Odds and Ends

Well, it seems as though my trip to Half Time Rec was attended by more than just me and my wife's former classmate. Two coworkers were there as well. Not in the audience--though for all I know, half of the audience was from work--but actually in the band. The two in the red shirts are a coworker and a former coworker, though no one in my immediate group. Which explains why the accordian player looked so familiar - I just thought I recognized him from a previous accidential Cajun music exposure. I wandered over to his cube after I found out about him and he knows my wife's former classmate. Ah, the world of Cajun music players, Cajun dancers, legal information pubishing and accidental Cajun attendees who like Guinness is such a very small one. Note that one of them retired from work at the ripe old age of 47 - almost as young as Klund.

My sister, LissyJo, just made it into the Family Nurse Practitioner program at the University of Minnesota, after applying just days short of her delivery of my niece. Congratulations! On another note, she was snubbed at the Lands End Inlet by a former friend of mine this last weekend - unremarkable, really, but funny for me.

My friend, Numbucket, from up north in Pequotland, who used to work with me for the evil that was my first consulting company job, has been trying to convince his wife that he needs this:



I've always been of the opinion that if you need one, you should go to the trouble of trying to build one yourself (not the electronics, mind you, just the buckets and frame/etc) - much cheaper, and proof positive that you really mean business - although I absolutely understand the allure of this beautiful, shiny automated producer of beer. I mean, the only way Pooteewheet could compete is to don a suit of armor with a spigot. I once dropped some information at a drinking event for my last consulting company about how to build one of these (I don't own one myself, I'm more of an extract guy for the most part - less fuss) and a friend (cargo pilot for a local airline) immediately ran home and built one. He was the unmarried one at the table - go figure.

I haven't yet had a chance to go see this exhibit on Girl Culture at the Minnesota Center for Photography, but LissyJo assures me it's great.

My friend Sanchita had her first child recently (well, a month ago) - a daughter named Minnoli Raghavan! Congratulations are due there as well. Beautiful!

My daughter, Eryn, was the recipient of a new plastic house that takes up a large portion of my porch - courtesy of Papa and Granna Pooteewheet. Eryn noted, while all the pieces were lying around and she was waiting for the second truckload to arrive, while dancing up and down and clapping, "House! Eryn happy! Cleo [our Manx] happy too!" And while it looks strictly like a house from the outside, from the inside, while you're being forced to remain in it for long periods of time and compelled to pretend wash your hands over and over and over, it more closely resembles a white collar prison. If you're lacking little kid news lately, my wife keeps a pretty good running commentary at her site.

And finally, because everyone does a bit of cat blogging now and then, I offer another anti-cat-blogging moment: Wisc. Hunter Wants Open Season for Cats