So, despite numerous difficulties in the past, I once again decided to venture into downtown Minneapolis yesterday.  Specifically, I volunteered to help at a booth for the Minneapolis Planetarium’s Solstice celebration.  Since there is no Minneapolis planetarium (yet), the event was held at the Minneapolis Central library.

I was scheduled to be there from 4 – 8:00.  My wife and son were interested in checking out the event, too, so they followed behind me in a separate car so that they could leave at any time. 

Before leaving, I entered the Library’s address into Mapquest.  Mapquest only ever fails me on two occassions: 1) when attempt to locate new roads/neighborhoods and 2) when downtown Minneapolis is involved.

We began by heading west into that most god-forsaken of cities.  After about 5 miles on the interstate, I saw a sign alerting me to the Cedar Avenue exit (so far so good).  The directions, which I obtained from Mapquest, and the accompanying map, called for me to exit Cedar, go about 5 blocks, then use the left-side exit to get onto MN-155.  I’ve never heard of this road before, but, oh well…

I drove down Cedar for four blocks, then spotted the left-side exit.  But it wasn’t for 155; it was for 35W.  Maybe this was one of thousands of cases wherein a single stretch of road has two names. But, either way, the exit was clearly for 35W and only 35W – there was no signage for 155.  I suppose I could’ve taken the exit, but when you know you’re within a mile of your destination, the last thing you want to do is get on a freeway with limited access to the local roads; I was afraid it would dump me off two miles away and then I’d really be stuck. 

Instead, I swerved back onto Cedar, and made a left one block later.  This put me on Washington Avenue and, I assume, one block north of where I really wanted to be.  No problem, thought I, I would just drive down until I got to Nicollet Mall (that’s the street the library is supposedly on).  When I got to Nicollet, guess what?  No cars are permitted on that road (for as asinine as people claim St. Paul’s roads are, let me just say: YOU CAN DRIVE ON ALL OF THEM!). Still, I didn’t panic. I just went down to the next block…which was a one-way street upon which I couldn’t make a left.  So I went down one more block.  I began heading southwest on this road, hoping to find 3rd Avenue South (that was the cross street I was looking for). Unfortunately, the crossroads were increasing in number and were all designated as North roads – even though I was going south. 

Eventually, I decided to make a left, and then another left, so that I was heading north.  This time, I found 3rd Avenue.  But, of course, I couldn’t turn on it (another one way).  So I went around the block, even driving on a closed road for lack of what else to do.  Finally, I was driving on 3rd Avenue, heading towards Nicollet Mall.  When I got to (what I assume was) the correct block, guess what? No signs telling me which building was thr correct one.

This is a lesson both downtowns should heed: Put a freakin’ sign on your building.  With the very rare exception of famous icons (such as the Metrodome and the State Capitol, for example), every building should have a name that says what it is.  Like last year, we were invited to a party at the Depot in Minneapolis.  Which, stupidly, has a big sign on it that says “Milwaukee”.  If you ever hold a party at the Depot, make sure you tell your friends it’s at Milwaukee.  I know, I know, it doesn’t make any sense.

Anyway…I was quite likely driving right in front of the library…not sure.  But what difference did it make? I still had to park.  The email from the Planetarium people said there was an undergroung garage I could park in for $5.  But I couldn’t find it.  Not the first time, nor the second time I looped around the block (and since there’s a stoplight ever 10 feet in Minnecrapolis, looping around the block takes about 5 minutes). Oh, I did see one underground ramp, but it was labeled “Marquette Plaza Parking Only”, and I wasn’t sure if the library was in the Marquette Plaza (maybe they should put up a sign?).  Also, it showed a price of $8…not the $5 I’d been promised. 

I started to go around the block a third time, then decided to stop at a cafe to ask directions.  Here’s what the lady behind the counter told me:

“Go 2 blocks down to Hennepin, then make a right.  The library will be three blocks down on your left.”

…Of course, that still didn’t solve my problem of where to park my 2 cars, but I figured I’d run into the library & ask someone to physically point to the parking ramp.

So, I drove the two block and then, magically, found Hennepin!  But guess what? No right turns allowed. So I drove another block, and there was that stupid anti-car street again, mocking me with it’s smooth asphalt and hope of a destination.  So I drove another block and, guess what? No right turns allowed. So I drove another block, and that was the under-construction street that was closed.  I didn’t want to risk driving on it again. So I drove another block and, guess what? No right turn.

So I cut my loses and went home. My wife got lost on the way home, my son was disappointed, and I failed to fulfill my volunteer duties.  An hour and a half of driving two cars around on a 90 degree day.  Did I mention my car doesn’t have A/C?

