Minnesota Red Bull Flugtag 2010 Video

It's a bit long, and obviously amateur, but gives you a good idea of the event.

Enjoy!

Red Bull gives you wings

Well, it turns out Red Bull might give you wings, but that doesn't mean it can make you fly. I went to the Red Bull Flugtag in St. Paul. This silly event is, in sum, a bunch of crazy half-cocked people who come up with looney devices, with wings, then dress up, do a little dance, and push them off a 30-foot cliff into the Mississippi River.

My friend Sarah was Snoopy atop the dog house. Although often they do little more than hang on for dear life as the craft barrels toward the water, they call this brave soul the "pilot." She and her crew are aerospace engineers. Sadly, that seemed to help them little since the crosswind nearly blew their plane off the top of the house seconds before they were supposed to push it down the track towards the water. The announcer said in 14 years he had never seen a pilot look so terrified.

She survived the 3o-foot drop into the river, but managed to fly only about 30 feet away from the platform. Whew! It was hot, it was packed (over 90,000 people crammed in to watch these lunatics!) and it was fun. I posted a video that shows some of the 37 crafts, including Snoopy, going off the platform. One craft even won the world record. It's hard to see it in the video, but it's basically the only one that doesn't crash in the first 2 seconds. It flew 207 feet out into the river!

I would definately go again.

Visitors

I had the joy of hosting my friend Molly and her beau Patrick while they were in town last week. Now that I've plopped down half-way across the country, as you can imagine the only person who comes to visit me (for no other reason than to visit me) is my Mom. I thank the others of you who have worked me into return trips from more exciting places. Molly and Patrick were on a whirlwind trip across the Midwest, and the first thing they said when they walked in my door was "Ah! We knew you would have air conditioning." Probably one of the most pleasurable parts of their visit was being able to commiserate with other Coloradans. This last part of July, the humidity has truly darn-near killed me. It's disgusting.
Other pleasurable parts of their visit:
I geared up for the gastronomic tour I had planned for us by hitting the farmers market in Plymouth, which is a new addition around here this summer. It just started 3 weeks ago, and already I know I will go every week until they shut it down. It was marvelous! The variety is great, the people are lovely, and all the food is grown or produced (there are a couple bakeries, pickle, jam and granola makers and ranchers) within 50 miles of Plymouth. For those of you not in the know about green living, buying food locally not only supports local businesses but cuts down on the environmental impact your food choices have. For example, items shipped from far away (like the frozen shrimp I get at the grocery store-whoops!) require energy to be kept frozen and require fuel to be driven or flown to the destination, and all this contributes to a bigger carbon footprint. Essentially, even if you think Al Gore and his global warming threats are myth, it can't possibly hurt anything to reduce the cost and the CO2 impact of my food.
Did I mention the food from the farmer's market was marvelous? It was so great I went again yesterday. Can't wait until next Wednesday!
So, the gastronomic tour: We had a nicoise-style salad with hard boiled eggs, olives, anchovies, boiled potatoes, green beans, grilled red onions, purple and green bell peppers, and homemade Dijon vinaigrette. To accompany that, we had grilled kabobs with shrimp and smoked sausage and some fresh Onion Caraway Rye bread from a local bakery. Divine.
The next morning, Molly and I sat in our pajamas until noon, doing what friends do over good coffee. My family uses a term, visiting, that I think has lost it's meaning in my generation of tweeters, bloggers, texters and skypers. I "visited" with a friend for 3 hours with 2 pots of coffee, and it was just great. I can't even remember what we talked about, and it doesn't matter. I think a million gurus can write books and magazine articles about how to de-stress, how to find balance in your life, how to be successful. None of them would tell you to sit in your pajamas with a good friend drinking coffee all morning, "visiting," but that is the secret to a good life.

Let the recapping begin

Summer seems to go this way, or maybe it's law school, or maybe it's both. All these fantastic, idyllic and wonderful moments happen, I think "I will blog about this" and then weeks go by. Then I have to recap them in some cramped way so that my post isn't too long. Well, this time, I'm just going to write all the shorter, more concise blog posts I would have written if I had the time, at the time. So, you're inbox will be full with my updates today instead of over the course of 3 weeks. I'm sure you'll cope.

The Garden:

Oh! The masterpiece that my garden has become! I'd like to remind you of its humble beginnings:

And, now:

As my friend Molly put it, I now have tomato hedges. Our green beans and carrots recovered spectacularly from the rabbit invasion. I sprayed hot sauce on all our plants every night for about a month, and we put in a chicken wire fence that the rabbits can't chew through. The garden seems to have been left alone since. Sadly, most of our fellow gardeners didn't take action and many of their gardens were ravaged to the point of destruction.

We have enjoyed many of the fruits of our labor. 2 green bell peppers, 7 jalapenos, 28 grape tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, 32 green beans and lots of fresh herbs. I had my study buddies over for mojitos with mint from my garden, but that's another blog post...stay tuned!

It has proved to be an obsession. We had severe weather the other night. I saw bubbly clouds that almost always mean hail, and I dropped everything to run home and cover my garden! We got nasty wind and driving rain, but fortunately no hail. I think if it had been destroyed, tears would not have been unexpected at this point.

All in all, my garden has been very possibly the best part about living here. I am growing things bigger and better than I've ever been able to grow them anywhere else, much to my content.

back to school

Click here to view these pictures larger