Author Archives: cdub

Las Vegas / San Diego 2024

I would not have believed it could rain in Las Vegas for five days straight but that’s what happened this trip.

Grand plans to visit Vegas for three days, Palm Springs for three days, and, San Diego were disrupted by an atmospheric river. Palm Springs ended up getting crossed off the list entirely because we were stuck indoors due to the rain and Palm Springs doesn’t have much for indoor activities so we stayed in Las Vegas because there is so much to do.

I have to say, the nine days of rain were a blessing more than a curse. We found all sorts of indoor activities to do we wouldn’t have otherwise done. The pinball museum, all the Chinese new year decorations, night photography ij Vegas, restaurants, Hoover Dam tour, indoor swimming in San Diego, were an absolute blast.

We had the favorites too – Bronx Pizza, Valley of Fire, hiking (on the one nice day), the strip, and, of course, the wonderful 24hr restaurant, Blueberry Hill.

Enjoy the photos!

Florida – Winter 2023

The work travel gods smiled down on me and I ended up in Florida. 

Seeing the ocean, the sun, and, people smiling was crazy. It was great to get out of the gray scenery in Minnesota. 

I’m not a seafood consumer but since I was in Florida I decided to do as the Floridians do and consumed more miscellaneous sea creatures in two days than I have probably in the last two decades! 

China 2023 – Shanghai, Suzhou, Beijing

Vast changes in Chinese society occurred between December 2014 and December 2023. So much so I felt I was visiting an entirely different country because nearly none of my memories or recollections from 2014 matched my experiences in 2023. I had a very positive experience in China and would love to go back; this is basically the opposite of my feelings in 2014.

I spent time in Shanghai, Suzhou, and, Beijing for work, about a week total across all three. What I found was remarkable: what was once a very dirty, gross, crowded, loud, rude, and, overly difficult place to travel in 2014 became a clean, polite, appropriately-loud, and, mostly easy place to travel. Of all the big changes it was good to know KFC was just as delicious as before and I cherished the opportunity to eat KFC three times – which is about three more times than what I’ve had KFC in the USA for the last nine years.

The most remarkable differences between 2014 and 2023:

  • I didn’t see physical currency the entire time I was in China. Alipay and WeChat was used to pay for everything.
  • I saw blue sky in Shanghai for the first time! It was beautiful! The pollution smell was mostly the same but the amount of air pollution was profoundly less.
  • On-the-fly translation devices like Google and whatever is used in China makes communication a breeze.
  • There are fewer young people and ever fewer kids.
  • I saw more “American / white people-esque” activities like lot’s of Chinese people running for exercise outdoors.
  • China was just a gross place in 2014. Lots of bodily sounds like coughing, spitting, and, throat clearing and lots of very loud voices. That all seems to have gone away, at least in the urban areas.
  • Far fewer taxis, way more electric vehicles, zero honking. It looks like ride hailing like Uber is now the defacto way of getting around instead of taxis and there are a massive amount of electric vehicles on the road.
  • I did not encounter any other foreigner engineers the entire trip, and, there were few foreigners in general.
  • My cellphone worked the same in China as the USA, except Apple News, but facebook, snapchat, and, all the other sites worked just fine.

So I don’t know what happened in China to make China what it is in 2023. The shear scale of change is absolutely staggering to a point where it was a bit discombobulating. It greatly enjoyed my experiences this visit, certainly compared to the prior visits.

The entire journey actually started in November when I needed to get a passport and a Chinese visa. I didn’t have either and needed to expedite both – what an incredible learning experience. All I know is I am lucky to have a passport office in Minneapolis and that was the lynch pin of getting everything sorted so quickly.

The trip over went well. My plane left Minnesota at sunrise and I landed in Shanghai right around sunset. Overall, I had about 22hrs of sunlight since I was flying the same direction as the rotation of the earth. Pretty neat for winter in the northern hemisphere!

Traveling around China for work the first couple of days was shocking. No honking. None. Plus, everyone was going exactly the speed limit, no one too slow and no one too fast. I asked about this and I learned honking was banned and there are so many cameras around that speeders get caught immediately. What a huge difference from Minnesota where speed cameras are constitutionally banned!

