August 21, 2006
Bike Commuter
The good news is that Erica was hired to teach at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institue. She will be teaching the public speaking course for some chefs in training. It is a nice opportunity to work with students again. The bad news is that Le Cordon Bleu is about a 10 mile commute from our home in downtown Minneapolis. As part of our desire to simplify, we have been trying to make just one car work for our family. With both of our long commutes to our jobs, we have had to be a little creative with Erica’s commute to her new job. Erica has joined the ranks for the bike commuters (there are alot of them here in the twin cities). Her commute involves riding her bike to the light rail, taking the light rail to a state park, riding wooded bike trails through the park and over a bridge spanning the Mississippi river with a view of both Minneapolis and St. Paul and onto to the front door of her work. Total commute time is about an hour. The jury is still out on if she will enjoy her commute and even look forward to the ride through the woods to work. For now, we’re going to try to make it work; happy trails!
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May 25, 2006
Can You Go Mow the Roof?
I know this sounds a bit uh, nerdy, but Erica and I were both anxiously anticipating the opeining of the new huge central library in Minneapolis. Aside from just being a great place to get books, the vast majority of the entire collection is available, the new library represents a place for the community to get all types of services. The library is designed by a world class architect as a modern structure with a unique design. In addition, there are interesing feature such as a green space on the roof of the library with plants (grass I believe) that help to create a more energy efficient building while managing runoff water to water the plants and surrounding greenery. I don’t know whose job it is to mow the roof of the library, but I imagine that someone has that unique task in their job description
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May 23, 2006
Cool Apple Stuff
I thought this was pretty cool. Its a movie of the new apple store on 5th Ave with time lapse photography.
5th Ave link
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January 13, 2006
Working on the Reservation
I have been on an unintentional blog sabitical. A combination of lack of high speed access and our transition back home. At the end of December, I worked at Pine Ridge Hosptial on the Ogala Souix reservation in South Dakota. I found the work challenging, I got lost in the badlands in the pitch black of night on my way in from Rapid City. The hours were long and the resources of the hosptial were limited compared to my usual practice. That being said, I enjoyed serving the Native American population. I had a wonderful team in the ED of nurses and clerks. I found the black hills another beautiful part of our country worthy of another visit for exploration. The experience was challenging but net positive.
I enjoyed many beautiful sunrises in the big sky country.
There was a snow storm on my second shift. I was very glad to have my SUV to drive back to my home in the snow.
My reward to myself was to explore the Black Hills on my way out of South Dakota. I found these wild mules in Crazy Horse national park.
These friendly mules decided to have a closer look at me.
To my surprise with no fear they poked their heads into my suv for a pet.
It was great to visit the monument of Mount Rushmore. The “faces” as I was told by the locals as the local name, were specifically chosen. George Washington for the birth of the nation, Thomas Jefferson for the expansion. Abraham Lincoln for the preservation of unity and Theodore Rosevelt for the developement of the nation.
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November 27, 2005
Happy Birthday Erica!
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October 24, 2005
Home
We’re recovering and sorting through treasures we’ve accumulated from around the world and things we’ve negected in storage for 15 months. It’s always good to go home after extended travels. Its nice to visit old haunts, enjoy familiar tastes and most importantly connect with old freinds and family.
We were thrilled to see old freinds again who trecked accross the state for some fun, food and well.. lots of photos. It was so great to see old friends and pick up as if no time had passed at all. See above photo; Tim, Juliana and Jill. Cheers and a warm welcome to all our treasured freinds.
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October 16, 2005
Twenty Nine NYC
I celebrateded twenty nine years in NYC. The last day of our around the world trip was also the first day of my life of twenty nine years. I celebrated the day doing one of the things I love; travelling. We started with fresh New York bagels. (delicious!) The weather cleared from the downpours of rain all week to a wonderful sunny fall day. It was off for a ride on the circle ferry to see the statue of liberty up close. Listening to the stories of her creation, I felt a renewed appreciation for the symbolism of the statue; liberty, fraternity and equality. It was spectacular to see this symbol that welcomed generations to America welcome us back to our home. It was off to Greenwich Village for some exploring after a lunch of the best and biggest pastrami sandwich ever. We wound down with some Vietnamese fusion cuisine and out into the night. A good day doing some of my favority things; travelling, exploring, enjoying good food and enjoying the stories that come while traveling.
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October 15, 2005
Coming to America
Our adventure continued in the streets of Prague. After leaving the diverse landscape of Turkey, we explored the winding backalleys and cobblestoned streets of beautiful Prague. We soaked up Bavaria; walked accross St. Charles Bridge in the shadow of Prague castle, marvelled at old town square with its Gothic Cathedrals, tried Pilsner beer with a side of goulash, got lost in the winding alleys of one of europe’s preserved Jewish ghettos. Then it was off to Sweden for some exploring of Erica’s roots. Beautiful Stockholm was in the full splender of fall. My favorite season, we missed fall during our experience down under. The trees in Stockholm were bursting with fall colors. This city of islands connected by bridges was a great fun to explore and learn about Vikings, Swedish culture, and history. We took a side trip to Vingakor for an expertly guided whirlwing tour of Erica’s Swedish roots. We experienced great Swedish hosptiality while viewing ancestral homes and beautiful Swedish countryside. After a brief side trip to Sigtuna to search out 900 year old runestones in Sweden’s oldest living town, we hoped on a plane for the journey accross the big pond to New York City. Hello Big Apple! We’re back in the United States.
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