Poor Florida. First hanging chads, putting terrorists through flight schools, Anthrax scares and now this. What kind of a state allows a gargantuan mouse to not only run around freely but also build his own little world and charge admission? Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off if Florida sank. But then what? Georgia would become the most messed up state in the union?

You’ve got to love Thursday nights in Minnesota. The working and post-college crowd usually starts celebrating the weekend, since they’re all too busy scrambling to their boats on Friday. So Thursday usually has the most entertainment at bars and restaurants.

We headed off to Chammps in Eden Prairie for dinner and hopefully to catch the first few notes of their karaoke. It turns out that having worked in customer service and logistics for an Internet grocer as my first job here was probably the best thing I could do. I learned my way around pretty quickly as well as the attitudes of each of the suburbs. Of these attitudes there’s one thing that's pretty common knowledge: Edina is old money, Wayzata and Minnetonka are new money and Eden Prairie is mortgaged money. And good Lord, isn’t that the truth.

Maybe it’s because Eden Prairie at one time was becoming the new Silicon Prairie. It’s filled with tons of technology companies, funded to the hilt, just trying to make a profit. Whatever it is, mortgaged money is certainly where you want your product to be at – because those people will do whatever’s trendy, just to belong. People build their .5 million dollar houses and park their ’92 Toyota Camry’s in front. Women wear leather skirts in the fall and leather pants in the winter. Men constantly look tanned, as if they have that ‘just off the golf course’ feel about them. That said, it’s no surprise that Chammp’s was full of young dot commers, dressed like they’re straight from work in khaki pants and Ralph dress button downs. Women are filled with jewelry or lack of clothes, both types looking to score a future husband. What’s sad is that they’re looking in the wrong place. Across the street is the new Red Stone, whose parking lot is filled with Ferraris, Porches and Benzes.

After a while we headed up to Williams in Uptown – a place that I usually despise on Thursday nights. It’s two-for-one night and the parking is usually difficult to find, which apparently is enough to draw a crowd that crams the bar so tightly, it’s hard to move anywhere. But perhaps the crowd is what actually draws the crowd. It’s an early twenty-something crowd, too cheap and anti-trendy to be sucked out to the ‘burbs like EP. And the women are usually so scantily clad that they give a new self-consciousness to us otherwise confident and fully clothed women. I think what draws them there is the heat. It’s a primal thing I’m sure, but there’s something highly attractive about young, single Gen Xer’s bumping past their hot, drunk counterparts.

But we go there to see old friends and not make new ones so that makes us the exception to the rule. It’s no secret that Williams on a Thursday night is filled with St. Olaf graduates. In fact, last night I wondered if that was where ‘our’ generation of the ‘Ole Mafia’ would begin. But even in my mid-twenties I’m beginning to feel old there. Perhaps it’s because I’m a country-girl at heart. Maybe it’s because the younger versions of me that I see there look so careless and unaware of what they’ll need to plan for in the years to come. Maybe it’s just because I can’t ever seem to find a place to sit. An occasional visit is nice, though. It keeps me grounded -- lets me see what I once was and what I don’t want to become.

posted by paula 11:55 AM

Hindsight’s always 20/20 and it makes everyone an expert.
If you haven’t already, I would suggest watching TLC or the Discovery Channel’s episodes on the anatomy of the collapse of the World Trade Center. Although I’ve never wanted to get into the field, engineering failures have always amazed me in regards to how the human race learns.

My political comments for today will be limited to this: I’ve been hearing a lot of “we should have known” and “the towers should have been made better” and “we knew these terrorists existed and that they were in our country” and “we should have stopped them.” Let’s think outside of the box for just a moment here: This nation has roughly 285 million inhabitants (give or take one or two). Assuming that the CIA hires reasonably intelligent people, that greatly limits the number of individuals in this nation that actually qualify for the job. Now considering that we value our ‘freedom’ to move about the country as we please, take into consideration that in the air at this very moment, there’s roughly over 4,000 planes in the sky (the actual number of planes in the sky on 9.11.02 was over 5,000 but we’re exercising conservativism for argument’s sake). The WTC went up…when….the 60’s? 70’s? Sit back and try to think about the most horrible type of terror our nation will face even ten years from now. Maybe twenty at best. What comes to mind? Anthrax? Small pox? Nuclear war? I’m sure there will be something much worse than that. My point being: Do you remember your frame of mind in spring of 2001? Could you even imagine all of these things? Could you imagine trying to hunt down one of hundreds of thousands of passengers for a stupid box cutter, among over 4,000 planes? Or that plane itself would be used as a weapon?
If we had shot those planes down out of the sky, we’d be criticizing the government that it murdered its own people, instead of that it ‘should have known.’

