saintpaulitan
by nick and patty

This morning, Patty and I got up early and walked down the road to watch the controlled demolition of the smokestack at Xcel’s High Bridge Plant. Thousands of people turned out to watch, either because they wanted to witness a little piece of St. Paul history in the making or because they just wanted to see something blow up. For the record, I came for both.

There’s been some interesting discussion in the local blogosphere (much of it here and here) over the last few days about whether the smokestack should be preserved as a kind of historical landmark, and also whether it adds some aesthetic charm to the St. Paul skyline. As someone who drives past the power plant at least twice a day, I can honestly see both sides of the argument — which, I realize, is now moot since they already blew it up anyway. But my hunch is that now that it’s gone, people really will miss it less than they think.

First of all, Xcel plans to tear down the rest of the facility and basically turn the whole area into a grass field. If it looks anything like the artist’s rendition, I think it will actually be quite pretty, and it will also give people traveling across the bridge the ability to enjoy the city’s southern and western skyline. Secondly, although the smokestack itself was interesting to look at, the rest of the facility is frankly a blight on the landscape. (Just take a look for yourself now that the smokestack is gone.)

Moreover — and I’m not trying to generate controversy here — but let’s not forget what that smokestack was there for. I’m pretty sure people had a less nostalgic view of that tower back when it was spewing several thousand tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, lead, mercury and all kinds of other toxic crap for St. Paul kids to suck into their lungs every year (not to mention several million tons of annual carbon emissions). As a resident of the West Side, I’m pretty happy that I don’t have that stuff wafting into my windows every day. So, there.

But anyway, enough preaching. As to the demolition itself, I’ve also got a longer version of the video (below), and a few Flickr photos, here. Mine aren’t as good as Tony Webster’s or the ones on MPR’s News Cut blog though.

Here’s the longer version:

Generally speaking, St. Paul is a bit of a lonely city. If you visit downtown at 9:00 on a Friday night, chances are you’ll find it utterly, inexplicably dead. That’s why it’s nice that at least once a year St. Paul gets completely overrun by people during Grand Old Day.

This year was my second time at Grand Old Day, and for those who’ve never been, the only thing I can compare it with is State Street in Madison on Halloween. The entire street is filled with people as far as you can see. From Fairview Avenue to Dale Street, the whole of Grand Avenue is completely blocked off to traffic (a major inconvenience for the neighbors, by the way) and inundated by a sea of remarkably well behaved revelers. It’s really a unique event.

We didn’t really see any of the shows there, because: (1) the people-watching is more interesting anyway; (2) you actually don’t need one of the $6 wristbands to drink beer unless you absolutely must do it in one of the beer gardens; and (3) frankly, it didn’t seem like there were any bands or groups there that justified the price of a wristband (Heiruspecs excepted, perhaps). Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and we were happy to just walk around… although we did take the time to stop at Stogies on Grand for a good cigar.

Faster planes this time, but still pretty anticlimactic…

In the video, a flight of four F-16s from the Minnesota Air National Guard overflies the Capitol Building during Diana Pierce’s keynote address at the Minnesota Sesquicentennial. It’s not very impressive to watch, I know, but you try taking footage of jets going 350 miles per hour with a $250 digital camera. I did what I could.

It was actually a weirdly cathartic moment, given the budget agreement announced just a few hours earlier between the governor and the Legislature. Pawlenty himself was seated in the front row, and a lot of the House members were mulling about the steps. (The Senate was still in session.) I think the mood of the whole Sesquicentennial would’ve been dampened if the governor and state lawmakers hadn’t finished their work on time. The fact that they did lent the whole celebration an air of… I don’t know. Credibility?

Hooray, I say! Hooray for Minnesota! Hooray for F-16s and budget agreements! Hooray for no more late nights for me at the Capitol until January!

I need a vacation.

(More pics and video here.)

The House has been going in and out of session all day, so I’ve had a lot of free time. Earlier this afternoon I walked around the Capitol Mall and checked out the Minnesota Sesquicentennial festivities. In addition to the (admittedly poorly shot) video above, I took a whole series of pictures that you can view here.

I have to say that I was pretty impressed by the turnout. (The pictures I took didn’t really do justice to the expansive size of the crowd.) It was a perfect day for it too — sunny and gorgeous. Now if only the lawmakers can wrap things up early enough for my wife and I to be able to watch the fireworks tomorrow night.

With the weather being so copacetic for a change, Patty and I decided to spend the weekend doing outdoorsy, environmenty-type things. First, on Saturday, we walked over to this really cool place down the street from us called Capital Deals and bought a couple of used bicycles. We then spent the remainder of the day biking through Cherokee Regional Park along the Mississippi River.

Then, on Sunday, we drove (yes, drove, unfortunately) to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds and checked out the Living Green Expo. This is a really cool event, and I’d highly recommend it to everybody. It’s basically similar to the state fair, except the focus is on technologies, products and practices that help reduce energy consumption, encourage environmentally friendly lifestyles, mitigate your personal contribution to climate change, etc. It’s a lot of fun, and unlike the state fair, it’s totally free.

I had been looking forward to the Living Green Expo for a while, although I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Patty had gone once before and said this year’s event seemed bigger, which wouldn’t surprise me. I was a little surprised, though, to learn that the event itself is put on by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. It makes complete sense in retrospect, but for some reason I had it in my head that this kind of a thing must be organized by some kind of coalition of wealthy do-gooders with controlling shares in tech companies. Kudos to the MPCA!

It’s hard to pinpoint what my favorite part was; there’s a lot of great stuff here. I definitely enjoyed the alternative-fuel vehicles tent, and Patty and I found a lot of great information on where to buy locally grown food. We walked away with a small library of brochures, pamphlets and handbooks — many of which are actually quite useful. In the area of expo swag, I’d say first prize goes to Xcel Energy, who gave us a paper bag containing a compact fluorescent light bulb, two water conservation faucet heads (one of which we actually used to stop a drip in our kitchen sink), foam insulation to put behind light switches and power outlets and a pile of literature.

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.

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.