Why I love the Minnesota State Fair

For those of you who know what a freak I am when it comes to eating at the State Fair, and yet have no idea why, here's a small taste from one of our local paper's writers...

Sign you are bored at work: You play Boggle online

Signs you play too much Boggle at work:

1. You log in and out just so you can creatively change your Boggle name.
2. You log onto the Boggle board on Saturday mornings at home, just to see if the same people who play the rest of the week boggle on weekends.
3. You try to use the words (that you could have sworn were made up) in a sentence - without looking up the definitions.
4. You recruit selected co-workers who have large vocabularies.
5. You figure out how to play with your co-workers as a team, each at your own computer.
6. You say, "We need to find fresh blood," to which your co-worker in all seriousness responds, "Fresh blood? I didn't find 'freshblood' on the board."

Furniture-less?

Over the weekend, my roommate decided we needed to furnish our apt, at least to the point that it looks like someone resides there. So, to IKEA she went. I am still holding out on IKEA, and hope not to go anytime soon. But I am great helping put the quasi-furniture together. I have helped a couple times with IKEA build-your-own furniture - just as long as I don't have to actually step foot in IKEA for the first or last time, I'm okay with that. When working with IKEA furniture, I always feel like I'm five years old again, playing carpenter. All that's missing is the toolbelt with the plastic hammer. At any rate, we had fun putting the place together, and now our apartment looks completely different than it did a week ago. I mean, completely different. We hung curtains and pictures, assembled and arranged said furniture, placed lamps, the whole bit.

Last night began my membership with the Minnesota Boat Club. It was wonderful. I learned to scull in a quad, and have to admit, it was a lot of fun. I heard one of the team say we'd gone over 7 miles. Not bad, when you've never handled two oars at a time, if I do say so myself. The only problem is now my hands are blistered and swollen, and I'm supposed to play an orchestra concert in Minnetonka tonight. We'll see how that goes...

Twins v. Indians

My friend Ben Monshor was here for a couple days, and we managed to catch two of the three games in the Twins-Indians series. Fun was had by all, Twins memorabilia was purchased by yours truly, and the cotton candy was great. Mauer played, Morneau hit a homerun. Need I say more? The only thing missing was one more runner in Cuddyer's three run homer on Wednesday night. Wednesday night, Twins won; yesterday, Indians won. I am thankful, though, the Twins also won Tuesday night, so they won the series and my competitive pride was appeased (though the sweep woulda been better). Sorry, Ben. Looks like your Cleveland Indians are pretty much outta luck this season, but I've still got hopes for my boys, those Minnesota Twins....

Pics from the Parents - Ice & Water in AK

Worthington Glacier

Bridal Veil Falls

Pics from the Parents - Alaska

My Dad

Skagway, Alaska

Mount McKinley

Somewhere near the Kenai River

This one is in the neighborhood of Homer, Hope, or Iliamna, but not sure where

Pics from the 'Rents - Hope, Portage, Whittier, Anchorage

Pics from the Parental Units - Canada

As some of you know, my parents are on their retirement vacation. In July, they wandered through Canada on their way to Alaska. Here are a few pics of their Canadian voyage, including Banff, Lake Louise and Yoho Falls.

Row, row, row your boat

I have officially fallen in love...with rowing. I finished my class on learning to row on Saturday, and here I now stand (er, sit), blistered, tanned, biceped and very, very happy. OK, so I have more blisters than tan or biceps, but those, too, will come.

From the moment I started, I wandered around the Minnesota Boat Club on Raspberry Island in St. Paul with a silly grin on my face. This sport is for me, and I knew it before I even got on the water. Once we did get on the water, there were moments of sheer joy to go along with pangs of frustration. The pleasure of sweeping your oar through the water and taking a full stroke completely in sync with everyone else, though, far outweighs any of the bad - catching a crab with the blade, getting a finger crushed between the side of the shell and the oar, constantly balancing the height of the oar, wreaking havoc with the ergs (rowing machines) to starting out on the "Barge" to struggling with "Tenacious" (my first 8+). I didn't fall in (for which I am extremely grateful - the Mississippi is nasty), nor did I drop my oar ("Rule 1: Never let go of your oar!"). I happily suffered through a rainy river rendezvous (which is why I now have a horrible cold), survived at stroke (setting pace for the rest of the crew members), attempted to relax while rowing ("You need to relax, Linnea!"), and enjoyed being on the water, all while having a blast, rain or shine, hot and hotter. I highly recommend it.

I've decided to join the club (the St. Paul club - there are others in the area), and at the encouragement of other members, I will attempt to race with other novices this fall. I'll continue with sweep rowing (one oar) for the next year or so, except tomorrow night, when I'm going to try sculling (two oars).

And even crazier? There are others out there like me...

Proving my point even further...

