Bring Your Shovel

Snow is piling up everywhere....

We've Got Snow, Yes We do, We've Got Snow, How Bout You?

So yeah, we also have some snow here in the Twin Cities. Nothing unusual like those states on the East Coast are getting right now. We're prepared for this type of weather. We have plows that move the snow off of the roads. We have trucks that spread salt on the roads to melt what the plows couldn't remove. We don't usually shut the state down during 97% of our snow storms. Blizzard conditions, yes....three day snow storms without blizzard conditions, not a chance!

That right, this current snowstorm started falling Sunday afternoon. It continued through the night, all day Monday and it's now Tuesday and yes, it is still snowing. When I made it to work Monday morning, I noticed the snow was piling up on the roof entrance to the back building. The height of snow surprised me to say the least. Later in the afternoon, I that height had grow to the top of the roof. I tried to capture a photo as you can see below, but it was snowing so hard at the time, the snow, sky, falling snow all blended in. Trust me, the snow has reached the top of the roof.

Round Corners

Now for something completely different. The top corner of the entrance to a very well known fast food joint. The contrasting colors caught my eye while I was waiting in line.

Semi Flames

Just one of the many strange things I see during my daily travels. A semi truck with flames painted over the tire rims.

Sponsored Bikers

Spotted this team bikers group last week while waiting for the stoplight to turn green. The bikers also had to wait their turn to cross Highway 13 in Burnsville.

Vacuum Sealed Freshness

Today is "play a joke on your co-worker" day. I bet you didn't know that day existed did you? Okay, it doesn't exisit, but that didn't stop a couple of internet-addicted, potential wedgie victims, from shrink wrapping an entire Dodge Neon. Yes, it was decided on Monday, one of their co-workers from the department they work in, would get their vehicle wrapped entirely in plastic. I didn't see the unwrapping, but my guess is, it took less time to unwrap, than it did to wrap the entire car. Though I would have liked to have seen more detail wrapping, like on the tires, mirror, antenna, wipers, etc. Something that would have made it more of a challenge during the unwrapping phase. It was all in good fun.

Skateville Roller Rink

I'm coming close to three years this coming march of posting photos to the Twin Cities Daily Photo and the biggest problem I've run into is looking through my stock of photos that I have taken. There always pops a question into my mind....have I posted this photo before or not? This is one of those photos that I swear I've posted before, but I cannot find a trace of it in the past few months of archives. It's really a strange problem to have. However, if I have not posted a photo about Skateville Family Rollerskating Center in Burnsville this will be a new location I've taken a photo of. It was in the fall of 2008 as there is grass, but now snow yet to fall and it was before I took my Seattle trip.

The Ends Of The Earth

This is one of those shots I should really flip over so the tree is upright and see if anyone figures out the photo is upside down. Since starting this photo blog, I never look at puddles the same. It's amazing what kind of photo one can get looking into a puddle about the size of a cowboy hat.

After The Storm....Part Two

Continuing on from yesterday's storm photos....as I mentioned, I was taking photos while everyone was cleaning up the fallen branches. There was a very large sewer back up around one of our loading dock areas. It made for a very easy photo opportunity and is easily my favorite photo from this set. Once the bulk of branches was cleared, since we had no power and were waiting for Xcel energy to get us back on the power grid, we had no choice but to kill time by throwing the football in our parking lot. One of my co-workers, during his college days, played for the University Of Minnesota. He easily could throw the football the furthest from everyone who participated.

According to the local weather, a small tornado had touched down in the area somewhere, but did only minor damage. 65 mile per hour winds were achieved during the touchdown. Considering how much tree damage I saw, we were luck to only have debris in our parking lot and one tree knocked down. It certainly could have been much worse.

  

One Wicked Stormy Afternoon

I'm speaking with a customer on the phone this afternoon, we were trying to rush out an urgent order for him. All was going good as could be, everything was on schedule. Just as he finished thanking my crew for their hard work, flexibility on adjusting our work load, and doing something that the commercial companies could never do....we lost power in our building due to a very powerful storm. The high winds, branches flying, trees falling over, water coming down in buckets. It was an amazing storm to watch. Heck, since we were without power and our customers order that we had worked so hard to finish was going no where, we all watched in awe as the storm rolled through

After 15 to 20 minutes of downpour, the rains stopped, we made our way outside to get an up close view of the damage. Naturally I grabbed my camera and started shooting photos. What I found interesting, while I was taking photos, the group of my co-workers started picking up the lot of the leaves and branches. No one asked them to do so, they just did it on their own. Including one brave soul who waded into the loading dock to remove debris from the sewer drain. I thought all of their efforts was rather awesome to see.

I will post another batch of photos tomorrow on the storm, including my favorite shot from this photo set.

   

10 Foot Parking Zone

While sitting at a stop light on my way to work, I pulled along side this bus. Having my camera by my side, I snapped a quick shot, the light turned green and continued on my journey.

Guess Who's Back? Back Again....

Winters back, winters back, winters back....weeeeeeee! There's another movie sequel in the Twin Cities titled "Winter Strikes Back". The winter season around here in the Twin Cities has officially been renamed "The winter that wouldn't go away".

