between getting up early to catch a plane, the hour extra sleep, and the extra hours fro traveling to LA today, i’m about ready to pass out and it’s only 6pm. i’m hoping to have some more exciting blog posts tomorrow.
EDIT: jane isn’t letting me get away with this short post 🙁
so our flight was almost delayed but then the delay was canceled. yay! there weren’t many people on the flight, and we got the entire row to ourselves. jane enjoyed an in-flight mimosa, and we found the caribou too late for breakfast, unfortunately.
our shuttle to the hotel was quite the experience. *eyeroll*. we got picked up about 1:30 and finally left the airport area a little over two. two hours later, we finally got OUT of the shuttle. there was an annoying native lady who was in the shuttle telling everyone where they should go, and she was directing the shuttle driver even though the driver knew what she was doing. there was also a sick kid in the shuttle, so if i get sick this week, i blame him. 😐
BUT the hotel looks good! there are couches next to a fireplace next to the pool! if we weren’t so beat, jane and i might’ve headed out there this evening. heck, we still might. if that happens and i get some pics, i’ll edit again.
i’ve just read about the dakota access pipeline for the past half hour, and here’s what i’ve gleaned from my limited amount of research on this issue, which is probably more than the average person has dedicated to the topic:
the pipeline runs from the bakken oil fields to illinois to an oil refinery, which in theory should keep oil production in the US (a good thing for some people).
the pipeline construction will create a lot of jobs along the way, though very specialized jobs, and not necessarily local to ND, SD, IA, and IL since those specialized jobs tend to not have the average unemployed joe or joette hanging around waiting for them. after construction, the number of permanent jobs the pipeline will create is pretty minimal – i’ve read between 10-30.
this pipeline was supposed to go through bismarck, but it ended up veering another way because *ahem* they were afraid of contaminating the capitol’s water if there were ever a spill. (*eyeroll* classic case of not in my backyard.)
*so, the army corps of engineers may have approved this route, BUT, there were treaty laws and architectural remains (burial grounds, etc), that were not taken into consideration, so in effect, the ACE really didn’t follow some laws to get this route approved.
construction started earlier this year, and protests started after people realized that the DAPL would be winding across the missouri river a couple times and over the burial grounds. and it’s just gotten bigger.
i didn’t do much research on the current state of affairs since we seem to be seeing that daily on our news feeds and through friends. here’s my take on that:
keep these protests peaceful and LEGAL! from what i can tell, this is heading into violent and taking over private property, etc. if you want your concerns to be heard, you need to practice your first amendment right to assemble in a legal manner.
speaking of legalities, why no one attended any of the hearings a few years ago when permitting was happening is beyond me. this is why people should be aware of what’s going on your communities.
i don’t know what is going on with the army corps of engineers, but you’d think that a federal agency would figure pipeline construction that will ultimately engage eminent domain should follow all laws, especially when it goes over treaty land. they should’ve been on the ball with that one, and president obama has ordered to figure out what’s going on. i think a lot of blame (if you can call it that) lies on them.
WATER IS PRECIOUS – in years to come, water will be more valuable than oil, especially if we keep placing possible environmental risks near it. also, my boss made a valid point the other day: there are pipelines carrying crude oil crisscrossing europe right now. but they are infinitely more stable and better constructed. (i can’t find a source on this and i don’t want to spend time to find it; we’ll just have to take her word on this.) we need to get on the bandwagon and think about how to construct things like this so that spills are very, VERY rare. if they happen at all. none of this lowest bidder crap.
BUT ULTIMATELY: if our energy source (oil) can screw up our life source (water) so much by a spill, maybe it’s time to take a look at changing our energy source. also, not only is the pipeline spill a possibility, but oil itself is no saint. i’d rather there be no pipelines anywhere and we all relied on renewable energy or something safer than oil (efficient ethanol sources, for instance, use water themselves – see sugar cane [not corn!!]).
#treehuggerout
CALIFORNIA HERE I COME. heel spur and all.
1. fly out sunday morning with jane! we leave at 10am and should get to our hotel late afternoon. arrival temperature should be in the 70s 😀
2. monday: universal studios and harry potter world! #SOEXCITED
3. pick up rental convertible and either take our drive up the coast or trip to sequoia national park. avoid election day big city stuff.
