Baseball at the Mall

Baseball season is almost upon us! A few weeks from now the we'll have the first pitch at the home opener. A sure sign of spring.

Home Plate

Mall of America, (MOA) in Bloomington, MN, the site of our old beloved Met Stadium. Long gone and now a shopper's mecca; here we have a tribute to the exact spot where home plate at the old Met Stadium used to be. This is down in the theme park area that used to be known as Camp Snoopy.

Lone Red Bleacher Seat

520 feet away from the home plate and high above on the back wall near the flume is the lone bleacher seat. The lone bleacher seat marks the spot that the Minnesota Twin's Harmon Killebrew hit his longest home run, 520 feet.

Miss Burger

Another fast food burger chain but perhaps not as famous as the Golden Arches. What is better about Wendy's is their malt simply called the Frosty. Chocolate and vanilla, excellent malts. The best in the fast food industry. Well, maybe Dairy Queen has the upper hand in the malt department. Yet at Wendy's, you will find none of that yogurt simulated food product that McDonalds tries to pass off as a malt. And yes, they too have a drive thru for your burger and Frosty convenience.

Giant Blue Corkscrew

All we need now is a giant bottle of red wine.

When the world seems to shine

Like you've had too much wine

That's amore

Lone Oak

Broadway Pizza

Lately I've been feeling a bit blue. The cold weather and anticipation of the spring thaw has me down with a bad case of spring fever. That and this nonesense of year-long ongoing political hot air. (Imagine, being elected into a position and not doing that job for nearly a year like the Presidential wannabees) The only saving thought is this is preseason baseball.

At month's end, baseball will be in full swing! And what better place to enjoy those games on the TV than at a bar/grill with multiple TV's playing baseball. Broadway Pizza is it. Great pizza pie, fine refreshments, and baseball on TV. I'll have another Guinness if you please!

Regal Theater

Now showing at The Regal movie Theater in Brooklyn Center...and on 20 screens!

Townhomes Rising

Construction workers busy working on the new townhome development. This is just to the north of the existing townhomes and the plethora of Signs I submitted last November. And located just south of Super Target and the Arby's "restaurant" seen here; Arby's

Fire Safety

Fire Department Connections

A classic beauty in hopkins. Not the prettiest feature on an architecturally pleasing building. Not pretty on any building for that matter. But pretty cool in ther own right. We typically are impressed by the pretty facads and beautiful lighting in our downtown areas and we overlook the simple functional features. Look around, and see what the mechanical and electrical engineers have designed. sometimes form over function and vice versa.

(Yes, this building is this putrid pinkish color as shown)

Somewhere in Minneapolis, if my memory serves me correctly, on Portland Ave. just south of Washington Ave. Not sure if this is operational any longer.

Bark has Bite

Old gnarled oak tree growing near a sidewalk on our daily walks. This photo was taken by Mrs. Dusty Lens. Full credit goes to her for today's posting.

2 Things Challenge, Old and New

OLD

My first SLR camera, a canon AE1 Program, a gift from my folks back in 1984.

NEW
My second SLR camera, a Digital Canon Rebel XTI 400D.

And true to form the lens has dust on it, quite typical to have a dusty lens. just my interpretation of Old and New in keeping with a photography theme.

Feathered Ice

Feather duster on Lake of the Isles.

Happy Leap Day

This year is Leap Year and today is Leap Day. Have a great extra day. This really should be a paid National Holiday. Leap year only comes once every four years; we should spend this day celebrating this 1/4 event marvel.

I was just made aware of a good argument to have this day off. For those who are salaried employees, we're working for free today. As TN from our office stated, "After doing a bit of number crunching it is worse than I’d suspected. It turns out that instead of 2080 hours of weekday, this year we have 2096".

Now I have not verified these numbers, but somehow, I feel cheated. I'm thinking I shall spend the rest of today surfing the web, City Daily Photos, checking gmial, and perhaps playing some Guitar Hero in the conference room's plasma TV monitor.

OK, ok, back to work. Sheesh, you'd think after all the taxes extorted from us we'd get a small break. 'Course not. (Why worry about Tony Soprano when we have the Senate?)

Big Ass Fan Spins Again

Last June, I posted about the Big Ass Fan over my fabric box in the cube farm I reside in Monday thru Friday. (see link below) Prairie dog style, we see this Big Ass Fan in action from across the cube farm from RB's deskal space looking toward the front door.

It does a great job of moving air around as we need it. Being that I am directly under it, I tend to get the most refreshing air. Although when it is cranked up, paper weights are needed. But a small price to pay for the more temperate cubicle weather in this large 28 box cubical farm. http://northmetro.blogspot.com/2007/06/062707.html

Maybe next time I'll provide a movie clip. Or, a cool HDR image, but the fan needs to be turned off. I wonder if RB is up to staying late at the office some evening to turn the fan off...

I'm Thinking Arby's Tonight

Or, maybe not.

Fast "food" on Highway 169, just in front of Super Target at 120th Ave.

A pseudo-realistic look from 3 images. I really like messing around with this HDR imagery.

James Tillich ate here.

This image is tonemapped considerably eyond the realistic extent. Really quite fun to create, but I am thinking I prefer the more realstic look like the first photo. Look for more of this, (but not too many) in the future. I'll let you be the judge, which do you prefer, the fisrt photo or second photo?

Color Me Spring

Valentine's Cactus

(belated)

Actually, it's a Christmas Cactus that decided to sleep in during Christmas and bloom for Valentine's Day. A trip to the south metro to visit my folks. This blooming cactus plant was a cutting from my Grandmother's plant some 15 years prior.


Green Tea

Palm frond in the office breakroom. This frond was between me and the outdoor window where difussed sunlight was pooring in to create a vibrant green. Think I'll have some tea now.

Are you ready for spring? I sure am! Lousy winter and snow...

Illiminatti

Follow the luminous trail. Will we ever find Oz? Or the end to this winter? Let's hope this weather keeps on track for an early spring.

Two Things Challenge: Box / Car

Box

My Fabric Box, a part of a small cubical farm. This is the Box I sit in Monday thru Friday, from 7:30 AM to around 5:00 PM. I managed to spend a few minutes straightening up the place to ake it look good for the pic. I have a great view of the the back wall and the Big Ass Fan that spins above my head. More on this fan below:

http://northmetro.blogspot.com/2007/06/062707.html

Car

There's only One - Jeep.

And I own it. My 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee with about 192,000 miles on it. 4.0 Litre, Quadratrac, and it gets pretty decent mileage for this type of vehicle at 24 MPG on the highway. Not great, but not too bad either, especially for full time four wheel drive. (Considering our Mercury Sable only got 22 MPG) Covered with road grime and salt spray since last December. I should have it washed one of these days.

There we have it, my first entry for this fun Two Things Challenge.

Lunar Eclipse

Just before the total lunar eclipse. Cropped for detail. I only have the 17-85mm lens for my Digital SLR camera and it proved to be too short of a lens to get a decent pic. I took these pics with my Canon S5 IS and 1.5x teleconverter. This is essentially 648mm. 80 ISO, Aperture 8, 1/40 sec.

Full eclipse. A bit blurry, sort of disapointing. The dark red color proved to be more difficult. 80 ISO, Aperture 3.5, and 4 sec. I took a dozen at different settings, this was the best of the lot of them. Ah well, maybe next time.

Island Refuge

Island Wildlfie Refuge on Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis.
http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=52&prid=578

Lost and Found

Did somebody loose their Audi in Uptown?