jeremyrandall / blog /

One of my favorite unique music sources is SomaFM (somafm.org), which describes itself as, “Listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative radio broadcasting from San Francisco.” It’s run by Rusty, a guy I worked with back in the “tech TV” days; they play about ten streaming electronic music stations, including three new offerings. I’m sure my attempts at description won’t do it justice, especially since I’m not really dialed in to all the different electronic music genres. I just know that I like more ambient, reflective, dark, middle-of-the-night-when-the-city-is-quiet types of selections. Whatever that means.

I’m currently listening to one of the new streams, called “Space Station Soma.”

My friend Ryan runs a show at 9pm on Monday nights via 90hz.org. 90hz is not on the air full time like SOMAFM; they offer scheduled programming run by, as far as I can tell, a volunteer crew.

Bay to Breakers is going on right now, streaming past my building. Earlier the “serious” runners came through; the crowds were light and it was still quiet. Now the throngs are strolling by, the crowds are cheering — it’s in full swing:

Work sent me to Minneapolis, Minnesota for a week. I found some cool parts of town, ate healthy food and walked quite a bit throughout the week, around the river and a couple of the many lakes. I’m not sure what I expected but I liked it more than I thought I would. “Nice” is the word that comes to mind. People were pleasant but not aggresively so.

I was invited to dinner by a co-worker who wanted to meet at the big “Mall of America” place. I drove around the perimeter about four times, marveling at the gigantic tackiness of it all. I finally mustered up my courage and walked in; I made it about 20 feet before deciding that a giant mall is, in fact, one of my worst nightmares, so I turned around and got the hell out of there. Shudder.

Progressive front yard:

A park along the river; one of the places I walked:

Rail line heading into the downtown area:

Details of one of the bridges that crosses the river: