Jamie Thingelstad

Tomorrow is my birthday, or more appropriately, in about an hour it"ll be my birthday. I’m turning 34 this year and there will be grand festivities for sure. I’m taking the day off of work and spending it with my wonderful wife and daughter. I never made that much of birthdays until I met Tammy. She really considers it a big deal, and likes to go all out for the day. If it’s your birthday, it is your day without exception.

This birthday has me thinking of the concept of set points. Not familiar? A set point is just a position that objects or systems target. You can nudge it, and it will swing back and forth, but eventually it will return to it"s set point. Your thermostat in your house is always working to achieve a set point. I think, that in a unique way, people have an age set point.

You see, I"ve always felt older than I was, at least once I got to a “real” age (i.e., past being a teenager). Throughout my 20s I looked upon every birthday as a marker to get to where I felt I should be. I’ve never looked back, always eager to move forward. I think I’m slowly approaching my “set point”, somewhere in the late 30s. I’m just a little less eager to see the this birthday click by than the past. Perhaps we can start to slow down a bit now.

My wife says her “set point” was 27. If I surveyed my friends I’m sure I would get a variety of responses from people that are still waiting to get to theirs and those that past it a dozen years ago. It"s not bad to be past this, but I think it is a life marker of some sort. I suppose you could just jumble this rambling in wife my Fractional Life theory.

Perhaps it’s just my first birthday as a father, which in odd ways that I cannot describe, is different. Happy Birthday to Me!

We recently were notified by the Hopkins School Board that our school district finished the year in statutory operating debt. I’m not sure if it is as bad as the newsletter made it seem, but I felt compelled to send them a letter on the proposal.

Hopkins School Board,

Last week we received the 2006-07 Proposed Budget newsletter. I will keep my comments brief and to-the-point.

Your communication portrayed an environment without adequate financial controls, and a lack of transparency and accountability. I appreciate the complexity of funding for a school makes this a complicated task. However, as a taxpayer, I think that I can appropriately expect that our dollars are being used knowingly.

I encourage you to remedy these problems and make sure that the appropriate controls exist. However, I’m concerned by a budget proposal that shows significant cuts in teachers, programs and other activities for students, and increased investment in information systems, audit and other administrative tasks. Let us not forget the critical role and mission that our schools provide to our children and our community!

As the father of a young daughter, and hoping for more in the future, the quality of public education in my community is of critical concern. I live where I live in part because of the quality of the schools, and the national renown that the Hopkins School District has maintained. I finished your newsletter concerned that the quality of education was being lessened in a meaningful way.

I realize that it’s not “something for nothing”, but please do everything in your power to make sure that our schools do not sacrifice the quality of education provided.

It stuns me that funding education properly, and fully, is a controversial topic. It is the single most important thing that we can do for our country, society and the well-being of our children.

We stopped by two new restaurants yesterday and were happy with both. We had lunch at Salut in Minneapolis, at the 50th and France area. Salut is a fairly new French bistro. Don’t let the French part scare you off – they have an extremely approachable menu. It’s owned by the same people that own Manny’s (my favorite steakhouse!), Chino Lationa, Good Earth, etc. so you can rest assured that it’s going to be at least passable.

We entered the restaurant and I was shocked by it’s size. Much bigger inside than I expected from the outside. The menu was very good. Tammy and I had a glass of the Riesling. Wine at lunch? Sure, we’re on vacation! It was great. I had the steak frites for my lunch and Tammy had the steak sandwich. My tenderloin was amazing, and the frites were equally impressive. Highly recommend this place.

We then had dinner with our friends Jim and Suzie at Ravello. We ended up here because of a recommendation from a friend at the office, and really liked it. It’s in Long Lake so a bit of a drive unless you live in the western suburbs. They have a nice wine menu, and the lamb shank was delicious.

