Reverb10 - Soul Food

December 26 – Soul Food What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?

In no way am I a "foodie". I don't have near-orgasms when I indulge in something delectable nor do I go out of my way to experiment with gourmet-type cooking. I have, though, stepped up my cooking game and become more adventurous and injected some much-needed variety in the meals I prepare but the best food is often times something prepared by someone else and this year's most memorable meal fits in that category.

Again, flashing back to our early September vacation to the north shore of Lake Superior -- staying in Tofte, MN -- the first evening of our long weekend there we ate at the Coho Cafe and Bakery. I remember ordering a small wild rice sausage pizza. I'm a big fan of pizza and seeing the promise of homemade wild rice sausage, homemade sauce and a hand-tossed crust made my mouth water.

When the pizza arrived at the table, I stared at it. It was a work of art. Huge sausage balls atop what appeared to be cheese so fresh there had to be a cow tied up just outside the rear entrance to the kitchen.

Then I grabbed that first square-cut piece. The cheese was so perfectly stringy that it never completely broke free from the main pizza. I took one appropriately-sized bite and I knew at that moment that this was the single best food I had eaten all year long. Everything about it tasted fresh. The suburban stip mall pizzerias tasted like dog shit in comparison and the national and regional chains were utter garbage when compared to the pizza at Coho Cafe and Bakery.

In short, the Wild Rice Sausage Pizza at Soho Cafe & Bakery in the barely-there village of Tofte, MN truly did touch my soul this year.

Reverb10 - New Name

December 23 – New Name Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why? (Author: Becca Wilcott)

I've always asserted that a strong -- likely one syllable name -- is what makes a man. I'll venture out on a limb and say that, as a country, we'll never see a male president with the name of Tracy or Kim. Darryl sounds a bit too backwoods and even my own name -- which I'll omit for my own privacy -- will probably hold me back from having a position of great power because it is a two syllable name.

Having said that, a powerful name with a certain punch is what makes a great name for a guy. Doug, Mark, Paul, Zack, Chris, Matt... those are all somewhat powerful, punchy, one syllable names and while I feel that I've grown into my name, I'd choose any one of those names I mentioned as my own. I think that, specifically, Mark or Doug would be appropriate names. Of course I picture Marks with thick, luxurious beards and Dougs to be almost always sporting a well-work baseball hat outside of their work environment. I'm also a strong advocate that a last name ending in an 'N' should never be paired with a first name ending in the same letter. It's one of my grammatical sticking points because it can lead to a serious case of mushmouth. It certainly doesn't lead to a fluid pronunciation of said name but being saddled with what the very grammatical sticking point I described, maybe you should just call me Doug because I don't have the patience to grow a thick, woodsman-like beard.

Reverb10 - Future Self

December 21 – Future Self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead?

Hey, so you turn 32 years old this year. You may think that's old but I'm turning 37 and, you know what, that's almost 40 so quit your bitching. Yeah, your knees are in worse shape now than they were back in 2011 but that's because you still insist on doing some pretty stupid shit. A word of advice, replace the gutters on your house and do it right because that little incident way back in 2008 when you insisted on crab walking along half of your roof line with a small garden trowel in hand to clean the leaves, seeds, branches, gravel and other assorted crap out of them was flat out stupid. You do realize how high up your roof is and that your driveway isn't made of feathers, right?

Don't worry about going gray or having thinning or even balding hair. Trust me, in the next five years you barely add to your rather distinguished collection of gray hairs so quit asking our wife to pluck them with that damn tweasers. She hates it and it makes a terrible fucking mess and we both know how little you like cleaning.

And another thing, quit fretting about your job. The powers that be, even though it doesn't seem like it to you in 2010, recognize you as one of the cornerstones of the company. Even though you see no possibility of moving up -- and instead view your only hope of advancement as moving out -- there is hope. All that crap you're struggling with in your down time will lead to that move up you've been looking for. It's actually going to be pretty big so that place in the country you're always half-joking about will happen. It also seems that you were serious about having an orchard of sorts because the amount of pears, apples, grapes, blueberries and other fruit you sell and give away is pretty astounding. And that stuff you give away finally shows yourself that you have a heart because that fresh produce helps alot of people and keeps plenty of families from going hungry. You don't have to worry about looking greedy because for everything you think you've been handed without working hard enough for, you are now working harder than ever and end the days feeling exhausted but also fulfilled.

Lastly, stop thinking of yourself as a nomad. Those neighbors you have in 2010 will make some damn good friends and even though you do, in fact, move again a few years later it isn't very far and with that place in the country you find yourself doing alot more entertaining and mixing old and new friends will prove to be easy as, amazingly, they all just get along and actually have shared interests.

Just keep your chin up. That hard work will pay off and don't let the downfalls hold you back. Every mistake will actually propel you forward and teach you something. Vague, right?

Reverb10 - Lesson Learned

December 17 – Lesson Learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward? (Author: Tara Weaver)

The biggest thing I learned this year is that I can actually find something positive in changes when everyone around me only sees negatives.

Negativity has always been, for lack of a better word, my trademark. I'm not a negative person but for whatever reason I have always found the negative in most every situation. Maybe it's because I'm a pessimist or maybe it's generational. After all, my generation is billed as the first that will not have a higher standard of living than their parents.

But even with always seeing the negative in situations I've managed to keep a positive attitude (for the msot part) and even keep those around me laughing while shining a dark light on the negative. If you can't find humor in something, you might as well be dead, right?

But the past month, from a work standpoint, things have been a bit dark. Faced with an uncertain announcement -- coupled with plenty of lead time before confirming what exactly the announcement entailed -- things got grim. But I asked questions and with those answers actually managed to keep those around me somewhat positive. If you can't triumph over adversity, you stand no chance. Would you rather tackle something head on and try to overcome it or pre-emptively roll over before you've even been defeated?

Another Christmas in the books

Christmas, thankfully, has come and gone. This year was the first that my daughter, now just over two years old, began grasping the concept of Christmas. Her realization that there was a bunch of additional presents surrounding the tree on Christmas morning was almost instant. Her plan of attack was to plow through the wrapped boxes and proceed to drag the fully assembled pink and purple big wheels through the other gifts. Apparently this one item was all she really needed but her peekaboo doll was also a hit and kept her entertained as her two sleepy parents napped in the living room. I've never known the daughter to stay so focused on one thing for so long but that doll kept her out of the refrigerator, it kept her out of the upstairs and it kept her from grabbing scissors, tape and knives out of assorted kitchen drawers.

In short, a doll for a few bucks was a small price to pay for a short nap after an exhausting week and an even more exhausting weekend. Were other parents as lucky with their toy choices that they were able to catch a Christmas morning nap? I sure hope so.

Reverb10 - Try

December 18 – Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? (Author: Kaileen Elise)

In short I want to try harder. I've never been accused of not giving it my all but I know that have more to give. I have more potential than I currently use. Whether that means that others around me are total slouches or they just don't have the same work ethic as I do doesn't really matter and I have no need or desire to call out anyone's work but I do know that I can do better.

My main goal is to try my hand at being a better photographer. In a year where it seemed that my employer did everything in their power to discourage me from working hard to obtain captivating and artistic photos and opt for the lowest common denominator by both using lower quality photos and using crowdsourcing via amateur sources (resulting in those lower quality photos) for nothing more than a photo credit I succumbed to the lack of encouragement and it showed. I probably captured less than 15,000 images this year and their quality was nothing to write home about for the most part.

But I can do better and I know I have the power to motivate myself and I can make 2011 the best year yet for my photography. While I have no illusions of being a top notch photographer or even obtaining name recognition I know I can be better and try harder. What do you plan on trying in 2011?

How screwed are the Vikings?

It's inescapable. Everywhere you turn around Minnesota the topic of conversation is about the Minnesota Vikings. Whether it's been the blunder of now-former coach Brad Childress acquiring wide receiver Randy Moss and then essentially cutting him from the team mere weeks later and wasting what could be a valuable draft pick in the process or sending three players to the depth of Mississippi to talk quarterback Brett Favre into returning for a second season with the team, it was a bumpy start to the teams 50th season.

Then the coach was fired due to what can only be described as a piss-poor record. Then Brett Favre got injured. That led to perpetual backup quarterback Tarvaris Jackson being thrust into the starting position. Needless to say there's a damn good reason he's been riding the bench for the past five years. He's greener than the fieldturf inside the Metrodome.

Mentioning the Metrodome just makes things worse though. It seems that the Vikings have been trying to secure a new stadium for the past decade with no success. Then last weekend Minnesota -- particularly the metro area -- was blanketed with what I would describe as a fuck-ton of snow -- 17 inches to be exact. That didn't exactly sit well with the paper-thin teflon fabric forming the Metrodone's roof because it tore holes in three of the roof's panels causing the roof to collapse. Then as repair work was being assessed yesterday a fourth panel tore causing still more damage to the humptydome.

