Rock The Garden '09

I was sorry to miss Rock The Garden last year, with our local favorites Cloud Cult, so this year I made sure to get my tickets before it sold out. Co-sponsored by MPR's radio station The Current (here is their Flickr set from the event) and held outdoors at the Walker Art Center, it happens on the Summer Solstice. The weather this year was perfect for an outdoor concert.

I was a little hesitant about taking my daughter with me: on the one hand, she would probably like at least some of the music, the outdoor setting, and the crowd-watching. On the other, she has a low tolerance for high decibels, she's 14 and if she got bored that might put a damper on my good time. I remember how fried I used to get at outdoor concerts back when I was in college, and I wasn't sure if either of us could last until The Decemberists went on last.

We had a great time. First, lunch at Moto-i, on Lyndale where we were treated like royalty and had excellent food. We got a good spot to sit, and kicked back for great people-watching and a well-run event. I enjoyed the sets local band Solid Gold, the very trippy Brooklyn-based band Yeasayer, Calexico and then by mutual agreement (she tired, me keeping in mind I had to get up at 4AM to drive the gang to the airport the next morning and we still had an hour's drive to Northfield after the show) missing The Decemberists. Oh, well, we are big fans and will eventually own all their CDs, so too bad. But I didn't want either of us to burn out, and she will be in Yellowstone for a week with her dads, so it wouldn't be fair to wear her out!

Lathering up with SPF 70 meant neither of us got broiled. We brought our own water bottles, but happily indulged in shaved ice, lemonade, french fries, and souvenir t-shirts (I let her choose).

Two friends even found us in the crowd!
It was a "No waste event" co-sponsored by Eureka recycling, which made sure all cups, untensils, etc, were compostible, and set up compost bins with volunteers to help us get our stuff in the right bin. Apparently, after 8-9000 people ate and drank their way through several hours of music, there was only have a dumpster worth of garbage; all the rest was recycled to be composted. Hats off!



I tweeted a few #rtg09 haiku (didn't realize there was an official @RockTheGarden on Twitter!)

Masses of white meat
Gently broiling on the grass
Aztec monkey skull
#RTG09 haiku


Hands down, best tattoo we saw: complete arm sleeve with Digimon characters. The gentleman agreed to pose so we could get this close-up.
A good time was had by all.

Going from a point-and-shoot to a digital SLR camera

Serendipity is great stuff. Our neighborhood is having its annual collective garage sale. We wandered out and I immediately found a great blue and white vase I'll use for tulips across the street. We also met a neighbor, Peggy, whose relatives had driven up from Iowa with stuff for the sale!

We followed a sign that said "sale in alley" and found a table full of old cameras of every kind, none of them working, but all of them very cool-looking. As we were chatting with the seller, a professional photographer who also collects old cameras, I mentioned that I wanted to get a camera that worked for my daughter, who was gazing with enchantment at the table. Twenty minutes later, we left with a kit that includes a leather carrying case, an Olympus EVOLT e500 SLR camera with two different zooms, extra batteries and memory cards (two kinds) all the cables, lens filters, rechargers, manuals and the original box. Because I'd been looking around for something like this to give my daughter as a graduation present and because she has such a great eye when she takes pictures, much better than mine, I recognized that the price he was asking was an incredible deal, (thank you, Steve!) and after he showed us some of the controls and explained some basic concepts, I could see this would be a comfortable camera for a novice to learn with. Like a lot of pro photographers, he had upgraded to a much fancier set-up, and I know from another friend who is married to a photographer that it can often be tough to resell when you upgrade. And I was dreading going to the stores and being bombarded with specs, or trying to find out online what I should get. So he got a garage sale windfall, and we got a fabulous deal on a complete kit for my artistic child. And we met another neighbor.

Happy, happy graduation, dear! Now it's time to play and learn. There are lots of lessons online, but we also have a dear friend who is a photographer, and we will join her for a camera safari at the end of the month.

May Day pics, part 2

May Day pics, part 1

It's the 34th year of the May Day festival!

Volunteers hand out the program.

You can view and the parade and be part of it at the same time.

MAY DAY festival 2008!

In the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater will be our hosts for the MayDay parade and festival. The first one was in 1975 and each year there is a theme for the parade and the ceremony, followed by the festival in Powderhorn Park I missed last year's festival, but this year we will be there! The forecast is for dry and mild weather, not too hot.
These pictures are from 2006. One of my favorite moments is when the Sun comes across the lake to meet the May Tree.
The Star Tribune posted this great video about all the preparations of building the costumes, floats, and puppets for the parade, an effort that involves the community.

ROFL Con

Where I wish I could be this weekend: at the ROFLcon, organized by the uber-geeks at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society

Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you've got ROFLCon.

The conference is slated for April 25th and 26th of 2008.

It's a group dissection of internet culture. What makes it work, why it works, how it works. We'll talk about where internet culture has been and where we think it's going.

Then, there'll be parties. A music show, with memes performing their work live. And then a big blowout party at the end, with everyone dancing and rocking out.

Needless to say, this might be the most important gathering since the fall of the tower of Babel.

Instead I am attending a (great) conference on Human Rights in Latin America. Super interesting, but not funny at all.

Summer by the lakes in Minneapolis

It's really summer! Nine of us rented three canoes and a kayak, and paddled from Lake Calhoun through the tunnel to Lake of the Isles, around the island, and on through the little canal to Cedar Lake. We all brought food and had a picnic at the beach that used to be the nude beach (Hidden Beach) but that is now pretty much a family picnic site. The kids all got in the water with all their clothes on, while we lay on the sand looking at the caterpillars.

The wind was against us on the way back, but the ice cream cones at the Tin Fish were a great reward. There were lots of folks in kayaks, canoes, paddleboats, and every third boat had a little dog riding along. We saw a heron fishing, mallards with ducklings, dragonflies, turtles, and lots of folks fishing.
Noodling around on YouTube, I found this video of kids jumping off the bridge into Lake of the Isles. It looks cool and fun, but that water is shallow. Scary.