Great Story From My Hometown

The Lane Game: Seniors participate in Wii bowling tourney

The thundering roll of balls helped turn the multipurpose room of the Sally Griffin Senior Center into a virtual bowling alley Friday.

It sounded like bowling. It looked like bowling. All that was missing was the pin setter, the beer and the garish shoes.

Dozens of seniors from the Peninsula gathered for a Wii video game bowling tournament that pitted teams from The Park Lane Residence by Hyatt in Monterey, Meals on Wheels drivers from Pacific Grove, and the Griffin Center against one other

Greeeen Minnesota

I'm used to my friends in the Bay Area being avid recyclers and composting, but from my experiences in Minneapolis, it's far less common. I was pleasantly surprised when I found this article on composting in Minnesota:

Hennepin County in Minnesota has developed a multi pronged approach to recycling that now includes organic composting. This program allows individuals and business to separate their trash into two bins, one for stuff that goes to a landfill and one that is stuff that can be composted. 25% of the trash is organic and can be composted: in restaurants it is estimated that over 75% of the waste is organic and does not need to go to a methane producing landfill. Five new businesses are signing on each week and the county is working to meet it’s goal of recycling 50% of it’s waste.

For more information you can contact Randy’s Sanitation in Delano Minnesota.

Once you get in the habit, whether it’s a business or a household, you can reduce your waste, reduce your cost and contribute in a easy way to help the environment.

Congratulations Hennepin County businesses!

Brett Favre Featured in the Onion

I know that most of you are Viking fans, but there must be a few Packer fans amongst my readers. This morning the Onion featured your beloved hero Brett Favre.

GREEN BAY, WI—The Green Bay Packers addressed questions concerning the current status, future plans, and whereabouts of recently retired quarterback Brett Favre by announcing Monday that they had sent him to the country to live on a beautiful farm with a very nice family.

"We know you loved Brett Favre, but he wasn't happy here. He couldn't stay here," Packers general manager Ted Thompson told hundreds of quiet but tear-streaked Packer fans assembled at the televised Lambeau Field press conference. "And he loved you, too—he loved you very much indeed—but he needed to go someplace where he could run and jump and throw his favorite football around. And he couldn't do that here anymore."

Generalities, Misperceptions, True, and Confrontation

Max Sparber on MNSpeak posted a pretty funny, well funny to me, link from metroblogger: Top 10 Things Idiots at SXSWi have to say about Minneapolis.

The comments on the MNSpeak posting are hilarious. Minnesotans are just as guilty in regards to stereotypes of other cities. I came across many, many more California stereotypes than I could list today. But to hear the commenters talk it's as if each of these "idiots" at SXSW is performing a personal affront to them.

Most of us are uneducated when it comes to other cultures. True, we're one nation, but each geographic section is vastly different than another. Checkout the current Democratic primaries for further proof. We could all use a class in cross-cultural awareness. I think it sure would help with a lot of the awareness in the United States. For that to happen, Minnesotans or for that matter anyone must be less judgmental of the misperceptions of these idiots. It takes correcting people a time or two for it to sink in. But for that to happen you'd have to be confrontational, and we all know how Minnesotans love confrontation. There I go again with my generalizations...