One of our fellow patrons at Mar Azul‘s the night the power went out was Ed Conlon (Wikipedia entry), pictured on the left with former Northfielder Collin Wigley (my eldest son) and his wife Amanda. We met Ed a few nights earlier while on a tour of the Bioluminescent Bay, the best bio bay in the world. He graciously bought a few rounds of rum punches to help us through the power outage trauma.

Ed retired from the NY Police Dept. last year. He was holed up on Vieques for a few weeks, working on his third book.  You can order his books Blue Blood and Red on Red from Northfield’s Monkey See Monkey Read bookstore.

See Ed’s website and view his 2004 appearance on The Daily Show.

February 1, 2012 – Northfield music favorites Meredith Fierke, Steve McKinstry and Dylan McKinstry will play a concert in tandem with Twin Cities legend-in-the-making Chris Koza for a night of intimate, acoustic, atmospheric pop-folk music at the Northfield Arts Guild on Friday, February 10 at 8pm.

Fierke and the McKinstrys will be previewing material from their highly anticipated new album which will be released this spring. “This is by far the best music I’ve ever made,” says Fierke. “Steve and Dylan each bring something unique to the table, and together we’re creating something that I’m very excited about. I can’t wait for people to hear these songs.”

Fierke’s previous album, 2008’s The Procession, garnered so much attention that Minneapolis radio station Cities 97 placed her song Train’s Song on the prestigious Cities Sampler. Later that year, she was named Northfield’s best performing musician by the Northfield Entertainment Guide. The extra amount of time she and the McKinstrys have taken in recording their new album has created a lot of conversation amongst the Northfield music scene. “People have been wondering what they’re up to,” said local music promoter Rich Larson. “I’ve had a chance to hear most of the new album.  The extra time and work really shows. Every song is a knock out. It’s going to be a real treat to hear this music in a great room like the one at the NAG.”

The show at the NAG is the second of a month-long tour of small coffee houses and arts venues that Koza is making throughout Minnesota. This comes fast on the heels of a two month West Coast tour with his band Rogue Valley.  “I love seeing road warrior performers like Chris,” said Larson. “The best time to catch a singer/songwriter is in the middle of a long touring cycle like the one he’s in right now. He’s had some opportunity to flesh out his music in front of a lot of different audiences, which is really the best way to develop a song. This is going to be a very good night of music.”

“The thing that really strikes me is the $10 ticket price,” said Jessica Paxton of KYMN Radio. “You’d pay $25-$30 for this exact show at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis or the Fitzgerald in St. Paul. And, frankly, the NAG is a far more intimate setting. For fans of good music, this isn’t bargain. It’s a steal.”

The Northfield Arts Guild is located at 304 Division Street South. Doors will open at 7:30, and the music will start at 8:00. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance at www.left-handedentertainment.com or at the door the night of the show. For more information, contact the Northfield Arts Guild at (507) 645-8877 or Rich Larson at (612)756-0490.

Related: see my blog post of photos of Meredith Fierke, Dylan McKinstry, and Steve McKinstry performing at the Carleton Weitz Center Theater last November.

I don’t have time to summarize what happened (hopefully, ED Megan Tsui will do that!) but I’m guessing there will be a website within a month, as Sean Hayford O’Leary and I volunteered to get that going.

I got wind of a rumor earlier this week that a new store is to open this month in the old Digs space. Guesses are welcome.

It wasn’t until 2002, when the Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated from western Antarctica — an ice shelf formed more than 12,000 years ago that my expedition team took a full month to ski across — that the facts of global warming prompted me to take action. In 2006, I decided to establish the Will Steger Foundation, where we support educators, students and the general public with science-based interdisciplinary resources on climate change, its implications and its solutions. Our goal is for educators and students to achieve climate literacy.

If the nation is to address climate change, it must begin with a public that is climate-literate. Starting with our educational system is critical. Teaching and understanding climate change is a process involving scientific inquiry and educational pedagogy; it is not about politics or partisanship. There is virtually unanimous scientific agreement about climate change. Yet due to both the inherent complexity of the topic and the social controversies surrounding it, confusion and doubt often persist. Climate change is now ultrapoliticized in the United States.

