As I have mentioned in the past, I have several short-term goals relating to new experiences and skills. I have made progress on some of those topics, such as snowboarding, but others have been heretofore stalled.

Several weeks ago, Mutak informed me of a casual roller hockey club in the Twin Cities. I found the prospects of a relaxed atmosphere to learn hockey appealing but had some reservations about potentially making a fool of myself. My hockey experience is practically nonexistent, and I don’t like being bad at something, especially in public. However, I finally accepted that there is no way to get good at something without first being bad at it. Learning new physical activities won’t get any easier as I age, in fact the contrary is most likely, therefore I made the decision last week to get involved with hockey.

I became, as Mutak so eloquently phrased it, “fiscally vested” in the sport following several trips to local sporting goods retailers. Properly equipped, I headed to the arena on Thursday night, expecting to play an informal game with the rest of the club. I was somewhat surprised to find only three other people at the rink, especially since there were no less than a score present when I stopped by weeks earlier to check things out. In hindsight, the lack of people was a benefit: I had plenty of space to skate around and only limited potential for embarrassment. It was fun, and I look forward to doing it again, although I hope more people show up.

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So, after that little soiree, I decided to purchase a start fruit. “Star-what?” you say? Star fruit. It vaguely resembles a football, is about the size of a pear, and has deep ridges that run the length of the fruit. When cut across the longitudinal axis, the halves have a profile in the shape of a five-point star.

When I set out, I originally wanted to buy a passion fruit. Unfortunately, passion fruit must not be in season, since Byerly’s did not stock them. Hence, I swung towards another fruit I had never tried, the aforementioned star fruit. I made the purchase ($4.00 for one star fruit. Yikes!) and brought it home, cradling it in my lap, lest it be bruised by a rapid turn or stop.

Once at my abode, I carefully rinsed and dried the fruit, cut it into slices, and took a bite. The taste was… anticlimactic. It tasted somewhat tart, with a thin skin and firm yet yielding texture. In fact, it tasted almost exactly like a Granny Smith apple. Yup, an apple, except it had that neat star shape. Man, was that ever a let-down. Here I was, expecting some sort of zen fruit experience, and all I get is an expensive, star-shaped apple. Live and learn, I guess. Despite the star fruit disappointment, I am still keen on finding and trying a passion fruit. Surely, with a name like “passion fruit,” it must be utopian.

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In a previous post, I claimed Lincoln Park is a peer to Minneapolis’ Uptown. Mutak refuted this idea in a comment (though ironically he caused the comparison in the first place, thanks to a discussion at Kahn’s). I responded in the same comment thread, defending Uptown as trendy, affluent, and clean. However, the exchange got me thinking, so I took a quick trip to Uptown to reassure myself that it exists in reality as it does in my memory.

With that quick jaunt and my stay in Lincoln Park still fresh in mind, I would like to alter my Uptown defense with several caveats. Yes, Uptown is nice, but the really nice parts are between Lake and Lagoon along Hennepin. No, Uptown is nowhere near the size of Lincoln Park, neither in acreage nor building height. I concede that Uptown is more ‘bohemian’ than Lincoln Park, but I don’t see that as a fault, but rather as a different expression of character. One similarity between the two neighborhoods that I failed to mention before is the absence of parking space. So, in conclusion, Uptown is not a Lincoln Park wannabe, but it’s the closest thing Minneapolis has to a trendy city locality.

My commenting system has a slightly cleaner look now, so try it out!

Also, my blogroll is now competitively sorted. The question is, what’s the criterion? (Cue Jeopardy music)

Enough of this administrative stuff; look for a real post late on Saturday.

LATE UPDATE: One more new feature: an XML RSS feed. I haven’t verified that the output is usable, but everything looks pretty good.

Woo. Comments. Took a little longer than expected; I “rolled my own” except for the bit of JS I cribbed from Kiefer (via Mutak).

More later, including a prettier comment interface.

Ah, to be young and a terrible judge of time.

I love Minnesota and am having a great time here this summer, but I felt the need to get away for a little while. One thing led to another, and I soon found myself leaving work last Friday afternoon, bound for Chicago. I don’t remember much of the drive except that Madison has a good smooth jazz radio station. Six and a half hours after my departure, I entered the throngs of the Windy City roadway labyrinth. Turn, turn, stop, pay toll, go, exit, turn, turn, turn, and suddenly I was at Alex’s house. Although Alex injured his foot in Europe recently, the foot was well enough for Alex to be mobile. Alex was kind enough to give me the guest bed for a night as well as securing a parking permit for my car, both of which I’m grateful for.

