For those who are too young to remember and/or didn’t live around here at the time, 20 years ago today our area experienced one of the craziest blizzards in history. The News Tribune Attic has a great retrospective, and you should check it out for photos and a timeline of local events.
The Halloween Megastorm was part of, or at least coincided with, what became known as The Perfect Storm, “a nor’easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace and ultimately evolved into a small hurricane late in its life cycle.” (more…)
Taking my early morning walk, I saw bulldozers taking down at least part of the ski jumps at Chester Bowl Park. My first thought was, “Oh no!” — I love that Duluth sorta thumbs its nose at risk-management concerns.
“Riley said he was motivated to run by a desire to make the Duluth City Council more approachable and welcoming to concerned citizens.
He also has strong views on social issues.
“Some people don’t much want to talk about it, but I support the marriage amendment, and that’s an important issue which is sure to be addressed between now and the 2012 election,” he said. “Our very existence depends on preserving the relationship between man and woman and the institution of marriage.”
Monday, Oct. 31
It’s Halloween and if you’re not too burned out from being all undead and partying from the weekend, there are still some great events going on tonight. It’s the last night for the William A. Irvin Haunted Ship before the ghosts leave port. In Hermantown, there’s a Haunted Garage and down the hill Whole Foods Co-op is hosting a Halloween party. Lastly, Big Wave Dave and the Ripples are putting on a Halloween show at the Rex and there will be a Dueling Pianos Halloween show at Greysolon.
Wednesday, Nov. 2
It’s All Soul’s Night with a big celebration at the Depot.
Friday, Nov. 4
Two Texans, Tom Freund and Jess Klein, take the Amazing Grace stage. Also, Portage and Wisconsin Built join Loup-Garou for a show at Luce.
Saturday, Nov. 5
It’s a music and art show at “2104″ with Minneapolis band Painted Saints and Duluth artist Jason Huntzinger.
There are always new events being added to the Calendar, so keep checking back.
Ennyman’s Blog explains local artists Emily Herb and Tonya Borgeson, who will exhibit works in the category of “surfacing” this week at Pizza Luce. I learn about art every time I check this blog.
(Click the menu to see it in a larger, more readable format.)
Jalapeno Express has finally opened downtown in the space where Maya Mexican (and Grapevine Cafe, and Taj India, and Mr. Nick’s) used to be. My husband and I caught them in the middle of their “soft” opening and partook of a couple of burritos. Due to some confusion while we were ordering, we ended up with some extra food. I’m pleased to say that Duluth now officially has a legitimate answer to Chipotle. The chicken was good, the carnitas was good, and the al Pastor was terrific as well. We added some awesome cheese dip, chips and a rice drink called “horchata” (which was suggested by the staff). I work nearby, and I think I’ll be hitting them up for quick Mexican at least once or twice per week!
Is anybody else doing this? Very cool that it’s happening in Duluth. I took the plunge and met my “scary” neighbors, and it turned out they weren’t so scary after all
This just in from the Minnesota Dept. of Transportation:
All lanes of I-35 in Duluth open to traffic
I-35 Mega Project substantially finished
DULUTH, Minn. — All Interstate 35 lanes and ramps in Duluth are open to traffic now that crews have completed the majority of work on the I-35 Mega Project. (more…)
Voting Yes for the Parks Referendum seems the best use of my vote. I spent years on the Parks & Recreation Commission. Budget cuts reduced staff so badly we had more Commissioners than Parks & Rec employees! Voting yes protects our nearly 12,000 acres of parkland and our libraries from future budget cuts.
Hola, PDDers! Some folks and I are going to be performing the whole Ween record Chocolate and Cheese on Friday, Dec. 30 at Pizza Luce here in Duluth. We’re excited!
I am looking for someone that would be interested in documenting the rehearsals leading up to the gig and then the gig itself. I would probably be able to get you a little money for your time but not much. It’d certainly be a plus if you were borderline obsessive about the record.
We get together for a couple hours on Thursday afternoons in the Washington Studios to run the tunes. Hopefully this would be a decent time for you to come video for a bit. We’ve got (gulp) 8 rehearsals scheduled leading up to the gig.
Feel free to leave any contact info in the comments below or you can email me. marcgart(at)hotmail
Duluth is a special place. You know that. I know that. Duluth knows that.
We decided to document that fact by spending one day talking to random people in Duluth. We conducted the same basic interview over and over again in different locations for about 8 hours, and then set out to create a three minute video. Hours of film were eventually whittled down to six minutes that we want to share with you now. We hope you like it. (more…)
This was video I shot on Saturday while covering the Occupy Duluth rally for my Reader story featuring local concert poster artist SkatRadioh. I originally went to get a T-shirt made with the design he came up with the night before. I was impressed with the speakers and City Council President Sharla Gardner’s speech.
