Season’s Greetings from Lowertown Saint Paul
Let the jokes begin
Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?
- Clarence Odbody, AS2
Tucker the Pug ❤️
My favorite Xmas trolls
Waiting again
Christmas with Stompy
Thinking of grandpa (and mom)
Star Wars Christmas
My Photoshop skills are not strong
If you know, you know. If you want to know, hit me up at dk@7minutemiles.com.
Get the wings
A Holiday Update from HCMC
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…
Happy to see you, treadmill
Got approved this morning to return to running (treadmill only for now) – very happy about this, as the weight is recovering fast
C- on the plating, but solid
Another XR in the family
Merry Two Dots
Good Mexican Vittles
Historians rock – thanks Olivia!
My Force number was more secure than my college ID
Laptop sticker retirement
Has Target eliminated paper bags everywhere now?
The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight…
- Winston Churchill
A festive office break room
My word of the day yesterday: infundibulum, a funnel-shaped cavity or structure (of which I apparently have a prominent one)
If you are a Talking Heads fan, run (don’t walk) and listen to True Stories, The Complete Soundtrack
Top 7 French Fries
Screw that Harvard guy – French fries are life. I had some especially good ones this week that made me think I should list my favorites in a mini post. It’s too hard to rank them in order, so here are my current top seven in alphabetical order:
- Barbette
- Fresh French Fries (State Fair)
- Mac’s Fish and Chips
- McDonald’s
- Octo Fishbar
- Raising Cane’s
- Saint Dinette
Honorable mention (and RIP) – The Station House in Sagle, Idaho (which burned to the ground at some point – thanks to the Bonner County History Museum for helping me research). Platters of fries the size of your head (made from fresh-cut Idaho potatoes, of course).
UPDATE: After further consideration, I think that McDonald’s and Raising Cane’s should be in a separate big fast food chain category and that I should replace them with Meritage and Band Box Diner.
While millennials have dominated headlines in recent years, baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) have continued to dominate consumer spending in the U.S. In fact, consumers over 50 now account for more than half of all U.S. spending…
- Visa Business and Economic Insights
Woot! Woot! Thanks, DGS
Officially back making donuts
Going to regret this at 4:45am, but @atmosphere is totally worth it
I’ve hit the Niver trifecta!
Kid two remembered! Thanks, MK ❤️
Celebrating 27 years
Variations on a classic
Hee-haw & Merry Christmas
Fancy hair for SK
Still a long way to go, but it’s nice watching hockey with two eyes again
GD Nordy
My Insty 2018 Top 9
New laptop setup day
Throwback night in Bedford Falls
Pretty little city built on a hillside. Music in the bars and fire in the sky. We went to the beach and it was covered in ice. And I used to call it home…
- Winners, Trampled By Turtles
Thanks @deadmanwinter
A little Lucy before DMW light up the Furnace
Just like the Mall of America
It’s like time stood still
My name in donuts and Dew
When you come back to your office computer after two months, you get *two* full Office updates
Back at it – green line to work on a brisk, sunny morning
Goodbye Bibelot
Got though it, but not even the Valium and the “calming nature video and soothing music & lights” made the MRI experience cool
Post-MRI stop with my driver
My Christmas elves
Strong targeted casino marketing
So. Much. Two Dots.
Duck meatloaf with CK, JV & SV
Back in my airline days, people used Minny all the time to refer to MSP. Plus: Minnie and Paul?
Need to compare with the Mpls one
Foreshadowing?
Security broke my emojis
This site has always been a tool for me to stay sharp on new web technologies and lately it’s been a great way to test my cognitive skills since the little incident in October. I’ve had three things on my web development to-do list for a long time: 1) use Let’s Encrypt to add TLS/SSL security, 2) make my WordPress theme mobile-friendly and 3) create some dedicated data entry screens for golf scores, runs and bike rides. During my recovery at home, I decided to tackle item #1…
Since I still had Homebrew installed on this server, I was able to get Certbot installed early on in the process and had a valid certificate ready and waiting. I haven’t tried automating the renewal process yet, but can manually renew the certificate with no problem (had to do this once already, in fact). For whatever reason, I had trouble finding examples online of people with similar setups and had several false starts in getting Apache configured correctly to use the certificate for this domain. This post got me most of the way there, but had more of a focus on Mac OS X Server and not plain old Mac OS X client. A few other helpful links here, here and here. And this thread on the Let’s Encrypt site helped me figure out what can/should go in the httpd-vhosts.conf file versus what should go in the httpd-ssl.conf file.
