Todd Swank

September 23, 2018

Mallards on the St. Croix

Todd Swank's Diary Update for September 23, 2018

Work brought me to the exciting city of Omaha, Nebraska this week. Such a colorful place.

Krazy Kory is also in sales and covers Nebraska as well, so we happened to both be in town at the same time. We connected for lunch and some pre-sales call pep talks to motivate each other to go out and make it happen. Which we did.

Luke came home from college for a quick visit so we took him to one of our favorite restaurants, The Outback. Our waitress, Maddie, was a bunch of fun and ended up hanging out with us throughout the night. We love waitresses like this!

We are in the process of re-modeling one of our bathrooms and found ourselves at The Tile Shop in Burnsville to make some selections. Bryan was our salesperson and was very helpful for us in making our choices. If you're in the market and in the neighborhood, I'd recommend him wholeheartedly.

On Saturday, we headed to the St. Croix River for one of our last boat rides of 2018. The weather is getting cooler and the water temperature is down to 65 degrees already. Where did summer go?

Captain Karl was ready to take us for a joy ride.

It was us, the Zitzewitzes, and the Browns ready to go for our 3 hour cruise. We had a special treat in that Tina's mom was also there for the weekend and she makes boat trips extra fun!

The guys stayed up top while the ladies remained down low. Not sure if there's any significance to that, but it's just the way it worked out.

Is that a chimney on your shore or are you just excited to see me?

Our destination was Mallards Restaurant and Lounge in Bayport. Miss Sheri and I hadn't been there before, but Karl and Tina really liked it so we looking forward to checking it out.

I was surprised later in the evening when the waiter brought me a drink and told me it was from a gentleman at the bar. I asked if he was trying to pick me up or something and he said he didn't know. So I wandered up there and found one of my longtime customers from Nor-Tech, TJ Hoffman. It was great seeing him!

We thoughts Mallards was great. They claim to have the best seafood and Cajun food in the Twin Cities. I had the Jambalaya and thought it was really good, so I guess I wouldn't argue with their claim. Good times.

September 16, 2018

The 2018 Cabin Classic Golf Tournament

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 16, 2018

I keep trying to get braver with my drone and to test that I'm flying it over the lake more and more to try to take pictures. It's definitely a bit stressful because the wind seems to be more powerful over the water and I find it drifting from time to time while I'm trying to get the shots. But somehow I've kept it from going into the water so far, so hopefully I'll be able to avoid that fate.

On Friday night, I drove down to Clear Lake, Iowa for the 2018 Cabin Classic Golf Tournament. It's named after Jason Alexander's cabin and the fact that's where we stay for the weekend. It was good to see the old gang again.

Krazy Kory was even able to join us this year which definitely helped amp up the Kraziness Factor throughout the weekend. He usually has that kind of effect on things.

All in all there were 13 of us golfing and we decided to go to the course in Sheffield, Iowa for the event.

We did a 2 man best shot tournament and played in groups of 6 so I got to hang with these fellas for the day. Normally courses frown on sixsomes, but the course was pretty quiet while we were there. Kind of odd because it was an absolutely beautiful day.

I think your ball went that way.

This course has some unique features, but the thing that stands out the most is "The Ruins" in the middle of hole number 4. There used to be an old brick and tile company that had stood on this land and these remnants are leftovers from the kilns. They can be a pretty tough hazard to deal with if you get stuck in the middle of them.

Your concentration can be broken pretty easily when the train comes barreling down the railroad tracks that run alongside the course. Nice flag, though.

I tried to explain to Chris that he wasn't using this right, but he just kept smiling and going on with his business.

At night, we like to relax and play some Texas Hold 'em tournaments. I even managed to win a couple of rounds this year which was a nice change of pace from the usual results.

Chris broke the record for the largest stack of the evening so we had to deal with him rubbing that in our faces all night.

Miss Sheri had a fun week getting the chance to re-connect with her college friends again. It's always good to see these ladies!

September 9, 2018

Kangaroo Crossing at the Minnesota Zoo

Todd Swank's Diary Update for September 9, 2018

We went to see our friends, Cathy and Jeff, on Monday. They have a big pizza bash every year on Labor Day and we like to go to eat our share. Jeff is a good pizza chef!

The kids are back in college, so our Empty Nester Club had it's best turn-out in months. We even had some new empty nesters which I guess is probably likely to happen in the Fall.

This will probably be our last gathering at Charlie's on Prior this year. For some reason, sitting by the lake isn't nearly as much fun in Minnesota when it's fall and winter outside.

We bought season passes to the Minnesota Zoo earlier this year and realized we better go out there again since it's going to expire soon. We also realized that there's a new attraction called Kangaroo Crossing which we hadn't experienced yet. I was surprised to see that once you entered the attraction, the kangaroos were basically able to come on the path to interact with the humans. I wasn't surprised to see that pretty much all of them were sleeping just beyond the barrier where the humans are not supposed to go.