Thanks, Solem, for bringing this piece on NRO's The Corner to my attn:

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 California Dreaming -- Nightmare Version [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The California senators (Boxer is doing the floor work today — Feinstein's under the weather is my understanding) have been focused on that would allow clergy members to take a kid to another state to have an abortion. So a pro-life guy watching the Senate debate these days has just made himself a clergyman. He e-mails:

Friends,This is to inform you that I am now "a member of the clergy," and therefore would be fully empowered to transport minors across state lines for abortions under the pending Feinstein Amendment. It took me about four minutes on the Internet to earn ordination by the Universal Life Church, the credentials of which are recognized by the states under various court decisions and so forth. (The Universal Life Church says that has only two tenets, these being "to promote freedom of religion and to do what is right.") ....

PS. The ordination didn't cost anything, but to get a nice glossy hard copy of the credentials I would have to pay. The Universal Life Church is headquartered in Modesto, California, so perhaps Sen. Feinstein is merely trying to drum up some business for a home state firm?

Parental Notification = Accountability

This just in from Senator Dianne Feinstein (unquestionably D-California) on the Parental Notification Abortion bill currently before the Senate that would prohibit taking a minor accross state lines to obtain an abortion:

"We should not criminalize the grandparents or clergy members to whom a teen in trouble might turn for help."

I find this highly fascinating. The story begins by stating, "Confidants like grandparents or ministers who help pregnant teens should be protected from prosecution under a bill headed for Senate passage that would punish anyone who takes girls across state lines to end their pregnancies, Democrats said today."

At first, it was the ministers bit that caught my eye. Who would go to a minister, and then expect him to take you across state lines to get an abortion? The majority of ministers are male, at least I think they still are. All minors seeking an abortion would inherently be female. Talk about uncomfortable...but that could just be me. I would generally tend to think of a clergyman as a person of last resort, not so much a confidant. True, I might confess to or confide in my minister, but I'd have to be pretty desperate to want him to take me across state lines (kinda reminds me of kidnapping). Further, I can't think of a single minister in any of the churches I've attended throughout childhood or adulthood who would recommend that an unmarried, minor girl get an abortion, let alone take her across state lines to get one. But then, some might call me a religious right-winger or something. Maybe I'm just putting my head in the proverbial sand, but I'd like to think that there are still ministers with consciences out there who are part of a major denomination that would actually recommend an unwed girl not get an abortion. Call me old-fashioned, I guess.

Then, the whole confidants part garnered my attention. The reason I suppose I find this so fascinating is because there seems to be some sort of warp going on in the minds of liberals. They are pushing for a strange breed of autonomous children in today's society. Although I have yet to see the word "emancipation" in any of these stories, I'd like to propose that that is what this is: an emancipation from accountability. Emancipation of a minor generally includes both the authority to make decisions on one's own behalf, but also carries with it the responsibilities and consequences of being an adult. I don't really see that being the trend amongst liberal thinkers.

Not to be harsh to those girls in abusive parent-child relationships, but I don't know that those situations are necessarily the catalyst prompting Ms. Feinstein to make comments like these. It seems to me that if you are seeking out a "confidant" you are seeking out someone who will more than likely take your side in matters.

Maybe the use of the word "confidant" in the story was simply for lack of a better term, and maybe I'm not using the correct meaning. Maybe I'm appalled at the thought of circumventing normal channels of authority because I had and still have a good relationship with my parents. Maybe it's because I didn't engage in activities that would cause me to be in a similar situation of unwed, teenage pregnancy. Either way - whether it was because I had the decent relationship with my parents or because they laid a foundation down with me not to engage in such behavior in the first place - they were still the authority figures most prominent in my life. Even when I didn't want to deal with them, they were there, laying down the law for me when I was still a minor. I was still accountable to them, and couldn't just choose those authorities who agreed with me.

This story confirms for me that liberals want to give children all the authority in the world when it comes to making adult decisions - premarital sex, abortions, etc. - but do not want them to have to take responsibility for their actions when they then do make adult decisions and there are consequences (let's not make them humbly go to their parents to let them know what they've gotten themselves into; let's not try them as adults for their crimes; and to go off into a different tangent, heaven forbid we mention capital punishment when they off an innocent person, as it was in Roper v. Simmons. And if you think it was not cold-blooded murder, read the first couple of pages of the opinion delivered by Justice Stevens describing the facts of the crime). The first step towards allowing them to make adult decisions is to get rid of parents and the role they play as rulemakers in their lives.

And here we are today, with Ms. Feinstein decreeing that a child should be allowed to go to a confidant in order to take the life of her unborn child. What's next? Expanding the definition of "confidant" to include anyone the child chooses? Mandating that ministers must take these girls to receive their abortions?

Quote of the Tricentennial

"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour?"

Thomas Jefferson said this. Amazing how accurate it still is, isn't it?