The best hire I ever made, web developer Jake Schutz, is moving on to greener pastures next week. He’s headed for the division of Garmin that used to be Paul Douglas’ weather firm, Digital Cyclone. I think he’s leaving because I was working him to death (see above).

Jake is an extremely talented programmer and systems administrator that I would have loved to retain, but we just couldn’t afford to pay him what he’s worth right now. I’m very happy for him, though, and would love to have an opportunity to hire him back again sometime down the road.

Jake and I had the opportunity to travel around the country, both on business and for fun. Business trips included server setups in Seattle, WWDC in San Francisco and the new school in Los Angeles. Free tickets and my Mini Cooper took us east to New York to watch the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

We’ve become good friends over the years and I look forward to continued nerd chats, ping pong, hockey games and golf outings for many years to come.

Good luck, Jake!

Got two of my favorites from my wife for Valentine’s Day 2008: Daim candy from Sweden (via IKEA) and a gift certificate for a round of golf at Willingers in Northfield.

Awesome–can’t wait for the snow to melt. Sixty days?

Yesterday was my 39th birthday and I’m feelin’ fine. I really appreciate all the well wishes, cards and gifts from near and far. My family got me a signed, limited-edition Michael Birawer print of the 2007 Minnesota State Fair (see above) and I also received several new Wii games, DVDs and golf balls.

The day was laid back–it started by taking my oldest to an inventors fair at the local high school. We had lunch at a newer place in Mendota called Lucky’s 13 Pub, which had great atmosphere, but not so great food. After a long nap on the couch, we met my sister and parents for dinner at Tavern on Grand.

Only 364 more days to plan for the “big one” next year…

Yesterday we took in our La-Z-Boy recliner to a charity in Bloomington called Bridging Inc. They give furniture and other household items to people who are going through transitions in their lives.

There is still a day and a half to make a donation to your favorite charity and get a tax break for 2007. Here are some other non-profits and charities I recommend:

• High School for Recording Arts
• Minnesota Public Radio
• Minnesota Historical Society
• Minnesota State Fair Foundation
• St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
• Minnesota Orchestra
• University of Minnesota Foundation
• University of Wisconsin Foundation
• Tapemark Charity Pro-Am
• Special Olympics of Minnesota
• American Cancer Society

Help make a difference!

Halloween 2007 pictures available in the private section of the photo gallery.

Have a safe one ghosts and goblins!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I’ve written a post here. Time for a quick check-in, then I’ll write more later this week…

It’s been a beautiful fall in Minnesota. Awesome colors, warm temps and a few unexpected rounds of golf before the snow arrives.

Speaking of golf, the Golfing in Minnesota website that I publish now has Google Ads (I make money each time an ad is clicked) and Amazon links (I make a commission on each purchase made when someone clicks a book and buys it).

Neither of those things will solve my money goals, but it’s a start. I’m anxious to develop other advertising ideas for these sites and get the next wave of Minnesota lifestyle sites launched in the next month or two (hockey, running, skiing and food).

Work has been getting a little better (hope on the horizon) and I will be heading back out to LA soon.

Coming soon: Halloween 2007, Hanz Erik Update, Leopard Impressions and Mini Brake Repair.

Not many posts lately, as writing web entries here has become too close to “work” for my taste. Plus I haven’t really done much the past few weeks except golf (which I cover on the Golfing in Minnesota site) and work, which has mainly involved flying back and forth to California way too often.

It finally struck me this week that my job currently makes me feel not happy. I decided to write a private not happy list, which I can summarize as:

• compensation
• no time for entrepreneurial projects
• organizational issues
• too much stress

I really like the work I do, my office and toys, most of the people I work with and the flexibility I have to make my own rules. Huge increases in responsibility and work hours with no increase in salary or ability to delegate tasks, though, makes me not happy.

So I’ve decided to follow two paths: 1) update my current job description and create a proposal to improve things internally and 2) update my resume (for the first time in four years) and start putting out feelers. The former is much preferred to the latter, but I like to be prepared.

Especially if it makes me happy again…

The “original” Star Wars was on HBO Family tonight and I couldn’t help but watch it.

I so want to watch the version that I watched as an eight-year-old kid in 1977. Countless Star Wars nerds have described the changes made to the new version that make me so mad, so I won’t go over all that. Let’s just say that I hope I never meet George Lucas in person.

