What’s there to say about the fine state of Minnesota? Uh, well we’ll see if we can find anything worth saying. I flew in this morning to visit a friend, and – having never been here before – wanted to see the sites. Or is that sights… Either way, there were some things rhyming with “ites” that I had come to see. Let me back up a little though.

I’ll start with the plane flight. We were delayed in taking off by almost an hour. Sigh. Okay, I don’t mind sitting in the terminal. I started a paperback my friend Jim had given me. Called Jupiter. By Ben Bova. Have you read it? Well it may be the kind of book you only read in airport terminals, I’ll have to wait and see. Anyway, I had my iPod playing and was making eyes with a couple of honeys, so I wasn’t terribly upset. Fifty minutes late, we finally boreded. (Boarded. Yeah, I’m full of it today.)

The flight up to sunny Minneapolis was riddled with small talk from the boy behind me. He’s one of those thirteen-year-old pseudo intellectuals who was trying to impress his sister the whole way up there. “Oh cool, we’re pulling into gate echo one six.” “Oh hey mom, I saw a McDonalds!” “No, sis, I don’t know, but I can tell you it wasn’t the flaps; those are already down.” Off. I got a kick when she finally said, “Ooh, stop it, your breath stinks!” I almost turned around and smirked at her. I maintained.

Before we landed, we were delayed again by another twenty minutes. Captain McPilot came on saying we’d have to circle for a while because Air Force One was either taking off or landing, and they keep the airways clear while that happens. When we finally landed it was confirmed when the kid behind me said, “Look, there it is!” a little too excitedly. There, indeed, it was.

We went to lunch at a little place in Eden Prairie called Sammy’s Subs & Salads. Good God, you have to go eat at that place, if ever you make it out here. He served me a bowl of vegetable and beef soup with a foot-long three-meat sub and a bag of Frito’s and I – well, I’ll be back there tomorrow eating the same ticket. The people here are very friendly and tell bad jokes. But it’s got an air of downhome neighborly downhomeness. And another thing, there’s a lot of snow. I didn’t know there was this much snow in the world. Seems like there’s probably a shortage somewhere due to this over-abundance here in Minnesota. Even flying in there was nothing but whiteness.

Well I’m staying at the Hilton. I didn’t see Paris in the lobby when I was coming in, wave to her and then go over to her when she waved me over. I would have though, had I seen her. I bought a box of Samuel Adams beer, and we’re kicking it here in the hotel room watching bad movies and drinking cold ones.

There are several things I want to do tomorrow, one of them being to visit the local Guitar Center and see what they have to offer. Maybe admire their left-handed guitars and upside-down drums. I’m not sure there’s much else to do here, but I’ll definitely be having some more of that soup.

Celebrity Report:
George Bush’s Airplane