I had a message when I got home last night from my friend Bryan saying that I should watch the news because there was a story about a teacher who is accused of sexual misconduct with a student and that we graduated with that teacher. Well, Kare11 didn’t carry the story, and that’s the news I usually watch, so my search headed to the internet and OMG he was right!

Joe Tucker, a teacher at Como Park HS, graduated with us from high school. He is being charged with some serious things & it sounds like the ‘affair’ (if that’s what you would call it) has been going on for MONTHS. Ick. Ick. ICK! I cannot believe this. It’s almost like dĂ©jĂ  vu…our Jr. high band instructor was charged with molesting young boys shortly after I graduated from High School. I always thought Mr. Haase was sort of creepy, but he became the marching band director my senior year so I gave him a second chance. When he was accused, and then plead guilty I believe, I decided that I should stick to my gut instincts.

Anyway, I never really thought of Joe as a bad guy. I didn’t know him outside of school, but Joe played flute so I knew him during band & marching band throughout high school. He married another of our classmates & fellow flutist, Erica, and I believe they have a few kids. They didn’t attend our class reunion last year, so I probably haven’t seen them in close to 10 yrs…wow. I still can’t believe this. THEN, Chris was listening to the KQ morning show today & in their report they said that his wife “supports” him. WHAT?!?!?! Supports him?!?! He was acting inappropriately with at least one under age person…support him? Are you kidding? No way. As I said before: ICK.

Here’s the Star Tribune article.

My season ticket package did not include tickets to the most recent series between the Twins and the White Sox, but after the excitement of the Monday afternoon game I knew it was going to be a heated & exciting series. Sometime Tuesday around lunch I IM’d Chris that I was interested in going to the game that night. We didn’t have any plans, and he immediately jumped in and said he’d go! I found out that the Home Run Porch tickets were 1/2 price on Tuesday and we were set. Chris checked with Andy and I checked with Josh and the 4 of us went to the game.
Boof Bonser gave up a run in the first inning but the Twins were quick to respond, earning 9 runs in the first five innings! It was VERY exciting, especially in the 3rd inning when both Morneau & Kubel hit 2 run home runs!! It seems like Morneau has hit his stride…he’s hitting home runs, coming through in clutch situations, and playing well in the field. This is all good for the Twins, but also for my friend Liz who has him on her Fantasy Baseball team! Back to the game - I think we were sitting in the widest section at the Dome. We were seats 16-19 in a row of 33 seats! I hadn’t sat out in the Home Run Porch all season, but it was fun. Many seats were full and the chorus of Boo’s when Pierzynski came up to bat were loud and long. There were some close plays and some big hits during the game and I enjoyed having the chance to catch up with my brother a little. He moved back to Minneapolis this month but it’s still tough to find time to get together. Oh…and we had the helmet sundaes - but this time they were the custom catcher helmets which was so cool! (yes, I’m a dork) Don’t know what I’m talking about…click here to see Mike Redmond sporting the cool helmet. With the Twins victory on Tuesday my record was improved to .500 within 3 days! I guess I’m basically on track with the Twins who just got up to .500 themselves in the past week. After the game, the light rail was packed so Josh, Chris & I decided to stop up at Kieran’s Irish Pub for a beer and catch a later train. It turned into a bit of a late night for me, but it was a good time & definitely worth being a little tired at work today.

Not that I want to keep the drama going, but back to the White Sox (aka AJ) vs Twins drama for a minute…I had read a blog post on the whole episode and this was in one of the comments: “I think utter silence when he comes to the plate would get inside his head. Too bad it’ll never happen.” It would have been amazing to have complete silence at the dome but of course that didn’t happen…Twins fans love to boo people (think Derek Jeter)! The guy who posts the blog on the Star Tribune website (Howard Sinker) had this to say after the win on Tuesday about how revenge was better by NOT hitting AJ with a pitch and I like how he put it. One way to get back at AJ & the Sox: “*The double steal (Castillo and Punto) with the Twins already ahead by five runs in the fifth — and AJ not even throwing the ball. Teams don’t steal third with a five-run lead unless they’re sending someone a message. The Twins have done it two games in a row.” Now, I don’t know if Pierzynski even did anything wrong, but I think that if he didn’t have the reputation he has it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. It looked to me like his teammates weren’t even talking to him after the episode.

No matter what, the fire that was lit under the Twins in the 6th inning Monday was carried over to Tuesday & Wednesday because the Twins completed a series sweep this afternoon with a huge comeback and a bases loaded walk-off walk in the bottom of the 9th to complete the run from being down 1-6 with 6 unanswered runs!! With that win the Twins are now in 3rd place in the AL Central.

