Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and A Pick-Up Pinball Tournament

 Minneapolis, MN

Heron Art Selfie!  Fun Fact, you can buy this heron statue for $25,000.  I'm just gonna go find a cash machine.

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

Today we drove out to Carver County MN to visit The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.  We used our Arboretum Reciprocal Pass to get in.  It's an amazing place and we will come here more because on the way out we became members.  We paid a bit extra for the membership here rather than just renewing our reciprocal pass at Descanso Gardens, but it will be worth it.  There is so much to do here.

We saved a tree.

The cactus area did not succ-ulent.

What up party people that like Botanic Gardens?

What up party people that like Botanic Gardens?

There were many tiny frogs or toads that we didn't step on.

Donna spotted this fungus we have yet to identify.

It's pretty easy being green!

We stopped by the cafe and split a sandwich and a salad and then went back for chocolate cake.  On the way out we bought our membership and then got to see some awesome art.  Adam Turman is a local artist that focuses on nature with a pop culture reference hidden in his paintings.  They are awesome!  

Some of the references aren't so hidden.

Some take a moment to notice.

Pick-up Pinball

Later that day we walked over to LITT Pinball to play in their Pick-Up Pinball "Tournament".  It isn't an IFPA sanctioned tournament, but it was really fun. The format is sort of a Master and Apprentice thing.  I think they call it Teacher and Learner.  You tell them if you are a teacher or a learner and then you are paired with another person.  Donna and I signed up to be Learners.  We aren't as new as some, but we don't know all of the rules to all of the machines at LITT.  We all met at 6:30 and Donna and I were paired with 2 Teacher players.  It was a really beautiful day today so only 8 people showed up.  This meant that there were two teams of 4 players.  Each team would play 5 games.  As we played the teachers taught us the rules, and at the end of each game we would add up all of our scores to create 1 giant score per game.  The other team did the same and at the end of the 5 rounds, the team that won the most rounds was the winner.  We were told they give out prizes for the top 3 teams and there were only 2 teams so the possibility of a prize was looking good.

We got to learn Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean Limited Edition.  It's a rare machine.

It was a really fun casual format that, I am sure, creates new players in the community.  We ended up winning the tournament and we got much bigger prizes than we thought.  We both got $25 gift certificates to a Venn Brewing and $25 gift certificates to Bryant-Lake Bowl.  That's $100 in gift certificates for entering and winning a free tournament that helped us become better players!  AMAZING!

Keep an eye out for 2 up coming posts using our gift certificates!

That's it for today.  If you missed, Getting Settled Ain't Easy, check it out.

Getting Settled Ain't Easy

 Minneapolis, MN

On Saturday we visited The Farmer's Market and stopped by the beer garden at Unleashed Hounds and Hops

Marking Things Off The To Do List

On June 6th we rolled into Minneapolis with a giant list of things we needed to do to get settled.  It's been about a month and our list of things to do is getting shorter.  I don't know how people with jobs do it all.

Here is what we have accomplished so far;

- Rented a moving van and unloaded our storage unit and moved all of the stuff into our apartment

- Unpacked and set up our apartment to about 90% complete

- Registered our car in Minnesota and got our plates

- Went to the optometrist for a new prescription

- Signed up for MN Health Insurance and cancelled our WA Insurance

- Bought a Lazy-Boy Couch off Craigslist because our apartment is BIG

- Sold some stuff on Craigslist because we don't' need it.

- Set up our free Xfinity Cable TV

- Played in 7 pinball tournaments (yea this isn't necessary for some people)

- Donated a bunch of stuff we no longer need to Goodwill (yea they aren't the best charity but...)

- Changed our address 

- Fixed the air-conditioning in the van

Things we still need to do;

- Get our MN Driver's Licenses, I needed new glasses before tackling the eye test

- Get library cards

- Register to vote (you have to be a resident for 20 days)

- Get a Trailer Hitch (Why you ask?  You will find out soon!)

- Sign up for a local pinball league, it starts Tuesday

- Swap our Auto Insurance to MN

- Get our home telephone set up (just kidding, no one does that anymore)

- Finish setting up the guest room for a visitor coming early July

We opted for the specialty "Critical Habitat" plate because it has a loon on it!

We opted for this nice (after 2 hours of cleaning) couch off Craigslist.  It's in great shape and very comfortable.

Now we have enough seating to host guests which will happen once we are fully settled.

We still have some stuff to put on the walls once we have a place for everything

We have a place for half of our CDs and our Tiki Shelf is set up.  You can see we still have some stuff to sort through but we are mostly there.

Our kitchen comes with these cool 70s cupboards that we can use to showcase our barware.

And glassware collection.

All of our DVDs fit in the 2nd bedroom built in.

Our stuff to hang on the walls is still kind of thrown around but we will get those sorted soon.

We have also taken time to enjoy Minneapolis in the late spring and early summer.  It hasn't been all work work work.

We walked a mile to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market and it was AWESOME!

We didn't get anything from this vendor because they test their products on animals.

Green Onions!

Day drinking encouraged!

We had a good haul from the farmer's market

We also had our first Tornado Watch.  I am told this was early and they are usually in September.

