Summer Must Haves Swap

I signed up for a swap that Krysten created on her blog.  You sign up, get a partner assigned to you and you mail each other items that are your summer must haves/things that remind you of summer.  If you're interested in signing up, you have until Monday, May 2nd so head on over to her blog and sign up.  Read the rules first as the biggest rule to follow is that you need a blog to participate.  I'll be back to report on this in late May!

A Warmer and Sunnier Place (than MN)

I've been slacking on my blog lately but I was doing so well and posting each day up until this past week.  This post isn't about this past weekend but the weekend before.  While you guys were experiencing cold and snow that weekend, M and I were again in Florida.  Not to rub in the weather but we laughed down there when we heard it was snowing up here in MN.  Not because we weren't there (ok, maybe a little) but mostly because when you are in the midst of hot sunshine and temperatures pushing 90 degrees, it doesn't seem possible that it could be snowing. 

We arrived in Fort Myers on Thursday around 5:30 pm and went out and walked around downtown and sat at a couple of establishments including Red Rock Saloon where I was able to get that Ahi Tuna that I had stuck in my head since the last Florida trip.  I like the tuna this time but I'm over it now.  On to the next addiction whatever that may be.

Thursday: 

Fort Myers Beach from the airplane

Our hotel room

View of downtown Fort Myers from our hotel balcony

Awesome musician on the balcony

Hotel Lobby

A couple of musicians sitting on the street corner.  The very tan man had a great voice.

Loved this picture of the grandma and grandpa sitting on the bench at the arcade.

A bar we went to

My yummy breakfast at the hotel--Veggie Frittata

Friday:

We decided to drive up to St. Pete's to see the Twins play the Rays. We figured they would have to have Twins shirts at Wal-Mart since the Twins play down there and they did so we bought shirts since we didn't bring any with us.  We also bought markers and tag board so make a Circle Us Bert sign and a sign counting down Bert's days to Cooperstown.  Both M and I calculated the number of games until Cooperstown but then realized the count was for home games and not road games so that sign got scrapped but we still took a picture of it.  We were able to buy tickets easily and at a good discount from a scalper that were 12th row just at the edge of the net behind home plate by the Twins dugout.  Tropicana Field is an odd place.  It doesn't seem like a place that MLB is played.  It's not in very good condition for being relatively young but apparently there is no money to maintain it.  I almost felt like I was in a mall or something. There seemed to be a lot of wasted space in some areas and not enough room in others.  The game itself was pretty bad.  Twins lost 5-2.  It was Jackie Robinson Day so every player was wearing number 42 and we received Jackie Robinson t-shirts at the gate.  We drove back to Fort Myers Beach after the game.  

My favorite, Jason Kubel

Saturday: 

We hung out around the beach on Saturday.  We ate breakfast at our hotel across the street at the beach and then wandered over to the beach and took a very long walk, mostly barefoot that took us from just about San Carlos Pass Bridge to the very tip of Fort Myers Beach and back all the while sweating to death from the hot sun but there was a good breeze.  We saw many stingrays in the water on our walk.

This is the cat section.  This cat was all over the grounds of the hotel.  It wasn't until breakfast and we saw multiple cats did we know it wasn't just one cat.  The pictures below are of at least three different cats, maybe four. 

Our hotel room/kitchenette

Our balcony

Look to the top left of the shower curtain---There's a lizard on the curtain.

Sunday: 

We left bright and early on Sunday morning, barely making our flight but we arrived back in MN about 10:20 am and we took the rest of the day to relax and get ready for the work week.  It was a good, fun relaxing long weekend! 

  

Snowy April

The weather has been less than cooperative this spring.  We have barely even had a spring to talk about.  And this morning, I woke up to this:

It was all melted and sunny by the end of the work day.  It's hard to believe it was 76 degrees just a couple of Sundays ago.  Hopefully Mother Nature will get her act together and give us Minnesotans a real spring soon.  

I don't normally blog out of order but I wanted to show the picture above so I thought I might as well talk about my night tonight.  M and I went out with my Grandpa to Yarusso's tonight for dinner.  We've been making a habit of going out with him for dinner every couple of weeks or so.  It's good for him and it's good for us.  On the way to eat, we stopped at the cemetery that my Gramma is buried in.  The headstone he ordered came in a couple of days ago and the cemetery told him it would be in before Easter so we decided to take a look.  It was in the ground.  Sad, but the final chapter of the death saga.

As for this past weekend, I'll blog about it soon!  

Your Birthday Info

I was told of this website over two years ago and I put it in a folder I have on my computer called "Blog Topics".  I hardly ever get to use anything in this folder because I am so busy writing about the activities in my life that I rarely just write about anything other than what I've been up to.  So today I thought I would share this website with you.  It's just a fun and silly website where you type in your birth date and it will tell you many things about the day or year you were born.

Have fun playing with it.

http://www.paulsadowski.org/BirthDay.asp

Sushi with Sis

I went out for sushi with my sister Jamie on Wednesday night.  We had all you can eat sushi and teppanyaki at Akita in Woodbury.  We hadn't been there since I took her there for her 30th birthday which was almost two years ago.  We ate more than we should have but we both actually stopped before we were beyond stuffed.  We ate multiple kinds of rolls, scallops, crab, beef and chicken teriyaki, and chicken fried rice, edamame and seaweed salad.  Yum!

