The North Loop

It was such a beautiful day, I decided to walk home from work.

I am going to ride my bike to work most days once it gets warm enough. I could go through downtown for a shorter trip, and almost no hills, but that's seems almost suicidal to me during rush hour. I think I'm going to take West River Road, which has a nice winding bike path. It's just under 4 miles instead of a little over 2, and there are a lot of hills, but there's safe and scenic paths the whole way. There's a bike trail that branches off of the river that runs about 1/4 mile from my work, but for the life of me I cannot googlemap a convenient exit from the trail. 

So I decided to scope it out on my walk home, and walked to where I think the bike trail should start. I'm going to have to try it out with my bike on a Sunday or Saturday once it warms up a bit more and the bike paths aren't muddy and icy.

To get to the river, I have to go through the North Loop, and up-and-coming upper-crust neighborhood in Minneapolis. It's the only really really nice part of North Minneapolis. There are nice areas, but this place has million dollar condos and the like. I felt like I had jumped the fence and entered a gated community where I did not belong.

It is ridiculously nice. There are small independent fitness centers on every block, and fancy specialty gourmet restaurants as far as the eye can see. It's even got the little banners on all the street lights letting you know where you are. The North Loop is very clean and well-maintained. With one major exception: Dog Poo.

There is dog shit everywhere. If you can afford to live in such a nice neighborhood, you can probably afford some little pooper scooper bags. Or are they so rich they're too good to pick up after their dog?

Seriously. It's gross. The hedges were well-trimmed, and the lawn decorations were tasteful and beautiful, but there is simply crap everywhere. I get that melting snow reveals a lot of doggy waste that wasn't necessarily visible before the snow melted, but even my neighbors in my litter-ridden neighborhood can pick up their dog's crap.

Of course, if that's all I have to criticize the area about, they're doing pretty well.

A picture of the river from my walk home today.

New Apartment

Yesterday, I made the journey to Northfield to sign the lease of my new apartment. I am renting a two bedroom with my friend Sokun. We signed the lease, then went to move some of his stuff in. We live in number 100, on the 3rd floor. Luckily we have a wide stairwell, so we were able to carry things up easily. We also found a couch in our garage, but apparently it's janky, so Sokun didn't want to bring it up. WM is taking it away unless another resident wants it.

Our fridge is short, but spacious. Our toilet is broken, but being fixed tomorrow. Our range hood needs fixing, but will also be fixed tomorrow. Our carpet squares aren't glued down (but that's not really a problem). Other than that, it's a really nice place. Oh, also, both of our names are spelled wrong on the lease. It's still legally binding, though. Just funny. My last name is Jorden (Jordan) and his name is Sokum (Sokun).

I'm very excited to move in on Wednesday. : )

However, the journey back from St. Olaf was fraught with mild inconveniences. Sokun dropped me off at MOA for the light rail, and I went downstairs to the transit station, intending to put money on my Go-To card. Apparently there was a Twins game that night, because there was a line about 20 people long waiting to buy tickets. Good lord. So I waited in line for about 5 minutes when I remembered the morning bus driver accidentally charged me for disability, only 50 cents instead of $2.25. So I still had 50 cents left on my card! Joy! (With the Go-To card, if you have any money on it, it'll just go into the negative when you charge the ride, and you pay it off when you put more money on your card). So I went to the Go-To pole, and a Metro Transit officer was leaning on it. Ugh... I just politely asked him to get off the pad, scanned my card and got on the very crowded train.

Luckily I found a seat. Unluckily, the train was really crowded. The woman sitting next to me kept staring at me in the reflection on the glass that was in front of us. The bike rack area was full of standing Twins fans, so bikers had to hold their bikes upright because there was no room for them to put them up, or even to let them sit with both wheels on the ground. (BTW, don't stand in the bike rack area. Just move down the aisle. it's really rude). Anyway, I eventually made it back downtown, where I put money on my card for the transfer home.

It was also really cold outside. Earlier in the day, it had been nice and sunny, if a bit breezy. By the time I was heading home, it was cold and cloudy and windy. I took refuge in the Central library, where I decided to go to the bathroom. Out of the 6 stalls, one was occupied, 3 had piss on the seats and 1 had crap on the seat. As I was walking back to the empty one, someone else took it. So I waited for the person in the occupied stall to finish (she left pee on the seat...), and carefully went potty (after wiping the seat down thoroughly).

Then I went to Dunn bros, and bought a chai latte and picked up a Lavender magazine. The chai was a little cold, but warmer than I was at the moment, so I didn't complain. I walked to the bus stop, balanced my chai on the railing, hopped up myself, and started to read. About halfway through my chai, it fell off the railing. That's more my fault than anything (I really should have been holding on to it), but it was still aggravating. Then not one, not two, but three other people waiting for the bus pulled out cigarettes and started smoking. They were both a respectful distance away, so it'd be rude of me to tell them to stand elsewhere, but like I said, it was windy. So I walked further away, and then something good happened: I ran into Nik, a friend of mine from high school, who was also waiting for the bus. We chatted pleasantly on the bus.

And that was the end of the mildly inconvenienced journey home.

A Good Day and Whoa. Chicken Alert!

Today was an awesome day. I got up this morning and my lovely friend picked me up, and we proceeded to journey to Minneapolis. Well, she was late, and I needed to stop at the bank for a few seconds, and then there was a train, and then the stupid semi was slow and kept changing into our lane. In any case, our 9:16 bus from 3rd and Main in Anoka was barely caught, and included an epic dash and a leap over some construction in order to catch it. But we caught it. We were awesome.

Then we took another bus from downtown to the U, so we could go and poke around the Weisman Art Museum. In the Weisman, there is this creepyass hotel exhibit where you lean into the door frame and it triggers the sound recording. You are essentially eavesdropping in on people's lives. There is The Price is Right, a dog barking, sports, a party, a woman sobbing (or laughing?), etc. I dragged KT along in there with me. No way was I going in there by myself.

We then walked to the stadium village and ate some Bruegger's Bagels sammiches at a picnic table. Very delicious. I had a 4 cheese and tomato paninni and a mocha cooler. Came to $10.11 for a sammich and an iced coffee. Expensive. Anyway, we walked to a bus stop to go back downtown, and we were worried. Our transfers expired at 11:45. It's 11:44! Suddenly, our bus pulls into view. Oh no! A red light! We wait anxiously, counting the seconds. Will we have to pay again? The bus pulls up, and we get on with just seconds to spare. Another lucky break for us. : )

Anyway, we walked down the Farmer's Market on Nicollet Mall, bought a couple nectarines, and walked to the Walker Sculpture Garden. Of course, we took a lot of silly and artistic photos of ourselves with sculptures. We saw 13-striped gophers and geese. And art. We were stopped there, and given a pamphlet about the mnartists.org day at the Walker. It was today! How uncanny. So we head over there, and get free lemonade! Complete with lemon wedge and sprig of mint leaf. Delicious.

Then we bussed home again. Luckily, KT's car was not towed or ticketed while we were gone. Woohoo!

A good day, all in all. : )

Now for the chicken update: Angela is a he! Dwight is not the same breed as the others! I nominate Angela's new name to be Ryan, because he was just a lowly temp and then popped out of nowhere and became the boss. Hopefully, Angela/Ryan doesn't become addicted to coke. Of course, he's not my rooster, so I doubt I get to name him. I am worried about Dwight, though. He's probably the first to go now. I like both Angela and Dwight, but you can't have 2 roosters sharing a flock of hens. It's just going to cause fights. But if Dwight gets sent to the country (both colloquially and literally), he'll either be eaten or bullied. Plus his girlfriend Pam would be lonely.

Angela is more likely to stay, because he's of the same breed, so we know he's cold hardy and calm. I haven't been able to figure out Dwight's breed. He matured much faster and is much more aggressive than Angela, but maybe they'd both calm down if one of them was gone. I like them both. I want to keep them both. I wish gelding weren't so expensive and invasive for chickens. We could just neuter them if it weren't invasive surgery. Maybe I like them both because they flirt with me a lot. At least they don't bite my neck and mount me the way they do the hens.