Category Archives: Minnesota

Yay, you hoar! Diving on in to the hoar frost!

Sometimes we question why we live in Minnesota. For example, the Vikings almost blew a 17 point lead to the Packers last night. Even when our teams don’t lose they still almost give a heart attack and no one should live like that.

We deal with snow and ice, too. Heck, if you ask anyone that’s not from Minnesota, I believe that we don’t get above freezing until June and we’re right back to the land of ice and snow before Labor Day. There are some downfalls to a Minnesota winter, but there are some real advantages, too.

The snow can be quite beautiful, the water freezes over so much we can walk on water and, one of my personal favorites, hoar frost.

Hoar frost isn’t an everyday occurrence, which makes it neat, but we all think it’s quite lovely. The reason a lot of the Christmas trees nowadays are ‘frosted’ is they are going for the beautiful look that these fine specimens get when hoar frost is present.

What is hoar frost? Glad you asked! From the ‘Frost’ article on Wikipedia, section ‘Hoar frost’:

“Hoar frost (also hoarfrost, radiation frost, or pruina) refers to white ice crystals, deposited on the ground or loosely attached to exposed objects such as wires or leaves. They form on cold, clear nights when conditions are such that heat radiates out to the open sky faster than it can be replaced from nearby sources such as wind or warm objects. Under suitable circumstances, objects cool to below the frost point of the surrounding air, well below the freezing point of water. Such freezing may be promoted by effects such as flood frost or frost pocket. These occur when ground-level radiation losses cool air till it flows downhill and accumulates in pockets of very cold air in valleys and hollows. Hoar frost may freeze in such low-lying cold air even when the air temperature a few feet above ground is well above freezing.

The name hoar comes from an Old English adjective that means “showing signs of old age”; in this context it refers to the frost that makes trees and bushes look like white hair.”

That beauty came to us today. The beauty needed to be photographed, so Kirby and I hit the snow to take some pictures. Turns out there are more pictures of my dog than the hoar frost, but both are quite adorable.

Yay, you hoar! Enjoy!

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Young and Dangerous: Time To Pay Attention To The Timberwolves

Nine out of 16.

Nine out of 16 players on the Minnesota Timberwolves current roster were born in the 1990’s. That’ll only increase after the Wolves make the first overall pick in the NBA Draft in a month from now. It’s not that young pups immediately turns a team into a contending team, but it does mean if, and when, they click, there’s a lot of time to keep on clicking.

If you forget about some guy named Kevin Garnett, who?, and fairly disposable guards Gary Neal and Kevin Martin, the Wolves don’t have anyone on the roster born later than 1986. The Wolves are really young.

Young and dangerous.

Andrew Wiggins, the only unanimous selection to the All-Rookie first team, could burst into being a superstar. At the very least it looks like Wiggins is on his way to being an All-Star. That’s just the foot of the hill.

Zach Lavine, Shabazz Muhammed, and Gorgui Dieng all are showing that they are going to be more than capable to log NBA minutes that matter. Throw in a Jahlil Okafor or Karl-Anthony Towns and the Wolves suddenly have a strong young six when throwing in Ricky Rubio.

Maybe it’s the fact that the Wolves finally weren’t bitten in the lottery or maybe because the Minnesota Twins are winning and I’m all of a sudden optimistic about every other team in Minnesota, the Gophers football team now has the 23rd best recruiting class, by the way, but whatever it is, it’s time to pay attention to the Timberwolves once again.

Like Taylor Swift says, “we could be forever or it’s going to go down in flames.”

Either the Wolves will show great promise this next season or we will all sit and watch the car vs. train wreck of Kevin Garnett being stuck on and absolutely horrible team. Either way it’s going to be a lot of fun.

It’s about time for the men’s basketball team in Target Center to take a nod from the women and start winning. It’s time we all paid attention to both squads.

Hey, Kevin Garnett, Are You Ever Going To Play?

Maybe I was naïve, but I thought the move bringing Kevin Garnett back to the Minnesota Timberwolves was, at a minimum, a decent move. A veteran defensive presence never really hurt anything, plus if it gets the young studs playing all the better.

The funny thing is that he Garnett been much of a presence… literally. The Timberwolves have played a total of nine games since he started playing with the Wolves and he has only played in a total of five games. Five.

The four games Garnett has missed have just by chance happened to be road contests, a contest in which the Timberwolves get no percentage of the gate. It’s real fishy.

