For Family

As the two faithful readers of this blog may have noticed, I tend to only blog in intermittence. And then, as of late, I've only blogged about blogging. A slightly redundant and useless endeavor, I admit, but now I have discovered a greater reason to write.

My sister called the other night to ask a simple question about Hilary's birthday. She asked what we were up to, and was completely caught-off guard when I mentioned that we are currently hanging out in Minneapolis. To avoid any unpleasant surprises in the future, I hope to blog more often with the expressed purpose of keeping those who want to know any of the details of my life slightly more informed. I don't expect that category to actually include many people, but at least now when my mom complains I can pass the buck back on her for not checking the blog.

So, this week, Hilary, Ian and I have been hanging out in Minneapolis, Minnesota for spring break. Most people find it incredibly odd that we might come north for spring break when most people flee for the beaches. What can I say? We're freakin' weird.

Here's the back-drop. Last semester, we read a book called Church Re-Imagined by Doug Pagitt. It's the story of a church here in Minneapolis known as Solomon's Porch. It was a wonderful book, and it left us wishing we could visit it. Shortly after that, I heard about a book release and signing "party" for Tony Jones' new book The New Christians also in Minneapolis in the middle of our spring break week. At the same time, I found out that a friend from college got a job in Minneapolis as a designer for an ad firm. And then, there was nothing stopping us from coming at all.

We got here Sunday night and just hung around. It was refreshing to catch up with Casey (the friend) and tell stories about the good old days. On Monday, we went downtown and saw where Casey worked. We also ate at this really cool little Greek restaurant where we had cake. I say this, and it sounds mundane, but I ought to mention that the cake was free. This is a particularly big deal when we learned that the guys who run this place only give cake to people they like, similar to the "Soup Nazi" from Seinfeld. After Casey got off work, we hit up a grown up arcade, followed by a sweet pub called O'Donovan's.

Yesterday, we took the light rail down to the Mall of America. It was... big. We had Sbarro pizza for lunch; very enjoyable. Then we made a quick stop in the Apple Store, which proved to be a personal and financial struggle and an exercise in greedy desire.

Last night, we headed for the book signing in Edina. Being the definition of tourist, we got utterly lost and found it only by the grace of God. We picked up our books, got them signed and then ran into the aforementioned Doug Pagitt. After talking with him for a few minutes, he invited us out to dinner with some folks, including the other aforementioned Tony Jones. We got to sit and talk and laugh with some "respectable" people. What was most inspiring about it was how nice these guys were. They were absolutely the most wonderful and loving people. These two, in particular, are often at the center of controversy and often labeled "heretics," but it can't be said that they don't love like Jesus.

Today, we headed into St. Paul to check out the Common Goods Book Store, owned by one Garrison Keillor of NPR fame. Unfortunately, we didn't see Mr. Keillor himself, but Ian did buy an autographed copy of Pontoon, Keillor's latest Woebegone novel. Then we had lunch at a coffee shop right above it.

Overall, we've loved the Twin Cities. There have been so many awesome things to see, including Ian's favorite, the SkyWay, which is a series of walkways that have essentially been converted into a 2 - 3 mile mall stretching the length of downtown Minneapolis. It's been fun and relaxing.

Tomorrow, we're heading down to Solomon's Porch for a lunch gathering of Emergent that they call a "cohort." Then we'll be heading back on Friday. Then, to finish my taxes.

As the week goes on, I keep remembering this thing called my life. Growing up sucks.