Haines Road has re-opened between Skyline Parkway and Morris Thomas Road. (Haines Road below Skyline, where it connects to 40th Avenue West, remains closed.) This means it is again possible to travel along Skyline across Haines Road.
So I bought $40 worth of coke today … Coca-Cola that is. The final production run of Coke in returnable 6.5 oz bottles in the US was made last week in Winona, MN. Sad, the end of an era, an American icon and they were one of many things I like about my little river town. They are selling the last 5500 bottles for $20 each and all the proceeds go toward maintaining and improving Winona’s bicycle paths around the lake. I am saving one bottle forever and the other I will drink after after a nice autumn motorcycle ride and with a good meal. Cheers!
Learn more or order.
Brian Kobilka, a 1977 UMD Chemistry graduate, has won a share in the 2012 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Dr. Kobilka can be heard in an interview with a representative from the Nobel Organization at nobelprize.org.
I was on my way into work this morning and I saw some young people from the Take Back Our Rez Facebook group walking along Big Lake Road on Fond du Lac Reservation. That’s like the equivalent of rush hour as it is the main artery to and from Highway 33 and I-35, lots of cars headed up and down the road on the way to work or school.
Here’s what the new chalet at the bottom of the hill at Spirit Mountain looks like today. It should be complete during this ski season.
By the way, Mont du Lac recently built a new chalet at the top of its hill, which will open this winter. Neither ski area has plans for a chalet halfway down a hill.
My wife and I are disappointed. We have had a “vote no” sign in our yard for the past month or so. One was stolen, like other signs in the neighborhood. I saw one or two homemade signs to replace what were stolen. We told ourselves that paying another $10 for a replacement would just be more money to the cause, so we got another. We also put a bunch of staples in the new sign and connected it to a tree with wire. We figured that they would really need to work to take it. They did. Is this happening elsewhere in town (we are in Lakeside)? How can such behavior be anything but theft? I cringe when I walk by a yard with a “vote yes” sign, but I don’t steal the sign. I think somebody’s values are seriously out of whack. We are disappointed. It’s apparently not enough to limit the freedom to marry, but free speech is also out of bounds.
There seems to be a lot of concern for the rights of the millionaire businessman who is attempting to use loopholes in the law to make money at the great expense of others who want nothing to do with his business, but are forced to carry the burden of his business model. Jim Carlson hides behind a dubious technicality claiming that the poison he is selling at the Last Place on Earth is OK because the chemists keep playing Russian roulette with his customers by changing the chemical compounds on a regular basis.
A true libertarian wouldn’t hide behind technicalities of the law – they would take full, personal responsibility for their actions. Carlson has a business model in which he is making millions and externalizing costs onto the community. Because of his business model, other businesses are struggling, the government pays for the emergency health care for uninsured addicts, and our public sidewalks and parks are taken over by people getting high, selling drugs, and harassing other folks who want no part of his business – yet are forced to absorb the costs that Carlson is imposing on them.
Noodles & Company opened at the Miller Hill Mall yesterday, according to Business North.
Shake It, the new nutritional protein shake and juice bar in West Duluth (at the former Spirit Bottle Shoppe) will open Sunday if I remember correctly what the sign by the door indicated today.
Carmody 61, the new bar/restaurant in Two Harbors that is taking over the former Viking Legends opens on Oct. 1, according to co-owner Rick Boo.
7 West Tap House, Minnesota Wine Exchange and Canal Park Brewing are all potential late October openings, according to word on the street. (We haven’t mentioned Minnesota Wine Exchange on this site before. The location will be 3 W. Superior St., the owners are Brent Johanson and Debra Fellman, and the place will have a rotating selection of Minnesota wines.)
Today there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the new park above the corner of the Lakewalk holding tank — aka the East Interceptor Sanitary Sewer Overflow Storage Facility.
And the city is looking for citizens to come up with a name for it.
I’m concerned about a “vote this way” letter received recently from our local Catholic bishop. Urges a yes vote for the November ballot “MN marriage amendment” and that you send the “yes” group money. This church move oversteps the line in my opinion. I vote for the church to lose tax exemptions.
In August, I ventured north to Finland to meet a man I had only communicated with via email. Little did I know, you have to hike a mile back into the woods to find his modest log cabin he built for his wife and two sons.
Rory Scoles will be guiding a group of sulfide mining protestors on a 30-day canoe trip from the Polymet Mine Site to the St. Paul Capitol. I sat down with Rory at his favorite look-out, the only spot he gets reception on his phone and the best spot to view the wild rice he is harvesting and that could be in danger if proposed mining projects go through.
