Three years ago, I did a “Top 7” post on my favorite foods, but that talked about food categories in general terms. Lots of people have asked me about my favorite specific food items, so here they are (in no particular order):

• Homemade bleu cheese @ Vermilion Club

Let’s start in the Northland at one of the premier dive bars in the country, the VC. Also known for it’s 24-inch Bamboozler pizza, the homemade bleu cheese is the best I’ve had anywhere. Wednesdays are wing night, so load up on buffalo sauce and dip away in that amazing bleu. I usually order some Poor Gary’s pizza too, but I never really have room for that in the end.

• Chocolate cake donuts @ World’s Best Donuts

Staying on the Northland theme, let’s take a trip to the little village on the big lake, Grand Marais. While there are many great food traditions in town (Sven and Ole’s, Angry Trout Cafe, Blue Water Cafe – hell, even the local DQ is bomb), the claim of “World’s Best Donuts” is 100% true. Given the chance, I could eat an entire bag of the chocolate cake donuts in one sitting. Pro tips: pre-order online to skip the line and pay extra for a box instead of a bag so the chocolate doesn’t stick to the side.

• Cheeseburger @ Saint Dinette

Closer to home, the cheeseburger at Saint Dinette is my favorite burger of all time (and I’ve tried way too many). The competition between Chef Adam’s masterpiece and Au Cheval in Chicago was anti-climatic (and definitely not worth a multi-hour pre-pandemic wait). I’ve long had a soft spot in my heart for the burger at Fuddruckers in Bloomington (RIP), but that was good in a different way. Lots of people in town love the Parlour burger (and I think it’s very, very solid), but I’ve got to give the nod to the St. Paul contender. Team Nive Man, all the way!

• Pronto Pups and Fresh French Fries @ Minnesota State Fair

Going to cheat with a two-fer of Minnesota State Fair classics: the Pronto Pup (NEVER CORN DOG SINCE 1947) and Fresh French Fries. Of course, the fair has an amazing assortment of excellent food options (corn roast, Blue Barn, Lulu’s), but I can eat Pronto Pups right when I get there in the morning and just before we leave after a late Grandstand concert (and usually several more times in between). I LOVE French fries (Barbette, the clown, many others), but this year’s pandemic Food Parade reminded me that the red and yellow booth serves up the best ones ever.

• Pepperoni pizza @ Carbone’s on Randolph

If you’ve been following this site at all the past few months, you probably saw that we’ve been making a habit lately of visiting Carbone’s on Randolph for pizza on Mondays. This is the pizza of my childhood, and only the original Randolph location is legitimate in my book (the other franchises try admirably, but they just aren’t the same). We had our concerns when they closed down briefly to remodel and expand, but the original ovens remained and the greasy flavor lives on. In a metro area full of great pizza options, Carbone’s on Randolph is the one for my list.

• 3 Finger Combo @ Raising Canes

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have a fast food entry on my list, but the 3 Finger Combo at Raising Canes is something I could order every day and not get tired of it. The quality of the chicken is always top notch, they have great fries, the Texas toast is a nice extra and for someone who grew up wanting things plain, Cane’s sauce is the best. Also love the little ice cubes in the freshly made lemonade. Egg McMuffins from the clown are also something I could eat every day (and the quality never wavers no matter where you are in the world, which is an incredible feat). And of course, Arby’s has the meats.

• Steak @ Murray’s

I’ve handed down my love of steak to my eldest daughter, but I’ve yet to take her to the temple of Minneapolis beef, Murray’s. Now I know that many people consider Manny’s to be the temple of Minneapolis beef, but I went to Murray’s first, sharing a Silver Butter Knife steak with my mom way back when. I thought it was magical that they could cook such a thick steak so uniformly perfect and have it be *so* tender. These days, I usually get there for the luncheon filet, a 6 ounce tenderloin with au gratin potatoes that is an absolute steal at $32. Just like pizza, there are a lot of great steak places in town, but Murray’s is my fave.

After I came up with this list, Colleen asked me, “what about Cecil’s?” Their New York style hot pastrami & Swiss on egg white absolutely needs to be top 7, but I don’t know what I want to bump off the list. Let’s just go with eight for now…

UPDATE: I also forgot about mild chilitos with extra cheese at Zantigo.

Today is the two year anniversary of what kid one has called my “big brain blowout” that I experienced on the train platform in downtown Minneapolis on October 8, 2018. Looking back on the post I wrote a year ago, it’s amazing how much has changed in the world since then. The pandemic has dramatically altered my industry and most of my hobbies, but there’s still nothing like three weeks in the ICU to change your outlook on life.

Health-wise, almost everything is back to normal. It appears that my previous 20/20 vision won’t return fully, but I now have permanent prism glasses that mostly do the trick. I don’t really like to wear them, though, so it’s nice I don’t need them to read screens. My brain can trick my eyes for longer distances if I tilt my head a certain way, but overall it’s safer to just wear the glasses for driving and biking. They are also technically bifocals, as my neuro optometrist says I’m just getting too old to read the small print now. Dammit, she’s right.

In other miscellaneous health notes, I successfully completed my colonoscopy back in February and started a move streak in April that still continues (yesterday was day 175). As a result, my weight is trending in the right direction (switching to the no sugar versions of Cherry Coke and Mountain Dew is probably helping too). I’ve played more golf this year than any other, walking almost every round. Bike miles this year are down compared to the last two years, but I should still hit 600 miles by the end of the year. My run log is trending in the right direction, but most of those miles were spent walking hills. Will 2021 mark the return of full-blown running? Time will tell, but I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel on that just yet.

The last year has truly been a roller-coaster of emotion. We got in all of the milestone birthday trips before everything shut down – Las Vegas for SK, Maui for CK and Banff for MK. We lost the last of the parents months apart: Jean in December and Mike in February. I still feel like we didn’t get to properly mourn them once COVID hit. The pandemic continues to hammer away at other parts of our lives that will unfortunately never come back again.

I can’t allow this doom and gloom to overshadow my gratitude to be here today, though. I continue to be inspired by people like Dr. Uzma Samadani, who helped me leave the ICU at Hennepin Healthcare two years ago. Reading about her research on Twitter gives me hope about my continued health and that science will find a way out of this mess. The free lectures I’ve been watching from MIT about the pandemic are also fascinating and inspiring. We need more leaders like this to guide us through these challenging times…

🇺🇸 VOTE 🇺🇸

It’s the start of bonus week, so let’s kick off things with a new Top 7 list:

• Let those you love know
• Never read the comments
• Always keep learning
• Move every day
• Travel as much as possible
• Eat the good stuff
• Less talking, more thinking

More reflections coming soon…

I’ve been thinking a lot about safety lately. The pandemic, political and economic turmoil, return to work plans – all of these have safety components that give me anxiety and make 2020 feel like even more of a challenge. What exactly is the condition of being safe? I like these definitions: freedom from danger, risk, injury or loss; unhurt, harmless, cautious. Of course, safe can also mean unlikely to produce controversy or contradiction – also sometimes useful, but not what I’m writing about today.

The spread of COVID and the tools and policies available to manage the threat have become overtly political, which is unfortunate. I’m lucky that I really don’t have to fight any physical battles with people who won’t wear masks or follow guidelines and have the economic stability to isolate at home as much as I can during the pandemic. I’ve already decided I don’t *need* to visit casinos, go to movie theaters or drink in bars right now and I tend to favor take-out over eating inside at restaurants that are offering that option (and winter is coming, patio people). Correctly wearing a face mask to Target or the grocery store is literally the easiest thing you can do to keep the economy running, limit the spread of the virus and help keep people safe.

Outdoor activities are safer than indoor activities, which has resulted in a surge of bike sales and golf rounds. These are both things I love to do in a “regular” year, so this has been a great way to pass the time (and keep my move streak alive). It’s funny that some of the outdoor things I like to do aren’t always considered safe: danger is part of the appeal with downhill skiing and single-track mountain biking, for example. But even with those activities, I’m more cautious the older I get. Running has always been important to me, but I’ve even turned that down a notch, preferring strenuous hill walks to full out running for speed (at least for now).

I’m very fortunate that sports, concerts, travel and food have played significant roles in my life. Venue safety is part of my career, so I pay close attention to what others are doing. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a great experience with the Saints returning to live baseball in our neighborhood, so we only bought tickets to two games. Why? We didn’t feel safe: no security at the gates, seat maps that placed people at the drink rail immediately behind us, other fans not following the guidelines and limited staff to enforce the rules. I get the economics, but what is the long-term damage to your brand if people don’t feel safe? We did have a good experience at the Minnesota Zoo a few weeks back and expect to have a good experience at the Minnesota State Fair Food Parade next week, but it seems critical to me that you get safety figured out.

