live.eat.play.twin cities: DIY St Paul walking tours

Minnescoota, for the Minnesota scooter enthusiast.

Minneapolis Issues Forum: Dyna Slyter, who part-times in Starbuck, MN, asks folks to give her one reason to come back to Minneapolis. The response is a resounding, “Pffffffft, whatever.”

MPLS Mirror: Recapping a presentation on the five problems the MPD faces in preventing crime and keeping neighborhoods safe and how they’re trying to address them.

Minnov8: On bringing broadband to every Minnesotan, completely with analogy to railroads.

Gather: Michael Caputo likes the 5-day skyway leases being granted for the RNC, because it’s better than the current state of Saint Paul skyway suckitude quiet.

TC Daily Planet: Another South High/MTN project, this time on bicycle culture.

Nothing like waking up and heading to work to see police cars blocking off both ends of my block. Not much information is available, but there was a burglary last night, and this morning, the suspect took hostages in a townhouse near 25th and 3rd, and the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. WCCO reports that the hostages have been released, but the suspect is still armed and holed up. The SWAT team is on site, but hasn’t moved on the suspect yet.

I left to come to work at about 9:30 this morning, pulled the scooter out and turned north, saw the squad car blocking off that end, turned around and saw three cars blocking off that end. What to do, what to do. I went north, and the police let me exit the area, but they weren’t letting anyone back in. I normally have my clock radio tuned to Jazz88, which has news regularly throughout the morning, but today I had it turned off. I wonder how quickly I would’ve woken up this morning hearing on the news that there was a SWAT team facing down a hostage less than a block away from my apartment. How long would it have taken my waking brain to process that information and would I have decided to just stay inside than to venture out on the scooter?