In case there was any doubt about the place in which we reside (upper Midwest/Arctic region) the big dumping of white wet snow should have cleared that right up. The last two days have seen a very healthy accumulation of snow and people are quickly relearning their driving skills, how their back pains them so after an hour of shoveling, how to dress warmly to avoid skin exposure... ah, yes, winter is back in Minnesota.
Everything is coated in snow -- street signs are unreadable, trees are encased and burdened down, lawns have disappeared. It is very beautiful. In fact, when I am out shoveling, I feel I have to be careful and not disturb the natural beauty of how the snow has fallen. If I scoop up some leaves with the snow -- horror. I have to make sure to cover them up with some fresh snow so as to not mar the landscape. And I have to be extra careful when walking next to trees, shrubs and plants so I don't dislodge the thick white shell of snow. Sure, it's rather goofy, but I want to appreciate it while it looks so great.

I got up this morning and thought I'd better go for at least a short run before heading home to Mom's house and gorging on turkey, potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, salad, buns, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc, and it was quite surprising how many delicious aromas I encountered on my jaunt through the neighborhood at 9:00am today. I was enticed on every street!
This brought me back to the realization (which doesn't occur often enough) that changing your scale of experience is worth the effort. If your scale is always the scale of speeding around in a car, the scenery and surroundings blur past you. On bike or foot, you observe more, connect more, appreciate more and this is a good thing. Try it.
Mom put on a great feast today -- everything was awesome. Thanks Mom. We also watched "The Philadelphia Story" and I got a kick out of it. I dig old movies.

If you use or read a "free" site on the web, you should take a couple minutes and read The Libera Manifesto. This thing rings pretty true. Some of us just have a need to create things (words, pictures, songs, etc) and it would be most welcome to get a little feedback or praise or thanks or maybe even a little donation. Appreciate your "free" creator today!

I was doing some sleuthing yesterday for stuff not at all related to bike maps when I can across the Hennepin County Bicycle System Plan. You must simply download the PDF maps for Hennepin County -- wow. Detailed and accurate and wonderful. Very handy. Tell your biking friends!

I got some theater gift certificates a few weeks ago (awesome gift idea) and had read a very favorable review of the French film "Amelie", which I had already been curious about due to the trailer. Add to this the fact that it is another film from Jeunet ("Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children") and I couldn't resist going to see it.
This film has now moved to the top of my favorite films list and I'll get the DVD the minute it comes out so I can watch it over and over. I couldn't stop smiling once the film had finished and I wanted to stay and watch it over again right away. What a treat!
The characters are all utterly fantastic and quirky and interesting. The cinematography is dreamy and gorgeous and makes me want to go to Paris. The situations are humorous and imaginative. And the lead, played by Audrey Tatou, well, she just nails it with her naivete, fantasies, and her charming good looks.
You will most definitely enjoy this film experience so rush out and see it today.

Whoa. This could be huge. Their last big breakthrough brought about the Zip drives we all know and love and this could be the next big step. FujiFilm's NanoCubic tecnology could allow a 3 gigabyte Zip or a 1 terabyte tape (uncompressed!) for data or video. That is about 400 hours per tape (of video). Zoinks! I hope to see these tapes on the market soon and I hope they work in existing DV cameras!

The Aurora Borealis hit big on Monday night and I missed the show. So Tuesday night I went out to the country... and drove and drove and looked and searched and waited patiently for over two hours and finally I saw... nothing. I was disappointed. The images I saw of the spectacular lights Monday night were so ... what's the word? Spiritual? Magic? Awesome? Well, it was a nice enough night anyway and kinda relaxing to just sit and look at the night sky away from the city lights. Check out what you missed (or what other people saw) on Monday night.

You can learn dance fundamentals for five different music styles at this site. Wow.

Another stunningly unusual November day here in Minnesota and I went out mountain biking this morning before work. Actually, was 1/2 hour late for work and was really tempted to call-in 'sick'. Wait, wouldn't it be more like, call in healthy? Hmmm... well, it was a beautiful day, a great ride, a good workout and it did seem to make work a wee more tolerable.
Oh, and a new version of MovableType to play with! Whoopee!

This morning I got up and drove over to Highland Park to attend my sister's weekly session at Circus Juventis -- a place that actually teaches circus techniques to aspiring folk. Nah, not the clown or animal stuff, but the acrobatic, trapeze, unicycle type of thing. Cool. I filmed my sister performing her trapeze skills and I even (all in the name of shooting good video) climbed all the way up to the trapeze platform with no safety harness and filmed from upon high. A bit nervous, I was. It was fun, but my sister was disappointed that she didn't convince me to take the fun way down -- via trapeze. I climbed down the tiny rope ladder instead.

I stopped at the video store on the way home and picked up a few DVDs for my collection (on sale cheap): Chocolat and The House Of Mirth. I also got a few empty cases (for those home-brew video projects!).
Upon arriving at home, I loaded up my mountain bike and drove out to Derrick's house where we transferred to his truck and drove down to the Louisville Swamp (where the annual Renaissance Festival is held). Not a very technical trail, but it was a fun ride and the weather was stunningly nice. There is this giant rock out in the middle of this field, a total anomaly. It is about 16 feet high by about 20 feet in diameter and appears to be a mixture of solid granite and some other dark dense rock. The view from on high is nice. How many other people have stood there over the millenia?
I stopped by the new SuperTarget store, just out of curiousity, and ended up purchasing a new Hoover vaccuum cleaner. Well, I needed one anyway as my old one broke months ago and the one I was borrowing had to be returned. I bought a couple other small things. I think it is true: you can't go to Target without dropping about $100.
When I got home in the evening, I made some dinner and watched 'Chocolat' -- what a wonderfully great movie. I really liked it and recommend it to all. The thing that confused me, though, is why they deleted the scenes they did (in the Deleted Scenes section) -- they fit perfectly in the movie and probably only saved them 10 minutes of time. Why?

Get thee to yon Apple website and download the new (and FREE) update to iTunes (v2.0) -- featuring a 10-band equalizer (finally! and awesome) and the ability to cross-fade tracks while playing (party music!) not to mention the ability to create audio or MP3 CDs from within iTunes and more. A nice update to a nice audio program. I mean, really, the internal database and instantaneous searches are worth the use of this software alone.