I miss live music, but I don’t see that industry coming back for a while. The next ticket I have is for a November 27th show at the Fitzgerald, a theater I love. Even with masks and a limited audience (which isn’t possible, since tickets are already sold), I can’t imagine any scenario that would make me feel safe enough to go on that date (and near-zero chance it doesn’t get rescheduled again like every other show I still have tickets for from 2020). I’ve also been reading a lot about Disney, and while thoughts of an uncrowded Disney World are tempting, my internal safety meter says tell Mickey we will see him again later.

The activities I’ve talked about so far mostly involve things that a majority of people would consider first-world privilege. I’m still employed, we’re not facing eviction and we have food on the table. Everyone in the family is still healthy. We have a bit of an economic safety net thanks to inheritance. We have access to reliable transportation. Middle class white males don’t have to face the same issues that women and people of color do as part of their daily existence (I’m working on a draft “On Race” post that I hope to publish soon). So what other safety issue is front and center for me? Crime rates.

When we moved from the suburbs to Lowertown, my mom was very concerned about our safety (even though she also lived in Saint Paul). The area has had ups and downs from a crime standpoint, but I’d never felt threatened here (even at night). The pandemic and the protests following the death of George Floyd have changed the look and atmosphere of downtown Saint Paul. According to the Pioneer Press, there have been more than forty recent arrests in the area around Mears Park and Union Depot for fighting, drug dealing and other criminal activity (including a shooting). Homelessness has also been on the rise and a small tent city can now be seen outside our windows near I-94. There are people needing obvious mental health assistance. I wish I knew the answers to these problems – what we are doing now isn’t working and something needs to change…

With all the crazy, awful things going on in the world today, I’m not sure it’s really appropriate to daydream about material things that are so outside the realities of a worldwide pandemic. On the other hand, it does feel a little therapeutic to briefly escape from all the anxiety and think about a different, calmer life. The North Shore of Lake Superior has always been one of those escapes for me and I could easily envision spending the rest of my life on that lake:

• Design and build a not-so-big log cabin
• Stone fireplace and large picture window
• Screen porch to manage the flying bugs
• Heated floors for warm feet in the winter
• Fast internet (but no phones)
• Nice speakers to play the North Shore playlist
• Wooded lot with shoreline
• Wildflowers and hummingbirds
• Detached garage with exercise area/game room
• Guest cottages for SK and MK
• Family kayaks
• Access to the SHT and bike trails
• Golf at Superior National
• Skiing at Lutsen Mountains
• Gaming at Grand Portage
• Concerts at Papa Charlie’s

Ahh…

It’s been two and a half months since I last posted to Instagram (and about two months since I officially deleted both my Facebook and Instagram accounts). It wasn’t that hard to give up Facebook – I really only used it to sync status with a couple of games, promote posts from this site and to communicate with more distant family members. Add to that all of the other reasons people don’t like Facebook and it became a pretty easy decision. Now I just need Two Dots to continue to improve the Facebook-free experience and I’ll be fine (LEADERBOARDS).

Instagram, on the other hand, was a much tougher decision for me. From what I can tell, it launched on iOS in October of 2010 and I posted my first image on Christmas Day 2010. The original pictures were 640×640 and I used Iain Poulson’s excellent Intagrate WordPress plugin for many years to automatically pull my pics from Instagram and create image posts on this site. Facebook purchased the service in April 2012, but largely left it independent (image sizes did increase to 1080×1080 in 2015).

Instagram is the de facto social media standard for restaurants and foodies, so that’s really what I used it for in the beginning. I don’t like accounts that post the same thing across all platforms, so I’d use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in specialized ways to help prevent overlap. Now that I’m only on Twitter, I initially tried to recreate some of that there, but I’m finding that I need to continue to prune my Twitter follow list and just move on from some things that I know I’m missing. Some examples: Instagram stories from Armon and Meredith, donut pictures from Erin and everything posted by my wife and daughters.

I finally finished merging all of the Instagram metadata they sent me in JSON format with the image files that I uploaded here. Also starting to get back to equilibrium on my main @kingsbury Twitter account (and will continue to use @7minutemiles to link to stories like this one). Really trying to get most of the politics out of my feed too – no real appetite for doomscrolling these days…

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:

• Love of Learning
• Curiosity
• Kindness
• Honesty
• Judgement
• Love
• Creativity

There were a couple I thought would be higher, but overall, that’s close…

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

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).

