October 2011 Posts

Ween … and you?

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

We Love Duluth

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.

Damn kids will make life miserable for older Duluthians

From the Duluth News Tribune, 1895:

Occupy Duluth Rally Video

Occupy Duluth with SkatRadioh and Sharla Gardner

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.

Duluthian interviews Fantasy Novelist

Duluthian Donny Krosch presents an interview with Margaret Weis, Author and Gaming Icon.

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.

Awesome service at a corporate monolith

Kang serves a burger

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.

Photo Classes at Woodland School

David Kohne

David Kohne

Kate and I are taking introduction to outdoor photography at Woodland School through Duluth Community Education.

The class is a mix, about 2/3 of the class is older than our mid-thirties selves, while about 1/6 is younger, I’d bet. But we’re all young at heart and we are eager to learn. And we’re grateful for opportunities like this from Duluth Community Ed.

Simple Plumbing Job – DIY?

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.

What’s all the fuss about AimClear and Visit Duluth?

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 its (tax generated) budget and if it couldn’t be optimized to deliver better results in the digital age.

Did $10 Million In Destination Marketing Make Duluth Famous?

Yarn Bombing Incident in West Duluth

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!

Cheap Weekend Fun

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!

Looking for a French teacher in Duluth

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?

An Unfortunate Burrito Union Rant

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.

Fiber in Duluth – What’s the haps?

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.

Halloween festivities in LakeVoice

LakeVoice is your guide to Duluth’s Halloween festivities. This week we will be covering the Glensheen Jack O’ Lantern Spooktacular, the William A. Irvin Haunted Ship and the Survive Duluth zombie run. Stay tuned for more information about these events and the people that make them possible.

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