Took some 272 photos today out and about Saint Paul. I'll get around to posting them but I tried using Photosynth with some marginal success. In case you didn't know, Photosynth is a Microsoft tool you can use to stitch a lot of photos at various angles and zooms in a scene together allowing anyone to examine your cohesive collection. Often times it simulates rotation around a subject or interesting panoramas. I went to Rice Park today in Saint Paul and created this Photosynth. It was only able to string 61% of the images into one photosything, with a few others making their own mini-photosynths and about 8 images failing to stitch to any other which I partially blame on myself and on whatever algorithm or formula the program uses. Anyway... Enjoy

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=108a6f5c-cb8d-4c85-81b8-8bb6cc31e94d

 Been a pretty busy time recently so I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of things like I wanted to and with weather not being particularly welcoming, I have resigned myself to waiting until the final thaw. Currently we have something around 18-24 inches of snow on the ground which isn't particularly bad, just annoying knowing full well that its here to stay for quite a long period of time. 

Unlike the East coast, storms rarely dump snow and start melting right away. Yes, the East Coast storms were massive this past winter and as an upper Midwesterner, we give them props for going through this. As much as we are proud of our winter heritage, we also realize that 30 inches of snow in a 24 hour period is nothing to scoff at. Minnesotan's for once were not envious of the East Coast. But despite the massive snow totals, I'm sure that we will have snow longer than the East Coast cities (I'm sure some of the higher elevations may beat us out). My parents had 11", 20", and 8" within a very short time frame burying theircity which usually experiences relatively mild winter. 

Our winter in Minneapolis has been stunningly average. October was colder than average and November was far above average temperature wise. December came in slightly below average and our very volatile January ended up balanced to be near average. Snowfall wise, we are just a couple inches up. Somewhere near 40". Although the airport had some anomalous totals this winter falling well below the rest of the metro on several occasions, but... statistically speaking, it should balance out (maybe not this year but in others). So while the East Coast digs out... Minneapolis lies relatively content with our easy average winter. Our forays into the negative territories were relatively minor and bearable. The only downside to this winter is the lack of an extended thaw that has led to a deep icy snow pack and particularly rough potholes. Minneapolis recently banned parking on one side of the non-snow emergency routes eliminating an estimated 80,000 on-street parking spots until April 1st or the snow melts significantly. The roads were getting so narrow that emergency vehicles were struggling to get to their destinations with some calls being forced to park a block or more away and hauling their gear to the scene.

Here's a few quick pics from the last week that I took...


After shoveling my Uncle's driveway for the umpteenth time, I took this pic. Sadly there was yet another snowfall after this storm bringing some piles in his area to the 4 to 5 foot area. 


I edited my iPod Touch's theme to be super cool :D.


More Snow pics


A look towards the Cathedral during one of our moderate snow events.
Crossing 50,000 miles on mmy car.


The Pupster at the computer :D



My first half-ass'd attempt at combining Minneapolis' and Saint Paul's skylines. Nearly height proportional. 


Before

After carwash!

Finally... 
I've been reading this book called... and don't laugh... Cop Book, which despite its rather poor title, has been a fascinating look into the life of a cop in the Twin Citie's suburb of Bloomington. Its been quite the emotional rollercoaster as he recounts his life and stories with such vivid details and a sometimes macabre sense of humor. I personally recommend this book to people who enjoy memoirs and have a decent stomach. Here's a selection of the book that I absolutely loved. He recalls his story as the first K-9 cop in his city and the rather funny situations his dog got him into. 

 Before I even get started with this review, I need to start out saying... I'm a Mass Effect fan boy. They could have practically given me the same game from Mass Effect with new missions and I would probably still play it and be thrilled. I heavily enjoy the story, its characters, the background information and the artistic style that make Mass Effect a game with staying power. Mass Effect has not only drained many hours from my life, but its given me faith that there is still SOME innovation and creativity left in the video game market, especially in the realm of action RPG's which by nature are more flexible than first person shooters. After all FPS are kinda defined by having one gun and being able to shoot it from a first person perspective which is very limiting in terms of game play. 

I think what attracted me most to Mass Effect is that the story line is a very believable look at humanity in its galactic infancy (even decades after they joined the Galactic community). For once humans are not super advanced and enlightened like Star Trek or a number of Japanese RPGs and nor is it post apocalyptic. Additionally the human-alien dynamic is finally believable. It seems that most sci-fi story arcs either have complete disdain for humans or love to stroke human ego's by saying how creative we are or how love triumphs over all etc etc. The humans are an awkward piece in the galactic puzzle and its believable. Some aliens react positively while others don't trust humans... but additionally, its not all blanketed across the entires species, but individuals also have their own views. Thank god cause I was getting sick of homogeneous alien belief systems. The complexity and creativity behind the aliens, technology, and even human "history" made Mass Effect a very engrossing story. 

