Was this that super expensive mansion (like one of the most expensive to date in the country)? I think the location/tear-down date fit what I recall hearing

Yo, business owners in MN (500 employees or less)! MPCA has a cool grant you might be interested in. E-bikes for commercial biz. Think delivery, providing services, etc. Grant applications due Jan 15, 2026: www.pca.state.mn.us/grants-and-l...

I have video from a few years ago of a City of Minneapolis plow moving a hug mound of snow from the middle of the street (T intersection turns/plowing left an island) literally into a beautifully shoveled, totally clear sidewalk corner.

So much of why sidewalks are unusable in winter is because the streets were plowed on to them, especially at corners

All kinds of ICE in our neighborhoods is a policy failure.

It’s astounding! On Monday, I could feel the cracking as directional zips beneath me from my weight and as others skated nearby. Lots of rainbow baby cracks!

@metrotransitmn.bsky.social seems like neither side of sign at 5th/nicollet away-from-river is working. (Other side says it’s out of service.)

Here are walking vs driving conditions in Minneapolis. THIS IS A CITY CHOICE. This is not snow as it fell, but how the city chose to what to plow and where to leave the ice chunks.

The city plows parking lanes by moving heavy compacted ice chunks to block sidewalks already cleared by responsible property owners/managers.

Sidewalks are failed infrastructure. The most vulnerable pedestrians use the roadway, which is actually cleared of snow/ice (often by plowing it onto adjacent sidewalks) and stays cleared because it’s designed to.

Minneapolis prioritizes cars over people. The street is totally clear, and the parking lanes, but at the expense of the sidewalks, which were decently cleared and are now impassable using a wheelchair.

Update: just looked at @supplydepotmpls.bsky.social's donation list and I see that they don't actually accept secondhand socks, which is really a pity given how critical + expensive good socks are and how often like-new $ock$ show up in thrift stores.

Beyond all the practical and structural issues and elements of caretaking labor, there is massive invisibilization of caring for those whose care in unpredictable, chronic, and/or ends in death.

Last fall/winter, I did pretty regular trips to the thrift store bins for socks for the Supply Depot. As someone who walks a lot + hates cold feet, I consider myself a connoisseur and there were tons I found that I would have happily worn myself (I thrift my own socks as needed, and mend mine).

Not to brag, but fully in the throes of ending my two decade boycott of Hennepin County libraries. The books and people and place are still home, but the HCL borg seems to be a bit less forgiving of my righteous anger over the suburban takeover of my city library system.

Heading into year five of making ferments. I've finished up a jar of sauerkraut and am starting the jars of my own hot pink ferment, which has proven to be popular with other humans too (purple cabbage, carrot, onion, radish, turmeric, ginger, garlic, sometimes cucumber or watermelon rind).

Considering the relationship between concepts of permaculture and the Prayer of Archbishop Oscar Romero (assassinated in 1980 after calling on soldiers to “stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights”). (The poem was written by another priest after his death.)

Very confused by this whole thing (same as with the very secret PW vehicle parade) and embarrassed for them. I assume this is strategic to make it seem like the whole anti-transit/Nicollet Mall debacle has some basis, but their facade isn't facading (facadding?).

Listening to the Sense Making in a Changing World podcast and daaaamn does it resonate with the culture I was raised with (but struggle to articulate/find) and the way of being that I practiced while caring for and walking with my father for so many years. www.buzzsprout.com/978904?

it seems minor, but the headline for stuff like this should be "fact check: most mass shootings are carried out by cisgender people" you don't repeat the other side's argument, even when it is to negate it

Looking for recommendations from folks about how to find a (poetry-)writing group to join either IRL local to Mpls or online. My preference would be fairly committed to the practice + some process to make sure we're a good fit (application? idk) but not in an exclusionary/pretentious way.

Today, 4-6 pm. Express your concerns and confusion!

Was surprised to see my settings were set to autoplay, given that I hate video generally and am proactive in seeking out ways to make it all stop always (I want text only, maybe images!). Not sure if it got reset or if I somehow missed turning it off, but either way, double-check things friends.

Cobblestone sidewalk in Sweden with tracks for wheelchairs, strollers, people in heels, etc.

Or we could do actual pavers and install them well. We could have the aesthetics + the driver-calming impacts without placing them where they impede people walking or using wheelchairs or biking.

