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The walls have come down

Pic posted March 30, 2024

Hawthorne/Ramp A lobby construction is nearing completion


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Top 7 Worst Ad Channels 👎

Posted March 29, 2024

Usually try to keep it positive around here, but wow are ads getting terrible:

  • iOS gaming ads
  • Anything on YouTube
  • Hulu (With Ads)
  • Over the air radio ads
  • Instagram “Sponsored” content
  • Email spam/junk folders
  • Most commercial websites

Could we at least get back to having funny ones? Oh, almost forgot about movie theaters that show anything other than upcoming trailers…


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Second spring is in the air

Pic posted March 29, 2024

Minnesota weather, amirite?


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Lunch @ Pillbox Tavern ✅

Pic posted March 29, 2024

One from the list with kid two. Ordered cider battered cheese curds, chicken wild rice soup, boneless wings with honey lemon pepper and the apple pecan salad from the menu. Nice space, great location for downtown events and friendly service. 👍


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Link: British Library cyber incident

Linked March 29, 2024


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Cider-battered cheese curds 🧀

Pic posted March 29, 2024

Cider-battered cheese curds 🧀

The Pillbox Tavern, downtown Saint Paul (in the Tria Rink building), cheese curds (cider battered, choice of Sambal honey or Apple remoulade)

via Instagram (@7minutemiles)


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🫡 Jon Cheng reviews Bûcheron *** ½

Posted March 29, 2024

He loved the steak and dessert I had on our visit to south Minneapolis. Updated the Jon Cheng reviews post too…


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2024 fitness planning

Posted March 28, 2024

Mentally, I’ve very much enjoyed not wearing my Apple Watch daily. Physically, I’ve fallen way behind on my general fitness when I don’t track the circles. This week I decided to do something about that.

On Monday, I met with a personal trainer at Lifetime Fitness and took a tour of the Target Center club. We talked quite a bit about my past history and what I think I want to do this year, which is basically get back in running shape and lose weight.

While I elected not to hire him now as my personal trainer, here’s my current plan:

  • Bought new running and gym shoes (and a new gym bag).
  • Started back on the nightly treadmill hill walk with hand weights while watching shows from the list on the iPad.
  • Preparing to run the Get in Gear 10K on April 27, the Milk Run 5K on May 25 and the TC 10 Mile on October 6. And if I get extra motivated, maybe the Afton 25K on July 6 too.
  • Looking forward to the bike trails drying out – want to increase that cross training this year. Might add the bike attachment to Oliver’s roof rack.
  • Planning to walk every golf round this year (like usual).
  • Thinking about getting another weight bench to go with my dumbbell set.
  • Utilize my access to Lifetime for indoor running, stair machine cardio, a return to racquetball, explore new classes and learn to be a better swimmer.

My schedule makes all of this challenging, but you need to prioritize what’s important, right?


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Do you have any kind of smokises?

Pic posted March 28, 2024

Can’t believe they still make (and sell) these


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This here rap’s about the true confession. If you listen close, you ’bout to learn a lesson. You must know failure before success…

— New Power Generation (Pt. II)

Quote posted March 28, 2024


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Stocking up for Sunday

Pic posted March 28, 2024

Stocking up for Sunday

Regina’s Candies, West Saint Paul location, milk chocolate small foil sitting rabbits

via Instagram (@7minutemiles)


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Bacon potato salad 👍

Pic posted March 28, 2024

Staff lunch from Heather’s today


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Big KAT sighting

Pic posted March 27, 2024

Big KAT sighting

via Instagram (@7minutemiles)


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Detroit Pistons (12-60) in the crib 🏀

Pic posted March 27, 2024

Any given Wednesday…
106-91 W


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18 years of web publishing 🎂

Posted March 27, 2024

My little web baby is almost an adult: 7 Minute Miles turns 18 years old this Saturday. Some highlights:

  • First post: March 30, 2006
  • Domain created: November 26, 2002
  • Posts: 30,050
  • Pages: 216
  • Database: 193.4 MB
  • Directory: 62 GB
  • Server: AWS Lightsail, Ohio, Zone A, Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS, 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPUs, 80 GB SSD
  • Tech stack: WordPress 6.4.3, PHP 8.2.17, nginx 1.18.0, MariaDB 10.3.39, Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS
  • Costs: $17.99/year @ Hover, $25-28/month @ AWS (Lightsail and Route 53)
  • Jetpack stats (avg/mo): 96 posts, 1497 views, 540 visitors

I’ve tweaked the font sizes a little since the launch of the new theme last year, but overall remain happy with how things are now. I recently simplified the navigation menu, which now just has home, about, lists and search links. The new about page was completely re-written and I updated my résumé page (and PDF) to reflect my move to Target Center last September.

Not sure what comes next. I’ve re-established the automation between 7 Minute Miles and Instagram via the excellent Intagrate plugin and continue to automatically capture any posts to Mastodon via the TootPress plugin. This site also technically federates content via the ActivityPub plugin (you can follow dmk@7minutemiles.com in your favorite Mastodon client), but I don’t see many people reading posts that way.

I removed all of my concert videos from YouTube, hibernated my channel, then posted them all here using the HTML5 Video Player plugin. I also tried to clean up the photo galleries a little, but both of these media types will likely require an increase in server storage in the next year to be expanded/enhanced.

Long live the weird web – thanks for visiting!


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Kings from Queens: The Run DMC Story ✅

Pic posted March 26, 2024

Another good one from the Peacock trial


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Breaking: Choco Leibniz still delicious

Pic posted March 26, 2024

So glad I picked these up at Jerry’s


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Meat coma reported in Minneapolis

Pic posted March 26, 2024

Lunch @ Fogo de Chão on Hennepin


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Rough morning for Mary

Pic posted March 26, 2024

Winter is laughing at spring in Minnesota rn


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🫡 March 2024 Apple Updates Part II

Pic posted March 25, 2024

macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 ✅, iOS 17.4.1 ✅, iPadOS 17.4.1 ✅


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Snaptacular. 📱

Pic posted March 25, 2024

Wonder how much First Ave makes annually from Apple


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The Littles hit the spot

Pic posted March 25, 2024

The Littles hit the spot

Five Guys Nicollet Mall, little cheeseburger, little fries

via Instagram (@7minutemiles)


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Track Shack Orlando

Pic posted March 24, 2024

Hey, I know that guy!


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🫡 2024 Barkley Marathons

Posted March 24, 2024

I watched that documentary on this crazy-ass race a while ago, but I’m still surprised when it pops up in my social feeds each year (at random times). This year was awesome because of 40-year-old Brit Jasmin Paris, the first woman to finish the 100 mile race (with 99 seconds to spare before the 60 hour cutoff). BBC has a nice story here.

Bravo!


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ARE YOU THREATENING ME?!?

Pic posted March 24, 2024

ARE YOU THREATENING ME?!?

Steph Curry during pre-game warm-ups @ Target Center

via Instagram (@7minutemiles)


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