Paul Lundgren, Author at Perfect Duluth Day

R.I.P. Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Duluth

Aug 13, 2013 4 Comments

Westminster Presbyterian Church demolition is underway at 4441 Grand Avenue in West Duluth. The church was a victim of the Historic Summer Solstice Flood Disaster of 2012, when a culvert beneath the building worked its way into the basement and wrecked the place. The city of Duluth bought it as part of its Hazard Mitigation Assistance Program. The church was built in 1961.

Update: In 2015 Westminster’s congregation moved to a new home at 9030 Beaudry St. in Duluth’s lower Smithville neighborhood.

UMD Makeouts

Aug 13, 2013 13 Comments

Yes, there is a Twitter page dedicated to posting photos of University of Minnesota Duluth students making out. It’s called UMD Makeouts, sporting the hashtag @UMD_makeouts.

Predictably, most of the photos are poorly shot. Some of them highlight cute little lovebirds, but more of them fall into the raunchy, drunken or questionably consensual categories.

Activity on UMD Makeouts seems to have dramatically slowed since mid June, either because of summer break or because good taste sometimes prevails over trends.

Cindy Vu wrote a commentary in March about this subject for the Statesman. PDD apologizes for not latching onto this saucy tidbit until five months after it was hot.

Uncategorized Creepy, Sappy

This just in: Red Mountain and Christine Hoberg are into teasing

Aug 12, 2013 1 Comment

Above: Teaser for the upcoming Red Mountain album Scowl Lightly.

Below: Teaser for the upcoming Christine Hoberg album World Within.

Both videos are from Duluth-based Lakefront Films.

Music, Videos Christine Hoberg, Lakefront Films, Red Mountain

Audio Archive: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s honorary degree acceptance speech at University of Wisconsin-Superior in 1996

Aug 11, 2013 1 Comment

On May 17, 1996, the University of Wisconsin-Superior held its 100th commencement ceremony at Siinto S. Wessman Arena. Dr. Joe Domitrz, Dean of the College of Business and Economics at UW-Whitewater, gave what had to be one of the most overshadowed commencement addresses of all time, because Arnold Schwarzenegger took the microphone a bit later to accept an honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree.

The event was carried live by KUWS Radio and Schwartzeneggar’s remarks were later rebroadcast on the KUWS program Between the Lines. Captured in the video above is the radio rebroadcast played on Public Access Community Television in Duluth back in ’96.

History Audio Archive, UWS

Around the time Wesley Willis died …

Aug 08, 2013 5 Comments

From the August 2003 Perfect Duluth Day archives:

The B-52s cancel a Duluth show due to lack of ticket sales.
Starfire endorses Greg Gilbert for mayor and plots to cover Enger Tower in bedsheets.
Ca-chee recalls her days as a bad ass in shop class at “Ordeal” Junior High.
Dirty Knobs vs. Duluth, Minnesota is released
More skinny dipping.
Godsey drinks excessively.

Read More

History

Perfect Breakfast Restaurant: Duluth Grill

Aug 07, 2013 10 Comments

What’s not to like about Duluth Grill? It’s a truck-stop style diner in the friendly West End neighborhood that buys from local farmers and grows some of its vegetables around its parking lot in raised-bed gardens. Owner Tom Hanson and his family have plans to build an urban orchard on the lot as well, with plum trees, black-cap raspberries, lingonberries, choke cherries and other deliciousness. They even get their honey from hives on the roof of the building. Duluth Grill is much more than a simple breakfast joint, but readers of Perfect Duluth Day strongly agreed in a recent poll that it is indeed the best breakfast restaurant in the area.

Is it the Scotch eggs? The breakfast stir fry? The curried polenta skillet? The smoked salmon omelet? The caramel apple French toast? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. It’s all that and more.

Polls, Restaurants Duluth Grill Family of Restaurants, Lincoln Park Neighborhood / The Friendly West End, PDD Awards

Where North of Duluth?

Aug 03, 2013 4 Comments

Uncategorized Where in Duluth?

Catnip: Egress to Oblivion?

Jul 31, 2013 4 Comments

This short film was one of the highlights of last weekend’s Free Range Film Festival in Wrenshall. Call this an encore presentation.