At some point China stopped using physical currency – like no bills and no coins, everything through Alipay. I read as much before I left so I didn’t exchange any dollars into RMB. This is the very first time I’ve traveled to a country and NEVER used local currency. It was WILD! Using Alipay was surprisingly easy and easier than Applepay. Scanning QR codes to buy things turned out to be absolutely fabulous and is now my preferred way to spend money!

The air pollution was wayyyyy better in Shanghai, Suzhou, and Beijing. I actually saw blue sky multiple times in Shanghai! It was surprisingly beautiful and only added to Shanghai’s stunning urban scenery. The air still had a pollution smell but the air taste was gone entirely. I can distinctly remember tasting the air on the 200+ AQI days but I never experienced anything like that this time!

It was super easy to communicate in China – I could use google translate and they used whatever program they used. It was amazing to speak to my phone and it translated on the fly. Last time, it was a bit tougher to communicate which made traveling harder. No so much this time!

I saw more Chinese doing activities common in the USA – like going for a run to exercise. I also encountered a person who gets gout – a diet related aliment typically relegated to the western world. Last time in China I definitely felt “othered” but there were far more similarities than differences this time.

Another of the biggest shocks was the fact I didn’t encounter many foreigners and encountered zero foreign engineers. Even Nanjing Street and the Bund were overwhelmingly locals / Chinese. Even the stores in Nanjing Street turned over to appeal to the change in demographic – what once was a shopping district littered with shops selling memorabilia like chopsticks, tea sets, scarves, and, other wares have been replaced by high end clothing shops, jewelry shops, and, such. Afterall, what Chinese person needs chopsticks, tea sets, scarves, and other memorabilia since all that stuff is made in China and available across the country anyway?

Overall, 10/10. Great trip.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

Late Summer / Fall 2023

What a spectacular late summer and fall. We’ve had quite a bit of heat, some of our flowers started to bloom again, but the fall extended into November and it’s been pleasant.

This year, the wind did not rip off the fall leaves immediately too! I think, for the 20 years I’ve been in Minnesota, this is the best fall so far.

Probably the craziest thing was that we ended up going to the Minneapolis “River Rats” which is a very large group of individuals who do trick water skiing. It was wild to see. The River Rats have been doing their thing for a very long time and this was the first year we went to it – it was so fun to watch and everyone loved it.

Otherwise, we’re super appreciative of global climate change and the great weather we’ve been having here in Minnesota!

Driftless 2023

We were fortunate to have another great visit to the driftless. We spent our time in the LaCrosse area this year and were stunned by the shear number of amazing things to do in the area.

We were extremely lucky to stumble across some wonderful Amish stuff. We ended up buying 40lbs of Honeycrisp apples for $16 and purchased a huge amount of wonderful baked items like pumpkin pies and donuts. The Amish stole the show and we were super lucky.

Someone asked me, “what will you do with 40lbs of apples?”. It turns out five apple pies, two apple crisps, a large strudel, two apple breads, and a set of apple muffins only takes about 30lbs of apples. This has been a fun and delicious problem to solve!

The hiking was a lot of fun too. Wildcat Mountain State Park, Indian Mounds Effigy National Monument, and river hikes, and, other wonderful areas were just beautiful. The weather and great and there weren’t many people about – our time in nature was well spent and the hikes were a lot of fun for all three of us.

We look forward to going back next year. Next year we’ll be prepared with cooler and other items to make sure we can bring home all the wonderful Amish stuff – like meats, eggs, dairy, and, everything else :).

Oregon 2023

Our summer vacation was in Oregon and it was super fun to visit Bend, Cannon City, and, Portland again. We last visited the areas like a decade ago and it was neat to re-visit some of our favorites and explore new areas.

Bend was neat. This time we didn’t hike South Sister, thank goodness, but we did visit Sparks Lake and see a stellar sunrise. Hiking around the area and visiting Newberry Volcanic National Monument was super fun too.

Catching Cannon City a bit after sunrise was pretty special. Seeing the early morning clouds burn off and hanging out on the beach while the tourist world wakes up was fun. Since Oregon is two hours different than Minnesota we found ourselves waking up crazy early to go do things. We aren’t really ocean people so we didn’t really go into the water but playing AROUND the ocean, hiking around the ocean, and visiting the little tourist shops in the quaint tourist town turned out to be quite a bit of fun.

We had a blast in Portland. The food trucks were fabulous, the nearby hikes were accessible and easy for us to do as a family, the weather was great, Tilamook / Umpqua ice cream was STELLAR, and, I learned the incredible joy of shopping at Winco where everything is so cheap even Arizona Iced Tea is only $0.78. Eating the fresh fruit from the Hood River Fruit Loop tour and engorging ourselves on fresh Rainier Cherries, a cherry which is really difficult to get in Minnesota, was wonderful.

Honestly, what I was expecting in Portland was far different than what we experienced. It feels silly to write now but I had expected the city of Portland to be a lot more lawless and filled with homeless than what it actually was. It turned out to be exactly as I had remembered my prior visits to Portland. The issues plaguing many large cities due to COVID / COVID lockdowns, policing / policing response, and proliferation of drugs. News, “news”, and social media have been filled with content about how dangerous cities are and Portland was commonly referenced as one of the lawless places just like Minneapolis. It turns out it was all bullshit. Downtown Portland was fine for us. Sure, we weren’t out at night and we weren’t trying to involve ourselves in drug deals so maybe we just weren’t part of the lawlessness scene during this visit.

The weather was perfect for us. So perfect we were thinking about moving to the area. Then it rained for like three days straight so we looked up how much sunshine the area gets. Amazingly, it’s cloudier in Portland than it is in Minneapolis, and, I think it’s really cloudy in Minneapolis. Yikes.

That’s about it. Lots of photos of hiking. We had a wonderful time and look forward to going back! Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

Summer 2023

Such an odd summer for Minnesota. First we had rain. A lot of rain. Then flooding. Then it stopped raining entirely, drought set in, and smoke from Canada moved in. It’s been brutally hot. Summer has been… crap. Rapid City, where I grew up, was neon green over the 4th of July. I even saw a bunch of wild roses growing in the hills while hiking – something I’ve never seen.

Despite the crap and strange weather, we still have had a great bounty from our fruit trees and garden. It’s been fun to hike in the area, and, it’s been fun to visit new state parks in the area.

We’ve gone hiking in Wisconsin a bit more because we can go to Interstate Park so many times before it gets boring. We’re lucky the Driftless area extends as far north as it does because it makes for some neat hiking.

I guess we make do 🙂

Chris W.

Summer around the USA 2023

Quite the traipsing around the USA this summer – in a handful of weeks I visited rural Alabama, New York City, Dallas/Fort Worth, and, Houston.

I was shocked with how absolutely beautiful north east Alabama was – the waterfalls, hiking, and, other geographical features were so much fun to enjoy. I was in Alabama for work but there was some down time so we went hiking, I feel so fortunate because I don’t think I’ve ever heard ANYONE say “Alabama is mountainous and beautiful.” Once again, I enjoyed being the rural parts of the USA where things are made. It was fun to chit-chat with the locals, learn about the area, and enjoy their hometowns. I had no idea the Talladega Forest was so beautiful and mountainous. It was very special to have the chance to go through. The food was great, the hospitality was great, and, the scenery was great too! I actually want to go through north east Alabama again some day.

New York City, Dallas / Fort Worth, and Houston all happened in a whirlwind and was all work related. I’ve been to all these places in the past but this time was a bit different. The forest fire smoke plaguing the twin cities was in New York City too. It made for some rather beautiful sunsets and was a neat juxtaposition for the skyline. I spent quite a bit of time walking in NYC – I walked the Brooklyn Bridge, walked around Chinatown, and, even managed to walk into LaGuardia international airport. I think LaGuardia might be the only international airport I’ve ever visited where a person can walk into the airport. I thought my google maps directions were wrong but then I saw others walking into the airport and figured, “why not?”.

