Need new glasses (haven't got any since 2010) but zenni only has two in my face size with adjustable nose pads (without those, glasses hit my lashes). What are other stores/sites that people use? Happy to shop brick and mortar, but in 2010 I tried 12 stores locally with no success.

Why hasn't any layer of my government told me where unhoused people can go for safe air and cooler temps? My city, county, and state are disappointing me big time

AQI in Minneapolis is now 530. It’s over 80 degrees at 11pm. For neighbors without air conditioning, and our neighbors experiencing unsheltered homelessness, these are incredibly dangerous conditions. I’ll be out tomorrow with masks and cold water, checking on neighbors. Please do the same.

Looks like Grand Marais’s AQI peaked today at 2259, though their graph stops at 1000. I’m a ball of worry for…everyone, and especially those who’re most at risk and with the least protection.

WOULD BE REALLY COOL IF THE CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS HAD SOME SORT OF OPT-IN EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM FOR SITUATIONS LIKE THIS WITH INFORMATION ON HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND YOU COULD SHARE IT. Goddamn what the hell is going on here y'all. Not a notification since the heat alert on Monday, shame.

Any of you have experience with dehydrating foods outside in hot weather? I feel decently confident in my hardware to enable this and protect said foods from birds/pests, but not sure what weather conditions will suffice or how often to give things a shake.

The University of Minnesota's study of St. Anthony Falls is live: government-relations.umn.edu/SAF-study

No idea, dating objects is hard especially when acquired without known lineage but the vaaaast majority of what I own/use is secondhand (curb/dumpster, thrift store, garage sale, Craigslist, hand-me-down), except shoes, contact lenses, toothbrush, 2 stools bought in 2010. Most furniture is pre-60s.

Recommendation? Looking for a place near the Stone Arch Bridge where I could gather with out of town friends for: Watching a soccer game at 2pm Catching up with a friend about hard stuff Comfortable for elementary age kids to hang out and read/draw/craft Bonus points for breezy situation!

Met Council: "Place a pin anywhere in the Twin Cities region where you have felt impacted by highway development." Hard to know where to begin. zanassoc.mysocialpinpoint.com/highway-syst...

We must organize techworkerscoalition.org

Good fiction (imo) of late, in no order: Awake in the Floating City/Susanna Kwan If, Then/Kate Hope Day The Parking Lot Attendant/Nafkote Tamirat Will There Ever Be Another You/Patricia Lockwood Ghost Forest/Pik-Shuen Fung Bowlaway/Elizabeth McCracken Nothing to See Here/Kevin Wilson

For a few years, I've had an annual calendar event for 6/15 from 1-2pm labeled "Pete's birthday." I do not know a Pete. I do not know someone whose birthday is 6/15 that I'm aware of. I do not recall setting up this recurring event. Happy early birthday, Pete!

franklin steele park in elliot park, minneapolis: a basketball court, two playgrounds, a splash pad, a shelter with picnic tables under it, a shipping container with graffiti on it, tons of benches, every amenity you could name and not a SINGLE bike rack

Installed a towel bar in home office so I can hang my bike panniers on the wall when I’m not using them. E-bike summer continues apace.

Sidewalks are never cleared and the way the city/county/state clear roads actually make sidewalks worse than if they did nothing, yet no libertarians among pedestrians…

www.ada.gov/resources/ad... Do these barriers prevent access to public services? Also: "Otherwise, these individuals are forced to travel in streets and roadways and are put in danger or are prevented from reaching their destination" (referring to curb ramps but seems arguably applicable).

40+ minute walking detours on days like today are actively dangerous for some people, especially in a city with no benches, water fountains, or restrooms on the route.

Two miles out of your way, because it’s to the next open crossing and then back to your original destination. Further if starting from Franklin or north of it.

People of the Wedge: Register your cat. Tell your friends the Cat Tour is coming June 24. wedgelive.com/cat-tour/

"Every map is the same map" The concentration of pedestrian connection closures across highways align perfectly with where the poorest people live. Who could have predicted this?! go.minneapolismn.gov/minneapolis-... is just greenwashing until the poorest people can safely get to non-car options.

Imagine you are at 24th and Cedar in Minneapolis, and you want to take the light rail (~1200 ft or 1/5 mi away). You have to get past Hiawatha/MN-55, so what are your options, without walking into car traffic? Take the red or orange path. (orange questionable due to construction at 26th/Hiawatha)

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Scenes from 24th St and 26th St at Hiawatha from this morning (photos from a friend) - 24th St bridge totally closed - Incorrect signs at 26th directing people to detour via 24th MnDOT needs to pay any attention at all to people outside cars, please.

I have had a fairly atypical relationship with reading since I first learned how at age 6, in the months preceding my favorite aunt's death. I took to it faaast and hard, as a means of escape. I've big-shifted a few times in major aspects of my reading, and most recently again ~5 weeks ago.

Pondering whether (my) aphantasia and even anendophasia is linked to (my) preference for fairly intense/complex/layered visual stimulation in (my) surroundings.

