basically had to re-write my resume from memory and then even go home and get some phone numbers. But thats ok, it is worth it for the Job! I start June first and am eager to get going.

Thats all for now. During all this cleaning and removing my self compleatly from Northfield I keep generating more boxes of junk that are now filling the loft. So more cleaning and unpacking to go! Streamlining, streamlining...

Party!

Ok for the first time in days it seems something NOT fire related! Megan and I are having our housewarming party for our new apartment! It is from 3:00 ~ 7:00 PM tomorrow (saturday) and we have food and drink for any one who stops by. We are very excited to be living here and we would love to have people over!

We are at the corner of Carleton and University in St. Paul, right off the 280 exit from 94. (map) There is lots of parking in the back. To get in, you have to go to the back door and find us in the directory to call us, and we will let you in. Then go up to the second floor and walk alllllll the way to the front of the building, and we are in apartment 213!

If you can't make it no worries, we are around and want you over some other day!

Lobster lobster

Today we got our first package! Our first piece of any mail really. It was a card from our friends Sara and Will out east whom we have gotten to know through their search for a Vet school for Sara to attend, and she chose the U of M! The also have a corgi named Maggie who they also got later on in her life named and she wanted Winnie to know what life was like out east so she sent a lobster! Here is a move I took of Winnie playing with it for the first time. She loves the squeaker.

One of us should blog

Ah yes, one of us should blog! We have been having so much fun moving in that I have hardly sat down at the computer in days. What a good change! Now my RSS blog feed (Really Simple Syndication, updates you on new stories) is in the 100s instead of in the 1's because I checked it so often.

This morning Megan and I had Dave and Zach over for brunch, Zach who is visiting from TX. It was great and I managed not to burn the frittata. Note to self, use blue cheese from now on yum! It was so civilized and normal, I loved it. Dave is cooking dinner tonight, that should be amazing too.

The apartment is coming together really well. Megan and I hit IKEA just to walk around and walked out with a huge load of stuff. Mostly small stuff, like a spatula and some hangers, but we started to buy chairs to replace the ugly ones I brought up from Northfield. The chair in question is to the left here, and it looks much better than its big bulky brethren next to it. Comfortable too.

Winnie is settling in better now, thats good to see. Some things can still set her off to a buffing nervous state, but the AC/vent fan coming on is not bothering her any more. And the general background noise of University is fading for both winnie and me too.

I am not sure how this blog will work now that Megan and I are living together. It was created in large part for us to keep in touch with each other while we spent our year apart. It did a great job at that and has grown far beyond what we originally intended. Its a place to share ideas and keep in touch, so that will all stay the same. But perhaps some of that will be able to be replaced with actual human communication, and I don't think that would be a bad thing!

Photos

Alright, we have internet again! Megan was posing from school before. I had 107 emails, yikes!

But now I have to run down to Northfield to work and get ready for the opening that is going on tonight from 7-9. It should be fun, and wrap up my apprentice year.

Here are some photos I snapped of our new place. It is still all pieced together, not quite sure where everything is going to end up right now. A bookshelf is important, and I think I want to build one so we can get our books out of boxes sooner than later.

Gata run, more later!

Moved in!

loft!

Well, after a long and tiring day yesterday, we are all moved into our loft! The only things left to come over are my fish and my laptop desk. Winnie came over last night, and spent the first hour or so pacing and unhappy. As soon as we brought her crate in and set it up she relaxed, ate a big dinner, and attacked her tug toy. She slept okay last night, but woke me up at around 5 to go outside. I think it'll take her a while to get used to the constant city noises, but I'm sure she'll adjust.

The best part of this so far? I left the loft at 7:48 this morning and still made it to my 8:00 class on time. :-)

T minus . . .

In less than three hours I will turn in my work for the second and last apprentice show at the Northfield Arts Guild.

Less than 1 minute ago aNewAmericanFlag.org went live.

In 24 hours Megan will be almost done with class, and I should be starting the drive up to 2341 University Ave behind a U-Haul truck.

The clock is spinning down, everything is converging, no time to think about it now just gata get everything done!

Take the bus

I was trying to find information about the future of light rail that will run by our window, but instead got involved with the bus route maps and liked what I found!

For Megan, the 87 (left) drives right past our window and then goes north to the U. There is a bus stop a block away from our door, and it only should take 10-15 min to get there! Add in a "U pass" for $62 a semester and thats a good deal.

Also the 50 and the 16 run by our door as well, with the 16 being high frequency and the 50 being limited stops (one of which we have). Both the 50 and the 16 run the line to both downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, and conveniently makes a stop right near my favorite brewpub, Town Hall Brewery.

Good deal all around! I am not planning on selling any cars yet, but if this is as good as it looks it might be a possibility...