Pinky

Waiting for the bus in Highland Park.

Left Behind

Property of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, Sampling Department.
Train tracks, Bandana Square.

Con people

Early evening, Lake Street, Minneapolis

tiger lily

keep a-burning now, keep a-turnin', Hot Wheels

This past weekend the State Fairgrounds hosted the annual Back to the 50's car show, which brings in about 11,000 custom cars and 100,000 spectators.

I never used to be interested in old cars, or cars in general, but it's a real treat to see some of these gems cruising through town for a couple days. Maybe the nostalgia part of our brains gets bigger as we grow older. Or maybe I'm just becoming a maudlin little blankety-blank.

And bonus points and a big ol' middle-aged slap on the back to anyone who can sing the Hot Wheels cartoon theme from memory.

The New Math: Caffeine + Carbs = Sunday Morning

Cheese kolache and chocolate croissant. Airy, flaky, just the right amount of sweet, all natural ingredients, and a chef who trained at a bakery in southwest Germany.
La Patisserie, we shall meet again.

now it's a party

Lake Street, Minneapolis

An Italian Game at an Irish Bar

Halftime Rec is an Irish bar in Saint Paul. They have two bocce ball courts in their basement, and you can wander down and play for free as long as leagues aren't in session.

shady game

St. Paul Saints vs. The Sioux Falls Fighting Pheasants at Midway Stadium. Saints lost, 4-3, in 13 innings.

The Railroad Baron

The Railroad Baron is one of the many characters who haunt Midway Stadium during St. Paul Saints games. At least, I THINK he's part of the hired help.

A River Runs Through Pretty Much Everything

Parts of Minnesota are getting pounded by rain. Farther north, some parts of Duluth received nine inches of rain in 36 hours. Things are calmer than that around the Twin Cities, but we've still had enough precipitation to get most of the streams and creeks running high and mighty. This is Minnehaha Creek, near Minnehaha Falls.

Mister Bing Pies

Welcome. I'm an amateur photographer based in the Twin Cities. I'll be posting pictures as often as I can, so if you like what you see here, stop back often and share the site with your friends.

The inaugural post is one I took a couple weekends ago while in Minneapolis. It's not a perfect picture, but I'm posting it because it was the first time I worked up the courage to ask a stranger if I could take his or her picture.

He was standing near the corner of Lake and Chicago in Minneapolis. As cars and pedestrians passed, he would yell "Pies for sale! Pies!" I asked him what kind of pies he sold. "Banana and pineapple. Ten dollars each."

Apparently the pies were in the plastic bags he held, although I never actually saw a pie. "Some days I do free samples," he said. "But NOT TODAY."

We chatted for a bit and then I asked if I could take his picture. Earlier I'd been taking shots of buildings, and I was so nervous that I forgot to change to a more open aperture. So the background is unnecessarily sharp in the photo, and he's a bit too much in the sun. But I digress.

I asked what his name was and he replied, "Mister Bing Pies. That's my domain. Mister Bing Pies."

The interesting thing is, you can look that up all day long on the internets and not find anything relevant. So Mister Bing is still an enigma.