Yesterday was the day where I question why I want to do this thing....Why would I want to ride my bike 500 miles.

Today I remembered why. The first town we rode into Spillville -this town was both home to a set of brothers that hand carved these incredible clocks and home(for a summer) to the great composer Dvorak. Plus, I ate a lot of pastries which helps.

Tomorrow is the last day and I'm glad.

Yesterday was a nice day-80 miles, about half of it with a tailwind, but I just got toasted.

You know you're sunburned when the zinc oxide cream you put on your ass ends up on your face to prevent more damage.

Today is a 74 mile day, I guess. I'm 17 miles into it.

I look SO dead sexy today.

My tan, taut body hurdled it's way across 62 miles today...and it was great. The temps are in the high 70s, it's sunny, and I'm sleeping in a house.

Yesterday we stayed at the home of a person that built grain elevators and silos. An interesting process.

Tonight I'm trying to rustle up some drunken debauchery.

If I do this next year I need to do it with someone that can really amp it up. I've kinda had enough of riding with a bunch of strange 40-60 year olds.

I'm kinda taking it easy today-It's noon and I'm only 30 miles into it.

Last night was exciting-we had 50-60 mph straightline winds with torrential rain in camp last night. I would have went inside, but if I wasn't in my tent I would have lost it and about half of my gear.

This might be my last blog for a couple days-we might not have internet tonight or tomorrow. But so far so good.

I learned that I might not be able to log my progress tomorrow-Iowa Telecom, who provides free internet and phone services to RAGBRAI wasn't allowed in the overnight town tomorrow or the next day.

But I'll make a post if I can.

Well, the first day of the ride is over.

I've got my tent set up(we're in someone's backyard), I've eaten a spaghetti dinner(at the high school), and the heat index for the day got up to 104 degrees. And I clocked in 71 miles, with my average speed being 13.7 miles per hour.

Tomorrow is going to be around 82 miles but it's pretty flat(1100 feet of climb versus today's 1800) and we should have a tailwind. Hopefully.

I got in at Le Mars Iowa today at about 1:00pm. I bought a new pair of cycling shorts(spandex, the best fabric known to man) and about 15 strands of beads.

I wonder if the Juvenile Diabetes people would be appalled by what I'm planning to do with the beads.

Well. On Saturday, I leave for Iowa to participate in my fifth RAGBRAI. As always, I will not only ride, but blog my way across Iowa.

I will discuss the merits and characteristics of horse manure, cow manure, bird shit, and pig slop. Hint: Horses are by far the best.

I will discuss the condition of my knees.

I will discuss the endless pasta dinners I will consume.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

I leave tomorrow morning.

I hate making fun of kids. But when one is stupid enough to wear these glasses, when they're 16 years old, I call it open season.

I'm not even going to comment on the fucking stuffed owl on his shoulder.





Am I evil?

This appears to be a pretty low key weekend.

Friday night I went with some college friends to dinner and Apple Valley's 4th of July Festival...

Yesterday I volunteered at the Walker for their First Free Saturday program. It was outside in the Sculpture Garden this month and I just got toasted. My pale redhead complexion can't stand more than 20 minutes in direct sunlight and I was there for 5 hours. So when I got home at 5ish, I just went to bed. I woke up at 11pm, and decided to get a movie. I ended up getting "De-Lovely" and "Bright Young Things." I watched "De-Lovely" last night.

And I watched "Bright Young Things" today.

I was planning on going to the Taste of Minnesota to see Bob Mould but I don't want to get any more burned.

I think tonight I'll just stay home and play piano.

Last weekend I was in a friend's wedding as an usher. It was fun. I brought my friend Stephanie.

I want an iPod. Bad. Real bad. But in great WASPish tradition I'm trying to talk myself out of it because, technically, I don't need it.

But I might get a new, larger internal hard drive on the iBook. I've got about 250 albums loaded onto it(maybe a third of my collection), which works out to 11GB of music. And it's only a 30 GB hard drive. I'm thinking of buying the drive from the internet and getting FirstTech to install the new drive. Then, finally, buying Logic Pro.


Listening to Visqueen, and I still love them. Perfection. I ended up not going(because of the wedding) but I hope their show last Thursday was just packed.

One of the reasons that I have really enjoyed going carless (except for the motorcycle) for the last year.

From the Star Tribune's Op Ed:

Editorial: Less driving/It's a way to save big money
June 20, 2005

It should come as no shock: Rising gasoline prices have hit people hardest in sprawling cities that are heavily dependent on cars, and affected people least in compact cities that offer more options for getting around.

The lesson for federal and state governments now engaged in the transportation debate should be clear. Bigger transit systems and wiser land-use planning can cushion people against growing volatility in the world oil markets while saving a bundle of money.

