As part of my recently completed online class, The Science of Well-Being, I took a survey that purports to identify my top character strengths:
There were a couple I thought would be higher, but overall, that’s close…
I read a lot of words, but not enough of them are in books. This one I took from my parent’s house on Lombard and brought up to Croftville Road for the weekend. Turns out my sister purchased it for my dad when she visited Highclere Castle as part of her Downton Abbey tour. I never knew that the real Downtown Abbey Lord was Howard Carter’s partner (George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon), but I’ve loved Egyptian history ever since the 1982 World’s Fair (and multiple Ancient Civilization courses from Mr. Demers at Central). This was a quick, light read, with a few pictures I know I’ve never seen before (hello, Tutankhamun mummy).
Now on to my pile of Economists…
Step 1 – Download my info
Step 2 – Deactivate my account
Step 3 – Permanently delete my account
Two out of three so far…
UPDATE:
And since Facebook owns Instagram:
Step 1 – Download my info
Step 2 – Deactivate my account
Step 3 – Permanently delete my account
Just like in real life, I try to avoid discussing politics and religion on this site. As an avid student of history, however, I’m really fascinated by the changing face of the Republican party in the United States. In particular, the formation and actions of The Lincoln Project, support from some of the Minnesota Republicans of my youth and the reaction on the “new right” by people like Jason Lewis to these efforts.
As I’ve (reluctantly) shared in the past, I do not consider myself a Republican or a Democrat (or a conservative or a liberal). I like to evaluate all issues independent of the pre-conceived platforms of those labels and form my own opinions on a case-by-case basis. What I find interesting about the Lincoln Project is how some people I thought would always be set in their ways have changed their position over time. Take Steve Schmidt for example. Here’s the guy who pushed John McCain to select Sarah Palin and worked with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Arnold Schwarzenegger on Trump:
The 43rd President of the United States listened to Trump’s inaugural and turned to the former Secretary of State and said, “well, that was some weird shit.” Indeed it was. Trump, raged about “American carnage” and described a dystopic America that existed only in the fever dreams of a noxious mix of conspiracy theorists, demagogic commentators and dishonest propaganda platforms getting rich by spreading the disinformation planted by foreign intelligence services. Three years on it turns out Trump’s speech was prophecy. He has brought devastation to America. His legacy will be mass death and economic collapse caused by his staggering incompetence and ineptitude. The United States is the epicenter of Covid-19 disease and death and the reason is because of Trump. Trump has failed at an epic level. He has divided the county and stoked a cold civil war. He has lied more than 17000 times and desecrated the American Presidency. He has assaulted American patriots, our most important institutions and attacked the rule of law. He is corrupt, indecent and utterly lacking character. He processes none of the qualities of greatness and goodness that have steered our country through its’ darkest nights. He is a fool without compare. He is intellectually unfit and mentally fragile. He is unworthy of his office and unfit for its duties. We are living in a moment of American weakness unlike any of us have ever seen. Trump is the architect of that weakness. He is the instrument of our precipitous national decline. Recovery from this disaster will take many years. Trump is not capable at any level of leading it. The election ahead is the most important this country has faced since 1864. Let it end this rancid era of the reality show Presidency. Let it send this tiresome and ignorant bully back to Trump Tower and cleanse the stench of his corruption, idiocy, racebaiting and failure from our national life. The name Trump will long linger. It will stand for suffering and unnecessary death. It will stand for economic collapse and financial ruin. It will stand for failure and weakness. It will stand for decline and dishonesty. It will stand for stupidity and indecency. But mostly it will mark a tragic time in America where the worst leader in our long history, a man so outmatched by history’s test was the President. He will be remembered rightfully as the worst one we have ever had.
This bin had a lot more than the first one – this project is going to take a long time. As I mentioned in the first bin post, please let me know if you are interested in any of these little beauties (pics after the jump).
The “UK DK” posted this interesting graphic a while back that I recently found while cleaning up my desktop. It amazes me how many different recommendations there are out there to get in better shape, but this one makes a lot of sense to me. My old plan was to run a gazillion miles a month and eat whatever I wanted, but that’s not in the cards these days. I am currently on a one month move streak and have greatly reduced my sugar intake, which has started a trend in the right direction weight-wise. Haven’t started in with the new kettle bell yet because of some back pain, but hope to add that to the mix soon…
In honor of Mother’s Day 2020, I thought I would finally start the “Hummel Project.” As part of the sale of the house on Lombard, I bubble-wrapped most of mom’s Hummel figurines and filled several bins that now take up half of my dining room. I’m not sure what to do with them – the market for Hummels was bad even before the current situation. My goal is to take photos of each one, then try to find them new homes.
