Office Supply Scams
I thought these scams went away years ago but I guess not.
I answer the phone a lot for the small company I work for, and in the past couple of months we have gotten about three different phone calls asking about refilling our copier supplies. We like to do business locally, and I know our supplier personally so I knew these people weren’t legit. But I thought I’d share it with all of you so you don’t get taken by this scam.
When they called our office they tried to talk to me like they knew me, then said, “Can we get the model number of your printer we misplaced it?” I then asked, “May I ask who’s calling?” and one caller actually said, “I’m your worst nightmare, B!&$h” Then hung up. While entertaining, still somewhat scary.
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Concerns surrounding the American Indian Community Housing Organization
I am a community member of the Duluth area and I wanted to voice a couple of things that have been concerning me as well as some things that have been brought to my attention surrounding the American Indian Community Housing Organization.
I know that the community was really excited when AICHO’s Gimaajii Building at 202 W. Second St. opened this past spring. I had very high hopes as to what this venue could do for the people, especially the urban Native Americans within Duluth.
As time has passed and the excitement and buzz about what this “could” be has since faded, I have heard from several current and former tenants of the Gimaajii Building that they have felt there is a lack of spiritual understanding from many of the staff members including the current executive director. They have felt that anything “cultural” that has taken place there has been more for show than for the people it serves.
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“Parr flexes songwriting muscles that few artists ever attain.”
This week in City Pages reporter Natalie Gallagher talks to Duluth’s Charlie Parr about his new album Barnswallow.
The 1962 UWS Football Squad
Today on PDD we present the 1962 gridders from the “Wisconsin State College Superior,” now known as the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Why? Well the fine folks at UWS’ Jim Dan Hill Library have digitized copies of the Gitchee Gumee, the college’s yearbook — from its inception in 1909 through 1972, when it ceased publication.
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This week: smoothies, skating, skiing and bad fashion
Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.
Today you can learn about making healthy smoothies at the library, of all places. This is part of their Cabin Fever Reliever series.
On Wednesday there’s free open skating at the Duluth Heritage Sports Center for those who want to be active indoors and a Headlamp Ski Tour at Hartley and a Night Ski Race at Spirit Mountain for those who want to be active outdoors.
The Northland Figure Skating Competition will be at the Amsoil Arena Thursday through Sunday with hundreds competing individually and in teams.
Awesome Fest (“You have to be awesome.”) is a weekend long celebration of outdoor winter sports, indoor winter drinking, bad fashion, good music, and more. It runs Friday through Sunday at Mont du Lac.
And on Sunday there’s this football game and I hear tell some people are having parties because of it.
So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know!
Bookoo.com
Has anyone around here heard of a site called Bookoo? It appears to have a Craigslist feel to it, yet a closer look at the site tells me the buyers and sellers have some account ability similar to eBay.
Over the summer I was in desperate need of a transmission. I found one on Craigslist, met the guy at Dunn Bros., he being from Two Harbors and me from Superior. It was likely the only time I’d ever deal with this guy — clearly I’m buying as is. I gave him $250 in exchange for a hunk of metal he said ran before he pulled it out. The gamble paid off and the transmission works to this day. It seems to me that had I bought it from him off of Bookoo and it didn’t work I would be able to warn others of the gentleman’s bad dealings. I think I’ll sign the petition. Will you, my neighbor, join me at the world’s funniest yard sale?
Vacant houses in your neighborhood?
With the ongoing foreclosure crisis and rotten economy, there are lots of properties in Duluth sitting vacant, often leading to vandalism and neighborhood blight. In the meantime, more Duluthians than ever are suffering homelessness.
Loaves & Fishes and Project Save Our Homes are looking for help to identify vacant houses in the Duluth area, particularly bank-owned foreclosures. We will be using this information to push for policy changes to protect neighborhoods and address the problem of homes without people and people without homes. Any information would be helpful: addresses of course, but also if you know how long the house has been vacant (condemnation/eviction/foreclosure notice are usually posted on the door), if utilities are connected… and if you might help organize your neighbors to address the problem! Contact us by Facebook or email: [email protected].
I had a dream last night
I was in a cathedral, standing in the nave. The pews were empty, the building dark. It must have been night. Without warning, a choir’s song sliced through the hushed darkness, their voices intertwining to illuminate the room – a bright, pure light. I could see their faces, one thousand beautiful children, dressed in white. I stood there motionless, enraptured by their song, their words washing over me. The tune was bracingly enigmatic, yet hauntingly familiar – they sung a single phrase over and over:
Vincent Gargiulo is horrible. (more…)
Gage Salyards’ Healing Journey
Duluth photographer Gage Salyards is battling papillary thyroid cancer, but he still has plans to study with one of the most famous and renowned travel photographers on the planet, Trey Ratcliff, in New Zealand. Obviously all of his financial resources of late have been invested into regaining his health, so he’s doing what all the artsy folks are doing these days and reaching out to the Internet for help.
See his gofundme.com campaign to make a donation, and check out his portfolio and more information about his photography at eyeamgage.com.
His workshop begins on Feb 6, so the clock is ticking. As of this posting he is 3/4 of the way to his $10,000 goal.
Cold weather experiments at Great Lakes Aquarium
We’ve been conducting a variety of cold weather experiments at Great Lakes Aquarium this week. The location is just about perfect for it; right on the waterfront in Duluth with a door connecting our classroom lab to the outside.
This video should serve as a reminder to make sure your hair and your clothes are completely dry before heading out.
Ordering baby chicks anyone?!