An average family in a spread-out, auto-oriented city like Houston, for example, spent $4,286 more on transportation in 2003 than a similar family in denser, transit-friendly Baltimore -- and that was before the big spike in gas prices earlier this year. These figures are part of a new study released this week by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, which advocates for balanced transportation investments.

The study, based on figures from Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that a typical family in Minneapolis-St. Paul spent $2,473 more on transportation in 2003 than a similar family in Portland, Ore., a more compact city with an extensive and growing transit system. In other words, the Twin Cities family donated almost $2,500 to the oil companies that the Portland family got to use for other things.

It borders on lunacy for Minnesota's governor and Legislature to continue cutting transit service, raising fares and failing to make a long-term commitment to expand the system. Forcing Minnesotans increasingly to suckle at the spigot of "big oil" isn't good for the family pocketbook or the regional economy. Nor is it best for solving traffic congestion, air pollution or dependence on foreign energy sources.

Congress, now finally on the brink of new transportation legislation, should allow states more flexibility in spending federal dollars on non-auto projects. It should also increase transit funding, retain its commitment to reduce air pollution and encourage new land-use patterns that minimize driving.

We should begin coming to terms with reality. The Big Gulp era of gasoline consumption is ending. In the early 1960s, Americans spent 10 percent of their incomes on transportation. Now, 40 years later, on a sprawling landscape with far more cars, far more driving and incomes beginning to decline, Americans spend double that share -- 20 percent. That trend cannot be sustained.

Last week I was really busy loading a bunch of albums onto my computer, as a friend and I had bought another friend an iPod(20 GB'er), and I wanted to load it up with a bunch of quality stuff. Well, this lead me to load a bunch of stuff up I hadn't listened to in a while....and I discovered this great Duke Ellington Record I hadn't thought about in a while. It's called "Money Jungle" and it's Duke on Piano, Charles Mingus on bass, and Max Roach on drums. It's just awesome.

So, as a result, I've decided that next month will be the month I rediscover my record collection. Play everything. Remember why I liked it so much at the time.

For the first album I picked Soul Asylum's "After the Flood" live album. It's a shame Karl went off and died. Marnie and I caught Karl Mueller's second to last show(at Gluek's). Great live band.

I was just trolling the 'Net and I saw that Visqueen is playing June 23 at the Triple Rock in Minneapolis.

As some of you(or the one of you that reads this thing) may know, this band is the best band I've discovered this year. Cheap Trick/Weezer mixed with heady amounts of Rockin' Estrogen(or Rostrogin, pronounced Rost-ro-gin).

The only downer is that I may not see the other side of the mountain....I might not make it to the Promised Restrogin land there with you as I may have to be in Iowa for a wedding. But I'm going to try to reschedule and make it happen, tux and all.

Strange.

David Lynch, the famous film directory, gives daily weather reports on his web page.Check it out.

Last weekend was busy.

I worked at the Walker on Saturday, for their "First Free Saturday" Program, which is intended to introduce families to the Walker. They have kid-friendly movies, folk storytellers, even really talented musicians (like the band Ida I discussed a couple of posts back) play kid friendly music.

On Sunday, I had my first piano recital. It was ok, and I had fun. I played "Matchmaker" and a little blues/jazz tune. Next time, in the winter, Bach instead.

There are two types of Radio DJs I just can't stand(thus drive me to listen to the albums I've loaded on my computer):

Those that sound like they have to manage an incredible amount of saliva in their mouths. It's just gross. I don't want to listen to them swallow their own spit. Like Steve Seel.

Those that pause, almost Shatner-esque mid sentence. Like Mark Wheet. Or all the old timey Radio K djs.

Just shut up and play me my music goddamnet. Except Mary Lucia. She's good, and is allowed to speak.

Another great album-they just had an in-studio on 89..

Ida's Heart Like A River .

On air, they kinda sounded Owl-ish....

I've downloaded M.I.A's tune Galang from the iTunes store....most who know me know I'm not a big hip-hopper....but this girl is good. I know by the end of the summer this song will be everywhere and you'll happily do without it, but you'll enjoy it now.

Download(for free this week) from Apple now, or check out her website

A editorial on Norm Colman's Senate Hearings reguarding the Iraq Oil for Food Program. From today's Strib:

Paul Scott: Norm's 'Celebrity Jeopardy'

Paul Scott

May 22, 2005 SCOTT0522

There is a recurring "Saturday Night Live" sketch where Will Ferrell plays Alex Trebek caught hosting a bizarro version of "Celebrity Jeopardy." The cerebral Trebek begins staggering under the scatalogical assault of Scotsman Sean Connery, parodied to full Highlander excess by comedian Darrell Hammond.

