I’m writing this over the course of several days before Erin and I get married. I’ll note when these thoughts were written down.
Continue reading “The Wedding Approaches”Back to The MN State Fair
I haven’t been to the Minnesota State Fair since 2017, just prior to my senior year of college. Since then, my travels home haven’t aligned with the event, so I’ve missed out on the fun and festivities I was lucky enough to enjoy for so many years.
Finally, with Erin and I being back for our wedding, we were able to return. We only spent about 4.5 hours there, but we enjoyed an abbreviated version of the fair trips we looked forward to each year of college. It was genuinely exciting to go back, to have the familiarity of the sights and sounds and smells, and spent quality time together in the unique atmosphere the fair provides.
And for the record, I ate:
- A strawberry nutella crepe
- Most of a cone of Sweet Martha’s cookies
- An elk burger with a side of fries
- A Pronto Pup
- A pork chop on a stick
Buncha Crunch Revival
In sixth grade my mom took me to our local Hollywood Video so I could rent Fellowship of the Rings. I had started reading the trilogy, and wanted to watch each movie as I finished the corresponding book. Shockingly, my mom acquiesced — I’m guessing she wasn’t wholly familiar with its contents.
More importantly, I saw a box of Buncha Crunch on the shelf.
Continue reading “Buncha Crunch Revival”The Finer Points of Scorekeeping
My dad kept score for my baseball teams as a kid, and taught me how to do the same. I would keep score on and off during college when I went to Twins games, and just recently got back into the habit. My goal is — excepting games where it’d be a social faux pas to be nose-deep in a scorebook — to keep score when I attend games in person.
Continue reading “The Finer Points of Scorekeeping”Love, Loss, and Sk8r Bois
I woke up with the chorus of Avril Lavigne’s punk/pop hit Sk8er Boi stuck in my head. Here is the result.
Continue reading “Love, Loss, and Sk8r Bois”Intimacy of Improv
I went to a show by the Secret Improv Society this past weekend, which performs in an odd theater building near Union Square. It’s only the second time I’ve been to a professional improv performance, and I was struck by how special the experience is.
Continue reading “Intimacy of Improv”The Good News About Squash
I first learned how to play squash during my freshman year of college. I was hooked pretty quickly. That year, my roommate and I both bought rackets so we wouldn’t have to keep renting from the university. I continued to play throughout college, just recreationally with friends, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
When I finished college and moved to San Diego, there was a squash-shaped hole in my life. I suddenly didn’t have any sports to play.1I had looked up a squash club in the city that only had 2 or 4 courts, for $120(!) a month. Ridiculous. I instead began walking about, going for hikes, keeping myself entertained through other means. Eventually, I found a group of guys to play flag football with on Saturdays; that was a great change.
Now that I’m in San Francisco, squash has come back to me. The benefit of being associated with a university (through Erin) is access to recreational facilities with squash courts. I brought my racket back from Minnesota, and have slowly accumulated people around me who are also interested in playing on a semi-regular basis.
I find it helpful to have a broad range of activities to participate in; that way, as circumstances change both in the short- and long-term, I have options to keep moving and stay entertained. I’m thrilled that squash has come back to be on that list.
- 1I had looked up a squash club in the city that only had 2 or 4 courts, for $120(!) a month. Ridiculous.
Kurt Vonnegut
I first started drafting this post in January of this year. As time has gone by, and it’s been yet a little bit longer since I stormed my way through many of Vonnegut’s novels, my words feel increasingly inadequate to describe how much I admire and enjoy this great American writer. So it goes.