I got up early this morning to go shoot some photos of this sweetie's little brother, who is only 2 weeks old. While he was being fed, we ran out into the yard to play with some bubbles, and about 5 minutes after this was shot, the heavens opened up and we got a torrential downpour (cue: inside photo shoot). I was so glad I was able to capture a few shots outside first. What a cutie!

Holiday weekend, woot! Tonight we had an amazing dinner over at Ngon Vietnamese Bistro in St. Paul (one of my favorite spots in town) and then hit up the Turf Club to see Wiping Out Thousands (as seen above) and LaLiberte. It was a great time because tons of friends showed up, and yet it wasn't too packed or sticky. A perfect first night of the weekend... except that I have a 9 am shoot tomorrow and it's almost 2 am now. So off to bed I go!

After 2.5 hours of sleep last night thanks to a roaring thunderstorm and a pansie of a dog (Memphis), I got up at 4:45 am today so I could be at the vita.mn fashion shoot at 6 am. Ridiculous timing! Yet, it worked out great once we were all assembled and had some coffee in us. The bad news was that it poured all day and we could only shoot outside in quick 10 minute intervals while the raining stopped. The good news is that we had amazing clothes, a phenomenal crew and one hell of a model (above). Overall, I think it will be great.I'm home for just a quick break now before I head out to see M.Ward at First Avenue. I'm super excited for this show a) because M.Ward is a fantastic guitar player and I love seeing him live b) I'll get to see a bunch of friends that I haven't caught up with in awhile and c) First Ave has a brand new sound system, and I can't wait to hear it. Are you jealous? You should be.Look for some shots of the show later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning...

Oh hey there. Remember back when I had to be all top secret about a fun project I was working on? Well it's outta the bag now! In Thursday's vita.mn, you'll see that our cover story is on Astronautalis (who you've seen around here a few times before). He's playing at Soundset this weekend, and we wanted to do something different with our cover story this year.So we decided to treat it more like a fashion shoot, and we went shopping and picked out clothes from one of my very favorite men's stores in town, Martin Patrick 3 for the photos.This image is from a bunch of the page proofs we examined on deadline tonight before sending the issue to the printer. I wish we could set up shoots like this for all of our musician covers... guess I'll have to wait for that job at Rolling Stone before that happens ;).Check back over at vita.mn Thursday around noon to see all the images -- and maybe I'll see you kids at Soundset this weekend?

I should have known today was gonna be good when Rick Nelson, our food critic at the paper, showed up with BOXES of donuts from Mojo Monkey. This one in the photo is a particular favorite -- it's a maple glazed long john with a slice of bacon on top. These things smelled divine.Besides donuts and my 8 hours of working in a cube, I also got to have lobster for lunch with Nyberg and then... are you ready for it?... I finally got to see Battleship with Miss MargaretNow this film has been getting all kinds of bad reviews, and I'm gonna just say that if you head into the theater to see a movie about an alien invasion that is based on a board game and stars Rhianna, you need to adjust some expectations. Mine were perfectly adjusted to realize that I was going to pay $8 to watch Taylor Kitsch (who many of you know as Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights) run around a ship in a tight, wet t-shirt fighting aliens. And that's all I wanted, and it was WELL worth eight bucks. If you expect any thing else from this movie, however, you will be disappointed (although there are some spectacular ship explosions)* Ladies, you're welcome for that link up there.

Today was GORGEOUS outside... but I had to work in my cube at the Star Tribune. Booooo.... However, I did get to leave a little early to come home and grab the dogs for their annual vet visit, in which they deposited a little blood and we deposited almost $400. I swear, dogs are filthy, expensive creatures that will wreak havoc on your home... but I wouldn't give them up for anything.But the most hilarious part of the day was when we were driving home from the vet, and we stopped at Blockbuster to drop off a DVD. Whoa, wait. Are we living in 1992? Can you believe that we still rent DVDs from BLOCKBUSTER of all places?!? I know, I know. But we have so much Tivo (slight television addiction) that getting Netflix just has never seemed worth it. And hey, now that every other person on the planet uses Netflix, the rest of us have a gazillion things to choose from at Blockbuster or Redbox or whatever us old people are using these daysAnyway! So I get back in the car after dropping off the movie, and Jamie turns to back up out of the spot and starts cursing at Memphis. I turn around, and in all of the "excitement" of the car stopping, she has attempted to crawl over the back seat from the rear of the SUV. But she couldn't quite make it and her front paws are on the back seat, and on the other side of the seat back, her legs are just hanging in mid-air as she is *furiously* peddling trying to get over the hump. Hilarious! Yes, this is the brainchild that we just dropped several hundred dollars on at the vet. Clearly a wise investment.But who cares about my dog antics, what is this photo you ask? Well when Mom came to town I ordered an arrangement from the florist up the street, Brown & Greene, who I had never used before, and they put together these amazing peonies and pale pink roses. Now, I hate all things pink with every fiber in my being, but I knew mom would love these. And she did. And she asked me to please take a photo of them to send to her as she was leaving this morning. So here you go Mom -- now if only you could still smell them!

We started this day out right by taking mom over to A Baker's Wife (the best bakery in town, presumably because every offering contains at least a stick of butter) and then to Angry Catfish for our favorite coffee (Intelligentsia). You may have read Jamie's recent thoughts on our latest addiction over here, but man is this stuff good. Lemme just read you the description from the bag:This medium-bodied blend offers subtle fruit notes with cocoa and caramel close behind. The balanced acidity finishes with notes of toffee and chocolate.Yup. And that's why we drive across town and pay $15 a pound for itAfter breakfast, we took mom shopping (shoes and TJ Maxx, a dream combo if you ask me) and now we're home, settling in for a fish dinner and some Mad Men. Pretty solid day, if you ask me.