I don't recall ever hearing the word "sledge" without "hammer" finishing it, but I've read two books in as many weeks where it's been used to refer to the thing that is pulled over snow or zips downs snowy hills. Is it me or them that's weird? (The Ice on the Lake and Wandering Souls)

What an exciting water feature to celebrate sidewalks! Might be my favorite in the city in years! (Likely a lateral line something something, said my flame on viewing it yesterday.)

I don't think I've heard of kids playing with marbles in the US in decades, but somehow I've accumulated a nice little collection (a dozen and a half? 2 dozen?) of found marbles from around the city. They make me strangely happy for being unmoored from or adrift in time in some way.

I'm looking for kindred writing groups or writing friends of some sort, and also book recommendations. I've got a story or four to tell and am hoping/sensing that I'm moving towards that, but miss the structure/shape of others to help me calibrate (and doing the same in turn). Where do you look?

Trying to figure out if it’s conceptually feasible to read audiobooks as quickly as visuobooks. Seems like eyeball reading allows for some sort of chunking of info to process, but audio would inherently be more linear, eg slower?

This seems amazing except the two items I’ve known to be lost and found on transit (as opposed to lost and lost) were both bikes, and difficult to recover due to location/hours. But hopefully improvements for those are next somehow!

Having lived near Uptown from childhood until 2022, my shopping there was always fairly minimal because the retailers increasingly aimed for some sort of regional draw with expensive national chains I didn’t like, and it wasn’t my preferred place to dine either (Eat Street a nice walking distance!).

Highlights of Art A Whirl: Talking sh!t about cars with a gregarious person on a bike Smelling the different fragrances of individual lilac bushes along the alleys on the walk over The way a diaphanous sheer fabric fluttered against barbed wire and corrugated metal Knowing Central Ave will change

This is very tempting, even for my most lumplike self who has not managed to infiltrate a single NACTO party yet

I missed my return transit trip by one minute (EB scan 8:28 today, WB scan 11:28— Oh, no I didn’t, that’s a whole 30, scratch that thought. I feel better now, even though the point I would have been making is that transit is probably the thing I least want to be a tightwad about for many reasons.

Dead migratory bird-friend that I didn’t have supplies/time to gather for researchers. Will try later, but anyone nearby could gather it for science and love, on 1st between 4th & 5th, downriver side.

I'm hearing that NACTO people will be in Mpls next week. I'm wanting to join in the fun or give people walking tours. My interests: walking/accessibility, public outreach + art, winter ice conditions, benches, density, organizing, storytelling infrastructure, Hennepin Ave, the whole world. HMU.

I might be a lump, but at least I’m a lump whose lumpiness cannot yet be automated (lmk when machines crochet), and whose lumpy colorways sometimes match the transit I’m on.

In Minnesota, apartments are only allowed on about 7% of residential land. But the least efficient type of homes, large homes on large lots, are standard, and allowed on 97% of residential land. We should flip that. www.zoningatlas.org/snapshots?cb...

But also @happify.bsky.social also has valid critiques of sidewalks as infrastructure that doesn’t work

Went biking today (that’s why you didn’t recognize me). Was so so so whiny for the first three miles. “I thought biking was supposed to be easier than walking!” “My legs are tired.” “Why doesn’t biking use any of the same muscles as walking?” and on and on. Turns out back tire at 5psi will do that.

Sad news about what the city of Minneapolis is telling sidewalk inspectors is a compliant winter sidewalk: "If sand or salt was placed down, an attempt was made and sidewalk is considered compliant." Sprinkling salt on an otherwise untouched sidewalk: "an attempt was made"

Also also, just to be clear, the wastewater data referenced in this is from four treatment plants in MN, but not directly the metro. Given how exponential spread works, the particular risk factors for it in the metro since Jan 24th, and the effectiveness of masking, I'm alerting my circles anyhow.

Also, keep in mind that the infection rate is based on population but not everyone feels/is safe going to school/work/gatherings right now, so the denominator is functionally lower in MN right now (therefore chances of infectious person in a gathering space is higher). (Still spitballing armchair)

I’m thinking* this is the result of the combo of massive over-capacity m indoor gatherings of (unmasked) people wanting to help neighbors targeted by ICE and also in person caucusing, all in spaces without sufficient air filtration/ventilation. * Untrained. Untested. Spitballing.

Breaking: The CDC reports SARS-CoV-2 levels *quadrupled* in Minnesota in the past week. Using harmonized wastewater estimates, we project 1 in 12 people in Minnesota are actively infectious. This is equivalent to a 59% chance of exposure in a room of 10 people....

Watching @happify.bsky.social clearing curbs with a vengeance inspired me to go clear some mid block alley crossings. Lot of work! But smoother getting through now!

Here it is earlier in January when we cleared it of water (3rd and worst of three very flooded portions of the bike path). The water was 4” deep for about 10’, then tapering off for another 10-15’. My flame’s boots weren’t waterproof so I shoved ALLLL OF THAT WATER over a snowbank with a shovel.

Did some bike path clearing today. Took a while, but not nearly as bad as it was when we got it early-mid January (I hacked at it a bit yesterday, but fruitlessly with just the chopper). Tools used: ice chopper + wide blade shovel to push the water over the snow dams.