Beauty And The Beast

I've seen this shot in the past by another local photographer and it's always stood out in my mind because of the contrasts between the two buildings. There I was a few weeks ago, in the exact spot for this shot, I had to have one that I could call my own. I left one clue in the photo for the other local daily photo bloggers to figure out where I am standing for this shot. I do wish I had taken this photo a little later in the spring when there would be leaves on the trees to add in more color.

Before I Leave The Green Stairs

The view from the top of the green stairs is quite a place to be. There is so much to see from this vantage point. The tower you see is the heart of the lower Westside neightborhood into the projects. I know this tower has a name, but I cannot recall it at the moment. I googled for the name, but was unable to find what it is called. The tower has been repainted, restored and looks so nice from what I remember growing up and seeing what it looked like.

In the distance and what you cannot see is the Mississippi River, it's there, obviously below the viewable site. The bluffs in the distance is St Paul's East Side neighborhood.

You're In The Jungle Baby

As I was walking down the green stairs that I've recently posted about, I passed this bit of graffiti. I smiled and felt at home. I grew up in this Westside neighborhood, whomever wrote this just wanted to show their westside pride. There even used to be a West Side Pride Day parade. Salute!

What The Hell Is That?

Yikes, you'll hurt your neck if you look up for a long time at this photo. This is me looking up from the very bottom of the green stairs from my April 22nd photo with all of the naked tree branches reaching out to touch the green stair frame. One thing I noticed about the stairs, the closer one gets to the bottom, the rustier the stairs become as the rain drops really start to work on the metal and old paint trying to cover it. I can tell you this, when the bottom of the stairs finally starts to give way from being so rusty, the tree branches should be long enough to grab and hold the stairs upright.

Build It And They Will Come

The Mississippi River shipping season is open to barge traffic now as of March 28. Almost a month later, the river is starting to warm a bit, but the small boat docks sit empty. Soon they will be filled with boats of all flavors and variety.

Shit On A Shingle

Gasp! There's a swear word in the title! You'll have to click on the photo to look closer if you don't understand today's curse word in my title and how it relates to todays photo. I've given the literal meaning to this phrase thanks to some local pigeons defecating on the Landmark Center roof tiles in downtown St Paul.

However, the meaning behind today's title stems from my father. Growing up with my folks, but mom would make this dinner. There was toasted bread and something like cream of mushroom soup and chopped beef. My dad would call it 'shit on a shingle' but there was a real name for this dish, I believe it was 'chipped beef on toast' perhaps. I know some of you know exactly what I'm talking about and some of you have a look of confusion.

I just celebrated one year with this photo blog, why not start the next year out with a little flare and personality? I'm not a real big fan of being politically correct so you'll get some oddities here on this daily photo site. If I made you smile today, you're welcome!

1 Year Anniversary For Twin Cities Daily Photo

Today is officially one full year of the Twin Cities Daily Photo. I've really enjoyed getting out and seeing the Twin Cities in a way that I wasn't seeing the Twin Cities.

I took this photo in the fall of 2006. It was during my son's football practice. It was their final day of football and they were playing a game of flag football. It his grade, the do not put the pads on and play a real game, that will be next fall. My son is actually not in this photo, but I liked the angle and the trees in the background.

It's A Long Way To The Top

Make that 189 stairs in all from the bottom to the top of the green stairs. When I was here taking this photo, there was someone walking up and down the stairs for exercise. I'm not sure how many times up and down she walked, but that is an interesting way to avoid purchasing expensive gym equipment to get the same type of work out. The stairs are located on the bluff in the Westside neighborhood, in St Paul.

Click the photo to get rid of the crappy shrunken graphics.

LOTR: The Two Towers

Sorry to say, this is not the two towers from the Lord Of The Rings series. Instead, these two towers can be found on Harriot Island across the Mississippi River from downtown St Paul. This is a new addition to the park where summer concerts are held.

Read To The End

Another photo of the James J Hill public library in downtown St Paul. I've always liked the detail the building has, the double stairwell entrance and the overall look of the building.

4 Wheel Driving

You know that TV commercial where a 4x4 truck drives over a mound of dirt to get out of their driveway. Well, this parking lot has a unique feature. In order to park in this lot, you must drive over that mound of rock and dirt right in the middle of the photo. Take a closer look and you'll see the entrance. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. The owner of this lot apparently hates small cars and is discriminating at will. The parking lot is located on the very edge of downtown St Paul, so it's very affordable. Just bring your truck if you dare park here.

Wild Win Game 4

Photo I took this evening before NHL Western Conference Quarterfinal playoff Game 4 started between the Minnesota Wild and the Anaheim Ducks. The Wild were victorious tonight at last. There was a towel placed on each seat back for every fan in attendance at the game. We arrived fairly early and I was able to get this shot before the people started filling the seats.

Keeps You Warm In The Winter

The skyway system in downtown St Paul is a savior in the harsh, cold winters we see around here. I believe when I took this photo I was waiting on the light to turn green crossing 5th street.

Did you get your taxes in yet?

As Ugly As This Looks

You'll be hard pressed to find any vulgarity spray painted on this overpass in Hastings. There are a couple if you look long enough. We took a hike along the Vermillion Falls over the weekend. One of the trails led us under a bridge with all of this graffiti and about seven rusty bikes. It's obviously where you dump a stolen bike when your finished riding it.