This leaves the Vikings in a tough situation. They already played last week's "home" game at Detroit last week as a neutral site. This week, supposedly, will be a bit closer to home as they prepare to play at the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium which lacks 14,000 seats, heated concession areas, heated restrooms, a heated playing service and beer which truly shows how bush league this stadium is and how ill-prepared the Twin Cities are as a major metropolitan area.

But amidst all of this chaos -- and I'm certain that Monday night's game versus the Chicago Bears will be a complete and utter mess -- the Vikings ownership is hoping that this all leads to them securing a new stadium. While I can see the logic behind their thinking I hope they don't get a new stadium. Hell, the taxpayers have funded three new stadiums/arenas in the Twin Cities in the past decade (U of M, XCel, Target Field) and the new Vikings stadium promises to be the most expensive by far. It's time for ownership to realize that they either need to pay for serious fucking rent for the facilities they play in or build the facilities themselves. It's ridiculous that a team worth hundreds of millions of dollars refuses to foot more than a third of the bill for the facility it plays in. But this is the state of pro sports.

While the Vikings will probably get their shiny new stadium in downtown Minneapolis they certainly are not deserving of it. The Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers have almost ancient stadiums and a hugely successful. Newer isn't always better as was proven with the Metrodome. It was built on the cheap and it shows. It's a rat infested dump that is now virtually condemned and it's publicly owned so, Vikings, take that into consideration. Publicly owned isn't always the best route. Be your own key holder and take some pride in ownership instead of being a tenant.

Reverb10 - Body Integration

December 12 – Body Integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Author: Patrick Reynolds)

I felt most cohesive this year as we hiked up the Temperance River along Lake Superior. The hike, however short it was, was the most peaceful communing with nature I have felt in quite some time. I don't know if it was simply the change of scenery -- going from a semi-rural Twin Cities exurb to the true northern woods of Minnesota or if it was simply being in a place that was true nature. Waterfalls, trails, crystal blue, unpolluted waters and not having a cell phone ringing or feeling that tomorrow was back to the grind. That hour or two we spent hiking and simply soaking in the raw, natural sights as we traversed rocks and streams was the best I had felt mentally and physically all year long. I hope to build on that one-time feeling in the coming year.

Reverb10 - Wisdom

December 10 – Wisdom Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author: Susannah Conway)

Wisdom isn't usually something associated with myself but I suppose the even the most inept person breaks out with a wise choice every now and then. I don't know that I made alot of wise choices either personally or professionally this year but even those times when you can't recall something big and important that just screams wise, there's something seemingly small and insignificant that will play out to be hugely wise weeks, months or even years later.

Maybe for me it was in April when my manager went on maternity leave early. Through my own hard work and from the contributions of a team of the best creative professionals I've ever seen we persevered through launching new publications, tackling entirely new ways of handling our work and they sincerely thanked me for rooting them on through three of the busiest months we had ever experienced. They told me that they felt appreciated and that even with an immense amount of work being done they went home not feeling exhausted and stressed but instead feeling happy and looking forward to the next day. In turn, that made me feel accomplished. It made me feel like I was doing something right. We made every deadline and heard zero complaints about people not receiving their projects in a timely fashion.

I then capped it all off by asking for a meeting with a rather new next in command. I flat out asked her about my performance in the past three months and asked if she saw a future where I would be in the very position that I had just filled in on. Her response was encouraging and even now that the days of leaving the office being filled with stress are back and the entire team that I had motivated and appreciated now feels threatened and worried, I am still hopeful that the three month stint I had where I apparently proved myself as a manager will turn out in my favor in the near future. I guess the choices I made during that period were my collective wisest decisions of the past year.

Get in the Christmas spirit

As far as I'm concerned, the Christmas season is defined by two movies which just so happen to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.

On one end is Chevy Chase's hilarious and at least partially accurate portrayal of Christmas with "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". For whatever reason, it seems to have practically vanished from broadcast on any major network but I did happen to catch a few minutes of it sometime in October on, of all channels, CMT.

On the other end is "It's a Wonderful Life". The movie is heartwarming and touching and might even bring a tear to your eye -- especially when George Bailey remembers Zuzu's petals in his pocket. "It's a Wonderful Life" is the definitive Christmas movie because it nails, in a touching fashion, what Christmas is all about. Christmas makes you think of family and the scenes where George Bailey is being shown what the world would be like had he never been born should make each and every person watching be proud of their place in the world -- even if their accomplishments seem insignificant.

To fully experience the Christmas season you have to watch both movies. Not watching both will leave a rather sizeable hole in your heart and will probably ruin Christmas.

"It's a Wonderful Life" airs locally on KARE-11 (NBC) at 7 PM on Saturday. If nothing else, it will give you something warm and fuzzy to watch as a blizzard rattles your dwelling's windows.

Reverb10: Party

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author: Shauna Reid)

Being saddled with a child has left me sadly removed from much in the way of social gatherings involving adults sans toddlers but that hasn't stopped me from having fun. We always have our annual extended weekend retreat to my friend's cabin at a mostly private southern Minnesota lake. On the outside it doesn't sound like it would be a ton of fun because of the setting but I fail to remember a time in my ten or so visits that has been lacking of good times.

This year's event saw that sad but typical once a year gathering of old friends who refuse to stifle their youthfulness despite all having adult obligations. We played rodeo golf for what seemed like hours without end. We played round after round of cornhole. We played like little kids off the end of the dock as, like the inmature idiots we are, we scooped up and threw huge wads of lake weeds at each other and even adorned some of the group with disgusting and unsuspected lake weed wigs.

Each evening was capped off with a bonfire and/or a rather intense round or two of poker. The faces have aged but the ties remain strong even as we scatter across the state and change but that once a year gathering (and other non-annual events like it) keep us grounded and remind each and every one of us where we came from. For most of us, it's as close to a second family as we will ever get.

Reverb10 - Beautifully Different

December 8 - Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different - you'l find they're what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

Brutal honesty. That is the one quality that, for better or worse, differentiates me from others. In Minnesota, there's this supposed quality of Minnesota Nice. It's all about everyone being "just so gosh darn nice" to each other, Everyone's supposedly friendly and virtually uncapable of hostility or rudeness. Well, I see that as a myth. I can't even begin to count how many people I encounter on a daily basis who are total and complete pricks -- and I've lived in Minnesota for my entire life. I even call people out on this trait but in typical Minnesota Nice fashion, I do so with a laugh. And that laugh is what enables me to criticize people directly to their face and end the conversation still on good terms.

That all-important laugh is the shiny wrapper on my brutal honesty. When those two items are paired up it makes hearing what I have to say infinitely easier. I routinely call people out when they are spouting trivial information and wasting my time but end it with a laugh. Maybe that laugh makes people think that I actually enjoyed the exchange of words but if they have any insight and can remember what came before that laugh -- that brutal honesty -- they might very well figure out that I was not pleased, possible even bored, with the conversation.

In short it comes down to being able to wrap up nearly anything with a laugh to soften the blow of what I had just said. My wife noticed this about me and said that this trait -- when coupled with my honesty -- is why I am so well-liked by her family and my co-workers. At least she thinks that both groups like me, I'm not so sure but I'll take that compliment and run with it.

Reverb10: Make

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author: Gretchen Rubin)

Building and creating things with my own two hands is something I love to do. (At least that's what I get out of today's prompt) It keeps me from being technology fatigued in my daily life as a graphic designer and keeps me tied to my roots growing up on the family farm. In 2008 I built a rather impressive swing/play set for my then six month old daughter using a large truck load of lumber, a circular saw and two drills. The amazing thing is that it only took me about twelve hours of my own time and some help from my next door neighbor to move the large tower in to place.

My next project -- in terms of construction -- is to reconstruct my 111 year-old home's front porch. It looks to have been added in the late 1940s or early 1950s -- around the same time as the rear addition of the house and is showing its age. I hope to make it a more livable space as it is currently only usable from late April through early October. It sat mostly unused for the first few years of owning the house but has since become my daughter's favorite place to play while still indoors. At two years old, her toys have become a fixture in the porch -- sharing space with some porch-worthy furniture.

I want this space to be an almost four-season space. New, better-insulated windows, insulation in the ceiling, walls and floor; not to mention a better, more solid foundation, inviting front steps and a period-appropriate front door. It is the one thing most lacking about the home's exterior and I can envision actually using it. Whether it's playing there more often with my daughter, working on the laptop as birds chirp just outside the windows or watching snow fall as we sit, as a family, playing some simple board game. This project will be my largest yet but I know it will happen in the next two years. That's my goal and my goals happen.

My source and inspiration for wonder

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

My greatest source for inspiring my own wonder is my daughter. She turned two years old only three weeks ago and it's amazing to see what everyday, seemingly normal things bring joy to her. She is amazed by Christmas lights, a helium balloon and will almost uncontrollably dance -- that is the thing that inspires me most. She hears music and begins dancing. She even has different moves which, for a two year old, is impressive being that she has more (and better) dance moves than I do.