So yea we have been busy, but it's been fun too.  Our calendar is chock full of events coming up like The Olympic Gymnastic Trials, Pride, and Promenade du Nord ,which is a street festival with food and other stuff on the mall that starts about a block away from us.

We are also right across the street from the convention center.

That's it for today.  If you missed, A Pinball Tournament With No Power, check it out.  

A Pinball Tournament With No Power?

Savage, MN

I got to play on stream.  You can see it here at about the 2h4m mark.

Pinball in Savage

Today I went to The Northstar Pinball Collective to play in a tournament.  The collective opened at 3pm and the tournament was scheduled to start at 5pm so I got there around 4 for some practice.  When I arrived there were people out front as well as on the patio.  I walked up and was quickly told the power was out.  Well darn!  You can't play pinball without power unless you have one of these and they didn't have one.  I hung out with the crowd out front a bit and found out the utility company estimated the power would be back on at 5:30 and that the tournament was still on so I went in and paid my entrance.  We all hung out talking and at 5:08 the porch lights came on and everyone cheered!  I headed in and got 2 and 1/3rd games in before the power went out again.  Bummer.  I headed back outside and hung out some more.  The weather was great and I got to meet some new people so that was cool.  Soon people started getting bored and started making up games to play.

Fire Hole

Someone brought 2 tubs of the small Fireball Cinnamon "Whiskies" and shortly after drinking a few, a tossing game they called Fire Hole broke out.  It's like Corn Hole but you throw the empty plastic bottles into the tub instead of bean bags into a hole in a board.

People chit chat outside waiting for the power to come on.

Fireball was passed out but luckily no one else passed out.

The Fire Hole Game got intense.

People that were eliminated moved on to competitive hula hooping.

The finals matched 3 competitors in a round of single elimination.  I didn't get a shot of the winner but there was much rejoicing.

Feeeeeeeeeel The Power!

At about 6:15 the power returned and we all piled in for some quick practice before the tournament started.  After a bit of practice someone turned off the lights and everyone panicked but it turns out they turned off the lights to get peoples attention for announcements in the other room.  I attended the announcements while others continued to play.  

The tournament was a 9 Strike Tournament with a 0, 1, 2, 3 format.  Zero strikes for first place and then each place behind first gets 1 more strike than the place above them.

It was Dan's Birthday Tournament so they put a bounty on him.  

If you knocked him out you got $40 bucks.  In addition to Dan, you also got money if you knocked out Dan or Dan or Dana or Dani (basically everyone playing with the name Dan or Dan in their name).  The rest of the tournament money went to 1st - 4th place. Dan ended up winning so he got first place and also got to keep his $40 Bounty.

The space is great.  It's a warehouse with tons of machines and another ton of machines being worked on / restored.  It's owned or co-owned by, Luke Nahorniak, a top player who wasn't there because he was off in Edmonton winning 2 major tournaments.

Machines that are work in progress.  Me too machines, me too.

The machines were in great working condition.

I even got to play 5 or 6 machines I had never played before.

Also, tacos were provided!  It was a great spread.

I'm good at pinball, well at least getting the ball "stuck".

Here is a photo of the streaming rig.  They can move it around to different machines and I didn't know it at the time, but there was commentary going on in the other room.

Did I mention I am good at pinball?

I like to take a photo when I "roll" a machine.  this looks like a low score, and it might be, but it isn't as low as it looks.  You have to add 100K because the 100K light is lit.  You can see it in her crown.

Well now you can see it in her hat.

I ended up tied for 25th out of 50 players which is right about where I want for now.

I had some really good games and I had some really bad games.  I competed on a few machines I had never played before so next time things will go better, possibly.  I also learned that I don't need to worry about if I am playing "correctly", just go for a winning score.  A good example of this was I was playing Road Kings, a game I had not played up until today.  I played 1 game in practice and got 366,270 points.  When it came time for the tournament I watched a good player and tried to mimic what they were doing so I would be "Playing Right".  I ended up with 111,290 which was good for 3rd place.  If I had just done what I did during practice I would have gotten 2nd place.  Oh well,  Lessons learned.

Here are the raw numbers for the evening.

There were opportunities to do better but I still feel good about where I placed.  It's my hope to improve as I get to know the machines in the area but also to just have fun playing and enjoy meeting new people.  Round 5, the streamed round, was bitter sweet.  I had to come in 2nd or 1st to survive and we were all on the brink of being eliminated.  I ended up 2nd and got 1 strike which brought me to 8 in total.  That round ended the evening of competitive play for 3rd and 4th place but they both stuck around an played more pinball. 

We are really enjoying Minneapolis.  We were looking forward to it, but Donna and I keep saying stuff like, "this is way better than we expected".  It's a great place and you should visit us.  I am really enjoying getting integrated into a great community of people and being surrounded by fantastic pinball machines.  I am looking forward to exploring the food culture here too, and when I do I will write about it here.  If you want a jump start on the food culture thing you can watch this.

That's it for today.  If you missed, Let's Go Lynx, check it out.  We went to an awesome WNBA game!