Congratulations to Kid Two, who worked hard to graduate in three and half years from the University of Minnesota Duluth with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environment, Sustainability & Geography (with a minor in biology). Today she accepted a job offer with Landbridge Ecological of Saint Paul to be a full time Restoration Technician:

Restoration Technicians implement a wide variety of ecological restoration projects in several diverse plant communities. Example projects include public/residential/commercial landscapes with a range from small to large scale native installation (planting, seeding, erosion control, etc.) and land management (invasive species, prescribed fire, woodland editing, etc.). Some projects entail conventional landscaping and urban interface aspects. Projects are located primarily in the Twin Cities and Upper Midwest.

The Landbridge offices are located just up the street from the original High School for Recording Arts campus on Vandalia Street that I worked at from 2003—2009. Excited to see their client list includes Lebanon Hills Regional Park and Braemar Golf Course in Edina.

Very proud of what she has achieved so far and excited to see what she will accomplish in her new career.

Bravo, MK! ❤️

Somebody raided my childhood home

Now that I’ve been in my new role as systems engineer at TPT for a month, I figured it was a good time to reflect on this change and write about my experience so far. The organization’s post-COVID return to the office has been branded as a “Return to Lowertown” and it literally is for me too. Hard to believe it’s almost a year already since we left Rayette Lofts to head on down the river…

The commute back and forth has been great so far, usually taking under 15 minutes each way. Next spring, I hope to ride my bike a few days each week if I can sort out the storage issues. I splurged on the expensive parking option in the Lowertown Ramp, which is easy-in on Sibley and easy-out on Jackson (plus covered spots with no winter scraping). I’ve never really had any security trouble in Lowertown, but it is convenient to have a parking spot right next to the office entrance.

Some other logistical things: currently working a hybrid schedule of four days in the office and one day from home (Wednesdays), which has been very nice. While every day has been focused on getting up to speed on systems and technology, I’ve been trying to use the work from home day as a deep-dive research day (which is easier alone). TPT has a nice lunchroom, so I’ve mainly been bringing in frozen lunches to eat. The reawakening of the downtown St. Paul lunch dining scene has been slow, but there are pockets here and there. Still exploring the skyway, but always open to suggestions and recommendations.

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