Thanks for the pie, Betty

Scary-ass IGT slot monkeys @ Grand Portage

New(ish?) mural downtown

Too bad the patio is only open about 10% of the year

Don’t know how I’ve missed it all this years

Only the best on the North Shore

Spokane visit or Stranger Things audition?

Another great visit to Sin City

Beatles Cirque – probably last saw this a dozen years ago

In the “new” location @ Bellagio

Slot holds are rough on the Strip

Nice to catch up with Raiders Nation

Cool, but no thank you

Caesar’s Palace and the Palms

Not much return on a 2.50 bet

That would be an easy conversion

As my good friend would say: “Vegas, we are in you”

Starting to have a love/hate relationship with the Mirage

It’s so cold here

Trying WN again with SK

Twins season ticket holder trip was successful

Field study to the BWCA for MK

Not our favorite place in Europe, but still tragic news from a historic city

SK on her way to NYC

I’ve never been big on year-end lists or goal summaries here, but I’ve always done a fair amount of goal-setting privately. This past year has put a different spin on my perspective, so I thought it might be useful to share a few things as 2019 gets started. In hindsight, a lot of my previous health goals seem rather vain compared to plain old recovery. And how fortunate was I in the past to just want to run faster, bike farther or finish another marathon? Now, regaining my normal vision (without prism lenses) is goal #1, followed closely by getting cleared to resume driving and riding a bike. I’m very thankful that the outlook for all of these things is good – much of this might happen by the middle of March.

Since Dr. Tummala gave me the OK to resume treadmill running, I’ve felt good the past week, with three slowish runs totaling 7.1 miles. I also did one nine mile ride on a stationary bike and resumed doing light dumbbell repeats. Not really sure what workout goals to set for 2019 – the only race I’m registered for is the Get in Gear 10K in April and I’d really like to participate in the Bike to Work challenge again in May. Beyond that, I just want to stay consistent all year and not have any big gaps in my charts (which happened twice in 2018). It would be nice to return to regular weekly runs with WeRunMpls once the ice melts and I’d love to reschedule a ski trip for next season (Banff, Colorado or Schweitzer). Lots of golf outings to schedule with people too.

The doctors cleared a return to air travel already, but money and time will be limited. The original plan was to give each person in our family a trip for their respective milestone birthday in 2019, but all of those plans are on hold for the time being. Most likely options? A quick Las Vegas trip after the Final Four and maybe a work trip to the annual Cisco conference, which is in San Diego this year (June 9-13). And of course Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens in both Florida and California this year, but that will likely fall in the Tokyo/Lanai/Switzerland dream trip category for the time being.

With the Vikings season over, my job shifts focus to the Final Four on April 6th and 8th. We have four large events before then (two trade shows and two dirt shows), but there is a lot to do before “the road ends” in Minneapolis. Then we get to break down that setup for Garth Brooks and his sold-out stadium tour before prepping for Summer X Games (version 3.0). Since X Games moves to early August, there won’t be a lot of time between that and football pre-season. With all that work to do, maybe I should start daydreaming again about building a tiny cabin on the North Shore to escape to with the family…

Wow, how lucky am I to be writing this post? Happy New Year to all of you – may 2019 be full of love, health and prosperity!

Elton & Sandra Davis – your fries made my childhood better

Front

Marketing geniuses, I tells ya

Finally found the “then” pic

Thank you Grand Marais Ben Franklin

Quick, fun trip to Vermilion to celebrate Mr. Schuster’s 50th

None to be found on this trip

Liked this game a lot

Wide range of weather at The Wilderness

The new Grand Portage Casino is nice

…just like me

Thanks, Sven and Ole

Waking up early in hotels seems like a rip-off (have to do it twice too)

Yay! Missed Little Chef a ton

Bet there are bluff snakes out there too

Chicago Mix (of course)

Union Station, Chicago

Thanks a lot, Simpsons

Warm and crowded @ Cloud Gate

Cermak-McCormick Place Station

Doge art is cool

More cookies than I’ve ever seen in one place

Long live Gordy

This one was outside the candy store

Nice to see Lynn at the candy store

Could Black Bear possibly be looser than Mystic now?

Don’t ever change, Gordy

(Not the Musical)

Glensheen Carriage House

Last week I attended my second Cisco Live! conference in Orlando (last year was my first in Vegas; next year will be San Diego). It blows my mind how much it must cost to host 25,000 people in a facility like the Orange County Convention Center – setup, food twice a day, video production for keynotes and sessions, utilities, staffing, etc. And then there was the customer appreciation event Wednesday night at Universal Studios, which not only included exclusive access to the original park for four hours, but also had free food and drinks everywhere and big name concerts from Leon Bridges, Cake and Sam Hunt. No wonder my annual maintenance bill never goes down…

Speaking of bills, I needed to do this trip on the cheap, so I stayed with my brother and his wife and leaned on them for ground transportation (along with some 25% off Lyft rides). He took me to Animal Kingdom on Sunday night after I arrived so I could check out the new(ish) Avatar stuff. Na’vi River Journey has the cool Audio-Animatronics Shaman of Songs, while Flight of Passage lived up to the nearly two hour wait. We had dinner at the excellent Satu’li Canteen, which really elevates the whole theme park food quality experience, in my opinion.

My conference pass this time was a new intermediate “Imagine” badge, so I didn’t get access to all of the sessions (or a T-shirt or backpack). It did get me into all of the keynotes and Innovation Showcase presentations, though, along with the “World of Solutions” trade show, the party at Universal and free food for breakfast and lunch each day. I found most of the sessions to be useful and not just a week-long sales pitch to buy new stuff (like you get at some conferences). I learned about a lot of new technology trends, including improved security techniques, software-defined networking and container-based development, along with the evolution of the Cisco platforms and products we’ve deployed at the stadium (which thankfully I don’t need to replace right away).

After the conference wrapped up, I had a little extra time to kill before flying home (I wish the standby rules for Delta were more customer friendly). I spent some more time checking out all the changes at Disney Springs, where I had had dinner earlier in the week with my brother at Art Smith’s wonderful Homecomin’ restaurant. World of Disney was half-closed for remodeling, but I still managed to find some things for people. It was interesting to see retail additions like UNIQLO and the dining scene continues to impress with the likes of Morimoto Asia, Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar and The Boathouse (in addition to all of the old favorites). Also caught Deadpool 2 at the AMC and made a quick trip to Tampa to check out the very impressive Seminole Hard Rock Tampa complex.

See you in San Diego?

Glad I took a couple hours to visit

Hard Rock Tampa is super nice

Enough with the live in the moment crap, though

Iron Chef, no more! Hitting up Art Smith’s Homecomin’

Lots of interesting presentations @ Cisco Live!

Cisco Live! 2018, Orlando

Mr. Safari from day one

The early air choo-choo

Is this the start of something wonderful and new? Or one more dream that I cannot make true?

Still my favorite in South Bay

Covered them both on this vacation

SK ❤️ seashells

La La Land Day, part II

Crazy long waits here these days

It was much more impressive when I was little