Minnesota Traditions

No - not the stupid cabin up north, or the fishing opener. The Minnesota tradition I just experienced was the liquor store run to Hudson, Wisconsin on Sunday. We participated in the Ride Around Roberts bicycle ride, a fund raiser for the Lion's Club there. It was a good ride that is run by our friend George.

After the ride we thought it might be good to get some New Glarus Spotted Cow beer, given that we were in Wisconsin. Its not available (to my knowledge) in Minnesota and we knew that it was (1) available in Wisconsin and (2) available for purchase in Wisconsin today... Sunday. So - we seized the moment and scored a case. There were 5 cars in the lot, all of which had Minnesota license plates. One of the 5 cars had those Whiskey plates... the ones that begin with "W" and are plain white. You have to earn those plates, take your pick of rocking a .20 on the breathalyzer, have multiple DUIs or have a minor in the car whilst nailed for a DUI (as I understand it).

Just about Done

The porch is nearly complete, as the photo above would indicate. There is a bit of electrical work and carpentry left, then I get to write a phat check. Its gone well, no complaints from me about any of it.

This is what it looked like when we started:

Driver's License Renewal

Kay received her courtesy notice from the Minnesota DMV the other day indicting that her driver's license needs to be renewed soon. That means my courtesy notice will be here in about 2 weeks. The cost? $24 for 4 years. Un-fill-in-the-blank believable. That is only six dollars per year for the privilege of driving a car. I wonder if $24 dollars even covers the cost of administering the license, let alone any other real expenses associated with driving. Seems to me that the State of MN ought to raise this substantially, maybe $100 or more. If DL fees aren't covering the DMV's costs, then it must be made up somewhere else.

Tandem People

Or - should I say - people with tandems. You've seen them, the matching kits... right down to the socks. Today I saw a 60-ish year old couple with matching shirts that were actually pretty cool. The shirts had these words...

Him (Captain): Is she Pedaling?

Her (Stoker): Is he Listening?

Based on my first and only experience on a loaner tandem, that's pretty much all you need to know about tandems.