Guest Post by Fletch

Dear Fellow Loyal Blog readers ( I think that is only me and DiDi),

I’m sure you have been as disappointed in the “content” of blog over the last several days as I have. The trip to Spain but was awesome, but it’s been downhill since then. If you’re like me, you count on this blog to lift you out of your humdrum existence and take to your spirit to new and exciting places with the vivid images and words so eloquently crafted by Jen. And then your soul is crushed to find that today’s entry has been penned by Bill and consists of a picture what he’s has for lunch and his new plaid jacket. In order to stave off one future day of this terrible fate, I have crafted a special “guest blog entry”. What I do on a daily basis isn’t as interesting as what Jen has to write, but in keeping with my theme of “More Jen. More Joey. Less Bill” I humbly submit this entry and this account of 24 hours of my life…

Bill’s job takes him to glamorous places like China and France. My job takes me to slightly less glamorous places. Thursday, (Wednesday night actually) I took the redeye (very glamorous) to…(wait for it)…MINNEAPOLIS!

Yes, I know each of you (actually only DiDi; see above) sits at home and wallows in your extreme jealousy of  my far flung adventure. Who among us wouldn’t want to go to Minnesota (gateway to North Dakota) in December? It’s a dream come true. In any case, as they say “you just can’t get there from here”, which required me to fly through Chicago. I snapped this wonderful photo at O’Hare bright and early at 6:30 AM. I was so pleased to find the temperature was going to be a “nippy” 7 degrees. How do people live there?

I arrived later that morning in the land of 10,000 lakes and made a few sales calls. That sure works up an appetite so it was off for a high end business lunch at the finest establishment in Medina Minnesota..Axel’s Roadhouse! Since I was with a customer, I resisted snapping the obligatory Bill “look at my food!” photo but I was able to capture this image in the men’s room. It reminded me of something Bill might have painted and I thought the positioning above the urinal was very symbolic. Look for this bad boy on your next trip to the Louvre!

I made a few more sales calls in the afternoon and then it was off to another customer event, but not before tying up traffic to snap a picture of the Minnesota state capitol building. I know this blog revels in pictures of old places so I thought I better include one.

There are two things people from Minnesota love; hockey and walleye. I had “walleye fingers” for lunch (don’t ask) so it was now hockey time! The most notable things at the hockey game were a) people in Minnesota take their hockey very seriously and b)they have a Zamboni (that is the machine that cleans the ice) shaped like a Target Shopping Basket. People ride around in it and everyone cheers. Take that soccer hooligans.

After the game, one of our customers wanted to take me out for a drink at a local watering hole to show his appreciation. I will say this for the locals, they talk real funny (“Dontcha know”) but they are really friendly and genuinely nice. In any case, we went to a bar called Mancini’s or something like that which was notable in that it is the last place Tony Curtis played a lounge show (or so I was told). It’s a lot of red leather, mirrors, and old people. The highlight for me was the live band which featured an accordion. You just don’t see enough bands with accordions in them these days. You haven’t heard “Stairway to heaven” until you’ve heard it played on the accordion.

My long day was finally over and it was back to the airport hotel for 4 solid hours of sleep and 7 am flight back home. Hope you enjoyed my guest post.

Humbly,

Fletch