Maybe it’s time to get a replacement laser disc player on eBay…

The past few weeks I’ve been inspired by the TV show (and the ad campaign) that talk about things to do before you die. I’ve been very privileged to do the things I’ve done up to this point and would die a happy man right now, but it’s been fun thinking up new things to do.

I’ve added a new box to the top of the home page that displays a random list item each time the page is loaded. Also, the sidebar now lists my personal best times at various running distances. I plan to work on lowering these in the next few years as I pursue the list item “Qualify for Boston.”

Maybe I’ll make that namesake goal of seven minutes miles after all…

Almost everything seems to be doing well this spring. These are some new flowers my wife planted–I’m not sure what the blue ones are, but bleeding hearts have always been one of my favorites. The new spruce in the front yard suffered a little stress from the planting, but I think it’s getting better. The lilacs bloomed and have grown into monsters (even after trimming last fall). Same for the maple bush outside my home office window and the sugar maple tree in the backyard. One last project to do this summer and the plan will be complete (aside from that expensive retaining wall, which may have to wait until the next owner).

Yesterday I finished off this year’s Mother’s Day project–a new Black Hills Spruce for the front yard. This was the last major plant purchase I had left from our five-year landscaping plan. I still have some additional lilacs to plant in the back yard, but they are relatively cheap compared to trees.

I bought this one from my favorite local garden center, Lilydale Garden Center. We’ve purchased almost all of our landscaping items there and have been very happy with the quality and service. If you need something, go there and ask for Dave.

The non-plant item that remains is a multi-tier retaining wall for the east side of the house. I’d love to have that done, but the quote five years ago was around $5,000.

For Father’s Day, I may order the other lilacs and do some repair work to the area I want them to go (which may also involve a small retaining wall to level off that part of the yard). Hopefully my arms will recover by then–digging is hard!

That tall tree on the left could survive thunderstorms and lightning, but couldn’t take the windstorm we had here last night. It snapped right off and thankfully fell away from the yard and into the wetland area.

Very disappointed to see it gone…

Just like last year, I went to see Hanz Erik and the Hims last night at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, this is likely the last time I get to see them there, as lead singer Hans Erickson is moving to New York City in August (no word on future plans for Stein Malvey and Erik Naslund or either drummer).

I missed the start of the 11pm set by a few minutes (when has an act ever started on time?), but the rest of the one hour set was very enjoyable. A Hollies cover, two new songs, some old HanzSolo tracks and most of my favorite songs from Copay (including the wonderful Potential Energy as a closer) made for an entertaining, but short, evening.

The downtown Minneapolis nightclub scene was very vibrant last night. I know I’m getting old, but that’s just not my thing any longer (not that it ever was, really). Fun to see all the energy, though.

It hasn’t been a great start to spring on the lawn front. First, we had a warm weather streak when I turned on the outside water before the sprinkler system had been activated. When I was out of town, it got cold again and the outside pipe that feeds the sprinklers froze. Turns out it split the pipe, so the sprinkler company had to cut out that part and replace it when they came to turn on the system for the year (see above, left). They didn’t charge much extra to fix it, so I was happy.

The first time the system came on at 2am, the pipes in the basement started humming loudly–it sounded like the civil defense sirens were going off. I couldn’t figure out the source of the hum and it seemed to be coming from everywhere. The sprinkler company was in the neighborhood a week later for a neighbor’s system, so I asked them to look at it. He couldn’t find the problem and suggested I call a plumber. Not wanting to spend the money for that, I monkeyed with it for about two weeks without success.

Earlier this week, though, my brother-in-law stopped by to take a look. He is a true Mr. Fixit and took all of about five minutes to resolve the issue. I wasn’t here to see it, but I guess he turned on the sprinkler system, hit one of the inside pipes a few times with his hand and the humming stopped. I ran the system this morning for the first time since then and it’s blissfully silent now. Thanks Dan!

The other problem was my old lawn mower. I had purchased it for $50 a few years ago from my previous neighbor when he moved to New York and got a lot of use out of it. Last fall, however, it make a “chunk” noise while I mowing the side hill and shut down. I couldn’t manually get the blade to move, let alone re-start. I used a neighbor’s mower for the rest of the season and put the broken one in the corner of the garage.