Is that a Katy Perry camel toe?

At 1:34 in this video from the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show televised Tuesday evening on CBS, the camera pans up and, for whatever reason, it is zoomed in tight to Katy Perry's crotch and what is shown is a clear and present camel toe. When will stars learn to use some corn starch and avoid the much-dreaded camel toe? While this won't cause Katy Perry's career to spin in to a death spiral it is embarrassing -- especially when millions of people saw her camel toe on TV and hundreds of thousands more will see this YouTube clip.

Oh well, at least we know that the editing from the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was fast and loose because my most recent edition of Rolling Stone had a photo of Katy Perry in the same outfit she was wearing during this performance so we can't blame live TV for showing us Katy Perry's camel toe.

Feeling alive in "The Moment"

Today's Reverb10 prompt is below:

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

The moment that stands out most for me this year was arriving at a long-deserved vacation in Tofte, MN. After spending eight hours slowly making our way from the southwest Twin Cities on a gray and rainy day, we arrived at our final destination in the small north Lake Superior village of Tofte, MN. The best part of this vacation was the fact that I won a three night stay at this fabulous resort and outside of meals and gas, this vacation was free and that is the right price for me.

I remember stepping out of our vehicle and finally being able to do something at a leisurely pace. We slowly unpacked our bags, we slowly explored the two-floor condo-style hotel room, we slowly figure out how best to occupy ourselves for the next few days.

The best part of the entire experience was sleeping literally a few dozen feet from Lake Superior. Until you've stood on its rocky shoreline, you don't quite grasp the power of this lake. A lake which has swallowed ships whole, a lake which had changed the fortues of the northern cities in Minnesota and a lake which, to certain extent, defines the state which I call home.

The fresh, crisp breeze blowing off the lake was invigorating. Even at a brisk 55 degrees, the air felt pleasant. It felt clean. It felt like I could move there one day and hone my photographic skills and make a meager, if not pleasant, living off of the area. The entire north shore of Lake Superior seems to be an artistic haven which centers around the hospitality (tourist) trade and seeing just what these artists do on a daily basis for their jobs makes a fellow "artist" like myelf feel inspired. I came back from this trip after experiencing pure relaxation and felt instantly inspired. I vowed to simply "get out". I plan to find art where others see normalcy. If you look at anything, there's always something -- when captured via a photograph -- that becomes art.

That moment, standing on the black, glassy rocks above the white, crashing waves of Lake Superior made me realize that this was much more than a vacation, it was the greatest form of inspiration I had experienced in 2010. In that very moment, as I snapped off photos of my surroundings, I knew that this was somehow a turning point for the year, if not my life. Seeing what inspires these northern Minnesota artists inspired me and that was "The Moment".

What could I eliminate?

In trying to keep myself reflecting on the past year and motivating myself for the upcoming year, I'll keep going with the Reverb 10 project.

What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing - and can you eliminate it?
Author: Leo Babauta

2010 saw my writing - in blog form - dwindle to an all-time low. I seemed to be writing more than ever before but in different venues. I kept forging ahead with non-writing blog ventures such as MinnPics and started a Tumblr blog, Minnesota River Valley, to showcase my own photography so I've probably been blogging more than ever before, just not here and just not so much using words so my writing has decreased. And maybe it was time to take a step back from writing so much. From a traffic standpoint I haven't lost any visitors but I have lost engagement. Comments have nearly withered up but writing less frequently will have that effect.

What could I eliminate, though, that doesn't contribute to my writing? That's an excellent question. I don't know that there's anything I'd willingly give up that doesn't contribute to my writing given my relatively miniscule amount of writing currently. Maybe I have less in the way of meaningful topics to write about or maybe I've instead found other ways to discuss meaningful topics of interest to me. Or maybe I've learned to simply say less because I have instead chosen to do more. Whatever the case, I still plan on keeping up my once-a-week pace here -- unless something really sparks my interest and gets my blood boiling.

Challenge and Change

Much like other creative types around the internet, I've decided to participate in Reverb 10. In short, it's a project for creatives (photogs, writers, etc.) to reflect on the past year and send out some good vibes for the upcoming year.

It all begins today with this:

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

2010 - Challenge
This year has definitely been a challenge. As a graphic designer I have always been challenged. I love a challenge but it goes much deeper than that. Factor in certain economic constraints with a company that decided to work towards salvaging their business by asking all involved to make sacrifices so rather than sacrifice talented individuals they asked us, in 2008, to dial back our paid hours. Doing this for the first 18 months or so was more of an economic challenge because everyone, it seemed, was struggling financially. But this year was one of shake-ups and the challenges went from being personally financial to being professionally time-constraining. To right the ship we moved ahead at a speed which I had never seen my employer move. We launched a multitude of new products and made some staffing changes. I was thrust into a situation where my management skills were further honed and still, under those same time contraints, made (I hope) for a better workplace and gained the respect of others.

The challenges were many. Swift design changes, juggling dozens of projects and tackling areas which demanded I learn new skills have all challenged me immensely. Sure, I've done amazingly well in some areas while others haven't gone as well but I'm not giving up and am still challenging myself to workharder than ever to make my skills viable as the industry I chose to work in over a decade ago goes through an evolution of sorts.

2011 - Change
The word itself is vague but pertains to myself it's more of a wide-open range of possibilities. I'm eager for change. I've held the same job for nearly eight years. To me, that's an awful long time and after last year's stint honing my managerial skills I am hungry for a position of that caliber. I love being a graphic desinger and I realize that since I began in the field it has changed more than I ever could have imagined. Gone are the days where you could stroll out of college knowing how to use Quark XPress and have almost instant job security. After college which taught me theory but not practical use, I taught myself the software titles as I needed to learn them. Over a decade later I'm constantly discovering new ways of designing and creating elements, new tricks in every software title I currently use and realized about five years ago that I needed to know both web and print design to survive and make myself the go-to guy in my company.

While I've by no means mastered everything, I've learned enough to stay more than a few steps ahead of my co-workers and have made it my goal to move even further ahead of them. It's about more than simple job security, it's a matter of pride. I like answering questions and helping others figure things out. It brings a smile to my face to see someone who, a few weeks ago, couldn't figure out the simplest of tasks turn out a finished project which others confuse with my own work. I'm not the best at what I do but it brings a smile to my face that I still get asked questions and can answer most of them. I find the new technologies, figure them out as well as I can and help others around me use them and excel at making those technologies work for my co-workers.

Without Twitter (and one person in particular), though, I never would have known about this project.

Why Black Friday is bad

If you caught any news at all from the middle of last week until today you likely heard something about Black Friday. It traditionally marks that magical day when retailers finally sell us stupid Americans enough crap to finally have their finances for the year in the black (they have finally turned a profit). Every year poll results are posted tallying what the average American family plans on spending on Christmas shopping and how those numbers relate to previous years and every year you're likely to find a wide variance of results. One TV network says spending will be up slightly, another network says Americans won't take the clamps off their wallets for any reason whatsoever.

But what does Black Friday mean for Joe and Susy American? Do we ever see the benefits from rabid spending for 1/12th of the calendar year? I suppose that if you work in retail you'll likely see longer hours which would result in a couple of bigger paychecks but for the other 11/12ths of the year -- especially January -- those paychecks are far smaller than for the month of December. That's because people are spending like normal humans, they aren't buying crap for every member of their extended family. The month of January is particularly lackluster because the majority of overspending Americans are receiving those credit card bills form their spending orgy a month earlier.

Sure, the uptick in retail sales helps manufacturers but does it benefit Americans? Do yourself a favor and check out where a few of those bigger Christmas gifts you are giving are made. If you bought a TV or Blu-Ray player I'd assume it was manufactured in China. I'd be utterly flabbergasted if it were actually manufactered in America but stranger things have happened.

It's even worse if you're buying Christmas-related goods. All of those Christmas ornaments lining the aisles of your local Target or Walmart were probably made in China. I learned this as I pulled what seemed like hundreds of ornaments from boxes Saturday evening and hung them on the old Christmas tree. Nearly every ornament with a sticker attached said "Made in China". There's the first problem. The companies, at the very top, are probably based in America but our country definitely does not benefit from those potential manufacturing jobs because we've instead paid the wages of a sweat shop full of indentured workers somewhere in China. I fail to see how that benefits anyone but the CEOs who shipped those jobs overseas to line their own pcokets.

Lastly, Black Friday does little to further the giving spirit. Honestly folks, are you really going to give your big sister that 46" 3D LED TV you hulked in to your shopping cart inside Best Buy at 4 AM last Friday as you kicked your fellow shoppers in the shins because you saw it first? Probably not. I am not going to claim to be all high and mighty either because I'd buy the TV for myself just like you but in the end I have no use for that particular TV so I wouldn't be buying it anyhow. Sure, I'd love to have it but I already have a perfectly useable HDTV in my living room that will outlast half of the crap lining store shelves today. Black Friday essentially cons us in to buying big ticket items -- mainly electronics -- under the guise of giving to others but we all know that this stuff, all charged to our credit cards, is really going to end up in our entertainment centers as we throw the previous generation of TV or DVD player out on the curb because newer is always better -- regardless of how long it takes us to pay off.

The worst logo ever

I did it. I took the How Low Can You Logo challenge and  incorporated elements of design which, over the course of the past 13 years, I have come to despise. Brush Script font -- in all caps to boot. Some Comic Sans in the mix to up the level of sucktitude. Bad clip art, CHECK! A pointless but moderately phallic arrow to up the ante. And last, but not least, a rainbow gradient accentuated by an excessively bold and bright (and painfully contrasty) stroke on a giant capital letter. It's the perfect logo for the customer who wants it all and has no idea what a good image is. I think I have a winner here.

Don't trust an online advertising "expert"

A short conversation today quickly turned to discussing a supposed online sales guru with the last name of Blinder and how anyone with a couple years of experience in the graphic design industry knows what really works. Keep the animation to a minimum (don't make it annoying but use it when needed), don't be too fucking wordy and the most important point I brought up is that in the world of online users you have about a second to grab a reader's eyes and get them to pay attention to their ad. Don't use the same thought process that goes in to designing a typical newspaper or magazine advertisement because those are typically wordy and coming from a guy who reads fast, the shorter tidbits - no matter where I am reading them - get my attention first.

But back to Mr. Blinder. He and his team of "sales professionals" do produce results. They do so because they are overbearing, confrontational, aggressive and obnoxious (or so I've heard). They produce a shitload of revenue for their clients -- I've witnessed the results -- but they do so at a cost. That cost is the simple fact that your customers will forever associate online ads with the presentation they witnessed from the Blinder sales team. The Blinder team seems to make a habit out of over-promising results which sadly aren't achievable.

They promise that people will click the ads they are selling and drive traffic to customer's websites. Well, for that to happen the customer has to want whatever is being advertised pretty damn bad because plenty of websites out there are so bad that they shouldn't exist or so hopelessly outdated that the owner of them should bury their head in shame. This isn't a rip on local businesses because these very businesses keep a roof over my head and keep my co-workers gainfully employed but would you let your storefront display of Christmas items stay in your front window until May? I didn't think so.

For that matter, don't let your online ad fall in to that same outdated time warp. Update your ad and contrary to the advice of Mr. Blinder don't just change the background color. Simply changing the background color is fucking lazy. If I saw a designer doing this I'd be appalled for two reasons. The color should be thought out to a certain extent. Choosing a color, in my experience, is part of the overall design of a piece no matter how small or insignificant it is and changing the background -- the most dominant element -- can destroy a campaign and any business advertising should realize that a consistent look is what builds brand recognition. Change the color, disturb the brand recognition. It's pretty simple. Just look at what happened this week when Gap stores unveiled a new logo. That one move disrupted forty-plus years of history Gap had built. Don't tear down for the sake of tearing down, instead remodel, overhaul, refresh. The second reason is that this business' sales person isn't doing their job and is taking the easy way out. And if you have only one ad in your online arsenal, try harder. Multiple messages will allow website users to see something fresh. While sitting through TV commercials, I'd rather see two messages from the same advertiser than just one. Don't treat your online marketing any differently.

Mr. Blinder's greatest blunder is due to the fact that his ideas are displayed via Powerpoint. Sure, it's a decent enough program for conveying information but the way in which he does so is so ineffective that I'd rather sift through an endless stream of spreadsheets. The bulleted items are so vague that they could mean nearly anything if left open to interpretation. These vague points, after being given to sales persons, are then disemminated to potential customers. Cut through the bullshit and get real with customers. They want results but they also don't want to spend anything to achieve them because most businesses -- on a local level at least -- are so overtaxed financially that they aren't going to commit to a year's worth of advertising at any cost. I think most people would find it refreshing to NOT be sold a string of vague promises and numbers which mean nothing to them. A paragraph story in your ad -- no matter what its size is -- won't get read so keep it to ten words or less. I'll agree, though, with a point I read earlier this week about many advertisers having no fucking clue what CPM means and why they should care what it means so speak their language. To bring advertisers in to the fold of your website, be honest with them. They aren't going to get 10% of website users clicking on their ads. I've achieved that level once in a decade of experience with online advertising and that had more to do with the position and format of the ad than anything else. They wouldn't expect shoppers to bring their entire newspaper ad in to their store so why should click-thrus matter if your ad doesn't particularly lend to being clicked?

Expanding on that point, offer customers something they actually want. Click Here for a 50% off coupon is a good start. That will break the bank, you say? Have you heard of a disclaimer? Cap the savings amount at ten or twenty dollars and limit it to one coupon per user. Even grocery coupon sites like coupons.com have print limits so don't say that it can't be done because it can. And to bring it full circle, if your website sucks, don't expect people to come back to it. You get but one chance to make that first-time visitor a repeat visitor. If your inventory is stagnant or doesn't change frequently, add something to your website that CAN be freshened frequently and promote that to the front page of your site. Maybe a blog about something relevant to your business. Trust me, your employees are the best source of ideas so ask them, hell, have them handle that aspect of your online presence because sometimes letting go of what you think is the only way to do things is the best thing to do.

It's time to abolish the TSA

After last weekend's relative freak out by one man about body scanners and molestation-level "pat-downs" by TSA agents, it's become clear -- if it wasn't already -- that the TSA has overstepped their bounds and has accomplished little to nothing in the process.

It all began simply enough at the initial wave of post-9/11 paranoia. People had to stand in long lines and remove everything from their pockets, start up electronic devices to prove that they were, in fact, electronic devices and pass through metal detectors.

Then came the "shoe bomber". This lead to airline passengers kicking off their shoes and walking through the checkpoints barefoot. It was at this level of pure terrorism paranoia that, while in a TSA line in Aruba, I commented to the older gentleman in front of me that their next step of bullshit would be having passengers walk through security checkpoints fully naked. Of course the TSA's installation of thousands of "body scanners" is essentially that but the police wanna-bes at the TSA will insist that everything they're doing is "for the safety of the traveling public". If that's true, why in the hell are we now limited to three ounces of liquids or gels in our carry-ons? Why can't we bring a fucking bottle of water past the security checkpoint? Why are grandmas and seven year old gils being subjected to molestation-level patdowns and "body scans"? Why is anyone being subjected to this? Isn't it bad enough that we initially had to arrive a couple hours early to make our flights? How much earlier do the TSA brain wizards recommend now that they are x-raying every last person (in certain airports) who board a flight? How much longer does this latest bullshit security safeguard add to the hassle that is flying?

In short, the TSA has done nothing than force would-be terrorists to come up with new, more undetectable ways of attempting to blow things up. The terrorists haven't been successful and the TSA is far too focused on humans being the carrier of the explosives -- the whole toner cartridge issue in the cargo area shows that the TSA is nothing but a bunch of perverts who want to see everyone, regardless of their body shape, buck naked in the name of security.

It all boils down to the TSA being yet another colossal waste of our tax money in the name of keeping fear alive. In the process they've decimated the airline industry and made Americans fearful of a nameless, faceless form of terror that could be lurking beneath the clothes of the guy behind you or in the toothpaste tube of the lady in front of you. They want you to be afraid of everything. Fear is their greatest strength and they keep getting more money for accomplishing nothing. They've never thwarted a would-be terrorist and always seem to discover the newest way of blowing up a plane after that newest way has made it aboard a flight. Eliminate the TSA entirely and we're one step closer to balancing the budget.

The best argument ever for gay marriage

After last week's elections across the country, rumors are swirling that the new Republican majority's number one priority is the move forward on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. That's their number one priority? Never mind that millions of people are losing their homes. Forget that the nation's infrastructure is falling apart. Let's not even mention that America is teetering on the brink of lising its superpower status because we've shipped all of our manufacturing and technical jobs overseas but let's ban that gay marriage because it makes a few old white guys uncomfortable -- possibly uncomfortable about their own closeted homosexual feelings. But, hey, let's take away something from a few that's widely accepted for the majority. Let's make an unfortunately discriminated few feel even less accepted. Yeah, that's the ticket.

The dumbasses who want to ban gay marriage are forgetting one vastly important thing. Weddings are a huge expenditure and the more you encourage weddings of any sort, the more the economy as a whole benefits. Think of weddings as the best for of economic stimulus ever. It all starts with the wedding license. That expenditure -- in the grand scheme of things -- is minimal but it lines the goverment coffers and keeps government employees working. That's about $35. The next step is lining up a venue for the ceremony. Some of thsoe venues are free but some cost money. More money in to the economy there. Then you need to clothe the wedding party. Should it be guys or gals, those clothes cost money. A cheap tux costs just over a hundred dollars to rent and a cheap bridesmaid dress runs a minimum of $150. Multiply that by the number in the wedding party and you've got even more economic stimulus happening. But it doesn't stop there. You may employ a wedding planner, you'll need those little bottles of bubbles to blow as the happy couple runs to their vehicle of choice which, if it's a limousine or horse-drawn carriage, is another expenditure which keeps businesses running and people employed. And don't forget about the releasing of doves. Another excellent economic stimulus.