People often like to make fun of St. Paul’s streets, saying there’s no rhyme or reason to the street names.  I admit, it is comforting, if you can’t find 38th street, to suddenly chance upon 39th street and know that you must be close. But I don’t mind the ‘neighborhood’ portions of Minneapolis…it’s the downtown that frustrates me.  Consider this: St. Paul, like Minneapolis, has numerical streets in it’s downtown, too.  In St. Paul, there is never more than one consecutive one-way street.  You can drive on all the streets.  And it’s only 2/3 the size of Minneapolis, so it’s easier to navigate simply by virtue of being smaller.

I’ve said this before, but this time I’m saying it online: If I’m invited to something in downtown Minneapolis, I’m not going.  It’s not worth it.  I’d rather stay home than drive around that mess for an hour only to drive back home anyways.  If you really want me to go, you can pick me up. Or, like my brother-in-law did a few months back, you can skillfully plan for us to commute together via mass transit.

Dear Best Buy:

Last year, for the first time in over a decade, I entered your store and made a purchase. I had decided not to shop at Best Buy after disastrous customer service in the past, but my wife insisted that your company would have the best buy on TVs and, well, you did. Through a series of coincidences, I also came in to possession of a $100 Best Buy gift card and a coupon for 40% the purchase of a GPS. This coupon, incidentally, I discovered while geocaching with a friend in Frontenac State Park. There was an entire book of Best Buy GPS coupons, along with a flyer explaining that Best Buy was working with the State Park system to encourage geocaching (and requesting that each individual only take one coupon).

Needless to say, I was exciting. I enjoy geocaching but, lacking a GPS, I either have to go with a friend that does have a GPS or try to locate the caches via print-outs (not terribly successful).

So, in September, I went in to the Eagan Best Buy. Neither of the two employees who I spoke with that day even knew what geocaching was. They were thus unable to answer my questions about the various GPSs. I asked if they could show me how one particular model worked and, after pressing random buttons for five minutes, the employee said: “Well, these are new, so we haven’t been trained on them yet”. I left without buying anything.

I searched online for the models that I felt would work best and then visited the Maple Grove location. The employee who approached me also had no idea what geocaching was. I showed him print-outs of the two GPSs I liked best and told me that the store did not have them in stock. I asked him if another store in the area had one of the GPSs, and he shrugged his shoulders. So I asked him to show me a comparable model. He claimed ignorance and told me to wait for another employee. He went over to that employee (who was busy with other customers) and told him to help me next. After waiting ten minutes, I left the store empty-handed once again.

A few days later, my wife, who decided to buy a GPS for me for Christmas, visited the Mall of America location. They didn’t have the GPSs, either, and they were incapable of suggesting a similar model to my wife, saying that since the GPSs were new, they’d had little training on how to use them.

Two weeks before Christmas, I stopped at the Roseville location. The employee informed me that his store did not have either of the GPSs (which I found at Best Buy’s website) either. He knew how to look up the availability and told me that no store in the region had the GPSs in stock. (I could have ordered the GPSs on-line, but the coupon was only good for in-store purchases.) I asked him if he could suggest a comparable model, but, after playing around with a few GPSs for 15 minutes, declared that he lacked sufficient training. So I spent a half hour looking at the GPSs myself. Finally, I went up to the employee and said: “If you can show me how this GPS works, I will buy it.” He was unable how to show me how to perform even the simplest function. (To me, this is akin to asking a phone salesperson how to make a phone call on a particular phone, and having them say they don’t know how.) So then I said: “Listen, if you can find any employee in this store who knows how to use this GPS, I will buy it right now.” He walked up to a couple of employees and cursorily asked them if they knew how to use GPSs, but they both shook their heads ‘no’ and continued on with their conversations.

Figuring that the Roseville store was unusual in this regard, I returned to the Eagan store. Again, no one knew how the GPS I had selected functioned. The day before Christmas, I stopped at the Apple Valley location, but, again, no employee knew even the most basic workings of a GPS.

On January 1st, the coupon expired. My wife and I visited the Apple Valley Best Buy and used our $100 gift card on various trivial items.

I am completely astonished that I did not purchase a GPS. With my gift card and coupon, a $500 GPS would have only cost me $200 out-of-pocket. I really wanted one. And yet, no employee – at five different locations – was able to competently demonstrate this device.

I hope this letter serves to make you aware of the need to train your employees on the use of the items they sell. Particularly in tougher financial times, customers are not likely to make six trips to five different locations to purchase an item they don’t really need.

As for me, I am considering swearing off Best Buy once again, having been stridently reminded of the poor service I experienced there in the past. If you can offer any help in the area of acquiring a GPS, I’d appreciate it.

