Leaky Buckets

  Pregame in the Minnesota Masterpiece           For my 29th birthday, Sam got me tickets to see the Minnesota Vikings play the Philadelphia Eagles at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on my birthday. It was my second ever pro football game, the other being a very memorable visit to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts for the Patriots vs the Vikings in the 8th grade. That is a story unto itself for another time.  For the sake of brevity, I am going to skip over the lead up, that included crossing the Dakotas in a white knuckle October blizzard that dumped forty four inches of snow and made both states nigh impassable for days. Needless to say, it was stressful. Not the driving in the snow so much as the potential that we may not be able to make it to the game, even with two days head start.  But we made it. We wove into the busy, yet pleasant traffic of the Twin Cities. Maybe it is because I am such a fan of the sports teams, but i...

  I didn't a have a photo of my bookshelf, but this will do...  I am staring at my bookshelf. It is teeming with books and maps and DVD’s and all sorts of other consumable entertainment. I sorted most of it when I installed the bookshelf, but I have mis-shelved items so many times that the organizing system is now defunct. Sam, a former MSU library employee, has given up on ever finding the book she is looking for. I don’t mind though, because I very rarely approach the bookshelf with one book in mind. It is like the old days of going to Blockbuster video stores; there are so many options to choose from, you just randomly select a title off the shelf. And so today, I am doing just that. It is time for a new bathroom reader. I just finished “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” a true story of an ex-Marine and sailor from New York City who brought cases of American beer to his friends and buddies on the front lines of the Vietnam war in 1966 to boost morale and give thanks. They are ...

  The woodshops in various states of clutter My workshop and my mind are a mess. It isn’t a disaster or a catastrophe. I just had a long week of work and it's been a long winter of half finished projects and half-baked ideas. There are bags of screws and electrical parts strewn about amidst broken saws, dull chainsaw blades and unused plumbing parts. In my head, I am stuck on a few song lyrics for a new song about the wildfire season of 2017. I am planning my wedding, now just four months away. I am trying to compose email responses to people I really don’t want to talk to. I am scheming how to accomplish an upcoming week of high and dangerous roofing around potential snow and wind. A lot is going on simultaneously in my head and on the workbench. It is uncanny how often the clutter of the shop and the clutter of my mind are synonymous. But when I clean the physical world, it seems that the mental clutter gets organized too.  Some people like a messy shop. They know exactly ...

     Bendemeer, the stomping grounds of the Barefoot Butler         I vividly remember Heather, the spunky little British girl, turning around and asking me, “Where the hell are we going?” I didn’t know. I had an address for 55 Lake Haynes Rd, New Zealand scribbled in my notebook. I had assured Heather and her friend Jenny that it wouldn’t be too hard to find. They were on the whirlwind New Zealand vacation of a lifetime. I was a bum, hitching a ride from Wanaka to my next workstay, smelling like I hadn’t showered in a week, because I hadn’t.  Like most folks I hitched rides with, they insisted on taking me to the front door so I didn’t have to find another ride. Two minutes in a car often saved two hours of walking. We turned onto a steep gravel road and bounced our way into the hills. The driveway split and we took the right turn, coming to a locked gate. Back we went to the left and after about a mile, the rutted road popped us out in a ...

  Glitz in Vegas but terrible service and bad pillows Sketchy shipping container in NZ with incredibly nice bed inside I first came up with the “Good Sandwich” hypothesis while traveling around the world. After a long day of travel, I would stumble into a medium-sized town, desperately in need of a bed and a shower and a good meal. I would browse the local directory for lodging and food in some little Spanish or Australian or Norwegian town and a pattern emerged in the listings. When I eliminated the places I obviously couldn’t afford and the places that were too decrepit even for my basic tastes, there would be three or four affordable yet nice places on the list to eat or sleep. I always chose the food place with pictures of sandwiches and I always chose the hostel or hotel with a photo of the shower head and/or unlimited wifi. I began to call my selection process the “Good Sandwich” hypothesis.  I realized that the most comfortable places to eat and stay were the ones that ...

  This isn't T'ings, but its a similar Montana bar... If you wander around Montana, particularly in the small towns, and you happen across someone you know, someone will likely paraphrase the following slogan. Montana is just one small town with very long roads. You would think that with a population of a million people, it isn’t so much a small town anymore. Seven hundred miles from east to west, four hundred from north to south, the fourth largest state in the United States, Montana is anything but small. And yet… This past week, me and David took off from work early and hit the road in the big Ford. There was an open mic in the town where he grew up, Jefferson City. It was about 120 miles, two hours over Elk Park Pass and the Boulder Hill and a bunch of other oddly named geologic features and funky small towns. Along the way, we passed three vehicles that I knew and I lifted a hand in greeting. One of the local plumbers, the ex-wife of one of our co-workers, a casual acquain...

  My little hobo camp             The year was 2017. I was fresh off my whirlwind adventures Down Under and found myself in Vermont biding my time. I was working with my Dad and Uncle in the woods for the summer building a cabin, honing carpentry skills, trying to save a double decker bus from the ravenous forest and rebuilding my savings for my anticipated return to Montana. I was living in my little teardrop camper in the driveway of the jobsite, waking at dawn to watch the sun climb up over the Green Mountains and spending my evenings sitting in a lawn chair with my guitar watching the same sun sink into the western abyss.  Life was simple. Cereal and toast for breakfast. A leafy early morning dog walk through the woods with Deke. Wander over to the timber frame cabin project, sweep yesterday’s sawdust and dig out the chop saw. Wipe the morning dew from the tailgate of my Toyota and lay out my toolbelt. Work through the muggy hea...