Downtown Brainerd Zombie Pub Crawl

photo. from visit brainerd

For individuals interested in dressing up like a zombie and doing a pub. crawl in downtown Brainerd, this is an event you won't want to miss.   This event has been taking place in Brainerd for the last few years and continues to grow in terms of numbers.  I have heard from many people that the music is awesome and the addition of the Northland Arb. trails to the festivities this year will make the event even more awesome. 

From the Visit Brainerd Site:
DTB ZOMBIE CRAWL

Zombie infestations have been reported in Brainerd.

The DTB (Down Town Brainerd) Zombie Crawl will be May 1st & 2nd 2015!

In 2014 the infection spread from downtown Brainerd to include a zombie trail at the Northland Arboretum in addition to several live bands and many new activities. This year the klinup of activities continues to evolve with the addition of two new zombie shoot including a zombie paintball shoot. They have also added a zombie video game tournament. These activities are in addition to the other activities including the zombie parade and zombie bar crawl.

This family friendly zombie event also incorporates a scavenger hunt through downtown Brainerd in which participants visit downtown businesses to find pieces of a zombie picture puzzle. All scavenger hunt participants and others who register for the parade follow the same route as the St. Patrick's Day parade. The parade ends at Yesterday's Gone, where it is followed by the awards ceremony. Ghoul up and come down for a great day of activities, zombie style!

In 2014 the new zombie hordes descended on downtown in great numbers and reports indicate that in 2015 the infection will continue to spread bringing hundreds of zombies to the community.

Zombies roam late into the evening and live music abounds so be sure to book your stay at one of the Brainerd and Baxter hotels or water parks, after all even zombies need to rest eventually.

HotelsWaterparksPet Friendly Hotels

Be sure to check out the Zombie Crawl Facebook page for updates on the event and registration information. Tell them Visit Brainerd sent you!

Zombie fashion show, prizes, zombie drink specials, and music by Dead Larry all starting at 9pm.

Registration Fee: Non Perishable Food Item
Activities include:
Registration & Information Center
Scavenger Hunt
Zombie Parade
Costume Contest
Zombie Shoot
Zombie Paintball Shoot
Zombie Video Game Tournament
Zombie Bar Crawl
Live Bands

Pistolera - Nuevos Ojos (as heard on Breaking Bad)

DR Period - Money

50 Cent - In Da Club (Int'l Version)

White Buffalo video

Saw him perform at the Varsity Theater in MLPS.  Bought and shared a PBR tallboy with him, back in the day.

Video on DIY throttle cable install on Honda bike

Firewood:   I cut all that slabwood, and asked the park ranger if I could burn the firewood, due to all the restrictions in MN.  I procured the slip that certified the firewood, got it checked by the ranger, and spent last night around a campfire, cleaning up over 40 agates I found on my evening walk.  I will  post pictures today! With a little adapting, staying in a small, organized space can be comforting, rather than confining.

How to Install a Throttle cable for Honda Motorcycle

Life Lessons from author Jim Harrison/ Esquire

Good list of Jim Harrison's life lessons. His novels are great and he appears to be a tough, and very prolific, writer.

Article is from Esquire.com

Published in the August 2014 issue


I don't see any evidence of wisdom accelerating as you get older. Old people will say it does, but they're generally speaking full of shit.


Given free rein, our imagination can get infinite.


A couple of weeks before she died, my mother—so old and sweet—said, "You've made quite a good living out of your fibs."


I'd gone to Granada to see where Lorca was murdered on the mountainside by the Franco people. That Franco was a wicked cocksucker, but they certainly never bothered killing poets in America.


Legends I wrote in nine days. But that's the only time it ever happened that well. It was like taking dictation … but it was after I'd thought about the story for five years.


I won't even talk to young writers anymore unless they can give me a good reason. I say, "I don't have any time to talk to you unless you intend to give your entire life over to it, because it can't be done otherwise."


Once in twenty years we've had here [in Arizona, where he has a second home] the elegant trogon. It looks sort of like a paint-by-number bird. Very rare bird. You're always so pleased when you have a rarity in your front yard.


