I noticed something of a commotion in our back yard a little while ago. Saw fluttering coming from the fully enclosed dog run next to the garage (it's chain link with roof, sides, gate, cement floor). I looked closer and it seemed a pidgeon or mourning dove must've gotten inside there and was freaking out and it seemed maybe another one was outside freaking out.

Well, though I, perhaps I would go into the backyard and open the gate so whatever bird was in there could exit. Assuming the birds weren't too freaked to let me near or whatever.

I opened the back door and looked in the yard-- yup, that's a mourning dove sitting in the dog run. I glanced to the side out of habit . . . WTF? There was a much larger than expected bird sitting on the post for the clothesline in our neighbor's yard. I'd expected to see the usual array of little songbirds or a wren (they have a wren house and a bird feeder on the post) or maybe a dove or a really fat pidgeon at the largest.

Instead, there was a freaking bird of prey there. A hawk of some sort, I'd guess. Well, "falcon" I suppose would be the right name.

It was, as you might expect, very interested in the goings on in our yard. It stared at me, I stared at it and kinda looked toward the dog run and saw a dove just sitting still there inside. Um.

I decided to head slowly back inside the house and observe from behind the glass of the windows in the backdoor or the window in the living room that faces the backyard.

Once I got to the living room, I looked again and the hawk was on the chain link fence that separates our yard from the neighbor's yard to the south. I checked again a couple minutes later and the hawk was in our yard kindof hopping around a bit oddly . . . oh, um, there's something big on one foot/talon.

Gosh, that kindof looks like grey feathers or fur stuck there. A dead dove or part of one, perhaps? Eek!

I can't see from here to see if there's still a dove in the dog run, but my best guess would be the hawk got hold of one of the pair of mourning doves and the other is still in the dog run.

I looked away to post to twitter and IM and now no longer see the hawk.

I figure I'll wait a little while longer and venture out into the yard to see if there's still a poor dove trapped in the fenced in area. Well, probably survived because it was in there, but . . . probably still a sucky day for that dove.

There's a grey squirrel on a tree branch in a tree in our backyard. He's backed up right against the tree trunk and sitting as motionless as possible on the branch. It's normally squirrel-tastic in our backyard, though less so since I don't have any bird seed out right now that they like. This squirrel is all "I'm not here, no sir" which is probably what a squirrel does when there's a freaking bird of prey nearby.

The usual array of goldfinches, wrens, and assorted sparrows are noticeably absent right now too.

I'd guess the hawk is nearby having dinner or something, but I can't see it from any vantage points in the house.

This would make more sense if I still lived in Mitchell, South Dakota or someplace a bit more rural, is rather unexpected given we live in a busy street in a busy neighborhood in south Minneapolis. 'Course it's not like we aren't just blocks from a lake and a bird sanctuary and parks, etc. Minneapolis is a city of lakes and parks and such.

After nine years, Simon Delivers is shutting down; just got an email from them. They're an online grocery store with nice helpful delivery people who bring you stuff. We've been customers for at least two years and I really loved shopping their website and having them bring me groceries and household goods and whatever else I needed once or even sometimes twice a week.

It was especially great during Minnesota winters when I was in full-on hermit mode. I'd say that this past winter, we probably did 95% or more of our shopping (not just grocery, all of it) online via Simon Delivers, Amazon.com, and Walgreens (for medication).

I know other similar outfits in other parts of the country closed their doors (or websites) years ago, had thought we were pretty darn lucky in the Twin Cities that Simon Delivers seemed to be doing so well. Not all that long ago they'd raised delivery prices again and then they'd also put a $50 minimum for orders but given gas prices and all, seemed reasonable enough. In the summer months we don't order from them as much as I'm out and about more, Kevin doesn't mind walking to stores as much, and there are farmer's markets to check out. I bet their biz dropped off during summer months.

kaustin reminded me that Lunds/Byerlys have grocery delivery and we even signed up for an account once, though haven't tried them yet. In my experience getting delivery from brick & mortar stores, even ones with decent websites, is never quite as good as with businesses designed for this sort of thing, but I guess we'll find out.

