Random Posts

Tim Kaiser at Jefferson Peoples House

Tim Kaiser celebrated the kickoff of his crowd fundraising event by performing at Jefferson Peoples House in Duluth.

TimKJPH1

A few Days in Duluth: Murder Ballads and Valentine’s Day

So tired.

Minnesota Cup overfloweth with Northlanders (maybe, if you help)

Minnesota Cup event at the Green Acres Barn Event Center.

Minnesota Cup event at the Green Acres Barn Event Center.

Too few people up here know about Minnesota Cup. Our friends at Locally Laid have been past winners, and took this picture of the 2015 event.

Minnesota Cup is an innovative idea competition. According to Mark Dayton on the website:

The Minnesota Cup celebrates and encourages the unique character that makes Minnesota a special place to do business. From our rich history of entrepreneurship to our impressive list of Fortune 500 companies, Minnesota is where great ideas become great companies. Attracting more than 8,000 entries since 2005, the Minnesota Cup is now the largest statewide new venture competition in the country…. I am grateful for the support provided by the Minnesota Cup’s lead sponsors, including: the University of Minnesota; Wells Fargo; Carlson Companies; Digital River; General Mills; UnitedHealth Group; and the state of Minnesota. This is an excellent example of how public and private partnerships can work together and encourage new business development in Minnesota.

It would be great if I could post every year about a Northlander winner of this competition (and celebrate the cash as well as mentor support this program offers new businesses). But I can only do that if you apply with your amazing business idea.

Blind Tigers, Zombie Robots, karaoke, acoustic guitar, trees in the dark

Smash Up at Rogue Robot

Tracing backward …

Pixel Farmer Yields Big Harvest for Locally Laid

Friend and local pixel farmer Lucie Amundsen yielded a big harvest when she wrote a reply to a letter complaining that her actual farming operation (“Locally Laid”) was too spicy for the grocery aisle.

She’ll be on the Daily Circuit (MPR) today; the story has been picked up regionally here and here and here.

Duluth creativity (and Duluth passion for sustainability) on the map!

Perfect Day Duluth

Is it just me or do you notice that a lot of people refer to this blog as “Perfect Day Duluth?”

1) What’s up with that? Why do people make that mistake?

2) When they do, do you correct them? How do you correct them without sounding like a pretentious know-it-all? I am a pretentious know-it-all, so that’s why I ask.

The Really Angry Bear Who Almost Upset the World

As this gem appears to have little if any local coverage whilst topping the list of our truly closest encounters, I’d like to explore it now and see if anyone in the community has memories or knowledge of this exciting chapter in history.

One of my favorite pastimes has to be pretending that ‘man’ hasn’t come as close as he has to setting this Garden of Eden ablaze, returning it to its former self of one giant cinder cone that only the smallest rodents underground survive. The itchy-trigger-fingers of sociopathic generals (immortalized in such films as How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) illustrate the kind of antics that happened right over the hill from here one fateful evening.

The Piedmont Smelt Incident

Aside from the occasional monster wave, there is no finer display of the raw and natural violence of her majesty’s beauty than the Lake Superior Cyclone. Air is churning over the water’s surface in a melee of suction and force that would clean the beard on a Lumbersexual or the balls off a beaver. They were visible near Stoney Point on New Years day of 2010 where you could see them toward Wisconsin pulling through gravity and time, swaying in the distance of a sunny cold afternoon. 

Then I heard this fishy tale from a neighbor:

Coming home from kindergarten in about the spring of 1960, after school and dressed in his spacesuit rain gear, he sees funnel clouds over the lake. As the storm passes and nearing home he notices on the lawn a patch of small silver fish, then another yard with more of them, telling his dad who doesn’t believe him a tornado could siphon a school of smelt off the lake into the hills of old Piedmont.

Where in Duluth?

unnamed (1)

Temps are deadly, call homeless hotline with tips

Homeless in Duluth. Photo: Deb Holman

Photo: Deb Holman

Please, if anyone reading this is experiencing homelessness or knows of someone who may be living outside, in a vehicle or in an unheated building, call the Street Outreach hotline at 218-461-8505. An outreach worker will follow up on all tips and try to get people into shelter.

The Street Outreach Team is also in need of winter boots (all adult sizes), gas cards and warm hats and mittens. Donations can be brought to CHUM (102 W 2nd St) or Loaves and Fishes (1712 Jefferson St).

Well, Duluth, it’s been great!

I’m sad, so sad, to have to leave my adopted home of the past 3 and a half years. With Cliffs closing the Duluth office, I need to move where the work is, so on Monday I start my transition to the Eau Claire area.

Duluth is truly a special place and one that I will hold in my heart. (I so want to stay that I’m even keeping the house I bought in Kenwood and will have a family member reside there.)

To those like minded folks that love Duluth as I do, I don’t have to list the reasons why. To those haters out there, you will never understand the attraction the the place. I have endured five corporate relocations in the 29 years my wife and I have been married. I have lived in the South, the West, and the Northeast, but nothing beats the Upper Midwest.

Farewell, Duluth, Bon Chance!

Cable Natural History Museum Naturalist/Curator Job Opening

The Cable Natural History Museum’s naturalist/curator position requires curiosity, active engagement with projects, professionalism, independent initiative, effective communication skills with children and adults, and a desire to work with animals.

Peaceful Duluth Day

PeacefulDuluthDay

This is a fun little project I’ve been thinking about for a while.  I thought today is as good of a day as any to post.  Did I miss any?

Holidays and Such

I saw the Wise Fool Shakespeare production of A Christmas Carol this afternoon with Lucie Amundsen.

Lucie wrote:

Didn’t make it to the Wise Fool Shakespeare ‘s Christmas Carol? Dude, you missed out. Goosebumps, guffaws and a little case of the verklempts. Thanks cast for giving up your autumn to make my Solstice.

It’s true — community theater is hundreds of hours to produce a work as awesome as this one. I am grateful, as Lucie was, for all their efforts. Jodi Kujawa stole the show, for me, as the Ghost of Christmas Present doing a little fourth-wall breaking, too. But the whole afternoon was awesome, twice as awesome because Sunday was “pay what you can,” so the crowd was even more energetic than you might expect.

Kujawa wise

I ended today shopping at the Mall, where I saw Brian Rauvola shopping, too. Brian has done as much as any one man can to sustain a culture of photography in Duluth, and it’s good to see him take a breather from that work. I still miss the Duluth Photography Institute, which was his baby.

Ladyslipper at the Red Herring; Arte de Moira

I have a lot of art experiences to relate this week, but I thought I should set aside two today, and a few more this weekend, when blog traffic is admittedly lower, I bet.

moira 2 ladyslipper2