Miss Sheri tried to tell me that all of these aren't kangaroos, some of them are actually Wallabies. I don't know the difference between the two, but they kind of look like really big rats to me.

After seeing the claws on these guys, I realized I didn't want to mess with them.

I couldn't tell if she was pregnant or he had some testicular issues. I'm hoping it's the former.

Another new part of the zoo is back in the swampy area. They added some walking trails over the top of the water which allows you to get a pretty neat view of the ecosystem. I just love unique ecosystems.

I felt kind of bad for the turtles. You'd think they'd get sick and tired of being this dirty all the time.

This funny looking bird had the right idea. Stay above the green goop and it won't mess up your yellow feet.

It actually ended up being quite the lovely day for a walk around the zoo.

The bears were being kind of frisky. Probably gotta get it out of their systems before settling down for their long winter's nap.

We had never seen the camel this close to the fence. He was so wanting to get that sweet, sweet green.

We'd also never seen the moose this close to the fence. He's got a bunch of crap all over his antlers which really bothered me. I kept beckoning him to come up to me so I could help him clear it all off, but he ignored me. His loss.

After the zoo, we stopped at the Burnsville Fire Muster which is a community festival where they bring in all the fire trucks and let people play with their hoses. Seemed like a lot of wasted water to me.

One of the food trucks had a unique system for gathering tips. I guess this settles it. The Vikings are winning the Super Bowl this year!

We continue having fun with our new drone and haven't got it stuck or dropped it in the lake yet. I can imagine that will be happening soon.

I keep thinking our albino squirrel friends will disappear for awhile and then look in the backyard and there's another one. They must really like us.

September 3, 2018

Minnesota Renaissance & The Minnesota State Fair 2018

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 3, 2018

We debated going to the Minnesota Renaissance this year. It seems like every year we go and say it feels like we've done this before. But then when you get there and meet fun people like this, you're quickly reminded that this is always a unique experience.

The Kamikaze Fireflies were a new group performing this year. I believe they would be classified as a "Danger Act" were they to go on America's Got Talent. The guy balanced himself on top of a bunch of chairs and also juggled fire sticks while standing on the shoulders of an audience member. I'd like to say that I could do those kinds of tricks, but I can't.

The Minnesota Renaissance is one of the largest events of it's type in the country attracting more than 300,000 visitors each year. The festival has been held in the same place for the past 48 years, but is being forced to find a new home starting in 2020. It's kind of sad because this location has so many unique spots that won't be able to be re-created because they've been being developed for nearly half a century. It's truly going to be the end of an era.

I like watching the guys blow glass. Hard to imagine people figured out how the heck to do this nearly 2000 years ago.

I didn't remember that alligators had a big presence back in the Renaissance days, but they must have been quite the nuisance. I wouldn't want to mess with them.

I spent 2 nights in Lincoln, Nebraska this week for work. They sure have a pretty sky down there.

On Saturday, we dragged Grandma Linda out of the house and down to the Minnesota State Fair.

We didn't do a great job on timing. Turns out we chose the busiest day in the history of the Minnesota State Fair with more than 270,000 people in attendance. Not a good call on our part. It was wall to wall people the whole day.

At least we had a bucket of chocolate chip cookies to help us deal with all the people. Cookies make crowds much more pleasant.

We like watching the dog show that occurs every year. Mainly because there's always some of the dogs that will not obey their masters which causes all sorts of shenanigans to ensue. We like naughty doggies.

We thought we'd take the sky ride to go from one side of the fair to the other and maybe that would get us away from all the people. Not so much. Turns out the people knew about the other side also.

I thought I was being pretty rebellious experiencing the Sky Glider when the sign so clearly spelled out that Physically Handicapped people shouldn't do so. Seemed kind of discriminatory to me, so I stuck it to the man and went on there anyways.

Apparently there's a whole bunch of naughty stuff happening on the sky glider judging from the amount of undies sitting on the rooftops underneath. Not sure what gets people so frisky up there, but I have to imagine they have quite the challenge making it work.

After the Fair we had some friends over for a BBQ and Boat Ride. I thought it would be fun to get a picture of our group with my new drone. Turned out to almost be the last drone picture I took as the winds above the lake are stronger than they appear. My new drone almost got away from me, but luckily I was able to navigate it back to the boat before it fell into the lake to join our last drone.

We did see a cool bald eagle while on the lake. It looked like he was trying to tell us something but tough to know for sure.

We got to see Jason and Jen a couple of times this weekend which is always nice. We had breakfast together then spent some quality time with one another at the casino. Good wholesome fun.