TJ EDWARDS FIRST ARREST BECOMES CARTOON

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LES SAN CULOTTES ROCKS THE STREET AS HEADLINERS

Kim and I arrived about an hour before Les Sans Culottes took the stage as the closers last night for the Bastille Day Block Party outside Barbette's French restaurant in Uptown,

Music outdoors is almost always a dicey situation - last night was no different. The band we first listened to was mixed way heavy on bass and drums - that is about all we could hear.

Jon had asked me to bring the Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean up for his use rather than go through the hassle of flying with his guitars. The Tennessean is a great axe (pictured in action) but after several tunes, Jon realized that he was going to have continuing problems with feedback.

Fortunately I had packed the solid body Danelectro and he finished the set with that.

It became obvious immediately why Les Sans Culottes had been chosen as closers -- they grabbed the audience with both their musical prowess and unbridled enthusiasm. The theory that people don't know what they like - they like what they know - was proven as the crowd's favorites of the set were covers in French of My Sharona and Boots Are Made For Walking.

We were on the road by 10:30 PM and got back home around 12:10AM.

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SUCH OF A LUCKY GUY!

ANOTHER REPORT FROM THE HINTERLANDS OF MINNEAPOLIS

Started out my saturday in typical fashion by locating a Perkins restaurant just off Highway 7. While I was working on my short stack, I noticed that the staff was setting up for a rather large gathering near my booth. Shortly thereafter "grandma and grandpa" were the first to arrive and overhearing their conversation I could tell that they were waiting for their son and his family to arrive. Grandma was cute as she directed the strategy in seating so that she could be surrounded by grandchildren.

Then the family began to arrive. Mom and Dad and FIVE kids! The eldest couldn't have been more than eight and the youngest just under two. How does a family that size survive in these days? I suppose there are two sides to debate here, but I find it a bit irresponsible to have that many offspring in a world that is already polluted and overcrowded.

Mom looked tired.

Upon returning to my sister-in-law's condo, plans for the day were laid out. It was to be a day of finding urns for ashes and to locate a flat screen television set for Kristi -- oh, and a decent mouse pad for me.


first stop was a huge Sam's Club where we located a set to Kristi's liking and my recommendation - a 40 inch Sony LCD Bravia. We have a 46 inch set similar to this one - a replacement for the Hitachi Horror that I chronicled here on this site some time ago. Kristi also decided to add a 19 inch Sharp flat screen for the kitchen that would be set up with a small in house antenna.

Kim and Kristi located two beautiful urns at Pier One, then we moved on to Excelsior as Kristi knew a shop that carried "stoppers" which were needed for the urns. Excelsior was in the throes of a summer street sale and I made it about half way there before my damaged leg would allow me to go no further, so I told the women to go on, found myself a bit of shade and "people watched" until they returned.

Our final stop was an Office Max for the mouse pad - I went for basic black as opposed to cute kittens, playing puppies, and diving dolphins.

As technology advances, I become more and more aware of just how far behind I am getting left -- choking on the dust of television manuals that were obviously written by an English speaking Chinese - talk about awkward sentence construction!

The three of us worked on getting the kitchen TV up and running, but towards the middle of the melee I decided we had too many chiefs and I bowed out (in a stressed out huff, I must admit - with apologies to the women - who stayed with it until they got it running as well as can be expected this far away from the broadcast towers.

For my supper, as Kim and Kristi were doing huge salads, I opted to order a Diavanni's pizza from the joint over on Highway 7. I ordered a pepperoni, mushroom, and extra cheese. When I arrived to pick it up, the slip was for $13.89 and it read SAUSAGE, mushroom, extra cheese. I pointed this out to the cashier who called the manager over. He apologized and gave me the pizza at no charge.

Free pizza? I can learn to like your sausage, Mr. Diavanni. (Oops, that didn't sound very good, did it?)

So today is going to end up being a long one so I need to get plenty of rest. Sometime around noon I am joining Jonathan for brunch and visiting before the outdoor music starts at Barbette's at 4 this afternoon. Since Jon's band, Les Sans Culotte, doesn't perform their set until 9PM, I am thinking that I will retreat back here until evening descends and then go back down town for the set at 8PM, then listen to Jon play before we head out to return to Stella and Hammy - almost embarrassing how much I miss those furry little guys whenever I am gone for more than 24 hours!

To that end, here are gratuitous photos of the beloved and dearly missed.

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Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.

FORGOT HOW MUCH I HATE BIG CITY DRIVING - GPS NO HELP

Last night I picked son Jonathan up at his hotel, the Aloft, and we went to meet my friend Kurt Weber for dinner at Figlio's on Calhoun Square. The ride to the restaurant became a real fiasco - one that if we hadn't left in plenty of time, would have had tempers flaring.

It seems that I must have entered the address for the restaurant into my GPS incorrectly because when we arrived at the supposed address we were in a warehouse district with no restaurant in sight!

Remembering that Kurt had said that the restaurant was near Barbette's, the site of sunday's music, I then entered the address for Barbette's, thinking that I recalled exactly where the Italian restaurant in question was located as we (I thought) had dined there three years ago, the last time Les Sans Culottes worked the outdoor festival.

