Another great "Only in Minnesota" moment

Video Cullen shot yesterday of the winter storm in central Minnesota. I just drove. He picked the shots. I like the one of the snow plow going by us at the intersection of the township road and the one where he wanted to shoot the plow in the mirror as it was passing us on the right. Also, check out the moron at the beginning. If this guy doesn't end up getting killed by a plow one day or getting in a head-on on a two lane road, it will surprise me.



ANYHOW...the kids and I hit Pizza Hut for lunch so Cullen could use one of his coupons he earned for a reading program. With the system which brought yesterdays powerful winter storm exiting, clear skies and bitter cold were on tap so I thought it would be good for a late afternoon tour around the west side of one of the lakes we live by. I kinda of forgot about one of the other pizza establishments programs for the winter ice fishing season. Only in Minnesota...

Gads. So much for the solitude of fishing on the ice in subzero temps. No more listening to the popping of the ice sheet as the pressure ridges do their thing. Heck, turn on the TV and call the pizza guy!

Went over the top of Albion Ridge to watch the sun set with just enough ice crystals to make a nice sun dog over the frozen farm fields.


I got the restore done on the kids' great great grandmother's wedding photo. You can barely make out any of the features on the original. Melinda used one of their scanners to get me a high-res digital image to work with. The luminance on this thing was horrid as the lighting at the time the photo was taken must have been weak as there was an incredible amount of noise. Thanks to Noise Ninja and a couple of hours clicking with the healing brush tool, I got the photo to the point you could see some detail. Look closely at the photo. Great great grandma appears to have two left hands! Not going into the process I did on PS CS3 as I am sure there was an easier way, but it turned out OK. Not great, but sure a heck of a lot better than the original. I deliberately didn't fix all the flaws as this picture is supposed to be from "then" and not "now". One odd thing I learned was how the women used this white powder on their faces to try to achieve a porcelain texture. After looking through a lot of photos from the time period of the original (1910-ish), pretty sure they just achieved a pasty white color. I wonder what our future generations will say about women getting tramp stamps today?

One fun photo from yesterday. Me trying to convince my Alaskan-born significant other to head over to Walmart wearing the fox hat. It was -11 out afterall. She declined. I offered to go with her and wear the hat instead. She declined to have me and the hat accompany her on the trip and opted to take Cullen (and no hat) with instead.

Again, Merry Christmas everyone. Enjoy that family and those friends this week.