The Republicans are Coming!!!! Or is there life in Minneapolis???

So, maybe I'm clueless as to what's been going on in Denver with the Democrats in town, but being in downtown Minneapolis for the week has been quite an eye opener. The local police force has been augmented by a number of officers imported from other jurisdictions. I've seen more police at night in downtown here than at any other time I've been in town. They're roaming the streets in groups of two to four and have taken over a parking garage near our office for a staging area for their vehicles.

And the convention doesn't start until next week, and it's in downtown St. Paul!!

Otherwise Minneapolis is still a town that rolls up the streets at 6:00 pm. I tried to eat dinner at Chipotle last night. At 7:30 they had been closed and gone for some time. I found a Panera tonight to eat at - it closed at 8:00, so I made it in time... and it's right off the main downtown mall. If someone knows where there's life in Minneapolis after 6, I'd be curious (not that I'd go there - - I might miss Hillary or Barrack on the motel room TV ... on second thought is there life in Minneapolis???)

Condolences to Denver with all the Democrats in town... ditto for next week and the Minneapolis with the Republicans.

Mileage update: 8/20:MIA 8.5 mi; 8/22:Visit 4 mi; 8/23: visits: 16.5 mi; 8/24 Church/Fireside: 17 mi; MTD:511

Graduation

I have officially received the certificate that says that I have completed the First Responder course. I guess that means that I know enough to not treat anything major unless it requires CPR, to provide simple basic first aid treatment (with informed or implied consent), to call 911 for backup, and to not become part of the accident scene.

That, and I get to go camping and help provide med support at a number of council and community activities with Samara and eat at Chipotle.

Monday: 42 miles (DIA/Crew Mtg/Home) Tues: 12 miles (N.R. Visit with HP) MTD: 465

Genealogy - we're all family....

Once in the distant past there were three young men who were inseparable, until moves took two of them out of town. Berserk and The Orb were two of the three. So it was fun to figure out the family ties when those two became related when each of them had sisters that married brothers. All this is ancient history.

Now the third has joined the extended family. His younger brother recently married Berserk's aunt's sister in law.

Thanks to Carolyn for putting together the pieces when she saw the wedding announcement on the fridge when picking up Samara, who was visiting the aunt.

Mileage for today - 2 trips to church and one visit to a member getting ready for a baptism - 21.5 miles, total for month=411

Weddings, X-Games, and Radios

John & Brenda were married last Saturday; David was the best man and I performed the ceremony. BBQ followed the ceremony in the back yard. The best of all was that the weather held.

Unlike for X-Games, which was RAIN, RAIN, RAIN. I got "easy" duty. I manned one of the stations from 9 pm to 7 am. The kids used GPS coordinates to find each location and performed some task - Mountain Biking, Swimming, team building activities, or in the case of the station I was assigned to, identify what was wrong with the model camp site. We had visitors at 10 pm, midnight, 1am 3am and 6am checking out the "model" camp site - the rest of the time we "slept" in the Festiva. The most obvious problem was the tarp pitched over the fire pit; the least obvious problem was silicon gasket compound in the first aid kit. The kids were creative in finding things wrong - and came up with answers that weren't on the answer sheet, such as the camp doesn't have a latrine, and there's only one tent / sleeping bag, so the buddy system is not being observed.

And for the radio - I was on my way to the wedding and found an audio store that had the antenna conversion cable for a 2003 PT Cruiser. The radio is now fully installed.

Mileage: Rehersal & Wedding: 24 mi; Church trips: 8/5 welfare check; 8/6 Mutual; 8/7 Bpric Trng; 8/10 Sun, 8/13 Bpric Mtg (8.5 X 5 = 42.5); Temple 8/12 76 mi; 8/15-16 X-Games: 156 mi. Total Aug to date: 389.5.

City Hall (Part II)

The day after receiving the offer to pay $80 with a reduced charge of broken headlight or some such the following notice came in the mail:

The City Attorney's Office has reviewed the above-captioned case and, in the interest of justice, filed a motion to dismiss the case. The Judge has granted that motion and the case is hereby dismissed.

In other matters, I'm still working on the radio...

Beam me up, Scotty!!!!

Let's combine this Romulan technology with Borg nanoprobes and install it in our Federation warp core. Reconfiguration might take an hour or two.

On the other hand, let's install a car radio in a PT Cruiser. Four trips to the store since Saturday to get the right mounting kit. A call to customer service to let them know that the kit that "includes everything you need to install" doesn't. (They offerred to sell me the missing piece for $14.95 and waive the shipping charge - - - Walmart had it for half that, but thanks anyway). Get it all put together and plug it in and VOILA, the Chrysler antenna jack cord doesn't fit the antenna jack in the radio.

And I thought this would be easy. 2 am time for bed. I've found the antenna adapter online; I'll try Target later today - maybe I can exchange the spare parts.

For now, the CD player works... anyone want a PT Cruiser?

You CAN Fight City Hall

In the matter of mom's ticket for improper lane usage, which she got while I was at girl's camp, I emailed our local council woman. I complained about the ticketing as an inappropriate way to deal with a traffic problem that is better resolved by striping the road so that there's a turn lane longer than 100 feet that can be legally accessed (the ticket was for improper lane usage - using the lane between the double yellow lines to get into the turn lane).

Tonight on my way home, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the lane has been restriped - in exactly the manner that I suggested would be appropriate.

Now all we need to see is what it will take to make the ticket go away.

FWIW: August Mileage: Sat & Sun to/from Church 3x & Relay for Life 35 mi; Mon Crew Meeting: 56 mi; Aug to date = 91.

Soooo NOT off the Power Grid

(Sequel to report on girl's camp). I spend several days at scout camp this past week. I had changed a bit since I was last there for a summer camp. First of all, my cell phone worked EVERYWHERE on camp property that I went. There were hot showers (every camp site) and flush toilets (if you knew where to look).

However, the food seemed more like season end leftovers: I arrived midweek and was told that it was the second time that they'd had chicken patties (a hamburger shaped chicken nugget) for dinner. Then lunch the next day was chicken nuggets - with more of the same mixed veggies as the previous dinner & potato chips instead of instant mashed potatoes. The Friday lunch was PB&J sack lunches.

As this was an all LDS week at camp, there was a midway around the lake on Friday afternoon - each Stake manning an activity. Someone from our Stake forgot to show, so I was drafted to put together an activity that ca. 500 scouts could participate in, one patrol at a time. Our assigned topic was First Aid - which worked out well; training from Samara's Venture Crew to the rescue (again). We even got to perform "First Aid" on one of the visiting Webelos Scouts - he had a "scratch" (almost fully visible) an alcohol wipe cleaned it up (without stinging, so you know how severe the scratch was) and a couple of band aids made him happy.

The BSA camp has somewhat less tolerance for puking than girl's camp. At girl's camp we told the pukers that they hadn't been drinking enough water (true) and that once they'd rested a bit and rehydrated, they needed to get back into action. One of our visiting 11 year old scouts stepped out of the car on arrival at camp and proceeded to upchuck (car sick - eating in the car; bumpy road; past history...) The BSA HQ staff were witnesses; he was rushed to First Aid and quarantined until one of us could break free to take him home. The normal quarantine option is 48 hours, but since our plan for the visiting scouts was overnight, getting him out of camp ASAP was preferred. (Our state regulates our scout camp as a day care center, so there are some rules that may seem a bit extreme). I ended up getting home about six hours earlier than I'd otherwise planned. I missed the final campfire program, but got a date and a good meal.

I think I came out ahead.

Mileage: 155 Total for July= 773. June-July=1111 miles (is this a sign?)