For us, Simon Delivers was always worth the extra cost because it saved us time and energy and wear on the vehicle (and gas money); was also do-able when one or both of us was just too depressed to manage much of anything-- could still order food and lightbulbs and toilet paper and batteries and all would magically show up on our doorstep the next day.

Anyway. It's a bummer for the people who work for them and for those who've come to rely on them. We're fortunate that we can actually get out to get groceries etc. if we need to (or at least when I'm incapacitated, Kevin usually still can). I imagine there are some folks who relied on them even more than we did; here's hoping they can get Byerlys or some other place to deliver what they need.

(I wonder what will happen to all those green bins. And big yellow trucks.)

One of these days I really will write something about why Twitter is the bee's knees and like that. There are lots of different uses for the technology, just as there are lots of different uses for Livejournal or Blogger or AIM, etc.

Okay, here's my one paragraph take: If you think of it as a bit like chat/instant messaging, but as a broadcast to multiple friends (and maybe some strangers and acquaintances), you start to get the idea. I use it to exclaim about something I just thought of or which just happened. To say funny things. Or to ask questions. Or, yes, sometimes even say what I'm doing or comment on what my friends are doing/saying. The conversations can be cool, it's also a fun way to get to know what my friends and fave bloggers are up to during their day. I love how useful it can be when news breaks and how great it can be for making connections with people while they're out and about. (I think the best way to use/read twitter on a Mac or iPhone/iPod Touch is to use Twitterrific; there are other nifty clients out there and other cool tools that use twitter too.)

Twitter is very in-the-moment so I'm not sure it is at all interesting to read a post that collects what I said over twitter for the last 24 hours, but some folks seemed to miss my posting of that sort of thing here so I created laurel_twit-- an LJ account that's just for reposting what I said using my windowseat account on twitter. If you want to read those posts, you can add that account to your f-list. I'm still not sure what the best time of day is to have the collection posted; kaustin suggested 6am or some early morning time so that it basically collects everything I said in a single day in a post. Hrm. (Thoughts?)

A while back I created an LJ account for the RSS feed of my windowseat twitterstream (windowseat_twit), but it sure looks ugly (formatting-wise) on my f-list so I'm not sure you'd like it on yours. Still, it's closer to real-time if you'd prefer that. I just wish the default behavior wasn't to make the text the title of the post (no way to change that, near as I can tell).

For those that use twitter, a guide to my Twitter accounts:

windowseat - Where I do most of my posting, my personal account. It ended up named the way it is because the first people I was following on twitter were all people I knew from the early days of weblogging so it seemed most likely they'd know me by this handle (and "laurel" was already taken).

lakrahn - It's a protected twitter account. Only people it follows can see the updates there. I created this account for posting stuff that I don't want public (mostly location based stuff, I'd imagine). Pretty much mean it to be just for folks who know me offline or who have known me online for long enough I know they aren't likely to stalk me or something. I should use it more.

laurelkrahn - I just use this account to point to my various twitter accounts. No reason for anyone to follow it, really.

tvpicks - Is updated automatically whenever I post TV picks with a link to them, I also sometimes post other TV natter and notices there (I should do that more).

wintwins - Is updated automatically when a post is made to WinTwins.net (wintwins) and I have occasionally posted re baseball there.

mnstf - I post reminders of Minn-StF events there.

minicon - For Minicon related announcements, news, etc.

. . . there are a few more, that I haven't really done anything with. Honestly, one reason I haven't done much with most accounts other than windowseat is because of performance issues with twitter. And I still need to set up some software that makes it easier for me to update the different accounts.

