FINALLY!!

I like Duluth spring.

Sure, we’re wearing sweaters and jackets and scarves, but the ice is breaking up on the creeks, bugs are flying, birds are singing, trees are sticky with sap, mud is muddy, little blades of grass are poking up through the moss, imaginary fish are biting, and the “fuzzy willows” as my boys call them, are, well, fuzzy.

I’m working on a documentary that will explain, once and for all, how awesome Duluth is. (In case our friends at Google didn’t already know.) But I need one last thing.

I’ve heard from many reliable sources that an anonymous jokester posted a billboard on the edge of town that read: “Will the last person to leave Duluth please turn out the lights?” But I’ve never seen a photo that documents this.

If anyone has a photo of this important piece of Duluth history, please let me know. The future of our entire city depends on it. (Not really. But it would be nice to have.)

This is the first in a series of posts about things I like. I’m hoping it will spur others to write about things they like. So let’s get started.

1. My bad ass cruiser bike.

I inherited the frame of this Country Roads cruiser bike from an old tenant. It was missing the wheels but was otherwise in most excellent shape. So I took my newfound friend to Bryn the bike wizard and he decked it out with some new wheels, pedals and a tuneup. It was a great bike to ride but the gearing was not so Duluth friendly so I mainly pulled it out for special occasions like the Cruiser Bike Poker Rides we had way back in 2004. Some of you may remember the beating my knee took after a fall I took racing Dusty Olson up a Lakewalk hill.

After that accident my bike spent a couple years in the garage, sadly neglected. So this glorious spring I thought maybe I should get that bad boy out and about. I took it to Ski Hut and inquired about changing the front sprocket to something a bit more geared to our terrain and they delivered in a most awesome way. I am now able to tool up the hills in a seated position for the most part and we have become best friends again.

After a few rides I realized the only thing keeping this from being the sweetest bike in town was a basket. Hello Google! After some searching I found just the perfect thing. The Wald 157.

The Giant Delivery basket is one of the most enduring and iconic products in our catalog. Popular among messengers and paperboys (feel free to ask your father or grandfather about this noble profession), this basket is designed to carry large loads thanks to its stout legs, cargo bands, and heavy duty handlebar clamps. Three holes are provided at the bottom of the legs and spaced at 13.25, 14.25, and 15.25 inches (measured center-to-center of bracket pin to axle mount) to provide multiple mounting options.

No more sweaty backs from my overstuffed backpack, this baby will hold a couple bags of groceries and a 12 pack if you ask it to. Care must be taken with a full load as the steering gets a bit wonky but it is doable. Mainly I am picturing my basket loaded down with some beach towels, a growler, a frisbee and some extra layers for those cool Park Point nights. Man, I love this basket.

So there ya have it, stuff I like, a cruiser bike and a vintage wire basket. Watch out Duluth!

We accidentally left our door open during part of Sunday afternoon, and the young cat we were watching took the opportunity to disappear. Please keep an eye out for him. He’s a very nice cat named Ozzie. Thank you!

Ethan – 4017 McCulloch St. – 218-461-9180.

Anyone out there missing a dog tonight? There’s a sweet pit bull or boxer (it’s dark) brindle colored, limping around by my garage, but every time I approach her she runs off. The pup is limping pretty hard and is likely scared. I’m on Chester Parkway down from Skyline on the west side of the creek. 310-6541.

The Anthropology Senior Seminar course I am teaching at UMD is focusing on local food and sustainability. A few weeks ago we had a class meal prepared by students with local ingredients. We had a lively debate about what qualifies as local and why it is important to eat locally.

Definitions of local vary–Whole Foods Co-op uses 300-miles as a benchmark. Some of the Twin Cities coops allow anything that comes from a five state area (Minnesota and the states that touch it) to count as local. Other local grocery stores are using the term, too, though I’m not sure what criteria they are using. Other definitions are more restrictive.

What about a PDD definition? What counts as local food?

Local food usually means small to mid-scale production, requiring more human labor, but less fossil fuel–that means more jobs, but also potentially higher costs. How willing are you to spend a little extra money for locally produced foods? How much extra?

I’m going to have more questions about these topics as I’m currently involved in several research projects along these lines, but that’s enough for now.

Help support the effort to bring fiber to the Twin Ports. 2 – 4 at the DECC. Mention that you are going to Google Fest and get free parking. Music, face painting and a chance to see the making of the Hollywood production. I’m not really sure what all is going on, but it sounds interesting.

With three amazing colleges in the area, producing some of the most intelligent minds Minnesota has to offer, investment in the future of technological progress in Duluth already seems like a good idea. Recently, however, with the advent of Mayor Don Ness’s term, our city has seen a robust growth on the involvement of younger generations in the politics of the region. These are the same minds that, generally speaking, fully comprehend the vast value of human inter-connectivity and the ability to utilize cloud data to apply distributive processing to the human intellect. Duluth in particular represents a bastion of human kindness and advanced social responsibility the likes of which are nearly incomprehensible on a large-city scale; our downtown area is immensely reflective of this. As a veteran of the United States Air Force, I’ve witnessed firsthand not only the inhuman characteristics and notions of self-entitlement prevalent in cities such as Tokyo, but also the indifference and uncaring attitudes fostered by lackadaisical local political forces in a two-city region, as the Shreveport/Bossier area of Louisiana proved so succinctly for me.

In short, Duluth and Superior represent the best-functioning example of an interstate relationship between two medium-sized cities, united by a common goal: survive the next winter.

Has anyone else heard about dog thieves or “bunchers” in the area?

Two different people have told me to keep an eye on our dog as there has been a rash of stolen dogs in the Duluth area. I just peeked on craigslist and the pets board is full of warnings.

Why hasn’t the DNT or the news picked up on this?

Keep an extra close eye on Fido for the time being.

Finding myself recently laid off, I have decided to get a start on my midlife crisis by buying a skateboard.  Being laid off (need a database person?) I don’t want to spend too much but being a gearhead I know I want something decent to learn with.  Where should I go in the Twin Ports to find such a board?