4-29-2011 5pm. I left the Heights Library and followed the sent of smoke to a small fire a few blocks away. It looks like the home of the family that runs the Ecuadorian Cab Company is going to be lost to fire, smoke, and water damage. It was sad to see the kids sitting across the street from their family home, crying as it burned. Corner of 39th and Van Buren.
Following last years Collapse of the Metrodome, (the 4th such collapse in it's history) workers have been installing new light brown diamond shaped panels. Tours are allowing an early look.
In an operation designed to stop people from texting and driving, which is illegal in Minnesota and defined as "Distracted Driving", the Department of Defence partnered with Minneapolis police set up a check point and began stopping people who "looked distracted" and asking to search their cell phones!
I heard about it on KTLK this morning, but now I can't find any news about where the check point was precisely. Please leave a comment if you know.
Man, what the heck. The weather machines are really not being cool. I was going about, having a wonderful day, and then this news! 4 inches of snow in the city!? It better melt fast. dang-nabbit!
Here is continuing evidence of the weather modifications being done tecnologicaly.
Prediction based on weather modification signals in imagery data. NORTHERN MINNESOTA -- Tornados within 24-48 hours, based upon the appearing of the "rings" in conjunction with the "squares" or actually rectangles. These are ionic heater and scalar waveform technologies being used. BEWARE!
Notice, the current NOAA "Weather Story", does not indicate the potential for severe weather. We'll have to wait and see if this prediction is correct.
UPDATE 4/13/2011 Interestingly, Minnesota will hold a statewide "DRILL" for Tornado awareness, Thursday. Schools and businesses are encouraged to participate in the drill, which will happen at 1:45 p.m. and again at 6:55 p.m. Perhaps this is when severe conditions will further be triggered.
UPDATE 4/17/11 Well, there were not tornadoes in Minnesota but it did get unseasonably cold while all hell broke loose in the south. SOo. I was kind of an accurate prediction... kinda
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Tuan Pham says he was just looking for a peaceful place to put his catholic-based prayer garden. He had a 7 foot Jesus statue custom made in his native Vietnam. He put it in his backyard, overlooking the Mississippi River and the St. Paul skyline.
Pham says he woke up Sunday morning to a wall of flames around his statue. "Right now I'm thinking and praying very hard," he said a few hours later. Family members say someone took wood from Pham's pile and placed it at the base of the statue before lighting it on fire. "You can see evidence on the ground, there's an aerosol can, and a mousepad" Pham's son-in-law Dao Phan said.
It may have burned for awhile; Pham's daughter took pictures of her father trying to knock down the flames. Fire investigators were going over the garden a few hours later. If they find evidence of arson, they are expected pass the case on to police.
"It pains me, it's very upsetting. This means a lot to him. This is where he finds joy and where he spends a lot of his time, and money" Phan said about his retired father-in-law.
The statue took months to ship. It is a replica of a massive one Pham helped build more than 40 years ago in his hometown of Vunh Tang Klahn, Vietnam. Pham says he was jailed for his catholic beliefs before he fled the country for Minnesota.
The statue was put in place last October and a month later, Phan says, the city received a complaint about it. The family requested a variance after officials found it was not the required 40 feet from the bluff line, but that request was denied by the city council a few days before the fire.
The family wonders if the fire was racially or religiously motivated, wondering why someone would try to burn marble; guessing it was merely meant to send a message. "Why does somebody need to go this far?" Phan wondered.
A St. Paul police spokesperson says the department's officers were not dispatched and did not respond to the fire. St. Paul Fire Marshall Steve Zaccard said before tending to the fire he was waiting on his investigators report.
Having a nice bike around today, I stopped in the Hawthorn neighborhood to sit atop FarView Parks hill for a while. A kind older gentleman showed up and engaged me in a little chat. He informed me the Blue Angels were going to fly over the city for the Minnesota Twins first home game of the season. It was a great place to wait and watch, but I opted to continue on. I didn't catch the Blue Angels, but I did snap some shots of the street life outside the ballpark.
It seems spring is finally here! For REAL this time. So I've been out pleasure riding in that past few days. I've notice some recent additions to the Nice Ride bike network. I took photos of 3 shiny new solar powered Nice Ride bike rack stations. There may be more. Get out and find them! It's beautiful outside.
Here are my discoveries.
Nicollet Mall & Grant Street Good location, in front of the Hyatt at the south gateway to Nicollet Mall.
Franklin & Nicollet Another convenient location a short walk south from the previous one.
University & Bank Street Across from the Lunds by the Ard Godfrey House.
These 3 location await the bikes. Have a nice ride!
Knowing the bright future of North Minneapolis (see the Mississippi Riverfront Development plan and TLS/KVAs RIVERFIRST Project) , it was inspiring to see the gathering of leadership, and active participants in the North Minneapolis business community, come together for an Economic Summit. Governor Mark Dayton was there to listen to the entrepreneurial and innovative solutions being offered and implemented by the community. The true future of North Minneapolis. Speakers and those present seemed symbolically aware that the challenges currently faced, are soon to be meet with justice. Both MplsMirror, and IBBN did good work covering the speakers.
by minnesotahistory on Mar 29, 2011 On Tuesday, March 29 a fluffy screech owl was found loose in the Minnesota History Center. He caused quite a stir, but the Minnesota Raptor Center safely brought him to their facility for evaluation and release. He was uninjured.