When we arrived at the Barbette location, I realized that it was a different Italian restaurant - Victoria's - and I still didn't know where Figlio's was located.

So I finally got smart, I thought, and went into Barbette's and retrieved the address from their telephone address - 3001 Lake Street - and followed the GPS directions - only to find ourselves in a residential neighborhood nearby. It was then I realized that in my haste and frustration I had typed in"001" not "3001".

We finally found Figlio's tucked in a corner and virtually out of sight. We made it with five minutes to spare.

Dinner was less than whelming. In conversations with our waitress we found out that it is in it's death throes with a closing date of September 19, supposedly another victim of the current economic climate, but to my way of thiking, it is that the food is just not very good! Jon and I split the veal and spinach stuffed cannelloni and it was rubbery and the sauce came no where near being Italian tasting.

We, however, did not let this get in the way of having an enjoyable evening with Kurt - and I am hoping that he will be able to get off work in time to catch Jonathan's set sunday night.

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YET ANOTHER PACKER HELMET FINISHED - BIG WEEKEND COMING UP

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a lineman's "cage" in titanium at a very good price - formerly used by the Colorado Buffalo football team, this cage is the same dark green used by the Packers so, of course, I snapped it up, and then began looking for a yellow helmet to attach it to. Luckily, within a few days I found a yellow helmet, somewhat battle-scarred, but at a good price of just over $34.00. (the new ones run $94.13).

I then contacted my pal Marty in Milwaukee who has been supplying me with Packer decals and ordered the set I would need to complete the helmet.

Miraculously, all parts arrived within a week of one another. I spent a goodly amount of time this afternoon cleaning the exterior of the helmet with "Goo Gone", which is a great cleaner to take off paint hits from other helmets as well as any left over adhesives. The completed helmet is pictured here.

I counted up my total helmet collection - this makes #22!

I will be bringing my laptop and my camera with me this weekend as tomorrow I leave for Kim's sister's house to stay through sunday. Jonathan's band "Les Sans Culottes will be arriving by plane around noon tomorrow to play for a big Bastille Day street party outside the restaurant Barbette on sunday.

So tomorrow night I am meeting Jon and a former student and good friend of mine, Kurt Weber, for dinner and we will hang until this old fart crashes.

Saturday, Jon will be spending the day with his mother and then joining his band mates for dinner at Barbette's - to be folllowed by heavy duty partying with the other scheduled bands for the rest of the night.

Sunday late morning I will be picking Jon up and we will go out to brunch before joining in the musical festivities for the rest of the day. Here is the schedule of bands:

Barbette Bastille Day Block Party
Barbettewww.barbette.com
1600 W Lake St
Minneapolis, MN 55408-2547
(612) 827-5710

Stage Line Up:
4:00-4:35 Yid Vicious
4:50-5:25 The Idle Hands
5:40-6:20 Romantica
6:20-6:40 Live Action Set
6:50-7:30 Sims of Doomtree
7:45-8:25 Halloween, Alaska
8:35-8:45 Foxy Tann & the Whambamthankyouma'ams
9:00-10:00 -- (((((LES SANS CULOTTES))))))

Jon asked if I would bring the Gretsch Tennessean Chet Atkins autograph model guitar up with me so that he could use it for the set, so I took it to Sound of Music today and had a fresh set of strings installed.

I plan on writing blogs covering the weekend's activities while I am on the road, so watch for them this weekend.

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I HAVE A NEW "TECHHIE" - AH, THE YOUTH OF TODAY!

Last week I purchased a new used MacBook Pro to replace my Toshiba laptop - a laptop that at one point I took in to the "Geek Squad" because the internet section had stopped functioning . They informed me that it would cost more for me to have it repaired than it would just to replace it with a new one -- from their store of course.

Do you think I got my MacBook from Worst Buy? I don't think so. I went online and found a great deal on my MacBook. Next I gave my "broken" laptop to a very computer savvy young man, Gabe Wieseler.

Then I took my MacBook Pro into the local Apple/Mac dealer and told them to look over my new machine and to tweak it so that it would be running at peak performance. In addition I took in my Mac and had them transfer all the files on to my laptop.

Now one would think that they would put the latest updates on the machine as I had asked them to - tweak it for maximum pefrormance - but $180 later I get my laptop home and find that many of my programs crash.

So I call Gabe and he tells me that he has my Toshiba up and running - just by reinstalling the start up disc. So I am down here at his house this afternoon and he has cleared up all my problems on the Macbook by installing the correct updates.

His mother suggests paying me something for the Toshiba -- but I tell Gabe that the Toshiba is his as long as he will be my techhie. Pretty fair exchange, I think.

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While he was helping me with my computer problems, Gabe turned me on to Pandora Radio which is an amazing site that lets you choose the tune or artist that you want to listen to - with a good pair of head phones and a laptop you are are set to do an afternoon's work with great music in your ears.

I won't even go into the excellent features of Pandora -- just go check it out yourselves at www.pandora.com. If you love music, you won't be sorry.

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