November 24, 2024

Poll Watching 2024

Poll Watching in Rural Minnesota 2024

I’m writing about my experiences and observations as a volunteer, not about my personal views on how the election turned out or why. That’s something that I will do in a future post.

What Does a Poll Watcher Do?

I volunteered to be a poll watcher (it’s officially called appointed poll challenger in Minnestota) for the DFL (Democratic) party in Minnesota. This was a record year for Democratic campaign volunteering, and the number of volunteers for poll challengers more than doubled any previous year.

September 15, 2024

Small Towns: Redwing Minnesota

Is there anything more hopeful than Main Street

I love walking through the business district of small towns and take a careful look at the buildings. Here in Minnesota, many of these buildings are well over 100 years old, and they were clearly a source of pride to the townspeople that built them.

Take a look at the top of these buildings and you’ll notice masonry details like toothing / dentil courses, artistic stone work, and family names added to the building. These towns built elegant and ornate municipal buildings to host public performances and lectures, and you’ll often find a library building that was funded by Andrew Carnegie.

February 10, 2024

Good Bye Upper Sioux

Land Returning to the Upper Sioux

The soon to be former Minnesota Upper Sioux state park will be transfered back to the Sioux community next week, so we took advantage of the crazy warm weather to visit. We weren’t alone in that thought as there were many people out, on what would normally be lovely spring weather.

The State DNR had already closed the offices in preparation for the transfer. I had a severely pulled calf muscle, so climbing hills was out for me. I went to view the former Agency site, while Jane and Penny took a walk through the back trails.

November 4, 2023

Barcelona

What I Learned While Working in Barcelona for a Week

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. – Mark Twain

I recently had the great pleasure to travel to Barcalona. It was a work trip, and we spent most of our time in the hotel working, but the experience gave me some important perspectives that I’d like to share here.

April 23, 2023

Intentions

Recently I’ve had a lot of things pop up that remind me to continue to set intentions and to follow through on them - and that both steps are required to get results.

The way to achieve anything in life is to value the goal, understand the steps required to reach the goal, and the consistent pursuit of it.

It’s as easy and as difficult as that.

The Rich Life

I was most recently reminded of this when watching How to Get Rich on Netflix. Now, I’m not looking to have a financial fortune, but I am looking to live the life I want, which is really the point of the show.

March 19, 2023

Whats Wrong With That

What’s Wrong With That

This week, I participated with members of my management cohort in a retrospective of a training course we took on sharing feedback. What struck me the most about our discussion was how we took the idea of giving feedback from a one-way communication to one that is more… human.

Giving someone feedback can be tricky. Receiving it can be too. Putting thought into how someone else may feel, and how best to prepare to have a meaningful conversation is at least as important as what you’ve got to say.

February 12, 2023

Its the Simple Things

It’s the Simple Things

The best times don’t cost much money, just a bit of our time.

Think about the best times of your life and I bet they will involve moments with people you love. For me, that’s been time in the kitchen with my mother, grandma, partners, sister, nieces, and nephews. There have been many moments with smiles, laughs, and love. Other moments would be fishing with my father, going to the Dam store with my grandpa or uncles, or just listening to their stories of a rowdy childhod.

April 12, 2022

Jude

Good-bye Little Jude

Spotlight on Jude

We said good-bye to Jude today. The loss hit me much harder than I expected. Afterall, we met late in her life and hadn’t known each other that long. Plus, she was a pain in the ass - something I told her often, usually after being on the receiving end of one of her loud and long complaints.

But as happens with housemates, we were affectionate and had our routines. At night, I’d lay on my side and bend one knee, making a little nest for her to sleep in. She was surprisingly tolerant of my nighttime movements, given her frequent and loud vocalizations during the day regarding the quality of food, or how promptly it appeared in her dish.

January 8, 2022

It's Been a Ride

How It Started

My life was going along pretty great. I was feeling good in all phases of my life: spiritual, mental, and physical. Work was going well. I was getting ready for our wedding, and getting the van ready for a trip out West.

And then I remembered that I needed to get that mammogram scheduled.

I got the mammogram. I always have to go back for a second one and an ultrasound, so when that happened I wasn’t too concerned. But when I was getting the ultrasound, I kinda had a feeling this time was different. That feeling was confirmed when the radiologist came in to double check. He explained to me that I had a lump that’s been there for years, but this time something looked different about it, and the only way to check it out is a biopsy.

December 9, 2021

Just When You Think You're Out

They Pull You Back In

This week I got to meet with both my surgeon and oncologist. I received the results from the second surgery, and the good news is that we have clean margins this time, so no more surgery. So that second surgery that I really, really didn’t want to have, was really, really important for me to have.

The less good news is that the lump of cancer cells in there was bigger than they thought.