Two weeks ago, my wife dropped it off at the local hardware store to have it checked out. They called me last weekend and said it wasn’t repairable. I looked at the Consumer Reports lawnmower reviews for their best value award and bought the Toro pictured above (right). It was the cheapest one they had, but it was the exact one I was looking for based on the CR recommendations. I liked buying from the local store too and was happy to see that the same model at Home Depot was the same price (and out of stock).

Time for some lawn work!

This weekend I finally got back to working on my first day cover project. I uploaded about 100 new covers and decided to re-work the structure of the collection online. Instead of a huge text listing on one page, I’ve divided it into yearly pages with thumbnail pictures that can be clicked to view a close-up of the stamp.

There are still literally hundreds left to enter, but I like the framework much better now.

Check out the new pages here:

2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999

I received an email from Disney a few weeks ago that mentioned free, customized maps of Walt Disney World. Since we had just been there, I thought I’d check it out. From this page, you could select all of your favorite attractions in each park and have them printed and mailed for free. They arrived this week and were very nice. My only disappointment was that they were printed double-sided, so we can’t have all four parks framed separately.

On another Disney note, here is a story from a site I follow:

Thinking Inside the Box

I haven’t been to the Paris MGM park, but these same issues are apparent in other parks too. Such a shame…

Working from home today and getting a little help from a friend…

It’s that time of the year again. Go and vote–I get lots of great ideas from the results of this every year.

If it wasn’t for the City Pages Best of the Twin Cities issue, I would have never discovered Barbette. Mmm…Barbette…

Today I received this in my inbox.

I’ve been a free member on classmates.com for a long time, but today I closed my account. They were always on the brink of being useful, but unless you “upgraded” to the gold level, you quickly ran into a dead end. Today I wanted to add a link to this site, but that’s against their terms of service. How to remove my profile was hidden pretty good, too. Adios, classmates.com–I hardly knew ya.

As for the reunion itself, I’m feeling a little anxiety, to be honest. Twenty years is a long time. The last one was OK and I love visiting with people, but I’d almost rather just have a big picnic BBQ at Como Park, play some golf and have a nice dinner afterwards. Somehow these things never work out that way, though. Of course, if you’re not willing to volunteer, you can’t complain, right?

This weekend I spent some time cleaning up my iPhoto image library, clearing out some work photos and adding some old files I had in directories outside of the program. I also started to set up keywords, which will work great once I find the time to tag 22,000+ photos.

The montage above is from the summer of 2000 when our current house was constructed. Hard to believe that was seven years ago already…

Before this week, we were around two feet below our normal seasonal snowfall. All of the big storms this year had gone around us–until last weekend. I’d estimate we received about a foot then and today was part two, with another nine inches (and it’s still coming down).

The plows in Eagan have been timely and thorough (although I suppose it helps to have no cars parked on most streets). I put the snowblower away today so I could get some exercise and the plows helped out by pushing the heavy, wet stuff to the end of the driveway.

I made it in to the office today for a 9:30 meeting, but left at lunchtime. Driving was horrible, with most streets in St. Paul covered with a nice sheet of ice. I almost got into a multi-car pileup that was hiding around the bend of a single lane freeway entrance. I was only going about 30mph, but the anti-lock brakes on the Mini had to work overtime to stop in time. Fun!

Thanks to my brother and his wife for the great gift.

Today I decided to tackle the four tax returns I need to complete this year (two S-corp returns and two personal). The corporate returns for 7 Minute Miles were pretty easy, as the company was dormant all year and was officially dissolved on December 31, 2006. Our personal federal return was much harder. I’m still missing a mortgage interest statement, but I decided to run through the whole process once using what I have so far. The initial refund outlook is good, but we’ll see on Monday what the final numbers look like.

The current tax code is too convoluted–politicians seem to think that the tax form is the primary way to implement policy. My favorite from this year? The new line on the Minnesota S-corp return that gives a credit to farmers for tuberculosis testing on their cows. Sigh.

The government knows us by social security number and gets reporting from employers every time a paycheck is issued. The technology is out there–why do we still have to go through this process? As for policy decisions, why not have all entitlement programs go through an online application process with direct deposit/automatic funds dispersement? That way, the farmers with the sick cows can get their funding and I don’t have to wade through an extra 10 pages of tax form instructions each year.

This guy paid me a visit today on my thirty-eighth birthday. I’m not sure what kind of woodpecker it is, but this one was much larger than the downeys we’ve had recently.