I think I can safely say I made the most of this long weekend.

Friday after work I met Chris at his house and we went to Half Price Books to do a little browsing because that morning I had heard on the radio that they had an additional 20% off paperback books over the weekend and for anyone who’s seen his house…he loves books! We had dinner at Jimmy John’s which is just a couple doors down from HPB. After dinner we drove out to a local Co-op to see if we could find a cookbook I’m looking for. From Asparagus to Zucchini is a book written by a csa farmer in Madison, WI and since my parents & I are splitting a share from La Finca farm (which we were connected with through my co-worker Jeff) I thought I’d try to find a couple copies of the book so we can figure out what we’re eating. After that we headed to Fat Lorenzo’s for some delicious Gelato! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!! We finished off the evening playing some Wii because Chris had just gotten his Wii that week.

Saturday morning my Dad & Grandma picked me up at my house bright and early in the morning and we headed down to Windom, MN, the place my Dad grew up and my Grandma lived until a year ago when she moved up to Champlin, MN. We decided to take a chance on the weather (70% chance of rain as of 7am) and take a road trip down to see some family, visit my Grandpa’s grave, and take care of a few errands. My Dad and I had been talking about making a trip down there & it was his idea to go over Memorial Day weekend because then we would still have 2 days after to “recover.” On the drive down we had a couple sprinkles and some dark clouds but then we heard on the radio that the chance of rain had dropped to 30%. The weather ended up being very nice for us down in Windom so I’m glad we didn’t cancel on account of unstable weather. When we got to town we drove straight to the Wolf Lake Wetlands so I could see the bench that was purchased in memory of my Grandpa after he passed away. This wetland area is within walking distance of the house my Grandparents lived in all of their married lives. It was sort of weird to drive by their house and not stop. Anyway, we got to the wetlands and dad called a family friend who lives in town and they came out to meet us. New to us all were the planters that had been purchased in honor of my Grandma. They looked very nice outside the main entrance of the visitor center. We spent some time with the Richardson’s, some friends of the family, at the wetlands before heading off for lunch. For lunch we went to China, yes that’s all that it’s called. My grandparents had been eating in or ordering take out pretty regularly and I think Grandma sort of misses it. My dad’s cousins met us for lunch and the 6 of us had a nice meal together. It was fun for me because they asked about our China trip & we used the map on the back of the menu to tell about the places we visited. After lunch we headed out to the Cemetery and visited family grave sites including my Grandpa and my great grandparents. It was hard for me to be there with Grandma because she is so sad, lonely and scared since Grandpa died. She is very lucky to have my Dad and Aunt Mary to help her during these tough times. The cemetery was the last stop we had planned for the day and it was early afternoon still so we checked with Grandma if there was anywhere else she wanted to go. As usual, at first she said no, that it had been a perfect day and no need to do any more. However after just a little push she decided we could stop by a graduation party that my dad’s cousins were going to be at. So, we crashed a grad party! I was WAY under dressed, but I guess that wasn’t the point. Grandma got to see a few people she didn’t plan on seeing so I am glad we stopped. On the drive home we stopped for dinner at Emma Krumbee’s. I had driven by there 100’s of times between Minneapolis and Windom, but had never stopped. The food was good and it was a nice stopping place for our drive. They dropped me off at home & I immediately took a nap! That evening I had to make a couple salads for the bbq we had planned Sunday.

