Paul Lundgren Posts

Perfect Duluth Day Spelling, Punctuation and Proper Usage Police

Aug 11, 2011 102 Comments

From time to time the geeks who comment on this website will get into arguments about grammar, spelling and so on. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does it kind of excites certain people while it embarrasses and annoys others. Some people just love to show off their mad English skills, while others don’t care if their capable of getting there sentences from here to they’re properly.

With that in mind, this post has been created as a bitching ground for uptight word nerds.

Don’t let this post stop you from creating your own post to showcase public blunders in the future, it just seemed like this type of stuff needs a home base.

Here are some related posts from the past:
Really? And I had my hopes up …
Need Fun!
Great food. Bad punctuation.
Unnecessary quotation marks are sometimes disturbing
A Small Request

To help this discussion along, we’ve started the “Perfect Duluth Day Writer’s Guide,” as a handy reference to Duluth-related nouns that are frequently botched.

Let your ranting begin.


Random , ,

Sample Ballot for Duluth Primary Election on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011

Aug 08, 2011 6 Comments

Duluthians who live in the Fourth Council District, which includes parts of the West End, Piedmont Heights and Duluth Heights neighborhoods, will also vote on that council seat. The candidates are Jacqueline Halberg, Garry Krause, Ryan Miles, Wallace Newquist and Travis Silvers.

There will be more races in the General Election in November, but only one or two candidates filed for those offices, so they are not on the primary ballot. To see a complete list of candidates visit the “Duluth 2011 Election Candidate Filings” post.


Politics

Duluth Early History

Aug 06, 2011 No Comments

A 1914 recap of Duluth history:


History

Proctor’s Yellowstone #225 circa 1963

Aug 02, 2011 1 Comment

ProctorMN-DM&IR

The ol’ steam locomotive from the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railroad that sits in downtown Proctor has been there a long time. This photo is from the Cliff’s Barber Shop Collection, dated 1963. Below is a 2009 photo from the Minnesota Railroading Photos on minnesotajones.com.

Read More


History, Photos ,

All roads lead to Duluth

Aug 01, 2011 10 Comments

The location of the city at the head of navigation, in the center of a continent, 1,400 miles from the sea, gives it unequaled facilities (through 8,000 miles of railways centering here) as a natural distributing point for a great and prosperous section.

We have cheap power, cheap coal, cheap gas, cheap iron, cheap raw material of woods, in vast quantities with unequaled transportation facilities in every direction.

—Duluth News Tribune, Sept. 30, 1914


History

Hey Tourists, Welcome to Our City

Jul 29, 2011 16 Comments

In the search for info on the song “Welcome to Our City,” for the list of “Songs with ‘Duluth’ in the lyrics or title,” PDD’s Fairy Research Spy found this 1910 Duluth News Tribune illustration (which has the same title as the song, but predates it by six years). Note that the Aerial Lift Bridge is not a lift bridge … it was the Aerial Ferry Bridge back then, with a gondola car carrying cars/wagons across.


History

Poll: Should the PDD Calendar display or hide event descriptions?

Jul 27, 2011 12 Comments

Two weeks ago we launched the new PDD Calendar (in test mode) and asked you for feedback. Although we received good feedback in general, there was one specific area we asked about as an afterthought in the comments and didn’t get much response on, so we’ll ask again in a more obvious and simple-to-respond-to way (though it still requires some degree of explanation):

How would you like the entries on any given day to look?

Read More


Polls

Missing Person: Walter Clock

Jul 25, 2011 3 Comments

The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing 69-year-old male. Walter Clock was last seen on Saturday at noon, leaving his residence in the 2200 block of West Second Street.

UPDATE: He has been found.


News and Current Affairs

Amusement seekers are well cared for by theatrical houses of the Zenith City

Jul 25, 2011 5 Comments

That was the headline above this photo collage from the Sept. 30, 1914 edition of the Duluth News Tribune. Of course, the Lyceum, Rex, Grand, Zelda and Empress are all gone now. Only the Orpheum remains — remodeled and renamed the NorShor Theatre in 1941.

The Duluth Economic Development Authority is working with Westlake Reed Leskosky and SJA Architects on restoration plans for the NorShor. Have patience; it’ll take some time.


History

Duluth Beer Tour 2011

Jul 21, 2011 43 Comments

How many different beers are produced in Duluth and commercially available in July 2011? Could you drink a pint of each in one day and not require a stomach pump?

Read More


Recommendations

We are opposed to the notion that you are the first to be unopposed, Mr. Ness

Jul 20, 2011 29 Comments

At least one news organization reported yesterday that Mayor Don Ness is the first Duluth mayor to be unopposed in an election. Well, it’s not true.

Mayor Ness is indeed the only mayor in the past 126 years to go unopposed, but Maryanne Norton at the Duluth Public Library has found three Duluth mayors in the 1800s who were unopposed.

Sidney Luce was elected unopposed in 1872 and served one term.

Dr. Vespasian Smith was elected twice with no opposition — in 1873 and 1874. (Mayors served one-year terms until 1913, when the current four-year system began.)

Horace B. Moore was elected unopposed in 1885 and served one term.

Read More


History ,

Fishing on the Knife River, Spring 1962

Jul 16, 2011 2 Comments

KnifeRiver1962

From the Cliff’s Barber Shop Collection.


History, Photos , ,

Introducing PDD Calendar Beta Test +

Jul 14, 2011 35 Comments

Perfect Duluth Day is launching an events calendar, and for the next month or so you can preview it at it’s permanent URL:

perfectduluthday.com/calendar

We have created this calendar because a majority of posts to the PDD Blog are about events, but the format of a blog is not a practical way to organize that type of information. If you wanted to know what’s happening today based on PDD posts, you’d have to select the “events” category and skim through weeks of random items looking for today’s date. That is lame.

So today our calendar is born. It doesn’t have a ton of events in it yet, and it probably has some technical issues left to be fixed, but the general format is set and it has seemed to be working well during our initial testing phase.

Check it out and tell us what you think with a comment to this post or an e-mail to calendar @ perfectduluthday.com.

Read More


Events

Lynx on its way

Jul 13, 2011 No Comments

Captain LeeAnne Gordon of the Tall Ship Lynx informed the folks at Visit Duluth today that she estimates her ship’s arrival in Duluth at 3:30 p.m. The Lynx is sailing into the harbor for the Duluth Music and Maritime Festival. This will be the first visit to Duluth for the 114-ton Lynx, an interpretation of a privateer or naval schooner from the War of 1812.


Events

Ty Cobb at the Love Shaq

Jul 12, 2011 8 Comments


Events, Music