Last weekend my wife and I went to see our favorite comedic group make a triumphant return to Minneapolis. The Kids in the Hall 2008 Tour stopped Saturday night at the Orpheum Theater (after previously appearing at the State last time they were here). Watching the gang in person – Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson – is like hanging out with old friends.

The show was fairly short (maybe 90 minutes), but included one very funny NSFW video, chicken lady phone sex, Cathy tweeking, a Gavin sketch, The Salesmen, a Buddy Cole rant (“Twin Cities men – nothing mini or saintly about them!”) and an encore with the headcrusher. Those guys are such a funny and talented group – Canadian entertainment at it’s finest!

Before the show, we stopped at Ristorante Luci in St. Paul for dinner. Their food is as good as the Kids are funny. We both started out with the Insalata Cesare, followed by a shared order of housemade fettuccine with peas, chicken and prosciutto. That pasta was awesome – the first outside of Alfredo’s I’ve had that is worthy of the name. For the final course, my wife had the pork chop, while I had “American Kobe” beef with mashed potatoes. We had early reservations, but had to leave for the show before we could try the pretty mini-bundt cake desert.

Oh yeah, one last note on the show. I read about the tour on one of my newsfeeds and went to Ticketmaster to search for more info. I saw the Minnesota date listed, but general public sales hadn’t started yet. There was a link for a presale, but I didn’t know the code (or who was sponsoring the presale). On a whim, I tried “KITH” and damn if it didn’t let me in. As you can see from the ticket above, row N on the main floor was a pretty good reward for this old hacker…

Snow, winds gusting to 35mph and a temp just above freezing greeted runners at today’s 31st running of the Get in Gear 10K in Minneapolis. Despite all that, thousands turned out to run and had what turned out to be a comfortable race.

In my run, the wind really only hindered coming across the Ford Parkway bridge. There was also one period just after crossing the Lake Street bridge when the ice pellets started hitting us in the face. I took off my gloves and hat pretty quickly, though, and didn’t feel cold at all.

My clock time was 59:20, so I’m guessing my chip time was around 58:30 (my late registration seems to have excluded me from the online results, but they did announce my name as I neared the finish line). UPDATE: John Magnuson from ChampionChip Minnesota emailed me and confirmed my official time as 58:30 (9:25 pace).

The top 5 men’s finishers were:

• 1, Sammy Malakwen, Two Harbors, MN, age 29, 30:51 (4:58 pace)
• 2, William Serem, Coon Rapids, MN, age 32, 30:57 (4:59)
• 3, Richard Kandie, Coon Rapids, MN, age 23, 31:18 (5:03)
• 4, Zablon Mandere, Minneapolis, MN, age 32, 31:21 (5:03)
• 5, Eric Hartmark, Duluth, MN, age 30, 31:29 (5:04)

The top 5 women’s finishers were:

• 1, Kimberly Magee, Mounds View, MN, age 25, 36:50 (5:56 pace)
• 2, Stephani Houk, Robbinsdale, MN, age 34, 37:01 (5:58)
• 3, Calleen Areba, age 34, 38:03 (6:08)
• 4, Kristen Painter, New Brighton, MN, age 22, 38:08 (6:09)
• 5, Bonnie Sons, Shorewood, MN, age 42, 38:19 (6:10)

The Minnesota running season has officially begun!

As I near forty, I’ve been thinking more and more about the great things I’ve been able to do in my life and what things I’d still like to do. The box on each page of 7 Minute Miles lists a number of these things, but when I rode a train across the rockies (item#25), I realized that’s the first one I’ve actually completed since I made the list.

Two events have led to more serious family discussions about our future plans: the afore-mentioned train trip out west and my weekend trip to the North Shore this winter to see Richard Thompson. What these trips pointed out to me was that I really like the outdoors and places like Schweitzer and the North Shore of Lake Superior are much prettier than where I live now. If I can find a way to make a living, why not live where it’s pretty?

I’ve wanted a cabin on Lake Superior for a long time. The frequent trips to Grand Marais while growing up often led to thoughts of “what could I do for a job to live here all the time?” I never could find a good answer to that, especially with the opportunities available in the Twin Cities. But with telecommuting and air travel options, where you physically live is becoming less and less important.

Here are some of my goals and desires as part of this plan:

• Five acres on Lake Superior somewhere between Duluth and Lutsen with 300 feet of lake shore
• Architect-designed, chalet-style, log and stone home built using “Not-So-Big” philosophies
• Home features: large windows towards lake, stone fireplace, heated floors, satellite TV, high-speed internet, audio/video room, green building techniques, Kohler Bodyspray shower
• Small, two-bedroom guest cottage for my parents (and other visitors)
• Good schools for the kids (Two Harbors High School?)
• School technology consulting/remote management and MN Publishing Company website publishing for me, Duluth health care and consulting options for Colleen
• Northland Country Club membership for golf and swimming; Lutsen Mountain season pass for skiing
• Other quality of life activities: running, biking, hiking, kayaking, skating, dining, travel

There are great restaurants in Duluth and along the North Shore, the Twin Cities would still be close (as would Canada), air travel would be easy enough and I’d even tolerate the winters better thanks to the skiing and overall beauty we experienced there in March. I’d miss Wild games at the X, but I could still drive down for a few games now and then.

I need to stop drooling and make it happen–the clock is ticking!

Today I stopped by Minnehaha Park to register for the 31st running of the Get in Gear 10K, to be held tomorrow morning at 9:30am. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to run this year, so I waited until the last minute. And even then that decision was hard, looking at the forecast. I’ve run the last five in a row, though, so I had to keep the streak alive.

The fee for registering on the last day this year was $38. Two nice additions for 2008: T-shirts were available for pick-up right away and the race paid the parking fees in the lot.

The forecast calls for cold and windy with a chance of snow, so this may not be a stellar year. Watch for updates later this weekend…

Spring has finally sprung in Minnesota and all traces of snow and ice are gone (at least in the southern part of the state).

Golfing in Minnesota is now back from hibernation and we have lots of great stories in the pipeline for 2008, including expanded coverage of the state high school tournaments, the U.S. Women’s Open at Interlachen and Hazeltine’s preparations for the 2009 PGA Championship. We’ll also have stories from new contributors, expanded photography and an enhanced course directory.

In the off-season, we added two new websites, Hockey in Minnesota and Run in Minnesota. The hockey site will go into off-season mode now, but the running site is just getting started. Please stop by those sites and watch for additional news later this year.

As always, we welcome your feedback at dk@7minutemiles.com.

The next website in my Minnesota media empire launched today, Run in Minnesota.

Inspired by yesterday’s Boston Marathon, I registered for the 2008 Twin Cities Marathon today and decided to finally launch run.mn. Just like Golfing in Minnesota and Hockey in Minnesota, posts about running topics that used to appear here will now appear on the Run in Minnesota site.

This will be my 11th marathon and I’m very excited to get back into shape. I’m pledging now to be more serious about training this time and have set a goal of beating my personal best time of 4:42. You can track my training via the Runner’s World widget in the sidebar.

Ran a 5K tonight, so I’m off to a decent start.