saintpaulitan
by nick and patty

Just a quick note to let people know that I’ve been extremely sick since Thursday, and consequently haven’t blogged. I’m not going to be one of those bloggers who gives up after a half-dozen posts; however, I’m still sick, and because I’m also likely to be pulling a lot of late hours at work, posting might be sporadic this week. At the very least, I’ll post something on Thursday, when they’ll be rolling a pair of old Civil War-era cannons onto the Capitol Mall and firing them once every hour in honor of “Freedom Day.” (Should make for some cool pics and/or video.)

Every year, the Minnesota Street Rod Association rallies a bunch of their members and parks a huge caravan of beautiful classic cars on the mall in front of the Capitol Building. Exactly why they do it or how it got started I have no idea, but for legislative employees, it makes for a pretty sweet lunch hour.

More pictures on my Flickr photostream.

Ordinarily, when a bar advertises itself as “clean and cozy,” it’s pretty safe to assume it’s neither. But as far as I could tell, Marty’s Bar, a West Side dive that Patty and I discovered while out on a walk today, lives up to this modest claim.

Marty’s is tucked away in a weird five-sided intersection a few blocks from our house, right across the street from one of the strangest and most claustrophobic liquor stores in the Twin Cities — Forty Acre Liquors — which I’ll have to blog about some other time. I’ve often commented that the West Side feels very much like a small town. It’s a calm, almost rustic neighborhood where kids play literally in the streets, the exterior of every other house or so seems to be in a state of mild-but-benign disrepair, and at least one household on each block owns a pit bull. Marty’s Bar, then, fits right in.

Here you see Patty holding a Miller Lite; Marty’s is definitely a that kind of bar. If you’re looking for microbrews, you’ve come to the wrong place, pansy. Domestics, straight from the can (or bottle) is clearly the drink of choice here.

As you can probably tell from the photos, it’s a pretty small establishment, probably no bigger than our apartment — which is to say, not very big. The patrons are of the same kind that you find in every non-hipster dive bar from here to Belle Plaine to Winona: polite but indifferent folks who are probably wonderful people if you get to know them — but who, you never know, might just as easily beat the crap out of you in the parking lot if you disrespect their favorite sports team.

While I’m on the topic of athletics, I should note that Marty’s features a very special attraction: it’s own sports arena. Behold:

This fenced-in horseshoes court, apparently known as the “Frank Bolton Sports Complex,” is located adjacent the bar’s parking lot. I must say that I haven’t had a good game of horseshoes in a while — or ever, now that I think of it — and it does seem like the kind of activity that could be fun after a few beers. (Although, in the arena of drunken pseudo-sports, I’m not sure anything could really beat dangleball.) We’ll have to come back sometime this summer and see if we can get in a game or two.

Last night, Patty and I took a walk from our house down to Harriet Island Regional Park (and oddly enough, ran into our state representative along the way). Despite living less than a mile away from the park, I’d never actually bothered to check it out. (Come to think of it, I didn’t really bother to leave my house much at all until after I got married.) Anyway, it’s absolutely beautiful.

The park sits on the riverfront and claims a fairly spectacular view of downtown St. Paul — even more impressive in the twilight. I made the panorama below using some photos I took down by the river. (You can click on the image to navigate to the larger photo on my Flickr photostream.)

The boat on the left is a bed and breakfast called the Covington Inn. Across the docks from that boat is another whose name I forgot that has a full restaurant and bar. Patty and I decided we’ll have to come check it out in the summer.

Here’s another view of the Covington Inn:

And another:

It’s amazing what you can find when you’re not looking for anything. We came across a couple of musicians rehearsing in the park, on this really cool stage that I had no idea was right near my house:

Also docked at the park is the U of M’s Centennial Showboat:

Finally, there’s this place — a reception hall called the Clarence W. Wigington Pavilion, which you can apparently rent out for weddings, parties et cetera:

All in all, a pretty cool place to just happen upon randomly on a walk. I know there are several more parks within walking distance of our house, including at least one big one. It’s astonishing how ignorant I’ve been of my surroundings after more than a year and a half on the West Side. I’m looking forward to finding more.

When you work across the street from the Capitol Building, you get to see a lot of protests. Today was a first, though. I saw this group congregating this morning and decided to run out and snap a few pictures. They’re not that good because I was in a hurry (I had work to do!), but since I didn’t see any coverage of this in either the mainstream media or the blogs, I figured I’d post what I have. I don’t have any comment on their cause; I think it should be self-explanatory to any moderately informed news consumer what this is about.

Saturday night was my friend Josh’s birthday, and we kicked off the evening by going to the Minnesota RollerGirls season championship at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium. It was the second RollerGirls bout I’ve been to, and it was definitely $12 well spent.

If you’ve never been to one of these before, you gotta go. It’s a truly all-American celebration of weirdness and aggression. And by saying it’s weird, I don’t mean to diminish the sport’s athletic bona fides; this is definitely a respectably punishing physical activity. But there is a different vibe at a RollerGirls bout than at, say, a Gophers men’s basketball game. I’ve been to my share of those, and I’ll take RollerGirls over that baloney any day.

My only complaint is about the price of concessions. $5.75 for a PBR tall-boy? You’ve gotta be kidding. Also, the next time I go to one of these, I’m getting there early so I can get some good seats. It seems like the front row is the place to be — where you share some of the physical danger along with the actual competitors. The nosebleed section is definitely too high up to be able to really get into the action.

The other thing I should mention is the halftime show. Who would’ve thought that an E.L.O. cover band could bring down the house? I got some great video footage of a kid in the audience rocking out to the performance, but I’m having some trouble uploading it to YouTube. I’ll post it if and when I figure out what the problem is. Here’s a picture, anyway:

By the way, the Rockits won the championship. I was a little disappointed because I was rooting for the Dagger Dolls. Not because I know anything about the teams, mind you; I just like the name Kim Jong Kill.

*UPDATE: Here’s a link to a blog post with some good video from the game.

I can’t think of anything else to blog about on this Thursday evening, so why not this…

Patty and I drove down to Prior Lake to visit my parents last weekend, and my father showed us the new paint job on his bike. Apparently, he bought it at a discount rate from a neighbor, who does this kind of stuff for a living.

I’m not a motorcycle aficionado, so I don’t know what kind it is. It’s a Honda something-or-other. The bike is actually purple; the flash on my camera turned it blue, and I was too lazy to play with the settings and make it right.

My dad is the ultimate Vikings fan. He even has a tattoo of the team logo on his shoulder. Your thoughts?