The Current’s 893 Essential Albums was a really cool and interesting exercise. It was funny how upset some people were about the results, but everyone needs to chill out – we all have our own opinions on how an “essential” album is defined.

For me, good albums have always been about the whole: does it flow from one song to the next, does it make you want to sit and listen to the whole thing at one time, is it devoid of clunkers? Since I devoted more time to focused, extended listening when I was younger, most of my top albums are older. There are a lot of newer albums that I like a lot, but just don’t get a chance for many repeat listens.

When I was little, my parents picked what vinyl we had in the house. Sgt. Pepper was my ultimate – listening to the whole thing over and over again. When I hear one song from that album on the radio now, I instantly know what song should play next. It’s the first album I thought of when The Current announced their promotion.

Keeping with the theme of this site, I tried to come up with a list of seven. This is really an impossible task when you have tens of thousands of songs in your iTunes library, but I gave it the old college try. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch and the list will probably be different next year (or even next week), but here you go:

• Arctic Monkeys – AM (#377)
• Beastie Boys – Licensed To Ill (#59)
• David Bowie – Let’s Dance (#245)
• Gorillaz – Demon Days (#138)
• Prince – Parade (NR)
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles (#18)
• Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense (#102)

Presented in alphabetical order, with The Current ranking in parenthesis

Plus one more old favorite I just can’t delete: Suzanne Vega – Suzanne Vega (NR)

Ever since moving back to the metro area, I’ve been working my way through lots of things on the list of lists page. The Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon has been on my race list for a long time and 2016 was finally my year to try it out. Founded in 1980, this is a race that my friends Jeff and Deb have run many times and raved about, so I was excited to try it out (even though they were out of the country this year). Part of the MN Run Series, the race is produced by the same people who do Goldy’s Run, which I also crossed off the list this year.

Got to tour half of the Wayzata school district during the registration process and on race day: packet pick-up was at Wayzata West Middle School, while primary race day parking was at Wayzata Central Middle School. They had the same odd bib assignment process as Goldy’s, but the line moved much faster this time. The parking lot at the school on race morning was a mess – all the spots were full, but they didn’t put up closed barricades until about a hundred cars cycled through. I parked on a nearby side street and walked over to the shuttle buses, which dropped us off near the starting line in downtown Wayzata.

The course was very scenic, but much hillier than I expected. Weather that day was very pleasant for May 1, although it was a little chilly waiting for the start in the shade and wind. They had a four wave start, which really helped spread out the masses. I was hoping to stay under two hours and ended up with a 1:54:33 (8:45 pace). That was good for 832nd out of 2,525 total finishers and 64th in my age group of 132 (full results here).

Watch splits: 8:24, 8:06, 8:27, 8:23, 8:20, 8:40, 8:35, 9:02, 8:54, 9:04, 9:16, 9:12

The finish line area in Excelsior was very nice and the shuttle busses back to the school were easy to find and left promptly when full. It would’ve been nice to hang out at sponsor Jake O’Connor’s Public House for a while, but that was not in the cards, unfortunately.

It’s easy to see why this is a popular race that’s been around a long time – add it to your list and you too can purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka…