Daniel – Page 11 – Run Morgan Run

May 15, 2010January 5, 2022

How Did You Spend Your Saturday?

My son had the weekend off which is very unusual for him. He had been wanting to take me to his favorite thrift store in Homewood so this was a perfect opportunity to do so. We usually go to the Salvation Army store in Downers Grove, but according to Matt, this particular store is about twice as big and has a much better men’s selection. He was looking for a few dress shirts for work and was able to find some nice ones here before.

After only 45 minutes we had three nice dress shirts for him, a Boston Red Sox shirt for my collection, an Angels jersey for his collection, a Princeton baseball cap for me (one of my favorite colleges), two college mugs for a friends collection and finally, a college accounting textbook for his summer school class (that was an unusual find). Once we rung it all up the total cost was under $20. That is less than normal cost of one of the Polo dress shirts we had found. A pretty good day of bargain hunting.

When is the last time you shopped at a thrift store? Have you ever been in one? Which one is your favorite and why?

May 15, 2010

A Little Music for the Soul

It seems that all too often we loose track of the good people and the families who have made a positive impact on our lives. Last night I had a chance to reconnect with a friend I made way back in Kindergarten during the 60’s. Although you may think that you can’t have much of a friendship at such a young age, it did not necessarily start that way, but by the time we were in 8th grade together we had become pretty close with each others families. We played ball together, hung out together, played guitar together and the girl chasing changed from trying to push them down to trying to ask them out. We both went to different high schools, different colleges, spent time in different states and went on looking for what would make us happy.

Fast forward to 2010 where I received an invite from Kevin to come to a benefit show that he was giving to aid a wonderful cause called Odyssey of the Mind. The Odyssey program provides mechanical problem solving opportunities to K thru college students. We don’t have enough young interest in science and mechanics in the US, so this is a great program.

Kevin is an accomplished guitarist and songwriter and his partner has a 7th grade son who is involved with the program, so every year, they do a benefit that helps defer the travel cost so these kids can compete on the local, state and national levels. This year the benefit was in Brookfield Wisconsin which is only about 2.5 hours from my house, so I made a road trip of it to go see my old friend. I was not able to leave till almost 5:30pm so I did not arrive in Brookfield till almost 7:45.

There was a good size crowd of friends and family gathered at the indoor/outdoor pavilion in and I just happened to get there while Kevin was on his break. Kevin looked the same as I had remembered him with just a few more grey hairs sprinkled around his still short hair. We talked for a few minutes before he had to get back on stage but before he did he introduced me to his wife who was kind enough to fill me in on some of the tings I had missed over the past 30 plus years.

I was a bit surreal to sit there for the next few hours and watch my old friend entertain the crowd. It was strange because even though we both have a son, a daughter and a wonderful wife, I did not feel that we had changed much since lat time I saw him. I was very comfortable just giving him a hug and picking up where we left off years ago. I hope he felt the same.

I was back on the road by 10:30 and home by 1 so it was a pretty quick turn around. Was it worth it to drive 5 hours to spend less than 3 hours with an old friend? You bet it was. I have many St. Francis buddies (girls and guys) who were always such great people and it makes me very happy to see that they still are.

You can check out Kevin’s Music over at kevinmulvenna.com.

May 13, 2010

Coffee With a Friend

I have been thinking more and more about things that make me happy and why I don’t spend enough time doing them. I have come to the conclusion that there is definitely a creative side of my brain that is not being flexed enough and I must do and intend to do more about that. When I started this blog, I noticed that as I filled the virtual pages, I felt better about things in general. There was no specific thing I felt better about and I don’t know if the family noticed, but it was very obvious to me the I had a smile on my face a bit more often. The act of writing was helping me express whatever creative stuff was trying to ooze from the right side of my brain and I feel better on the days that I do write.

The welding class that I just finished had the save affect on me. Every Saturday I had that creative outlet that allowed me to relax, clear my mind of work related issues and just have fun creating. You may think that welding is not creative but you would be wrong. From afar i looks like the welder is just melting two pieces of metal together, but it is more than that. In order to be a good welder you need to know your equipment very well. Some welders describe it as being one with your machine, almost a zen like experience. It reminds me of that movie “Breaking Away” where the father of the bike racer explains that he had this set of tool for cutting rock (he worked in a quarry cutting limestone) that allowed him to cut the stone as if it were butter. He knew his tools so well that he could perform at his peak every day, cutting through stone almost effortlessly. That is how I feel when I am creating something. I am living in the moment with a smile on my face truly enjoying what I am creating.

The reason I scheduled my coffee meeting this morning was to pick the brain and exchange ideas with my friend Bob. I referenced Bob and his photography career in my post Party Like It’s 1979 from earlier this year. I have always enjoyed Bob’s work and I actually got more interested in photography after working with him on the “LION” our high school newspaper. I wanted to exchange a few ideas with him and see if I was going down the right path with some things I am thinking about.

Bob had some great ideas and our conversation quickly turned to our kids, careers and even a few possible business ideas. We both agreed that this was a productive meeting and that we should continue our dialog over the next few months to see what happens. I can’t wait to see what he has in mind.

May 11, 2010

Way Up In The Bleachers

Matt and I went to the Cubs game tonight and sat as far away from the field as you can get while still being in the ballpark. Only the rooftop seats on the buildings outside the park are farther away. Matt had purchased the tickets from a youth group who was raising money so even though the tickets were almost double face value, it was for a very good cause. We were way up in section 511 in the very last row against the screen that keeps you from falling out of the stadium. Matt kept apologizing for having bad seats (he is used to our Sox tickets right behind home plate), but I told him it was fine and I was just happy to be there with him. Any day out with my son, especially at a ball game is a good day. Unfortunately we had to deal with two things while we were there, cold weather and the sucky Cubs.

One of the two we could do something about, so after 6 innings of pain (it was pretty cold), we decided to head to Oak Park to watch the Blackhawks game at one of my favorite places, Poor Phil’s. We took the long way and drove past our old house on Grove then arrived at the pub just after the end of the first period. We hung out for the second period and enjoyed a nice dinner, some exciting goals and some good conversation. It was actually a pretty mellow crowd for such a pivotal game for the hawks, but that is how I remember Phil’s even 20 years ago when I lived there (in Oak Park not in the bar).

We headed home after the end of the second period and were able to catch the end of the third by the time we got home. The Hawks won 5-1 and moved on to the Western conference finals against San Jose while the Sox also won against the Twins at Target field. And the Cubs, well they lost again.

We were home by 11 so there was still time to watch the episode of LOST we recorded. What the heck? It sure seems like they are trying to cram way too much explanation into these episodes. As must as I hate to wait a week for a new one, I think I would prefer if they took a little more time to flesh out all that loose ends that they are trying to wrap up. I wonder if the rumors are true that the writers were still writing the final episodes a few weeks into the new seasons. A story line this complex has a lot of baggage from the first 5 seasons that all weigh heavily on how they are going to explain all this. I don’t think I like the way it is going.

May 8, 2010

Welding Class Final

It is always sad when you come to the end of something, whether it be a vacation, a job, a relationship or in this case, a class that I really enjoyed. Over the past 16 weeks, I have commented on many of my experiences in the class. This unfortunately is my last one for this class. I plan on taking an advanced welding class, but I am not able to do so until fall as there are no Saturday classes offered during the summer.

I left the house at 7 am, a little earlier than usual. I wanted to stop and pickup some doughnut holes for the class to enjoy before the test. Little did i know three other people had almost the same idea. When I arrived , there were three dozen doughnuts on the work table to which I added my box of doughnut holes. Lots of sugar to keep us going today. A few of us had also agreed to wear orange tee shirts on this final day as kind of a homage to our instructor Ted. Ted has worn an orange tee shirt to class every Saturday for the past 16 weeks and today was no exception. Unfortunately only one other guy besides me, remembered to wear the orange tee. Regardless, Ted got a kick out of it, which was the intent.

As I mentioned last week, I had two more TIG labs to complete and I was intent on getting both of them done today no matter what. We all signed in and received a quick run down of what today would look like: Two hours in the lab, one hour of review and one hour to take the final. We exited the class room and made a dash for the lab. I say dash because everyone knew they only had two hours to complete whatever labs they had left and there were only so many booths setup for each of the four welding processes. There were only six booths setup for TIG which is what I was concentrating on finishing today and by the time I got out there four of them were already taken. The only two left were booth three which is the messed up one I worked with last week, and booth two which had no firebrick on the bench and a fairly new machine. The firebrick is usually to the side of the metal grate welding surface so that you can set your pliers, goggles filler rod etc. The brick does not conduct electricity so it is safe to set all your ‘stuff’ that you are not directly using during the weld.

I decided to use booth two so I went into booth three and grabbed half a dozen bricks to at least fill half the bench surface. That way I was able to spread out my equipment and work comfortably in the booth. I assembled my TIG torch, turned on the Argon gas flow, turned on the welding machine, checked all the settings and hit the foot pedal to test the gas flow. All system go. Off to the dreaded sand blaster.

Luckily I only had to clean four or five pieces of steel for these two exercises so I would only waste maybe 30 minutes on the cleaning process. The blasting booth was not any better this week and actually it seemed a little worse than usual. I had to keep pumping the gun trigger to get any noticeable sand flow to come out of the nozzle. I decided to only do one edge of each of the two steel pieces that would be used for the butt joint. Since only about 1/2 inch down the length of each piece would be touched by the arc, that is all I really needed to clean. I only did two pieces to start as I was anxious to get to the actual welding.

Back in the booth, I arranged the two pieces of steel on the metal welding surface, about an eighth of an inch apart with one inch of each piece hanging over the table edge. I do the overhang so that I can tack the end together with a quick weld. I then flip the two pieces around and tack the other end. If I did not do this, the two pieces would move closer together as the metal heated up during the weld.

With both ends tacked and cooled enough to hold the pieces steady, I checked my helmet settings, grabbed a filler rod and started the but joint weld. I was immediately in the grove making small concentric circles as I added filler to the weld. The soft blue arc and the gentle buzz of the torch was very soothing and as always helped me concentrate on the task at hand. Once I start doing this at home, I can’t wait to add some classical music or maybe some Stones to the mix. Zen indeed.

I completed the butt joint with almost 100% penetration across the length of the gap. Not perfect but good enough to turn in with limited time. I quickly walked back to the blasting booth and did three more pieces of steel. I wanted to try the butt one more time to see if I got better results and I still need to do some straight beads with filler on the surface. Ten minutes later the blasting was done and I was back in the booth. I tried the butt joint one more with the same results so I set those two aside to clean up later and jumped on the filler task.

The filler task went very well as I have a pretty steady hand and the only trick is to feed the filler rod into the heat but not into the arc so that it melts in as evenly as possible. The goal is to have a nice straight bead with even height across the whole length of the plate. I ran six rows of beads with filler and was satisfied with the results, so I took that plate and the original butt joint task over to the quenching tank (we need to cool the metal in water in order to work with it without gloves), dried them off with the air hose and polished them up with the grinder for submittal.

I finished both tasks with 15 minutes to go, so I cleaned up my booth and headed back to the classroom for the review. We spent the next hour reviewing what we had learned in the past 16 weeks, then we jumped online to take the final. 30 minutes later I was done as were most of the other guys, so we went back to our seats until everyone was finished. By 11:45 everyone was done and we all sat around for the last 15 minutes talking to and thanking the instructor for his time and talents.

I really enjoyed the class and was glad I was able to fit it in this spring. I look forward to the advanced class in the fall and can’t wait to do my own setup in the planned shed in the backyard.

May 1, 2010

Mind The Gap

Last Saturday I missed welding class since I was in Minnesota for Jen’s Volleyball tournament. I had just started in TIG (GTAW or Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) and I was anxious to get back to it and finish my last two exercises. Two weeks ago I had finished the simple exercise of laying down plain stringer beads with no filler and I still needed to complete the stringer with filler and the dreaded butt joint.

I grabbed a booth as soon as I got to class and requested the necessary parts from the instructor to setup my machine. Once you start TIG our instructor gives you a Ziploc bag that must be turned in at the end of the day. The bag contains the tungsten rod, gas diffuser, cup and Colette that attach to the welding torch that we use.

I setup the torch, turned on my gas supply (Argon Gas), turned on the TIG Machine hit the foot pedal to test the gas settings and was just about ready to go. That is when the fun (sarcasm) started.

One of my class mates Bill, wanted to share the booth with me which I agreed to. We had both started the class in January as lab partners and had gotten along very well. We were both able to look at each others work and make constructive suggestions for improvement. So he brought his helmet, gloves, Ziploc etc into the booth and sat down to get started. Just then my instructor Ted came up and asked me to move to another booth thinking we could get more done if we did not have to split time on the machine. I reluctantly agreed and moved to the only other open TIG booth. Little did he know that move would waste so much more time than it would save.

The first issue was this booth had one of if not the oldest TIG machines in the lab. Every thing was manual on the box which is great if this is the welder you have in your shop and you need to weld on all different types of metals and most importantly, you have experience with this particular machine and know all the settings.

Ted said he would set it up for me and all I had to do was setup the torch and adjust the gas. I went down to the original booth, got my gear and proceeded to setup the torch. Right off the bat things did not look good. There are threads on the heat side of the torch where you screw in a nozzle that allows the shielding gas to surround the Tungsten rod protecting it from contamination by oxygen as you weld. Some of the threads were cracked off but not enough to impact the gas flow, or so I thought. I assembled the torch, set my Argon gas flow, turned on the welder and hit the pedal (starts the flow of gas and controls the amperage of electrical current) and all looked good. I put on my gloves, placed my 2” x 4” steel plate on the welding surface, put on my helmet and got into position to start a bead on the steel surface. I hit the pedal and….nothing. I backed ff the pedal and tried again. Still nothing. I tried again and this time I waited almost 10 seconds and finally the arc started, but the arc was not small and precise, it was all over the place and very sloppy.

The TIG arc should be very fine and precise if you have all your equipment tuned in correctly so I knew something was wrong with the machine. After all, it could not be me right?

I turned everything off, disassembled the torch and asked Ted to come take a look. I expressed my concern about the wear on the torch assembly and he agreed that this would impact gas flow and on closer inspection discovered there was a part part missing inside.

We spent the next 45 minutes removing the old torch and refitting a new one. I took an extended period of time because TIG torches are water cooled and when you remove the water hose from the welding machine there is water leakage so I had to clean the floor to a completely dry state so as to not risk electrical shock when I fired it up again. The 12 foot torch cables (water, positive electric and negative electric) are also housed in a rubberized/Velcro type sheath so we had to take that off the old torch and fit it on to the new one.

Pain in the butt right? Well the upside is I got hands on changing out a torch instead of just reading about it which non of the other students had a chance to do. I like to try and find positives in most any situation and this was a prime example.

So once again I repeated my checklist to fire up the machine and start welding. The arc was a little smaller but I still noticed that it was dancing all over the metal and it started to pulse on and off. The arc should be a nice steady and quite blue glow almost mesmerizing. Something was still wrong. I checked the settings on the machine and called Ted over. We both noticed the major issue almost immediately. The machine was set for AC instead of DC. What the heck? So the person who was previously in the booth was probably welding aluminum and had not set the machine back to DC as they are supposed to do when they are done for the day. I joked with Ted that this is the last time I trust him to setup the machine himself without me checking his work and he responded with a sly smile that he did it on purpose to see if I was paying attention.

We only have two hours in the lab next Saturday and then we take the final that same day to complete the class. I have three exercises still to complete and had hoped to knock out two labs today and have only one to do next week before the final.

But hope will only get you so far as all the equipment issues were making the 4 hour class disappear faster than I wanted. Even after all the repair and checking the machine was still not kicking in when I pressed the pedal so I decide not to mess around and I jumped back into my original booth with Bill. He agreed to let me share time with him and we at least had the advantage of two tungsten rods to share.

Tungsten rods can become contaminated pretty easy if you are not careful to keep them out of contact with your molten metal pool especially if you are using filler rods to add to you weld. If the rod becomes contaminated, you need to stop shut off the power, remove the rod, grind off the contaminate then use a special tungsten grinder to clean it even more and shape it to a fine tip. By having two rods, we could quickly switch out one rod and keep working while the other lab partner went to remove the contaminate. We could switch off as many times as we needed and save at least a little time.

As soon I fired up his machine sat down to do my first test bead all was right with the world. The torch immediately produced a small, quiet, beautiful blue pointed heat source. I moved effortlessly across the steel surface and produced smooth concentric circles across the length of the surface. I was back in the grove and fired up to complete at least one task today. I let Bill jump back on to work on his task while I went to clean a few pieces of metal for my butt joint lab.

I mentioned that tungsten rods can easily become contaminated so you must be careful to have a clean metal surface before you even start welding on it. In our class we use a sandblaster to prep the surface of our steel coupons (the 2”x”4 metal pieces) before we start welding on them. This extra step unfortunately adds quite a bit of time to our day as only one student at a time can use the small enclosure to clean parts and the machine has a pressure problem so what should take 2-3 minutes can take 7-10, per piece. Picture a scientist working with dangerous materials where the but their hands into two openings outside a glass windows. the openings feed into rubber gloves and give you access to a spray nozzle that shoots out the compressed stream of sand. One of you hands controls the nozzle gun and the other hand holds whatever you are blasting. Although the sand will scour the metal surface it just bounces off the heavy rubber gloves and leaves them unharmed.

I was able to finish the butt joint after just a few tries of getting the gap right. The gap is the distance between the two pieces of metal and it must be great enough to allow total penetration (the metal from the two pieces melts together and flows into the gap all the way through) but not so great as to cause the edges of both pieces to melt away and not bond.

The day could have gone better but in the end I learned more about overcoming problems with TIG than I had anticipated. Next Saturday, the final.

April 25, 2010

Northern Lights Qualifier – Day 3

The girls less than optimal finish yesterday put them in the ‘B’ flight for today’s single elimination play, but their overall finish for the first two days was good enough to earn them a bye for the first round. Their first game did not start until 11am so the girls did not have to be in the lobby till 9am for breakfast and the walk over to the venue.

Today’s match did not fare much better although we took the Crossfire team to 3 games, but in the end could not pull off the win. Loosing one match sends you home so we were done by about 12:30 and were back at the hotel by 1 for the girls to do a quick change for the caravan back to Illinois. I had checked us out and packed the car before play started this morning so we really just needed to hop in, point the car south and hit the gas.

My mom is from Owatonna which is about an hour south of the twin cities straight down 35W. She grew up it a beautiful white Victorian house on the corner of University and Cedar which is still owned by a relative of her sister. We we going thru Winona on the way home to look at St. Mary’s University (where my dad, uncle and brother went to school) so we decided to take a small detour and drive by the house. The owner is unfortunately in the hospital so we were not able to go inside and show Victoria (Jenna’s team mate who stayed and rode with us) the old homestead. We did a quick drive by and made a stop at DQ for lunch, this being Jenna’s first time eating non ice cream at a DQ. Not a big deal but it is one of those things where you can look back when someone ask you if you ever had a burger at DQ and you can say ‘Yep, my first time was in Owatonna Minnesota.”

Back on the road we drove through Rochester, home of the Mayo Clinic where my grandfather was a surgeon and my grandmother was a nurse. I had neglected to share this info with Jenna and was cracked up when she saw the sign advertising the clinic and asked if the did Mayonnaise research there. I answered that it was in fact founded by Dr. William Worrall Mayo, a frontier doctor, and his two sons , Dr. William J. Mayo and Dr. Charles Mayo, and that her great grandparents were helpful in saving many lives there.

Winona is only about 55 minutes from Rochester (2.5 hours from Minneapolis) just off the Mississippi river, and St. Mary’s itself is nestled against a small set of mountains in just outside the downtown area. Last time I was at the University I was 10 or 11 years old and we were there for one of my dad’s reunions. Back then it was still called St. Mary’s College and The College of St. Teresa also in Winona was still open. St. Teresa was the all girls school that my mom went to and St. Mary was all boys when they attended.

There were quite a few new buildings including a very impressive athletic facility and some new administration buildings. Most of the original buildings that I remember were still there and seeing them brought back some good memories of my visit there in the early 70’s. Jen has been to Purdue many times with us and St. Mary’s is quite a contrast in size (only about 5000 students compared to Purdue’s 40,000 students). Her high school graduating class size will be over 1200 which is just a little less than the undergrad size at St. Mary’s.

This is one of the first schools we have visited for her and it was a good initial step towards college. She likes the volleyball program they have and the small class sizes (12-1 ratio) and the majors she is interested in. It worked out well that we could make the trip on our way back from the tournament.

All in all it was a nice weekend. I don’t usually get to do these tournaments alone with her so I enjoyed spending the time in the car and with family while we were there. I will have to see if I can convince the wife to skip the next tournament as well.

April 24, 2010

Northern Lights Qualifier – Day 2

Pool play started at 8am but due to a miscommunication I arrived for a 9am start, so I missed the first match which they unfortunately lost to a local team from Minnesota. The first match was against the third seed in the whole tournament so the girls knew it would be a tough match. According to the other parents our team played very well and hung in with the bigger girls but could not pull it out in the end.

Since we lost the first one, the girls are were off for an hour then had to ref for an hour and did not get back to play until 11am. They then had to play back to back matches against a team from Texas and a team from California. Although they played hard, they lost both matches and were done with their day by 1pm.

Jen

Dinner tonight was scheduled for the Rainforest Cafe in the Mall of America so Jenna and I took advantage of the early finish and went over to see her great uncle Steve who lives with his wife Vicky near Minnetonka. Vicky is the author of books like 500 Things to Do With Baking Soda. You can find some of her books over at Bookpeddlers.

We were able to spend a relaxing 90 minutes with them which allowed Jenna to catch up as she had not seen them both since their wedding more than a year ago. Steve has been a wonderful influence on both my kids and I try and make sure we got to see them whenever we are in town. I have been back there a few times on business since their wedding, but this has been Jenna’s first chance. I will be back up there in July so my son can spend a little bonding time with Steve at a Sox/Twins game.

I had suggested that the girls take the light rail from downtown to the Mall of America as not many parents volunteered to drive the girls to dinner. Since Jen and I were doing family things we could not offer to drive. The two moms who went along took my advice and got the girls to the train and to the Mall an hour before dinner so they could do some shopping or for those who had never been here, just walk around and see it all.

I guess I am a little jaded as I have been here many times and I am just not that much of a shopper. We have Woodfield Mall which is about 35 minutes from my house and it has just as much shopping square footage as MoA but no amusement park, so if I get a hankering to spend, I can just go there. Some of the girls were looking for prom dresses which tells me either they like to leave things till the last minute and they have probably not thought about having to return the dress to Minnesota if their is a problem, unless they buy it from a store that has a presence in Illinois. Only one girl ended up buying a dress; all the other girls just enjoyed looking and commenting.

So it ended up being me and two moms at the bar with 12 girls at their own table. It had been a long time, probably 10 years since I had been to a Rainforest Cafe and I believe it was the one in Woodfield Mall. The kids were small then and that is just one of those places you take the kids for the things that go on around you during dinner. As I recall the food was ok and not really the reason you go there. Tonight though I was pleasantly surprised by the the items I ordered. I chose the soup/salad combo which paired a nice tomato basil soup and cranberry walnut salad. The soup was nice an hot with just the right acidity and a not at all overpowering taste of basil throughout. I can immediately tell if there is too much salt in something, as it starts to make me cough. Needless to say this was perfectly seasoned and I did not cough but did get the hiccups as I consumed the delicious starter way too fast.

The Jungle Chop Salad (cute name) was equally perfect with fresh greens, black olives, cucumbers, carrots, red cabbage, pecans, Blue cheese crumbles, dried cranberries and grilled chicken tossed in a raspberry vinaigrette. there was just enough dressing to lightly coat the lettuce leaves and the portion was enough to be filling in combination with the soup. Paired with a nice glass of wine it was a pleasant finish to a memorable day with my daughter. Although I was not at the table with her I could see her enjoying herself with the other girls just a few yards away.

A few of the other parents showed up after dinner so some of the girls took the train back to the city and the others hitched a ride with their parents. We offered to take some of the girls back to the hotel with us in the car but the ones who did not have a parent along decided to take the train back downtown.

Play does not start until 11 tomorrow (we have a bye for the first round) so getting back to the hotel at ten was acceptable. Off to bed.

April 23, 2010

Northern Lights Qualifier – Day 1

The girls don’t start pool play till 3PM today so Jen and I started off with a nice walk around Minneapolis. The weather was a beautiful 58 and sunny just perfect for a nice stroll around the city. I get up here quite a bit on business so I was able to navigate around and show Jen some of the buildings and sites that I am familiar with. Matt and I are coming up here in July for the Twins Sox game so I wanted to take a walk over to the new Target field a check it out. Wow. Even from the outside it was a very impressive structure. We were able to stop in the gift shop and pick up an opening day shirt for Matt but that was all we could really see. Can’t wait for July. We made a quick Target stop for supplies and then went back to the hotel to meet the team for lunch ($5 foot longs for everyone).

The first match was against STC Xplosion a team from St. Charles, Missouri. Both teams were pretty evenly matched as far as skill and size but in the end they out hustled us and we lost the match in two games. The next match went better against High voltage, a team from Texas. We won that one in three games. The final match of the day against Legacy Lightening from Michigan also ended in a victory for our girls. The girls took it to three games but outlasted the opponents and came away with the win.

The coach was in a foul mood today and she made the girls do pushups in the final match during the timeouts and after the game she made them run lines on the court and a full lap around the complex. It was funny hearing the comments from some of the other teams parents asking why the girls were running when they thought we had won the match. We did. Good thing they didn’t loose.

We all went back to the hotel and got cleaned up before the planned dinner. Tonight we had a reservation at ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ on 9th just off of Nicollet. Hell’s Kitchen reminded me of a cross between the House of Blues and Dick’s Last Resort. You enter off street level then take an elevator or stairs down (going into ‘Hell’) to the actual entrance. Once inside you are greeted with a funky combination of eclectic art, cabaret style seating in front of the stage (they have live music) and cozy table in the main room and two ‘anti’ rooms.

The girls all sat at one table with the coach in the main room near the stage and the parents were ushered into the fireplace room away from the girls. We did not see them all night until a few of them showed up at our table asking for cash to pay their bill, which was the plan.

The food here was excellent. I thought Ted’s Montana Grill had the best Bison burger but this place has taken over as my choice for the best non beef burger. I ordered mine medium rare, with Blue Cheese and a side of Sweet Potato fries. They got the doneness just right which is not easy to do. At first look, the meat was brown all the way through but when you bit into the burger you then see just a tough of pink so it was perfect. If you have ever cooked bison, it can be tough to get the temperature or doneness correct. Since bison is so lean there is not much fat to make the burger moist. When we cook them we usually put a saucepan top over the meat when it is on the grill or griddle. This helps retain the moisture and makes for a nice burger. Other people will cut up sun dried tomatoes or other types of vegetables and mix them in with the meat to give the patty extra moisture.

Everyone at the table was complimentary towards the food and the wait staff. Highly recommended.

They also have awesome homemade peanut butter which I am getting all over the keyboard as I type this.

We got back to the hotel at about 11 so the girls had a quick team meeting to talk about tomorrow then we were all off to bed as they were pretty wiped out from the first day of play.

Tomorrow …pool play day two.

April 22, 2010

Northern Lights Qualifier

This weekend my daughter is participating in the 2010 Northern Lights volleyball qualifier in Minneapolis. We decided that instead of doing the normal flying thing, we would make a road trip out of it. Flying is of course more expensive but not only that, it is too quick. To quick you say? Yes too quick. When your kids get in high school and sometimes even in grade school, they have so many things going on that it is easy to loose track of them and what they are doing and becoming. Taking a nice long ride, 6 hours in this case, gives you a chance to find out what is going on in their lives and maybe do just a few silly things. Of course if you have a communication issue with your teen, then a 45 minute plane ride might be more attractive to you. If that is the case I still suggest you bite the bullet and make an effort to reconnect.

Driving through the outer reaches of Wisconsin there is not much choice in the way of radio stations. You either have country or strangely enough 70’s and 80’s music, with the later getting the thumbs up from me. Normally Jen will bring her own device full of music, but in my vehicle I only have an iPod connector that I installed about 2 years ago when I bought the car. We are both moving away from the Apple ecosystem (being a techy I don’t like being told what I can and cannot do to or put on my device, but I will leave that for another post) so Jen had her Zune HD and I had my soon to be replaced by the HTC Incredible, iPhone with mostly podcasts on it. We were soon into a game of guess that artist/tune on the ‘Classic’ rock station (if that is classic music then I guess I am considered a classic too but I will have to confirm that with my wife). I have made some effort over the years to introduce my kids to the ‘good’ music of the 60’s thru the 80’s, minus most of the hair bands. Jen is already a fan of AC/DC, The Who, Springsteen, The Beatles etc so she did very well in guessing most of the artists and only fell short when dipping back into the early 70’s for Badfinger, T-Rex and late 70’s for Rupert Holmes (who doesn’t like Pina Colada’s).

My Facebook friends are familiar with a game I like to play called ‘Where In The World Am I?’, that involves me posting a picture and having people guess the location. I play this game to remind people that there is so much to see in our everyday lives and travels. We are in such a hurry that we miss many interesting things along the way and I was very guilty of this before I started the game.

On this road trip we stopped just outside Black River Falls, WI for a bio break so I thought I would look for an item to post as a clue for the game. As luck would have it there were a few items to choose from and I finally decided to use the the Passenger Pigeon marker as kind of a tribute to earth day. The marker explains that all the passenger pigeons have become extinct and infers that we should take a step back and look at what we are doing to the earth and the creatures that live on it.

One of my other choices for a clue was a sign that commemorated the Black River Falls Forest Fire that happened in 1977. This one was a bit ironic as we came upon a huge fire later that evening near Menomonie, WI. I only had my point and shoot with me so I was unable to get a good close up shot but the some and orange glow was visible for miles.

I wanted to get out of the car and take some better shots with the DSLR but I-94 was pretty busy with truck traffic and there was not much of a shoulder to stop the car on. Oh well, still exciting.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and we pulled into the hotel at about 10:30. We stayed at this DoubleTree 3 years ago when we were here for the same tournament. Nice enough property for the price, right on Nicollet and 11th so only a few blocks from the volleyball venue and the light rail to the airport and Mall of America (we are with teenage girls who want to shop).

Tomorrow we start play. Good luck IPV.