(no subject)

I've taken to looking at the puppy page lately. I really should stop that.

Yesterday I said "Fuck it!" and decided to put gas in the tank and take Darlene for a spin. (For some reason, I've been calling her Dolores in my head, recently, which is really one of my old computer towers in the closet with some old ass Red Hat installed on it) Then I took her for a drive all over town. 13 miles on her at 30 miles an hour. It was frickin' fun! It was a little muggy, but with the breeze it was OH so nice.

It was all I could really think about today at work while trying to figure out what was wrong with my unix bins. (I don't know much about unix and then it doesn't work right anyway. grr) It is Amanda's birthday today, so I took Darlene all the way across town to Waite Park and got her a gift card from Crafts Direct - because her craft corner isn't cluttered enough! It was by far the farthest (furthest?) I've ever driven her and also the fastest: there's 40 mph zones over that-a-way. And the whole trip went smoothly! Then she started right away in the parking lot, too! So I drove her down to Mexican Village (where everyone goes on their birthday for a free meal).



David, Amanda's future stepson, was there along with 2.5 yr old Kalen (I totally just spelled that wrong) who is Amanda's friend's son. I took pictures of them both on Darlene out in the parking lot.


(more pics here)

Fun with maps

So, the other day while I was on my walk around Whitney Park, I noticed this big painted concrete block building that had what looked to be old lighting fixtures and the garage door looked to be in the middle of a blocked up opening. To my untrained eye, it looked a lot like an old airplane hangar. Didn't think much more of it.

One of the perks of my new job is that I could quite possibly ride Darlene there without having to take her much faster than 40mph. Well, that is if they ever finish the road construction. So I was looking around on different street maps online to try to figure out some other way to drive Darlene to work without having to take her on Hwy 15 (60mph). Turns out there isn't, unless I want to go way out of my way. Some map sites are funny in that they show you roads that just aren't there.

See that "Sartell Bridge St"? Yeah, that isn't there. The fuzzy white line above it that corsses the river was a road bridge but is no longer safe for traffic and I think just has power and water utilities crossing it, now. Or, just north of Whitney Park it shows "Mill Creek Cir" continuing through the actual "Circle", through people's yards and connecting with County Road 1. (I WISH!)

What I did not realize was that on some street map sites (Yahoo.com, for example) listed part of Forest Drive as "Airport Rd":


That got me thinking. So I searched a bit more and found this:

Alice Whitney portrayed by Rita Lange reminisced about the life of Alice Whitney. Born in New York in 1868 came to St. Cloud to live with her sister and to attend the St. Cloud Normal School to become a teacher. Alice Whitney married Albert Whitney October 14, 1891 in Hudson New York. Albert Whitney, owned 40 farms and in 1901 bought into the steam and heating utility plant and in 1906 Albert Whitney built the modern gas plant. Alice and Albert Whitney had three children. Alice Whitney leased 143 acres in St. Cloud and in 1935 a dedication was held in honor of the first airport in St. Cloud.

Now, the current St Cloud airport is quite a few miles southeast of us on HWY 10. But when you look at the aerial picture of the park:

that parking lot in the lower left corner of the park sure looks an awful lot like a landing strip....

OK. I'm done nerding out for now. Good night.