Microblog

Popped into the rectory office of Our Lady of Lourdes, the oldest church in Minneapolis. They have a great side hustle: not only do they dispense religious services, but they also sell French meat pies, handmade by parishioners. I was reminded of this decades-old tradition today while looking for inspiration on the Atlas Obscura website.

Cycled our favorite loop via Lake Harriet where we stopped for breakfast at Bread & Pickle. Here I’m delivering the always-fresh coffee while breakfast sandwiches were being cooked to order.

Successfully prototyped a machine, shown here, that accepts a LEGO 1×1 plate, regardless of whether it’s stud-side up or stud-side down, and spits it back out stud-side up. (Motorized pneumatic valves, an air compressor, and a computer are off-camera.) This afternoon I worked on my next challenge: a feeding mechanism to supply this machine from a queue of randomly oriented plates.

Tonight: dinner and a high-energy evening with Aloe Blacc on his ‘We Stand Together’ tour at the Dakota.

Worked with an adult English language learner in this beautiful Carnegie library as I do most Friday mornings. The library, located in a disadvantaged neighborhood where 38% of residents live below the poverty line, was built with funds from a benefactor who accumulated immense wealth on the backs of working people and presided over the worst labor conflict in American history.

Almost home, this scene caught my attention. Behind the grassy berm, the gas company was burning off natural gas. AI assures me that “flaring” is a safe way to dispose of excess gas, though I imagine it’s best not to try this at home. Across the river from the flame, the chimneys belong to a university heating plant.

For us, aging in place means living in a “15-minute city.” Today I aligned my primary care with that goal and signed up at a clinic just a short walk from our home. My new primary care physician used to be an actor (Juilliard graduate!) at the Guthrie, just across the road from the clinic, before deciding to go to medical school.

Cycled with a friend, starting at the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge, now free of automobiles. An ice warning sign was a great reminder to make the most of the last days of summer. Across the bridge, we followed a lovely new wooded trail along the Minnesota River, then backtracked.

Woke up to this view of low clouds, glowing hot pink over the Capella Tower downtown, announcing both a day of light rain and World Breast Cancer Research Day. The color served as a reminder of recent NIH cuts in breast cancer research funding.

Spotted this on our Sunday walk: A tram had just dropped off a wedding party for photos on the Stone Arch Bridge, apparently leaving behind some expired wedding guests. I started imagining ways of incorporating this into the wedding vows: “Till death do us part. All we are is confetti in the wind, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

We feasted on American-style sushi: it’s actually delicious. I ate too much.

Posted my new YouTube video: Filtering LEGO Stud-Side Up. I thought about calling it Studs on Top, but decided against it to avoid drawing in the wrong crowd. I also skipped the LEGO nerd term SNOT (Studs Not On Top) to keep it family-friendly. Click through to watch.

While walking to Zen Box Izakaya for dinner, we passed the Guthrie Theater, whose thrust stage towered above us. The 2025–26 season had just been put on display, but we already have season tickets. When I was a teenager in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, my mother and I regularly had season tickets for the People’s Theatre. My need for theater has persisted since.

Took a break from my bike ride at The Trailhead in Theodore Wirth Park. I love the soaring lines of this building. The non-profit Loppet Foundation built then donated the facility to the Minneapolis park system, and is involved in its daily operations, promoting DEI in this diverse part of the city. Inside, I sipped an Americano while watching kids getting ready to ride the mountain bike trails maintained by the Foundation.

From the vantage point I discovered at the airport last week, watched planes take off, including this A320. My friend didn’t know about this part of the airport, which is surrounded by runways and reached via tunnels, so we made it our cycle ride today.

Wearing a cut-resistant glove, forced open a tracker to remove its speaker (the tiny white and gold circle). The speaker’s beeping is an anti-stalking feature, but I don’t want a bike thief to know they’re being tracked. My plan is to hide the tracker in a cavity behind the reflector, but it doesn’t quite fit. The reflector vendor is going to 3D-print a case with a slightly wider cavity that will fit.