Thanks for your time.

Here is an email I sent to the CEO of my company two days after the election:

Dear XXXXXXX:

Thank you for the email sent out on Monday, reminding us of the importance of the election and urging us all to participate in the democratic process. In view of that email, I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you how things went in my department.
I was assigned several training samples to run through a method on Election Day. Due to the nature of the testing, I could not delay running the samples, nor could I split the work between two days. So, I awoke before 4:00 in the morning and got to work immediately upon arriving. I worked straight through without any breaks or lunch time. I realized the polls were open until 8:00 in my state, but I feared the lines would be long or that some other issue would arise at the poll.
But at least I was able to vote. A co-worker began testing over 100 samples that day (about double the normal number). These samples needed to be pulled for testing two, four and twelve hours after their initial drop into shakers. As you can imagine, this made for a very long day for my co-worker. He arrived at work shortly after I did and was still on the clock after 11:00 PM. He was never given the opportunity to vote.
Other co-workers arrived late or left early (cutting into their workdays and wages) in an effort to find the best time to vote. Still others did not participate in their usual carpooling (increasing their gas expenditures) so as to be freed up to visit the polls at an opportune time.
As this is a company that encourages us all to take the opportunity to vote, I think the above examples (all from one department) are inexcusable. No one should have to choose between wages or voting and no one should be so overtaxed with their workload on Election Day that they are unable to leave long enough to go vote.
One of my favorite benefits working at XXXXX is the time off for holidays, which is generous in comparison to other local corporations. Each year, we are granted eleven days of paid time off to celebrate certain days as we see fit. I propose that, in election years, one of these eleven days be assigned to Election Day. In this year, for example, we were given paid time off for Presidents’ Day – a day most employees would probably not mind working. Again, I’m not implying that I did not appreciate having that day off, but given the choice, I would have opted to have Election Day off instead.
If assigning Election Day off is impractical, I recommend offering employees a Floating Holiday so that those who feel the need can use this on Election Day.
I know you are busy and I thank you for taking the time to read this. It is a pleasure to work here at XXXXXXXXX.

(No reply received as of 19Nov08.)

In the last 6 weeks, I have visited the Twin Cities’ Model Train Museum, the Bakken Museum, a Vikings pre-season game, Fort Snelling State Historical Site, The Minnesota State Fair, The Renaissance Festival and Valley Fair. Owen was with me for four of these adventures, and Jennifer was with me during three of them. You might wonder: How does someone pay for all that stuff? Especially since there’s evidently no money left in the country anymore?

Here’s how:
First off, your friendly neighborhood library offers free passes to local attractions. So, I first picked up a ticket for the Model Train Museum. Admission to this museum is only four bucks, and Owen was free anyways, but, hey, I saved some cash.

Owen and I did the same thing for the Bakken Museum: Owen was free anyways, and I saved myself 7 big ones.

Jennifer and I got into the Vikings football game for free thanks to our soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law who thoughfully gave us tickets he was unable to use.

For Fort Snelling, I again tried the library. They only have a limited number of free passes each week, so there’s no guarantee there will be one when you want one. So I was rather pleased when I went in to the library one Monday morning and found a free pass waiting on the shelf. I took it to the front counter and attempted to check it out…but the clerk informed me I could only have one pass at a time and the Bakken Museum’s pass was still checked out to me.

“But I already went to that museum,” I whined.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, “You can’t check out another free pass until Wednesday.”

So, I did what any good cheapskate would do, instead of putting the pass back on the shelf, I hid it inside an obscure book on a lower shelf in the back of the library. I returned on Wednesday, walked up to my book, opened to the correct page, and pulled out the pass. The clerk then allowed me to check it out. On August 25th, then, Jennifer, Owen and I got into Fort Snelling for free…a savings of $20.

For the State Fair, I ordered tickets through my place of employment, which offers discounts on major events. Jennifer and I were granted admission for $16 instead of $22.

For the Renaissance Festival, I nabbed tickets for $8 a piece from a co-worker who also works at the Festival. As the normal cost of admission is $19.95, Jennifer and I were able to enter for $16 instead of $39.90.

Finally, my company buys out Valley Fair once every other year for the employees and three of their friends. Since admission is $37.99, and I got in for free, this was the best deal of the bunch.

So here’s what I spent on those six attractions for my own admission and Jennifer’s (when she accompanied me): $32.

And here’s what those same attractions would have cost without discounts: $170.89.

