Finally scanned a bunch of old postcards I found in the basement and uploaded them to a new gallery on 7 Minute Miles.

I totally love the old font used on so many of these – anyone know what it’s called?

My job has taken me to Loveland, Colorado, the past two weeks to work on a large education project. I’ve enjoyed working on this one a lot – the scope is large and interesting, the client employees are great and I’m working with a very knowledgeable co-worker for the first time. Loveland and Berthoud are very nice towns with the typical western U.S. look to them (and majestic mountains off in the distance).

Food and lodging have been pretty nice – the Best Western I’m at was recently remodeled and the locally-owned restaurants I’ve been to have been excellent (Bent Fork Grill and 4th Street Chophouse). I’ve been loving the Chick-fil-A across the street from the hotel too (maybe loving that a bit too much).

Last week I took an evening off and drove down to Morrison, Colorado, to catch the Joe Cocker/Tom Petty concert at Red Rocks. That venue was amazing and is by far the best place I’ve ever seen a live show. I took a walk around the Trading Post trail before the show and got a little winded on the 1.4 mile trek. Stunning scenery, though.

As for the concert, both acts were firing on all cylinders. I enjoyed Joe Cocker’s set more than I thought I would, with lots of great songs (You Can Keep Your Hat On, With a Little Help from My Friends, Shelter Me, You Are So Beautiful, etc.). The official Tom Petty site has a nice summary of the show with photos and here is the setlist:

• Kings Highway
• Listen to Her Heart
• Won’t Back Down
• Free Fallin’
• Oh Well
• Mary Jane’s Last Dance
• Driving Down to Georgia
• Breakdown
• Jefferson Jericho Blues
• Taking My Time
• First Flash of Freedom
• Running Man’s Bible
• I Should Have Known It
• Good Enough
• Learning to Fly
• Don’t Come Around Here
• Refugee
• (encore) Running Down a Dream
• You Wreck Me
• American Girl

Heading back to Minnesota tomorrow night. Up next: Tapemark on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then off to Hurley, Wisconsin, for another week.

Here are a few shots of what I’ve been working on lately. Various 318 projects this month have taken me to downtown Minneapolis, Novi, Michigan and Hurley, Wisconsin.

Nerd overload…

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit a state for the first time (which hasn’t happened in a long time). A project for 318 took me to a client in north-central Nebraska, which turned out to look a lot like southeast Minnesota. The towns we stayed in all had populations under 3500 people and all the people we met were very friendly.

In hindsight, it probably would have been quicker to drive, but we flew Air Tran to Omaha (via Milwaukee) and drove about three and a half hours from there. Lodging for this trip was the Super 8 in O’Neill and our Mazda 3 came from Enterprise. Not a perfect travel experience, but nothing too awful either. Side note: Budget at OMA rents all three current MINI models.

You know you are in a remote area of the country when the nearest Walmart is almost two hours away. AT&T’s cell coverage was surprising good, though, and it seemed like every restaurant had free wi-fi. We ate at all the local spots in O’Neill and Atkinston and I sampled the Nebraska beef more than once.

With Nebraska off the list, I’m down to 11 states left to visit. A drive from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast (via Kansas City) would cross off half of them, but I’m not sure when (or if) I’ll try that. Might be fun, though…

I’ve in the middle of a long training trip to California (more on that soon) and thanks to my brother and his wife, I got to spend Sunday at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure. The weather was perfect – the sun burned off the early morning fog and temps were in the upper 60s with sunshine all afternoon.

Driving to Anaheim from the LAX side of town always seemed like too much work to me – today I took the 90 to the 405 to the 105 to the 605 to the 91 to the 5 to Disneyland Drive. Parking in the main resort parking area now costs $14, but I did get a close surface lot spot right next to the tram stop.

I arrived about 15 minutes before the 9:00AM official opening time, so I stopped at the La Brea Bakery in Downtown Disney for a chocolate croissant and some cranberry juice ($7.74) before going through the main gate on the Disneyland side.

The first part of the day was spent hitting some of my favorites: Space Mountain, Matterhorn, It’s A Small World, Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Jungle Cruise. Not much new to report: they are prepping for the return of Captain EO, Haunted Mansion was back to the original, non-Nightmare version, the Rivers of America were drained and the Jungle Cruise had a new (for me) piranha feature towards the end.