I’m curious to know what Northfield’s schools (district, charter, parochial) are doing in the classrooms on this ‘ultrapoliticized’ issue of climate change.  Are our educators using materials like those available on the Steger Foundation’s education page, are they ducking the issue, or doing something in between?

Some personal background:

I got to know Will Steger back in 1993 when I was hired to advise him on internet communications for his upcoming International Arctic Expedition.  The project took a personal turn when two of my sons, Collin and Graham (then ages 16 and 12) accompanied Steger and fellow explorers to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories for six weeks to test ham radio and internet communications with schools while his team did a training run, a "1000 mile dogsled and canoe-sled trek across the Canadian Barrens from Yellowknife, NWT to Churchill, Manitoba."

 
Steger came to Northfield in 2006 to speak about climate change and his then new Will Steger Foundation. Right photo: my daughter Gilly Wigley and her friend Brianna Spittle geting a poster signed by Steger for a donation to the foundation. Here’s the audio of Steger’s presentation:

The Northfield Enterprise Center is hosting a Coworking Incubator/Accelerator Community Brainstorming Session on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2-4 pm in the Archer House lower level conference room.

In related news, according to Megan Tsui, NEC’s executive director, "the EDA approved the NEC’s request for $20,000 in matching funds for a grant from SMIF (also $20,000)" for the "design and development of an Incubator/Accelerator (I/A) space in Northfield. The NEC will use a Co-working model with a membership structure to help make the project sustainable for the long-term." See pages 7-14 of last week’s EDA mtg packet.

And last Friday, "Councilwoman Rhonda Pownell and several NEC Board members took a tour of CoCo Minneapolis," according to this post on the NEC Facebook Wall.

If you’re new to coworking, see all the blog posts about it here.

Category: Family and Friends in the Outdoors
 
First Place: Laurie Johnson
Second Place: John Muellerleile

Category: Working for Our Watershed
 
First place: Glenn Switzer
Second place: Griff Wigley

Category: Nature in Our Watershed
  
First Place: Griff Wigley
Second Place: Eric Mueller
Third Place: David Charlton

Up a short flight of stairs, inside a former bank in a small rural town 100 miles northwest of Detroit, there is a special place, rich in history, and 100,000 brides-to-be from across the Midwest have made pilgrimages to find it. Just 10 foot by 8 foot, it has floor-to-ceiling mirrors on every wall, carrying the brides’ images to infinity. It is called the Magic Room.

The town is Fowler, Michigan, a middle-class community with 1,100 residents – and 2,500 wedding dresses. The building is Becker’s Bridal, home to each of those dresses, a figurative blizzard of white. Jeffrey Zaslow takes readers to this remarkable small-town bridal shop to explore the hopes and dreams parents have for their daughters. He weaves this true story using a reporter’s research and a father’s heart. Jeff came to Fowler not just to write about wedding gowns and what they represent. He came to understand the women wearing them, their fears and yearnings, and through them, he tells a larger story about the love between parents and daughters today.

In this magical book, Zaslow examines women on the brink of commitment, whose stories, secrets, and memories will pull you in from the moment they first see their reflection in this iconic room.

Jeffrey Zaslow is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Girls from Ames. Through his writing, he has told the stories of some of the most inspirational people of our time. He is co-author, with Chesley Sullenberger, of Highest Duty, and with Randy Pausch, of The Last Lecture, the #1 New York Times bestseller now translated into forty-eight languages. Zaslow is currently collaborating with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, on their memoir. He lives in suburban Detroit with his wife, Sherry, and daughters Jordan, Alex, and Eden.

The book is available at Monkey See Monkey Read in downtown Northfield.

   
Jeff’s photos (left and center) of the ice circles with his smartphone turned out a lot better than those from my smartphone. However, he really does have zombie eyes from spending too much time in front of a computer.  In addition to being a computer science professor, he owns a language software/app company in Dinkytown called Ultralingua; they also have word game app called Accio.  Now if we could only convince him and his Twin Cities-based employees to relocated to Northfield. Hmmm.

  
Ahhh, Vieques.

Interested applicants may apply in person or send resume to Premier Banks, 112 East Fifth St., Northfield, MN 55057 or e-mail resume to hr@premierbanks.com.

For additional info, visit our website:   www.premierbanks.com EOE

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In a Dec. 28 letter, 27 of the department’s 32 firefighters asked that the City Council schedule a work session “to discuss improvement to the road map for the Fire Department, specifically the selection or election of the fire chief and appointment of officers and the new fire hall.”

