SD 1243–1292: Y’know since I am pretty much only doing these once a month now, I should probably decide on a target day each month so I don’t go like 50+ days between posting… As I say. Oops. Here are the highlights since the beginning of August: Labor Day! A trip to Duluth to speak at UMD on an alumni panel! Riot Fest! This picture of a shark from FFXIV I’ve kept on my desktop for a long time for some reason!
August was the hottest month on record. After July. And June. We have great times ahead!
I spent a lot of time being very sweaty but that did not stop me from also getting outside and reconnecting with my Roots.
Also it rained a bunch and I travelled back into time and also went into the office. Three times in one week even! Babycat is still coned and recording a podcast about the experience. We took her out of the cone for a few weeks and she was doing pretty well but unfortunately backslid into tearing up her hind legs so had to put her back into it.
For Labor Day Andy hosted us for a cookout on his patio and I made Pimms Cups in memory of Owen & Engine (RIP). Apparently I did not take much in the way of photos at the event. My left eye had been feeling a bit off with the eye socket feeling tender the night before. After petting Andy’s cats I must’ve touched my eyes because it started watering like crazy and I probably started rubbing it a bit too hard. Eye was still feeling off the next couple days and one morning I woke up and noticed white bumps on the lower eyelid, so I panicked and went to urgent care assuming I must have developed a stye. The lovely nurses diagnosed me instead with blocked ducts and prescribed a warm compress.
I probably could have just googled that and stayed home, but better safe than sorry I guess?
After that panic things resolved pretty quickly. Then, hot on the heels of my first flight in years for the trip to Vegas I flew to Duluth Minneapolis and took a shuttle up to Duluth for a night to speak on an alumni panel at UMD. On my flight to Minneapolis who did appear but Patrick who had spent the night in Chicago after missing a flight home from Indiana the previous day.
I was a bit nervous about my two leg trip to Duluth, but the flight was on time and the shuttle from the airport right to UMD’s campus was super convenient. It was really great reconnecting with a bunch of my professors and I still need to do a longer writeup just on the event somewhere separately.
Duluth really is a cool city. I got to stay at Fitger’s Inn for the first time with a window overlooking Lake Superior. The day heading up was rainy but the morning I left was jaw-droppingly beautiful.
Then after seeing Patrick on Tuesday and being back in Minneapolis Wednesday to fly back to Chicago, I went into the office on Thursday for work and met Brandi at Union Station who had taken the Amtrak from St. Paul to come stay for the weekend and go to Riot Fest! It was her first music festival. It was an exhausting but amazing weekend.
We started off Friday seeing Parliament Funkadelic which was… loud. We are old. But so are they. Good set, but realized we should have come prepared with earplugs. Tegan and Sara was probably the most unexpected and fun show.
Ani DiFranco was also really good and I probably should have walked up to get closer. Foo Fighters closed out Friday with an insane crowd. Grohl was a bit growlier than I expected live. The most enjoyable part for me was when he was introducing the band and they all played snippets of covers for other bands. Foo Fighters is still one of my favorite pinball tables however. Luckily Logan Arcade was back at the fest and this time brought the Biscuits with.
Dane didn’t come to the festival but he did come to brunch.
On Saturday I fulfilled a wish in the making for twenty years and saw the Postal Service play the entirety of Give Up. Death Cab also played the entirety of Transatlanticism earlier in the day. I cried. It was very good. I also saw Corey Feldman perform 1.5 songs before running over to try and find Matt at the Jehnny Beth show where I was able to get right up to the front.
Postal Service!!!!!
Sunday had a few hour rain delay that bushed back the opening of the park and cancelled acts. Most of what we were planning to see was unaffected, and thankfully while the grass was squishy in parts things did not get overly muddy. The big highlights were seeing The Dresden Dolls for the first time since college.
Oh, and then The Cure played for two and a half hours.
In conclusion, I got new glasses.