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge was a surreal experience. Last time I walked the bridge it was 2013 or so, and, my trip to NYC wasn’t work related so I had more time to goof around. Individuals taking selfies and generating other social media content on the bridge is extremely common now; so common it’s impossible to NOT be in someone’s photo / video / post. It was surprisingly difficult to walk across the bridge and get around everyone taking pictures and videos of themselves. Oh well. Chinatown was neat. I really wanted to get some real Chinese food and thought I picked an a good restaurant. Whatever I ordered ended up being unpalatable. Kind of surprising considering the ratings. Eating the delicious NYC pizza multiple times was absolutely fabulous – it was sooooo wonderful to eat actual, delicious, yummy, NYC pizza.

Texas was Texas and boy was Texas hot. Every time I walked outside it felt like I was getting hit in the face with hot oven air when checking cookies. It was uncomfortable. The BBQ was so fabulous and I finally visited a Bucee’s. I had no idea Bucee’s was more than a gas station, it’s like a destination. It’s possible to get just about anything in a Bucee’s, and, I found the holy grail in Bucee’s – they make their own banana pudding. HOLY SHITBALLS it was wonderful.

I ended up making a spontaneous trip to Houston because Delta Airlines is a terrible airline and cancelled my flight. It turns out the only real way for me to get back around the time I was supposed to get back to Minnesota from my work trip was by driving five hours from DFW to Houston. It sucks being locked in a Delta hub because this is about the 1,000th issue I’ve had with Delta, and, while I fly a lot with Delta, I don’t fly enough with Delta for Delta to care about me.

So that’s about it. The work trips were pretty great! It’s wonderful to shoehorn in some sightseeing when traveling for work, it makes it all worth it.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

Continued Travel to the Middle of Nowhere & Spring 2023!

So this single post is going to be split into two sections: I continue to get mailed to the middle of nowhere, and, spring is FINALLY here and it’s fabulous.

For whatever reason, I continue to get mailed to the middle of nowhere. I’ve had an opportunity to visit areas near Bay City, MI (for work), Black Hills (for fun), and, Ashboro, NC (for work) since my last update. These places are in the middle of nowhere and take a bit of effort to get to since major airports are near but not close. I always love going to new places for work and I am usually visiting a factory of some sort. I am always floored with the places I visit: the visit near Bay City brought me into a factory making extremely large and high precision machined components for pipelines and the visit to Ashboro brought me into a factory which is very important for the golf cart industry. Whenever I visit these places I always wonder “how the f— did this place get here and why is it still here?” I can generally figure out why the business started where it did but I am generally unable to figure out why the businesses stay in these rural areas.

What’s neat is I usually have a bit of downtime to explore the areas I visit. Since my last post I have had the opportunity to hike around the Appalachians in North Carolina and along the shore of the Bay of Saginaw – NOT Lake Huron as I found out for the locals. Each area has it’s own quirks and I feel lucky to visit each. For example:
– I had a chance to hike in the recently burned forests north of the northern Charlotte, NC, suburbs and it smelled delicious due to the burned hickory; it was wonderful.
– I learned there are a lot of creatures creating shells in Lake Huron (sorry locals) and I thought quite a bit about whether I’d ever eat freshwater shellfish creatures.
– All the smallish / ruralish areas I visit have similar themes where the locals seem to deeply value the current state of their community. The communities I visit don’t really have outsiders moving in and generally have a hard time keeping the youth since there are more and generally better opportunities in larger urban areas. Some of the folks I chat with still wonder if Minneapolis is on fire from the riots in 2020 and even more wonder how I can live in a large urban center. It’s fun to chat with these folks.

In general, each rural place I visit is a fabulous place to visit where the locals are warm and inviting. It’s always neat to visit customers and it’s especially great to visit places that are filled with kind individuals.

As far as spring in Minnesota: it’s about F*#$*) time. It took long enough for the nice weather to finally set in and the dumb weather to stop. Ever wonder what constitutes dumb weather? How about 90 degree weather when there is still 1-2ft of snow on the ground so all the snow melts and causes flooding along with a unseasonably dryspell which causes elevated fire risk. It’s absolutely dumb to have dealt with flooding at the same time as fire.

One of the photos shows an an incredible amount of water going over St. Anthony Falls – it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Last fall the water levels were so low the energy dissipaters were visible and only slightly moved the very low and gentle streams of water coming down the falls. Fall 2022 is not so similar to spring 2023.