Northfield Fire Chief Gerry Franek said last week that he believes a meeting with the council will alleviate some of the firefighters’ concerns. In meetings with the city’s administrator and public safety director, who oversees the Fire Department, several firefighters have voiced their unhappiness with proposed changes the city plans to make when choosing a fire chief…

The mayor also prefers to honor the established chain of command, and continue communicating through the city’ administrator, public safety director and fire chief.

I’m way behind on understanding all the issues with the Fire Department, going back to early last year when an OSHA inspection raised issues and a subsequent report by a consultant cited criticisms.

It’s an odd request for nearly an entire department (27 people) to want to meet directly with the City Council, seemingly without the involvement of their supervisor, in this case, Public Safety Director Mark Taylor. Imagine if all the public works employees made a similar request, going around their supervisor.  Something’s amiss here and I don’t understand what it is.

Our NCO/Northfield.org colleagues are having a big birthday partaaaaay tonight at the Grand Event Center.

See:

• The Northfield.org 20th Birthday Bash! page for party details
• More on the history of NCO and the roots of Locally Grown: Happy Anniversary, Northfield.org by Marika Christofides
• Photos of NCO’s early days

As the lyrics of the song go "well Rhonda you caught my eye, and I can give you lots of reasons why"…Rhonda caught not only our eyes, but our hearts as well and the reasons are many. Rhonda was in much pain. She had a dislocated hip and a torn ligament in her knee.  She would need extensive surgery and rehabilitation. Her medical costs would be expensive. But as soon as we met her, we were all amazed by her happy and hopeful attitude even though she was in so much pain. This attitude has remained throughout her long stay at the shelter. So the decision was made to surgically repair her injuries and give Rhonda the chance she deserved.This dog was very obviously full of love to share and we needed to give her the opportunity to share it. The call went out to our donors via emails and our website that we needed to raise funds to help this sweet girl.  And our donors responded as they so often do for us. 

So Rhonda’s journey with us had begun. She was immediately put on medication to control her pain, while decisions were made for her treatment.  Upon an examination by our shelter veterinarian, some more x-rays and consultations with other area veterinarians, it was determined that the best option for Rhonda would be two surgeries; one to repair her hip and a separate surgery to repair the knee.  Rhonda came through both surgeries like a trooper, always a tail wagging for us and that “smiling” face looking at us as if to say “thank you”.  Rhonda received therapy each day from our staff and as her stay with us grew longer we began to realize how Rhonda was also helping us.  As the lyrics of the song go on to say “well Rhonda you look so fine, and I knew it wouldn’t take much time, for you to help me Rhonda”….Rhonda began to help us with other animals at the shelter. 

Each animal is given a behavior test when they come to the PEHS shelter. One of the aspects of this test helps us to determine their behavior towards other animals in order to help with their adoptability.  Sometimes it is very difficult for us to determine this as we don’t always have the opportunity to safely introduce animals to each other in order to see the reaction as we don’t always have another dog that is able to calmly meet the dog which is being tested. Rhonda is such a gentle soul who seems to want to make friends with every creature she comes in contact with and she is able to do so calmly and without causing added excitement or stress to the other animal. 

She has been helping with these behavior tests during her rehabilitation by greeting other dogs through a fence, for the safety of both animals, and she seems to understand that she needs to be calm and even ignore what the other dog’s reaction is by simply turning away from them if they become excited or anxious during the meeting. She actually seems to understand what she is doing for us and the other animal.

Rhonda’s help does not only extend to the other dogs at the shelter.  Rhonda is also making friends with the cats. Rhonda has helped us to learn the behavior of some of the cats around dogs as well, which will help us to inform possible adopters whether or not the cat will be comfortable living with a dog in the home, making these cats more adoptable as well.

While recuperating at the shelter Rhonda has been spending time hanging out in the business office.  Her favorite place is to lie under the table in the office and just watch the activities and perhaps steal a snack or two off our desks when we are not looking (and actually sometimes while we are looking). Chicken in a Biscuit crackers seem to be her favorite guilty pleasure to steal.  Rhonda likes nothing better than to just hang out with people and every now and then she will come up to you and paw gently at your leg as if to say, “you have worked enough, time for a break”, when she wants your undivided attention which of course she gets every time!  When she sees people she knows she softly dances back and forth on her front paws until that person stops and pays the appropriate amount of attention to her, earning her the nickname “the tap dancer” from the kennel staff at the shelter. 