Sunday morning, Chris and I got up and were ready to go for a run with Erica at 10. We walked down to Lake Nokomis and ran around the lake. South Minneapolis is a beautiful part of town with the lake and Minnehaha Falls within walking distance. Anyway, Nokomis is 2.9 miles around so we were able to run a 5k, which we’re supposed to be training for. Erica, Chris & I (along with some other friends) are participating (run, jog, walk, who knows) in the Grand Old Day 5k on June 3rd! I had asked Chris multiple times that morning if we could call Erica to cancel…but I’m glad we didn’t because it felt REALLY good. Anyway, after the run Chris & I got cleaned up and headed down to the Metrodome for another game in my 20 game package. Now, going into the game my “record” this year for games I’ve attended was 3-5 so I was really hoping for a win so I could get back to .500. I got my wish!! A 2 run Home Run by Justin Morneau in the 6th sealed the game for the Twins as they were ahead for the remainder of the game. The Twins had lost a tough battle Saturday night, losing to the Blue Jays 7-8 in 13 innings, so it was nice to see them back in stride. After the game we went back to Chris’s house to get ready for the bar-b-que that we had planned at his house. We had a good time hanging out with friends, eating some of the most gigantic hamburgers in our lives (thanks to Sam’s Club), playing Wii, playing bags, and then enjoying a campfire. THANKS to everyone who came over - I had a blast.
Monday was the ultimate lazy day for me…it was fantastic! Sunday ended up being sorta late so we slept in on Monday. We had some lunch and played Wii for a while before heading downstairs to turn on the Twins game. Sometime during the game we both fell asleep, only to wake up when the signal or picture was cut off. Suddenly there was no sound! Anyway, it came back just in time for us to see Gardy get all fired up and start yelling at the Umps! It turned out that the White Sox catcher (yep - AJ) had possibly been playing dirty by stepping on Morneau’s foot while running out an infield hit and that this wasn’t the first time during the game that this had happened. It seemed to us that Gardenhire was freaking out because the Umps didn’t toss AJ but after the game he said that he was more upset by the ump giving the Twins bench a signal to be quiet (his hand across his throat). Whatever it was…it led directly into a National moment of silence which was followed immediately by the Twins bats starting on fire! At the time the Twins were down 4-3, but in the bottom of the 6th the Twins scored 5 runs to take the lead & never look back. They pulled off a fun victory. After that we were going to go for a bike ride, and then we were going to head to my place to watch a movie, and then…well…it doesn’t matter. We ended up hanging out at Chris’s house and then watching another episode of Big Love which I’ve got on DVD through Netflix. The ultimate lazy day…it was the perfect way to end a fun weekend!

Sorry this got so long, it was a busy, fun filled weekend!

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week & I haven’t posted about this…but I’ll tie it in with my thoughts of the season finale of Lost. You’ll see the connection by the end.

On Sunday last week, Steve & I decided to be adventurous and hike some trails at a park sort of near our homes. We met at Hyland Lake Park Reserve and started out on a 2 mile loop that I had found on the internet. Well, we THOUGHT we were taking that path. Some how we came across a park information center so we were able to get a map of the park and talk to someone who was working there. She pointed out to us 2 routes we could take - the forest and the prairie. Since each loop was 3/4 of a mile long we decided to do both. Well…we started out on the right path because there were posts marking the trail, but somewhere along the way we got lost and had to backtrack a bunch. When I say a bunch, I mean probably 8-10 times. You know that big ski jump in Bloomington…somehow we found ourselves at the bottom of the hill below that!! It was an open area and there were some electricity poles and I told Steve I felt like were were on the Lost Island and going to be zapped by the force field! That 1 1/2 mile treck that we were going to take ended up lasting 90 minutes! We had a lot of fun trying to figure out where the correct path was, if we were actually on part of the documented trails, and how the heck to get out of there. After making our way back to the parking lot we headed off to Cold Stone Creamery for some delicious ice cream before calling it a day. The weather was cooler and overcast which was a nice change compared to the blazing heat at the Special Olympics event!

So…we got lost in the park…and then on Wednesday night was the Lost season finale! Chris & I were invited over to Liz & Casey’s to watch the finale so we headed over that way after work. The 4 of us had dinner at “Restaurant” in Byerly’s before taking in the 2 hour season finale. I’m not really sure what to think about the finale. I enjoyed it for the most part. ***SPOILER ALERT*** I’m sorta sad that Charlie had to die. I think I will be even more sad when Claire finds out because I know she’ll be sad. Also, I have mixed feelings about the “future flashes.” Does that mean that we’ll learn more about them leaving the island? It seems to me that without actually being ON the island, they Losties aren’t really Lost. I think it’s good that Roseau & Alex finally met - now maybe Alex can have more of an involved storyline. I’m also SO HAPPY that Sayid, Jin & Bernard didn’t die. Although, Rose & Bernard are getting on my nerves so if one of them had to go I might be okay with it. And how about Walt?! Geez - the kid is 3 feet taller than he was when he & Michael boarded the boat. I’m interested to see what happens next season…especially with Ben, Locke, Sun & her baby, Jack/Kate/Juliette, and if Walt will be back. I guess we’ll have to wait a long 7 or 8 months according to Wiki…ugh…I want it NOW! I think that is one bad thing about how I watched the first 2 seasons. In fact, I didn’t watch Lost until it came back to finish up the 2nd have of this current season. Steve had let me borrow his Season 1 & 2 DVD sets and I watched them last fall & early this year. Anyhoo - since I’ve got the last few episodes on my DVR, I think I’ll probably watch the last episode again & see if I missed anything.

