Super Rookie’s World

I had the pleasure of coaching Ralph Rapson’s grandson in hockey for a few years. I got to meet Ralph on a number of occasions when he came and watched some games. His son, Toby, was a real nice guy and I got to ask him all types of questions about architecture and what not.

This past weekend Mr. Rapson passed away. He is best known for designing the old Guthrie Theater and the Cedar-Riverside Plaza (sometimes known as the Crack Stacks). Over the past few years he was known to be outliving his own work, which at times was considered to be very forward thinking. In fact, one of his more well known works was the Pillsbury House on Lake Minnetonka. Sadly, the new owners of the house tore it down in 1996 and built a mcMansion. Rapson offered to help redesign it, but the new owners didn’t want anything to do with it…a shame really.

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Here is a vacation home in Amery, Wisconsin:

Pretty bad ass stuff.

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Here is the US Embassy in Stockholm:

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He also designed some of the better looking houses in my old neighborhood in St. Paul (where we will be moving back to soon enough). He designed a few houses on Folwell Ave (2160, 2179, and 2197)…here is one of them:

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This a nice article about Rapson in his 90’s.

A great interview with Rapson by Mpls-St. Paul Magazine. I especially like his response to the question about how his own masterpieces are being torn down. A shame really.

A bunch more of Rapson links via the Building Minnesota blog.

Went on an awesome ride today with some of the team.

While on the way home we saw a mass of riders from the University of Minnesota team. As they crested the hill, I noticed a site that I have not seen in some time. It was as if I saw Yeti, Nessie, or the elusive 20point buck. I couldn’t believe my eyes, nor could The Little Guy. Much like this famous picture of the elusive “Bigfoot”:

We saw an equally elusive rider leading the front of the UofM ride. It was an amazing moment, but it was 50 degrees out and the Kenwood kit did look pretty awesome. The only known photograph of the mysterious rider is this one, taken over 3 years ago at the Blaine velodrome when he was last seen racing competitively. Note the similar walking style to that of Bigfoot. Is it the same person/thing?

It made my day.

There is a guy that I know that ate this the other day for breakfast, in order:

snickers bar
bacon egg and cheese bisuit from McDonalds
Hash Brown from McDonalds
Red Bull
King size Peanut M&Ms
Red Bull

I will let you all try to figure out who he is.

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Major League Soccer starts today.

What team am I going to be pulling for in 2008/09?

In the East:

In the West:

I love soccer, and I love MLS. It isn’t as good as the English Premier League, but neither are most leagues. I like how the league has continued through tough times and has become a worthy league that has built a solid foundation among soccer fans across the country.

A lot of folks knock soccer in this country because what is perceived as apathy at the stadiums across the country, but the league actually is one of the better attended leagues in the world, the problem that MLS has is that some of the teams play in 60,000 person stadiums rather than the 20,000 seat stadiums that are needed. Now that a majority of the teams in the league have their own specific stadiums the attendance is on the rise.

In 2009, the Seattle franchise will begin play. They will become my favorite team at that time.

I also enjoy the following teams:

Toronto FC (have sold out ever game in their new 20,000 stadium, it is the hardest ticket to get in the city). Oh, I don’t want to forget to mention that 3,000 fans from Toronto drove to Columbus for the season opener today.

DC United (Average 24,000 a game), they are also Hotpinkevil’s favorite team.

Here are some awesome youtube videos of MLS soccer and its fans:

What 20,000 fans in Toronto do when their team scores the first goal in franchise history…on free seat cushion day!

The Biggest Flag In The History Of The World (Chivas USA) fast forward to 2.00min

Toronto fans welcome Landon Donovan with pink streamers.

Beckham’s first goal in MLS

Galaxy vs Red Bulls (5-4)

Here are some websites that I frequent for MLS information:

MLS Underground

MLS Rumors

Soccer by Ives

I didn’t go into work today. I wish I could consider it a real day off, but I spent 6 hours of it behind this idiot box writing a book report and coming up with a presentation for a class next week. It is one of those classes that is way harder than it has to be, and I took because of the fact that is was a freshman level course.

