Welcome to Minneapolis.

Huge bridge in France

Millau bridge is made by the same company that built the Eiffel Tower. The bridge is over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains and is more than 984ft taller than the tower. This website has several interesting pictures of the construction. For more architectual items of interest check out BLDGBLOG.

i think i saw this donut shop in a commercial not too long ago. with an airplane going over it, anyone? wait! look what i just found...click here



Los Angeles & Santa Barbara, CA
a fun time was had in sunny and warm california (it was 90 (!) on sat. - a record for this time of year). it was nice to get away for the weekend, although the traffic is always stressful and annoying. on friday it took us 3 hours to go 10 miles! i had never been to santa barbara before and it was very beautiful --lots of vague generalities in this post-- and quaint. (ps. no celebrity sightings this time).

Science vs Faith in Flowcharts

Interested to see more? Checkout wellingtingrey.net.

Getty Museum, Los Angeles
so today my dad and i are going to L.A. to visit some family friends. i couldn't be more excited to have a change of scenery and get out of the cold for the weekend. this is a picture taken from another visit. i really hated all the art at the getty but the architecture and landscaping were absolutely breathtaking. not to mention the view from the cliff that its on of downtown L.A.

New project on the horizon

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I'm in the planning stages of my next home project. I'm going to renovate my lone bathroom. As you can see in my sketch above it's small, no more than 6'4" x 6'. Since the tub takes up almost a third of the room I'll only need to put down around 22 sq ft of flooring. Right now the bathroom sucks. Since I moved in Tina and I have removed the ugly sliding shower doors and put up a shower curtain, added some corner shelves and a cabinet over the toilet for storage, and we got some IKEA hardware for the towels and TP.

Here's what the bath has now:
Light olive green tub and surround
Bisque pedestal sink
White toilet (I already re-built and re-positioned)
Door that opens into the bath and stops when it hits the front of the toilet
Old vanity lights
Laminate floor tiles on top of partially rotting sub-floor

Here's the wish list:
White tub, possibly Jacuzzi/whirlpool
Tile surround in tub/shower and new faucet/shower head
White pedestal sink with new faucet
High efficiency toilet to save water
Pocket door for entrance to bathroom
New lights, mirror, towel hanger, etc
New sub floor, heated floor grid, tile floor
Solatube?

The layout will not change, so once I decide on a budget I can start picking items. The actual work will have to be done much faster than my past projects, again it's my lone bathroom.

Axman Surplus, St. Paul
so when i was skiing tonight on the lake i saw a beautiful sunset, alas, i forgot my camera. so this will be the photo of the week. its weird, i know. we were running errands and stopped by the axman on university ave. to check out what crazy things they had in stock. anyone need any extra baby doll legs? nice that they have a range of ethnicities to choose from.

THE EISENHOWER INTERSTATE SYSTEM (Simplified)

Per chrisyates.net this is "an exercise in graphic information conveyance is partially applying subway map style semiotics to the Interstate System, and partially illustrating the centrial arteries of the country. It is also neat-o to look at." I agree. You can get a print here.

PIZZA BLOG!

It's not a blog about pizza as much as a blog about people who get pizza. The Pizzaman's City Pages blog is interesting and fun to read. A lot of complaining about his car, but since he's a pizza delivery man I understand.

LOST is back

I stay current with several shows (with the help of my DVR); HEROES, 24, Friday Night Lights, Grey's Anatomy, TOH, Living with Ed, Dirty Jobs, and just about anything HBO runs. The first show I ever dove into with marathon viewings on DVD was LOST. In the fall, I was forced to finally join the other "losties" and watch the show weekly at the pace decided by the producers and ABC. Before the hiatus I must admit I was getting very frustrated with the show. Answer some questions!

Well LOST is back starting tonight and will show 16 new episodes. I'm hoping the show will deliver the goods "... producers promise a return to form: We're spinning back toward beach community and telling a lot of those other stories,' says executive producer and co-creator Damon Lindelof, with four of the first six flashbacks devoted to original characters. 'Anyway, I'm looking forward to figuring out new stuff, but more importantly tying some things together."

Check out some of these sites for LOST info and fun:
Pop Candy's on going LOST thread
LOST - TV the unofficial fan site
The LOSTBLOG
Lost-vivor - this guy does a weekly ranking of the characters on his blog.
Ultimate LOST theory - spoiler if it's at all true
DharmaSecrets theory - spolier if it's true, this one is AMAZING!

* I spend a good 15 minutes looking through "fan art" for LOST. Some pretty funny stuff out there.

Lake of the Isles Skating Rink
brrrrr... so i was going to take pictures this weekend at the loppet and post them, but it was sooooo cold that the idea of taking my hand out of a toasty mitten to snap a picture was unthinkable. these photos were taken on a run last week (when it wasn't quite as cold as it is now). did see a wee bit of the ski race on sunday and then ran back inside. (see winter attire below-- kristen on left, me on the right--- lots of layering, two pairs of pants each).

My Celebrity Look-alikes

I was directed to the website My Heritage which lets you find your own celebrity look-a-likes. You have to sign up, but I had to try anyway.

Here we go...
In case you were wondering who these folks were:
· Lionel Hampton - a jazz percussionist and bandleader. He was the first jazz vibraphone player and arguably the greatest ever. "Hamp" ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians.
· Liya Kebede - 29 year old Ethiopia supermodel.
· Philip Kirkorov - Russian pop singer.
· Jesse, Marley, Barry, Vin Diesel - Yup, that's a total match.
· Peter Sarsgaard - Actor from Garden State.

Happy Birthday Steve!
love,
christina

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