I probably wouldn't have been a poet if I hadn't lost my left eye when I was a boy. A neighbor girl shoved a broken bottle in my face during a quarrel. Afterward, I retreated to the natural world and never really came back, you know.


It's just like when I was twenty and my father and sister got killed in a car accident. I thought, If this can happen to people, you might as well do what you want—which is to be a writer. Don't compromise at all, because there's no point in it.


If all I did was answer the correspondence I get, that would be my job.


It's like hunting with Mario Batali. He checked his fancy phone and said, "Fuck. I've got 280 e-mails." And I said, "What do we do now?" And he said, "Nothing" and put it in his pocket, and we went hunting.


I don't hunt mammals. My friends all do. I love antelope and elk, but I depend on the kindness of friends, because I shot a deer when I was young and it was very unpleasant.


Unlike a lot of writers, I don't have any craving to be understood.


They published my Fireflies in The New Yorker, and they took a sex scene out of it, which irked me at the time. I said, "That was evidentiary to her character!" She's got to get laid like anybody else at some point.


I don't know if it was writer's block or if I just didn't have anything I wanted to say.


Fifty-four years later and we're still married. Very few keepers like that.


The interesting thing about Nicholson is his inability to lie about anything. It just doesn't occur to him to lie, and that's a rare actor.


It's overwhelming when you know Indian history. What fuckin' assholes we were for so long.


The reason why writers go out to Hollywood is to get some money. Which I still found preferable to teaching. If I can write a screenplay in two months and it pays what I would earn teaching for a year and a half, why not?


I revere bears. I had a big male bear that I used to leave extra fish about a hundred yards from my cabin. I'd leave the fish on a stump and the bear would eat them. When I would come home from the bar, sometimes he would stop me and I would roll down the window, and he would set his chin right on the doorjamb and I'd scratch his head—but that's stupid.


I work every morning, all morning, sometimes in the afternoons. Then sometimes I hunt in the afternoons—quail, doves, grouse up north—but just to stay alive, because writers die from their lifestyle but also from their lack of movement.


If you've written all day, you don't want to talk about it at the bar.


My grandmother lived to be ninety-seven, and I would carry her in and out of the house because she was arthritic and I was real strong then. Grandma said, "This has gone on too long, Jimmy." Ain't that a great thing to say?


All people disappear.


I didn't want to die on the Warner lot.


Has happiness changed with age? Yes, I expect less of everything.


No conclusions on time. Other than the old beginning, middle, and end.


You end up missing your dogs.


What's the meaning of it all? Seems to me nobody's got a clue. Quote Jim Harrison on that: Nobody's got a clue.


Now, where did I put my cane?

Online Exclusive: Squirrel Recipes | Field & Stream: Larry Brown Author

Author Larry Brown's Squirrel recipe on F and S.Online Exclusive: Squirrel Recipes | Field & Stream

Lake Superior Webcams: Lake Superior Magazine

storm waves on MN's north shore.  photo by Layne Kennedy

I really like checking out webcams before traveling to places, and I was surprised to find a great listing of webcams on Superior, courtesy of the Lake Superior Magazine site. The magazine covers an extensive list of topics and geographical locations, and I have found it to be a very good publication. Here are links to some of the articles I have enj

Searching "surf" on the site brings up some great articles on surfing Lake Superior. Including a great picture of Tom Blake, a surfing pioneer, and legend.

William Faulkner's "An Odor of Verbena" allusion, narrative style, and eternal verities

Link to William Faulkner's: "An Odor of Verbena" pdf.via aculty.weber.edu/

One allusion Faulkner uses in this short story, is from the Bible:

Matthew 26:52 New International Version (NIV)
52 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

Allusion and other italicized parts the story:

"Who lives by the sword shall die by it..."(Faulkner 214).

"At last it has happened" (Faulkner 214).

"At least this will be the chance to find out if I am what I think I am or if I just hope; if I am going to do what I taught myself is right or if I am just going to wish I were..."(Faulkner 215).