4. do the other either on our list.
5. free-for-all day – the beach? look at stars’ houses? find an in-in-out?
6. another free-for-all day – maybe the free observatory? hang out at the pool? find a taco truck?
7. we fly back!
ooh, this is going to be SUPER interesting.
*eyeroll*
i am recently outfooted with some stuff to make my heel issues better (and pocketbook less better). maybe 10 years ago or so, plantar fasciitis reared its ugly head in both my heels. i’d roll out of bed in the morning cringing at the knowledge that i’d end up wanting to crawl to the bathroom.
for those who have never experiences PF, imagine a million tiny pins inserting themselves into your heel every time you walked on it. got it? good.
i’d tiptoe, roll to the side of my foot, hop, grab the wall and drag myself out of bed in the mornings, and gradually the pain subsides. but this is a huge pain in the foot! and i dealt with it for a while because it wasn’t life or death.
then i started running, lost some weight, and the PF went away in the left foot. fantastic! still hung around in the right for some reason.
and finally i’d had enough – i was at the point where long mileage running wasn’t unheard of, and the pain in my heel was getting really annoying. so i saw a podiatrist in rochester about the PF.
i have a giant, level 5 heel spur in my right foot (level 5 is the worst). he prescribed custom orthotics (expensive and didn’t do too much). stretching (already doing it with running). icing (already doing it when the foot pain was horrible after running). did this a while and i requested a cortisone shot.
THAT was great. my foot felt awesome, like my other foot. but after about 6 months, it started to have shooting pains up my foot and into my toes. so i went back to the podiatrist, and he immediately gave me another shot, which immediately turned out to be a bad idea.
when you get a shot in your foot, it’s like you’re trying to walk on a giant wad of something, and it’s not a great feeling. the first shot i got, this feeling lasted about a week before it was gone. the second one, it lasted about three weeks, then the effectiveness of the shot lasted another three. (thankfully, my half marathon was in there.)
i’m not sure what happened with that shot, but it was NOT good. so i didn’t got back to that podiatrist. a night splint. in case i wasn’t already a big dork.
this morning i went to the central MN foot and ankle clinic, where i was HOPING to get a nice diagnosis of YES LET’S SAW OFF THAT SPUR! but nope. instead i got more lessons in stretching (yawn), a night splint, a referral to PT, and a high-dose ibuprofin prescription (anti-inflammatory). oh, and the charge to stop running.
>:|
sorry, but the running goes on. i should have told her that i’m not a heel striker when i run, but i didn’t think of it until after i left. but, i am going to stop running for long distances for a while to see if that will help. generally, two miles is fine on the foot, but get up to about 4 miles or farther, and my foot gets pretty aggravated.
so, the foot saga continues. we’ll see how the night splint helps out.
one of the things rochester has on st cloud? it’s got a lot less hate.
in rochester, there are so many different kinds of people because of the clinic, and they all get along, so it seems.
i remember the first few months in roch wondering what was so weird about the town, and it was because all the people looked incredibly different from each other – even the white people. this was kind of a shock coming from central minnesota, where everyone looks at least vaguely german. features were a lot more sharp, pointed, almost severe in rochester. and it was nothing to be at any given store and here a different language come out of a white person’s mouth.
there is quite a mix of different people down there, instead of one or two large ethnic groups in addition to the white people. a lot of students at the college were west african-americans, and there were a few muslim students but they weren’t necessarily somali. a few latinos, a few asian-americans, and it was a healthy mix of peeps.
up here, there’s a large somali population, and the white people don’t like the change in their town. they don’t like change in general. and this is big change.
so because of the somali civil war that’s been going on for decades, refugees went to camps, then there was a deal struck with catholic charities to place somali refugees when they were legally able to come to the US. CC has an office in st. paul and one in st. cloud. so a lot of them end up here. and a lot of the conservative curmudgeons wail and screech about welfare and their taxes. i tend to think they’re using this “fiscally responsible” excuse as a front for their racism, but that’s just me.
what’s really disgusting is reading the comments on the local news outlets’ facebook posts and page comments. it really shows how backwards and selfish a lot of people in this area are.
good thing it has a lot of lakes and it looks good. haha
anyway, last week’s “this american life” talks about divides within the republican party, and the issue of immigration came up. at this point, i was somewhat interested. then the interviewer started talking about st. stinking cloud. what?? i haven’t finished the whole episode yet, but at LEAST 30 minutes of it focus on the somali hatred up here and it’s REALLY interesting. i recommend listening to it.
so, yes, olmsted county, you win the hate round. two points to you (non-parking lot traffic and less hate).