I thought of that sketch while watching our senator take on George Galloway last week. Except that by the end of the SNL sketch, Alex Trebek has our sympathy.

It is becoming possible that a local, national and now international disgust is mutating over the disingenuousness of Sen. Norm Coleman. (The Nation's John Nichols recently called him "a plain old-fashioned, drool-on-his-tie fool.") For those who first smelled a phony back when Coleman said he wanted to go to Washington to "change the tone" -- as if the naked hopefulness of Paul Wellstone was a tone that needed changing -- watching his inquisition of Scottish Member of Parliament George Galloway backfire so witheringly on Tuesday was like rolling in a tub of banana cream pie.

Maybe Coleman wasn't already choking on the hypocrisy of having asked for the resignation of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan over the oil-for-food fiasco, when Coleman stands mute over his the fact of his own party's leadership having so grossly mismanaged both the lead-up to 9/11 and the intelligence behind the case for war. Without the slightest apparent willingness to acknowledge such details, Coleman called to testify one of the chief critics in Britain of the invasion of Iraq, on oil-for-food charges he had already successfully refuted in the British legal system.

Even on a day when the Republicans initiated the so-called nuclear option, Galloway dropped into the U.S. news cycle like a haggis-filled A-bomb. A fierce debater from a land of men who invented hammer-throwing, a bruiser in a parliamentary system where the head of state is regularly treated like a son who smashed in the Acura, Galloway came to clear his name. And he was going to do this in front of the man previously famous for having brought Lawson Software to St. Paul.

He may be a lawyer, but Coleman is simply the wrong person to help the Republicans claim the mantle of justice-seekers. Crusading investigators are idealists. Coleman is a company man. He smiles. He hits his marks. He watches his waistline and he says his lines. Jesse Ventura was able to dispense with him during at least one debate just by pointing at tasseled loafers. In the end, it wasn't clear why Galloway's name was on some sketchy paperwork, and it wasn't clear that it mattered. When Galloway opened with a lengthy evisceration of the proceedings, the full Braveheart, Coleman countered with mumblings that sounded more like a tax audit -- as if he genuinely thought he was merely seeking facts, not political theater.

By mumbling his way through a litany of paperwork, when a strong case had just been made about a larger, more deadly deception, it was clear that the one thing Coleman had neglected to prepare for was the weakness of his moral position. He is in no position, with his president's war going this badly, to be sitting in judgment of those who have argued for the relief of the Iraqi people, and, unlike the path taken by Coleman, placed themselves in political peril by doing so.

Most of all, there was something immeasurably disappointing, as one writer to these pages observed, that it was not an American to be the first to drop the pretense of congeniality when facing the desperate diversions now underway in our Congress. There was something immeasurably sad about the fact that 200 years after we told the straight truth to an out-of touch England, it took a Brit to tell the straight truth to us: "In everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies."

Paul Scott is a writer living in Rochester, Minn.

Today I signed up for this new music service, emusic.com. LOTS of indie stuff, old stuff( like all the Sun Studios stuff ) and it's cheap. They give you unDRM'd MP3s....I got the plan that offers 90 downloads a month for a year(album and a half a week or so-plenty for me) for $19.95/month.

This weekend, I want to see Funny Ha Ha.

I know I've said this before but I love Visqueen. Buy "Sunset on Dateland". It's just that awesome!

Last night my friend Amanda Mitchell came over and we watched some of "Swimming Pool." Then she complained about her boyfriend's libedo, and about how she's getting laid far too little. Fuckin' A. Don't complain about your warm Diet Coke to someone stuck in the desert!

I LOVE IT when someone makes Senator/Mayor Quimby squirm: check this out from the BBC.

These are lofts going up in my neighborhood. Talk about overpriced.

What is the deal with lofts? Why does the builder of this site talk about the necessity of "features like exposed-duct heating and air conditioning"? When have things like this been features?

By the way, their lowest price unit is selling for $189k, is smaller than my place, and faces the highway. And my place has a pool, sauna, and no fucking highway next to you.

I hope that someday, when I'm ready to sell my place there will still be suckers like this to sell it to. I should get like half a mil.

I swear to God as I was riding the bus in to work today I saw Dave Navarro in a construction hat renovating one of the old U of M halls. I half expected him to take of his shirt, reveal is pierced and tattooed chest, and along with Perry Farrell(who would emerge from the on-site porta potty) bust into "Mountain Song" or some shit like that.

This was posted in the op/ed section of the Star Tribune today, referencing the recent bankruptcy legislation and the news that United Airlines is defaulting on their retirement plans:

Does this make sense: The federal government makes it harder for a person to file for bankruptcy, but it makes it easier for corporations to walk away from their responsibilities to their employees?