This story speaks to the "eternal" verities of the past, which leads me to think about the teachings in Faulkner's writings.
Faulkner's story is set in Mississippi, and takes place in the post Civil War Deep South. His vocabulary is amazing, with words like "presentiment", interwoven with concise and tension filled dialogue. The story also contains a common element of Faulknerian writing, which can be very disorientating, but also attractive over time; Faulkner's stories jump from past to present and blend these elements in a way that makes it all seems to morph together into the author's myopic dream vision perspectives of past occurrences and their effects on the present. This vision, which was fueled by large amounts of bourbon, horse back riding, and sitting on country porches slinging hunting stories, make the writer and his work classic.

"Advice From Artists on How to Overcome Creative Block": by Maria Popova via dailygood.org

I was just thinking about the great things associated with good news, in sharp contrast to the gossip, and bad news following celebrities, and professional athletes, the stuff usually shown in the media. 

I found this site posted by a friend, and I am finding it a great place to visit daily, between writing breaks, or just to take some time to reflect on good news. Good news and solutions are much more appealing than the gossip, complaints, and violent crime focused upon by the media conglomerates.

I don't watch any regular news anyway.  I read the paper, but this site is a new's source I now follow:

 

Here is one of many articles great article found at: http://www.dailygood.org/advice-from-artists-on-how-to-overcome-creative-block-maria-popova/

Here is more about the site: link to source 

About Us


DailyGood was born in 1998, when one college student started sharing inspiration with a half a dozen of his friends by sending them an enriching quote every day.

Today, DailyGood leverages the internet to promote positive and uplifting news around the world to more than 100,000 subscribers through the daily and weekly newsletters. Readers receive a news story, an inspiring quote, and a suggested action that each person can take to make a difference in their own lives and the world around them.

Often times, watching the nightly news and reading mainstream newspapers it's hard to remember the presence of good in the world. And yet it is constantly around us. The world is full of everyday heroes and true stories of transformation. They have helped sustain life down the ages in a multitude of ways, small, simple and profound. DailyGood aims to shine a light on these stories and in doing so to change the nature of our conversations. If it can spread a few smiles along the way it's purpose is served.

Our philosophy is quite simple: "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." The entire project is fully run by dedicated volunteers who contribute hundreds of hours finding the right stories and quotes. All of our content is distributed and syndicated for free. We don't advertise or promote any products. We don't ask for anything with the trust that whatever is needed will come.

And in the end, we are thankful that so many benefit from DailyGood because it gives us a meaningful opportunity to serve.

Thank you for your partnership in spreading the good.

The DailyGood Team

Zen Koan

good living...zen cabin in paradise

"Dogen Zenji's Genjo-koan Lecture (8)from here

Rev. Shohaku Okumur

Director, Soto Zen Education Center

(Text: section 9)

"When a person attains realization, it is like the moon reflecting on the water. The moon never becomes wet; the water is never destroyed. Although it is a vast and great light, it reflects itself on a small amount of water. The whole moon and even the whole sky reflects on even a drop of dew on a blade of grass, or a single tiny drop of water. Realization does not destroy the person, as the moon does not make a hole in the water. The person does not obstruct realization, as a drop of dew does not obstruct the moon in the sky. The depth is the same as the height. [In order to investigate the significance of] the length and shortness of time, we should consider whether the water is great or small, and understand the size of the moon in the sky."

Kinda hard to get my head around this koan, but many of the images, created by the writer, are amazing.

I like the analogies, and the way the elements are often referred to in these short Zen reflections and stories. They all contain lessons, but sometime it takes me a while to find the message.

Keller Williams "Bird Song"

Amazing guitar and cover of GD's "Birdsong"

Bradley's Blog : Crack The Spine: "Crack the Spine loves the writte...

Bradley's Blog : Crack The Spine: "Crack the Spine loves the writte...: I submitted four, short fictional works to this publication today:  http://www.crackthespine.com/p/current-issue.html .  Here is some inf...

Park Point, Duluth: Lake Superior wavecam/webcam via Solglimt.

Duluth MN webcam from http://www.solglimt.com/webcam/webcam.html.
This is a fun camera to use for checking the conditions on the Park Point beach. Waves break pretty well here, and it is a sand bottom, which is nice for beginners. I also like to check this camera before heading out, or to double check the other forecasting sites, and web cams.