Read more…

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life:

Who is it, darling? It’s a Mr. Death or something. He’s come about the reaping. I don’t think we need any at the moment…

Nobody wants to think about death, but unfortunately our family has had a lot of experience with it the last few years. With the state of the world now, I thought it might be useful to write up a post on our experiences, what you should do to plan and how to make things easier for your loved ones when the time comes.

When I was younger, I can remember having an intense fear of dying (and of losing other people in my life). The funeral of my great grandmother was open casket and was very traumatizing for me. I also remember my next door neighbor dying after an ambulance pulled up outside – she was the first person close to me that died and I had nightmares about it for years. I remember going on a trip to southern California shortly after that and having an existential freakout in the backseat of the rental car as we drove from LAX to Anaheim. Sorry about that, mom and dad.

As I’ve aged, my thinking about death has become less scary and more sensible. It’s still incredibly hard to mourn and deal with loss, but now I know it’s a part of the natural cycle in our world. That’s not an easy thing to come to terms with, though, after losing so many people in my family. I thankfully haven’t had a lot of friend funerals yet and feel extraordinarily lucky to not be one of the first after that fateful morning in 2018. And even though I never met them in person, I still get emotional when I listen to a Prince, Tom Petty or David Bowie song.

So, what happens when the reaper comes calling? A good funeral home can help immensely and we’ve had great experiences with Mueller Bies in Roseville. If you’re a fan of the HBO series Six Feet Under, you may have pre-conceived notions of what the funeral home business is all about, but a good funeral director can be a huge help in navigating what is usually an extremely difficult time for people. They will work to arrange cremation or embalming, assist with purchase of an urn or casket, coordinate any desired church services, host visitations, order flowers, help write and publish obituaries in local newspapers, submit paperwork to the state for death certificates and arrange for cemetery services (if needed). These services do not come cheap: expect it to cost $7,000 – $12,000.

So what should you do now to help out your loved ones later?

• Review your insurance and make sure you store all the information in a secure, easy-to-find location like a fire safe or safety deposit box. Keep your beneficiary information up to date and periodically review your coverage levels with a professional to make sure the people you care about get what they need. Term life is way cheaper when you are young and healthy, but whole life acts like an investment that may or may not fit in with your overall retirement and investment planning strategy.
• If you have assets to pass on, it’s a good idea to have a current will that clearly states your intentions so that probate can be avoided. There are free online options to assist with this, but I recommend spending the money to have a lawyer draw this up that is specific to your state. If there are limited assets, there are transfer on death deed and affidavit options in some states, but advice from a lawyer is still the best route for these situations.
• You should spell out health care directives now. End of life care decisions are never easy to think about or discuss, but so is having to guess what people want when they can’t decide for themselves. This is also a good place to talk about cremation versus casket burial, where you want to be buried, what type of service or memorial you would want (if any), what songs you want played, etc.
• Account information and passwords. Get a good password manager (I’ve been using 1Password for many years now) and make sure someone in your family knows where it is and how to access it. Create a spreadsheet that summarizes all of your accounts – checking, savings, investments, retirement funds, credit cards, utilities, loans, etc. Include website addresses, account numbers, login information and any contact information. This will be invaluable, but also needs to be kept as secure as possible.
• Social media and other online accounts. Your login information should be stored in your password manager, but it’s a good idea to think about how you want your online presence managed after you are gone. Facebook allows relatives to “memorialize” accounts, which involves providing a copy of the death certificate. It’s important to also think about things like AppleID, Netflix, Hulu, PayPal, Dropbox, newspaper, magazine and email accounts, which are likely tied to credit cards that will need to be closed (or transferred to someone else).
• If you publish personal websites like this one, there are many issues to address: renewal of web hosting services, domain names, DNS services and SSL certificates. I’d like to think I could keep this website online indefinitely for my heirs to access in the future, but that is not an automatic process by any means.
• Take lots of pictures of the ones you love and keep them organized and backed up (in more than one place). They are some of the most important digital files you will ever create.

In the immortal words of the great Buck Dharma, “Seasons don’t fear the reaper, nor do the wind, the sun or the rain…”