Oh well. Only 4 more weeks of this crap. It will be a long 4 weeks with about 8 papers total to be written, one of which is a 25 page paper, but I will do what I can and graduate in May.

Holla.

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Yesterday I went to the Como Park vs. Benilde-St. Margaret basketball game at the Target Center. It was a ton of fun to see my old school in the State Tourney for only the second time in school history. Although they ended up losing by 10pts it was a fun game to watch because of the way Como would claw back to get within 1pt on several occasions. In the end they couldn’t beat the team, but fun nonetheless.

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One of the best television shows of the past few years is 30 Rock. Sadly, I haven’t been able to watch it as much as I have desired because of school conflicts, but the box set of season 1 is hilarious. The undertones of the show are top notch and Tracy Morgan is out of this world hilarious. You should pick it up…now.
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The Thunder also released their new uniforms for the 2008 season recently. They have a brand new jersey sponsor this season as well:

I believe Nestle Nutrition is the parent company of PowerBar, but I could be mistaken. The new uniform is a lot better than the brighter blue they have used in the past. I am happy that they have decided to go with a darker Navy kit for this season and the future. The jersey will match perfectly with the scarf that (dis) designed for the team.

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The team sunglasses came in yesterday. They are amazing and thanks to Chuck at Behind-Bars and Tifosi for working out a fantastic sponsorship package for the team. They are one hell of a pair of eye-goggles. I like the Tifosi glasses because of their stylish looks and cheap price. Pretty bad ass if you ask me.

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The cost of the Memorial Day race in Duluth is going up after this weekend. Save some money and register now. Damn shame that Flanders and GP won’t be coming up for the cat1/2 race. I guess there are bigger and better things down in the Quad Cities. They do have bigger crowds down in Iowa, but maybe when the Duluth Classic gets to the point the Tour of 10k was at the end they will decide to come up.

The Cat3 race on the other hand is going be amazing with a bunch of teams already starting to register.

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Back to school work.

Minnesota Thunder

Sarah and I are getting season tickets.

It is going to be a lot of fun watching the Thunder. I used to go to games all of the time, but kind of forgot about them. With the new owners and a ton more money, I bet the Thunder become marginally relevant again.

Article on the new look.

Meet my favorite cyclist for 2008.

Frano Pellizotti aka The Dolphin:

The official website.

By default, this means I am a Liquigas fan once again for 2008.

Here is The Dolphin Felippo Pozzato showing off some fancy footwear (note the awesome team):

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Oh. Big ups to Luke at chicagobikeracing for this awesome link of the final 15min of Milan-San Remo, in Italian!

It is awesome at 5:30 (Rebellin’s attack with Popovych) and 11:45 (when Cancellara puts in the attack) turn up the monitors!

I love architecture. I don’t know much about it, but it intrigues me to no end. It is kind of obvious that I don’t know much about it when I am on a ride and constantly ask the Little Guy about certain buildings and what not.

I also enjoy urban planning and design. In fact, just the other day I was perusing the interwebs and stumbled across the building complex in Tulsa called, The Cityplex. It turns out that this 50+ story skyscraper is 5 miles outside of downtown Tulsa near Oral Roberts University.

As you may know Oral Roberts is a televangelist (not Jack van Impe), who built a school and named it after himself. Turns out that Roberts had a vision to build a building that was similar to Noah’s Ark dimensions (he was told this after having a vision of a 900ft Jesus) and house a medical school on the campus of his university.

This building complex is the focal point of that “realized” dream (the med school went bellyup in 1987 and most of this building is now vacant):

This complex is smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

I am intrigued with how buildings are placed, and whether or not they fit in with the surrounding environment. I talked with Dan Wold about this the other day as he has been to the Cityplex in Tulsa (he says it is boring) and he just said it was wierd to see a tall building like that so far outside the normal area.