Rhonda is walking a little more on her leg each day and she is now off of the pain medication.  She does take a joint supplement each day for her knee and as normal with Rhonda; she is wonderful about taking her pill for us.  We are very happy to report that after nearly a four month stay with us, Rhonda is now available for adoption! Rhonda is going to have some special requirements of her new home and our staff will cover those prior to her adoption. 

Rhonda has had a long journey with us.  We are very hopeful that we will be able to find that special person or family who will adopt Rhonda and give her the loving home she deserves.  We want nothing more than to be able to continue to help other animals in need such as Rhonda.  In order to do so we need your help.  Please consider giving a donation to Prairie’s Edge Humane Society in honor of Rhonda so that we can help the next “Rhonda” who comes to the shelter.  You can donate on line via our website www.prairiesedgehs.org or by mailing a check to 1201 Cannon Circle, Faribault, MN 55021.

As you can tell, Rhonda has stolen everyone’s heart at the shelter and she is very special to all of us.  While it will be hard for us to say goodbye to her, we want nothing more than for her to have her own forever home where she will be loved.  And so the lyrics of the Beach Boy’s song continues…”You gotta help me Rhonda, help me get her out of my heart… help me Rhonda, help, help me Rhonda”. 

Rhonda, I know you will always be in the hearts of the staff and the other animals at the Prairie’s Edge Humane Society. You are a very special girl.  We may have “helped” Rhonda, but she definitely helped us as well. 

A discussion about how Northfield should go about redistricting took a left turn Tuesday as the city council approved a proposal to do away with its four wards and elect all its councilors at-large… “I don’t think we have a need for wards at all,” said Patrick Ganey, who represents Ward Four. “I feel we could do a much better job with at-large representatives.”

Councilors Suzie Nakasian and Erica Zweifel said their positions as ward representatives foster relationships between council member and residents. Rhonda Pownell, who at one time suggested doing away with wards, said she’s since changed her mind, agreeing with Nakasian and Zweifel, saying that electing councilors only at-large eliminates the personal connection residents can have with their ward rep.

…

Having discussions about eliminating wards while considering redistricting irritated Nakasian, who said parallel discussions would be “prejudicial;” Zweifel added that they would “feel disingenuous.”

Ganey defended his proposal, saying that the time and energy needed to redivide the city into voting wards is too great and that the city isn’t large enough to have sections of town with similar issues. “I’d like to avoid the redistricting process,” he said.

Anyone know if Rossing, Buckheit or Imm weighed in on the issue with their rationale for supporting Ganey’s position?

I’m undecided about whether 1) wards for a city the size of Northfield make sense and 2) if this is a good time to consider the issue. See Northfield’s Ward and Precinct map (PDF) and chime in.

On Monday, the paper ran an MPR story titled More Minnesota lakes and rivers added to impaired list. The paper chose this photo (click to enlarge) to accompany the article.

I’ve lived in Minnesota my whole life and I’ll be damned if I can identify where this picturesque lake might be.

Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

The idea of the show was to test "the old claim that the Porsche 928 could go faster if driven backwards. To do so, they flipped a 928′s body to face the wrong direction."

The car is currently in Dennison, stored by the Clutchmen Car Club and on Thursday, Jan. 19, at 3 p.m. it will be transported to Car Time Auto Center in Dundas.

See:

• Mythbusters Tests The Porsche 928’s Aerodynamics… In Reverse
• How to Drive a Porsche Backwards, Like a MythBuster Would: PM helps the MythBusters tackle a decades-old automotive legend: Is the Porsche 928 more aerodynamic backwards?
• Mythbusters reverse engineering after-show

Amy Seitz is pictured in the center of this 2006 photo with Terri Dixon and Carla Thomas at the Contented Cow.

  
Several downtown locations (businesses and public spaces) were tagged with graffiti over the weekend. I’m not sure when it happened. The last time there was a big outbreak was in March of 2008.