Crack The Spine: "Crack the Spine loves the written word"

I submitted four, short fictional works to this publication today: http://www.crackthespine.com/p/current-issue.html.  Here is some information from the site about CTS:

ABOUT
Contact
Subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter
Submissions - Please review our Submission Guidelines
Advertising - See our Advertising Page
General Inquiries - Kerri Farrell Foley, Editor

Who We Are
Crack the Spine loves the written word. Some might say we're in love with the written word. But that's just a silly rumor. We publish diverse and sharp literary works, including flash fiction, micro-fiction, poetry, short stories, personal essays, and book reviews. We don't care if it's four words or four thousand words, if it's charged with artistry, we want to publish it. Given the choice, we will always select madness over method.

What We Do
Crack the Spine publishes an online digital magazine weekly. Works published online are automatically eligible to be selected for later publication in our quarterly print anthologies. If you're interested in submitting to Crack the Spine, review our submission guidelines.

Crack the Spine Literary Magazine is owned and published by Crack the Spine Press, LLC." Quoted from http://www.crackthespine.com/p/about.html.

They have a nice site, and you can read the current issue online, if you like to go on literary benders, or just want to read a good short story, I highly recommend the CTS site.

FinnSurf-Movie on surfing in Finland-trailer

Finnsurf-Surfing in Finland seems to be similar to surfing in Minnesota, in many ways. I enjoy learning about Finnish culture, and the north shore of Minnnesota, and Michigan's UP are filled with towns, and many other things Finnish.
It seems like the window for surf is small, and the water is cold, and waves are very rare.  I like his commentary on surfing as an addiction, and the way it appeals to certain personalities.  He will cancel meetings, and lie to make time for surfing.
Great film on Finnish surf, enjoy the teaser above.

Fugazi: "Full Disclosure" video and lyrics

Fugazi was a DC punk band, whose songs address the following themes:

• Social conformity
• Commodification
• SocioCultural Icons
• Classification as a means of control

"Full Discloure" Fugazi Lyrics




i want out
i want a mutually assured destructive
life seizing separate culture to take me over
moving silent like radar
take me over and blow out my mind
full disclosure coming sponsored by no one
take me over and blow out my mind ejected

Eddie Rabbit "Drivin' My Life Away", and Stream of Consciousness themed in music and travel

It was a nice summer day, and Josh was the luckiest man in the world. He was just done traveling, and now it was a day for family time. The balance of skateboarding applies to life.  Finding a balance between freedom and not letting fear get in the way of charging, in life and skateboarding.   The death wobbles freak Josh out in both situations.
Josh had idealistic views on life.  He thought the open road would lead to promises set in motion by bands like Canned Heat and The Grateful Dead, not to mention the things Kerouac explained in On the Road.
But now Josh was listening to Willie Nelson,
"Living on the Road My Friend, was going to keep you free and clean, but now you wear your skin like iron, and breath as hard as kerosense..."
The unwashed road lay before Joshua, and pleaded to his itchy feet:
"Got to keep on ROLLLLLLINGGGGG.....

Eddie Rabbit


Well the midnight headlight find you on a rainy night
steep grade up ahead slow me down makin no time
gotta keep rollin
those windshield wipers slappin out a tempo
keepin perfect rhythm with the song on the radio
gotta keep rolling

Ooh I'm driving my life away, looking for a better way, for me
ooh I'm driving my life away, looking for a sunny day

Well the truck stop cutie comin' on to me
tried to talk me into a ride said I wouldn't be sorry
but she was just a baby
Hey waitress pour me another cup of coffee
pop me down jack me up shoot me out flyin' down the highway
lookin for the morning

Ooh I'm driving my life away, looking for a better way, for me
ooh I'm driving my life away, looking for a sunny day

Well the midnight headlight find you on a rainy night
steep grade up ahead slow me down makin no time
gotta keep rollin
those windshield wipers slappin out a tempo
keepin perfect rhythm with the song on the radio
gotta keep rolling

Ooh I'm driving my life away, looking for a better way, for me
ooh I'm driving my life away, looking for a sunny day

Junior's Place, Chulahoma, Mississippi/Article from Oxford American by Beth Ann Fennely

Link to OA article:
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2013/nov/12/juniors-place/