Category Archives: Weirdness

Skydive Twin Cities

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Skydiving is something I’ve always wanted to do but never actively pursued, hoping instead that if I waited long enough, an occasion would somehow present itself. Leave it to a daily deal website to fulfill my wish.

In December, Groupon offered a deal for $80 off the price of a tandem jump through Skydive Twin Cities (which, oddly enough, is headquartered across the border in Baldwin, WI). I was lucky enough to have a couple of friends who wanted to go too, so it was on.

It wasn’t until May that we finally got around to making reservations. The certificates were nearly expired, and with thunderstorms forecast on the day of our jump, it looked like we might not get to go. But the weather ended up being perfect: slightly warm, little to no wind, and an overcast sky, which meant we could go up above the clouds and plunge back through them on the way down — a fantastic experience.

The airfield was easy to find, and a mere 40-minute drive from St. Paul. It’s basically a grass airstrip, of the type I haven’t flown off of since my days as a Civil Air Patrol cadet. The staff was very professional, and had a healthy sense of humor about the dangers of their sport. (The instructor’s persistent references to “if the parachute opens” and “if you survive” are apparently a tension-breaker for reluctant newbs.)

All in all, though, I found I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I thought I’d be. There’s an air of unreality about the whole thing that drowns out any real sense of fear. And the fact you’re essentially strapped to a person who clearly knows what they’re doing helps a lot. It’s nice, because they do all the work; you can just enjoy the ride.

And what a ride. Skydiving is one experience in life that truly does not disappoint. To exit an airplane at 10,000+ feet is to commit to something with a level of totality that few other things in life demand. It is awesome, in the truest sense of the word. You can’t understand it until you do it; and after you do it, you’ll want more. My friends and I had the same reaction after we were back on the ground: “Want to go again?” We probably will.

So this is what it’s like…

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The last 48 hours have been fairly instructive for me as a blogger. Since WordPress linked to my post about DIY home renovation angst on their “Freshly Pressed” featured blogs page, I’ve received more web traffic in two days than I’ll probably ever get on this blog again. The number of comments I got on that post — 46 so far — is about half the total number I’d ever received before WordPress so generously started funneling pageviews into this, my lowly purchase on the blogosphere.

It’s cool to get a taste of what life would be like if I were a real blogger — someone who posted regularly on topics interesting enough to draw thousands of pageviews per day. As it is, I update this blog about four times a year, and my visitors are usually limited to friends, family and a handful of people I know through social media. I generally try to keep things pretty innocuous here, which doesn’t always make for interesting reading. But I’ve learned the hard way that drawing too much attention to oneself can be perilous, especially when one works in a career field that can be politically sensitive.

To those who have visited in the last couple of days — even just to spam my comment thread — I thank you for stopping by. I was trying to think of a way to parlay this temporary flood of attention into something useful, but so far I’ve got nothing. I’m sure I’ll think of something right after WordPress takes down the link.

I Have Found a Use for All Those Yellow Pages

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Everyone knows phone books are basically worthless. I share local blogger Ed Kohler’s keen dislike for the things, which have basically been obsolete since the day my grandmother learned how to use Google. Yesterday, however, my friend Garrett and I discovered a use for them that doesn’t even necessitate taking them out of the bag.

The above picture probably doesn’t make much sense on its face, so let me explain: that bag of Dex phone books (and the shoe on top of them) are weighing down a 5-gallon kettle of wort, the raw liquid mixture used in fermenting beer. We recently started homebrewing, and we quickly found that cooling the wort after it’s done boiling is one of the most frustrating and time-consuming parts of the process. Most homebrewers recommend an ice bath, but we found that placing the kettle in a bathtub and circulating cold water around it is actually faster and more efficient.

Of course, the kettle has a tendency to float and bob around in the moving water, which is where the phone books come in. Drop that dirty old bag of yellow pages that Dex left on your doorstep six months ago (and that you haven’t touched since) on top of the lid and that kettle isn’t going anywhere! (In our case, a piece of footwear was also needed to effectively stabilize the kettle.)

St. Paul’s Crazy Street Signs (Updated)

St. Paul's Crazy Street Signs

The above is one of many “traffic calming” artistic street signs currently located on George Street on St. Paul’s West Side. Patty noticed them on her way to work one day. According to this report by WCCO, the signs don’t really accomplish their intended purpose of slowing traffic, but they definitely add some eccentric charm to the neighborhood.

You can see my pictures of the signs here.

Geodesic Dome House, West Side, St. Paul

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Way back in May, at the Living Green Expo, Patty and I ran across a map of all the geodesic dome houses in Minnesota, and we noticed that one of them appeared to be in our own neighborhood, just a few blocks from our apartment. We literally spent two months looking for it — on walks, on bike rides, in our cars and on Google Maps. What started as a passing curiosity quickly became a kind of ludicrous obsession, as we simply could not find the thing.

Finally, via the “Neighborhoods” application available on Facebook, Patty was able to find somebody who knew where it was. Much to our chagrin, it was even closer than we had thought. It’s wedged into a corner at a six-way intersection, which is apparently what had made it so difficult to find.

Tonight, while out on a walk, we finally decided to see it up close and in person. The place is tiny. The owner happened to be out in his (equally tiny) yard doing some gardening, and since he noticed us gawking rather bizarrely at his place of residence we decided we might as well introduce ourselves. I forgot to ask his name, unfortunately, but he was a nice guy. He said he’s been living in the house since 2000; prior to his moving in, the house had been built on what was apparently an old parking lot. He said his lawn and his gardens literally sit on dirt planted over asphalt. His bedroom sits in the top part of the dome, apparently, in a loft.

Well, there you have it. Mystery solved.

Dome 2