…where we’re still not sure what’s going on!
here’s what i do know: starting sunday, nov. 6, i’ll be blogging about being in california. there will be harry potter stuff, ocean stuff, beach stuff, foodstuffs, national park stuff, and generally a lot of stuff that you don’t see here on a regular basis. so at least you’re certain of what’s happening during one week of kablpomo.
other than that, it could be a free for all! the disney movie idea is just too time consuming. maybe it’ll be life post-move? politiblog on steroids? central MN wanderings? catblog? pintertest again?
but here’s what else i know:
last year, kablpomo was focused on charlie because of his accident. this year? the boy is alive and kicking, so there will be no sadness! *thumbs up*
so far the general consensus has been that 2016 has sucked. let’s try to make it less sucky with some decent blogging! and if you have any ideas, post them and i’ll take them into consideration!
liz’s recent facebook post on the feather duster alluding to possible rape in “beauty and the beast” made me have the bright idea to spend november blogging about disney movies and what’s inappropriate and not.
then i realized that would require me to watch all these disney movies, and i’m not sure i want to spend 2.5 hours every day for 21 days in november prepping and writing these posts. hmmm. so maybe i’m back to the drawing board on kablpomo.
i went to my first haunted house in a long time last night. last time i went i was pretty young – under 10 – and it was at the austin nature center. i don’t remember a lot about it, and it might not have been an actual scary walk through the woods. either way, it was time to step it up.
former rctc buddy jenee has been going to haunted houses for years (decades, in fact!), all over the state. she decided to go to molitor’s haunted acres this year, which is my backyard, comparatively. so she and her haunted buddies drove up last night from roch (omg what a drive) and we went on a haunted hay ride and then through a haunted house, sewer, mineshaft, etc.
i’m not a huge fan of scary movies – jumping is not my favorite thing in the world! so i went in to this experience with the mindset of “IT’S NOT REAL, THEY CAN’T HURT YOU, YOU’LL LIVE.”
i probably didn’t jump and scream as much as the actors wanted me to. :/
but it was fun and sorta scary and pretty creepy and overall a good time! but ultimately, i think it’d be fun to work at one of those and do the scaring. those people were really good at their jobs and you could tell they were having fun, too.
the main thing is to go with other people. no way would i do that alone! it’s great to just laugh your way through it with someone else.
my blogging game has been really off this year, and i apologize. blame moving, job changes, whatever; it’s really no excuse.
as such, i am needing a theme for KABLPOMO – it might be one idea and i’ll blog about it all month, like i did last year for charlie.
(as an aside, the second week in november, i will be in california and blogging a crapton about that!!!)
SO…ideas??
MAKE YOUR OWN PUMPKIN PUREE!
i know it’s easier to just go buy a can of festal and use that for all your pumpkin baking needs, but let me tell you: making your own pumpkin puree to use in bars, breads, PIES, is probably the best thing you can do for your baked goods. want to actually taste PUMPKIN instead of all the spices? make fresh pumpkin puree.
firs off, plant some pie pumpkins in the spring. have a bumper crop due to all the rain. if that doesn’t work, your local food vendor should sell pie pumpkins.
cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, put them in a pan (glass or a jelly roll pan works – something with edgess), and bake them at 350 for an hour-hour and a half or so. until you poke a fork in them and it slides in easily.
look at that carmelization! anyway, let these cool for a bit, then scoop out the insides into a food processor and whip it up. scoop that mess into a colandar/sieve/strainer lined with a dishtowel.
let this sit overnight at least and drain all the liquid out. i am saving my pumpkin juice to make a festive drink!
put these in whatever container and stick them in the fridge for soon use and the freezer for use down the road (like in a month for thanksgiving).