I understand that Garnett isn’t a young man anymore and won’t play in every game, but he does actually need to play for this move to look legitimate. The Wolves have just played three straight road games, none in a back-to-back, and Garnett hasn’t played in any games.

He needs to get on the floor.

Garnett and the team can say he’ll do more teaching in practice, but that is also a double-edged sword. Garnett frankly doesn’t deserve practice minutes if he isn’t going to play in half of the games on the team’s schedule.

When this move came about, I was all for it. I realized that Garnett was not going to turn around the Wolves, but I was excited to see what he could do with the bushels of young talent on the roster. I can’t see that if he never plays.

The not playing epidemic is even worse when taking in the fact that the team still wants to give Garnett a contract extension. An NBA roster can only hold 15 players, each spot is valuable and each spot should be able to play for yoi every single game, apparently Garnett can no longer do that.

Garnett gave his heart and soul to basketball and this team years ago, but there’s not a whole lot of heart in anything going on with his playing after being acquired at the trade deadline.

It’s looking like the Timberwolves traded away Thad Young for a week’s worth of attention and two sellouts of Target Center. That’s not the only thing that sold out in this situation.

Kevin Garnett Can Come Back, But Not Too Much Back

Somewhere in rural Renville County there is a door that just regained relevance. The reality the door shows hasn’t been a reality since July 31, 2007. 2,760 days that door has sat there. 66,240 hours it has dreamed about a reunion. 3,974,400 and change minutes later, that door has seen its wish come true.

The door is not covered in supermodels. I didn’t have a huge thing for supermodels when I was eight.

It’s not cartoons, TV shows, movies or musicians, but it was a Big Ticket.

My door is covered with Kevin Garnett posters and pennants and articles from SI for Kids. I kind of liked the guy. He was the best basketball player on my favorite team that always somehow made the playoffs and somehow (almost) always got knocked out in the first round.

8-year-old Collin freaked out today. Kevin Garnett returning to the Wolves is like a glorious return to childhood. My childhood could be seen in a 22-minute episode of Rocket Power if they could put Kevin Garnett in it.

Young Collin was enough behind the return of Kevin Garnett to make college student Collin think it was a good idea. As a whole from the basketball perspective, it’s stupid. Completely stupid. Thad Young is younger and KG is old. Simple as that.

But I could still overlook it. A couple month KG retirement party would be fun and I could understand the ticket-buying part that the Timberwolves want from it. Then it was reported that the Wolves want to sign Garnett to a two-year extension.

Now it’s just crazy stupid. There’s nostalgia and then there’s stupidity.

Garnett’s productivity has fallen greatly. He is nowhere near the double-double machine he was with the Wolves once upon a time. He now averages six points and six rebounds a game.

Sign me up for the retirement party. I’m cool with that, I can handle seeing the KG I’m not used to for a couple months. Don’t make me see it for two years. That would feel like 2,760 days.

Time For The WNBA To Step Their Game Up and Pay

Minnesota has a WNBA dynasty and we still don’t care. The thing is that Minnesota might be the best WNBA market in the league and the general public still doesn’t give a rip about the Minnesota Lynx or the league. The league was dealt a blow on Tuesday that might change the game.

The league lost one of its best players. Not because she retired or she’s pregnant or she’s injured. Nope, she’s getting paid not to play in the WNBA.

Diana Taurasi is sitting out the next WNBA season via the request of her overseas team UMMC Ekaterinburg. It’s not even exactly a request; they are paying her to sit out the season. Not just a couple thousand, no they are paying her entire WNBA salary and then some to sit out.

Taurasi makes a little under the league maximum of $107,000 in the WNBA. In Russia, during the WNBA offseason, she gets paid $1.5 million a season. The WNBA has been her hobby.

It is for a lot of players in the WNBA. They get paid millions during the offseason while being paid chump change for professional athletes in America.

The sad part is that you can’t even blame Taurasi for doing this. She is playing year-round right now, why not take the time off to finally recover and get paid more for doing it then actually playing. Sure basketball is her passion, but her passion is paying her more away from America.

15 times more.

This is a problem for the WNBA. There’s no reason other players won’t do the same exact thing. One of the biggest names in the game just did it.

Start paying these women the amount they deserve. I know the WNBA isn’t very profitable, probably not even profitable at all, but it’s a shame that the home of basketball is losing out to other countries.

The WNBA should be the dream for every female basketball player. They shouldn’t have to go overseas for what they deserve. Show them the money.

About 15 times the money.