Microblog

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.

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.

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.

It was time for my annual cycle ride to the airport. Sadly, planes were landing on other runways as I passed by these approach lights. At Terminal 1, I “discovered” the car rental building, a place I would normally never visit, of course. Escalators go directly to different companies’ rental counters and cars. I took the Blue Line home, which was the main reason for visiting the airport today; until today, the LRT had been closed for a few weeks for upgrades.

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.

On a bike ride with a friend, we stopped at this statue of Thomas Lowry, best known for overseeing the early growth of the Twin Cities streetcar system. Our house was in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis. My friend grew up in Lowry, Minnesota, a town that owes its existence to the Soo Line Railroad, which was founded and led by Lowry.

On my cycle ride: spoon, cherry, and Basilica. ​The Basilica is currently undergoing restoration work both inside and out.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

My low energy nudges me toward an equally low-energy task: learning enough about crypto to answer the question, “What is crypto?” Forbes classifies 67% of crypto investors as high confidence, low literacy; it seems they’re attracted by a belief wealth can be safely created out of thin air. Like them, I cannot even explain its basic terms, so today, I opened a Kraken account and transferred $100 to kick off my research, triggering a fraud alert from my bank questioning this “suspicious activity.”

As planned, I crossed the Hennepin Avenue Bridge while Dwight continued to Plymouth Avenue; I’m not yet firing on all cylinders. Picked up peaches at Trader’s for a chicken dish Dwight’s planning. Emptied our almost empty mail box: flyers for County Attorney in the upcoming primary convey the importance of this role against a vindictive federal government.

Spent my day on the couch nursing a fever from the study drug. My current read, Embracing Defeat, covers the years of the American occupation of Japan, 1945–1952. Among all the failures of a collapsed society to support itself, a glimmer of hope is Japan’s 1947 constitution, which was written by a committee of Americans and remains Japan’s constitution today, remarkably with no amendments. Back then, America imposed democracy; today, our leaders undermine it.