Grand Old Days:

   My roommates moved in this weekend. I have three. But I've still only met two of them. Laura and Vinati (rhymes with infinity). Laura is from Wisconsin and Vinati goes to school at MIT. Laura has a car and her and Vinati work in the same building at 3M. So they drive to work together. My third roommate, Taylor, is the one I haven't met yet. She has been in town since last Wednesday. She flew up from Texas with her Mom and stayed in a hotel with her. She shipped her car up from Texas. Taylor moved in on Saturday... and I think she has been living in the apartment since then.. but I really have not seen her. Our bedrooms each have their own bathroom, so maybe she has a mini fridge in her room and just doesn't plan on leaving it unless she has to go to work. I don't know why she doesn't socialize with us. I don't even know what she looks like. I can't believe I haven't run into her in the hallway yet.
   I've spent time alone with my other two roommates. Laura is 21 so we went out on Saturday night together. She is fun. Vinati is not 21 yet, so I spent Sunday with her. We went to Grand Old Days in St. Paul. Grand Old Days is a day-long festival on Grand Avenue. It is huge. Tents line the street for over a mile. There is fair food and other random vendors, beer gardens, concerts, and a certified hot dog eating contest. Vinati and I walked into the hot dog eating contest by accident and happened to catch the end of it. The winner of it gets to go to the championship round on Coney Island on the 4th of July. The winner was a short, very skinny woman. She ate 31 hot dogs in ten minutes. We also saw a booth that was a club of people who love Irish Wolfhounds. I've been set on getting this kind of dog for a long time. So I was very excited to sit and pet them for a bit. I got to introduce Vinati to cheese curds/cheese balls. She had never heard of them because it isn't something on the menus of restaurants on the East Coast. She loved 'em. It was a fun day.

The red arrow is pointing to the woman who won the hot dog eating contest.

Can you see how far down the road this goes? You can't even see the end of it.

   After work yesterday, I took a back road home. I happened to drive by a Snap Fitness less than a mile from my apartment. I had my new tennis shoes delivered to my apartment, too, so I was excited to go to Snap with my new kicks. The Snap was very nice. They have a group fitness room with a nifty touchscreen TV that has a schedule of when classes are. It directed me to get online to sign up for classes ahead of time. I took a look at my options and am signed up to do one class tomorrow night. It is a high intensity.. interval... training.. class? I don't know if those are the four words, but I do know the acronym is H.I.I.T. So I'll go to that class tomorrow and if I like it I might sign up for more classes. I'm glad that it is nearby, and it is much nicer than the gym inside my apartment.

   The school flag war at work was put to an end today. This was the last shot I got of my cubicle before the fire marshal people made us take them down. Oh well.

   I saw this billboard... It is so rare seeing advertisements for food that isn't fast food. Cool.