I think the preference really stems from a puritanical desire to hide away the messier/decay aspects of life, including infrastructure. The move away from home-repair of the car and the move of the car to the front of the house as status symbol (suburban development) are in line with my theory.

Mpls friends! A friend of a friend is missing. If you see a silver 2006 Camry, with JMV license plate, please lmk!

No post-work appts available at Sociable Cider Works for blood donation. How do Mpls folks who donate regularly generally do so, especially those who're O- (or even O+)? I'm not eligible and don't even know my type, but v willing to bribe or pressure friends + family who're more universal types.

Learned via a podcast on staining fabric of walking as a measurement of time for dyeing. How amazing (and retrospectively intuitive) is that?!?! If you don't have clocks, how do you communicate smaller units of time in recipes? What's something that is ubiquitous and fairly consistent? WALKING <3

A lot of people are asking what MPD is doing while there are hundreds of cars getting their windows smashed in. I have an answer... they are tied up tackling the crime on the empty streets of Uptown:

I served on our neighborhood board for a few years with Mike. I was appalled at how he ran a board election--we had one more person running than there were open seats, and Mike threw his weight around, trying to avoid having to have an actual balloted vote at our annual meeting that night.

My dream walk/transit app would include: > shortcuts across frozen lakes, when safe > easy-to-adjust walking pace depending on who you're with > options for more peopled/less deserted routes > locations of benches, restrooms, water fountains > if transit stops have benches/wind/sun/rain shelter

Anybody have a favorite platform for hosting shared calendars that you want to be at least link-sharable and possibly easy for multiple people to add to? No need for any sort of scheduling capabilities, purely just showing deadlines + events gathered from multiple sources.

You know what's very delicious? The hazelnuts you toasted yourself yesterday that you shelled by hand last week that you harvested yourself two years ago.

Trying out the transit app per many recommendations and it's working better than google maps (not intending to damn with faint praise) but I really want walk options, especially privileged over transfers!

Realization: I’m totally on board with the notion of adjusting aspects of myself or how I present* up to say 10-80% to accommodate others, but I expect the same effort reciprocated.

Brains are not all I'm thinking about, but I've been wrestling with all sorts of related and existential questions since my father's memory and experience of the world first started leaving the realm of the everyday. To care for him fully, mine did as well, minus the anosognosia.

A link to a 2008 article describing unsymbolized thinking (which I understand to be a subset of anendophasia) as a concept. Pretty sure this is me most of the time, though (I think) it's often unconnected to any direct external stimulus/planning. hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/hurlburt-akh...

My policy is to avoid going places where I have to do more to plan my transit than just show up to the stop and pay attention to the 1-2 digit route number, but sometimes I make exceptions. Google maps was actively wrong in multiple ways trip planning last night for today. Is this failure new?

Pretty sure I have both anendophasia and close to aphantasia (visualization is kind of a flash out of the corner of my eye, or a knowing that is different from seeing). Lack of inner voice does not (for me) mean a quiet brain at all. Ever.

Almost never have an inner voice/no verbal thinking and fairly difficult for me to visualize at all (not quite full aphantasia). Brain constantly full of moving webs of relational thoughts that excel at waking (and keeping) me up at 4AM.

Still absolutely astounded that some people think in words.

How do you order up another papa on the salt lake line?

On my mind often, including of late: Focusing on and calling out problematic/oppressive/toxic patterns of behavior, rather than individuals or institutions or organizations. There's a lot of harm that comes out of eliding (patterns of) behaviors and those-which/whom-behave.

Planning a date with my flame. Theme: steps. We're looking to build some for our apartment, but want to examine the pros/cons of different rise + run scenarios. What're your favorites around downtown Mpls? (Indoors or out.)

Jealous of the people who can hear the weather when in their basements. Prob a downside to apartment construction and windowless (I think?) basements.

This rag rug had some catastrophic failures in the weft last time it was in the washing machine. I think it was too loosely woven, so the warp threads shifted to be next to each other. Fixing it with blanket stitches.

Dear friends, How do you all have conversations about systems thinking + design/ux thinking + behavioral design + multi-solving + climate systems with people new to those terms, in ways that find common language/frameworks to start? How do you gauge for comprehension and where you're losing folks?

See also: why circle covers are king for heavy lids of deep shafts. (Still have a fairly unfounded love for the ever-fewer large hex lids dotting Mpls--don't know if St P has any of those.)