I had lunch at the Hungry Bear Restaurant in Critter Country (chicken sandwich, fries and a coke, $11.94) and did some shopping for a shirt Colleen wanted me to look for that she saw last June. The stores on Main Street were fun to go through, although I’ve decided you need to buy what you want when you see it, as every store seems to have unique things and size selections on more common items can vary wildly between locations. And even though it wasn’t terribly busy for a Sunday, this place moves some serious merchandise.

In the afternoon, I did a “park hop” over to the California Adventure side and got a Fast Pass for Soarin’ Over California. That must be one of the bigger successes in DCA, since the return time was about five hours later in the day. I set off from there to the Tower of Terror, which was incredible (as usual).

Much of DCA is under (re)construction, which created some tight confines in parts of the park. Walt Disney Imagineering had a great center set up, though, called the Blue Sky Cellar, which contained lots of information about their plans for the next few years (World of Color, Little Mermaid, Cars Land, etc.).

I walked around Paradise Pier and hit some rides I had never tried (Golden Zephyr, Maliboomer) and one I had (California Screamin’). The roller coaster was super-smooth this time and didn’t give me a headache (thankfully). DCA now has their own Toy Story Mania (like the one at Hollywood Studios in Florida) and the line was ridiculously long here as well, so I skipped it.

I took a break from the parks and walked over to Downtown Disney and the Disneyland Hotel. The World of Disney store didn’t really have anything different from what I saw in the parks and seems to pale in comparison to the one in Florida. The new D Street store was really awesome, though, and I almost walked out with two nerd-tastic retro shirts (Space Mountain era 1977 and a sweet Tron design).

I caught the monorail back to Tomorrowland, walked through a few stores in the castle and Frontierland, then went back to a store in New Orleans Square to buy this awesome Shag Haunted Mansion limited edition shirt:

How cool is that? I also stopped back at a store on Main Street for a different shirt for Colleen (the original one she wanted was nowhere to be found). Thankfully, they still had the size she wanted – I think it was the last one in the whole joint.

The fast pass was burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to go back to DCA before heading out for the day. The information desk had no suggestions for an indoor, sit-down restaurant, so I went over to the Grand Californian Hotel and ate at the buffet served in the Storytellers Cafe. It wasn’t super great food, but it was comfortable, warm, quiet and away from the hustle and bustle of the parks.

After dinner, I used the fast pass, jumped on the tram back to the parking area and hit all of the freeways again in reverse order to get back to Venice. Fun times!

A week ago we packed up the family in the car and headed north to Duluth to visit the water park at the Edgewater hotel. It was just a quick overnight trip on a school night, so the place wasn’t very busy. That was a good thing, since it’s smaller than the Mall of America water park (or any of the Wisconsin Dells spots). Still, it was a very nice place and the kids had a great time.

We stopped at Tobies on the way up and had dinner Sunday night at the Duluth branch of Hell’s Kitchen. I had this (with chicken):

Baked Penne Pasta tossed in a creamy garlic sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese, oven baked til golden. Includes French bread & whipped butter. $10.25 Add vegetables $1.25, Italian sausage $1.75, grilled chicken $2.25, chopped shrimp $4

Nice food, cool atmosphere and great service, but a little pricey.

On Monday, we visited the original Grandma’s in Canal Park for lunch before heading back home. The Godfather sandwich there is still one of my all-time favorites.

This week I had the chance to travel to California again – this time for meetings in Santa Monica. I flew the “new Delta” both ways – out in Delta equipment and back in an old NWA plane. LAX terminal five was actually very efficient and the air travel part of the trip was surprisingly stress-free for a change.

The weather was, of course, perfect out there – sunny and near 80 both days. I stayed at a quaint little motel on Main called the Sea Shore Motel. It was an easy walk to the beach and about a mile from the pier.

I had good food all trip. For dinner, I ate at the World Cafe, which was a block down Main from my motel. The sirloin and au gratin potatoes were excellent and I couldn’t pass up “David’s Housemade Butterscotch Pudding” for dessert.

For breakfast the next day, I had the jerk chicken omelet at Swingers Diner Santa Monica, followed by lunch at Fritto Misto. Turns out this is the same Fritto Misto as the location in Hermosa Beach that I’ve been to several times. The spaghetti carbonara was to die for!

I planned to walk out on the pier, but ended up walking along the beach south of the pier and looping back to the motel early. I wasn’t that familiar with the area and the lighting at night wasn’t the greatest – I’ll have to explore more during the day next time.

There was also a familiar sight near the pier – the big blue Kooza tent that was in Minnesota this summer is in town through December 20. It was great hearing the music again as I walked past…