In case you aren't reading my TV Picks (rsstvpicksnet) every day (what's up with that?), I figured I'd mention that the new season of Burn Notice starts tonight. 'Cause it's one of those awesome shows that even my friends who don't watch much TV watch. Well, it's lightweight summer fluffy awesome, not stone cold awesome like some other shows. (And it is a show you can start now, without having seen season one, though season one is worth a look too.)

In today's picks I also cover the series premiere of Greatest American Dog and plenty of other things. Hopefully today's edition doesn't suck.

Feeling somewhat better today. Yesterday I was pathetic and miserable saying "I'm gonna die" every so often. Sad, but true.

Well enough to be heading off to the Dome for the Twins-Cleveland game any minute now (my folks are picking us up). Not well enough to manage much else, alas, but I'm glad to be on the mend and that it was a shortlived cold/whatever.

So the TiVo recorded A Capitol Fourth and I start fast-forwarding through it to see if there's anything in it this year that I'd care to watch.

I stopped when they introduced Huey Lewis & the News because, um, in my '80s youth I thought they were okay and because I just had to look because it seems SO FREAKING WEIRD to me that they're playing on this special.

Kevin and I note that one woman is way too excited by their appearance. Jumping up and down, etc.

The music starts and the song is "The Heart of Rock and Roll"

Kevin: "Don't they have any newer material?"

Me: (actually laughing out loud) "Somehow I don't think they should introduce new songs at this event."

Kevin: "I guess I'm weird."

And then I just kept imagining what would happen if bands, who haven't had hits in 20 or more years, would bust out the new material when invited to things like this. Sorry, it's still cracking me up. Trust me, if you were here I'd make ya laugh.

The new Great Big Sea album Fortune's Favor is available now some places (like Canada, iTunes, amazon mp3 store) and will be available elsewhere (like US and UK stores) on July 8th.

It's available (or available for pre-order) from Amazon MP3 Store, amazon.com, amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, , and all the other usual places. (These are affiliate links, should you want a bit of what you spend to go my way.)

My 37th birthday (which will occur on July 5th) is shaping up to be the Birthday of Video Games or something like that.

Kevin is giving me a Wiiiiiiii for my birthday; I stumbled on one when I was at Best Buy on Friday and bought it and have vowed to not open it 'til my birthday. We'd discussed that as a possible present and since I saw one and have a Best Buy credit card, I made it so.

The other part of the present is to finally finish cleaning up the area in front of the TV in the basement as we've had that TV earmarked as being for video games for ages. Would move our PS2 down there and also set up the Wii and GameCube and SuperNES (if I can find it). Plus the various joystick games we have (like the Commodore one).

Anyone have gear or games to recommend? I suppose having a decent way to switch between consoles would be good.

Fave accessories for Wii? Fave games? Fave websites/resources?

What about for Gamecube? PS2?

I'm still in search of a Wavebird controller or two to be used with our GameCube and Wii. We have two soft DDR gamepads for the PS2, we also have two wired controllers and one wireless controller for the PS2.

Games we have:
Activision Anthology (PS2)
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 (PS2)
Dragon Ball Z: Sagas (GameCube)
Katamari Damacy (PS2)
MLB 2004 (PS2)
Monopoly Party (PS2)
MVP Baseball 2004 (PS2)
Namco Museum (PS2)
Psychonauts (PS2)
Sega Genesis Collection (PS2)
Star Wars Bounty Hunter (GameCube)
Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube)
TimeSplitters Future Perfect (PS2)
and a few others I can't find just now.

I'm a fan of old games (since I did most of my gaming on a Commodore 64 or original NES), puzzle games, card and board games, and things like Bejeweled, Chuzzle, et al. Love Katamari Damacy, though it gives me a headache and/or makes me queasy if I play too long at a stretch (I'm not good with first person games in that respect).

I do enjoy DDR and we hope to acquire more titles; I'm also interested in getting a Wii Fit and (of course) Super Mario Galaxy. Have been putting things on my Amazon and Target wishlists.

