Silver and Blue

Last weekend Ella, me, a bunch of locals and our Sponge Bob fishing rod competed in the Chanhassen Feb Fest fishing contest.  We didn't catch any fish but did set some deserving minnows free, ate good food, went on a sleigh ride, found out that I can throw Ella about 30 feet over the ice and enjoyed a bonfire out on the ice.  That last one weirds me out every year.

Ella using my two legged chair like a boss.

Ice seemed about 8 inches thick.  

Ella preparing to be ice tossed for a new record.

I sure love my little Ella.  

Bear?

Mazy and I followed Bluff creek into an area rarely visited by people and found lots of animal tracks.

 Deer, turkey, coyotes and raccoons were pretty easy to identify but not these.   

   

I think the big ones may be a black bear.

Thunder

 This is David "Thunder" Smith.  He is the person that gave me the idea that I could roast my own coffee.  He spends some time in Negril Jamaica and I got to know him on our honeymoon in 2000.  These are recent pic's I got after I friended him on Facebook.  How I face book friended David who I think spends his time in the Red Ground area without electricity or plumbing or WiFi I don't exactly know.  I am just glad I some how did.  (Thanks Marty)

 What I do know is that last time I was with him he climbed a Mango tree next to another friends land, Rasta Pete, and made the best juice I can remember drinking.  He also roasted some coffee from the Blue Mountains of Jamaica over a fire like the above pic's show.   A short time later at home I found green coffee at Bill's imported foods and copied what I saw.  I moved on to old air popcorn poppers to roast and now to a steel drum on a rotisserie in a gas BBQ grill to allow for larger batches.  

 I see David did the same.  Kind of.

 Rasta's I have had the pleasure to know have not only been great people but also great capitalists.  But don't tell them that.

Thanks again Thunder.  

Nice night ride

I would like to do some camping along this trail.  Lots of good spots.  

New phone love

I have been enjoying my new phone.   Samsung Galaxy Nexus
I love the ice cream sandwich software, big screen and Roboto font.

Chinese New Year

Fantastic food at Heaths house.   Thanks Ling Hui.

My trip to Florida

Went to Sanibel island with the family to visit the inlaws and see Susan's youngest brother Mike get wed to the very wonderful Shelly. 

I took a bunch of pics of my favorite subjects and could not pic my favorite so you get them all.   

Ella carried the rings and Maya forgot to toss the flowers.  

With Cousin Lucia

I think Maya's grimace kind of smile looks a little gangsta.

  After the wedding Susan and I took an express ferry to Key West to meet the Icelanders.  Other than these boats the morning we left I forgot to take pics of some of the other cool stuff on the trip so I just borrowed them from the web.

Things I liked about Key West  include chickens all over, six toed Hemingway cats and an open gay community.  

I went paddle boarding and loved it.  It was easier and more efficient than I thought it would be.  Kind of like going for a walk on water.  My board was a lot bigger than the one in this pic.  

Once back on Sanibel I got to watch a giant dead Manatee wash up onto shore.  I touched it.  The scene kind of looked like the pic below except my manatee did not have a head.  

New vst portafilter filter basket.  20gram basket.

I love using the Amazon Cloud player both on the cloud and with music downloaded to my phone.  I have been expanding my music library a lot this year.  Here are some of my favorite albums I became aware of this year.

Watkin Tudor Jones  - "The Fantastic Kill"
South African white guy rap who keeps changing his name.  He used to be Max Normal, then Watkin and becomes the Ninja in Die Antwoord with Yo Landi

Die Antwoord-" $0$ "
Check out some of their videos.  Evil boy, enter the ninja and rich bitch.   They sort of both embrace and are satirical with their South African white trash kind of presentation.

Tim Exile's-" Nuisance Gabberet Lounge"
Seems like a haphazard dj thing but isn't at all.  He is a great innovator, creator and teacher of his craft.  Also seems like a very nice nerdy guy.   I keep playing this one over and over for some reason.

Tune Yards - "WHO KILL"
What a voice.  Her song Powa builds into the winner for sexiest song of the year for me.

Afx- "Analogue Bubblebath" and "Hangable Auto Bulb" (love the song Laughable Butane Bob)

James Blake- Four albums: " CMYK"  Also" Klavierwerke", "James Blake" and "Enough Thunder"
Very unique stuff that is very well thought out.

Tinariwen-I love both their albums I have  "Tassili" and "Aman Iman: Water is life"
I don't know how to label them, North African rock? blues? with soul.

 Boubacar Traore- "Marcre"
Old school song writer from Mali  Wiki

Squarepusher- "Go Plastic"
Listen past the first few minutes of the first song.

I also like all of these a albums a lot but find myself just adding them to a my random mixes rather than listening to them as a solo album.  If you plan to ignore all of these I would encourage you to at least look into Amon Tobin.  Jazz meets electronica.

M83- Hurry Up We're Dreaming
Deer Hunter Halcyon Digest
Boards of Canada- Music has the right to children
Amon Tobin- Supermodified and Permutation
Four Tet - There is Love in you
Youth Lagoon- The year of hibernation

Don Cherry's Piano Desk

Why don't down hill racers use fat bike rim and tire sizes?

What do you ride when 6'9" 235lbs.  Nolan from the MTBR fat bike form rides this.  This bike is a beast.  Notice that is a big fat larry on the front looking so much like a regular old tire.

 The rim cut outs are very nice.

Moonlander

I want you.  
 I want you so bad.

Pic from http://fat-bike.com/

From a great site I found called Street Art Utopia.

Fun ride near Gifford Lake

 Minnesota River down by Chaska

 I love my little frame bag.

 They are doing a lot of work on this trail. I think it will go to Belle Plain in a more formal fashion in the future.   Looks like they took out a rail bridge over the river at one spot.  This one has the tracks off and was a bit nerve racking to ride over when icy.  Scary to look down through the big gaps while ridding over it.

 Crooked face that does not convey the fun I had.

Hard to see in this pic but Gifford lake is on the right.  The marsh land was frozen just right to ride over.

Winter Bike Expo

Freewheel winter bike expo in Minneapolis was a great event. I thank Freewheel, Surly, Salsa and whoever else made it happen. I really enjoyed it and learned a ton. Lots of nice people and I keep questioning myself but I am pretty sure I counted 48 new fat bikes in one room. Wow. I couldn't even get them all in one shot. Rode two sizes of both aluminum Mukluks, tow sizesof the necro pugs and one Moonlander. What I learned is I love them all. Mukluks have a taller head tube feel and my current pugs, the necro and the Moonlander all ride very similarly. Any doubt I had about the moonlander being my next bike is gone.   I really enjoyed all aspects of the event I attended. The talk about the Arrowhead 135 was great. People interested in winter cycling and fat bikes specifically are a diverse, low key and friendly bunch that I feel proud to be a part of.

If you are in the market for a laptop/tablet computer I wish some one would buy the android based ASUS Transformer Prime when it comes out in mid December.  I don't need one an really want to at least buy it vicariously through someone I know.  Looks like it will be super functional especially with Ice Cream Sandwich operating system coming soon to it.  Yes that is the same software that will be on my likely next phone the Galaxy Nexus (prime).   Other than your soul being completely in Google's hands I think this will be a fantastic combo to merge all my media, calendars, phone, apps, books, soul debt etc.   These same things can certainly be done a lot of creative ways already but these two products really seem unique and to be getting a lot of attention by the android world which means they will also be on the front end of new software and rooting/hacking/bug fix like info.  My HTC incredible was a little like this when it first came out and I have had a year and a half? of being glad I was on the front end of the amazing and wonderful android/smart phone wave. 
 I am primed for the next wave.