On our Sunday morning walk, we spotted furniture set up on the substructure of the 10th Avenue Bridge: unexpected, possibly art, and an expense for the city to remove. This afternoon, we relocated a watercolor from another room and adjusted the placement of these Craftsman pieces. Much like the morning’s installation, our arrangement is essentially decorative.
Category: Living
Saturday food run
First port of call today: stocked up on veggies and bread at our local farmers market, tucked between the Mill City Museum and the Guthrie Theater. I then cycled over to Coastal Seafoods for a nice fatty piece of Atlantic salmon, then on to the Seward Co-op for our favorite almond milk ice cream, which conveniently kept the salmon cold on the ride home.
Summoning my inner Karen
The street was deserted: no electrician, no work truck, no one in sight. So, I summoned my inner Karen (or is it Kevin?) and immediately filed a report through the Minneapolis 311 app. The meter was live, meaning the bare bus bars exposed at the back of the box were actively carrying current, which is more than enough energy to kill a curious child. It looks like the abandoned attempt of a wire thief, which has become a rampant issue across the city.
Framing the space between
Riding across Northern Pacific Bridge No. 9 felt like cycling through a cage this morning. I’m heading to the first of 28 appointments over the next 30 days at the U for my second round of study treatment. The tumor marker that had been climbing consistently has finally dropped slightly, a good sign. Now, my priority is to focus on the space between appointments: the time that belongs to me, not the study.
Not quite alive (yet): LEGO Technic finger v1.0
Worked on the design of a minimal LEGO Technic finger, version 1.0, using a flexor tendon to bend the finger and an extensor tendon to straighten it. Along the way, I learned I had to prevent hyperextension to keep the joints stable. Designs I’ve found online seem over-engineered and contain too many parts: after all, it’s a model. Now I need to build a refined version with an eye toward eventual automation.
Testing the limits of AI in the Global Foods aisle
I wandered the aisles of Whole Foods seeking a jar of preserved lemons for a cod recipe Dwight found in Cook’s Illustrated. “A bit posh,” I thought, but played along. When I suggested he make them himself, it was clearly a bridge too far. A Google AI search identified the Global Foods aisle as a possibility, but the shelf was empty. Fortunately, a nearby stocker reached into the dark recesses of the shelf and pulled out the final jar.
Lunch in a former tractor factory
Walked over to Chloe, a French-style bistro, for lunch with friends. The building was once a tractor factory, now repurposed as a hotel with two restaurants. The face sculpture is fashioned entirely from welded bicycle chains. Toward the back of the photo, an atrium cuts up through five floors, letting in natural light.
A day on the #2
Built a gentle adventure around the #2 bus route which runs every 10 minutes near our home. The route takes in some wonderful institutions as it travels through the U and across South Minneapolis. Today: Northrop (cuppa in the cafe of this U auditorium), Weisman Art Museum (architect Frank Gehry), eye clinic (used a credit to replace lenses in my sun glasses), Minneapolis Institute of Art (took in an exhibition by Kenji Nakahashi who loved diagramming, categorizing and coding).
Keeping it normal
Simple tonkotsu udon at Kinzō between medical appointments at the U. Campus is a bright place to be: art exhibitions, student energy, reminders to keep perspective. Cycling to and from keeps things feeling normal.
Safe harbor
My big cycle ride today was just two blocks to Open Book for coffee with a friend I’d normally be cycling with. Open Book was serving as a polling station for the primaries, but with no masked government agents lurking, my friend and I talked freely. We chuckled at the image of the prez hiding in an airline catering container, fairly confident we weren’t offending anyone at the adjacent tables.