I spent most of the day goofing off and it felt great:

• Visited the Target, CompUSA and Best Buy video game, HDTV and computer departments.
• Played a bit with Windows Vista and will write some more thoughts about that soon.
• Answered just a couple work-related phone calls and emails.
• Got a haircut, had lunch at Zantigo and dinner at Fuddruckers with my parents.
• Received lots of great presents, phone calls, cards and emails–thanks to all of you!

Now I just need the Wild to hold on and beat the Blackhawks tonight…

Today I had lunch with several former members of the Northwest Airlines fuel department. Pictured above (left to right): Jack Van Der Wege, Doug Podolak, Jack Skoglund, Dan Redpath and myself). It was great seeing everyone and catching up on the latest gossip. Special thanks to Doug for buying us lunch.

More on the restaurant to follow in a separate post later tonight…

Last night we had around eight inches of snow–just our second plowable snowfall of the season. Tonight the temperatures are supposed to fall to -9 F, but I have to admit that the sight of fresh snow in bright sunlight makes me forget how much I truly hate winter in Minnesota.

Happy 2007 everyone! I have a good vibe about the upcoming year and I’ve been working a lot on planning and strategy to get things off to a good start. We have a lot of exciting things coming up and I’m anxious to hit some of the lofty goals we’ve set (more on that in a later post).

All of this planning made me think about the movie Run Lola Run, where fate leads the main character to three different outcomes based on slightly different breakpoints in each storyline. I have experienced several major breakpoints in my life and have often wondered how things would be different:

Breakpoint #1: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

This was almost my address for college. I had never visited RPI, but was advised that it was one of the best technical colleges in the country, behind only MIT and Cal Tech. They also had a great hockey team, so it would feel like home.

I applied and was accepted into the mathematics degree program, but decided I really wanted to be an engineer and that the cost was too high. I ended up enrolled at the University of North Dakota in their aeronautical engineering program instead of RPI and the much more interesting Hudson River Valley.

There was another college breakpoint at UND–what if I had begun the flight training program there instead of transferring to the University of Wisconsin to study banking and finance (like my grandfather before me)? I probably couldn’t have afforded to become a pilot either, but going to Madison did get me closer to my future wife.

Breakpoint #2: Manager, Credit Systems

When I worked my way into management at Northwest Airlines in the mid-1990s, I was on track to accept what I thought would be the perfect match for my abilities and background–Manager, Credit Systems. I had several years of credit and collecting experience and was the local computer geek for the building. I successfully made it through several interviews and was just waiting for the paperwork to clear.

At the last minute, the director of the credit division called me into his office and said he was excited to welcome me to management, but not to the position I was expecting. The manager of the general credit area decided he wanted to try the systems position, so I was being offered his old job. I had a good relationship with that manager, but he did not have any computer background and the general credit area had a number of interesting employees to manage. I really had no choice but to accept that position, but I wonder how my career would be different today had I been offered that position.

Breakpoint #3: Fallon

Another job related breakpoint came a few years later. I had been working in the fuel department at Northwest for a few years and had a wonderful boss who was (and still is) a great mentor to me. There was some uncertainty in his position (and therefore mine), so I accepted an interview with the Fallon advertising firm in Minneapolis. This came via a referral from my Apple rep at the time, as Fallon was a huge Apple shop and they were looking for someone to run their server farm.

The interviews went great and I absolutely loved the working environment–so many cool and creative people in an office full of the latest and greatest toys. The money being offered wasn’t much more than I was making, but I was ready to accept just for the environment. The only real negatives were the commute downtown and a possible increase in stress (supporting the whole company instead of just one department).

My boss at Northwest really made this a non-decision for me, as he offered me a huge raise and a new title to stay. Airlines and advertising haven’t been great places to be the past few years, but taking that job at Fallon would have been very, very interesting.

Breakpoint #4: Portland and Las Vegas

My final major breakpoint to date happened when my position at Northwest was eliminated. Despite living in Minnesota most of my life, I decided I needed to have a national scope for my job search. The types of jobs I was looking for were specialized and there weren’t a lot of options in the Twin Cities.

Two of my favorite places to visit are Portland, Oregon and Las Vegas, Nevada. I wasn’t sure I could handle living in Las Vegas, but a friend from high school had lived there for a long time and he invited me to stay with him while I looked at jobs. I had an interview for a position with a company that designed graphics for slot machines located just off the Strip. I was a perfect match for the skill set, but their offer was almost $20,000 less than I had made at Northwest.