Alex and I met up with one of Alex’s longtime friends, his girlfriend, and his sister and proceeded to enjoy the Lincoln Park nightlife. That neighborhood is in the city, so it’s easy to walk just about anywhere one need go. It’s just as well that we walked – there is a pronounced dearth of available parking spots. The area reminded me of Minneapolis’ Uptown district: nice, lots to do, definitely the place to be.

The clock indicated 3:30 a.m., and the party was still going strong. Unlike Minneapolis, Chicago allows some bars to stay open and serving until 4:00 a.m. We walked back to Alex’s house and shot the breeze for a while. I finally got to sleep when 5:00 a.m. rolled around. Four hours later, I was awake and preparing to depart. A half-hour after that, I was rolling down the freeway, bound for Terre Haute.

Back in January, I made the drive from Chicago to Terre Haute under the duress of extreme exhaustion. I don’t remember much of that drive. Although I was wide awake this time, and the sun was shining brightly, I recall very little of the drive. I think there’s a reason for my lack of memory: that drive is bloody BORING. It’s like driving through Iowa, but worse. There aren’t even any cops to make things interesting. I think they feel sorry for everyone making that drive, so they don’t bother setting any speed traps.

At about 2:00 p.m., I pulled into the Pike House. Immediately, I noticed the Annex and its new roof. Too bad the contractors were putzing with the gutters when a powerful storm hit; some areas around the edges of the building sustained considerable water damage.

The main house was quiet and surprisingly clean. Props to the handful of Brothers who are living there and keeping it so presentable. I hung out for a bit with McDonough, Edmonson, and Capizzi before starting work on my room. Martin and Baldauff, new members of the corporate world, also dropped by. It was good to see everybody again.

Tyler and I are completely redoing our room. The plan is to rip out the carpet, refinish the underlying hardwood floor, and build a new loft. The first step of the renovation was to remove the old loft. That process went relatively smoothly until about 12:30 a.m. At that point, I was expecting to separate the loft into two freestanding pieces and carefully take them apart, one at a time. Unfortunately, the pieces turned out not to be freestanding. With a crack and snap, the loft started to collapse. All I could do was direct it away from the windows – stopping the collapse was beyond my abilities. As I examined the tangled mess of wood, I breathed a sigh of relief. The falling loft missed all of the windows and the walls. Unfortunately, two very significant beams were jamming the door shut. I tried to undo the bolts holding the loft together but met little success. In addition to cracking a 2-by-6, the falling loft bent several 3/8-inch carriage bolts, significantly complicating my dismantling efforts. Eventually, I got out my hacksaw and sawed through four bolts, which loosened things up enough to free the door and allowed me to complete the demolition. All of that wrapped up around 2:00 a.m.

Seven hours later, I got up and gathered my things. After a few miscellaneous deeds, I was on my back to Minnesota. I made the 620-mile drive in about 8 hours, 45 minutes, including two stops. The lesson here: that was far too much driving for three days. I now appreciate even more the trips that my parents have made, as they too sometimes do the round trip on a three-day timescale.

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Everybody seems to be doing it, so I’m going to follow the crowd and implement inline comments. It’s a gradual step in the direction of Keacher.com version 3.0. Take a look at the Internet Archive for a humorous view of the past.

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It turns out that keacher.blogspot.com is NOT about oatmeal cookies, as I had previously guessed. I think that the blog author noticed people visiting the blog from my link and visited my blog, as this was posted a few days ago. Not to worry, my fellow unilingual Americans; the referenced post is in English. Apparently, to quote the blog author, it is a site about emotions.

I went golfing today, my first time playing a regulation course. Why?

A few weeks ago, my manager’s manager’s manager decided that his group was doing a great job with the current project, so he gave everybody in the group this afternoon off to eat lunch and play golf.

We played at Columbia Golf Course in Minneapolis, an 18-hole regulation size course. I chose to play 9 holes. Although my score was, um… high, I had a great time.

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I did one of my periodic searches for “Keacher” on Google today. Imagine my surprise when I found another Keacher with a blog! Then I became disappointed. It turns out that keacher.blogspot.com is run by some Hungarian.

Needless to say, I can’t read, speak, or otherwise communicate in Hungarian. Google couldn’t find any online Hungarian-to-English translators, so I tried running the page through a German-to-English translator. You’d be amazed how different German and Hungarian are. Nothing translated. Not a single word. Zilch. Zero. Nadda. Maybe it’s a site about oatmeal cookies. I have no idea. And learning Hungarian is definitely NOT on the to-do list.