Marshall Wold, Maple Grove.

I bought a sorta-new Soul Asylum live CD via iTunes(it's titled "After the Flood:Live from the Grand Forks Flood" ). It's awesome.

I saw them in concert last summer when they played Glueck's in the warehouse district. Really cool. Marnie and I talked up Dave Pirner's dad for a while. Nice old man.

Shit yo! NASA has a podcast!

The Twins Stadium.

Yeah, I'm not really excited about it. In fact I'm kind of pissed.

It's not a huge increase in the sales tax(.17%) but it's over 30 years(so....it won't be done if the thing only lasts as long as the Metrodome) and that money could be used to help entities that actually need help, like, I don't know, people who aren't billionaires.

article from minnesotatwins.com

I hate this weather.

I've noticed that a few people seem to visit my site on a pretty regular basis.

I wonder. What do you get from reading my pointless drivel? What do I add to YOUR lives?

You know what you can add to mine?

COLD HARD CASH.


Thank You.

Yesterday I got Tiger.

My initial opinion?
It is slightly faster on my iBook. I like Dashboard(and especially the weather forecast applet). I haven't really tried the Automator but I'd imagine I'll like it. Though I'm kinda ho-hum on Spotlight but I could imagine that I'd like it much more if I had years and years(instead of just a month) worth of files and contacts on this machine. There are some tiny little things I like. For instance any user can now alter the performance settings(to control processor speed, screen sleep time, hard drive sleep, etc). And if you try to perform any action that requires admin level privileges it now prompts you for and admin username/password instead of just telling you you're not allowed.

I don't like how it handles firewire devices-before with my recording interface if I put the machine to sleep, I could safely unplug it. It appears that this is no longer the case. Kinda a bummer.

Show news: Tonight Of Montreal, who I discussed in a earlier post is playing. In fact, they start soon(early show).

My status?

This week, I:
1) rearranged my place with the help of my friend Stephanie who is visiting from California.
2) went to a conference up north for work(I leave tomorrow)
3) am going to a concert for "Of Montreal" with my friend Marnie.
4) am kinda drunk.
5) am kinda horney. Really horney. Anyone want to pimp their single friends my way?
6) am listening to David Bowie's authorized mash up of "Never Get Old" and "Rebel Rebel" titled "Rebel Never Gets Old." SOO cool. I love Bowie.

Another great Concert. On the thirtieth, the band Of Montreal is playing at the Triple Rock.

I'm a big fan of their new Sunlandic Twins album. It's kinda like Guided by Voices, but better IMHO.

Macca is coming back to town!

Star Trib article

One of my favorite new bands of this year, Tegan & Sara are headlining at the Quest on May 6th. I'm going to swollow my dislike of the venue(which is quite strong) and buy a ticket. I really like their last record.

The Walker was great. I worked in the now fully dedicated cinema theater and it was fun and the work was interesting.

Tonight, I'm volunteering at the Walker Art Center's reopening gala(which means I've got to shave and wear a suit and tie). I'd recommend everyone try and check it out. The building is just awesome.

Here is an article on the reopening from today's NY Times.

FYI, check out Target's Free Thursday Nights(that's when I'm working). It's free, because of Target. It runs 7-9 pm, Sponsored by target. Here's a link. Did I mention it's sponsored by Target?

There is a hobby for everyone, isn't there?

varminthunter.org.

"Male bonding over dead squirrels"

Holy crap! Minneapolis wants to create a citywide wi-fi network. $18-$24 a month....

It would be great if Edina did the same thing. Then I wouldn't have to steal wi fi from my neighbors.

Oh, Shit.

Just when I thought I had the Bright Eyes problem under control here comes the Big Wu. On TV no less.

No, I'm not a music snob. I just care about our children!

For the last couple of months I've been cutting back on dairy...Thus I've been drinking a lot of soy milk.

Today, I discovered the nirvana of soy milks. Organic Valley Soy is a Iowa coop, and their soy milk is just the best. Better than Silk. Better than 8th Continent. It tastes better(by a wide margin), and it's cheaper(at least right now). It's on sale at Lund's in Uptown for $2.25 per half gallon.

I played a lot of music yesterday...I recorded some neat guitar parts.

I've seen signs for The Alliance Française at the bus stops downtown, and I was wondering what people thought of their classes....
I think I might like doing one of their beginner classes in the fall.

I played last night. Nothing great, but I think it will take me some time to get used to creating music again. I haven't really sat down and tried to record in months.

But technology wise, the Mac is awesome. I plug in my audio interface. It quickly and easily and automatically configures itself to use it. I plug in a MIDI keyboard. BAM! It works. I am the weak chain in my little music experiment.