There were no doubts about Portland–we could totally live there. The primary problem was prices were rising and none of the jobs I was looking at paid enough to give us a standard of living equal to that of Minnesota. Same story for a great position I interviewed for in California. Things eventually worked out in my home state, but I frequently wonder what things would be like now if we had moved west.

I’ve been very privileged to lead the life I’ve led and wouldn’t change a thing, but these breakpoints sure are fun to ponder.

Today was Christmas decoration breakdown day and I spent most of it in the basement organizing all of the boxes and doing a long-overdue cleaning. Our basement is unfinished, but I do have some areas set up for different things.

One area still had boxes from our move-in day six years ago. I got through all of those today and found some interesting souvenirs (see montage above). Seeing that stuff was fun–maybe someday I’ll do an online photo album of all that junk I never seem to throw out.

From our Bumble to you and yours, wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season…DK

UPDATE: Pictures are up in the private section of the photos area.

It’s been really cold and windy this week and this guy figured out how to break our “squirrel-proof” bird feeder we set up on the deck. My kids nick-named him Sammy Squirrel and I’m happy for him to eat whatever he wants–he earned it.

Eagan received a dusting of snow last night, but we missed both of the big storms that have moved through so far. Wind chills have been in the low negative digits the past few days, but we are forecast to be above freezing again by the end of the week. Minnesotans and weather–it just isn’t logical or sane…DK

Top seven things I’d like to spend money on in 2007:

• Debt Elimination
• Basement Project
• HDTV and Home Theater System
• Vespa Scooter
• Memberships and Season Tickets – Various
• Cabin and Land on Lake Superior
• Aston Martin Rapide (pre-order)

Look what I found on the floor this week. I went to a different junior high in Saint Paul, but all of these people became friends of mine in high school, including my wife. Recognize anyone? Are you one of them? Drop me a line at dk@7minutemiles.com and give us an update…DK

The drive home tonight was magical: 70 degrees in November, both windows rolled down, great music playing on the iPod, sweet smells from restaurants and bakeries, the joy of driving a Mini around tight curves and a beautiful sunset over the Mississippi River. Probably won’t get another one of those for about six months…DK

First snow of the season on the deck this morning (just a dusting)…DK

This week my Catholic Aid Association (CAA) sales representative, Sam Welter, brought over my new life insurance policy. I’m not Catholic, but wife is and she used to work there. They have good products and have been around for a long, long time. When I left NWA, I rolled over all of my pension to an annuity at CAA and purchased a new term life policy to make up for the one I used to have from work. Sam told me about a new term life product they were rolling out that required a much more stringent health qualification process. If I could qualify for the new plan, I would pay the same premium, but get about $150,000 more in coverage.

A nurse came out to my house about a month ago and I finally got the word that I passed. My cholesterol levels were much better than my last physical (203 mg/dL on a “good” scale of 140-280) and my wife says the triglyceride results were even more impressive: 58 mg/dL on a expected value range of 10-200. My readings were high on two measures: alkaline phosphatase and lactate dehydrogenase. Both can be related to kidney and liver issues, so I need to research that more. They must not be that bad, though, or I’m sure I would have been turned down. I also rolled over the rest of my NWA 401K money, so I don’t have to worry about the NWA bankruptcy any longer…DK

This week is National Freedom of Speech Week. Guess how the school my kids go to decided to honor this event? By banning student access to newspapers in the library.

I came home from work and the local NBC affiliate, KARE 11, was running an interview with the school principal, Miles Haugen, as the lead story on the five o’clock newscast. According to the story, the parent of a seven-year-old complained in an e-mail to the school:

• “[the newspaper is] not appropriate reading material for elementary aged kids. [allowing other students to have continued access] would silently endorse the kids reading them. It’s like leaving a loaded gun on the table. [forbidding my child] to take one will only make the paper a fascinating forbidden fruit. We don’t want (child’s name) exposed to the sex, death and general mayhem that have become the standard fodder for newspapers and TV news. We are not just trying to protect our child but all the kids (child’s name) goes to school with and lives in the world with.”

The newspaper as a loaded gun? Are you kidding me? Thanks for your concern, but I want my kids to become informed, intelligent readers, citizens and learners. Censorship should not be a part of their world.

