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Downtown for The Dakota’s 40th Anniversary Block Party. Awesome event. Tina Schlieske on stage right now! 🎶

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We were in the area and finally got to visit Kyiv Cakes in Lakeville today. I’ve wanted to come here for a while. They have a broad menu of Ukrainian as well as traditional baked goods. We got a slice of Honey Cake with raspberries and it was light and delicious! Recommended. 🇺🇦

Man in plaid shirt and gray cap giving thumbs up outside Kyiv Cakes bakery in Lakeville, Open sign visible on door.
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Lakeville Art Festival

We found ourselves with some open time this weekend and decided to check out the Lakeville Art Festival this morning. We’ve been to many art fairs but this was our first time to this particular one and we thought it was great. They had a great selection of art from artists in Minnesota and connected states. It was setup very nicely on grass instead of walking on blacktop.

It was great that they sectioned a stage with music and food into an entirely adjacent area with a good amount of picnic tables. It wasn’t hard to find a spot to sit a delightful lunch of Pizzeria 201 from Montgomery, MN (we drove there once to have their pizza) followed by some HomeTown Creamery ice cream. We also brought home some Groveland Confections chocolate.

Overall it had a nice and relaxed vibe.

Some artists that caught our eyes:

Outdoor art festival with white vendor tents lining a grassy walkway, crowds of visitors browsing artwork beside a brick church building
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Dappnode validator — 1 year 28 weeks uptime

I realized it had been a while since I checked in on my Dappnode that quietly chugs away running 32 validators for the Gnosis blockchain. It is monitored so I knew it was working but figured it was probably in need of some updates. Sure was!

Dappnode Admin dashboard showing Gnosis chain sync status, machine stats at 13% CPU and 52°C, and four pending package updates including Core, Dms, Nethermind Xdai, and Teku Gnosis.

I got a little shocked when I saw the uptime. 😬

Dappnode uptime display showing up 1 year 28 weeks 3 days 12 hours 11 minutes

This was much more behind than I thought it would be. I had some time so started the upgrades. I got some errors and had to reboot the Dappnode a couple of times to get updates to apply but eventually was able to get everything humming along nicely — never needing to do anything other than use the web browser.

Dappnode Admin dashboard showing Gnosis chain nodes synced, CPU at 14% and 48C, memory at 46%, disk at 51%, all packages up to date.

I’ll try not to wait over a year to do the manual updates next.

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We are having the stucco redashed on our house and I decided it was a good time to say goodbye to the grape vine that the previous owners had planted. Now a blank slate for something different next year. And the new stucco will go on very easy. Before and after photo.

Before and after side-by-side of a stucco house wall showing a large grape vine removed leaving bare wall with a decorative iron trellis
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Easy Way or the Hard Way

Government censorship the “easy way or the hard way”.

ABC, a television network owned by Disney, suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night chat show indefinitely after the Federal Communications Commission’s chairman implied ABC’s broadcast licence was at risk. On Monday Mr Kimmel suggested that Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer was a MAGA sympathiser, sparking an outcry from conservatives. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Brendan Carr, the head of the FCC, said on Wednesday. Critics fear that free expression over Kirk is being silenced by firings and threats. — The Economist, The US in Brief, September 18th 2025

ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show following comments the American comedian made about the murder of Charlie Kirk. Mr Kimmel said the “MAGA gang” was scoring political points over the shooting of the right-wing activist, and pretending the murderer was “anything other than one of them”. Mr Trump–who is increasingly targeting what he considers left-wing organisations–congratulated the Disney-owned network for its action. — The Economist, The World in Brief, September 18th 2025

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SPS TechJam 2025

We wrapped up the 10th anniversary of SPS TechJam 2025 today. TechJam is our internal “unconference” led by members of our team that volunteer to give talks. We had so many great presentations and tons of learning. All of it wrapped around an AI focused Hackathon. It was incredible.

A colorful TECH JAM 2025 graphic features cartoon characters and various themed illustrations within each letter.
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POAP 7454382 at SPS TechJam 2025 - Attendee.

Circular dark badge reading SPS TechJam 2025 with 10x and years 2015 to 2025, surrounded by small colorful tech-themed icons.
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A delightful evening to mark 20 years of the CIO Wine Tasting organized by Dee Thibodeau of Charter Solutions. Chuck Kanski of Solo Vino always brings an incredible selection and takes us on an amazing journey through the different wines.

Group of roughly 30 professionals gathered on a rooftop terrace for a wine tasting event, city buildings visible in the background.Group of people socializing on a rooftop bar patio with drinks, surrounded by downtown Minneapolis skyscrapers on a cloudy evening.Six bottles of Two Shepherds 2022 Pinot Meunier Russian River Valley wine lined up on a rooftop terrace table at a tasting event.

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Tasty Fox in the Woods coffee from Grayfox Coffee. The images they put on their coffee makes me almost wish I had a Ripple Maker to do the same at home. 🤩