Jeff Kerr

Jonas and the Whale

Ever have one of those moments when you wonder ‘how did I get here’??  I am at the park at the Mall of America… formerly known as Camp Snoopy and soon to be known as Nickelodeon Universe.  I’m here for a free concert by the Jonas Brothers.  IF you know who the Jonas Brothers are and if you have daughters, then you can stop reading… you already know.

For those who are still reading, here are the facts you’ll need from here on out:

Hannah Montana/Miley Cirus was live in concert last night but most of the tickets were snatched up by scalpers and sold on ebay for huge mark ups.  I was not one of the parents to shell out a thousand bucks for a couple of tickets, so my 7 year old daughter was a bit disappointed.

Hannah Montana is a show on the Disney Channel and one of the bands that makes an appearance every so often is a band of 3 brothers called the Jonas Brothers.  They are young, nice looking boys, somewhat talented, who are live in concert here at the Park in an hour and a half.

(Yes, you read correctly, we're here an hour and a half before concert time.)

So Lucy and I are here at the park waiting.  Well, I’m writing on my laptop and she’s watching episodes of, you guessed it, Hannah Montana on my iPod, which I downloaded earlier today in preparation for the long wait for the Jonas Brothers. (yes, father of the year)

As we approached the mall, I kept thinking that most of the kids were still in school, and since we will arrive almost two hours early, there’s a chance we’ll be right up front.  In the back of my mind I could hear my more logical self sharply disagreeing.

There was already about a thousand girls already crammed in to the concert area when we arrived.  “I might be the only boy here… except for the Jonas Brothers” I said to my daughter but loud enough for a few of the concert going, pink haired, peppy girls to hear.  To which I’m sure I heard on of them say “dork”.  I’ve now come to learn that there were girls here at 1am today camping outside the mall just to be the first to get in for the concert.  The thought has occurred to me that nobody shows up to church at 1am camped outside waiting for me to take the stage.

We’ve planted ourselves by the swing ride where we have a decent view of the stage.  The rest of the area is being filled up with mostly girls aged 7-17 with homemade signs and t shirts saying that they love the Jonas Bros.  I can tell I’m turning into a father of daughters because I’m having a strong urge to turn around and ask the teen-aged girls behind me “Does your father know you’re here, dressed like that? and does he know that you talk that way?”

I must say, there are also more than a few teen-aged boys here with digital cameras ready, walking around trying to give the impression of coolness and manliness.  But yet here they are, an hour early for a Jonas Brothers concert.

This is not the place for claustrophobics as my personal space is now all but gone as the rabid fans are eagerly pressing they’re way in.

But it’s totally worth it.  This is a fun date with my daughter.  She’s really excited to see the concert, plus she thinks the whole concert set up in camp snoopy is pretty cool. 

  INSERT ACTUAL CONCERT HERE.

That’s it?  Four songs?  The Jonas Bros showed up a half hour late and sang four songs which were barely heard over the SCREAMING of the crowd, and then they were gone.  I’m not disappointed.  After all, what would I prefer, a short Jonas Brothers concert or a long one?

Lucy loved it, we then went to Tucci Bennuch for a father daughter dinner complete with a monster sized Raspberry Lemonade.  We then rode the Timberland Twister once and we were on our way home. I loved being there with my daughter.  What else would I be doing on my day off?  I could be home mowing the lawn, or watching Around the Horn on ESPN.  But this is a day that we made something of.  Lucy and I will remember this one.
 

So here's the lesson of the Jonas Brothers... What are you doing today?  Make something of it.

Suburban Relationships

I’m a fickle fan of living in the suburbs.  There are parts I like, such as the schools, parks, golf courses and neighborhoods.  What I don’t like about the suburbs is that every suburb has the same stuff.  It’s all chains and mega outlets.  It’s all Target, Applebees, Caribou.   Just once I’d like a suburb that wasn’t overrun with chain stores and predictable restaurants.

There are a few bright spots in the midst of the mundane megastore machine.  Copper Bleu restaurant in Lakeville is the coolest restaurant in the south metro in my opinion.  I love walking in there and feeling like I’m dining downtown.  Ugly Mug café in Farmington is a small town coffee shop and café.  I love the idea of the ugly mug, I just don’t care for the food or coffee much.  But at least they gave it a shot.

My point is that every once in a while, a suburb will try to do something different.  Every once in a while when there’s land for a new business, somebody on a city council will suggest something other than a megaplex grocery chain/auto repair shop.

On the corner of my neighborhood, there are new businesses being built.  We’ve known for a couple years that the land was zoned for commercial/business and we’ve wondered in anticipation about what cool businesses would open up just a block from our house.

