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Semisonic at the Palace Theatre

Last night Tammy and I went over to St. Paul to see Semisonic at the Palace Theatre. I have no idea how many times we’ve collectively seen Semisonic but we were excited to go again. Their newest album Little Bit of Sun released in 2023, just 22 years after their last album, is very good.

A crowd of people gathering in front of the Palace Theatre with a brightly lit marquee showing SEMISONIC as the night's performance.

Before we get to Semisonic though, we were both also excited to see that Laamar was opening for them.

Laamar

We first saw Laamar at the Dakota about six months ago. Then we saw him again when we saw Dan Wilson at the Women’s Club in February.

Geoffrey Lamar Wilson fronts Laamar and just has a great vibe when he performs. He has been a musician for a while and returned to Minneapolis after growing up here in 2016. We’ve enjoyed his music when we’ve seen him and I’m excited to hear that a full length album is in the works for the fall. I think Laamar is going to go places.

A live concert setting with musicians performing on stage in front of an audience. The stage is lit with blue lighting and features a seated guitarist in the center, with standing band members on either side. There are guitars and other musical equipment arranged around the performers

See this recent interview with Laamar on The Current for more. Sadly Laamar doesn’t have a website of their own, an issue that is hopefully soon to be fixed.

Semisonic

Semisonic took the stage and played a great set. They hit on many of the hits of the past and pulled in songs from the new album as well. Even with Wilson at 62, Munson at 57, and Slichter at 63 they still put on a great performance. The title song off of the new album is delightful but I wish it was longer. I loved that they played Across the Great Divide. Of course they closed with Closing Time.

A band performing on stage in front of an audience with colorful stage lighting. Musicians include a guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboardist, saxophonist, and a string ensemble.

They paid special homage to playing in St. Paul. Munson highlighted the environmental recovery of the Mississippi River and they auctioned off the Semisonic bass cover from that night in support of the Mississippi Watershed Organization. The show poster also included an image of Otters and they shared that once again Otters are in the Mississippi River.

Wilson is a prolific songwriter well beyond his own work and since Chris Stapleton was playing last night as well at US Bank Stadium they played White Horse which he cowrote with him in the encore.

Setlist for the show:

  1. Chemistry
  2. F.N.T.
  3. Little Bit Of Sun
  4. Keep Me in Motion
  5. Across the Great Divide
  6. Secret Smile
  7. In Another Life
  8. Don’t Fade Away
  9. DND
  10. If You Say So
  11. Never You Mind
  12. The Rope
  13. This Will Be My Year
  14. You’re Not Alone
  15. Closing Time

Encore:

  1. Beautiful Sky
  2. White Horse (Chris Stapleton cover)
  3. Singing in My Sleep
  4. Gone to the Movies
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We watched Howl’s Moving Castle tonight. I think it is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies. I think we’ve seen about half of the Miyazaki movies.

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Day 4 without coffee and caffeine seemed to turn the corner. Felt a little less of a fog all day. Wasn’t tired all day. No headache today. I’ve felt more rested waking up the last two days. 🤞

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POAP 7099088 at SPS - Sparky AI Launch!.

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No Coffee?

I’ve been wondering how much caffeine is impacting me and yesterday, without much thinking about it, I decided to stop coffee for a while to see.

Today was day two without coffee. I had already cut back to just 2 cups a day for the last couple months but I still have felt super fuzzy and tired the last two days. I had a mild headache today and just felt slow. I’m hoping that I’m over the hump now. We’ll see.

My goal is to find out what benefits I may see to my blood pressure, sleep, anxiety, and who knows what else. The first two days have been more noticeable than I would have expected. 😬

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Today I Learned: DNS and Wildcard Records

One of my favorite features of Fastmail is mail routing. I can use that to create any number of ad hoc email addresses in the format of anything at jamie.thingelstad.com. I’ve been using this feature for a while and to set it up you create a wildcard MX entry for your domain pointing to Fastmail. This way it works for all users of your domain. A couple of weeks ago these addresses stopped working though and I had no idea why.

I actually raised the issue with Fastmail support and they confirmed that there was no MX entry for jamie.thingelstad.com. They then asked if I had setup any CNAMEs or A records recently for that name. Then it hit me, I had recently created a TXT entry for jamie.thingelstad.com.

It turns out the second that there is any record of any type on a name you no longer get the benefit of the wildcard entry. I created the specific MX entries for jamie.thingelstad.com and everything started to work just as it should.

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I just completed all the blog posts for our Milwaukee Spring Break trip. This is the most complete job I’ve done using daily logs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), posts for most events, and a collection page linking to all posts as well as an index of all restaurants and attractions we visited.

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We saw the New Standards perform tonight at the Dakota. It was a great show and featured a number of new and newer songs. Steve Roehm was on fire on the vibraphone tonight. 🔥

See list of The New Standards shows.

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Happy Easter! We had family to Magic Pines and had a 90 Easter Egg Hunt outside looking for treats! It seems that only Mazie got the memo on dressing in brighter colors. 🐰

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My friend @Bricker is lighting up his blog timeline with a bunch of new and old blog posts. Worth adding to your feed reader or timeline of choice. 🔥

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I’ve been a fan of the IndieWeb community for years, but finally decided I should get a bit more active. I created my profile on the IndieWeb wiki, started as a backer, and signed up to host the next available IndieWeb Blog Carnival in April 2025.

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Milwaukee Spring Break: Day 5

  • Coffee and pastries at Pilcrow Coffee.
  • Visit to the Milwaukee Domes after it was closed yesterday. Completed all of our stops! ✅
  • 9:37a Depart Milwaukee for home.
  • Stop at Culver’s in Tomah, Wisconsin.
  • 3:14p Arrive at home.

Jump to day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or collection.

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Milwaukee Domes

We made a last minute final stop at the Milwaukee Domes before we left town. The tropical and desert domes were relaxing and pretty to experience.

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

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Beautiful and tasty Cortado at Pilcrow Coffee on our final morning in Milwaukee.

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

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Milwaukee Spring Break: Day 4


This is as close as we were able to get to the domes — closed on Tuesdays.

Jump to day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or collection.

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We had a great time escaping the “Invasion” room at 60 to Escape! The room was fun, surprising, and appropriately challenging. One of the best rooms we’ve done! Finished with 5m 37s remaining. Room 55!

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

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We saw Call Me Dancer at the Oriental Theatre while in Milwaukee. The movie told the story of Manish and his passion to become a professional dancer against many odds.

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

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Harley-Davidson Museum

We visited the Harley-Davidson Museum while in Milwaukee. None of us are huge motorcycle fans but it was still fun to see the history and progression of all the bikes over the years.

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

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The Ube Toast Crunch Oatmeal at Uncle Wolfie’s Breakfast Tavern is delicious and strikingly purple!

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

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While waiting for our table at Uncle Wolfie’s Mazie found these stairs and got some exercise. Then Tyler caught wind and a race was required.

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.