Been a bit pre-occupied the past few days with my Final Four web site, but now that the bulk of what I need to do to get it up and running is over, I can concentrate here once again.
Contribution photo from swc....this pair of mallard ducks made their way into the front lawn of http://www.twincitiesdailyphoto.com/labels/swc.html during the spring of 2008.
I've been told the marquee theater sign has changed at the Mall Of America. This contribution photo from Dave R was sent to me last week. I'll certainly get out to the mall soon to see it. I've always enjoyed the various displays the theaters have outside their doors. Hopefully marquees will be one tradition in the United States that survives. It would be a shame to see them all disappear over time because they use evil light bulbs. I still have trouble coming to grips why an incandescent light bulb is bad because it uses more electricity, yet at the same time, the average power supply in a computer today is rated at 400 Watts. 2012 is when we start saying goodbye to the 100 Watt incandescent light bulb and completely phased out by 2014 with the 40 Watt. We are asked to put CFL's in the sockets instead, but my concern is the small amount of mercury in them.
This is a contribution photo by Eric of the Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis. The Foshay Tower was built in 1929, modeled after the Washington Monument and stands 447 feet tall, plus an antenna that extends the structure to 607 feet total. It has been credited as the first skyscraper west of the Mississippi. It remains the second tallest concrete skyscraper with the Empire State Building in New York as the tallest. 
My son walked into the house and started yelling for me, "Dad Dad" he said, "You should grab your camera because there is a cool looking cloud to take a photo of". Hearing him say that gave me a surprised and curious look to my face. I certainly had to take a look at what he was talking about. So I grabbed the camera and we headed out side. He walked over to the our drive way and sure enough, the view in today's photo was the photo opportunity he was talking about. He then said, "I bet if you put this photo on your web site it will get lots of comments". I handed him the camera so he could take the photo for today. I must admit, the way the passing thunderstorm cloud looked as the sun was setting and framed between the neighborhood trees, it was a great vision at only the age of 9.
Has something ever caught your eye as you were driving and you had to turn around and go back and see it again? This contribution photo from swc was one of those instances. When I first saw the photos, I was a bit puzzled by it. Looking at what is printed on the side of the roll off box, it is nothing more than advertisement by the publicly funded bus system encouraging you to throw away your car and start using public transportation. Yep, that's my tax dollars paying for that odd, but very eye catching advertisement. I'm curious how much this cost for this setup and is this the only location that is advertising in this manner? Hummm....
At first glance, I didn't catch it, did you? Who is feeding whom in the photo? This outstanding contribution photo from swc capture a mother bird feeding her young. If you have not looked closely, baby birds open their mouths to be fed. The smaller of the two birds is feeding the larger of the two birds. The mother bird is the smaller of the pair. The two birds obviously are not the same and I would have to speculate that another bird laid it's eggs in this mothers nest perhaps?
Live, from St Paul, Xcel Energy smokestack is demolished as it is no longer needed. This contribution photo from Claydough shows the 570 foot, highbridge tower as it falls to the ground. Explosives were used for the initial blast, then gravity took care of the rest as the tower fell leaving a great big cloud of dust. Claydough took over 100 photos of the day's event. To see the rest of the photo set, you can visit his flicker website.