The planes crashed. The towers fell. We feel that the CIA should have stopped these people, but yet we don’t want them to monitor us as an individual. We want our buildings to go up quickly, but want them to act as if they were made of concrete instead of steel when they start on fire. We want our travel to be safe and secure, but we don’t want to have to endure security checks to get it that way. It's the old 'power line complaint' all over again: I want electricity, but I don't want the power lines in my back yard. Here’s the bottom line folks: You can have one or the other. But you can’t have both. Should you feel that we can have both, stop your finger pointing and start being productive.

posted by paula 1:34 PM

Memento Mori - 9.11.01

posted by paula 10:28 AM

I won't be posting tomorrow - at least nothing of substance. I've decided that I'll will take my 'moment of silence' for the entire day.

posted by paula 11:27 PM

Big fish seeks small pond for recognition and long-term relationship. SWF (single white fish), NS, with great attitude looking for bluer, less expensive waters to set up camp. Has had long term relationship with former pond and since relocated to large lake -- 10,000 of them to be precise -- and now feels like tiny guppy. Must have reasonable housing costs, moderately low crime rate, at least 80,000 fish and great growth opportunities. Clear water a must, location not far from large lakes a plus. Streams need not apply.

posted by paula 12:40 PM

My other half was afraid that his posts would be too trivial to post among mine so he suggested that we put up a separate blog for him. Three hours worth of link checking and redesign later, I'm finished. So from now on, you'll find his posts under the appropriate link.

posted by paula 1:21 AM

Random thoughts in my head this morning:
-- Why is it that the women who work at Hooters, rarely have big hooters? And
-- do men know that half of that is stuffing?
-- I’ve been having a lot of dreams about my dad and I fighting lately, although nothing could be further from the truth. Is this some sort of subconscious thought trying to make itself conscious?
-- I’ve also been dreaming about returning to work at a former employer. In these dreams, the workplace has drastically changed as did the people. I think this may have to do with some unresolved issues from my departure – maybe feeling like I didn’t give it enough of a chance.
-- Lynsey told me that she read that one must put in at least 15 hours a week when searching for a new job. I’ve also heard that the average time it takes to find a new job is three months. Can I speed up this process in any way, without driving myself crazy?
-- It’s much more difficult to break into a new industry and form a career than most think it is.
-- Spam is still spam, no matter if a porn star, telemarketer or disciple of Jesus sends it. Today I received spam from someone claiming to be a ‘disciple of Jesus.’ I bet if Jesus had email, he wouldn’t endorse spamming as a means of spreading the Good Word.

posted by paula 10:41 AM

Ahh...it's football season. We spent the whole afternoon lazily watching Ryan's team (who lost) and listening to my boys (who won). (You can imagine the delicate nature of the equilibrium in our household this time of year.) What’s more important, however, is the fact that with football season starts commercial season. Among the funniest this far: DirectTV, Sprint and Southwest Airlines. (By the way, poo poo on Adcritic.com for not finding funding elsewhere and now requiring people to subscribe at the unreasonable rate of $69.95/year.) If the ad industry had a little more job security, I might actually try to pursue a career. Until then I’ll just enjoy watching them. And cheer very loudly for the home team.

posted by paula 9:40 PM

Our Irish Friend.
We have a mutual friend who’s quite Irish. He was born on a typical Irish holiday and given a typical Irish name – we’ll leave it at that. In any case, he has a rather large family and is the only person I know that can live hundreds or thousands of miles from his extended family and still treat them as if they have no smaller a gap to him than his parents or siblings.
On occasion, said Irish friend will get together with extended family and ‘celebrate.’ I say this because there’s really no bad times when he’s around. Odds are that being Irish, alcohol is never needed but usually involved and laughter usually echoes within the room. However on more than one of these occasions, there’s usually some sort of incident involving fist throwing or random acts of unintended nudity. The subsequent stories are hilarious and around our apartment have jokingly earned his family a name to the likeness of Jed, Elly May and the group that moved to Beverly Hills, CA. Of course all of this in completely in jest, but I suspect that the joke has gone a little too far.
Maybe it’s because I really didn’t believe the stories were true at first, but then I was witness to one of the incidents a while back. In college, a teammate of the Irish Friend had made a rather rude comment regarding his cousin at a party and a fight broke out. Looking back on it we all laugh, but at the time I could see how the comment put him and his cousins in a defensive position. And while I’m not endorsing any sort of physical violence in any way, I have to admit that I think the whole family’s relationship is a bit admirable. Barring some sort of burglary, I can’t imagine anyone in my family ever stepping up to my defense, especially physically. Maybe I initiated the awful nickname because I’m a bit envious that they’re so protective of each other. In any case, I hope he realizes that it’s all a joke and there’s no ill will meant. I also hope that should the mafia ever come to claim my debt to them, he and his cousins will be there to back me up.

posted by paula 6:52 PM