If you see any you’d like (or know of a place that might be interested in them), please drop me a note. Photo gallery of the first bin after the jump.
Tom and Sarah Bricker’s excellent Disney Tourist Blog just published a post with their ranking of all 94 attractions at Walt Disney World. I’m really missing the Disney parks these days and haven’t seen any of the new Star Wars rides in California or Florida, so it was really fun reading this (and all of their posts, to be honest). Here are my personal top seven in Florida:
I’m sure some of the new rides I’ve haven’t seen might impact this list. Looking forward to our next visit…
One of the highlights of grade school for me was Scholastic’s Dynamite magazine. It appears I started to subscribe to that in 1976, lasting until 1982. I found a box of these in the basement of my parent’s house on Lombard as we were getting it ready to sell, but they weren’t in great condition. I scanned and posted the entire issue from August 1979 here, if you want to get a feeling for what it was like.
Now that I have my ancient Canon scanner working again with my iMac, I thought I’d scan the front and back of the issues that survived the trip down to our loft. SK will now get the originals for her art projects and I get to keep the digital scans (which you can see after the jump).
A few random Sunday night notes:
Wishing you all peace, love and happiness ❤️
It’s blog birthday time again – the first 7 Minute Miles post appeared on this domain fourteen years ago today.
Current stats:
Currently running WordPress 5.3.2 with my custom theme and 19 plugins on the old Mac mini server colocated in Las Vegas. Favorite plugins: Wordfence Security, VaultPress, Intagrate and Really Simple SSL (with a Let’s Encrypt cert managed via Certbot). Still want to write some custom data entry forms for the golf, run and bike pages, but those (along with making the theme more mobile friendly) have still not made it off the to-do list. Also never figured out the solution to the weird SSL/emoji issue.
Haven’t changed the overall site structure much this year, adding only a new Concerts page that I’m experimenting with using the Vimeo hosting platform. I made some major updates to the Résumé page and just realized that the Biography page now needs a refresh too. After prepping photo boards for funerals in back-to-back months, I should also spend some time on updating the Photos section. I finally moved our Christmas samplers to online-only last year and might do a Hummel section soon too (hit me up if you need any).
As always, thanks for visiting and stay safe out there!
I usually don’t like to do the social media question thing *on* social media, but I’m intrigued by the “5 Drinks to get to know me” one:
Honorable mentions to the Epiphany at Prohibition and just about anything from Marvel Bar…
As Minnesota awaits the first big snowfall of the season, it seems like a good time to ponder:
Happy Thanksgiving!
While I worked for a number of years in the casino business, my property never offered sports betting. As it now spreads across the United States, it is starting to make an impact with my current industry, professional sports venue management. I haven’t done a lot of research on this topic, but I feel like both sides aren’t fully prepared for all the potential side effects of a much larger pool of bettors.
Minnesota has always had a unique gaming environment among states and the various types of tribal compacts, so I don’t envision any immediate changes in the landscape. As it sweeps across the country, though, I imagine Minnesota will join at some point – too much money is involved to completely sit out. Minnesota tribes have understandably been reluctant to reopen the gaming agreements, but most of the larger ones already have ties to professional sports in one form or another.
As a technical venue manager, I’m curious as to what additional demands will be made on wireless networks, digital signage, cyber security and real-time statistical data feeds if sports betting is approved here. Not to mention physical changes to buildings if things like betting windows were ever to be added. I can easily imagine fans having sports betting apps on their phones, placing bets in their seats during a game and wanting to cash out winners immediately.
Lastly, I had another thought while watching the Twins lose their epic battle with the Yankees the other night. If human referees and umpires are still used in all leagues (which is likely), what extra security measures will be needed when they make bad calls? Will it influence how they make calls in the first place? It’s already a challenging environment with rowdy fans who have had too much to drink…
Some stuff from a cold, rainy Sunday afternoon in Minnesota:
Vegas next week – prepare for a wave of food and gaming pics here soon…
Growing up, there were two things we never talked about: politics and religion. I’ll leave the latter for another day, but the former is something that I’ve really come to dislike as I’ve grown older. I mean, politics are everywhere, of course, whether it be at work, in the news or at a family gathering. But as far as traditional Republicans versus Democrats, right versus left and conservative versus liberal, I’ve had just about all I can take. I’ve never been a fan of political parties – why can’t all elections be like those for mayor, school board or judge? I don’t need to see an “R” or “D” behind your name – tell me your qualifications, what your positions are and how you came to those conclusions. Party platforms are an intellectual cop-out, in my opinion.