For at least the last couple of months, Inky has been waking me up almost every day at 8am. Doesn't matter if I went to bed at a reasonable hour the night before or didn't crash 'til 4 or 5am, he'll wake me at 8am. Argh!

This tends to involve him sitting right by my pillow (and head), sometimes on the hose for my CPAP. Sometimes he'll nip at my CPAP hose or mask or even at my elbow if I leave it exposed. Grrrrrr.

Now, it can be kindof sweet because he's usually purring like crazy and he's the most cuddly cat ever, but you can see how this might be annoying. Meanwhile, by morning Marlowe is usually laying on my chest, sometimes so close that he's right up against my face. (Clearly they're trying to smother me!)

Inky will also tap at things repeatedly to get my attention. He prefers tapping on things that crinkle or which sound interesting to him (he'd love a drum of his own, to be sure).

This tapping behavior mostly happens in the morning, but sometimes at other times of the day or night when he wants attention. We usually tell him to knock it off, because it gets freaking annoying!

Inky's thoughts at times like that: "I'VE FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU-- I LEARNED MORSE CODE! IT TOOK ME YEARS AND I FINALLY DID IT, THIS IS GREAT! WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?!? I'M TRYING TO TALK TO YOU!" *


* Note that Inky doesn't engage in LOLspeak; I suspect he looks down upon cats who do.

elisem has a jewelry sale going on right now, I suspect many (most?) of you know this, but want to get the word out as she makes nifty stuff.

I've purchased some in the past and figure it might be fun to link to 'em here for my own reference and for the benefit of the curious.

I bought "Our Lady of Deciduous Grace" for my Mom as a Christmas present a couple of years ago-- she loves it, though it sometimes tries to strangle her.

Kevin gave me "Amends" for my birthday last year. If you know me at all well, you know it's totally my colors, what with the reds and purples and a touch of orange (plus silver too). I absolutely love the colors and wear it the most of any of my pieces from Elise.

I purchased this candyglass hedgehog necklace during a sale thinking it would be Just The Thing for my Mom, but later realized it's just too small for her or I (only saw it online before purchase) so now it just hangs around the house looking really darn pretty as an art object. I'm sure I'll find a way to wear it eventually.

"A Murder of Hearts" was not as brightly colored as I'd thought based on the pictures online, but I still like it and have been known to wear it around. Since purchasing this and the hedgehog necklace I usually try to visit the jewelry in person before taking the plunge-- plus it's a good excuse to visit with Elise.

I faunched after "As Above, So Below" off and on for years before breaking down and buying it when it was seriously reduced in price during a major sale. Really need to find something good to wear it with, mostly so far it hangs around looking pretty. (I wrote most of this post on Saturday afternoon; on Saturday evening I dug out a shirt and realized it goes beautifully with the necklace, so wore that to a party last night. More compliments on the shirt and/or necklace than I've had on anything in a while which was weird given I think this shirt was originally my Mom's and usually just wear it around the house.)

The first necklace I acquired from Elise was actually a birthday present years ago during a CONvergence from kaustin, fmsv, and cowfan-- it's called "Into The Up" and it's orange and there's a brass rocket on it-- I haven't found any pictures online and the necklace seems to have gone walkabout (but I'm sure it's somewhere, just probably got packed in a box during my move from SoDak back to MN). It's one I looked at on her table at cons for ages and was always surprised no one bought it; wasn't sure it was for me given it's not on silver links, but in the end it won me over.

I also have several pairs of earrings and a hair comb whose name I forget just now.

I'm trying to be good and not covet anything during this sale. When Elise first posted Doll With A Ghost In It II, I thought I was doomed because it cost over $700 and I adored it, but upon seeing it in person I realize I just like it lots . . . it's not love, fortunately (given the price). Though were the price to drop further (from current sale price of $500 $450), a girl could be tempted, if she had money (which I do not), though I do have BPAL and Villainess stuff I could sell/trade but . . . hrm.

