Brent’s Blog

My niece, Aleya was born on January 5th, 2007 after 40+ hours of labor, and this weekend, we went up to Hallock, MN for her baptism. Hallock is 15 miles from North Dakota and 15 miles from Canada, so it’s about 400 miles from here (6 hours of driving). It’s the same distance as driving from Minneapolis to Chicago or across Germany from north to south. It’s so far that Fargo is actually the halfway point

Speaking of Fargo? Anybody seen that? Not only do North Dakotans really talk that way, but the weather is the same as in the movie too. Check out these movies that Bethany shot with her camera while we were driving home. It was 100-500 ft visibility for 50 miles of nothingness.

Here’s where we shot the vids

This whole area is sooooo flat because it is a river basin and a former glacial lake. It’d be nice if it were still a lake, as there’d be a lot more lakefront property available in Minnesota. Plus, we’d have the two largest freshwater lakes instead of just one.

Enjoy the vids and the Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb in the background. Perfect timing…. “Hello……is there anybody in there?”

North Dakota White-out

North Dakota White-out 2

-Fixed multiple graphs per page creating an “out of memory” error in IE 6.0 and IE 7.0. Affected BSQ Sitestats.

Download from here

I have to say that “get stomach flu” was not one of my resolutions for this year. My stomach has basically decided to violently reject anything I try to digest. So far, I’ve moved up from gatorade to chicken broth. I may even get to eat solid foods again by tomorrow. One can only hope :-/

My poor bike. It just sits sadly in my garage (I have a garage now…holy crap!) as I zoom around on my rollerblades. I tried blading on Sunday and froze my ass off because I wasn’t prepared. Yesterday, I tried again…this time with 2 hats, wind pants, and a scarf, all on top of my normal biking gear. I wish bethany had been home from work to take a picture. It looked rediculous, but it was so nice and cozy.

My route is actually quite beautiful. Minneapolis is full of lakes and trails. The one two blocks from my house follows Minnehaha Creek, which connects a lake in the western suburbs to the Mississippi river. The trip follows 2 miles of creek and 3 miles of circlling Lake Nokomis.

My bike has nothing to be jealous about though. In the summer, I extend the trip on my bike to 20 miles by circling Lake Nokomis, Lake Harriet, and Lake Calhoun for a spectacularly scenic trip.

We’ve officially been in our new house for a week. It’s so much nicer living in the city than out in the burbs. Every time I look out my window, I see 2-3 walkers. All I’d see in the burbs were giant SUVs and trucks with skyler and chastity behind the wheel, on their way between kmart and wallmart. I’m even safe on my bike and rollerblades now because people here actually have to look for others on the road. No more getting cut off by cars when I’m going 20 mph on my bike <-- Man that sucked.

First home ownership definitely is sticker shock. You need things like lawn mowers, shovels, ice picks, and snow blowers… things that your association took care of when you were renting. On the plus side, I can blast my trumpet again and not worry about playing movies at 100 db in my basement.

On the surprising side, I’ve finally activated my thermostat gene. See this movie for a reference. This was triggered by my first natural gas bill that almost made me spit out my pop (soda for lamers). We’re definitely going to be fixing the insulation in the attic to rectify some of the bill.

We’re still waiting for the first electric bill. I can’t wait.. it’ll be early christmas. Can you tell who does the budget in our relationship?