NOTE: I'm still having issues uploading to my hosting server that I've been troubleshooting all weekend long. It is currently taking me hours to upload one simple photo plus a daily text update. Hopefully I'll get this straightened out soon.

smoke factory

I was walking by the cloud factory that Carol of St Paul Daily Photo had posted a photo of back in December 2006. I only have distance shots of the area and since I was so close for a change, I needed to take a photo of it. It was a warm day at the time of the photo taking and there was no smoke pouring out of it.

Look, A Moose

I have seen a moose in person before when I was in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Norther Minnesota, but this is as close as you'll be when you'll come to seeing a moose in the Twin Cities area. This moose can be found on Highway 13 and 35E in Mendota Heights.

FYI: I've had two nights of issues in a row while trying to post. Things were not cooperating for various reasons.

Playoff Hockey Time

I am a big fan of the Minnesota Wild. Tonight is their first game of the playoff season and I wanted to post a photo during the intermission of one of the games I attended this season. The Zamboni had just cleared the ice, the lights were dimmed and the Wild logos were dancing on ice.

New Photo Hits This Blog

Hurricane on the Bayou is currently playing at the Science Museum of Minnesota. I have not seen it yet, but my folks really enjoyed the show and recommend it. Hopefully I will make the quest to the show soon. Just had a busy schedule lately.

Performing Arts

This is the Ordway Theater in downtown St Paul, adjacent to the River Center exit in yesterday's photo. If you look close enough, you can see the red squares on the entrance to the River Center.

I went to the Ordway website to get additional information about the center as I've never been inside to see any performances. Or at least not yet in my life. But I had to stop when I saw the link on the Ordway website that says: Were On MySpace! Come visit Ordway Center on MySpace!

Are you freakin' kidding me!?!? The Ordway, Performing Center For the Arts has it's own MySpace page. Does anyone else, besides me, find your top performing arts center in town boasting that they have a MySpace page a bid puzzling? A cry for help perhaps?

Do You Believe In Miracles

For those of you who recall the 1980's chant by Al Michaels as Herb Brooks and the Gold medal winning US Hockey team skated to victory. Brooks was the coach of the team. I was ten years old, going on eleven and I recall my dad being very excited about the hockey game. It was very early in the morning and he said something along the lines of what a historic game that I witnessed. Being ten, I didn't really understand the significants of it at the time. But I can honestly say, I watched the hockey team win the gold medal. I'm not sure how much of it I watched, but I did watch some of it.

If you have seen the movie 'Miracle' based on the 1980 team, they had a lot of actual footage in the movie. When I saw the movie for the first time, it was deja vu seeing and listening to the games as they were played out. What stood out the most was seeing the Russian's kneeling on one knee just looking at the US team celebrate and I can still hear my dad mentioning to me about the look on their faces.

This Herb Brooks statue is outside of the River Center, it would be the east exit as you head towards Rice Park.

Wealth Of Knowledge Inside

This is the James J. Hill Library in St Paul, located in downtown. It's been a long time since I've been inside this building. Last November I posted a distance shot of this very library when I was down near the Mississippi River. Today's photo I was within spitting distance of the building. The library was closed at the time of the photo. I had my two kids with me at the time and they are looking forward to visiting the library in the future.

We Had A Warm One

About two weeks ago, the temperatures around here were in the 70's F. Today our high temps were forcasted for a high of 28 F degrees. It's very common to find people wearing sweatshirts and jackets with shorts.

These folks in Rice Park in St Paul were laugh, talking and listening to a gentleman play the harmonica. Though just as I took this photo, he stopped playing and you can no longer see him playing. Oh well, I just missed it.

Local Boy Moves To Hollywood

Author, F. Scott Fitzgerald has a statue located in Rice Park of downtown St Paul. This statue was featured previously on Kate's Visual St Paul blog in June 2006. The odd thing was, I was looking at the statue and didn't recall seeing it there when I was growing up, but it looked familiar. It wasn't until reading yesterday's comments and reading the provided link from Kate that I realized where I had seen the statue before that day. This statue is located about 25 feet from yesterday's Peppermint Patty statue.

Peppermint Bon Bon

Found this bronzed statue of, I believe it's Peppermint Patty. In St Paul they've created hundreds of Peanuts gang statues of Snoopy, Lucy and Linus. One year at a time for each statue series. They were all decorated as the artist saw fit. I don't recall them doing a series on Peppermint Patty. Is this the only one? I wish I could answer that for you.

Another Brick In The Wall

I was standing on the east of of the River Center in downtown St Paul, I looked up and saw this massive roof line hovering above me. A nifty brick patter on the walls. A snap of the camera lens and we have an odd shaped shot. The only thing I would like to change is the sky color to that fabulous blue.

Theme Day: A Public Mailbox

Today is theme day for the Daily Photo community. My public mailbox photo I had planned was horrid and I'm not posting it. My camera, oh boy, I broke the LCD screen a couple weeks ago and cannot see if the shot I wanted turned out fine. I broke my camera's LCD screen....sniff sniff....I'm saddened. I have this shot of a mailbox during a snowstorm, it's a bit reused, so I turned it too B&W.

To find other interesting public mailboxes at participating daily photo sites with todays theme, click the links below:


1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 -15 -16 -17 -18 -19 -20 -21 -22 -23 -24 -25 -26 -27 -28 -29 -30 -31 -32 -33 -34 -35 -36 -37 -38 -39 -40 -41 -42 -43 -44 -45 -46 -47 -48 -49 -50 -51 -52 -53 -54 -55 -56 -57 -58 -59 -60 -61 -62 -63 -64 -65 -66