Now it’s Memorial Day weekend & I’m going to go rest up for the busy weekend ahead!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to volunteer for the SOMN Area 11 Athletics event with many of my coworkers, my family & friends. I have spoken to quite a few people who were at that event and the general feeling seems to be:

1) I had such a great time!
2) I am so glad I was able to volunteer.
3) I look forward to doing it again.

Well, the next step for the Athletes after the Area competition is to go to State and this provides another opportunity to volunteer for anyone who is interested.

The Special Olympics MN Summer Games Athletics & Volleyball events take place June 21-23 at the U of M and Gymnastics is in Minnetonka. If you’re interested in volunteering, click the link below for the list of open positions (I believe it’s updated daily), fill out the form and submit it to Dave Martin, Volunteer Coordinator, at martind@somn.org. The registration deadline is June 4th and positions are filled on first come first serve basis.

Volunteer Opportunities: Click Here
More General Information: Click Here

I’ve signed up to help with Opening Ceremonies Set-up on June 21 with my mom. We’re planning on helping set up & then watch opening ceremonies. Then, on Saturday (6/23) Chris & I are working Games at the Olympic Town. Come on out & join me…or find a shift that works for your schedule. I think you’ll love it!

The big debate at work these days…pleated or flat front khakis? My co-worker Vince is getting married in November. He & his bride are headed to Mexico with their families to have an ocean front ceremony. The dress code is more or less casual so he’s going with some variety of khaki pants and white top. One day he says to me “Nikki, we were just talking about my clothes for the wedding…pleated or flat front pants.” Of course, my immediate response was FLAT FRONT! I think I surprised Vince, which is sort of crazy because that’s what his FiancĂ© had said as well…but anyway, he thinks pleated is the way to go. The discussion moved to the kitchen over lunch and I’m pretty sure the vote was 5-2 in favor of the flat front pants…what do you think?

In order to attempt to persuade Vince (he can be a little stubborn when he gets his mind set on something), I did a little research & this is what other people think.
Yelp online community - this was just posted last month
Pleats vs Flat Front (from washingtonpost.com)
TiVo Community post

So…help me convince Vince, or try to change my mind…the table is open for debate.

The last few weeks leading up to the big Special Olympics Area 11 Athletics event were a little nerve wrecking on me because I got worried that we wouldn’t have enough volunteers and also that the weather wouldn’t cooperate. Luckily, I realized that I had control of only one of those…so I let the weather do what it wanted. In the last week, we were able to fill in ALL of the 80 volunteer spots!!

The morning of the event the set up people arrived at 7 and got checked in. People got to work right away setting up chairs, tables, the awards tent, etc. Everything got set up in record time, which was good - except that it meant people were standing around with nothing to do. I am pretty sure that the organization is not used to 99% of volunteers showing up because everyone was saying that we had too many people right off the bat. I think it makes a big difference that 70 of the 80+ volunteers that were scheduled for the day were either Four51 employees or their family & friends. We had 25 employees there which was awesome!

Some craziness was happening first thing in the morning. A couple people asked me ‘who is the Lead Staging person’ and ‘who is the lead timer’ and I was like…Um, I thought SOMN was providing the “leads” for the event. Apparently there were people who called that morning & said they couldn’t make it which led to that craziness. Luckily, Four51 employees and their family & friends are AMAZING and stepped right into the lead roles. Mark directed the Staging area along with his daughter and her friend - they were so awesome we ended up 20 minutes AHEAD of schedule a couple different times. Also, Mitch stepped into the starter position which I think he enjoyed as well.

Anyway, for the opening ceremonies Liz, our marketing person on the ‘committee’, was able to get professionally made signs for each team to carry in printed by one of our customers and they looked really nice. Unfortunately I was still checking in volunteers during opening ceremonies so I didn’t get to see the signs ‘in action’ but everyone said they looked great & the teams loved them.

Like I said, we were ahead of schedule most of the day. The athletes were directed to the staging area by their coaches and then from there our volunteers helped them to the start line, to awards, and then back to meet their coaches. I think one of the best parts of the day for most of the volunteers was the interaction with the athletes. It was fun to watch them race and then help them celebrate after they finished. Once we got the races started, all those people who were standing around bored jumped into positions that needed people & the day went smooth as a well oiled machine.

Besides the sunburn (which we aren’t complaining about because it could have poured rain), the only bad part to the day was that my brother’s car got broken into. It was really weird - my mom went to his car to grab some shorts to change into & the car was fine. When she returned from changing…the window was broken. We didn’t think anything was missing, but apparently last night she realized that her knitting bag was missing. So - some window breaking jerks ended up with a bag of knitting yarn and needles! Can you imagine their disappointment?!?! Almost hilarious, if it wasn’t such a jerk move. The janitors who were working the event for Roosevelt were nice enough to help my dad clean up the car & point him to a hardware store to buy some plastic & tape because it looked like rain so he took off right away. He was able to contact someone to replace the window that afternoon so thankfully no further damage was done to the car.