Yesterday we had Brian Broughten, the founder and owner of Advanced Aquarium to our house to get started on a bid to build a custom aquarium. He was here for about 90 minutes of good geek fun regarding aquarium stuff. Those that have known me for a long time know that I had a saltwater tank for the first half of the 1990s. In fact, my “Early Days” site still has the web page about it. I really like aquariums but I stopped for two reasons. First, I was a (relatively) poor student and couldn’t afford to do it right. I never had good lighting, and everything was DIY. Nothing against DIY, but that also meant somewhat crappy solutions for many things. The second issue was that I got sick of lugging buckets of water all the time. Now that we live in a house, I could have it plumbed straight in and not have to worry about pals and hoses.

The funny thing about the visit from Advanced Aquarium was that I used to shop at Brian’s store all the time. Broughten used to run a store out of his basement. My friend Mike and I would make somewhat regular trips there for stuff, but mostly to pick Brian’s brain and admire new fish and other creatures. When he came over I confirmed that that was in fact the same guy, and he actually vaguely remembered me as well.

Anyway, in a couple of weeks I’ll get a quote for the tank we worked out. I started getting so excited just talking about it. It would be 8 feet long, 2 feet deep and 30 inches tall – a whopping 300 gallons! All filtration and reserve water systems would be in the utility room. Out of sight, and sound. It would have dual pumps moving 3,000 gallons per hour through the reef. And it would have those magnificent metal halide lights that I could never afford before.

I’m trying not to get too excited, but I’m eagerly awaiting the quote.

My friend Chris, who is constantly finding new things to get into and get everyone he knows excited in, recently decided to turn his OCD towards RC helicopters.

In recent years helicopters have gotten much more approachable. Battery technology has evolved and you can now get a simple, ready-to-fly electric helicopter for a reasonable price. I picked up a E-Sky Lama 2 just like his from eBay a couple of weeks ago and have been having a blast!

First off, this helicopter is a toy more than a true RC helicopter. It’s small, about a foot long, and isn’t strong enough to fly outside unless it’s absolutely still. It is best suited for a large open-area in your house. It also can only carry it’s own weight. The first question most people have asked is “Can you strap a camera on it?” It’s surprising to me how many people ask this. Secondly, no, you need a bigger bird to do that with. (Chris just ordered a T-Rex, which can carry cargo and so much more. We’ll see how long I can hold out before upgrading.)

Even though it is a toy, it is a tremendous amount of fun after you learn to fly it. It took me about three 10 minute sessions before I could really hover with stability and not run into a variety of stuff. Now, after a few more sessions I have good control and am starting to make some maneuvers. My hope is to get to the point where I can race my father-in-law (he got one of these for Christmas from yours truly).

I’ve had fun this week getting caught up on some hobbies, restarting others, and considering picking up some more. I revisited my telescope for the first time in a while this week. I’ve been wanting an equatorial wedge, so I got that and played around with the whole rig some more. The wedge will allow me to get into astrophotography. While I still don’t feel terribly comfortable with my scope (I always feel like I’m going to break something), I’m much more comfortable than I was before. I took it outside last night and played around with the fairly clear, but incredibly light polluted, sky from our driveway.

I’ve also gotten a little fascinated with binoculars. Canon makes these amazing image stabilized binocs that would be great for nights out with the telescope (particularly if someone comes along) and for checking out birds. I admit that I’ve developed this weird birding hobby. I can’t wait for next summer with the new bird “sanctuary” we got setup this fall. It’s going to be crazy.

Then there is shortwave radio. This has interested me for years, but I’ve never taken the plunge. The place in town that sells my telescope stuff sells shortwave stuff (it’s actually more of a radio star, called Radio City after all). I was playing with this Yaesu VR-5000 radio there and thinking that would be a lot of fun to learn about as well. I could put a big antennae on the roof and tune into Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Add all this to photography, anything and everything computer related, digital video – oh yeah, and stuff like cycling and hiking. I need more time in the day.