Minnetonka Arts on 7 is hiding from us

My son plays the string bass with a community orchestra. Last night they had a concert out at a school in Minnetonka and I really wanted to go see it.

Now, I live on the opposite side of the Twin Cities--I don't do Minnetonka. I went on Mapquest to find out how to get there. Unfortunately, Mapquest didn't quite know how to get me there either.

After about an hour of finagling around, I had some really weird directions. I tried a variety of methods to get them clarified and finally figured I was OK.

So I took off an hour early and drove and drove until I got on Hwy 7. Then I drove and drove west until I got to the intersection where I was supposed to do a U-turn. I zoomed east again per instructions, but couldn't find an entrance to the school from the highway. I turned south at the next intersection, then west and north and finally got on a frontage heading west again. At last, I arrived a a huge high school and arts complex with multiple entrances and parking lots. I tried several before locating the correct one. I arrived with barely five minutes to spare.

No wonder Mapquest couldn't give good directions! Who designs crazy entrances to public buildings like that? Well, anyway, it was a wonderful concert.

Thanks to Kittie Howard for the "Over the Top" Blogger Award. Check out her wonderful stories

at http://kittiehoward.blogspot.com/.

Somebody out there bugs me

Over the past several weeks I've been getting erratic comments from that universal coward, Anonymous. Some comments are shopping links, some are porn links and the one from today is just plain nonsense.

It reads verbatim:

"Genial brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank
you you on your information."

It's dated 3/14 at 6:20 am DST. I might add that this comment was posted on the blog of my granddaughter's family picture!

I have been regularly deleting these comments. However, I'm becoming worried and confused about it--not to mention annoyed. Does anyone have a handle on where these come from and how to stop it? Has my blog been compromised in some way? Does anyone else have a problem with this?

I'd appreciate comments from everybody except *&%!#! Anonymous!

Proud Grandma moment

My granddaughter sent me this family picture and I love it so much I just had to share it. These are a bunch of dear, dear people!

Awards Sunday

Here it is Oscars Sunday and I have won my own special award! BLissed-Out Grandma has given me the GLOB award. (Although the BLOB award might actually be more appropriate.) She credits me with seeing the beauty in others, which is a really nice thing for her to say.

Blissed is a fellow Minnesotan and grandma who not only blogs about how her grandkids brighten her life. She also has a solid position in Twin Cities history--check out her blog from last Saturday for her "MN-street creds".

I was looking forward to the Oscars tonight but it turns out I won't be home. I'm not overly sad although it will be the first Academy Awards show I've ever missed.
From all the press, it seems that tonight's awards are just a foregone conclusion. There won't be much suspense or excitement. Since I'm not into who-wears-what or who's hanging on whose arm, I guess I won't miss much.

My computer seems to be working better after some self-help fixes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Happiness is Hot Water!

Yesterday my son came over and did a repair job on my ailing hot water heater. Who knew the things were so darn complicated? It turned out that one of the two elements had burned out and the old dip tube had disintegrated. We replaced the dip tube but bits of the old one were floating around inside. It took a lot of man-handling for him to get it cleaned out and to replace the elements. But, we now have oodles of lovely hot water.

This all cost around $100. Not bad when you consider a new one would have cost around $500. We also installed some energy-saving features. Heat traps--the pipes going into the top of the water heater can waste heat by conducting heat away from it. The traps will prevent that. Energy Blanket--this cost $35 but is supposed to cut down on energy consumption by keeping the water hot longer so it doesn't run as much. I'm hoping this will cut down on our electric bills!

Well, enough of flaunting my newly acquired knowledge!

They announced the name chosen for Lily's cub--they are calling it Hope. I'm a little disappointed because there seems to be something rather fatalistic in that choice. Frankly, I liked your suggestions a lot better!

Lily the Bear

Several weeks ago, I posted about Lily's den-watch up in northern Minnesota near Ely (pronounced E-lee). Lily was in labor and gave birth to a single cub. My daughter, her daughter and I were all following the events as they were shown on a video camera that was set up inside the bear's den. Lily soon had thousands of followers online.

The North American Bear Center sold a few Lily the Bear items on their website. Last week I got a package in the mail from my granddaughter. Inside was a very nice tan Lily T-Shirt for me.

When I told my daughter about it, she said she had ordered the very same shirt for me! We had a laugh over how we all think alike! (Only, I never ordered it for myself because I don't buy new things.)

They've had a contest to name the baby bear (a female) sponsored by a large grocery store chain. They received thousands of entries, the winner to get $500. It will be interesting to see what kind name they choose--will it be a Native American name, a cutesy name, an historical name or area name? We'll soon know. I didn't enter, but I would name the little black bear "Teddy". What name would you choose?

For further info you can contact: http://www.bear.org/website/visit-us/lily-den-cam.html

Smiling while I stew

I spent most of yesterday trying to get my aging Dell computer to behave itself. I bought it back in 2005 used and reconditioned from a computer store so I don't know how old it really is. But, it's acting like a crabby old lady--stubborn and slow.

I was trying to catch up with everyone else's blogs but the Dell would lock up. I plugged along working through several reboots and long time lags waiting for sites to open. Because of this, I never had time to post anything yesterday. It's becoming so time-consuming that I'm thinking maybe I will stop checking everyone's blogs everyday. Sadly, I'm at the point of having to choose between my getting my computer repaired, the water heater fixed or the big dent blocking the passenger side door on the car.

I recently noticed that the labels on my recent posts are "Rambling or Brooding" etc. It seems I really need an attitude adjustment. I do have happy things going on in my life, such as:

I just got a Facebook message from my 19-year-old granddaughter that she's getting all A's in her classes in Veterinary Technology. She is a dear, sweet girl but has always struggled in school. Her older sister and younger brother both did well in sports, academics and piano, but she didn't do well in any of those fields.

However, she's had a strong affinity for animals since she was little girl. She wanted to be a vet tech so bad that she volunteered for a year at a vet's clinic. The only problem with being a vet tech is that it doesn't pay very well and the program at Argosy is quite expensive. She struggled through a year of Community College until her parents figured out a plan to pay for school while her older sister is at St. Cate's University.

Now she is on top of the world! And that makes me feel really, really good!