Yes, that's right, it's nearly mid April, snow is falling once again. We've had just about everything imaginable today: wind, rain, hail, ice pellets, snow, sleet, thunder, lightning. There was times where you could see rain, ice, snow, sleet all falling at once...it's been an amazing day for weather. Now here is the best part about our weather, let me get the latest high temperature forecast for the next week:

Friday: 34
Saturday: 39
Sunday: 50
Monday: 65
Tuesday: 70
Wedensday: 68
Thursday: 72

Yes, from snow to 70 degrees in a matter of days. Ya gotta love this winter, eh Minnesotans?

My Daily Photo Favorites: Lake Forest Park, Washington | Greenville, South Carolina | Memphis, Tennessee | Villigen, Switzerland | Selma, North Carolina |

Frosting Covered Branches

One of the beauties of winter is the collection of snow on things, nature, bicycles, lawn chairs, anything out in the open is fair game for the snow falling. This tree is a very good example. One thing of note, the snow that has collected on the trees had fallen about 36 hours prior to taking this photo. Yeah, you ask? Well, the sun did come out, there was very little wind, to my surprise, there is this much snow still left on the branches. Typically if you don't get outdoors and take your photos shortly after the storm has passed, you've missed your opportunity.

My Daily Photo Favorites: Munich, Germany | Memphis, Tennessee | Saratoga Springs, New York | Minneapolis, Minnesota | Chicago, Illinois

The Shadow Knows

Taken as the sun was setting, the trees shadows caught my eye that were framed between the downspouts.

The Conveyor

This large pile of sand can be found in Burnsville. There is a gravel and stone quarry facility on the banks of the Mississippi River, about where 35W and Highway 13 cross each other. It's been there for as long as I can recall. This huge pile of sand and gravel is prevalent throughout the acreage of land.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
St Paul, Minnesota
St Louis, Missouri
Torino, Italy

Stars And Stripes In The Sky

Okay, make that one bright star and many strange striped clouds. So my wife calls me around 5:15 today and asks me if I had the camera with me, I did thankfully. She said I should grab the camera and take some photos of the clouds. She'd never seen anything like this before in her lifetime. What she described from her vantage point was there is the sun, low in the horizon with cloud rays coming from it [sort of like when you see sun rays through the clouds, but these were actually clouds] and the tube like clouds were from one part of the horizon to the other side.

She peaked my curiosity, I grabbed the camera and went outdoors to see the sky. I opened the door and there they were, just as she described. It was amazing seeing clouds like this. I can't explain how or why they were like this, I'd have to ask the local weather boy on this one. The photos don't do it justice as I couldn't capture the entire sky, but the cloud stripes were there from the western horizon all the way over to the eastern horizon, to the north and south as you can see in the smaller photos below.

  

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
St Kilda, Australia
London, England
Boston, Massachusetts

The New 2008 Volvo's Are Here!!

I'm not sure if these are brand new, but they looked freshly painted and displayed in a very long row next to the street I was stopped on. Yes, these are made by Volvo. Click the photo if you cannot see the Volvo name. It's there in the upper part of the windshield, click it, I'll wait.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Little Rock, Arkansas
Flagstaff, Arizona

He's Going The Distance

Can you see it? Way, way, way off in the distance....it is there....you may have to click the photo to make it larger, but it is there. See it now? Right there in the center? It's downtown Minneapolis and I'm headed north on Nicollet Avenue.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:

Something Is Out Of Place

Can you guess what is not quite right in the photo?

Here is your clue:

They were farm kids way down in Dixie
Met in high school in the sixties
Everyone knew it was love from the start
One July in the midnight hour
He climbed upon the water tower
Stood on the rail and painted a 10ft heart
In John Deere Green

On a hot summer night
He wrote Billy Bob loves Charlene
In letters 3 foot high
And the whole town said that he should have used red
But it looked good to Charlene
In John Deere Green

Have the song stuck in your head now?

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Ithaca, New York
Bangalore, India
Evry, France

Lots To See, But Nothing Interesting?

I'm not sure about this photo. I liked it when I took the shot, but as I'm about to post it, I see very little this evening. Granted, there is lots to see, but I can't honestly remember what I was taking a photo of at the time. I was trying to get a lot into the shot, perhaps that's what I got. It's the corner of Burnsville Parkway and Nicollet Avenue facing west.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Adelaide, Australia
Forks, Washington
Selma, North Carolina

Dog Catcher

In Burnsville, which is south of Minneapolis, I've pass these fire hydrants a couple times in the past, didn't think much of it. The other day, I noticed there were about twenty fire hydrants around the parking lot at various locations. I thought they had a lot of them because across the street is a high school. Everyone of them was painted like they are in the photo. Then I saw it, the sign that read the parking lot belong to veterinarian clinic. Ahhh, that made sense, they were put there for decoration. How silly of me to not realize where I was when I saw twenty fire hydrants painted like a dalmatian.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Stayton, Oregon
Montreal, Canada
Flagstaff, Arizona

A Guy Walks Into A Bowling Pin

Every time I pass this entrance to the Burnsville Bowl it makes me laugh. The odd thing about it, this is a recent paint job on the building and not something left over from the 70's. I'm speechless....

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Rouen, France
St Louis, Missouri
Guelph, Canada

I Don't Care Who You Are, That's Funny

Driving to work the other day, I pulled behind this truck in Burnsville. This is something I've never seen on the back of a work vehicle, Get-R-Done....It would make comedian, Larry The Cable Guy proud. It was worthy of a photo for the Twin Cities Daily Photo site....