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I thought this was funny, and it was actually a slick interface. Check it out and make your own.

Sadly, I will be working most of the day today at Apple in the Mall of America. Leslie is with her family at her cabin in McGregor. This is my first time away from the largest of my family get-togethers. My uncle Tab is a minister in Duluth, and for the traditional holiday gatherings, he and his family are in Duluth. So the Fourth of July weekend is a time for everyone to migrate back home, to celebrate our nation’s independence, but most importantly, enjoy family.

This day is a chance for my extremely large, Iron Ranger, Italian extended family to enjoy one another’s company, catch up on the gossip of recent happenings, but most of all, to show other newcomers to our family what “family” really means. From Florida to Oregon, Wisconsin to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, my family has trekked back to Eveleth to watch the annual Eveleth Fourth of July parade since I can remember. We stake out that certain street corner on Grant Avenue in front of the bank, and plop down our folding chairs, park the strollers, and get ready for one of the best parades I’ve ever known.

My favorite of any summer activity (yes, even more than my recent disc golf hobby) is the annual bocce ball tournament at Bootsie and Louie’s cabin on Saint Mary’s Lake. It’s the most official-yet-relaxed sporting event ever. Wimbledon and the like: take note. Yes, we pay a friendly entrance fee, but the money goes to the winning pair and the runner up pair. Ever since I was little, I wanted to win that tournament.

I’ve had several moments in the past few years where I was worried about making an appearance. I worked in the Boundary Waters at Charles L. Sommers – Northern Tier National High Adventure Base during the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school. Yet, I was able to make the trip down, and I even brought a co-worker away from his family in Illinois. Four summers ago, Leslie and I made the trek from northwestern Wisconsin from Tomahawk Scout Reservation, our first summer “dating” (even though as co-workers we couldn’t really say that). In the summer of 2006, she and I drove up from the Twin Cities to play in the bocce tournament, Leslie a returning newcomer the family was expecting. Last summer, I was scheduled to work at 4pm back in Hibbing on the 4th, so although I made it to the parade, the Elk’s Club after-party, and a good portion of the bocce tournament, I had to jet early, and I even made it to the final pairing, albeit playing as a stand-in for my cousin Jillian’s boyfriend (who I heard never actually showed up).

I think that growing up makes a person want to move away from his hometown, but to an extent, there are always those memories you want to rekindle and re-live. No matter how far from the Iron Range I move, I promise my family that I will make it back for them- to be with them- every 4th of July from this day on.

I hope all of you have a great Fourth of July weekend with your family and friends. I never wanted to admit it, but sitting here alone at my desk in my apartment in Little Canada, absence does make the heart grow fonder of the ones you love.

Today, I will be in the company of co-workers who are also far from home. I will share with them my stories of family at the Fourth. Tonight, we shall create history of our own: Downtown Minneapolis on the Fourth of July. I will post pictures and videos as soon as possible.

I love you and miss you all! I will be calling to talk to you several times today. A call to everyone: don’t let Richie rig the tournament brackets and somehow manage to get to the finals AGAIN.

To all my beloved family and friends, this is an informational list of the sort of things that I would like for Christmas and for my birthday. I hope you find this useful.

Books by Bill Bryson

• A Short History of Nearly Everything
• Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States
• The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
• Notes from a Small Island

  Stuff from IKEA
  

• MIKAEL desk add-on unit (birch/white color scheme)

  Apparel from RCC Western
  

• Ariat® Men’s Heritage Western J-Toe (black deertan color, size 12D)
  

  Apparel from Banana Republic

• Cotton-blend fleece-lined hooded full-zip (treetrunk brown, size large, tall)
  
• Relaxed cotton-blend herringbone chino (Olive, size 34W, 32L)
  
• Pique double-stripe polo (Ship blue OR Black coffee, size L)
  
• Pima triple-striped polo (white/khaki OR Electric blue OR maroon OR Orange stripe, size L)
  