Once again, spring 2023 didn’t disappoint with respect to my fellow Minnesotans. Just like every year, the scowels, frowns, negative nellies, and other downers disappear entirely once the weather improves. This year in particular has brought out an extra level of happiness probably because the early spring was actually late winter.

This spring I became really good at making cupcakes for the April birthday season – After 240 or so cupcakes I have become good at making whipped cream frosting cupcakes entirely from scratch.

Otherwise, that’s about it.

Enjoy the photos!

All four lower 48 time zones in a week / early Spring 2023

Quite a bit of travel lately. Ended up visiting all four of the lower 48 time zones within a week. Certainly didn’t plan it that way but it’s how it worked out. 

In the last month or so I’ve been back to where I grew up, back home, southern Indiana, and lastly Las Vegas to visit friends and hike. 

All the trips were great for very different reasons: 

– It was great to see family where I grew up, it was far too long since I last visited. 

– I visited southern Indiana for work. The furniture industry used to be huge and now it’s moderately big. The area used to be something. I feel fortunate my last jobs send / sent me to areas that used to be important for America. More on that later.

– It was wonderful to be home in Minnesota for a little bit. 

– Lastly, it was super cathartic visiting Vegas to hike, see friends, and, get out of the F$&&?! winter. 

The weeks / month-ish flew by. It seems we just arrived back home from Arizona and then I was traipsing and gallivanting around the country. 

I had a chance to visit Mount Rushmore. I was surprised to learn the monument was open so late. It was fun to see the lighting start, catch the end of the day, and, be one of the very very very few people at the monument. Despite growing up there, I never really spent time visiting the major attractions. It’s fun now that I’m a “visitor”. 

Visiting formerly great places in the US is a surreal experience. I’ve had a chance to visit quite a few formerly-great / formerly-important places for work and even lived in some. It’s amazing because the locals know their peak has passed and all that’s left is grinding through. The folks who live in the area never move in from the outside, they are people who grew up in the areas. The older folks can / will talk at length about the “before times” prior to outsourcing, prior to automation, and back when there was a lot more mastercraftmanship since everything was laborious and mechanical / electrical systems sucked and were unreliable. It’s a treat. Oddly, now these areas a past peak my work product is helping the places stay since the knowledge dump will never reverse.

Visiting Vegas is always fun. I don’t drink, gamble, do drugs, see shows, or really anything typically relegated to Vegas travelers. Hiking in Vegas is freaking awesome. Many stunning trails are nearby and few go to Vegas to hike so it’s easy to have the trail to oneself. Having friends who live in Vegas is a phenomenal bonus because of the great company and “locals secrets” I get to learn – like getting 100% authentic Szechuan Chinese food. Vegas is two hours behind and I’m a morning person so I woke up really really really early local time. Turns out, it’s a great time to walk the strip. It was fun to see the bellagio fountains being tested and seeing to bellagio botanical gardens being built. Stuff not seen in normal daytime.

All of this travel was not flawless. In fact, it was kind of a nightmare. I have flown a lot all over the place over the years and I have had brand new experiences – getting trapped in the airport unable to fly out for 24hrs, delta losing where I was going, and, having a flight attendant get accused of being intoxicated. Each one totally sucked for different reasons:

– Getting delayed due to weather has occurred numerous times but I’ve never been trappped. I ended up getting one of the last nearby hotels in Louisville once I figured out I wasn’t leaving. All around total shitshow. 

– At some point during the shitshow delta totally misplaced me and decided I was going to Atlanta. I don’t live in Atlanta. I didn’t want to go to Atlanta. I had to revert to using paper tickets and talking to delta people in person because all the other electronic systems failed me.

– Lastly, flying out of Vegas on delta a passenger accused a flight attendant of being intoxicated or something so the attendant had to get tested. This is apparently a really big deal – the FAA doesn’t take too kindly to intoxicated attendants and even accusations can cause employment issues for the accused. The attendant was not intoxicated so all we were was delayed while this was all sorted. The flight attendants / captain mentioned how big of a deal it was and “individuals should be careful before making accusations” over the PA. What a mess. 

All in all. I’m ready to be home for awhile and I’m certainly ready to be done with Delta.