Then, of course, is the wedding reception. Some people go small but others go big. You have to rent a venue, feed the sometimes hundreds of guests and provide entertainment. The reception can run from $5000-$10000 dollars on the low end. That amount of spending is nothing to sneeze at.

You'll also want to chronicle the events of the day so you'll need aphotographer and a decent photographer can run $1000-$10000. But the future is video and the future is now. Better get a videographer to remember the day. Look at that -- even more money paid out.

It's not just the happy couple spending money, guests at the wedding traditionally bring gifts. Figure that each couple attending the wedding will spend $50-$100 on a gift for the happy couple. Many of these guests are also from out of town so they'll need a hotel for a night or two. That's easily $100 per night.

But we aren't done yet. Nobody gets married without planning a honeymoon. Plane tickets to someplace fun or romantic, a hotel for about a week and dining and activities could run about $3000 on the low end.

All told, by my rudimentary math, a wedding stimulates the economy to the tune of $85,000. My math may not be exactly accurate but you get the picture. Weddings are big money and banning gay marriage or whatever you politically correct folks want to call it is flat out stupid. Weddings = economic stimulus and if the new Republican majority of elected representatives wants to ban gay marriage they obviously hate America and want our country to fail.

The Oprah Winfrey Network logo keeps getting worse

Oprah Winfrey's cable television network has been in the works for two or three years and has missed its launch date twice but that doesn't stop the channel helmed by the reigning queen of daytime talk from approving logos which keep getting worse with each revision. It almost makes me wonder just how bad the channel will be when/if it launches. But rather than speculate, let's look at these logos.

From a pre-launch logo that seemed to be all-things Oprah including her almost instantly recongizable "O" and a classy feel with a pleasing green tone to an almost instantly outdated sans serif/rounded font in something resembling Vag Rounded in descending orange tones to the latest design abortion seen below...

At first glance many may say that this screamingly bright logo perfectly nails Oprah's larger than life personality but upon closer inspection it's borderline trash. It's a poorly conceived logo attempting to stand out and be three-dimensional. The color bands lack consistent width across the three letters. The seemingly chopped out color band's inconsistency is particularly obvious on the letter "O" -- just look at the inner-most band's upper right corner. Why is there only a thin sliver of yellow there? If it's done that way to give the illusion of dimension, it's done so poorly because that corner's poorly crafted arc is driving me fucking nuts to look at. It sickens me that someone got paid to design this and that's not me being bitter because I didn't get a crack at designing it -- I wouldn't want to even begin dealing with the endless tweaks, revisions, suggestions and demans involved with creating even something as visually appalling as this piss-poor and maybe final version of the Oprah Winfrey Network logo.

Come on Oprah, you can do better.

Why I've never watched Jurassic Park

In flipping through the labyrinth of obscure cable channels recently, I happened across "Jurassic Park". I immediately blurted out "crap" and proceeded onward. My old lady, upon hearing me blurt out "crap" turned to me and asked "Why is it crap?".

I launched in to a lengthy explanation about how I am not a Jeff Goldblum fan and that the science behind it (because I know so damn much about science) doesn't make one bit of sense and then I let it slip that I had never watched it.

That set off a bit of a storm in the living room that particular evening. "How can you hate something if you've never seen it?" "How do you know shit about dinosaurs?" "Why do you hate America because America IS Jeff Goldblum?"

Of course I sat there stunned that my dislike of a movie which I had admittedly not seen in my moderately long life but that's how I roll. I form judgments based on seeing only parts of the item I inevitably dislike. I find the overall plot of "Lost" to be more scientifically thought out than that of "Jurassic Park". I have no desire to ever learn anything about dinosaurs because Dino from "The Flinstones" is the be all end all when it comes to dinosaurs. Do I think that dinosaurs would make a tasty treat? Yes I do. Would I hunt dinosaurs if they roamed the earth today? No, but I'd certainly buy the choice dinosaur cuts of meat at my local grocer of choice. Would I watch "Jurassic Park" if it was the only form of theatrical entertainment left after some sort of audio/visual media apocalypse? No, I'd lay back and watch clouds or play with sticks but I'd never watch "Jurassic Park". And that, folks, is why I've never seen "Jurassic Park".

Keys to being a Minnesotan

Immigrants to Minnesota say that it's hard to adapt, that us native Minnesotans are closed off and cliquish. While that may be true, in my 31-plus years as a native Minnesotan I've noticed certain things that will make you stick out like a sore thumb so below are some tips on how to fit in to the Minnesota culture.

Know how to pronounce Wayzata and Edina. (Why-zet-uh and E-dine-uh) I've haeard both radio and TV personalities virtually slaughter these two lofty Minneapolis suburbs. As for the suburbs of St. Paul, they are so basic and forgettable that nobody cares so let's move along.

Know something about our cultural icons. For instance, Minneapolis used to have an NBA team (don't confuse the Minnesota Timberwolves with being of NBA caliber). The Minneapolis Lakers were a damn good team but moved to the greener (?) pastures of Los Angeles where people actually venture outdoors during the winter months and professional-quality basketball arenas abound.

Don't forget, too, about legends such as Paul Bunyan. He was a steel driving man who, as legend has it, stood eight feet tall and had a toenail on his penis. Legend also has it that his back was the first mode of transport across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Important man indeed.

Minnesota also has true, honest to God winters but they aren't nearly as bad as people would have you believe. In all seriousness, buy a pair of gloves and a warm winter jacket. Feel free to invest in a stocking cap and remember to keep your tires inflated. Lastly, don't walk out to get your mail barefoot in the middle of January. That will not end well and you could very well end up stuck to your ice-covered sidewalk for all of the neighborhood to laugh at... and we WILL laugh.

Buy a boat. In a state whose population is nearly 5 million there are just over 3 million registered boats so if you don't have a boat in your driveway people will know you're not one of us. If you can't afford a Glastron or Alumacraft, save up your milk jugs and cartons and build your own boat. Hey, if it floats, it's a boat. Right? If it doesn't float you could still enter it in a milk carton boat race. It seems like most every town with a lake in Minnesota sponsors a milk carton boat race during their cutesy little annual summer festival.

Finally you should learn to love hot dish (or as some refer to it, casserole). Church festivals and neighborhood gatherings will require you to bring a dish to pass and hot dish is viewed as an alternate form of currency in Minnesota. Tater Tot hot dish is always a classic but if you're in desperate need of a recipe, ask your neighbor. Chances are that any millde-aged Minnesotan has a shoebox full of hot dish recipes lying around that they'd be more than eager to share and recommend their favorite to you.

With the basics down, you're one step closer to fitting in. Just don't piss us off because while we'll just brush it off, after you leave we'll bad talk you until the day you die because Minnesota nice is just a myth.

The battle of the leaves

Fall is a pretty kick-ass season. The air is crisp. The stores are full of costumes - some especially scandalous ones for the ladies. The colors seem more vibrant. And the leaves are falling. For the past five or six years I've had a love-hate relationship with those falling leaves. For the first couple years I simp ly chopped the hell ot ouf them with my shitty old lawn mower and let things be. Then the third year of owning our house the fallen leaves seemed thicker than usual. I raked them that year and haphazardly composted them in my garden. The fourth year I had my shiny new lawnmower complete with a bagger and after using it in mulcher mode a couple of times I bagged most everything from my front yard the final few mowings.

Then this year happened. Despite my pre-planning consisting of bagging my front lawn beginning back in early September when the go-getters decided to hit the ground, I hit a thick leafy wall by the last week of Sepember.

I mulched, bagged and raked all in the course of one week but with only a tiny percentage of the leave having fallen I knew I was fucked and threw in the towel.

I've now gone about two weeks without mowing my front yard but my old lady, full of good intentions, raked things up midway through last week. That progress was quickly covered by another thick blanket of fallen leaves. Sure, they made for a kick-ass playground last weekend for the daughter but with nicely manicured lawns all around my home, I realized last night that those fucking leaves had to go.

Below is the situation I was greeted with when I arrived home from the local coal mine last night.
Before the supper bell rang I had corralled this massive pile of leaves and nearly broken my rake no less than 15 times but had only reached the front portion of my narrow side yard. Combine the hefty weight load of a yard full of leaves and a child insistent on playing in this fucking huge pile of leaves and what you are left with is one tired guy.
But I wasn't done. I was determined to land this hugetastic mountain of annoying leaves in the far back corner of my yard and eventually compact them in to my compost bin and be done with the most annoying part of fall. This battle would be won if it killed me but I WOULD finish it by 7 PM because I get cranky if I miss my stories.