Big changes at the Turf Club. I bet it becomes much more like it's Irish bar brethren. Check this article at City Pages.

One of my fondest memories of that club has to be the photo booth. A friend of mine, Marnie Diker, and I vamped it up numerous times for that thing. I hope they keep it.

Last night I ended up changing my plans. Rather than kicking out the jams I changed my plans to go over to my friend Joe's house.

We were riding his motorcycle(mine is still in storage), sitting at a stoplight on Highway 55 in North Minneapolis and this moron behind us rear ends us. Really, it was just a tap but it just messed up his rear fender. And the Minneapolis Police took forever to get there and didn't even do an accident report.

After getting the bike towed to his house we watched Comedy Central. I had never seen The Chapelle Show so we watched that. It's funny, but it's kind of weird watching a black man tell racist jokes. If a white guy had done those jokes, I can't imagine people would tolerate it. I don't think I'd enjoy watching it.

Tonight is kick out the jams night.

I've got my iBook working with Garageband for audio.

It was easy, once I figured out I had a bad driver.

Tonight is the night I'm going to kick out the jams, and try to get MIDI to work.

And lastly, I'm nearly the last person who's not fallen in love with them (or at least I think so), but Visqueen are great. Buy their new album. Pop-punk nirvana. Read another story from msnbc here.

I fucking HATE Bright Eyes.

The only way I could tolerate that whining drivel would be if a girl I liked was into him. And it would still count as a strike against her.

I just wanted to get my opinion of Bright Eyes out there, to begin the Bright Eyes Counter Revolution. Come on troops, get behind me!

Got the new iBook.....logging from it RIGHT NOW.

This thing has iTunes. The iTunes Music Store is the best and worst thing ever. I bought 3 albums last night. Bjork's Medulla, Juliana Hatfield's In Exile Deo, Petra Haden's cover of The Who's The Who Sell Out.

I like Juliana's the best but they are all good.

But, in summary, iTunes is going to force me into bankruptcy.

Recommended CD: Bettie Seervert's Attagirl

Listen to a couple of live tracks from The Current's In Studio Performance Page. Lots of other good bands with tracks there(such as The Owls).

article on improving your DAW mac.

Don't read this kiddies, as it's just here to remind me to do this stuff when the new computer comes in(on Friday, as the FedEx link tells us).

Watch in real-time from the FedEx website as my new iBook crawls across the country into my loving arms.

Oh. Last Saturday I also bought a new MIDI controller/electric piano. It's a Casio PX-100 . Yeah, as a whole Casio makes crappy keyboards but this one seems pretty decent. The hammer action is superb. It's supposed to be the same as Yamaha's hammer action(and Yamaha's keyboards are MUCH more expensive), as Casio apparently licensed the technology. The only weak point would be the sounds, as it only has 32 note polyphony. But for practice the internal sounds don't suck that bad(if I ever use them, once the new computer arrives).

That's all the news that's fit to print right now.

I'm house sitting my sister's place while the rest of my family are in Florida. Boring. I like my sister's place-it's in a nice place(on Grand Ave), wood floors, etc but it's small. Like 500 sq ft. My condo is almost twice the size.

Anyway, I ended up watching PBS. Funding Drive. Ugh. Now, as evidenced by my donation to the current, I don't have any problems with funding drives for public radio or (in this case) tv. But why do the people asking for the donations have to be sooo unlikeable? The program they were running was on the St John's Bible a project started by my old school. The jackasses called us St. John's College! WTF! We're like, 90 minutes north of Minneapolis. We're one of the best private liberal arts colleges in the state! Winningest football coach of all time! Hamline University isn't called Hamline College. No one ever calls the University of St. Thomas St. Thomas College. Bethel University is sometimes called Bethel College, but that's because they renamed themselves from that only a little while ago. And that is just one example of the way they bothered me. They were just grating.

Anyway, the show I was watching was cool. I learned some things. And I always get kinda nostalgic when I see the old tundra. Still kinda feels like home.

Oh-a link to a version of the bible you can by from Amazon
A place where you can buy prints of the illuminations (via SJU)

I got a iBook

It was refurb from apple, thus $100 dollars cheaper than a actual new one, so I decided to get it over the mini.

It'll be a few months until I can get logic, but it's on the way.

Next up: a new midi controller.

In the long-running decision for a new computer:

I'm getting a Mac Mini, and I'm going to get a gig memory stick in it. For about a grand( $479 for machine, $189 for memory, $499 for Logic Pro Student Edition), I get exactly what I want for recording. Err, or at least I hope so.

Remember that girl I met at a party in January ? Well, nothing really came out of it but she's having a gallery show in a April. check it out . It's subject is "a visual exploration of the coal mining landscape in Central Europe." Interesting, and beautiful.

