Todd Swank

November 20, 2022

Winter is Here 2022

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 20, 2022

We had a pretty warm autumn in Minnesota and October was actually pretty pleasant temperature wise. Winter caught up with us with about 4-6 inches of snow in my neighborhood and temperatures dropping into the teens for much of the past week. Blue is annoyed with us because his walks outside have been greatly diminished.

We connected with our old buddies, Karl & Tina Zitzewitz, for a night of adventure in Shakopee. It started at Bravis Modern Street Food which is a unique Mexican restaurant with yummy burritos. It was our first time there, but I'm quite certain it won't be the last.

We then walked over to Mana Brewing Company which is a fun brewery with yummy beer. It was our first time there, but I'm quite certain it won't be the last.

On Sunday we headed back to US Bank Stadium to watch our beloved Minnesota Vikings take on the Dallas Cowboys. The Vikings were undefeated at home, so we were expecting another win for the home team.

Luke hadn't been to a Vikings game with me since we watched a victory against the Detroit Lions. We were excited for more of those kind of feelings again.

The Vikings had a very emotional win last week in Buffalo, so we weren't too surprised when they started off kind of sketchy when Kirk Cousins lost a fumble on 3rd down during the first series of the game. We figured they'd settle down and get competitive again quickly and felt better when they held the Cowboys to only a field goal.

That was pretty much the highlight of the day. For the next couple of hours we witnessed a complete dismantling of the 8-1 Vikings. They ended up losing the game by a score of 40-3. It was the worst football game I've ever attended in person. We have to go back there in 4 days and watch them take on the New England Patriots on Thanksgiving. I really hope they figure out what went wrong today so we don't have to witness something like that again. It was brutal.

November 13, 2022

Winter is Coming 2022

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 13, 2022

Luke and I had Friday off of work for Veterans Day. We decided to explore Burnsville a bit to see if we could find anything new and exciting to do. We couldn't.

We had lunch near Burnsville Mall so thought we'd stop in for a visit. We haven't been here much since the pandemic, but it's about as depressing as it's ever been. Something like 70% of the store locations are now vacant and it feels more like a cemetery than a shopping center.

I think it's relatively common knowledge that brick and mortar retail has been struggling in the era of ecommerce, but it seems Burnsville Mall has been especially hard hit. I've heard it called the emptiest mall in Minnesota. It's so bizarre to me because growing up in Iowa, Burnsville Mall was a special travel destination when we were kids. We even had field trips in school where we'd take a bus on the 2 hour drive to the Twin Cities and spend the day shopping at an actual mall! However, it doesn't seem like many people are willing to even travel across the street to go there these days. Pretty sad!

On Sunday, we were invited to our friends Steve "Cuds" Cuddihy and his wife Melissa's house to watch the Minnesota Vikings take on the Buffalo Bills. Not sure if you heard or not, but the Vikings Won!!! They're now 8 - 1 and on a great roll. SKOL!

November 6, 2022

Empty Nesters Again

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 6, 2022

Another milestone passed in our lives when our twin sons, Luke & Avery, moved out of our house for the first time since they graduated college in the Spring of 2021.

We're really impressed with their new house!

They're only moving about 10 miles away so I'm sure we'll still see them regularly. They're rooming with a couple of buddies from high school. They are fine young men from good families. I hope they all have the times of their lives. The last few years have been some of the strangest in my life and they all deserve to go back to some normalcy.

Will this be the last time they live with me?

I don’t know.

Who knows what the future will bring?

I’ve loved having them in my house every night they were there and would certainly welcome more opportunities. But sometimes in life, we go our separate paths. And that's a good thing.

It makes me sad and happy at the same time.

On Friday night, we went to Target Center to watch our favorite NBA team in action.

Avery was supposed to join me at the game, but was having more fun moving his stuff so he traded his ticket for one of Luke's games. So I had the honor of going to a game with Luke again.