One day, while completely befuddled by the high number of lists I maintain, a friend of mine asked if I have a list of my lists. I laughed and said that I do not. So, here, for fun, I’m going to correct that. But first, here’s a list of things I’m not including on the list: 1) Phone lists (even though I am the head of the department phone list at my job 2) Work-related items involving projects and/or trade secrets (they’re boring lists anyways) and 3) Temporary lists (such as: Things to buy at the grocery store).
I’ve added a brief explanation for lists with non-obvious titles. Anytime I use the word “we” it should be understood to mean “Jennifer and I”.

1. List of meals the company has paid for
2. List of free things I’ve gotten from the company
3. Wage history
4. Books I have read (this is probably the oldest list here)
5. Number of books I’ve read per year
6. Subjects of the books I’ve read
7. An alphabetical list of the books I’ve read
8. Mistakes I’ve found in books I’ve read (this list is 27 pages long)
9. List of Edgar Allen Poe works
10. List of Sherlock Holmes stories
11. List of books authored by Theodore Geisel
12. Short stories I own
13. The ultimate calendar (a listing of every event in my life for which the exact date is known)
14. Timeline of my life (a list showing when and for how long I lived in certain places, held certain jobs, attended certain schools and how they overlapped)
15. Residences I have lived in
16. Cities I have live in
17. People I have lived with (there are 12 people on this list…)
18. Vacations I have been on
19. US states I have been to
20. Countries I have been to
21. Times I have been on an airplane
22. What we did for our anniversaries
23. Days since we married that we haven’t seen each other
24. Jobs I’ve had
25. Schools I’ve attended
26. Concerts I’ve attended
27. Professional baseball games I’ve attended
28. Plays I’ve attended
29. What we did on our cruise each day
30. Cars we have owned
31. Lego pieces I own
32. Board/card games we own
33. My 50 All-time favorite motion pictures
34. My 20 favorite TV shows
35. My 10 favorite albums
36. My 50 favorite songs
37. My 10 favorite non-fiction books
38. My 10 favorite fiction books
39. Motion pictures I have seen (there are 1,189 movies listed)
40. Number of motion pictures seen from each year
41. Motion pictures I have seen at the theater
42. Read the book…and seen the movie (I pick which I prefer)
43. Billboard #1 albums (1956-present)
44. Billboard #1 songs (1940-present)
45. Things that annoy me
46. Our ten year anniversary trivia quiz
47. Bart Simpson’s chalkboard writings
48. Best songs by people I know
49. Customer service (list of grievances filed with companies and what sort of recompense we received)
50. Deep Thoughts (from the SNL spot)
51. Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 greatest rock songs of all time
52. Non-work money (list of money I have made outside of work, such as at garage sales)
53. Favorite quotes from 1984
54. Favorite quotes
55. Quotes from famous losers
56. Addams Family episodes
57. Battlestar Galactica episodes
58. Little House on the Prairie episodes
59. Northern Exposure episodes
60. Quantum Leap episodes
61. View Master reels I own
62. Mistakes we found watching “Voyager”
63. Wal-mart facts (notes I took while reading “How Wal-mart is Destroying America”)
64. Website traffic (I track the number of new visitors to my website each week)
65. Words to learn
66. Bible verses mentioning dogs
67. Partakers at JW memorial, 1980 – present
68. US religious census statistics
69. Money spent by the Watchtower Society each year on Circuit Overseers, 1980-present
70. JWs publisher increases/decreases, 1930-present
71. JWs versus world population, 1950-present
72. Survey results (I sent out a survey asking ex-JWs if they thought they were going to die at Armageddon)
73. Chemicals in the atmosphere
74. Nations of the world
75. National parks
76. Places I want to visit in Minnesota
77. Vacations I want to go on
78. Word of the year (I pick a new word every year that I had never known about before)
79. Self-created filmlets
80. Other videography projects (weddings, baptisms, etc, that we have filmed)
81. Filmlet commentary
82. Every email address
83. Goals for 2008
84. Passwords
85. Palindromes
86. Autonyms
88. Homophones
89. My book – chapters, pages and words
90. Wonderfalls episodes
91. Arrested Development episodes
92. Freaks and Geeks episode
93. Awful Truth episodes
94. Star Trek: TNG episodes
95. Star Trek: TOS episodes
96. Star Trek: Voyager episodes
97. Firefly episodes
98. Best Picture Oscar winners
99. Best selling motion picture from each year
100. This list

There.
I actually have less lists now than when I was a kid, thanks in part to the internet. For example, I used to have a list of where the Olympics were held each olympiad, but that seems pointless now as I could just look it up. You may have noticed that some lists aren’t very personal (such as “Sherlock Holmes stories”), but the reason why I have such lists is to check them off as I watch/read the items on the list.