I was trolling around on the net (avoiding work), and I found this blog: The Online Dating Diaries . Funny, smart. It was the blog of the day on City Pages.

March 11, 2005 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- A boy no older than 11 was among the children held by the Army at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, the former U.S. commander of the facility told a general investigating abuses at the prison.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski did not say what happened to the boy or why he was imprisoned, according to a transcript of her interview with Maj. Gen. George Fay that was released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The transcript of the May 2004 interview was among hundreds of pages of documents about Iraq prisoner abuses the group made public Thursday after getting them under the Freedom of Information Act.

Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Ghraib from July to November 2003, said she often visited the prison's youngest inmates. One boy "looked like he was 8-years-old," Karpinski said.

"He told me he was almost 12," Karpinski said. "He told me his brother was there with him, but he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother. He was crying."

Military officials have acknowledged that some juvenile prisoners had been held at Abu Ghraib, a massive prison built by Saddam Hussein's government outside Baghdad. But the transcript is the first documented evidence of a child no older than 11 being held prisoner.

Military officials have said that no juvenile prisoners were subject to the abuses captured in photographs from Abu Ghraib. But some of the men shown being stripped naked and humiliated had been accused of raping a 14-year-old prisoner.

The new documents offer rare details about the children whom the U.S. military has held in Iraq. Karpinski said the Army began holding women and children in a high-security cellblock at Abu Ghraib in the summer of 2003 because the facility was better than lockups in Baghdad where the youths had been held.

The documents include statements from six witnesses who said three interrogators and a civilian interpreter at Abu Ghraib got drunk one night and took a 17-year-old female prisoner from her cell. The four men forced the girl to expose her breasts and kissed her, the reports said. The witnesses -- whose names were blacked out of the documents given to the ACLU -- said those responsible were not punished.

Another soldier said in January 2004 that troops poured water and smeared mud on the detained 17-year-old son of an Iraqi general and "broke" the general by letting him watch his son shiver in the cold.

On another subject, Karpinski said she had seen written orders to hold a prisoner that the CIA had captured without keeping records. The documents released by the ACLU quote an unnamed Army officer at Abu Ghraib as saying military intelligence officers and the CIA worked out a written agreement on how to handle unreported detainees. An Army report issued last September said investigators could not find any copies of any such written agreement.

The Pentagon has acknowledged holding up to 100 "ghost detainees," keeping the prisoners off the books and away from humanitarian investigators of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he authorized it because the prisoners were "enemy combatants" not entitled to prisoner of war protections.

The ACLU has sued Rumsfeld on behalf of four Iraqis and four Afghans who say they were tortured at U.S. military facilities. Rumsfeld and his spokesmen have repeatedly said that the defense secretary and his aides never authorized or condoned any abuses.

Six enlisted soldiers have pleaded guilty to military charges for their roles in abuses at Abu Ghraib, and Pvt. Charles Graner Jr. was convicted at a court-martial this year and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Karpinski, one of the few generals to be criticized in Army detainee reports for poor leadership, quoted several senior generals in Iraq as making callous statements about prisoners.

Karpinski said Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, then the No. 2 Army general in Iraq, told her in the summer of 2003 not to release more prisoners, even if they were innocent.

"I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent civilians. We're winning the war," Karpinski said Wodjakowski told her. She said she replied: "Not inside the wire, you're not, sir."

Well the ritual mourning of my 4 year cell phone may have been premature.

In a Star Trek:The Search For Spock type move, it was resurrected (not by the use of a M-Class Planet generator that looked really cool in theaters circa 1985, but resurrected none the less) after I cleaned the battery contacts.

Rejoyce, Ewoks!

Why wait, do you ask? Well, I want to wait until a bluetooth equipped phone gets really cheap. They say that by the Year 2000, we may be able to have our laptops use bluetooth to talk to our phones, then using their connection as a network connection. That would be sweet with my impending laptop.

Well the ritual mourning of my 4 year cell phone may have been premature.

In a Star Trek:The Search For Spock type move, it was resurrected (not by the use of a M-Class Planet generator that looked really cool in theaters circa 1985, but resurrected none the less) after I cleaned the battery contacts.

Rejoyce, Ewoks!

Well, my 4 year old cell phone, which I got in part because it reminded me of a ST:TOS clamshell communicator, has finally bit it.

If I have the thing sitting in it's cradle, it will work but it appears that the battery has just decided to shake this mortal coil.

I'm going to go pick up a new phone tonight at my local Sprint store.

Good luck in the afterlife my old friend!

The city is planning on tearing down the building Let it Be Records is in and building a 50 story condo building....
As detailed in this Star Trib story, a developer wants to build a condo and office complex over the 4 story height limitations there.....
And there are numerous buildings filled with Yuppie Lofts popping up all over the place.