To wrap up this story before you slip in to a coma, the leaves lost their battle. Their fallen brothers and sisters lie scattered across the front, side and back yards but the majority of their colorful army of leaves are messily piled in a massive mountain in the back yard alongside the daughter's swing set. Mark my words: the leave swill rue the day they fell on my lawn and they will become rich, black compost because I own them. I own those leaves.

The evolution of my blogging

Nobody has ever really questioned why I began blogging and I can't blame them but if you read this blog and haven't dug deep in to the archives, I'll get you up to speed.

Mere months after moving to the Twin Cities on a cold December evening I began this blog, entitled "A Day in the Life". It had virtually no direction in the beginning and many would say that it still doesn't but it became a launching pad in future years for my more recent projects and my further involvement in social media as a whole.

After working in a job surrounded by journalists, and often times reading their stories before publication. I realized that I could probably do this. After all, I'm a creative type and blogging in any format seemed like a logical extension of my graphic and web design work and my hobby of photography. And it continued. For probably far too long I was posting 4-5 days each week and the content was dry. In short, it sucked. I went through a period where I was displeased with the political happenings in our country and with the outlet I had developed the content was very political.

Then one day I decided that being so focused on one topic wasn't what I was about. I think it was around 2006 (almost three years in to blogging) when I took a drastic turn and that's when people started really reading what I was writing. MNSpeak (when Max Sparber was running it) began occasionally linking to my posts and that simply spurred my blogging. I began looking at the weird shit happening in Minnesota and opened my eyes to how truly weird things I saw every day were - I still remember spotting a possible trend of pipe smoking coming back.

As I explored my own photography and that of others in Minnesota I began putting together MinnPics to showcase the work of those Minnesotans sharing their photos on Flickr. Much to my surprise it actually took off. I dabbled there with how frequently to update and what to showcase and have settled in to a bit of a random groove with it after over two years. I juggled this blog and MinnPics and somehow kept both going while also handling all of my other daily duties as a somewhat responsible citizen. During that time, I decided to begin moving away from happenings in Minnesota with this blog and began sprinkling in more pop culture type of stuff including what could be called Nipplegate and Camel Toe watch during the 2008 summer olympics and the big rumor of last year: whether or not Lady Gaga was transgendered. (She's obviously not)

This year, I slowed down the posting here and this summer I started Minnesota Valley Photos. It's my own photos I take in and around the Minnesota River Valley and with an archive of over 15,000 photos I should be able to keep something coming for a few more months. Or years.

Being a huge music fan, I also started up a quickly thrown together collection of videos I called The Video Playlist. It's another side project that may or may not have legs but like many of the projects at work, the mantra is "fail fast". Maybe I'll shit-can it or maybe it will silently live on in obscurity forever.

At some point I also started Strib comments because the absurdity of the Star Tribune's comments is downright amazing and finding the dumbest is always a good time! I rarely update it but it's a cool concept.

For now I'm cool with how things are but if anyone's interested in taking MinnPics to the next level, I'm all ears. ALL ears. More amazing than anything is the fact that I've stuck with something for almost seven years. Especially in a world where Twitter seems to have almost killed long form blogging like this because, let's be honest, I could have probably summed this up in 140 characters but it wouldn't have put you to sleep, would it?

What's with Slate's recent obsession with anal sex?

To most people, breaking down sexual acts via a pile of data and charts can truly make a person totally bored with the topic but for whatever reason now, twice in the course of a week, Slate has had articles on anal sex. For a rather intellectual-leaning website, I find that the recurring topic of anal sex is interesting.

Rather than rehash the data breakdown initially reported and the follow-up story analyzing the reasons behind the data, I though I'd ask questions and ponder answers about who is partaking in anal sex.

Historically speaking, anal sex has been rather taboo. It's not considered to be the social norm. Maybe it's because we're a nation of total prudes or maybe it's because those participating in anal sex have kept their sexual acts behind closed doors. Let's face it, even in 2010 people aren't exactly open about their sexual habits. It's not water cooler conversation but sex in all forms is definitely becoming more mainstream. Thank the internet for that and the rabid spread of adult-themed videos which many think is the only reason the internet exists.

Maybe the pervasive spread of technology is the simplest explanation for the uptick in anal sex. Sex isn't a technological activity but the amount of people who view porn and talk openly about it is somewhat interesting. A friend of mine spent the better part of an hour last summer around a camp fire drunkenly giggling as he showed off that his new Droid phone could play video with astounding quality. The more interesting thing about that evening was that nobody was shocked, appalled or disgusted because my generation has grown up since our teens surrounded by the internet and we know full well that while it's a powerful tool for business and communication it's also a portal for pornography. That very pornography is very freeing and liberating for some and I have a feeling that's part of the reason for the increase in the number of people reporting participating in and enjoying anal sex.

But who are these people? Judging by the number of comments on Slate's first story and the profile of the typical Slate reader, educated folks are not only experimenting with but also enjoying anal sex and apparently doing so is a regular occurance. Are they doing so because it's the next logical step when it comes to sexual experimentation or are they engaging in anal sex because of that wealth of pornography that the internet brings in to our homes? But when anal sex reaches that majority threshhold, what comes next? When it's no longer shocking or even interesting to bring up to friends that you and your significant other have been going in through the out door, what comes next? As trends go, the adult film industry is a bit of a trend-setter so I guess we'll have to wait until then to find out.

Vikings trade for malcontent Randy Moss

It's official, the Minnesota Vikings traded for former Viking Randy Moss in a deal that sent a third round draft pick to the New England Patriots in exchange for the "I play when I want to" wide receiver.

For the obviously struggling Vikes the trade makes sense. They have been at a loss when it comes to scoring as evidenced by their lackluster 1-2 record. While Moss is a legitimate talent, he's a complete douchebag. He's a spoiled pro athlete along the lines of Isiah Junior J.R. Jeezy Rider, Christian Laettner and every other supposed superstar who has been landed by a professional Minnesota team only to be beyond disappointed by their respective team's unwillingness to beef up the team with supporting players because even these asshole athletes know that winning is not a one-man show.

Sure, Randy Moss had a couple good years with New England but who can forget his antics when he was deemed the cornerstone of the Vikings? Have we forgotten that he ran down a traffic cop in downtown Minneapolis? Have we forgotten that he's a pot smoker who was busted with drugs in his Lexus? Have we forgotten that he has actually walked off the field before the end of the game?

Obviously the Vikings are serious about contending for a Super Bowl championship but is cobbling together a couple of has-beens (Favre and now Moss) and surrounding them with a bunch of talented players who nobody outside of Minnesota could name really the way to move beyond one and done status? Impatience is probably to blame but wouldn't building towards a successful string of winning seasons be more rewarding? Is instant success all that these fairweather Vikings fans care about?

Maybe Moss will turn things around for both himself and the Vikes but I, rightfully, have my doubts about this move.

My Twins comeback cover or suck it Yankees

Bob Collins of Minnesota Public Radio's famed News Cut is in search of a good comeback to the less than witty New York Daily News cover stating that due to their washed up, overpaid New York Yankees playing the Minnesota Twins they have an E-Z PASS. As Minnesotans we should probably let it slide because we know that the majority of New Yorkers are nothing short of assholes. They are rude, unpleasant, bitter and even unwashed humans who may or may not hate America. Oh, sure, the Yankees have been called, time and again, America's team but even with them consistently trying to buy a World Series-caliber team they have come up short year after year winning only two championships in the past decade.

But despite a World Series record of a miserable .200 in the past decade they call playing the Minnesota Twins having an E-Z PASS. Who has the better record? Twins. Who has home field advantage for this series? Twins. Who has a better stadium? Twins.

But rather than just spit out some witty comeback, I spent some time creating a visual approach to a comeback. Wishful thinking? Maybe.

Five reasons why I couldn't be a stay-at-home dad

I took some vacation time this week and that means staying at home (for the most part) with my nearly two year-old daughter. Anyone out there with a child knows how much of a handful a child of that age can be. For whatever reason, mothers seem to be able to handle the kids better. Maybe it goes waaaaaaay back to the stone age where women raised the brood and the men hunted and gathered. While The Youngling is still very much alive and happy, I know that her mother would handle things far better than I do. Which brings me to the five reasons I've noticed thus far (one day in) that I couldn't be a stay-at-home dad.

5.) This reason just walked in to my office and piled its supporting evidence on me. I can't get much done because this week The Youngling has an obsession with cereal and as I'm typing this she has just piled two boxes of it on me and another two boxes alongside my keyboard. I don;t know how children seem to survive for days at a time on nothing but cereal but The Youngling is walking that line right now.

4.) Showering is a problem. I like to sleep. It's a necessity for all and a burden for some but I flat out enjoy it. I slept this morning until about 7:15 when I heard the all-too-common whining coming from the adjacent bedroom and knew it was time to get up -- which I did. But I still needed to shower. Even though I'm not going anywhere where anyone would care about my funky odor I still feel the need to bathe. So what's a guy to do?

