The Trip, One Week Late

All week long we've alluded to a trip we took to Minneapolis last weekend. In fact, last weekend there was even a blog that was supposed to be updated with pictures and notes from the trip. It wasn't. Seeing as I have about eight cups of coffee in me, and my brain needs a break from stat homework, let me recap:

Last weekend we drove up to Minneapolis because I had foolishly purchased concert tickets for a February 6th concert for a band you should all listen to called the Decemberists. When purchasing the tickets I thought the concert was going to be on a Saturday night. When I received the non-refundable ticket confirmation email it said, "Sunday, February 6th." I suppose I should learn how to read calendars. As the concert approached, which I was very excited for, I realized that was Super Bowl Sunday. Oh good. Kelsey and I decided to go through with the concert anyways because: 1) we've watched about two games worth of football combined all year and 2) it's the Decemberists, and they rock.

It also gave us a good reason to take a quick trip to one of the best cities in these United States of America: Minneapolis.

We arrived in town a little earlier than expected last Saturday. We had dinner plans with Kelsey's best friend Allison and Allison's husband Brent. We decided to drive to the restaurant and bum around for a bit. Luckily for us there was a Container Store to occupy our time. I'd never been to a Container Store, but I'd always wanted to go there. I could really care less about containers, but both my undergraduate courses and now my graduate school courses talk about this place as a model business. Evidently people really like working there. It was a neat place--containers everywhere--but I can't for the life of me understand why their employees are so happy, friendly, and helpful. It lived up to the hype and whatever Kool-aid the Container Store's management is serving should be served at every job everywhere.

Kelsey wants our pantry to look like this.

After buying an array of exciting products: a new sink mat, portable cereal containers, wire shelves, and a laundry bin, we met Allison and Brent at a restaurant called Pin Stripes--a bistro, bowling, and bocce ball establishment (obviously). Since Kelsey and I were new to the whole gluten free thing, Allison made sure she found a restaurant that had a gluten free menu. Allison does these sorts of things because Allison is awesome. Brent's awesome too, but he definitely married up (no offense Brent--I did too). I won't describe in excessive detail the food (good) or the restaurant (also good), but I will say this: Allison, Brent, and Kelsey are horrific bowlers. They all scored much lower than my impressive and unreachable 100.

The ladies

The dudes

Jay - 100, Brent - 80, Allison - 71, Kelsey...err...40.  So bad.

The next day Kelsey and I realized we had no plans, so we Malled of Americaed it. I caved and bought a new PC tablet/laptop for grad school. I love my trusty MacBook, but unfortunately the world of business spreadsheets does not.

I also bought new shoes because it was time to retire my old pair of magic Sketchers I bought in California in May of 2005. I put on my new pair of shoes and it was like walking on air. Who knew shoes had padding? The salesman tried to sell me Shape-Ups because I look a lot like Kim Kardashian. I probably would have bought them to if it weren't for that meddling wife and her disapproving looks.

This is one of two pictures I took in Minneapolis. These shoes lasted six years. Kudos to them.

After the mall we went to the concert. The Decemberists, as always, rocked. Like I said, you should listen to them. Here's a song of theirs for you, but beware, it might start you down the Youtube rabbit hole (a phrase I stole from Kevin), and you might spend all day listening to Decemberists songs:




So good. Thankfully the Decemberists gave us Super Bowl updates throughout the concert. They told us all about the ten-point deduction penalty the Steelers had and how they had to shoot a free throw at the end of the game. Unfortunately for Steelers fans, they still lost 115 to -23. I never bothered to check ESPN to see if any of that was accurate. It seemed reasonable enough.

As a side note, it was actually sort of relaxing not having to worry about the Super Bowl. Kelsey and I never really care that much about the game but feel obligated to watch it out of some sort of American guilt. Really the only thing people should feel obligated to watch on television is the World Series.

Kelsey mentioned our trip to Trader Joe's in another blog (I'm officially a damned hippie now), but I will tell you this: organic, gluten-free cheesy tortilla chips (hippie Doritos) are great. It's good to know you can take part in strange diets and still eat unhealthy foods.

The happy hippie :)

I think that about wraps this up for the night. I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. Hopefully Kelsey can add some Monday night (DONE!). All of the good pictures are on her phone which is on the nightstand next to our bed, where Kelsey currently sleeps. Hopefully the coffee wears off soon, because I want to sleep soon too. If not, I'm going to need a lot of coffee tomorrow to help curb the hangover from today's coffee. It's a vicious cycle.