I find that interesting.

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Here is the Tulsa Skyline (note the lack of a 50+ story building!):

There are all types of stange/fascinating items on the campus of Oral Roberts University that also seem a  bit out of place:

(cityplex in the background)

a giant sculpture:

another building on campus:

ORU almost looks more like Disneyland than it does an institution of higher learning.

Hot damn, that oral roberts must be good at raising money if he can make all types of crazy buildings and sculptures such as this out in the middle of nowhere!

Sarah and I have a lot of changes on our plate in the coming months.* As mentioned previously we are both going to be attending graduate school this upcoming school year. I will start at Hamline in the Summer and Sarah at St. Thomas in the Fall. As you can imagine this means that some things need to change on the financial side of things.

Sadly, this means that we are no longer going to be living in Northeast Minneapolis. We really don’t want to leave the neighborhood or the awesome apartment that we live in, but we need to downsize for the time being. That means we are moving to St. Paul and living in the apartment at my parent’s house. I have lived in the apartment previously and it isn’t all that bad, and it is only 2 miles east of Northeast Minneapolis.

We won’t be going far, but we will be in a different city. Some people think that moving to St. Paul means that you become obsolete. We will try to prove them wrong, but who knows, we might just be the latest version of BetaMax.

*We are also getting married.

I know the race is almost two months away, but the Duluth Classic Stage Race is starting to fill in the Cat3s. There are already 17 registered and it looks like another couple from Madison and Chicago joined up today. I think the field is going to be up near 75 people when it is all said and done.

Sadly, I have heard about some grumbling from some people about the race being 3 hours away. I think it is kind of funny that we have a limited number of races, and a bunch of people were mad/disappointed when the Tour of 10k went away and then we get a replacement

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To some people there will always be Quad Cities. The Quad Cities races have a bigger purse and some bigger crowds, but it is also in IOWA. It is also about the same distance away as Duluth. I have talked to a bunch of people that have raced there and 90% of the time it is a similar response. People are happy they did it once, but they don’t really intend to go back.

The alternative is Duluth. It has been proven for the past few years (including the Tour of 10k) that there is a market for a timed stage race on Memorial Day Weekend in the upper midwest. I hope more people will see what we have in our own backyard and head up there. Plus, there are two road races, this is a hell of a lot better than the one road race in Burlington.

If the Nature Valley Gran Prix wants to have some selector races for the locals to fill their ranks, perhaps using the Duluth Classic as one of the races is a nice opportunity. Not only would it bring the best racers to Duluth, it would support local amatuer racing.

Who could complain about that?

We are off to Brainerd today to celebrate Easter with Sarah’s folks. It hasn’t stopped snowing since Friday morning at around 9am and the roads are real crappy, but who is complaining? The drive up is a lot of fun, in fact, you get to drive by Becker Furniture World which is basically God’s gift to capitalism. I have yet to ever go inside the place, but one of these days I will do my American duty and buy a sectional.

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A note to the haters:

Fest-a gathering for an activity.

Yep, you read it right. It is a word that is legal in Scrabble. Why are people trying to challenge me? Don’t make me get Hagerty to come down here from Scandia to throw down what is legal.

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Did you notice this?

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There is a shit storm brewing in Seattle with the naming of their new MLS team (which is de facto my favorite team). Turns out that MLS doesn’t want the team to be named, “Seattle Sounders” or “Pugent Sound FC” and is forcing the fans to choose between 3 options:

• Seattle FC
• Seattle Alliance
• Seattle Republic

If I had to choose from one of those three it would be the second one, but I am still shocked that a MLS team hasn’t gone on to take a name with Athletic Club or Athletic.

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(dis) designed the new Minnesota Thunder supporters scarf. You can get a scarf when you order season tickets for this upcoming season. Sarah and I are getting a ticket as is (dis). It is a pretty good deal and you can use the tickets when ever you want.

It will kind of look like this:

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27 days till Durand.

Get your registration in.