I stole the music in the opening from the RNC 2008 convention protests in the cities.
Margaret Weis is one of the best known and a frequent best seller author for her long list of wonderful novels. Some of the most popular include the Dragon Lance Chronicles, Death Gate Cycle, and her work on early products for Dungeons and Dragons. Margaret Weis Productions has also started to release a number of Role-Playing Products such as the Leverage RPG and a new game based on Marvel’s Comic Universe.
I usually feel a little guilty eating factory farmed meat shaped into mass-produced meals, but when they have Simpsons toys as the kid’s meal (or mid-thirty-year-old-man’s meal) toy, I am there.
It looks like I need to replace the lateral sewer line connecting my house to the city system. I qualify for the “up to 3K” reimbursement; but the job is estimated at “around 6K.”
In lamenting to my friends on this issue, multiple responses have been “Schultsy can run a ‘mini’ [excavator]; why don’t you have him dig out the old line? Putting in a new one is pretty straight forward – like roofin’ – you’re just paying for labor.”
Does anybody have any experience with this? Is it simply digging out the old line, removing the old house trap and connecting into the waste out from the house and then hooking up to where it feeds into the city system? What part of this would need a “licensed plumber”? I don’t have “replace sewer line” on my bucket list, and I’d rather take that 3K [which I don't have] and recreate with it.
Like with parenting and other stuff I write about, I understand just enough about social media, search engine optimization and search engine analytics to be dangerous.
But I think I might understand more than the marketing “gurus” at Visit Duluth.
Marty Weintraub is a nationally (internationally?) sought out speaker and consultant on every kind of web marketing that you can imagine – Social Media, Keyword Search, Ad Placement, and so on. He also, apparently, loves Duluth. So he did some research on how the community is being marketed online and produced a study for free to give us all some food for thought on how Visit Duluth is spending their (tax generated) budget and if it couldn’t be optimized to deliver better results in the digital age.
… Duluth’s automatically generated Facebook page is in the top of the results, 3 or 4 places above “Camp Bow Wow” in Duluth, Georgia. Really Duluth? Are you even trying to generate buzz for the Visit Duluth page on Facebook?
Instead of disputing the results with a knee jerk reaction, why not just admit that he might be on to something, that we could do some online marketing maybe a percentage or two of the $10M they are spending in print TV and whatever else right now. And above all THANK the guy for his free research and move on er, move forward.
Loll and Epicurean got yarn bombed over the weekend and guess what, it didn’t even hurt, darn it.
Since operations were moved into headquarters in West Duluth there have been more than a few less courteous folks who have stopped by after hours and dumped icky garbage, worn out car tires, stolen wire they stripped for copper, and of course fast food wrappings; even fugitive dumpers have to eat! (more…)
The UMD Women’s Hockey team (uh … five-time national champs, by the way) takes on the Sioux (North Dakota) this weekend at Amsoil Arena. The game is in the afternoon to accommodate the men’s game (I think they have one Natty but you would think they had a dozen with all the hype) who are playing in the evening.
Tickets are $1 in advance from the UMD Ticket Office and $3 at the door on game day. Kids 10 and under get in free with an adult! (more…)
I’m looking for a French teacher for two kids, ages 8 and 5. They speak conversational French now from some time they spent going to school in France, but I can tell they are losing it by the day. I’m looking for someone who would ideally come over to our house once or twice a week after school. I was thinking $15-30/hour, depending on experience.
Does anyone have other ideas about keeping up the kids’ French ability?
I’m a huge proponent of locally owned businesses. I feel that they generally do what they do better than their franchised competition. Because of this, I’m totally cool with paying a higher price.
I’ve been to Burrito Union probably close to a dozen times, so in no way am I staking any sort of claim, but I can count on more than one hand how many times I’ve placed an order, only to have it incorrectly made. Never anything to the point where I won’t eat it, but when I pay something like $2.25 extra for something like adobo sauce and I don’t get it, I have to ask why? Why would you forget to add a topping that costs between 20-25% of the cost of a customers burrito? Especially when its a delivery order.
Again, this wouldn’t be such so bad if it were a one-time occurrence, but when the majority of experiences is like this, it really puts me off. I’m a real big fan of Tim and Rod’s other ventures and look forward to Tycoons, but I really hope service comes before ambiance.
Since this summer, I’ve seen several large, blaze orange coils of fiber optic cable being installed throughout the city. As of today I spotted some by Holy Rosary and up near Home Depot on Central Entrance.
Does anyone know if our Google overlords are trying to pull a fast one on us? Were area ISPs startled into actually building out their networks up here? Please tell me I’ll be browsing the Internet at satisfyingly fast speeds in the near future.
Taking my early morning walk, I saw bulldozers taking down at least part of the ski jumps at Chester Bowl Park. My first thought was, “Oh no!” — I love that Duluth sorta thumbs its nose at risk-management concerns.