The game was being televised on ESPN, so it didn't start until 9pm. We ended up arriving an hour and a half early. I was impressed when we walked in that Anthony Edwards was the lone player on the floor working out with one of his trainers. The kid knows how to work!

Giannis Antetokounmpo was in town with the undefeated Milwaukee Bucks. We knew we were in for a long night. Especially when I saw that half of the arena was filled with Bucks fans. I felt like I was at a Vikings Packers game and braced myself for the unpleasantness that was sure to follow. I just hoped the Wolves would be competitive and come out on fire.

I was glad we had all of our starters on the floor as there were some rumors that Rudy Gobert may have had to miss the game.

One thing I like to do is see if I can get my picture up on the big screen. You have to tweet your picture with the hashtag #PackPix and then they play a selected few at various breaks in the game. I've been able to get up there 2 of the 4 games I've attended! I don't have a lot of excitement in my life.

The game was kind of a bummer. The Wolves never really felt like they were in it. They did have a couple of rallies that were exciting, but the Bucks were shooting the lights out with the ball and Giannis ended up with a Triple Double. The home team lost the game 115 to 102. But, hey. At least we still have those Minnesota Vikings!

On Saturday night, we had our first official re-designation of being Empty Nesters Again and went out to celebrate with our good friends, Dan & Jen Walters. We always have a good time with them!

October 30, 2022

Vikings and Wolves and Todd. Oh My.

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 30, 2022

Our weekend was spent following the Minnesota sports scene starting Friday night at Target Center.

I was excited to have Miss Sheri join me for a game. She loves to cheer on the Wolves and jeer on the Lakers.

We were excited to have Lebron and the gang in the town. Ever since he took his talents to Miami and left Cleveland high and dry, he's been our favorite player to root against.

He did bring one of our favorite players from last year with him, though. We lost Patrick Beverly in the big Rudy Gobert trade and the team has missed him. He was a great motivator and kept things exciting for all of us. The team did a nice tribute video for him at the beginning of the game which I felt was a pretty classy thing to do.

Another player that's fun to Boo is Russell Westbrook. He used to be a triple double machine for teams when he was the leading player, but has struggled the past couple of years with the Lakers. I almost feel bad for the guy the way he's struggled, but he has the type of personality that feeling bad for him doesn't last very long. Then you just like to see him miss again.

The Timberwolves have had a bit of a rocky start to the season. They were three and two coming in tonight, but expectations are very high for them this season since they traded away much of their future to land Rudy Gobert. Anything less than a deep run in the playoffs will be a disappointment.

Anthony Edwards led the team with 29 points and Taurean Prince came up big in the end of the game scoring 13 points and getting 3 steals. Minnesota won the game by a score of 111 to 102 and actually sent the Lakers home with a record of 0 and 5. Something's going to have to change soon for that team because what they're doing currently doesn't seem to be working.

One of the highlights of the evening was seeing Vikings Superstar, Justin Jefferson, and his fellow wide receiver, KJ Osborn, sitting courtside at the game. They were snacking on some popcorn which was kind of fun to watch. As a matter of fact, we were going to get to watch them play their game only a couple of days later.

Miss Sheri joined me again on Sunday to go to US Bank Stadium and help cheer on the Minnesota Vikings to victory!

We like to arrive at the games early and take pictures of the players doing warm-ups. We waved at Adam Thielen when he started waving at us. It's possible he was waving at someone else also.

Tight End Irv Smith Jr apparently likes to walk around and show off his belly. I guess if I had abs like that I'd probably do the same thing.

Za'Darius Smith is a new player for us that seems to bring a lot of energy to all that he does. We like people like that. They're fun to be around.

I don't know for sure that this is Patrick Peterson's family, but we enjoyed watching their interactions before the game. It seemed pretty sweet.

Justin Jefferson seemed like he recovered from all that popcorn he was eating at the Wolves game and was ready to go. We were excited to see him have a big game against the Cardinals.

Before we knew it, the game was set to begin!

Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals were in town and the Vikings had a bit of a score to settle with them after losing a close game in Arizona last year. The game went down to the final seconds and the Vikings were behind by a score of 33-32 when their kicker missed a 37 yard field goal that would have sealed the victory.

The Cardinal's superstar wide receiver, Deandre Hopkins, hasn't played most of this year, but made his season debut last weekend. He was pretty dominant throughout the day gaining 159 yards on 12 receptions and a touchdown. The guy's pretty good.

The highlight of halftime was getting to celebrate Jared Allen being inducted into the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Fame. He was one of the best defensive ends the Vikings ever had and also brought a ton of fun energy to every game he played. He was always a unique dude and punctuated that by riding a horse into the stadium to accept his honor. It was fun to get to celebrate the achievement with him.

The game itself was another nail biter with the Vikings scoring touchdowns and the Cardinals responding with their own. It wasn't quite as close as their last game, but Arizona did have a chance to tie it in the end but they didn't and the Vikings ended up winning by a score of 34-26 extending their winning streak to 5 and bringing their overall record to 6-1. Could this be the Vikings year? We'll see.

October 23, 2022

The New Look Minnesota Timberwolves are Back in Action

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 23, 2022

On Friday night we went to Target Center in Downtown Minneapolis. Our Minnesota Timberwolves are Back in Action!

We had so much fun going to games last year that I decided to buy a membership this year. It is similar to being a season ticket holder except we only go to a quarter of the home games instead of all of them. I bought two seats and Luke was excited to join me for the first game.

The Timberwolves made a lot of noise in the offseason by trading a bunch of their young players and future draft picks to land All Star Center, Rudy Gobert. We were excited to see what the big man could do for the team.

It's an interesting strategy as the team already has an all-star center in Karl Anthony Towns. Karl has been one of our favorites over the past few years, but he really shines when lighting up the scoreboard and dropping threes. Rudy should help take some of the pressure off him when they're playing against other big guys around the league and let them use their size as an advantage.

We lost a lot of good young players in the trade including Jarred Vanderbilt who has a real solid future in this league. Rudy looks extremely solid, but it's a big risk if it doesn't work out the way team management has planned.

We also had our first glimpse of rookie, Walker Kessler, who the Wolves traded for during the NBA draft but included in the trade for Gobert. He would have been an interesting fit for the team. He's pretty raw, but also a big guy and looked pretty solid for the few minutes he played.

We love Anthony Edwards especially after seeing him in Adam Sandler's Netflix movie, Hustle, this past summer. He's always had a great personality, but it was fun to see his comedic side in what we all thought was a pretty good movie. Hopefully he doesn't go Hollywood on us and demand to be traded to the Lakers in a couple years.

Another new player we were excited to watch was Kyle Anderson. Unfortunately he left the game before he ever started playing with what we heard later was back spasms. When I later saw this picture of him in the pre-game huddle with his eyes rolled back in his head, I discovered the actual truth. He had been possessed by a demon and had to go to the locker-room to receive an exorcism.

The Wolves started hot and dominated the Jazz leading the first quarter by a score of 41 to 26. It was pretty much all downhill from there.

Halftime was fun. They had a bunch of puppies racing each other up and down the floor. I love puppies!

The Wolves didn't look all that sharp during the rest of the game. I don't know if they're still trying to figure out where Gobert fits in with the rest of the team or if the Jazz were especially jazzed up knowing many of them were all traded for one guy. They crawled out from their first quarter hole and led much of the game until the Wolves forced the game into overtime.

We didn't do great in overtime and ended up losing the game by a score of 132 to 126. It was only the second game of the season so too early to read much into anything. I'm excited to see how good they can be when they start figuring out team chemistry. They're gonna be hard to beat!

Todd's TikTok of the Week

Stable Diffusion is a digital art tool that uses artificial intelligence to create any image you can imagine.

@toddswank Stable Diffusion is a digital art tool that uses artificial intelligence to create any image you can imagine. #art #digitalart #ai #artificialintelligence #stablediffusion ♬ 4-minute techno for talk background music(1020850) - komorebi-gr