This post brought to you by Jan and Dean

However, in deference to any young persons tuning in, the following is the music video cover by Blink 182 of the Jan and Dean classic, Dean Man's Curve.

Go ahead and click play and let it run in the background as you read on.

Yet another day of fresh breezes from the south and east led me over past the Fairgrounds and down into Saint Paul. The Fairgrounds are now completely open although not completely back to normal. There are still huge mounds of animal feces to be removed (with crews working at that task) but I personally found the most interesting artifact to be that there are very, very clear grease stains in all of the heavily traveled pedestrian areas. No particular effort is being made to remove those stains and there shouldn't be. Winter will take care of all of that grease without any problem.

Here is a sausage on a stick booth and several other indicators that there is still a ways to go on clean up.Here's the Jan and Dean tie-in. Raymond Avenue is closed for replacement of the railroad bridge. This is a dangerous spot for both cars and bicyclists that I have always referred to as "Dead Man's Curve" even though I am personally unaware of any fatal accidents there.The guy on security was glad to have someone to talk to and gave me the details. The old bridge will be removed. There will be substantial regrading and then a new bridge will be installed. We can anticipate that the double curve under the bridge will be reduced and that visibility for users from both directions will be increased. The process is expected to take about six weeks. In the meantime, as Raymond Avenue provides one of the very few crossings of that particular set of railroad tracks I now need to find another route to Saint Paul.

I rode the Capitol Loop again. The finish for that route brings me past Mungeater's house. People who have known me a long time will have no problem with that reference, by the way. On the boulevard in front of his neighbor's house are two Mountain Ash trees. I wonder if this whole Emerald Ash Borer alert also applies to Mountain Ash which I believe are not true ash trees.Just after publishing yesterday's post I clicked on the cable TV and happened to pass by CNN. Wolf Blitzer was just finishing up some coverage of the wacky Mexico airplane hijacking. It seems that my observation about yesterday's date was NOT ill advised. This hijacker guy was pretty wacky and was also pretty clearly an end of the world cultist. I am pleased to find that, as I suspected was the case, that there were end of the world cultists holding vigils, or in this case hijacking an airplane, to commemorate the numerical significance of the day. I feel officially vindicated.