Jamie Thingelstad

For many years I’ve had the desire to get a sauna. Usually this has two peaks — one predictably in the winter when I think it would be so nice to have a good sweat, and the other time is during the Minnesota State Fair when we invariably end up looking at multiple sauna on display and even talking through the logistics with some of the builders. This year at the fair was no different and when we walked into the Dairy Building to see the Butter Heads and get our official American Dairy Association of Minnesota Ice Cream we happened upon NorthUp Sauna.

They had two saunas on display and they immediately caught my eye. They didn’t look like other saunas with their translucent walls. One was built on trailer wheels and mobile, the other was on a skid like an ice house. We went inside it and I found the design great, and those translucent walls meant that a lot of ambient light came in easily. My sauna desire was steadily climbing, and fast.

I put myself on the mailing list and grabbed the website address so I could check it out more, which I did.

When we returned to the fair for the third time we again saw the Butter Heads and this time on the way back we stopped and talked to Darin, the owner of Urban Wing, for a while and got a bunch of questions answered. The sauna desire was climbing even more. Uh oh. I scheduled a call with Darin for later in the week to learn more.

Long story short after a couple of calls and detailing the specific sauna configuration that I wanted for our cabin I took the leap and placed the order! The sauna will be delivered in November or December, with plenty of time to get ready for winter saunas. I’m super excited to take the leap.

Now I have to decide if I’m going to do the “sow-nah” or “sau-nah” pronunciation. Darin is a “sow-nah” guy. I may just go with the Old Norse of Baðhús.

I took the pontoon back to La Canne’s for winterization and storage. I got it out on May 10th this year for 127 days on the water. With the flooding this year we have done very little boating. I tried to avoid the rain but ended up getting pretty soaked on the ride in.

Tyler hit his savings milestone yesterday so today we went to Microcenter to get the GPU for his gaming rig. A short while later he was carrying out a PURE AMD Radeon™ RX 7800 XT 16GB eager to get it setup.

This is another one of those moments where I realize so much has changed in the last 20+ years since I built my own PCs. These graphics cards or more appropriately classified as a whole computer on a PCI-E card. Three fans, massive heatsink, and its own power connections.

He got it in mostly on his own and got the drivers installed. Minutes later he was getting high 200 frames per second on some test games, even hitting over 300 fps at some times. The quality of the graphics is amazing. 🤩

Sidewalk poetry found in Northfield in and around this mornings 5k.

We all completed the Defeat of Jesse James Days 5k Run/Walk and had a grand time. Tiffany and I walked the course in 57 minutes. Everyone else ran it and Tammy and Mazie put in better times than they expected! Tyler had some cramping that made him have to take some breaks.

Our neighborhood. 52nd Street, Lynnhurst.

In our neighborhood the Taschler’s host an annual Fry Party. What is that? They fire up multiple fryers and the guests bring fun things to fry. We brought Twinkies. Fried Dill Pickles were popular. I tried a Fried Peppermint Patty. It was a fun evening and Tyler and Mazie got to help the hosts!

See also 2012 Fry Party.

You would be hard set to find a better desert than Pizzeria Lola’s warm Chocolate Chip Cookies and Fresh S’more Cookies with delicious soft serve ice cream drizzled with olive oil.