I also really like "The Waters of Twilight Are Endless" and keep dithering over how many inches of it I should order (or if I should at all). Were money not so tight, I'd be tempted to order a decent length, but with clasps on it in such a way that I could use some of it for a bracelet, some for a single length of necklace, and then have enough there for a necklace that looped around a couple or a few times.

Kevin says I should update my wishlist and I suppose I should including putting a bit on there about which pieces of Elise's I like and with my general jewelry preferences (silver, not gold usually; love of purples and reds and burgundies and orange and black and hematite and blue goldstone and bright colors and pewter and so on and so forth. I can only wear clip earrings, I suppose, should be noted too).

OMG! Twitter is down, IsTwitterDown is down, Amazon is down, and Plurk is slower than molasses in January. What the hell am I supposed to do now, internet? HUH?!?! I suppose Second Life is down too, though without twitter updates to tell me so I wouldn't know unless I tried to log in . . .

Oh thank goodness LJ is still here. And I think Facebook works too, though I tend to always forget about it. I forgot to log in to chat stuff today since Kevin stayed home from work today (and I mostly ever IM with him, though I'm always happy to hear from other folks I know too), I suppose I could do that and I'd feel less alone.

Exchange between Kevin and I (recounted on twitter earlier-- really, that's where I post the most these days):

kaustin: "I'm staying home today because I don't feel good."
laurel: "Or well."
kaustin: "Actually I feel evil."

(I've caught myself saying "good" instead of "well" lately and it's bugging me, I suspect it's entirely because we've been watching so many baseball games given how the majority of players and announcers say "good" when they should say "well".)

(You guys read my picks, right? Charlie Jade is finally gonna air in the US starting tonight so if you're a SF fan who hasn't yet seen it or downloaded it, you'll probably want to check that out.)

(Kevin is wearing his Marvin shirt that says "LIFE! Don't talk to me about life" which seems especially appropriate given he's home sick-- or evil-- today.)

The National Conference on Media Reform is in Minneapolis this weekend. Even if you aren't going, you can check out broadcasts from the event and recordings of program items; I'm sure it will be heavily blogged given the special "blogger rate" they had and the many press passes they gave out.

[No, I'm not going, but I figured it was of interest and possibly not on your radar.]

We're mostly watching coverage of Phoenix on NASA TV right now, sometimes flipping over to Science Channel now that they've got coverage going as well.

And of course reading MarsPhoenix on Twitter. Kevin refuses to believe it's just a NASA blogger updating that twitter account, he insists the Phoenix is "smart" and is sending tweets. He's goofy!

They have these people roaming the stands at the Dome taking pictures of fans. The hook is, of course, that they try to sell you the picture after the game (or stuff with the picture on it).

I always decline these things, but kaustin and jbru had their picture taken on Wednesday night. My shirtsleeve made the pic too. Eek!

Kevin and I went to Mondays crazy extra-innings game and stayed for the whole thing. Was fun.

jbru joined us for the game on Wednesday night. I really should write something up about it at Win Twins because the shenanigans in the stands were funny even when the game was not.

It looks like the new restaurant on our corner is about to open, seems like they've been doing training and test runs and now their website is up.

Will be interesting to see how they do, the menu looks promising-- particularly for vegans, vegetarians, and those seeking gluten-free options.

I didn't much care for being surprised when the entrance ramps to 35W from 46th were closed, so I signed up for email updates from the Minnesota Department of Transportation so I'd know what's going on.

Today's email brought this lovely news, which I'll put behind the cut for non-locals who don't care. ( Here are the gory details. )

Good grief. The ramps we usually use to get on and off 35W are going to be closed 'til OCTOBER 2010?!? WTF? I don't really understand why changes are needed there in the first place, I guess I should go read about the project and what they're up to.

And then of course lots of the alternative routes we would use are also closed, though for a less lengthy period. I suppose I should be glad we can currently exit southbound 35W at 46th, but the holes in the road there were so bad that at this point I'm gonna avoid doing that when possible.