We all form our key values as we mature and I find it interesting how these can change over time (and how they are shaped by our individual experiences and environments). I’ve always held the Golden Rule in high esteem and try to follow the “Thumper Rule” online (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all”). Some of my other favorites?
Closely related to these values are other things important to me: family and friends, culture, education, science, history, nature, fitness, sportsmanship, fine food, live music, good writing, silence. I used to think that I hated rules (especially those seemingly arbitrary ones created by “the man”), but really I just hate dumb rules (i.e. – this).
People have said a lot of thing about the Masters over the years, but the ability to follow Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia for their entire first round in HD on my AppleTV with no commercials, announcers that don’t scream and silence the majority of the broadcast (aside from the birds chirping) is about as good as sports TV gets, in my opinion. Add in a work-from-home snow day blizzard outside (with wife and daughter safely inside) + hot pizza from across the street + new levels in Two Dots = my favorite day in weeks.
It’s that time of year again – the first 7minutemiles.com post appeared on this domain thirteen years ago today.
Current stats:
Still running WordPress (currently 5.1.1) with my custom theme and 17 plugins on the old Mac mini server colocated in Las Vegas. Favorite plugins: Wordfence Security, VaultPress, Intagrate and Really Simple SSL. Yes, I finally made the move this year to SSL using Let’s Encrypt, Certbot and that SSL plugin. I experimented with some form plugins for data entry on the golf, run and bike pages, but I didn’t like any of them. Planning to just write some custom code when I find the time. I’ve also given up on using a plugin to make the site more mobile-friendly, so at some point I’ll just have to learn the design and coding techniques to deal with that using my existing theme.
The old Tapemark Charity Pro-Am online leaderboards have a historical home now here. We had a new foodie join our team at the stadium, so I created a food page to summarize some of my favorite places in Minnesota. My upcoming races, concerts and sporting events are now displayed in the home page footer (and stored in a new database). The Biography and Résumé pages have some small updates. Video and photos still need a lot of love in the coming months and the mysterious SSL/emoji issue still needs resolution…
As always, thanks for visiting!
Either the Google API is down or my last-updated-in-six-years charting plugin is dead…
UPDATE: Looks like both the plugin and the API are dead.
UPDATE 2: The API seems to be back (on a new server).
I kind of forget that City Pages is now owned by the Star Tribune, but it seems to have kept the same editorial vibe as before. I always have liked reading the annual Best of the Twin Cities issue, which you can vote for here (until March 26). Here are a few of my recommendations:
Skipping all of the the music options, as I don’t know what to think of the local scene these days. Rock the vote, yo.
The flip side of that other mini-post…
Keeping a positive outlook and all, but this is still truth…
Some interesting numbers about our big game last year:
With the legal landscape changing this year, things should be way crazier for Rams-Patriots. I love that the Westgate SuperBook has 442 different prop bets for SBLIII. I mean, how do you even come up with a spread for Phil Mickelson fourth-round bogeys at the Phoenix Open versus Josh Reynolds receptions?
h/t to Marc Meltzer (and good luck to my tech friends in Atlanta)
Quick update from the medical professionals this week on my recovery. I had two appointments this week, one with my occupational therapist and a rare one-on-one visit with my neurovascular surgeon, Dr. Tummala. He has been named a “Top Doctor” with Mpls.St.Paul Magazine three years in a row and only visits HCMC one half day a month, so this was a special treat to get to talk with him in person.
Good news to report on all fronts: the therapist has reduced my appointments from once a week to once every other week, Dr. Tummala was pleased with my progress and approved me to start running on the treadmill, OK’d air travel and said my eyes look like they will be strong enough in another three months to not need glasses at all. We went over the results of the recent MRI and looked at a lot of scans that showed the aneurysm and the stents. I learned more about “prominent infundibulums” and why they are important to what happened to me. I should also get to stop taking the new medications they added when I left the hospital by March. So good news all around.
The only sad thing this week was the letter I received from my primary care doctor, Dr. Amal Chaniara, which said he is leaving Allina Health at the end of the year. Dr. Chaniara has been wonderful and I wish him the best of luck with his future career opportunities. He is a great doctor who really took the time to discuss things with me and I will miss seeing him.
Lastly, big shout out to the HCMC cafeteria (see above). Hospital food gets a bad rap in general, but the food and service at the cafeteria has been great. Reasonable prices, friendly staff and a wide selection of options mean I usually stop in after appointments in the new building to grab a quick bite. Not sure they always follow the latest health guidelines when it comes to what they offer, but that’s fine by me…