3.) I don't understand "The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" but it captivates children. It also allows me to tend to item number four. I've done it more than once. I sit The Youngling on the big bed and flip the TV in the bedroom to The Disney Channel and she will sit motionless but laughing and talking for a half hour at a time and that's more than enough time for me to remove said funk from my body. While the electronic babysitter is a wonderful aid to my morning routine I cringe every time I hear that Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggity Dog song at the end of the episode.

2.) I miss people. Oh sure, I've talked to some random strangers while pulling The Youngling around in her wagon during out outings but I miss real conversation about things I care about and things I can relate to. Yeah, the weather is an excellent topic of conversation because it's non-offensive, safe and sure to be a short conversation but for once I'd love to strike up a conversation with someone I meet on a sidewalk about something controversial or even offensive like racism or same-sex marriage but most people would quickly resume walking and while I was stopped The Youngling would probably jump out of her wagon and dart off in to the street.

1.) It's tough taking photos while holding a child. Photography is one of my hobbies and I like partaking in it while using my vacation time. That has changed, though, with a child latched to my side. Sure, she can walk just fine but she rarely walks -- it's more of a slow sprint and that means she can get to places where she shouldn't be in very little time and I don't want to be that guy who has to call in a report of a missing toddler and explain how I was too busy taking photos to keep a close eye on The Youngling.

With all of those excuses out in the open I hope that my gracious employer will welcome me back on Monday because while I don't mind dealing with a plethora of dirty diapers and hours of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse I'd much rather be in my cubicle where there are surprisingly few diapers.

Racism right where I was born

My family originated in the small Minnesota town of Lake Crystal and while it seems like an idyllic small town, the editor of the Lake Crystal Tribune fits in well with the stereotype that small towns are hotbeds of racism.

Maybe that's a bit of a blanket statement but after seeing the City Pages blotter item about the racist joke which editor Don Marben ran in an effort to "fill space" in a recent edition of the weekly rag, the stereotype seems to hold true.

Lake Crystal Tribune Editor Don Marben wrote a delightful anecdote about a golf course that replaced it's caddies with robots, only to find that their metal surfaces reflected sun in the golfers' eyes.

When golfers suggest painting the robots black, a course employee responds "We did. And four of 'em didn't show up for work, two filed for welfare, one robbed the pro shop, and the other thinks he's the president."

If that isn't racist, I don't know what is. I'm practically hoping that my aunt who likes to clip out dreck like this from that very paper to read verbatim at family holidays and gatherings clips it out and reads it to everyone during Thanksgiving dinner. It would make for a fun confrontation and plenty of bickering because there is more than one person in my extended family who would agree with that being a pretty damn funny joke. I, however, think it's in poor taste at best.



Finding something like that in what is supposedly a community newspaper proves to me that some communities would be better off without a newspaper because that kind of crap is best left for e-mail forwards from ignorant jack-offs. It's not news, it's not opinion, it's just tasteless garbage that shows that plenty of old guard "journalists" should leave the business because their views just don't fly anymore.

Want something less controversial, give the photos at MinnPics a shot.

Where's all that hope now Vikings fans?

Like so many others, I'm what people would describe as a fair weather sports fan. I don't pretend to know the stats of individual players on most of the Twin Cities/Minnesota teams and I don't even know the positions most of them play but I do know when their fortunes are looking either up or down.

Currently, the only bright spot for Minnesota sports fans is the Minnesota Twins. They are already a lock for the playoffs and, despite losing two of three to Oakland, are still inching closer to winning their division and having the overall best resord in the American League. But even with that comes negatives. They'll likely face the buy-a-championship New York Yankees at some point which means that no matter how well the Minnesota Twins are playing their season will come to a brutal end. It's the way it is and if you're like me you've come to accept the fate of Minnesota sports teams. A couple are usually competitive but when push comes to shove they just don't win championships because this is the midwest. We're "just happy they made it to the playoffs". But that's bullshit.

Why should we be happy, as sports fans or anything else in life, with "being good enough"? When did that become acceptable? Why have we been brainwashed to accept that second-best status? It's like the job market as of late -- I hear plenty of people, after I bitch about paying upwards of $6,000 per year for health insurance that covers nearly nothing only to have the other person in the conversation say "you should just be happy you have a job". Don't get me wrong, I'm damn happy that I have a job but would it hurt the big guy in charge to take a cut in pay so the worker bees can afford some heat for their hive?

And that comes back to sports to a certain extent. If other cities can afford to essentially buy a championship, why doesn't that work here? The Minnesota Vikings, and their owner Zygi Wilf, forked out millions of dollars and put up with hijinks, shenanigans and downright bullshit to land greying and broken quarterback Brett Favre for a second year. Has he produced anything thus far? No. Unless you count two losses in two regular season games producing results then he hasn't lived up to the legend. But by God he's here and that's good enough for the diehard Vikings fans.

But in my opinion it's not enough. Why couldn't the Vikings step up all aspects of their game and win enough games to make it to the playoffs while grooming a young quarterback under the tutelage of Brett Favre. We all know that Favre will eventually explode in to a huge cloud of grey dust and him playing for a 21st year is becoming less and less likely with each passing day and each loss so plan ahead. Do the Minnesotan thing and promote from within and quit accepting "good enough" and second best. I once had hope too but after watching yesterday's brutal and sloppy loss to the Miami Dolphins I'm back to being bitter and jaded.

For the flip side of my personality, check out the refreshingly positive MinnPics -- chock full of killer photos from across Minnesota.

How to mess up the morning routine

Mornings in my house are hectic. I'm sure that my level of hecticity are no worse than the hecticity in your home but everyone always views their situation as worse than the situations of others.

It's hectic for two reasons. I have an almost two year-old daughter whose wake-up routine consists of crying when she finally wakes up and is she isn't the center of attention every waking moment the situation escalates. The second reason is that three mornings each week my old lady is already at work when this happens.

While I typically don't allow enough time to get ready for work (showering, dressing, shaving, etc.) my ineptitude is only amplified by the fact that I am trying to juggle the needs of myself and my daughter solo.

Plenty of mornings it involves me plucking the child out of her crib and sitting her on the bed and turning the bedroom TV on to either MTV, VH1 or Disney. Sometimes that trick keeps her entertained enough for me to take a shower and get dressed. Other times she will scream for the entire seven minute duration of my shower.

Under typical circumstances I can get all morning things done in about 35 minutes but today that all fell apart. I couldn't find season-appropriate clothes. Due to the lack of closet space int he original portion of our house, the clothes for upcoming seasons reside in the 1950s addition to our 1899 house. Sure it's inconvenient but it works until I can come up with a grand solution to fix everything.

Between running back and forth in the upstairs hallway and a couple treks up and down the stairs to get juice for the tiny monster and tidy up the mess I had created upstairs I eventually left home about 14 minutes later than usual. Sure, it's hectic but I bet you have a story worse than mine...

What's happening right now?

After basically cutting myself off from society for ten days via some conventiently requested vacation time beginning on Labor Day weekend, I am having a hard time re-integrating myself in to society as a whole. I returned from a few days on Minnesota's North Shore of Lake Superior to return to nothing short of a mess. Bags to unpack, laundry to tend to, a stack of mail to sort, bills to pay and an over-extended financial situation which seems to get progressively worse but I know it seems far worse than it is.

The big payoff after driving nearly 800 miles over the course of four days was catching about half of the MTV VMAs. I always look forward (seriously) to that two hour slice of music on MTV each year because rarely does the average person get to sit down on their couch and see our nation's musicians/artists in their element. The most rewarding was Lady Gaga. I didn;t catch her acceptance of th Video of the Year award from Cher as she asked soemone to hold her meat purse but I did see her accept an award earlier where she apologized for being slow getting to the stage due to the weight of her dress.

I simply assumed that the dress was made of heavy rubber but now it seems that all corners of the internet have been talking about Lady Gaga's meat dress. Maybe my eyes are just that bad that I mistook a meat dress for one made of rubber or maybe her dress was made of beef jerky. That would account for the dark, almost black color I saw but I'd be tempted to eat the damn dress if I were sitting near her. Am I alone is mistaking her dress for being made of something other than meat?

Four things to never talk about at work

We've all been part of that uncomfortable conversation at the office where someone is sharing waaaay too much about themselves. Maybe you've unknowingly been the one to overshare or maybe you've overheard one too many phone conversations mentioning things that, in your better judgment, would be taken care of in a more private setting.

1. Pregnancy.
Whether it's been your multi-year battle to create an offspring or the fact that you're going in next Thursday at 2 PM for your first ultrasound doesn't really matter much to my cold and uncaring soul. Hey, I've got nothing against kids as is evidenced by the fact that I have one of my own but that doesn't mean that I want to know each and every miniscule detail about your ovaries.

2. Hemorrhoids.
Let me first start off by saying that I can sympathize with the pain of hemorrhoids. I went as far as to blog about said hemorrhoids during my old lady's pregnancy. I called them sympathy hemorrhoids. I shared that story with the internet but not with my co-workers. Why? Because nobody needs to hear that damn story and that should be a reminder to anyone thinking about discussing their ass pain while at work.