• Boot-cut whiskered indigo jean (size 34W, 32L)
  

  Apparel from Gap
  

• Cotton/wool striped crewneck sweater (blue OR red OR orange OR green OR yellow, size L)
  
• Lightweight striped thermal T (green heather OR black, size L)
  
• Waffle hoodie (bitter chocolate OR mistle toe OR silver OR blue jewel, size L)
• Lonny stripe polo (majestic blue OR cinnabar red OR midnight blue OR greenery, size L)
  
• Classic pique polo (expedition gray OR mahogany OR true navy, size L)
  
• Madras plaid cotton/linen shirt (size L)
  
• Fitted Lowland plaid shirt (size L)
  

  Musical instruments
  

• Yamaha CG101A Classical Acoustic Guitar (classical acoustic -> wider neck)

So, since people are getting frustrated with my shared news posts clogging their “mini-stalk” feed on Facebook, I thought I might actually use their anger to shift my posting, and post all my news on my blog. So, for those that actually got something from my news, I hope you are here checking out my blog.

Today’s news (the content I would have shared on Facebook):

Speak up, sir…You need the extra small condoms?
“Condoms designed to meet international size specifications are too big for many Indian men as their penises fall short of what manufacturers had anticipated, an Indian study has found.” So, this explains why Durex condoms are the source of anger of many college men (and women), especially here at the University of Minnesota.

Should Illegal Workers Be Unionized?
A walkout of meatpacking workers in North Carolina could provide another opening for unions seeking to organize immigrant workers

In Munich, Provocation in a Symbol of Foreign Faith
“Helga Schandl says she has nothing against Muslims. For three decades, she worked in Munich’s wholesale food market, where many of her colleagues were immigrants from Turkey. “I have experienced integration firsthand,” she said.Yet Mrs. Schandl, a 67-year-old Bavarian, is leading a fierce campaign to halt plans to build a mosque in a working-class district here. “It is a provocation,” she said of the mosque, which would sit across a graceful square from her Roman Catholic church — its minarets an exotic counterpoint to the church’s neo-baroque steeples. “The mosque doesn’t have anything to do with religion,” she said. “It is a power play.””

Seriously. What is wrong with societies across the world? This stuff happened here in America during the Victorian Era when people who were second generation Americans tried to stifle the Eastern Europeans with their culture and religion, and the Irish with their social milieu and their style of Catholicism.

Patrick Reusse: Knight one way to inject energy back to Barn
Hiring Bobby Knight to coach the Gophers men’s basketball team would help steer the program back toward the big time.

CAIR to meet with airline over imams incident
I think this who issue is just the tip of the iceberg of Americans’ lack of religious tolerance and sensibility to others of difference. As my good friend Ohmar’s dad Matt told me while home for Thanksgiving Break, “[Americans are just now reacting to the seeds of fear that the Bush administration and the government has been planting over the course of the last five years since the events of September 11th.]” It’s really making me sick to be honest. I have spent nearly the last three years here at the University of Minnesota and I have studied Arabic for every semester that I have been here. I learned the culture of Arabs, and I can tell anyone who wants to listen, or will let me have the time to talk that I really respect the Arab (read: Arab as something apart from Islam) culture and all the people who are gracious enough to teach me about their traditions, share with me their follies, and simply, have dialogs about the Islamic world and the culture that is shifting out of the Middle East and into Europe, and now into North America.

Seminole Tribe to buy Hard Rock
That’s great. More control where it doesn’t need to be. Don’t get me wrong, I respect indigenous people and their cultures, but the commercialization that results from the subjugation of a native people is ridiculous.

Jaws Under Ice: Mysterious Arctic sharks found in Québec
“In the frigid, murky waters of the St. Lawrence River in Québec, UBC marine biologist and veterinarian Chris Harvey-Clark is painting a clearer picture of a mysterious predator that could be the longest-lived vertebrate on the planet.” What?! Why didn’t we know about this before? Be sure to note that it is a source of vitamin A–something that could kill humans if too much is ingested. Interesting. Those arctic animals and vitamin A. What is it?

