I can’t get myself to complete a proper post so here’s a bit more navelgazing:
I took a trip to North Carolina to visit Ellen and Aaron. Saw Grizzly Bear on Saturday, watched the UNC vs Duke game on Sunday and joined in on the bonfires in the streets after the game. Pretty crazy weekend.
I have half of a draft done about my experience and advice on getting started with aviation in the Twin Cities. When I sat with a couple hours on my hands to finish writing it I realized that I’m really not motivated to do it. I’m not cut out for this blogging thing. If you want to know more about getting started in flying, just ask me and we’ll chat about it. If you want to talk with someone with more experience, I recommend my flight instructor, Christine. Another instructor that I’ve flown with and would recommend is Will. My final recommendation for this post regarding aviation: Do the discovery flight. It’s relatively cheap, your hands and feet are on the controls the whole time and it gives you a real taste of flying with zero commitment. It’s worth it even if you’re not interested in getting a private pilot certificate.
The other post I had in the queue was about Mobile Social Networking in Minneapolis and why in its current forms here doesn’t work so well. I ditched it after Erica posted a softball post about Dodgeball on Metroblogging Minneapolis where in the comments I realized it’s not even worth writing about because I can sum it up in one sentence: Minneapolis isn’t special and douchebags can destroy anything if there isn’t critical mass that’s actually interested in the service to balance out the signal to noise ratio. As everyone knows already, this logic isn’t specific to MSN’s. Going into a different reason why it didn’t work boils down to some technology issues that aren’t all that interesting to anyone other than the people that already know about them anyway.
I’m in today’s episode of Chasing Windmills, “Junked Auditions” where I am essentially one of the losers that can’t act. My character blindly responds to a request for actors by a group of people that can’t figure out how to make a short film. I’ve crossed paths with these people before but they deny it.
People have argued that I’m not using the word omphaloskepsis and navelgazing properly. Their accusations are likely accurate in a literal sense, but I was inspired by the overuse of the word “navelgazing” from Minnesota Monthly’s overuse of it. I’m sticking with it. The always-accurate Wikipedia defines Omphaloskepsis.
No, I’m not going to SXSW. Stop asking. 
I’m working on getting to Washington, DC very soon though.
I’m still surviving without my hiptop. There’s even a few days that have come and gone where I don’t think I thought about it once. I’m still probably going to get an Apple iPhone in June.
I said a couple unfriendly things about O’Malley’s Lucky Irish Pub a long time ago. I now rank high on Google when searching for the pub. This prompted one of the owners to email me and to try to change my opinion. She won and I was surprised. What really constitutes an “Irish Pub” (or “English Pub” for that matter) in the United States anyway? Either way, by far, my least favorite is Patrick McGovern’s.
So why aren’t we flying? Yes, you. Just ask. We’ll figure it out and go. Soon.
Comments 8
Awesome post!
Mpls is a strange tech town. There seem to be quite a few hipsters on the internets, but not enough for something like Dodgeball to work. And you’re right, the density of the area makes a service like that not as useful. On a personal note, when I’m out, I’m usually with a group already, and never thought about posting where I was. But then again, I’ve never really met anyone offline, that I met online.
Upcoming.org is another great tool, but MN is barely in the top 20 states represented, just above Missouri. Ooh.
For some odd reason, new social sites just don’t seem to have caught on here. Whatever, I have no idea what I’m saying.
Oh, and I’d love to fly with you sometime.
Posted 07 Mar 2007 at 17:33 ¶Carolina sucks.
Posted 07 Mar 2007 at 20:40 ¶I said a couple unfriendly things about O’Malley’s Lucky Irish Pub a long time ago. I now rank high on Google when searching for the pub. This prompted one of the owners to email me and to try to change my opinion. She won and I was surprised.
I went with Aaron to O’Malley’s in Woodbury and while I normally go into a place like that looking to write a bad review, I tried to open my mind for this place.
When we left I didn’t think it was authentic in the least but it wasn’t anything so unbelievably bad that it deserved my ire as so many places do.
The only thing that I really thought when I left was how unbelievably odd it was to see Aaron without his Hiptop laying on the bar.
Posted 07 Mar 2007 at 21:31 ¶You take lessons from Christine? My blogging world is getting much much smaller… She’s a coworker, and she was taking flying at the same time (and place) as my brother.
Posted 09 Mar 2007 at 12:34 ¶Yeah, this world is really small. I found out about her through my friend Dan O’Leary who had an aviation-related audio podcast. She was one of his listeners and they had communicated a few times. When I told Dan I was looking for instructors he pointed me to her as someone that he knew was looking for students. They still haven’t met in person yet. Anyway, after some Googling and taking my first flight with her I knew it would be a good fit and I think it worked out quite well.
And I just added you to my RSS reader. I should have done that awhile ago; I cross your page enough.
Posted 09 Mar 2007 at 12:59 ¶Aaron, you were awesome on CW.
(Wish you were at SXSW!)
Posted 10 Mar 2007 at 00:32 ¶Erica-
No, you were awesome on CW just two days later! Your character cannot die!
Posted 10 Mar 2007 at 07:16 ¶I’ll have to check it out for The Bottle Gang. I’m always interested in seeing what people do with Irish pubs, especially since so many of them are not especially Irish.
Posted 10 Mar 2007 at 09:22 ¶Post a Comment