From KSTP: The latest flood predictions for the Mississippi River near Hastings show a crest level lower than previously predicted. The National Weather Service predicts the river will rise to about 18 feet by Thursday, March 31 and then start falling. Early last week, the river was predicted to hit the 20-foot level.
The NWS says river level will be lower than previous predictions due to colder temperatures and the slow snow melt along the upper Mississippi.
By 6 a.m. Monday, the river was at 16.8 feet, with minor flooding occurring. Flood stage is 15 feet.
The First Street railroad underpass is flooded and East Fourth Street in the river bottoms area will likely overtop Monday night as the river rises above 17 feet, says Tom Montgomery, Hastings Public Works Director.
On Saturday, volunteers filled 20,000 sandbags and sandbagged around two homes on East First Street. Montgomery says there are no plans to do more sandbagging at this time.
This year’s crest compares to a previous crest of 17.2 feet on March 25, 2010.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome new fabric roof has arrived and replacing the torn roof will begin on Friday.
Consultants recommended a full replacement of the roof and insurance is picking up almost the whole tab.
Crews from Birdair, Inc. will work Monday through Saturday each week and the installation should be wrapped up in August, just in time for the Vikings preseason games.
A massive unexpected fire erupted out of a 20 inch gas main, Thursday morning at 8:30am. It was visible more then 4 miles away!
The explosion on 60th Street just east of Nicollet Avenue, forced the evacuation of nearby buildings – including a church, child care facility, and a school and homes — but no injuries have been reported. In a statement released Thursday morning, Houston-based CenterPoint Energy said it has crews on site and is investigating, but the cause of the explosion isn’t yet known. As a precaution, CenterPoint noted, emergency responders shut down Highway 62 and Interstate 35W. “It was a small explosion and then just a big ‘woomph,’” Solem said. “The flames shot a good eight stories tall, instantly. We were two blocks away and you could feel the heat instantly on your face.”
From KARE 11 MINNEAPOLIS -- Fire crews spent the early morning hours of Tuesday working a stubborn fire that destroyed a business and apartment building in south Minneapolis.
A 911 call brought firefighters to the Cedar Food and Grill at 2600 Cedar Avenue South just after 1:30 a.m.. When crews arrived flames were leaping through the ceiling of the structure. Two upper apartments were quickly searched, and it was determined that residents had safely escaped.
Eventually the main floor of the business collapsed, chasing firefighters from the structure. They spent hours fighting the stubborn blaze, trying to extinguish flames that were trapped between the collapsed rubble of the first and second floors.
Mohd Wadi had owned the business for the past five years. He tells KARE 11 that he got a call from his security company around 1:30 a.m. reporting a break-in. Shortly after that he received another call telling him the building was on fire.
Wadi says his business had 6 employees, people who will now be looking for work.
The good news from the scene is that no one was hurt. The Red Cross is helping residents of one of the apartments with shelter, food and clothing.
At this point investigators aren't sure about the cause of the fire.
Here we go again. Just a few days ago 55 degree weather had melted most of the snow and tricked us into faux spring fever. But last night we got almost another FOOT of snow dumped on us in Minneapolis. Well I had fun walking Nicolette Mall in some of the heaviest flurries. I even got the Weather Channel reporter girl to smile at me :)
As monday morning dawns, we will probably find people stuck in ditches, having not endured last nights trecherious drives.
This Winter's Snowfall Totals and Rankings
As of 12:00am on February 21st, this winter season is guaranteed to be at least the 11th snowiest on record in the Twin Cities. The current seasonal snowfall total stands at an impressive 72.9 inches, a whopping 33.0 inches above the normal value of 39.9 inches through February 20th. The average seasonal snowfall in the Twin Cities is 55.9 inches. The following graphs were both updated shortly after midnight on February 21st.
Congratulations to Tom Leader Studio of Berkeley, Calif., and Kennedy & Violich Architecture of Boston. The future looks amazing. I'm fairly excited about the FarVIew Park Land Bridge. Very cool.
Minneapolis was treated to a look at possible futures last night at the Walker Art Center, as 4 teams of urban landscape designers presented their proposals. They had each been paid $30,000 to compete against each other. For almost 3 hours the teams basically walked the audience through their PDF files. You can head over to www.minneapolisriverfrontdesigncompetition.com and download the proposals for yourself. You can also see videos there.
For as innovative, imaginative and down right cool as these proposals are, there are things to love and things not so desirable in each one. It would be great if the public could pick and choose elements from each one, instead of "choosing the winner". And frankly that is supposed to be decided today (and by who?) not really giving citizens much time at all to consider each proposed development.
I hope to create some GoogleEarth content from these PDF files, so please bookmark this page and visit again later. :)
