The Last Thirty Days

Well, it's been a good solid month since I last blogged.

Back when I was a teenager, I used to try to keep a journal, but I was really lousy at it. So, I'd write for about a week, and then forget about it for a month, and then try to get back into it. But I felt like so much had happened that future readers--I always wrote as though someone would eventually read it--would be completely confused. So then I'd have to write a big recap of everything that happened in the last month, to fill my future descendants in on all my exciting doings. And then, a month later, I'd come back to it and read what I'd said, and be embarrassed that future generations would hear about how enamored I was with Jenny Naylor, and so I'd tear all the pages out. Seriously, I think that journal has about four pages remaining. Nothing ever lasted long.

Anyway, the point of all that is to say that I'm going to recap the last month of Minneapolis.

The day after we got here, the air raid sirens went off and we thought the Germans were after us. But no, it was just a tornado. It never actually touched ground but the hail was nightmarish and it dented the roof of my car. (However, my car is a crappy piece of Korean tinfoil that dents when bugs hit the hood.)

My internship project is focused on Orville Redenbacher's kernels (as opposed to microwave popcorn). My whole life is popcorn. All day I read about expansion size and hybrids and unpopped kernels and mushrooms vs butterflies. I'm a popcorn salesman.

When we first arrived we got to go to a preview screening of Kung-Fu Panda, since several ConAgra products as co-branded (Kid Cuisine, Chef Boyardee, Orville Redenbacher's), and now my son is obsessed with it. As fanatical Holly was about Sleeping Beauty, Sam is about Kung-Fu Panda. He's the Dragon Warrior.

They have the world's most awesome grocery store here: Byerly's. It's carpeted, for crying out loud. It has all the regular stuff that a grocery store would have (a deli, a chinese place, a bakery, etc) but it's all really amazing quality. They even have a chocolatier area. And, the cheese section is phenomenal. (And, since our area is predominately Jewish, they have two butcher shops: a regular one and a kosher one.) I think it's neat.

It's really green here. Growing up in deserty Utah, I've always been of the mindset that if you live in an area with a lot of old trees, then you must be rich. Minneapolis must be full of millionaires! Also: there are rabbits and squirrels all over the place. (Several people here have described squirrels as rats with fluffy tails. But I like them.)

On Monday I took the corporate jet to Omaha and back, and I sat just behind the CEO. (I shook his hand and introduced myself, and he forgot about me an instant later.)

We visited Duluth and Lake Superior, and I later downloaded The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and now I know all the words. Would you like me to sing them to you?

I visited a factory that makes popcorn balls and fruit snacks, and it totally Willy Wonka. The machine was acting funny, and popcorn balls were flying all over the room.

If you would like to see pictures of some of my travels, go visit my wife's blog. And leave comments, because she wants people to leave comments. It's here.