We discussed the graffiti ordinance in depth here on LoGro in March, 2010.  At that time, the Streetscape Task Force (STF), the Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC), and Northfield in Bloom were involved in addressing the problem but I don’t remember anything getting resolved. Anyone familiar with the current state of affairs re: graffiti?

Update 11:20 PM: similar graffiti at the Carleton College Rec Center:

The conversation is being sponsored by a wide range of grassroots citizen groups, farm groups, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and InCommons.  The purpose of the meeting is to explore how citizens, businesses and government can share leadership by collaborating to restore water quality in the four river systems.

The meeting will feature a meal and round table discussions facilitated by InCommons  – a community-based initiative that connects Minnesotans to share tools, knowledge and resources to address complicated problems. 

The Owatonna dialogue will be patterned after a similar round table discussion held in Mankato on  December 6, 2011,  More than 130 people attended the discussion that featured farmers, environmental advocates, government agency workers and recreational users of the river all sitting at the same table to discuss the issues and seek common ground.

The public is invited and welcome to attend.  Farmers and landowners are especially encouraged to participate.  To register for the meal and dialogue or for more information, call 1-877-269-2873 by January 25, 2012.  Seating is available for 80 people on a first come, first served basis.  Organizers are expecting a full house, so don’t delay.

Guitar: Justin London
Bass: Ross Currier
Drums: Lance Heisler

A few clicks later led me to Northfielder Anne Sabo who, it turns out, is a former St. Olaf prof who now maintains three active blogs.

Northfield has a lot of bloggers but not many with more than one so I knew I needed to know more.  We had coffee yesterday morning at GBM and we’re now exploring ways to collaborate.

Anne’s sites:

Anne Sabo home page

Quizzical mama

Love, Sex, and Family

New porn by women

Hi Griff, I’m just sending a shameless plug for Second City’s performance here at St. Olaf tomorrow (Friday, the 13th) in the Lion’s Pause at St. Olaf. This is the show’s touring improv group and the event should be a riot.

Show starts at 8pm (doors at 7:45) and general admission to the public is $5 each. For more details people can contact myself or follow this link.

Description:

The Second City is always original, daring, and hilarious. Based in Chicago this comedy club’s alumni list is a veritable "Who’s Who" of comedy including Bill Murray, John & Jim Belushi, Steve Carell, George Wendt, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Joan Rivers, John Candy, Bonnie Hunt, Stephen Colbert, Chris Farley, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Jack McBrayer, Jason Sudeikis and so many more. Don’t miss what is sure to be a hilarious hour of improve-based sketch comedy as five of Second City’s touring comedians take the Pause Mane Stage!

See The Second City web site for more.

Randy Jennings has a guest column in yesterday’s Nfld News titled What is economic development? Yawn? Nosiree. It is a benign title for a hard-hitting piece.  (I assume the headline was crafted by the editorial staff at the paper, hence my use of the word ‘excoriates’ in the blog post title. It essentially means ‘kicks the ass of’ but you can look it up.)

It’s a well-written piece, so I encourage you to read the whole thing. But here are some excerpts:

With its takeover of the Economic Development Authority and the resignation of yet another member of the city’s professional staff, the city council has completed its dismantling of Northfield’s economic development, community development and city planning efforts…

Since then, the city council has new members with their own agendas and priorities. Community re-engineering ideas with clever names like “green steps,” “strong towns” and “complete streets” get attention. Job creation and tax base expansion do not…

Several current council members are actively opposed to commercial and industrial development. They spent more than a year angling to take control of the EDA without advancing a single idea about job creation or tax base expansion. They are instead funding specific organizations and activities that enhance their definitions of quality of life in Northfield. No impact on attracting jobs or expanding the tax base. Not economic development…

Perhaps the next election will serve as a referendum on what kind of a future Northfield would like to develop: more quality of life re-engineering, or more jobs and an expanded tax base…

I’m not well-informed on matters of economic development but I’m more supportive of the direction the current City Council has taken.  Two large Northfield employers, Monster Games and Perkins Specialized Transportation Contracting, were featured in the Northfield Community Video project for which Randy was hired to be the Project Coordinator by the EDA. If you watch the videos that feature their owners (here and here), you’ll see that they attribute their location of their businesses in Northfield in large part to the very things that Randy criticizes in his column: Northfield’s vibrant downtown and overall quality of life.

So let’s talk Northfield economic development: the good, the bad, the ugly.