Mr. Haugen is in his third year as principal and I have respected his leadership. This decision, however, needs to be reconsidered. We plan to contact the superintendent’s office tomorrow and will visit the school when they re-open after MEA week.

If need be, I’ll get both kids their own subscriptions to the paper so they can carry them every day in their backbacks. No reason they should be hindered because of one misdirected individual and a bad decision by the people paid to educate them…DK

UPDATE: Here is the email response I received from Mr. Haugen:

Unfortunately, the KARE11 news story was not accurately reported. Students may continue to read the newspaper at any time during the school day. We just want teachers to be aware of when a student is reading the newspaper and what headlines are found on the newspaper.

Hope this answers your question. I’m sorry about the confusion.

UPDATE 2: The American Library Association has an Office for Intellectual Freedom. They have a challenge database form to report issues of censorship (Adobe Acrobat, 8K).

UPDATE 3: The story has been picked up by the Associated Press and was published in the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press this morning. My wife is quoted in that story and a new bit of information was released: the original email complaint offered to “buy a paper for the school that the parent considered child-safe.” Just what my kids need–the Shiny Happy Day News. No thanks…DK

Our local IKEA store had the perfect bookshelf for our new office (see above). I generally like most things about IKEA, but this purchase was one of the most frustrating shopping experiences I’ve had in a long time.

On my first trip there, I bought a bunch of other things and decided to wait to get the bookshelf until I had more room in the car. When I went back the next day, there was no more stock on the floor. I saw two pallets loaded with units directly above the empty spot, though, so I went to ask a clerk to have one pulled down. That’s when the fun started.

IKEA is a busy store and because of that, they have a policy of no forklifts on the floor during store hours. I was frustrated, but understood. The clerk said it would be pulled down overnight and would be available for pickup the next day. I wasn’t able to go back for about three days, but when I returned, the pallets were still in the same places with no stock on the floor. This was on a Saturday, which made the trip all the more stressful anyway.

The clerk on duty was apologetic and went to talk it over with a supervisor. Their inventory system showed 10 units on the floor, so it wasn’t requesting that more be brought down. They said I could pay for one now and they would do a “911 pick” right after the store closed and I could come back at 9:30pm to get it. My other option was to come back the next day, when they promised it would be pulled down. I decided to get the phone number of the desk on the floor and told them I would call before I came back to make sure they were really available.

The next day, I got a clerk that went to check and he said they were “out of stock” and they were expecting a delivery the next day. I told him there are two pallets of them right above the empty spot and he told me he would check and make sure they were ready tomorrow. Sigh.

My now daily call the following day was answered by the same clerk I had the day before. I don’t think he recognized me and said the truck they were expecting hadn’t arrived yet. Again I told him of the pallets above and to please make sure they are added to the overnight pick list.

The next day I was traveling from St. Paul to Northfield for a meeting. IKEA was on the route back to St. Paul, so I decided to stop in and complain to the store manager. Lo and behold, one of the two pallets had been brought down!

If this particular bookshelf hadn’t been such a great match style- and price-wise, I would have went elsewhere after that first day. Oh well, it looks great now…DK

Our house was pelted with pea-sized hail tonight for a few minutes. Mother Nature sure has some amazing things up her sleeve…DK

Hooray–fall colors have arrived in our yard! I’ve been so busy the past few weeks with the new office, I literally needed to stop and smell the roses today. I read that this is the last weekend of good colors on the North Shore and I hope we can get out for a roadtrip somewhere in the region before they are all gone.

Weather for the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday looks OK–overnight low around 45/high near 75–and the colors along the Mississippi River should be fun to see. Hopefully I won’t be too focused on leg cramps and blisters to notice…DK

• Apple 17-inch iMac G5 Computer (more pictures)
• Burley Encore Bike Trailer (more pictures)

Computer details: This is my wife’s home machine and was purchased May 24, 2005 from Amazon (part#M9843LL/A, 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5, 512 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive). Another 512MB of RAM was purchased from Other World Computing, for a total of 1GB. Everything works great–she just wants a laptop for graduate school and has ordered a MacBook. The trackball is not included, but I will throw in the external iSight camera with the original keyboard and mouse. eBay says it’s worth about $800.