I don't know how to feel about it. On one hand, I'd love to move from where I live, which I consider Greater Uptown(I define Greater Uptown to be the area along Excelsior Blvd in Saint Louis Park and my bit of Edina), to Uptown Proper or even downtown. But I'm also kind of nervous because they're tearing down or "improving" the things that I'd be interested in living nearer to.

Tragedy of the Commons.

Last night, I went out with a new friend(maybe more) to Buca de Beppo and the Kid Dakota show at First Avenue.

Buca was good, if a little bit too much. I've got a couple days of lunch from the encounter in my fridge.

At the show we ran into Courtney, a friend and fellow CSCI major and KJNB exile from St. John's/St. Ben's. She was always so cool and so smart....All the computer nerds and music geeks just fawned over her. She was really nice when I told her that I was in a first date type situation...A good wingwoman for the few minutes the three of us talked.

The show was good, and I was in bed(alone) by two. We're going to go out on Thursday, the last day of our shared creative writing class(the lucky girl sat next to me, impressed with my paper-scribbles).

On book news:
I finished Tender is the Night today.

It was great.

But.....I expected there to be a much more dramatic ending, I kept waiting to see Dick collapse. I didn't expect the slow falling apart the last chapter in the last book detailed(not that there was very much detail, but....).

Next Book: Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency--Something fun and profound.
After that: Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury
After that: The Collected works of Carrottop, by the prop comic of the same name. If the first few chapters can successfully link his existential philosophy, his ideas of wacky prop comedy, and his lifelong training to be an enormous idiot it could be a great(and educational) read.

Has anyone else noticed the new First Ave homepage?

Holy Crap!

Although, I kinda miss the really plain old home page already.

I finished reading A Million Little Pieces last night...It's an excellent book.

The last few books I've read have been Tender is the Night, A Million Little Pieces, The Collected Poems of Paul Celan, and Dry by Augustine Burroughs. It hit me that I've been reading some really...disfunctional books lately. Books about drug addiction, mental illness, and/or social stigmatization. I think my next book is going to be fun. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Last night, at class this cute girl sat next to me.....We got to talking and afterwards we went to Grumpy's and talked, drank, and could barely contain our enthusiasm for their Tater-Tots. Saturday, we're going to the Kid Dakota show. Her name is Laura. She has a lit degree from Saint Cloud State. She works in a candle/craft type shop in Maple Grove. She drives a Saturn. She was also involved in Slam Poetry, and did volunteer work when the Finals where here a couple of years ago.

This might be fun....

On Saturday, a really good friend of mine got married....It was just fantastic.

Afterwards, we went to The Oceanaire. It hardly needs to be said, but the food was great. If any of you ever head out there, even though you may be tempted to order fish strongly consider the side of lamb-it was excellent.

Tonight I'm restarting piano lessons. I haven't taken them since college. It should be a challenge, but fun.

I also finished Locas:A Love & Rockets Book, a collection of Love & Rocket's Maggie and Hopey stores. Buy it and check out reviews on Amazon.

I'm also going to have to start training for RAGBRAI(my annual trek across Iowa)....They cashed my check yesterday. I just ordered a new resistance trainer so I can start cycling in my garage. I might even wear spandex ;-)

A new pict of me, from the office newsletter.

I just enabled comments-feel free to tell me how stupid I am, how vapid my posts are, how boring my life is.

thanks for your cooperation

Today, I donated $120 to KCMP 89.3, "The Current"

If you care about the local art and music scene, you'd do it too.

so do it. DO IT! DO IT! Starsky & Hutch was kinda funny, in a frat boy kind of way.

Tonight I'm going to a Matt Wilson show. At the 400 Bar.

The Flops are dead....Long live The FLOPS.

Last Thursday I put my dog to sleep.

after all this sadness, moving here might be a nice change

I haven't mentioned it here because I thought there was a chance it might not happen.

Tomorrow my parents are going to take my dog, the dog I was given by my paternal grandparents 15 years ago(one year before the death of my Grandmother), and put him to sleep.

I'm devastated. Whenever I go home, he seems fine. Old, but fine.

I have more memories of Corduroy (named like the bear in this children's book) than I do of most people. And I know I've forgotten more events than I remember.

He was there for me through the death of my Grandmother, troubles in high school and college, and I always enjoyed coming home to see him.

Tomorrow is going to be a tough day.

Hey look-
Wisconsin loves Supergrass too!

There is this guy that sits on the other side of my cube that I just hate.

I've never met him.

I don't know his name.

I don't know what he looks like.

But he talks loud, and eats and chews gum with his mouth open. And clicks his mouse in a really annoying manner.