There is a big two story building, a large single story building and a stip mall with room for at least four businesses.  So here know was our ‘A’ scenario when picking businesses we'd like to have move in to the neighborhood:

Starbucks.  Ace Hardware.  A cool pizza place that we could be regulars at. A gas station/convenience store with Car Wash.  These were my top picks.

Well, the signs are now up and we now know what is ‘moving in’ to the neighborhood.  The large two story building is a medical building.  The other large building is a CVS pharmacy (which makes four CVS pharmacies within 10 minutes of my house) and the strip mall will be occupied by a family dentist practice and an eye clinic. 

This is like the worst possible combination of things.  I already have a dentist.  Who cares if my eye doctor is only a block away?  Why in the world do we need yet another pharmacy?  (In addition to the four CVS within 10 minutes of my house, there's also four Walgreens, two Targets, 4 Cub Foods... totaling 14 pharmacies for me to choose from)

I know medical, pharmacy, eyes and dentist all lead to good health.  But that’s way too practical.  That’s like me buying my wife a new vacuum for valentines day… "Hey Farmington, practical is great but I need to be romanced a bit."

This was Farmington’s chance to break free from the norm and build something cool and show us all we have a soul, but alas no.  Pharmacy, Eye doctor, Dentist…. “Hey hon, wanna go browse the skin care aisle at CVS tonight?”  “CVS!?!... that sounds great!”. 

I feel like the Israelites probably felt after escaping from Egypt only to find themselves in lost in the desert.  “Did you bring us here to Farmington just to have us live next door to a CVS?”  “You should have left us in Apple Valley, at least there they had a Starbucks…”

OK, so the biblical analogy leaves a bit to be desired.

Here’s my question:  A strip mall gets built a block from your house, big enough for three businesses to move in.  What are your top three picks?

Tax Help, Telemarketers, and New Babies

I’m having a tough time blogging.  I’m feeling a lack of inspiration.  Not that I don’t have things around me that inspire.  It’s the blogging about those things that I’m struggling with.

But here goes.  I’m getting back on the horse.  Here’s the bad and the good.

Bad.  Have you noticed more and more people standing on street corners holding (or wearing) signs advertising products for nearby businesses?  In the past week I’ve seen people on street corners holding giant signs advertising Pizza, Subs, Oil changes and Financial Advice.  So obviously there’s a loop hole in a law somewhere.  Somewhere, someone discovered “It’s against the law to put signs on street corners… But what if we’re WEARING the sign? That’s free speech BABY!  U. S. A!!!! U… S… A!!!!”  And thus the evil trend of disgruntled, giant sign wearing teenagers, standing on the street corners, peddling oil changes was born.

I think its important to note that the very last place I’m going to go for Tax Help is to the guy who’s standing on the corner of Cedar and 42 in the Statue of Liberty costume.

I have a personal policy of “just say no”.  Anyone who calls our house or rings my doorbell in an effort to sell me something gets an automatic ‘no thanks’.  I will now add the ‘sign wearing, street-side standing guy’ to that list.

Bad.  Friday was the tale of two videos at church.  We are gearing up for part 4 of ‘Rescue Me’ and we have a great video planned honoring local firefighters.  Tom Poch and I were putting the finishing touches on the video when we encountered some…… ‘opposition’.   This opposition was from outside the church and it was literally an all day affair resulting in several ‘are you kidding me?’… ‘am I being punked?’ moments.  But it got worked out.  Kind of.

Good.  We were also filming a video for next weekend.  I can’t let the plot line out of the bag, but this video has the makings of being a really good one.  It will feature Jen Anderson, Kristie Kerr and all the Anderson and Kerr children.

Good.  We are loving getting to know Dorothy, our new arrival.  I am always amazed at the immediate bond between Mother and Baby.  It started right away, about an hour after Dorothy was born when both Kristie and Dorothy appeared to me to be a bit worn out and fussy.  NOW, before you hastily scroll ahead to the portion of this blog page where you can post a comment and you write something like “WELL, typical male Jeff! What do you expect?! Have ever had another person come out of your body?!”…. What I’m saying is that it’s no wonder why both my ladies looked like they’d been through an ordeal, they in fact had both been through quite a lot in the past hour.

But then came time for Kristie to hold Dorothy for the first time.  During snuggle time, Kristie fell in love, and Dorothy settled down.  Her temperature, which had been down a bit, came up.  Her color, which had been a bit pale, looked much better and all was well.  It was as if Dorothy said “aaaaaahh  I’m home”. I remember thinking that seeing that was about the coolest thing ever.

Its all good.