301.March 6

Manchester, UK

When I came out of the shower at 8 AM, the bathroom filled with children and blood. One had hit his head against a wall whilst roughing about. Breakfast was wonderful. They served pancakes and porridge. As much tea as I could drink. The bus ride to Manchester was one and a half hours.

POSTCARD: We’re driving to Manchester from Bradford. The sheep line the road-sides, within stone fences that each enclose about five acres. The moors were quite an experience yesterday, it was a day with lightning-quick gusts of wind. We tackled each other in the tufts of heather. Some people were riding horses out on the moors. I really want to ride. It would be excellent here. Our hostel was a Victorian Mansion, an incredible place to stay. Today, we will go to the Museum of Science and Industry, which is housed in the oldest railway station (built in 1830) yet standing in the world. We will go to art galleries and then return to Nottingham. I really enjoy these weekend trips.

I want to live in a brick building. I love seeing them everywhere here. We are now driving through a pass between very tall hills. It is a little like Idaho on the way up Snake River pass. We just arrived in Manchester and I just finished a poem (below) for mom and dad. I think they will like it much. I thank my sister for giving me an interest in things not normally within my grasp.

POSTCARD: A gust of wind my mind becomes

as blown across a moor

My random thought-full crosses England

West to East and south to North.

I rustle through the dark brown heather

of ages old unbroken land

and some of me is splashing waves

against the hard-packed Cornwall sand.

I come from North America

and crossed the lonely sea.

Sights and sounds of my own home

I carried here with me.

Full circle I will come someday

home safe and soon and sound

with the fragrance of the world

to share with family- all around.

I want to bring it all back

brick by bricks and tree by trees

but my hands can't lift, my legs can't carry

only my mind is like the breeze.

Thank-you Dad and mom for everything

I love you more than I can show

The only way to give my love

one day I will come home.

First, to the Industrial Museum, which is in the oldest railway building in the world (eighteen-thirty). Then we browsed through the city art museum. We saw Pre-Raphaelites galore, and then left at 16:00. At 19:00, I had rehearsal, which went very well. Tasha quit, which made my day, and we got through half of the show. We'll carry on tomorrow. Ian brought me the breast-plate for me to copy. Becca and I went to the Buttery Bar at 22:00 for excitement and walked home. I found out today that John Candy died on March 4th.

1994

After waking in the basement in my sister's old house on Irvine Park, where I had lived in 1996 or 1997 for a summer, we walked to the neighborhood restaurant called "Moe's Woodfire Grill" for breakfast. I got my favourite, the Cajun breakfast, as this was the location of one of the original Downtowner cafe's, and has kept this on the menu.

We got packed after taking some pictures, and went to the Norwegian Women's meeting, which I was not allowed to attend. I drove to St. Louis Park, passing my old house on 37XX Joppa Avenue, and ended up at a Caribou Coffee to do my work and kill some time. I also went to a Whole Foods nearby. We came home to Spring Grove immediatly after the meeting, and Rachel and I ended the night by watching two movies we both didn't care too much about, but seemed to be the best way to relax on a lazy evening.

2010

We just finished scheduling the rest of our rehearsals for "Noises Off" in our google calendar. We have 1 month left to get it ready, which is alot for most shows, but for this one, it seems like "Time is sliding irrevocably into the past." I loaded a pc with Server 2012 today so I could use it as a management server for my Server Core implementation at work. All is going well with that, and I used Replay to create a Standby copy of all of our backed up servers. This means I can turn them off and start them up on another server with limited configuration. This is part of my goal, to virtualize the majority of our servers.

I had a wonderful burger at Magpie for lunch, and worked on a cup of coffee over my lines for the show. It finally seems like I'll be able to learn the lines, after writing them all down on a small tablet yesterday while I spent the day at home from work.

2013