Plus pretty soon they're gonna close Lyndale. They'll be working on Lyndale south of Uptown all the way down to Minnehaha Parkway until at least November 2009, though presumably they'll be doing it in chunks, not closing the whole thing.

I don't drive much, especially during the winter, and I often take back roads, but I still find all of this annoying. Can imagine how inconvenient it is for people who drive more than me.

Sure, fixing the Crosstown exits to/from 35W will be a mess and take time, I just never expected the 46th exits/entrances to be a part of that ('til 2010?!?!?!)

I suppose the place I drive the most these days is the Metrodome and most of the time I take Bryant north to 38th and then 38th across the highway and then Park all the way to the lot we park in right across the street from the Dome.

If I need to get on/off 35W north/south, the 36th exit isn't all that far really, so we're lucky in one respect, but it's already pretty darn busy and sure to get busier with so many other exits and bridges closed.

Anyway. None of this is probably news to other locals, though maybe the duration of closure for 46th will surprise some of you-- sure surprised me! Seems like it will be best to avoid 35W south of downtown and crosstown/62 as much as possible for the next couple of years-- I mean, even more than usual.

MN native Glen Perkins gets his first major league start tonight for the Twins. Very cool to do it in his home state for his hometown team-- I hope he does well.

I think I'll twitter during the game at twitter.com/wintwins about the game etc. Novel, eh?

Couldn't manage to post to wintwins.net from palm so will twitter instead.

Corey Koskie is on the field at the Dome with his family while the Red Sox take batting practice. Was talking to Mr. (David) Ortiz for a long time. He looks good. At least one fan tossed Corey a baseball to sign.

Writing this on Palm TX at Dome using Twins wifi.

Kevin and I are in my folks really good seats in section 127 behind home plate.

Lots of Red Sox fans here. Gametime is 6pm.

Catbus. The text accompanying this Craig's List ad is, um, priceless.

(This is probably old news, but I hadn't seen it 'til now.)

I'm far too pleased that I get to watch goldfinches each day in my backyard. Bright yellow birds are so cute! Way better than the sparrows and squirrels, that's for sure. Kevin keeps teasing me that they won't stick around if I keep yelling "Pretty birdie!" at them-- but I'm not doing that, I swear! Just in IM to him.

A male cardinal just stopped by our backyard and I felt guilty because all I have out right now is thistle seed for the finches. Well, and a block of suet which has been completely ignored. I need to get more black oil sunflower seed though I'm contemplating going with sunflower hearts or a mix of them with safflower and maybe some other stuff. Hrm. Still need to find a squirrel-proof feeder for that or acquire a good baffle for the feeder post we have.

I also occasionally ponder putting out nectar for hummingbirds and butterflies, but it'd be a lot easier and more practical if I just planted some flowers that they like. Our neighbor has a birdbath so I haven't bothered setting one up, but may get around to that sometime. Also want to put up some birdhouses, probably just the little wren houses I have here somewhere.

We have at least one trumpet vine at the front of the house, assuming it survived. Would like to have both orange and yellow ones out front along with the Rose That Took Over The World.

The iris that we planted very very late last year after I forgot about them and the leaves had all dried up and they looked awfully darn dead . . . well, they're growing. Iris are tough, I figured they might, but was also thinking I might have to write them off. I should put nametags by them while I can still figure out what they are (assuming I can).

We really need to kill off the grass weeds in our front yard and start fresh. My plan is to start by making the bit of yard between our sidewalk and our driveway into flower beds. We need to add some dirt because there's a big ol' dent in the yard. I'm pondering options. Do we want to plant a tree or just let it stay sunny there? Our neighbor's big elm used to shade that corner of the house and that part of yard, but it was taken out a year or two ago. It would be somewhat novel to have such a nice sunny spot to use for iris and other things and we've got plenty of shade elsewhere so I'm leaning toward not planting a tree.