adam.gurno's blog

Citizen!  Our struggle to overcome the winter season has been another success!  Again, we stand on the precipice of another beautiful spring in which to be productive!  Accordingly, it is your duty to report treasonous potholes to the glorious city so that they may be repaired!  Failure to report potholes leads to discord!  Click here to submit pothole reports to the authorities!  Be diligent in your reporting!  The return to general economic prosperity is around the corner if we take good care of our vehicles!

Live, from high above Bridge Square, it's the Blizzard of 2009!

Live video chat by Ustream

Tim Freeland and I rigged up a live video stream from my window overlooking Bridge Square and thought that broadcasting the incoming blizzard would be a good way to kick it off.  Watch live as the town is buried under 10-15 inches of the white stuff.

Okay, just having a little fun here.  I was walking into city hall this morning when I noticed that the signs on the east side are missing a little... something.

Northfield's new "Cat Park" on the corner of Jefferson Rd, Jefferson Lane, and Jefferson Court, is not doing as well as city officials had hoped.  "The city paid thousands to open this up.", said one city official who did not want to be named, "I mean, I'm for equality and all but the lawsuits are starting to pile up."

Indeed, it was hard to hear the official at all over the howling and hissing noises coming from the park.  Visitors huddled in the far corner, waving sticks to try and keep the cats at bay. 

Tallest building overlooks town; "It watches me", complains resident.

St. Olaf's new installation of a ... thing ... on top of Larson residence hall continues to disturb and frighten local residents. Installed two weeks ago, the "eye" (as it has come to be known) gyrates 24 hours a day, spinning around to seemingly 'stare' at townspeople as they go about their day.

"I don't like it," says April Sloof. "Whenever I take out the garbage, it looks at me. I know that sounds dumb, but it does. Most of the time it just watches the cars go by on Highway 19, but if you go walking around it'll turn and look at you."

Tim Freeland of KYMN Radio was at the boys basketball game last night vs. Hutch.  It was down to the last ten seconds, Northfield had the ball and...

Click here to see what happens!

Miriam Mueller and Doug Bratland have sent in fantastic sets of pictures from last Sunday's Midsommar Celebration in Way Park.

• Click here to see Miriam's gallery or slideshow
• Click here for Doug's photos or slideshow

Remember: Northfield.org is Citizen Journalism - if you photograph it, we'll publish it!  Send your pictures to pictures@northfield.org and we'll add them to our community galleries, now over 9,500 photos strong!

(Submitted by Patty Ciernia)

On Friday, May 9th beginning at 9:00am till 2:00pm, over 300 Northfield 6th graders celebrated Minnesota's 150 years of statehood with a project called "All Things Minnesota". These enthusiastic 6th graders painted over 100 windows at their school, with themes such as the Mighty Mississippi, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the Fires of 1918 and even our state flower and butterfly to name just a few.

It was an undertaking of enormous proportion, but also of enormous significance as we celebrate this important milestone in our state's history.

• Click here to see the gallery
• Click here to see the slideshow 

We've added Sweet Lou's Waffle Bar to the list of places that offer free Wifi access to its customers. 

If we've missed any, please let us know and we'll fix it ASAP.  Or, if you know of another list that would be valuable for Northfielders tell us that as well.

Submitted by Suzie Nakasian

(Photos taken by Pat O'Loughlin at the Northfield Earth Day Contra Dance last Saturday, April 26.)

• Click here to see the gallery
• Click here to see the slideshow

The dance was generously underwitten by Carleton's SOPE (Students Organized for the Protection of the Environment) in collaboration with the St. Olaf Environmental Coalition and the Northfield Community Contra Dance Association. The dance was held in Carleton's "Great Space", Sayles Hill Campus Center, and was attended by about 180 people - they were moving - I couldn't count. The room was packed. Music was provided by Contratopia and the dance was led by dance "caller" Robin Nelson of Minneapolis.

A good time was had by all...including the band, as evidenced in the attached photos.

Note: the next opportunity to contra dance in Northfield will be the June Moon Community Dance, part of the NDDC's upcoming Taste of Northfield Celebration on Bridge Square on June 19. The June Moon Dance will proudly feature Northfield's Over and Back Band and include swing dancing, waltzes and contra dances led by dance "caller" Beau Farmer.

From the Strib:

For at least a day, Faribault, Minn., convenience store clerks Jared Gustafson and Kim Bourn were among an elite handful of Rice County residents.

When it came to who might have won this weekend's $180.1 million Powerball jackpot ticket, sold somewhere in the southeastern Minnesota county, they were considered in the know by curious customers and reporters.

Okay, fess up. Did you win $180 million dollars this weekend? I was in the Kwik Trip tonight and they were claiming that they had sold it...

We're running low on blinker fluid and the muffler bearings are shot (That's that grinding you've been hearing for the past week), so tonight we're going to take the site down for some tinkerin' and some hammerin' and some why-do-we-have-all-these-extra-screws and we-have-to-promise-never-to-mention-this-to-anyone.

If you need something to do, watching this news report on fainting goats always goes over well. :)

It another week in Northfield, here in the early parts of April. The sun is shining, grass is growing, kids are outside plaSorry, I thought I could cut and paste from last year. The weather has varied from lousy to horrible this week, with rain, freezing rain, slush, and snow falling from the sky. Someone told me that they saw the sun earlier this week, but I'm not sure I believe them. We may go straight from winter to June's summer this year, I think.

Enough with this moaning and groaning, on with TWINB!...

GOP <= 4AM; McCain = Ole+1; Hong on Pipa

Northfield is specifically included in the bill relaxing the closing time of bars for the GOP convention in September, so sayeth the Pioneer Press:

A proposal for bars to remain open until 4 a.m. around the time of the convention passed unanimously through the House Commerce and Labor Committee today.

The action follows the failure of two previous proposals — including one by Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, which was removed from a budget bill on Thursday.

MPR has the story of Andrew Foxwell, an Ole, who has decided to back McCain for President...

"I'm not going to assign any to medical marijuana and drug policy," Foxwell said as he went through the quiz again, recently. "Civil liberties and domestic security, I'll give a couple points to that."

Then you answer some questions about how you think those issues should be addressed.

"Privatizing social security through personal social security accounts? Yes. Great idea," Foxwell said. "Support or oppose an increase in troop levels in Iraq? I do strongly support that."