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Led my friend visiting from the UK along a dirt path, past abandoned grain elevators to the seemingly dilapidated Harris Machinery Company building. Closer inspection reveals thorough stabilization. The rebuilt first floor now hosts The Market at Malcolm Yards, a food hall where my friend chose Argentinian cuisine and I, Korean.

Near the start of a cycle ride with a friend, we stood 680 feet out over the Mississippi on this bridge. Behind me, the bridge abruptly ends mid-river. The Rock Island Swing Bridge had two decks when it opened in 1894: a railroad above and a road below. We capped off our morning at a friendly coffee shop where we indulged in way too much cake.

My goals on two wheels today were to 1) photograph an eagle (FAILED) and 2) find new potatoes (FAILED). However, my ride in Nordeast Minneapolis did lead to an interesting discovery: a wishing well outside a home containing a “Chrono Decoder” (a 60-minute countdown timer for a board game), books, a ball of string, and (drum roll, please) a package of fresh bratwurst.

Across the river from our home, there’s this eagles’ nest. Some years a pair raises chicks; other years, nothing. This morning’s walk surprised us with the sight of an eagle’s wiggling rear end (just visible in this pixelated photo), apparently while tearing apart something lower down the food chain. We’re hoping to see chicks soon. Sometimes one of the eagles swoops past our windows, riding the thermals.

Clearly, I tried to fit a lot into this photo today: the modern Pierre Bottineau Library in the foreground, with the former Grain Belt Brewery (now offices) behind it. I do like the ghost staircase. Next is my old hoss taking a breather, and across the road, the former brewery office, now apartments.

These LEGO parts arrived today, while I wait for other parts to be shipped from LEGO in Europe. I feel a new model coming on, or at least a series of prototypes as I figure out the engineering.

After our respective Thursday volunteer gigs, we’re usually unwilling or unable (exit row airline-speak) to summon the energy to make dinner. This evening we walked the two blocks to Maxwell’s Pub. When I first moved to Minneapolis over 45 years ago, this was a rough industrial area with abandoned rail yards where our home now stands. I’d be sad to see remnants of that time, including the Maxwell’s building, disappear.

Walked past the Guthrie, where we’re seeing The Nacirema Society tonight. It’s a comedy set in 1964 Montgomery, Alabama, in the home of a wealthy Black family focused on an upcoming debutante ball. A comedy set during the Freedom Struggle should be interesting. My only experience of Montgomery was on business in 1977, where I witnessed blatant racism and de facto segregation.

Rained all day, inducing a mild case of cabin fever. Made a mushroom sauce for leftover polenta, heavy on the mushrooms: finally, a task with a beginning, middle, and end that I accomplished today. Finished the sauce with heavy cream, shoyu, and Dijon. An immersion blender and some water revived the polenta.

Walk along Minnehaha Creek, lunch at Wise Acre Eatery, then the Museum of Russian Art with a visiting friend from the UK. The museum offered a powerful contrast: downstairs, Socialist Realism depicting happy workers; upstairs, nonconformist abstract art suppressed by Soviet authorities.

Installed software from Carnegie Mellon and linked it to their AI Large Language Model for designing LEGO models. It takes text (I requested “Matterhorn”) then designs a LEGO model that’s physically stable and can be built. It lists bricks and their placement in a 3D grid, and produces a CAD drawing that can be digitally disassembled and reassembled, mirroring real-world construction. Currently, it doesn’t support LEGO Technic construction, my primary focus.

Today was the day to complete our annual data snapshot (around 500GB compressed) onto encrypted thumb drives. I keep these drives indefinitely, so if we ever need to recover an old file that we accidentally deleted at some time in the past, we can hopefully recover it from a snapshot.

Artists were setting up displays for a weekend art show in the former Pillsbury A Mill. The front door was unlocked, so I wandered in and headed down into subterranean levels. Eventually I was caught, but they were pleasant about it. The building has been thoughtfully repurposed to a high standard as affordable artist lofts. Here, a mural and a control panel for the former mill face off.

Compared notes about our day over tonkotsu ramen at the bar counter at Zen Box Izakaya. They do serve Asahi Super Dry and Sapporo on draft, but I prefer a local Minneapolis brew, Surly Furious. In Japan, interesting local craft brews are starting to appear, displacing national brands.

Tried something new as I went about my day today: rode the Orange Line bus rapid transit, mainly along HOV lanes on Interstate 35W. You can just make out the Downtown skyline in the distance. Getting from there to here was, indeed, rapid.

I swore up and down we were still early for our annual tree blossom cycle ride today. It was slim pickings: if there were petals, they were usually on the ground. Over lunch at Longfellow Grill, a quick photo search for last year’s blossom cycle ride showed us to be about five days too late.