{"id":712,"date":"2010-07-15T06:59:18","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T11:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=712"},"modified":"2010-07-15T06:59:18","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T11:59:18","slug":"the-best-place-to-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/07\/the-best-place-to-live\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Place to Live"},"content":{"rendered":"

13 July 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

This morning on the radio, there was a discussion about Money magazine’s 100 Best Places to Live<\/a>. They said the list includes only small cities, which they interpret to mean 50,000-300,000 residents.<\/p>\n

It turns out that #1 on the list is Eden Prairie. Even after reading the reasons for Eden Prairie’s honored selection<\/a>, though, I still couldn’t figure out why it was #1. Granted, I don’t have extensive knowledge of all the small cities in America, but I’m not sure, exactly, what makes Eden Prairie stand out so much from so many other cities nearby. Why not Edina? Or Maple Grove? Or Minnetonka? Perhaps it’s because they purposely excluded retirement communities and cities with over 95% white people. ‘Cause, you know, those cities can’t possible be good.<\/a> Those cities didn’t even make the list.<\/p>\n

Money magazine appears to have\u00a0 an infatuation with Minnesota it would seem. Or, at least, they did initially, and then their love floundered. Four other Minnesota cities make the top 20, and then there’s not a single Minnesota citing in the rest of the list. The other four cities from the Land of 10,000 Lakes are: Plymouth (at #11), Woodbury (at #13), Eagan (at #15) and Apple Valley (at #20). The only one of these five cities I’ve ever lived in is Apple Valley. I gotta admit, Apple Valley was a very clean, safe place, with lots of stores and restaurants right in town. They also had some great parks, most notably the Minnesota Zoo. I bet those animals are all happy that they live in the 20th best place to live in America.<\/p>\n

Enjoy it while it lasts, Eden Prairie. Plymouth was #1 back in 2008, and now look how it’s fallen! Meanwhile, the city of Chanhassen ranked #2 last year<\/a>, and doesn’t appear at all in this year’s list.<\/p>\n

Also today: My sister has entered her 30s today. When last I saw her, at that wedding back on Saturday, she was pretty keen on having the baby share her birthday. Sorry, Diane, doesn’t look like that’s happening. I called her today to wish her a happy birthday. She said she spent four hours mowing the lawn today. Oh well. Hope the rest of her 30s are more fun than that.<\/p>\n

14 July 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn’t realize this until I was driving in to work this morning, but my son is five years and two months old as of today. I agree, that’s a pretty meaningless milestone, but here’s why I found it noteworthy: That’s how old I was when I became a big brother. So, unless the new baby doesn’t arrive until after August 14th (by which time it would be considered overdue), Owen will be the same age – to the month – that I was when I first got a sibling. We didn’t plan that, honest.<\/p>\n

The three of us when for a walk around the mall today. The glasses-fogging humidity was too much to handle, so I thought a leisurely stroll through the mall would be good. After walking around for a while, and lamenting the lack of nice newborn outfits for sale at all the kids’ stores, we ate at Tucci Benucch. Jennifer pointed out that, on the day before Owen’s birth, that’s exactly what we did: we went for a walk at a mall, then ate at an Italian restaurant. So, who knows, maybe the baby will be born tomorrow. But I’ve been assured that it most likely will not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 July 2010 This morning on the radio, there was a discussion about Money magazine’s 100 Best Places to Live. They said the list includes only small cities, which they interpret to mean 50,000-300,000 residents. It turns out that #1 on the list is Eden Prairie. Even after reading the reasons for Eden Prairie’s honored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}