Yesterday I had an unexpected visitor in my office at HSRA Minnesota: the Honourable Ken Krawetz, Minister of Education for the province of Saskatchewan.

Mr. Krawetz and his assistants were being hosted in Minnesota by the talented education architect Randy Fielding. They visited the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley in the morning and were on their way to the new Minneapolis Central Library.

It was a pleasure meeting the delegation. I made sure to thank Mr. Krawetz for all the great hockey players (the Wild has three Saskatchewan natives: Derek Boogaard - Saskatoon, Josh Harding - Regina and Nick Schultz - Strasbourg).

Yesterday my wife Colleen defended her capstone/thesis project at the University of Minnesota and found out afterward that she is now officially done with her masters program in health journalism.

I know firsthand how hard it is to work full-time and go to school–but I never had two kids to deal with too for my degree. Colleen worked extremely hard for this and we are very, very proud of her.

After all the signatures were obtained and the form dropped off with the graduate office (just in time for an official July 31 graduation date), we visited the shoe tree on the west bank before heading to Al’s Breakfast for a celebration lunch.

Congrats!

Last night I attended the University of Minnesota Alumni Association’s annual gala, held on campus at Mariucci Arena. The speakers were Stan Freese ‘67 and Tony Dungy ‘78.

While Mr. Freese has had a distinguished musical career with Disney, most of the people were there to hear the coach. While some of his past comments have caused controversy, last night’s talk was completely free of anything remotely controversial (almost to the point of being boring). There were some protesters outside beforehand, but there turned out to be little to protest in his public speech.

I am an alumni of the University, but I’m not currently a member of the alumni association. That mostly has to do with my belief that I shouldn’t have to donate money to the school until my mountains of student loans are paid off. I felt a little bit of school pride at the event, but mostly it just seemed hokey–like some bizarre club that makes you feel awkward for being a member.

I’d much rather be in that arena for a Gophers hockey game than an alumni event. Which I guess goes to show that I shouldn’t be opposed to the vast amounts of money spent on athletics. President Bruininks did say he wants the U to be one of the top three public research universities in the world also, so I guess it’s all good…