All the field events wrapped up by 1:00PM and all the track events wrapped up around 3:00PM so we were able to clean up and be headed home by 3:30! I’m not sure if it was the warm weather, the fresh air, or the relief that the event was finally done…but I crashed when I got home. First things first, I took a shower, then I took a 2 hour nap! I had some dinner and then proceeded to get 10 hours of sleep that night.

Our next event is Monday July 30th…golf! I’ll be sending out an email, but if you’re interested in helping out let me know!!

Okay, okay, I KNOW that it’s not only smokers who litter…but, I don’t see people throwing trash out of their car windows every day. What I do see almost every day is someone tossing a cigarette butt out their window onto the ground. Do people think that is not littering? As far as I know, every car is still made with an ash tray…so use it!

Sorry - I just needed to vent. I’m over it now.

I just did a little search and I guess there are people trying to make it better! (Article Here)

This is the survey tool that I got set up for work…I’m trying it out here as a place to try new things before putting them up on the work public site. So…

Fill out the survey & leave any comments on last night’s episode, Season 3, or the upcoming season finale!

[survey_fly]

One thing I’ve learned…Chris loves going to concerts! I guess I knew that right away, but now I can say it’s true. I am definitely not complaining, I’ve had a great time at all of the shows we’ve got to together. And, I guess I’m partially guilty too because some of the concerts have been with my friends. So, May 4th we went to the Cabooze for the English Beat. Then, last Friday, May 11th we were back at the Cabooze for. For anyone that doesn’t know who Dick Dale is…he’s the King of the Surf Guitar. Oh, that doesn’t help…then how about this - you know the theme song of Pulp Fiction, that’s his. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but we had a complete blast!! A bunch of Chris’s friends came to his house before the show & we grilled brats again. The crowd at the Cabooze was a wide range of ages, although Chris said that the average age has gone down considerably since he first saw Dick Dale for $12. (Yep - he sounded old!) Anyway, we had a really good time and then after taking the light-rail we stopped at the Corner Bar. I hadn’t been there before but we had hamburgers and some super hot, super delicious fries!

The rest of the weekend was spent with my family. Saturday morning we drove up to St Cloud to go to Josh’s college graduation. First, we went to Bo Diddley’s for a delicious sandwich. Bo Diddley’s was a favorite place for me to eat when I was going to school at SCSU. The ceremony wasn’t too painful, except for the fact that we were sitting too far away for my camera flash. I realized that I need to look into other add-ons for my new camera. Shopping time! After the ceremony we headed back to Brooklyn Park with a bunch of my brother’s stuff from his apartment. For dinner my parents, Josh, Chris & I went to Famous Dave’s in Maple Grove. On Sunday Chris & I headed back up to Brooklyn Park for Mother’s Day & Graduation lunch with my parents, Josh, Julie, Grandma Dodo, Grandma B, and Aunt Mary. After lunch, we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful afternoon and play a new game my dad had gotten for his birthday. It was a lot of fun and Mary had the perfect touch…getting all 3 of her tosses to stay on the top bar one time!

Then…on Tuesday May 15th Chris & I went to see the Killer’s at Roy Wilken’s Auditorium with Tia & Nater. Chris had purchased floor tickets way back in January and asked if I would like to go shortly after we started dating. I had a really, really good time. It was weird to be at a concert on a Tuesday night, but it was definitely worth it. Here’s the set list and comments from people who were at the show. I had never seen the Killer’s before but would go to another concert. Being on the floor at Roy Wilkins was fun, but I didn’t have the right shoes on. I hadn’t brought anything to change into, so I was in my work clothes which happened to be small heels. I’m not sure where Tia & Nater were during the concert but Chris & I ended up slowly moving closer and closer to the stage. Being out until midnight made today a long day at work, but just a little Diet Mt Dew helped me through the day.

One project I worked on this afternoon was to set up a polling tool for our work blog (www.insightsfour51.com). Adding the plug-in wasn’t difficult, especially since Steve does all the ftp stuff. However, I didn’t like how it looked so I decided to try to change it. I have had fun trying to work on a few different changes for my blog, but it was cool to be able to do something for work too. I guess I might be a little more nerd-y than I like to admit sometimes…but I think that is good for me!