Walk for Animals 2011

Once again, I will be doing the Animal Humane Society's Walk for Animals.  The walk is just over two weeks away (Saturday, April 30th) so I need your help to raise as much money in a short period of time.  This is my 8th year doing the walk and this is my favorite charity and I love all animals and this cause is very important to me.  I adopted Fuzzer from the Humane Society and I adopted Powder from a different shelter. Please consider donating and helping all the animals and me.  Thank you!

Donate here on my personal page!

Fuzzer- Born in 2000

Powder- Born in 2003

Stolen Email Address

You may have heard on the news or read in the paper recently that a company called Epsilon, who is a 3rd party vendor who sends emails to you on behalf of their clients had a data breach which resulted in obtaining millions of email addresses.  Have you received any emails from clients of Epsilon stating as such?  I've received emails from Walgreens, New York & Company, Hilton Hotels, Capital One and Citi just to name a handful of the businesses that have my email address on file and may have been obtained illegally by hackers. They may try to send you a fake email posing as a company to get you to click in the email or links, which could be a virus or they may try to get you to provide more details, such as financial information.  I was alerted by Google this week that someone tried to access my email address from Brazil.  In order to ward off any attempts of them getting into my gmail account, I changed my password and I've been ok since.  Have any of you experienced receiving of this type of correspondence from Epsilon clients?  I feel as though I've already received multiple fake emails from New York & Company and I haven't opened a single one of them so I can't be for sure but when I see NY&Co. as the send of an email in my inbox and I can see that the first part of the email message is in lower case letters, I'm a little leery of that.  Anyways, be safe and here's some tips I found on a website:

    Here are some important do's and don'ts; they are good medicine even outside of this particular episode:

1. Do not respond to any e-mail requests for information, even if it's a business you recognize.
2. Do not click on any links embedded in an e-mail. If you get an e-mail saying your account with a merchant or bank has been breached, go to that website manually through a web browser, not by clicking on links.
3. Do not fill out any online forms you get in an e-mail.
4. Do not download any e-mail attachments.
5. Always check your credit card and merchant statements for unauthorized or unusual transactions.
6. Sign up for a credit monitoring/identity theft prevention service (and watch out as some of these are actually identity-theft scams).
7. If you suspect your account has been compromised, you should change your password on that account (and, if you are like most people and use the same password on multiple accounts, you should change all your passwords.

Works for Words: Jeremy Messersmith

On my birthday, January 21st, I wanted so badly to go to First Avenue to the Current's (radio station) 6th birthday party to see the performers, especially Jeremy Messersmith.  I knew I wouldn't be able to go because it was sold out.  I was peeking around at concerts that day and I saw that Jeremy would be coming to the Fitzgerald Theater in April.  I bought tickets on my birthday and got front row.  I bought a second set of tickets in case someone I knew wanted to go and they were 5th row center.  Just a couple hours after buying the tickets, I found out that I could go to First Ave that night and see Jeremy as part of the Current's birthday party because it was my birthday and I got in free, regardless if it was sold out.  So I saw Jeremy that night and this past Saturday I saw him again for my second time.

The Current presented the night at the Fitzgerald Theater and it was called Works for Words: Jeremy Messersmith.  It was the premiere of what will probably be a Works for Words series.  The basis behind the show was that Jeremy would be performing some of his songs as well as other songs that have lyrics that are profound or inspired him. In addition, he would have guests on stage including Chris Koza, Lucy Michelle, Abi Wolf and Dessa to perform their own songs.

I sold my second set of tickets to Kari and Scott, who I went to high school with.  We hung out before and after the show and during intermission.  We all got to meet and talk to Jeremy Messersmith after the show as well as M and I met Dessa. 

It's so hard for me to put into words how the whole show was other than it was a special night. Jeremy Messersmith is fantastic and I love him and Dessa was brilliant. Each performer was unique and contributed in their own way. Minnesota local music has come such a long way and what we have going on in the Twin Cities is truly special.  Go out and support local music!  

Michael, Me, Kari, Scott

Me, Dessa, Michael

Michael, Jeremy Messersmith, Me

Here is the set list for the evening:

Set 1

Dillinger Eyes (Messersmith, original)

Strawberry Blonde (Messersmith, written by Ron Sexsmith)

Jolene (Messersmith, by Dolly Parton) 

Piazza, New York Catcher (Messersmith, by Belle and Sebastian)

Worried Shoes (Lucy Michelle, by Daniel Johnston)

Untitled by Lucy Michelle (Michelle)

A Girl, A Boy, and a Graveyard (Messersmith, original)

Brothers on a Hotel Bed (Dan Lawonn, by Death Cab for Cutie)

Kindness (Brian Tighe, original)

Papa Was a Rodeo (Brian Tighe, by the Magnetic Fields)

I Envy the Wind (Messersmith, by Lucinda Williams)

Misunderstood Medley (Messersmith)

Set 2

Organ Donor (Messersmith, original)

San Diego Serenade (Messersmith, by Tom Waits)

First Day of My Life (Michelle, by Bright Eyes)

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Koza, by Bob Dylan)

The Blackberry Moon (Koza, original)

I Only Have Eyes For You (Koza, Messersmith, and Aby Wolf, by Warren/Dubin)

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man (Dessa, by Prince)

The Chaconne (Dessa, original)

Hallelujah (Dessa, by Leonard Cohen)

Fake Plastic Trees (Messersmith, by Radiohead)

Common People (Messersmith, by Pulp)

Encore

Lazy Bones (Messersmith, original)

Violet! (Messersmith, original)