Even right now, as I write this entry.

Normally, I bring headphones so I can drone him out but today I forgot them.

And now suffer the consequences.

Another good one-

So Jealous by Tegan & Sara

I had my first creative writing class last night. It was fun. At the very least I got a packet of interesting stuff to read. The only part I didn't like was when 15 hypersonic armadillos ran through the classroom, followed by a pack of lions and wolves.

See? I'm more creative already.

Tomorrow, I've got my first composition class at the Macphail.

God, don't let me find out I'm a poseur in my 26th year. Let me swoon them with my charm and talent. THANK YOU!

new album to get. I just heard the track "Everybody Come Down" on 89.3

Nice and poppy

I just found out I didn't get the job at the Walker....Some of the training occurs during my two classes. I'm kind of bummed, but they were interested in getting me in some other job. We'll see.

Oh-on Saturday I went downtown to see the construction crew place the rooftop overhang on the new downtown library. Read about it here . More picts of the entire process are here . A live camera can be viewed from here .

I was talking to one of the construction people and they said the entire building was made locally, except for the large pane of glass that will go over the overhang. It was so large no facility in the US could be used to produce it so it is being constructed in Belgium.

Wow-I can't believe anyone would ever think of this:
an a capella version of The Who's "The Who Sell Out" album . I read on Pete Townshend's web page he did the sleeve notes.

I heard a version of "Sunrise" by Petra Haden on NPR's All Songs Considered. It's cool. Listen to it here.

This might be really cool, someday.....

It's a new music amp/effect simulator software package, where you can "design" your own effects. From the guy that created WinAmp.

Well, I've been listening to the new NPR radio station I noted in my last post since Monday, and I'm in an a profound state of BLISS.

I love everyone, everywhere, and I want to convince them all to call all their friends and admit their complete devotion to one another.

REALLY.

Well, the new public radio that plays pop music goes on air today, at 9am. Here's a link to KCMP

nice pic from today's star trib:
http://startribune.com/images/hl/5191936_114932.html

I think I read that a good pop song can save the world. Well, it may be true if the good pop song is by Emiliana Torrini and the song is "Nothing Brings Me Down" from her forthcoming Fisherman's Woman album( to be released sometime in March 2005).

OH, I read "High Fidelity" today. I think I read it before, but I might just be thinking of "About a Boy," which is also by Nick Hornby. Similar themes, language, etc.

Funny. It literally took me only a day to read the book. Really, only 8 hours or so, during my federally mandated day off. But, I've also got books I've been working on for like a year. I'm going to resolve to finish off one of those this week. Hopefully, if my life isn't filled with too much sex or intrigue.

I've discovered that a couple groups I've been longing to see it making a visit to the 'rents neck of the woods-the Minnesota Rollergirls and the Soviettes.

buy your tickets here!

Be there or be square.....And give me a ride :-)

I hadn't seen my parents since Christmas weekend, so I'm spending it with them. Which is nice-I can spend time with them(well, mostly argue. About the past, which is pointless), read("F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters"), and play bass(I've got it and an amp here).

But last night I was able to sneak out and go to a party. It's theme was Hawaiian and I only knew the hostess (from the last place I worked) and a few other former coworkers. Anyways, I ended up drinking a healthy amount of wop, played Presidents and Assholes, and met a nice girl, who will hopefully give me a call.

Her name is Nikki...and she's going for her masters in Landscape Architecture. We talked about my impending position at the Walker, about St. John's(of course), First Avenue, and a bunch of other stuff. You know how I swoon over intelligent women, and I was in a full swoon.

I wrote some juicy bass parts today...hopefully I can remember them until I get home to record them.

Also, I want to change my recording rig to a Mac based deal: A powerbook, ibook, or a mac mini and Logic. I can get the education discount(because of my new job at MnSCU), but I still don't know if I can swing the $1000-$1400 price tag. But it sure has me drooling.

On that note, if anyone knows of some part time contract type thing, drop me a line. You should know the email.

Boy, this might be a year of renewal...

I just signed up for a composition class that the Macphail Center for the Arts is offering.

I can't wait to wail my awesome guitar licks in their ivory hallways.

Well, it's the new year. What am I up to?

I'm reading quite a bit......Mostly essays by Lester Bangs, and an Anthology from the Paris Review. Good stuff. And it kind of inspires me. While I haven't done anything with the blog (obviously), I been writing quite a bit.

I'm a little closer to getting a new fun job, at the Walker Art Center. I'll do tours and stuff.

I'm also taking a class at 'The Loft,' a nonprofit writer's resource thing.

So far, it's been kind of a fun month. I'll talk to you soon, my patient and lovin' fans!