Roll Out the Barrel!

Always a treat to head out to the mailbox at lunchtime and find a padded mailer with Twins cards inside. Today’s find was the return half of a trade with EdS at Roll Out the Barrel.

EdS collects Milwaukee Brewers cards, so the cards I mailed his way included several Topps Brewers cards from 1974 – 1980. Always happy to find a appreciative home for the non-Twins cards I have laying around.

EdS sent me several Twins cards from 2005 to present; here’s a small sampling:

clockwise, from top left: 2008 Topps Stars #TS3 Morneau, 2009 Topps Icons #66 Morneau, 2008 Topps Gold #546 Liriano 900/2008, 2006 Fleer Flair Showcase #52 Kubel

If you have unwanted Brewers cards sitting around where you’re at, feel free to give EdS a call — he has my full endorsement. And EdS, I have more, so if feel free to set your Twins cards aside, and contact me again when the stack has built up a bit! Pleasure doing business with you.

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Insect Photo of the Day:

hummingbird and female Carolina Mantis (Stagmomantis carolina)

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L.A. Flashback III – Rod Carew’s 3000th Hit

One of the benefits of living in Los Angeles for 5+ years is that Twins’ games (when they were in town) were 3½ hours closer than where I lived in MN, so I was able to catch several of their games against the Angels. And one of the most memorable I attended at The Big A was on Sunday, August 4^th, 1985.

Starting for the Twins that day was ace Frank Viola, against future Twins minor league pitching coach Stew Cliburn. Even though both teams were already several games back in the AL West, there was a definite buzz in the air in that crowd of 41,000+, and in the bottom of the 3^rd inning, those fans were rewarded.

the moment is captured in brilliant 110mm

Pandora Friday Random 10

Tryin’ something different this Friday; I’m letting Pandora* do the picking.  Here are the first 10 “thumbs-up” tracks to pop up on random setting:

1. “Ah! Leah!” – Donnie Iris, 20^th Century Masters – The Millenium Collection: The Best of Donnie Iris
2. “Lights over Roswell” – Djam Karet, The Devouring
3. “Fall on Me” – REM, The Best of the IRS Years: 1982-1987
4. “Cynical Weathers” – Burnside Project, The Finest Example is You
5. “Song for America” – Kansas, Sail On: The 30^th Anniversary Collection 1974-2004
6. “Trans-Island Skyway” – Donald Fagan, Kamakiriad
7. “Brain Damage” – Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
8. “Wouldn’t It Be Good” – Nik Kershaw, Greatest Hits
9. “Take Me Home Tonight” – Eddie Money, Can’t Hold Back
10. “Here I Wait” – GTR, GTR

* If you haven’t tried out Pandora, you need to give it a whirl.  You can create your own “stations” by identifying a song or performer, then Pandora will offer random tracks which are similar, based on many different criteria from it’s Music Genome.  You can tailor your station by adding more song(s)/performer(s), and by giving “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” as the track is played.  This is a GREAT way to find music that you might be unaware of but is similar to other music you like.  Give it a try!

Bowling Season Begins

As mid-September rolls around, it brings the advent of…bowling season! No, not the Brunswick/Dick Weber/foot-fault bowling — Osage orange lawn bowling.

At the treeline, in the back corner of our property, stands a tall Osage-orange tree, loaded with Osage oranges.

no, not the small dark red dogwood tree, the one above and to the right of it

Another Soundtrack Friday Random 10

Another Friday, another 10 random (soundtrack) songs…

1. “Isfahan” – E.S. Posthumus, Unearthed
2. “Eingeschlossen” – Klaus Doldinger, Das Boot (The Director’s Cut)
3. “Road Made for Animals” – John Tesh, Tour de France…The Early Years
4. “The Demon God II” – Joe Hisaishi, Princess Mononoke
5. “Ruined Landscape” – Klaus Doldinger & Giorgio Moroder, The Never Ending Story
6. “Library of Congress” – Trevor Rabin, National Treasure
7. “Not from Dixie” – Henry Mancini, The Music from Peter Gunn
8. “Hideout” – Clint Bajakian, Outlaws game soundtrack
9. “Montezuma’s Revenge” – Rick Wakeman, White Rock
10. “Ultramarine” – Michael Brook, Heat

MN flashback II – Jack Knoft for MSU Student Senate

Finding out that K was elected treasurer of her dorm floor (way to go, K!) reminded me of this story, and I managed to find the clippings in a box in the basement…

In 1981, during the spring quarter of my freshman year at Moorhead State University, a couple guys on my dorm floor got the wild idea of entering a fictitious person in the Student Senate election. With several openings for the next year, we hoped that our candidate would slip through the cracks and get elected. Paperwork was filled out and submitted, and the wait began…

When this blurb came out in the weekly Advocate (or “Badvocate” as it was known), we were pumped — five positions, and five candidates! We also noticed that someone’s handwriting was poor enough that the second F was read as a T in Jack’s last name, but since it would be many years until Homer Simpson’s favorite bartender Moe began answering prank calls on his telephone, it was probably for the better.

As the article mentions, there was an open forum later that week. Since Jack could not attend (obviously), “he” prepared and submitted a written statement of “his” positions instead. All that remained was the general election…

The election was held, and it was a slam dunk. From what we learned later, at that time an attempt was made to telephone Jack to tell him that he had been elected. He had left no telephone # on his application, so the registrar’s office was contacted. It was only then that it was learned that there was no Jack Knoft registered for classes at MSU.

While write-in candidates around campus scrambled to drum up enough votes to try snag the opening in the final election, the guys on 2^nd floor Nelson Hall enjoyed a good laugh over it all.

A Birthday Friday Random 10

Birthdays on Fridays are sweet…

1. “Destiny” – Eric Woolfson, Freudiana
2. “1988 (Robert Fripp)” – Various Artists, Angels in the Architecture
3. “San Francisco 1906 (Excerpts)” – Synergy, The Jupiter Menace soundtrack
4. “The Floater” – Henry Mancini, The Music from Peter Gunn
5. “Never Ending Story” – Klaus Doldinger & Georgio Moroder, The Never Ending Story soundtrack
6. “Pipeline” – Alan Parsons Project, Ammonia Avenue
7. “Why Does the Sun Shine?” – They Might Be Giants, Severe Tire Damage
8. “America (bonus track – single)” – Yes, Close to the Edge
9. “Relay Breakdown” – Synergy, Electronic Realisations for an Electronic Orchestra
10. “A Miner” – Joe Hisaishi, Laputa: The Castle in the Sky soundtrack (Image Album)

regarding #3 & #9: we were big Synergy fans in college (still am); Synergy is Larry Fast, electronic keyboard pioneer.  If you haven’t heard him as Synergy, you might have heard him playing keyboards on Peter Gabriel’s early albums & tours.  His first LP Electronic Realisations is brilliant.

What’s the Latest Buzz?

One neat thing about this time of year is the flowering of a large shrub-like weed along the tree line that looks like Baby’s Breath (if I were more interested in botany than entymology, I’d look it up), and all of the insects it attracts. And one of the more prevalant insects are hymenoptera, specifically bees and wasps.

Although the odd ambush bug, flower spider, skipper, or webworm moth stop by, there is an ever-present hymenoptera activity that is fascinating. Here are a few photos of some of the newer ones I need to add to my insect website in the near future:

Scolia dubia