Cruel and Unusual: 25 Years for Taking Own Pain Meds
Ironically, I found this on Digg, and I am an avid reader of the HuffPo, but it had to be good to be on Digg. How is this even possible? Oh, America’s legal system lacks realistic ethics.

Cool, Surprising and just Plain Scary: 51 Futuristic Uses for RFID
This is ridiculous. But, in today’s world, people need to see the good (and the bad) of the next thing to be added to our passports.

Woman’s Best Friend, or Accessory?
Paris Hilton started one of the worst fashion trends ever with her stupid, over-dressed chihuahua Tinkerbell.

Ouch! My Bag Is Killing Me
Alas! People have some “I told you so” study that finds back pain can arise from those duffel bag sized things people call purses these days.

Off to College Alone, Shadowed by Mental Illness
“This is the fourth in a series of articles about the increasing number of children whose problems are diagnosed as serious mental disorders. The earlier articles examined one family’s experience, the uncertainty of diagnosis and the use of combinations of psychiatric drugs. Later articles look at the role of parents.” Interesting stuff. I am a big fan of NYT. People need to start reading news more often. Check out the previous three articles in this series.

Hormel Institute beefs up research
I love it. From the makers of Spam and lunch meat that kids across America crave– a new and improved ($20 million improved) institute for cancer research.

U commits $100,000 for Greek Village complex plan
“The coed housing would be located behind fraternities on University Avenue.” Lovely, and now, almost a year into R&D, the Daily decides to run this story. I hope the GV fails. It would be the U of M’s stranglehold on the Greek system, and it would restrict the system into nothing more than a dormitory.

‘Watch Your Car’ anti-theft program faces lack of funding
Underfunded and outdated, the decal program might cease service at the end of the year.

Gophers take on Michigan Tech in final series before a two-week hiatus
At least this Minnesota team has the best chance to actually prove itself in the post-season, unlike the Twins, the Vikes, the T-Wolves, and any other sport with the name “Minnesota” attached to it.

The red that isn’t very festive
“This holiday season, students should use credit responsibly, or just avoid it. ” I couldn’t agree more. I need to take this advice to heart. Credit cards suck, but hey, people fall onto financial hard times, and they are a way to avoid the inevitable call to mom and dad for a transfer of funds to the good old banking account for groceries.

The truth about ethanol
“Corn isn’t the best when it comes to making ethanol, despite what publicity may say.” I am not going to buy this garbage until it gets the same miles per gallon as petroleum-based gasoline. I don’t care how I sound when I say that. This junk sounds like it saves money, but you end up buying twice as much because the fuel efficiency sucks. And at $1.80 a gallon average for E-85 and $2.20 average for gasoline, I am going to stick with gas.

Re-establishing human kindness
“What a bizarre world we live in where we judge other humans who are surviving by collecting the scraps.” I agree. Poverty is something that people need to realize those who are affected by it don’t choose. Somewhere along the road of life, they got structurally forced out of a life of comfort.

McDonald’s stock hits seven-year high on strong sales
Good thing I bought some McD’s stock back in senior year of high school for the stock portfolio for Wolla’s econ class. Had I actually bought the $5000 in stock that I did then, my five stocks would have earned me $12,000 to date. Ouch.

Ebola Epidemic Wiping Out Gorilla Populations
“Thousands of gorillas in the Republic of Congo fall victim to the nastiest strain of the hemorrhagic virus.”

Uganda bans ‘pornographic’ papers
“Ugandan newspapers containing sexually erotic photographs or cartoons have been banned from general sale.” Good for Uganda. Too bad 47 percent of the traffic on the internet is pornographic in content. Good luck on that one Uganda.