TimFreeland.com

Earlier this year my Uncle Kent & Aunt Kay Freeland planned an outing on Lake Pepin in Lake City, MN.  They rented a large paddle boat that had been restored for use on this large waterfront.  It was a double decker with a full bar, bathrooms, retro-charm, great service, near perfect weather, friends and family and a view to kill for.  It was a perfect day and I'd like to thank Kent and Kay for everything.  Please enjoy the following photo and video albums.  Meanwhile, I am putting together a compilation of these photos and videos, that will be presented to music.  I just wanted to get these up first.

Friends and family that were aboard, please leave a comment for everyone to read.  Tell me what you thought of the trip.  Share photos if you can.

Click here to view all video

It has been 976 days since Rylie first stepped through the doors of the new Northfield Montessori facility in 2005.  At age 3 Rylie joined the "Discovery I" classroom where she moved to "Discovery II" and finally into the "Montessori" room.  Last week, she left for the last time after completing the Kindergarten program. I would personally like to thank all the teachers for their hard work over the years.  It's a job that not many could do and I don't think teachers are rewarded enough in our society.

This step in Rylie's life is truly a fork in the road for me and her.  See, Rylie's mom Melissa lives in Farmington and after much debate, it was decided that Rylie would attend public school in that system at this time.  I really wanted Rylie to attend school and grow up in the same community that I did.  However, she will still split equal time between Northfield and Farmington by dividing up vacations, weekends and holidays between the two families. 

It all started for me in the June of 1994 when I was invited to "Mike's Cabin" on lake Tatonka in Waterville MN for a weekend event celebrating their annual "Bullhead Days".  Did you know they are the "Bullhead capital of the world" so their city sign proclaims. 

I was pumped to stay the weekend in the cabin.  Turns out there was no cabin.  Just a parked camper and it was full.  So, I slept in the back of a pick-up truck.  That next morning, I officially re-named it "Hart's lake shore property" so as not to mis-lead anyone else.  Truck beds are brutal. 

For 14 years I have spend the 2nd week of June in Waterville.  I started to collect their celebration pin-back buttons.  I am grateful to the Hart family for having us all down year after year.  If you know of anyone who might have buttons from prior years, please let me know!

Following is a list of traditional activities (some of which I do and do not partake in).

• Lighting off fireworks.  Some legal and some no-so-much.
• Boating on Tatonka and watching Mike do cannon-balls into the green water.
• Taking the boat through a small, shallow channel that I named "Appacolypse Now" after the familiar scenes in the afore mentioned movie. 
• Playing catch with a ball and glove with the guys.  We once had an 8-way going.
• BBQing
• Going "into town" to watch locals eat disgusting deep-fried bullheads.  (those are rough fish...bottom feeders).
• Singing karaoke at the "Corner Bar".
• 2008 was the 44th year of the celebration.

So, here it is.  Almost every photo that I've ever taken of the lake festivities.  It's fun to watch everyone change through the years.  Notice a crew of faithful that never change while the yearly guests change. Click the mosaic.

Or, you can click here to view my collection of Bullhead Days Buttons. 

They had their musical performance this morning.  I was very impressed as this was probably the first for most of them.  I remember being in their shoes.  We all had to get up there at some point in our childhood.  I remember looking out at the parents and belting it out.  We'll, now I found myself on the other side of things, as I do often with my kids.  Good job Kayla.

What started out as a weekly "meeting of the minds" at the Rueb n' Stein in downtown Northfield turned into what we believe to be a unique concept.  Adam Gurno  & Tim Freeland have teamed up to launch a mostly web-based endeavor that turns old photos and any video into a custom tailored presentation for any event, set to your choice of music and fully personalized to please. 

"We really seemed to click and had unique talents that fit together perfectly," said Tim.  "We found a shared interest in entrepreneurial endeavors and quickly agreed that the path to success was to include the latest technology and had to be driven by an online presence."

The concept of their business includes taking old and new photos and video relevant to a certain person or event, for example, and artistically weaving them together  into one flowing presentation, all to the beat of your chosen musical soundtrack.  Using their own experiences along with the latest video and digital photography software, they are able to enhance, fix, alter, blend and direct the content together in ways that tell a story. 

"Tim had skills with business management, video production, advertising, sales, video archiving and photo restoration while I had experience with building online web site systems, multi-media software, video editing, artistic direction as well as working with the local Northfield Citizens Online (NCO) group and running Northfield.org," explained Adam.

Click here to read the Northfield News story on this week's rail mishap and click the photo below to watch a slide show of photos that I shot today.

What do they use to catch the Ether bunny?  The Ethernet.  ha ha ha ha. 

Ok.  Next subject.  Where in the world did the concept of an Easter bunny come from?  And what do eggs have to do with salvation through Jesus.  I've been to oh....33 Easter services in my life.  I do recall a few Pastors discussing this topic in great detail.  It's not an easy one with kids, because we have to skirt the whole tooth-fairy, Santa tales while emphasizing the truths of Christian believes.  It's difficult for many adults to grasp the Christian resurrection and eternal salvation let alone kids doing so.

Regardless...a good time was had by all.

In the spring of 2004 I came up with a great idea.  I was standing in the back yard of my house and looked down the neighbors back yards in my block.  It seemed that almost half had one of those gigantic wooden play fort swing sets, maybe of which were Rainbow Play-systems.  Rainbow is the "Cadillac" of forts and can be denoted by their trademark red, yellow and blue striped canopies.  Rainbow is very expensive.  So my good friend Chad and I got together and went to work for Rainbow installing these sets.  Out goal was to learn about the product and either try to re-sell Rainbow or make our own models.  Well..it didn't take long to rule out manufacturing and we hooked up with Outback Play-systems in Wisconsin.  We bought by the truck load and installed all over the twin cities.  There was some rewarding about putting these fun little kits together.  It paid pretty well. 

After installing these for just one summer, I ended up here.  I had wrecked my right shoulder.  Four years later I had the surgery.  I held off for so long hoping it would go away only to ice the pain away every day. 

Well, I'm back and available to install should anyone be in the market.  Just shoot me an email to learn about the various brands on the market.

Don't Let this happen to you....Call us!

Here's a photo from 1979 of Chad, Andy and I building our first fort.

minnesota tatoo

Originally uploaded by timfreeland

How do you like my new tattoo? I'm one dedicated Minnesotan!

Naaa. I'm too big of a chicken to get a tattoo, but someone did. Over the years, I've been infatuated with the map shape of Minnesota. Probably since I was in grade school and did a project on what defines it's boarders.

Over the years I've seen various companies use the shape of the state in their logos. I've decided to start keeping track of them. Click here to see my collection so far. More to come.

If you have any ideas or unique images, please send a post and attach your file.

1937

Originally uploaded by timfreeland

A few months ago, I sought to find every St Paul Winter Carnival Pinback button ever made. I quickly found out that there were many many sets out there. There is the official pin-set, but every group of royalty has their own, each "wind", the Vulcan's, the sponsors, past royalty, etc. I don't know if you could actually collect everything that exists. But, at least I have almost all of the "official" ones. I must disclose that I do not have the 1916, and the 3 from the last 1890, nor do I expect to ever have them. They are too expensive for my blood. I have made "place holder" replica's of them to sit in my collection and I am ok with that.

With this 1937 purchase, I feel complete. I feel peace in my heart, knowing that I need not hover over ever eBay listing or call any more antique shops in the cities.

Click here to view photos of the entire set.