Videos Weird

Poll: Best Breakfast Restaurant

Jul 31, 2013 No Comments

Through a recent poll about breakfast joints we have a disputable, yet official list of the five favorite places to seek ante-meridiem nourishment in the Duluth area. Now it’s time to determine which is number one, so again we ask the all-important question …

Which restaurant serves the best breakfast?

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This poll is now closed. The results were …

Duluth Grill — 39.2 percent
Pizza Lucé — 21.6 percent
Uncle Loui’s — 17.5 percent
At Sara’s Table / Chester Creek Café — 15.4 percent
The Kitchen — 6.2 percent

Polls, Restaurants

Care Bears, Care Bears, Yeah – Live at Beaner’s

Jul 30, 2013 17 Comments

Someone tell us everything about this band, because we need to know right now.

Music, Videos

What to do with extra garage door panels

Jul 27, 2013 7 Comments

If you really want to know why I have two extra garage door panels, go ahead and ask. For now, I’ll get to the point. What I find to be really annoying about having two perfectly good garage door panels is that it seems the best thing I can do is haul them to a junk yard and get them out of my way. Tell me if I’m wrong.

Is there anyone who warehouses stuff like this and sells them to contractors or the general public? A new panel costs $220 — that’s $440 for two — but the odds that someone who needs the exact size and color panels I have will search Craigslist and find out I have them for cheap are minimal. So these panels are likely to hit the dump by the time the snow falls, unless I get ambitious and recruit two friends to help me carefully feed them into the rafters so they can waste space up there for 20 years.

Uncategorized Queries

Superior Hiking Trail: Martin Road to Lismore Road

Jul 25, 2013 9 Comments

There hasn’t been a lot of hype surrounding it, but as of June 1 the Superior Hiking Trail is complete from Duluth to Two Harbors. The missing link is no longer missing. You can now hike the trail from Jay Cooke State Park to the Canadian border … you know, if you feel like a nice 296-mile trek.

Above is the starting point of the Duluth to Two Harbors section, from the trailhead at Martin Road on the Duluth / Rice Lake Township border. The start of this section is cut on the old North Shore State Trail, and a sign there pays tribute to C. J. Ramstad, “Mr. Snowmobiling.”

Outdoors Hiking, Superior Hiking Trail

Poll: Best Breakfast in the Duluth Area

Jul 24, 2013 No Comments

A recent post on PDD asked about the “best breakfast in town.” Having gleaned the nominees from that post — and eliminated one for being too far outside Duluth — we might as well make it official and have a poll asking the all-important question …

Which restaurant in the Duluth area serves the best breakfast?

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This poll is now closed.

Because there were a dozen options in this poll, we considered it the first round of voting. So instead of posting the full results, we reveal the top-five breakfast restaurants, which advance to a new poll to determine the official champion.

The top-five breakfast restaurants, in alphabetical order, are:

At Sara’s Table / Chester Creek Café
Duluth Grill
The Kitchen
Pizza Lucé
Uncle Loui’s

Polls, Restaurants Breakfast

50-cent soda pop machines in Duluth

Jul 23, 2013 19 Comments

“One soda … 12 ounces. Fifty sen! Sold. It’s been a pleasure frequenting your establishment.”

–Michael Douglas as William “D-Fens” Foster in the 1993 movie Falling Down

I noticed recently that Twin Ports Cyclery in the West End has a pop machine inside that charges 50 cents, which is the amount that should be forever recognized in the U.S. Constitution as the official price for a can of carbonated water, citric acid and corn syrup.

I’m wondering if there are any other 50-cent soft-drink machines around town. Please note them in the comments.

I know the Last Place on Earth probably still has its 40-cent (or was it 45?) machine, but even at that price it hardly seems worth it to go in there, and the place is shut down right now anyway … or has it reopened again? I can’t keep up. Please consider all questions in this paragraph to be rhetorical.

Oh, and I don’t want to hear about any 55-cent machines. Might as well be a dollar.

Recommendations Queries, Soda Pop

The F-94C Starfire of Memorial Park Fame

Jul 22, 2013 3 Comments

The relic in the photo above is a Lockheed F-94C Starfire. It was on display at Memorial Park in West Duluth from May 1960 until October 1996 (photo of its removal above). It is not the same airplane that is currently displayed in the parking lot of American Legion Post 71.

History Memorial Park, West Duluth

Paul Lundgren Posts