3. Bankruptcy.
It's a bitch but these days someone having financial difficulties is more common than a huge sale at Kohl's. Nobody can help you and while your co-workers will sympathize with you or at least feign sympathy they'll go home and tell anyone who is listening just how financially irresponsible this particular co-worker is. So while it's always nice to have someone to share your financial shortfalls with, find a friend instead of a co-worker because offices have enough drama.

4. Divorce.
Divorce is common but it doesn't mean that it's as cool to talk about around the water cooler as the latest episode of "Who's The Boss?". Half of the people you know probably are divorced or will be divorced at some point and plenty of them are messy as hell but it isn't the kind of crap you should bring to work. Again, find a friend or a family member. Hell, find a stranger at a bar who'll listen to how much of an asshole your husband is/was. At least that discussion won't be taking place two cubicles down from you or me.

Now that we're done here, check out the photos form across Minnesota at MinnPics because now that summer's over what else is left to do?

It pooping while sitting bad for you?

Call it a weakness but I, for whatever reason, am somewhat drawn to well-written stories about poop. It's not a fetish or anything it's just the simple fact that the technology surrounding how we do the deed has gone unchanged for centuries. When everything else has evolved so much in the past centuries, why is it that we are still sitting down on an elongated bowl (most times) and dropping the kids off? I'm assuming that our distant ancestors began this trend many millennia ago by doing their business over some sort of earthen hole, all we've done in semi-modern times is add some pipes below the hole, sit on some porcelain as opposed to wood and filled to thing with some water.

When it's broken down like that, it's pretty damn primitive. That's why the Slate story (linked in the title) caught my attention. Simply squatting was apparently their answer. And why not? It's how primitive hunter/gatherers took care of their pooping. They didn't have time to dig a hole when they were out chasing Wooly Mammoths. Hell no. They literally popped a squat and did the deed. Then they moved on. Of course with the exploding population today, doing that would cause all sort of disease-related problems and would be plain unsightly. So back to some invention.

The geniuses (who apparently put a lot of time in to thinking about poop) at Slate theorize that the human body is designed to squat while pooping so why not design the toilet to function like that? It's really quite genius but what about the over 50% of the population who pee sitting down? What sort of miracle toilet works for both purposes while allowing you to poop while squatting (as the writer suggest with your knees close to your chest)?

So, without proper facilities we'll just have to improvise for the time being. Will you hover, perch or do some sort of modified squat to test out the comfort level of this new stance? Maybe I'll actually follow up on this one because I can see the health benefits to it. Do yourself a favor and at least try it.

And do me a favor and check out MinnPics. All Minnesota photos all the time.

What's at the Minnesota State Fair for me?

I normally love going to the fair. When I lived back in SPAMTown USA I'd hit up the good old Mower County Fair 4-5 times in its six day run -- not even counting the times I'd work my employer's booth at the fair. I'd always partake in at least one food item and wander down the midway or check out an exhibit building before heading back to the office. My other excursions centered around the midway or the far too popular beer garden. The prices weren't half bad and it broke up the monotony of the week.

But now I live in the general Twin Cities area and in the seven years I've lived here I think I've gone to the Minnesota State Fair four times. For one, it requires taking a day off work and driving to the opposite side of the Cities because I want no part of pushing my way through a bunch of slow walking folks who wreak of fried food and sweat as they wrangle their double-wide strollers through crowds and stand indecisively in front of each and every food booth whether they plan on making a purchase or not.

For some that is part of the charm of the fair -- the people and watching them. I'll admit that last year I caught some shade with the toddler as I fed her and watched the throngs of people who only seem to emerge in to public view during the ten day-long fair and it shows. There's always too much skin being shown and usually not by those who I wouldn't mind seeing some extra skin on.

For some reason, and I know it will make me out to be a total rube, I like to see the few media personalities who actually show up to the Minnesota State Fair. It makes the few who do show up seem a bit more human and relatable. As far as the food goes, after I had my first fried Snickers on a stick I officially swore off the new fangled fair food on a stick. It's gone too far. How long until some vendor actually sells deep fried t-shirts? It would be one hell of a novelty but not very practical or edible.

So I limit my Minnesota State Fair excursions to every other year. I take the day off from work and strike out for St. Paul. And I do the same with the Minnesota Renaissance Festival which I'll be going to this year. Again, it's a sweaty mass of people moving too slow for my own liking but the people watching alone makes for an interesting time. Who knows, maybe I'll end up being part of one of the audience participation shows again. But I'll still be stewing inside about the price of the food, people not covering themselves adequately and crowds moving far too slowly.

But it all makes for good photos. See what pops up in the coming weeks at MinnPics.

My hobbies and how to share them

Even though I've been extremely busy at the office and, as I mentioned earlier this week, I have plenty of other projects looming, my mind has been wandering. I've thought about creating a bunch of logos and other materials for the random things which wander in and out of my rather strange imagination. I've thought about all of the strange (to other people) hobbies and interests I have which have been cast aside in recent years for whatever reason and how I could resurrect them in an economical and interesting way which I could share with this small but apparently loyal online audience I've built in the past half-decade or so.

See if any of these items catch your interest. I have a vast collection of 1/64 scale farm machinery replicas. Most of these were amassed during the mass production era of the late-80s and early-90s but they've been relegated to an upstairs closet along with a huge stockpile of accessories for them. The Ertl brand is the go-to name for collectors and farm kids (and grown-ups) all across America and that's the dominant brand in my collection. Before they outsourced production to Mexico and eventually China, I visited the small Iowa town of Dyersville (west of Dubuque) where the Ertl brand was born after World War II. Sure, the brand has moved on but the city still has farm collectible (or toys as my old lady calls them) in their blood. I can already feel a photo project coming on for this one.

I've also got an immense sports card collection. It's something that came about in my pre-teen years (it seems to have begun in about 1988 and waned around 1994). I know that this is where hundreds if not thousands of my hard earned dollars went and I EARNED those dollars. They're not just baseball cards, though. The collection, for whatever reason, spans all four major pro sports and I'm fairly confident that I have more than a few Brett Favre cards lying around in those dusty stacks of boxes in my childhood bedroom's closet back on the farm. A few years ago I considered posting the whole lot of them on Craigslist but have since reconsidered. I'm definitely not a hoarder but without knowing what gems are lurking in those boxes, I just can't let them go. With some research and some cold weekends in the coming winter months, I could easily create a website chronicling akward photos of has-beens and never-weres staged by the photographers who roamed the major league circuits working for a pittance.

It's a beginning and I'll admit that the concept I'm thinking of if basically a ripoff of what's been going on for years at lileks.com and while I like that James Lileks (whose site I've read since my days in Austin at the beginning of this century -- that sounds very impressive) has in the way of everything under one rather massive roof, I also like the corporate philosophy I work under at the office of having a vast network of websites slowly expanding to cover niches as we all see fit. Each one has positives and negatives but if I'm going to take this seriously I need to choose one format and stick with it. I already have MinnPics, this always evolving blog and Minnesota River Valley Photos which is a tiny infant of just a few weeks old. So what's a guy to do? Do I stay the course or begin to move things to a more centralized umbrella site. Hit me up with your suggestions in the comments here or tweet them -- I'm at @sornie79.

What a surprise - Brett Favre has returned

I guess that my earlier thinking about Brett Favre hang gliding in to Airlake airport in Lakeville was about as far off as a guy can get when it comes to guessing games involving NFL athletes. I had pictured Favre dressed in his typical ensemble of Wranglers and a Hanes t-shirt gliding in to the metro area to save the Vikings from a 3-13 season. Instead he landed at the posh and tony Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie mere minutes from the Vikes' practice facility alongside Interstate 494 in the aforementioned suburb.

The media circus surrounding the return of a 40 year-old quarterback who was already under contract for this season is mind-boggling. The Vikings seem to be a desperate team. Why else would they send a contingency of three players to a nothing town in Mississippi (Hattiesburg) to woo the graying QB to the frozen tundra of the Northstar State? And what's with the team's near obsession with quarterbacks who are old enough to be the father of half of the team's players? Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham and now Brett Favre. Have the Vikes ever groomed a QB from a college-aged draft pick to a successful superstar or are they too damn lazy to invest in someone for the long haul?

No, let's go out and woo a fucking redneck diva from Mississippi and put up with his shenanigans of being too good to attend training camp while using an injury as an excuse. And if that fails, make a play for more money because we all know that's exactly what transpired. He's the Michael Jordan of the NFL – the guy will never entirely fade away from the game because he needs the attention. When he does eventually retire, he'll probably buy an NFL team or maybe start his own league so he can own that and play as quarterback because that's just how much he needs attention. And here I was thinking that my almost-two year-old daughter was the neediest person alive when it came to attention.

Now that I have the latest Favre drama off my chest, you can visit MinnPics. Click to find out just how cool it is because I, like a certain quarterback who wears the number 4, yearn for your attention.