It was a great way to start my career at KYMN Radio.  I reported for duty at 8am and the Minnesota Twins showed up at 9.  There was plenty of excitement and I didn't know what to expect.  I met Dan Gladden, Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker.  Everyone was great as we shuffled them around from one thing to the next.  They even signed stuff for us and took photos graciously.  Later on Rick Anderson (pitching coach) showed up late.  He was seeing his pitchers for the first time since season end. in early October.  It was cool to see them greet each other.  I love how they all have nick-names that end in "ey".  Rick called Scott, "Scotty" and Nick Blackburn, "Blackie".  Dan "Dazzle" Gladden was awesome.  I can't imagine their lives, being mauled all the time like they are. 

I finally got my photo taken with Wayne Eddy and the other guy jumped in.

From KYMN Twins Caravan 2009. Northfield Middle School.

 Video of introductions:

 Photos of Q & A section:

Driving to work this morning on the coldest day in Minnesota in 10 months I took out my camera she shot the drive.  Amazing how packed and "white" the roads are.  Surprisingly, in Minnesota we can get the road to a normal cement or black top look once temps get "up" into the twenties and react with the road salt.  Well...I am driving in my pre-heated car and noticed the signs of extreme cold that I had forgotten about.  The roads drift, sometimes it whites-out, exhaust pipes emit a fog and car windows are frosted over.  It's surreal but real, especially when the DJ shows some humor by playing U2's "In God's Country". The air temp was actually about -10F with winds gusting up to 40 MPH, creating the wind-chill effect of a lifetime. 

An hour later I was driving around for work and saw "Sundogs" around the sun so I took a photo.  Amazing beauty.  I believe that happens when moisture crystallizes in the atmosphere to ask like a prism for the light to pass through, refracting into the color spectrum.  I'm trying to point out the positives when living under these brutal weather conditions. 

From NHS Locker room Dec 2008

In 1990 I was a junior in high school and played football for the Northfield Raiders during head coach Bob (Bubba) Sullivan's very first year coaching. We went 2-6. My senior year I didn't play and they went 1-7. He quickly turned the program around.

The Raiders lost to Mankato West on Nov 29th 2008 during the final championship game of the year. My colleague Jeff Wald, whom was covering sports from the field was able to visually compare the Northfield attendance to that of Mankato's. He estimated that we had them beat 2-1.

Check out the video clips. Missing a lot of great plays, I shot the big screen reply. It's worth a look.

Click here to view the video gallery.

Photo Gallery:

The first time I saw these 2 pop-up books in Lori's Christmas collection, I couldn't believe it.  It just seems impossible that paper can be altered in such a way as to work together like this, let alone be able to fold up neatly into a book over and over. So, I just had to film it for ya-all to watch. Sorry in advance about the music.   Check it out.

This is my first video with a webcam from my desk. Forgive the expressionless face, boring subject-matter, quirky mannerisms, poor lighting and bad mix.  I had to convert the file format once and lost some quality in the transfer.

Before and after pictures of a dozen 30 year old Ash trees being removed from 5th street July 25th 2008.

I work on 5th street in downtown Northfield and was privy to the vast and rapid change that took place on Thursday and Friday of this past week.  I am attaching a photo gallery of 5th street construction along with just one video of the tree felling.  There are more under my youtube collection. 

On Thursday they removed the cement from the road exposing the soil below.  I have no idea how long it had been since that dirt has seen sunlight.  An enormous piece of machinery pulled it right up and dumped it into waiting trucks.  I don't know where that cement went. 

On Friday they cut down trees.

It was so nice to come home Saturday night, take off a perfectly clean shirt and hang it up to be worn again.  I was out at a bar all night watching a hard rock band and there wasn't a bit of cigarette smoke in the air.  I love the smoking ban.  But, that wasn't the best thing about the evening.  My wife's brother is in a band called "Flatrate" that frequents the night clubs in the Twin Cities.  They are a 6 person band that mostly covers 93Xish (heavy modern rock) stuff, with a hand full or originals mixed in. I was very impressed with the vocals.  Russ and Jimmy team up and trade off throughout the evening.  I was especially impressed with their vocal exchanges in P.O.D.'s "South Town". (P.O.D. by the way stands for "payable on death", as in your sins, not "prince of darkness" as I once thought.  The contradiction of the two acronyms is quite the paradox though). You can listen to South town at the end of this video.  Sorry about my camera's poor sound quality.  In it's defense, it was around 130 dB. Can you also click on their photo on the right to view their site (after you look at my video and photos).

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 lives in a neighboring town 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 towns by dividing up vacations, weekends and holidays between the two families. 

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.

I found this gem from Mike & Sara Harts wedding in 2004 (I think it was).  No, this isn't me, but Brian (not going to disclose last name).   I did dare him to say it because I was too chicken.  Notice the audience reaction.  It's a combination of disgust and laughter. 

I found this one in a pile of old VHS tapes last night.  I was pretty pumped to  see me in a jump suit, mullet, shop glasses and some brown "boat shoes".  I could help but to appreciate the graphical capabilities we had to work with back then.  I can't remember what class I shot this for but I do recall Mrs Hard letting me work overtime on various projects in the media centers production room.  It probably helped train me to be the video-heavy blogger that I am today. 

I apologize in advance.  This is really boring. 

Finally I have done it.  The wife was away today so I set my brand new Sony DSC-H9 camera on top of my tripod and started to film some of my magic effects.  The very first one is a floating bill.  Very awesome trick.  I've been studying and performing magic for 15 years now.  I always say "I do the cool magic...not the stuff you see on stage, like with doves and magic assistants".  I think a lot of magicians give the art a bad name by being super-corny.  If you've seen David Blaine or street magicians, that's more my style.  My magic is close-up, interactive and in your hands.  It's perfect for trade shows, parties, happy hours, etc.  I work best when I can float around and mingle with small groups so that everyone can be involved.

Last weekend I did a show in Faribault for the "Health Finders" fund raiser.   Thanks Pauline & Paula (reporter and publisher).  Click here to see my blog on it.  

Enjoy the video