I am looking to order baby chicks from a hatchery in February and I only want 10, but the minimum order during these cold months is usually at least 15 to 25. I am wanting to order some rare breed chickens such as Silkies, Polish, and some other Bantams. If you are interested in ordering some as well and want to go in on an order please let me know or if you know anyone locally that has these breeds I would be interested in that as well!
Duluth Album Releases in 2013
Breanne Marie
Six Strings of Peace & Sanity
(Jan. 1)
Available on Bandcamp
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Eric Swanson at Sacred Heart Studios
Duck Duck Punch
Human Chemistry
Truth No. (Jan. 15)
Available on Amazon
Dave Mehling
Broke Heart Songs (EP)
(Jan. 19)
Produced by Dave Mehling and Michael Morris; recorded at the Barn in Northfield
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Wildlife Rehab Report, 2012
We report the numbers of animals rehabilitated to the state every year at Wildwoods Rehab. (more…)
Children’s Entertainers
Does anyone know of any fun children’s entertainers in the Duluth area? Balloon animal artists, magicians, uni-cyclists — anything will do!
Muslim Journeys Bookshelf
FYI. Harold P. Erickson Library at Lake Superior College is among the 842 libraries and state humanities councils selected to receive the Muslim Journeys Bookshelf, a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities Bridging Cultures initiative. The twenty-five books and three films have arrived at the library. ALA will ship additional materials, including bookmarks, bookplates, and posters, in mid-February.
A glimpse of Duluth in 1948
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulWWwAZfTJ4
Scenes of Duluth start at the 1:37 mark in this 1948 documentary on Finnish-American life in Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. (Thanks to Dwight Swanson for the tip.)
Women’s Words on KUMD
I love this new(ish) show on KUMD. Check out recordings from past shows here [Jill Hinners, Deborah Cooper, Cheryl Reitan, Sheila Packa, Gail Trowbridge, Meredith Cornett (total self-promotion, please forgive me), and many others!]. “Women’s Words” airs at ~1:30 and 3:30 p.m. on Sundays as part of the Women’s Music Show. If you are a (woman) writer willing to do a short reading from your work, they want to hear from you!
Cold weather experiments
I don’t want to see our area children suffer from a lack of knowledge today with no school and am hoping parents or day care workers send them outside for cold weather experiments and share them on PDD. But be careful.
Jambox – 01.18
When is the Friday night 2AM Jambox snowboard video in the Central Hillside going to get posted? Six people pulling a snowboarder back on a bungie to go off a makeshift ramp onto a dumpster, over a wall, and down to the old Daugherty Hardware parking lot. Awesome. Props to the snow removal guy in the Bobcat that freaked them all out until he explained he wanted to help them move snow for a better landing.
Wikimapia
It’s kind of a weird name, it’s something that I discovered while doing “armchair” history research, and it’s become a hobby of sorts. Wikimapia is sort of like Wikipedia + Google maps, or as they put it; “a multilingual open-content collaborative map, where anyone can create place tags and share their knowledge.”
So basically if you sign up, (which it’s free), you can draw polygons around locations like a building, park, or historical places and then add the information about it, add photos, tags and what have you. Once it’s saved, others can view it, comment on it, or even update it as well if they have something new to add. You can add lots of other information too, like roads or railroads.
I know that there are some people here who dig history and know a lot of facts about our area, so I just thought it’d be cool to share and hope that maybe they will share their knowledge on the site as well, or at the very least, simply just looking around it.
Sax-Zim Bog in New York Times
“Welcome to the Sax-Zim Bog,” said our guide, Steve Weston. “Tonight we’ll be going through the towns of Sax and Zim, population nothing.” Moments later we drove by a snow-dusted, abandoned trailer, the front door hanging off one hinge. This was downtown Sax. Zim, a few miles to the north, wasn’t much more. Both are remnants of failed attempts to farm the bog that date back to the early 20th century. Now they are ghost towns surrounded by 200 square miles of wetlands.
Idle No More Jingle Dress Dance Event in Duluth, Radio Documentary
Here is something that I have been working on. A one-hour radio documentary collection of sounds and voices from the Jan. 11 Idle No More Jingle Dress Dance demonstration through the streets of Duluth. It airs at 11 a.m. today on 89.1 FM WGZS in Cloquet. In case you are like the other 100 million people who will be instead listening to and viewing the inauguration of President Obama at that time on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday I have posted it online for people to listen to anytime in the form of a YouTube video.
I am still unhappy with some of the mix, the narration and my writing, but I am happy with being able to share these voices talking about this remarkable, historic event.
This week: a parade, a long kayak trip and a journey down a rabbit hole
Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and a parade is happening this morning downtown. Stay warm, paraders!
Lucas Will will talk about his 97 day kayaking trip around Lake Superior at Duluth Pack on Tuesday.
The Duluth Playhouse Children’s Theatre opens Alice in Wonderland at the Marshall School Auditorium on Thursday and it runs through Sunday.
There’s a variety show for the benefit of local theater legend Liz Larson in Lincoln Park on Saturday.
The Fusion Belly Dance Show on Saturday at Teatro Zuccone features a variety of styles – steampunk, Bollywood, gothic, tribal, and more.
Playwright John Patrick Shanely will be speaking at St. Scholastica on Sunday.
So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know!
Berserkon is back!
Berserkon failed to make it’s initial Kickstarter goal of $42K, but it gained a lot of attention, a major grant from Visit Duluth, and learned a thing or two about what people are looking for from a major gaming convention. It’s back with a much more manageable $9,950 basic goal and stretch goals that will add to the fun.
If you pledged the first time, that’s erased. To support this project, roll again!