Microblog

Posted Japan 2024: Plan for a Plan. Travel is iterative: each journey is a prototype for the next time I visit an area; there’s no pressure to tick off all the boxes.

Posted Boxing Day: A Day for Selling Vacations. When I was growing up in England, the day after Christmas was a day for relaxing and eating leftovers. Television advertising, finally freed from promoting the excesses of Christmas consumption, switched to hawking packaged vacations.

Grateful for friends and their decadent homemade treats from here in Minnesota and England (that wonderful Christmas cake). Not shown: the best homemade lefse (all gone).

Tree designed and crafted in Minneapolis from Minnesota deadfall cherrywood. Four-season lamp (winter side showing, stained glass) designed and made by a colleague as a retirement gift for Dwight. LEGO snow village designed and built by Dwight, destined to be torn down and rebuilt next year. The snow is rescued polyester fiber packaging.

Gyaru peace sign (mandatory in Japanese selfies), in front of a boatload of sushi at a family lunch today. I’m wearing a Yokohama soccer team shirt, reminding my brother-in-law and nephew of a fine evening in a Shibuya (Tokyo) bar.

Carefully curated Christmas presents for our teenage nephews were about to be tastefully packaged in envelopes. Our entire Christmas gift shopping.

It’s Thursday, so we crossed the road to Maxwell’s for dinner. Dwight’s Summit Extra Pale Ale next to my Surly Furious IPA, both local brews.

Another day, another labyrinth dedicated to consumption: Menards, where I traversed acres of aisles hunting for components for a lighting system for our vertical garden. In the process, I acquired an earworm: “Save big money, save big money, when you shop Menards.”

After walking with a friend around the vast Mall of America, popped into IKEA to return a lamp because it’s not dimmable. After meatballs and mash, got lost in a labyrinth of merchandise, feeling oddly guilty for not purchasing a $1.49 Bolmen (toilet brush). Eventually found my way back to the light rail station via the LEGO Store.

The sun was shining, but the wind was biting, so four miles of my walk found me in the Minneapolis Skyways where I rediscovered gems like the lobby of the 1923 Medical Arts Building.

Posted 12 Months of Microposts: 2023. It’s the little details of each day I try to celebrate in my Microposts—our hobbies and interests, home life, physical activity, volunteering, and being with friends and family.

We take our time with the Christmas tree. We’re old-fashioned like that, waiting until Twelfth Night to take it down. So today, we simply laid out the ornaments on a table. They’ll slowly make their way onto the branches over the next couple of days.

Kicked off the decorating with LEGO gingerbread houses designed and built by Dwight. Decorating the tree can wait for another day.

Every Thursday I walk past a tortelleria. Sometimes I stop and watch the tortillas on a conveyor belt moving towards women who package the product. Today I walked in and purchased 36 for $4. The package was so hot, I could barely hold it. Back home, I enjoyed the freshest tortillas, ever.

Settled on black gooseneck lights for our climbing plants. As a prototype, ordered one light from IKEA which arrived today. It’s almost perfect, it’s almost invisible, but it’s not dimmable. The bulb can’t be swapped, so back it goes and the search continues.

Today’s early morning sun highlighted Dwight’s use of grouping, repetition and height on an industrial wheeled pallet.