Burley details: Purchased about three years ago from Penn Cycle in Eagan, this nice bike trailer seats two small children and has a “trunk” in back for groceries or books. It folds flat for easy storage or transport and was lightly used (the kids are too big now). We did not buy the stroller attachment, but that would be easy to find used. Here is the original product page from Burley. eBay says this is worth about $200.

If you are interested in either item, or would like more information, please contact me…DK

UPDATE: both items have sold…DK

Earlier this week, we took the family to my 37th annual visit to the Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights. The highlight for me was going to the top of the DNR’s fire tower–an attraction that has been closed since 1978. The new Miracle of Birth and Eco Experience buildings were also very nice.

Of course, there are really only two reasons to go to the fair: people-watching and food. The crowds have been light due to the rainy weather, but I still managed to find a few people I knew. Favorite T-shirt sighting: black shirt with white letters – “I AM A LIAR.”

It’s getting really expensive to eat at the fair, so my intake is controlled as much by my wallet as by my desire to keep my weight in check. The list this year:

• Pronto Pups (2)
• Tom Thumb Donuts
• Sweet Martha Cookies
• Kiwanis Vanilla Malt
• Danielson’s Onion Rings (who were celebrating their 50th year at the fair with a new trailer booth)
• Cheese Curds
• Bull Bites
• Macaroni-on-a-Stick

Only missed out on the french fries and the original dairy building malts…DK

Tonight we had a visit from my favorite insurance agent, Sam Welter of the Catholic Aid Association (CAA). I’m not Catholic, but my wife is and she worked at CAA for a number of years. At one point, I was also under contract as the web developer for the CAA website (which was just recently replaced).

We have several life insurance policies with them for every member of our family and I rolled over my pension when I left Northwest Airlines four (!) years ago. The purpose of tonight’s visit was to finally roll over my old Northwest 401K account as well. I was tired of getting mail from them and the recent bankruptcy events made me a little nervous (even though it is managed by CitiStreet). I have a new State Farm retirement plan with Studio 4, but I prefer to do business with Sam when I can.

The big news of the visit was a new term life product that is cheaper than what I currently have, but has very stringent approval guidelines. I’m applying for it, as it would give me significantly more coverage for the same amount I’m paying now. The shocker is that I’m a borderline applicant because my weight is too high for my height. I assume it’s based on the BMI chart published by CDC, but man is that thing skewed to what I feel are unrealistic weights for most people. I would need to move from my current 187 pounds to 173 pounds to escape the overweight bucket and get in the normal category. According to that same chart, I could weigh 129 pounds and still be normal. That’s crazy…

With no smoking, no drinking, no overnight hospitals visits ever and marathon number 10 coming up, I may still be too much of a risk to get a better deal on life insurance. Oh well…at least it motivated me to get out for another seven miles tonight…DK

Our house is closing in on its sixth anniversary this fall and we’ve been very happy with it overall. This month we needed to replace the first exterior items–the outside lights. The old style is pictured on the left; the new ones on the right.

The other house excitement this week: hornets in the soffit over the garage. There are a few new pictures of the house in the photos section, including shots of the freshly stained deck and the dining room that now houses the table from my grandparents where I grew up eating holiday dinners…DK

One of my old Apple contacts, Steve Borsch, had his website listed as the Minnesota Blog of the Day on City Pages this week. Looks like he’s having a good time in my favorite city in the world, London…DK

How I spent my Fourth.

For those with the password, more pictures in the private photos section. Special thanks to my aunt and uncle who are such nice hosts every year…DK

Michael Bartosh, noted Macintosh author and consultant, died in a tragic accident last week in Tokyo. He was 28 and is survived by his wife Amber. Macworld Conference and Expo is establishing a scholarship in his name. Details are still being worked out, but you can sign up here to be notified when more information is available.

I only knew Michael online through mailing lists and email, but he was a true expert who was willing to share his knowledge to help others. His home was in Colorado and we had talked a few times about trying to get together to ski at Copper Mountain, where he had a season pass. Through his consulting and training contracts, he got to travel the world and it was also fun watching his iChat status in my buddy list to see where he was now. My thoughts go out to his family and friends in their time of mourning…DK

Limited Edition Disneyland Enchanted Tiki Room Figurines…DK

The weather has been nice and new things keep appearing on the deck…DK

After what seemed like weeks of rain, the sun finally came out this week and buds just started exploding everywhere. Even had to dust off the lawnmower…DK