Microblog

I’ve cycled past Traxs Studios in a residential neighborhood many times. Today, I stopped and Googled it. It has no Internet presence and just a handful of mentions with no further explanation. Click through to see what I saw when I peered through a door.

I prefer not to cycle through puddles so I went for a walk. Here, Hennepin County Government Center frames Minneapolis City Hall, a juxtaposition of 19th century form and 20th century efficiency.

I played with LEGO while Dwight worked on the apartment garden. It’s a lot of work to keep all the plants happy. He recently acquired some new epiphytes, Tillandsia (rootless air plants). Here, the automated misting system is providing them with the moisture they need to thrive.

Prototyped the x and y axes of my minimal gantry crane. Next up: z axis (hoist) and a pneumatic grabber. I’ve written a Python program to pull it all together and to interface with a PlayStation controller to help me test as I build. The final product may look nothing like this.

Met friends at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. We walked to the Rose Garden and then the Peace Garden, where we stopped at this origami bronze sculpture, “Spirit of Peace.” This week marks the 78th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Cycled over to the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus for a lovely morning of tea, scones, and conversation in a garden used for teaching. Dwight volunteers at a teaching/research greenhouse, and I got to meet a fellow volunteer, two research students, and the Curator.

Walked over to the Guthrie to see Into the Woods, which explores what happens after “happily ever afters.”

A man in a car shouted, “Good job!” as he drove by the construction workers on Lake Street. “Thank you,” one of the workers replied without pausing his work. I didn’t mind having to push my bike past the construction. Lake Street has been through some tough times, now it’s coming back.

Paused for cooked-to-order breakfast sandwiches beside Lake Harriet. Nearby, mothers relaxed with their young kids, and a four-person book club sometimes discussed the book.

Tethered the shelving I set up last week to a wall bracket screwed into a stud. The tether is designed to prevent furniture tipping over in an earthquake. We don’t have earthquakes, but if someone falls and grabs on, they won’t end up with the shelves on top of them.

On my bike ride, picked up the missing ingredients for Sausage Saturday: Ukrainian sausage from Kramarczuk’s, crusty bread from Surdyk’s, and over-packaged baby kale from Lunds and Byerlys.

My bike ride came to an abrupt halt when the rear derailleur locked up. A link in the chain had failed. Pushed my bike two miles to Freewheel Bike, near our home, where bike technician Martin replaced the chain on the spot in five minutes flat.

On a walk with a friend, cooled off in a large Asian supermarket. Noted the nonreturnable durian. “Its odor is best described as pig-excrement, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.” (Wikipedia.) Left with a bag of matcha Japanese Kit Kats.

Started setting up a 55-bin system to organize parts for our hobbies and home maintenance, replacing dozens of plastic shoeboxes. About a quarter of the bins will hold bulk and bulky LEGO Technic parts. The bins are easily subdivided, making parts more available.

In the Somali language there’s no P (puh) sound, so we reviewed the difference between puh and buh (B) sounds. (With puh, you can feel your breath.) The definite article (the) is another challenge for Somali learners: in Somali it’s a suffix to the noun, so it’s too easy to forget to use it in… Continue reading Minding Our Ps and Bs

Rode trails from Stillwater back to Minneapolis. This leafy section, the Brown’s Creek State Trail, is a former rail trail that rises slowly from Stillwater to connect with the Gateway State Trail, another leafy rail trail, that took us towards St. Paul.