But, even with this amazing story, Mass Effect wasn't without issue. Much of its gameplay was spent running around bland redundant landscapes are talking incessantly over pretty useless trivia. Many had complained that the first game was, for a lack of better terms, slow. I see their points, but then again, when you play RPG's, slow game play is a staple that you get used to it. I often enjoy the down times and side games, but I guess others don't. But that wasn't the only issue. Perhaps the biggest issue was the unimaginative inventory system that was very cumbersome to work with. Long load screens also became a common complaint. 

So the question is... did Mass Effect 2 keep what was strong with Mass Effect and continue the saga in a matter most befitting the storyline. 

The answer is a definitive yes. Having played the first game through the first time completely several times, I can tell you the action is probably at least doubled. The developers took player comments very seriously and upped the tempo for this overwhelmingly dark story. Much of the UI and game menus and controls have been completely altered and for once... for the better! The inventory system was for the most part scrapped, which made sense. You still buy stuff but you don't "have it" like you did in the old game. Most of the purchasable items were upgrades that you had to research to apply to your weaponry/armor. The ammo types were condensed from the old games and instead of becoming yet another inventory item, they were converted to a ranked "power". This made it impossible for your team mates to have access to all types of ammo so you'd have to team your buddies up with complementary powers to be at your most effective. 

Perhaps one of the biggest changes that at first was unsettling was the addition of actual limited ammo. It was very nice to be able to run around in Mass Effect and have no issue with lighting up the dark side of an entire planet if I had to kill a rat. But now that ammo is limited, you actually do have to a decent bit of aiming (although it wasn't by any means restrictive on Normal difficulty). At first I was a bit peeved that I had to actually watch my ammo and it seemed that some guns, like the heavy pistol, just seemed to be underwhelming in ammo capacity. For example, my vanguard Shepard had the shotgun, heavy pistol, machine pistol and a heavy weapon. The heavy pistol had some 35 bullets (perhaps it was 50, I don't recall) and even though it was remarkably powerful compared to my machine pistol, it ran low on ammo in the middle of a gun fight pretty easy. The game would often throw wave after wave at you and unless you like charging (like the Vanguards are SUPPOSED to do, but thats another time), the ammo clips would lay at the feet of the next on coming wave. So sure, you wouldn't have to wait long to get new ammo, but it just seemed tedious to empty your heavy pistol in intense gun fights when you have the machine pistol with its 650 bullets which probably ran out ONCE in the entire game. Even though it was weaker, it was perfectly fine. 

So I felt there were SOME balancing issues in terms of ammo. However, as I went through the game, the ammo aspect made sense, especially when you got to heavy weapons. These weapons were ridiculously powerful and almost unfair, especially once you got your hands on the collector ray which would take about 1 second to vaporize your weakest enemies. But because the ammo was universal for you heavy weapons, you had to be careful how you used them, especially cause you could only pick the ammo up at certain locations. This made the addition of ammo limitations forgivable, especially when you got to the mini-nuke launcher.

The story line was very entertaining if not predictable and relatively simplistic. Although there were small twists and turns, the game loved telling you over and over that "this is a suicide mission" which even for my awesome optimistic dude from Mass Effect failed to overcome. Yes game, I know its a mission of low odds... But even though the story for the most part was really good, I had one beef with it... It HAD to be divided into "missions" which I really didn't like one bit. Perhaps its a personal preference, but RPG's should never subdivide the story or side quests into "missions". The whole point of an RPG is to have a dynamic continually evolving and flowing story which Mission screens subdivide and make it feel blocky. I found it VERY irritating to earn someones loyalty by killing their worst enemy and then BAM "Mission Complete"... how cold. Yes, Cerberus is cold, but that doesn't mean the story has to be told so rigidly and its not like the Mission complete screen really told me anything new, it just sums up what just happened. That could have just been detailed in your quest log and left to the side to not interrupt the flow. 

The music and artwork were otherwise spectacular and have to be experienced first hand. The developers spent a lot of time trying to enhance the environments of the levels. In the first game, the environments were rather static and bland and the "atmosphere" was pretty universal throughout the entire game and it was only different in cutscenes or battle. In the sequel, they spent a lot of time developing the seediness of Omega, and the ostentatious Wall-Street like world of Illium and the ruins of Tuchanka. 

Character development was also upped but I won't discuss it too much to avoid spoilers. But seriously... getting Mordin to sing Gilbert and Sullivan was AWESOME!!! But a lot of the stories each character posses really adds to the backstory that was given in the first game. I know a lot of people don't like dialog in video games which is beyond me, but to each their own. However, this game I suggest to not skip any dialog and to push each character to the end of their conversation sequences because they intertwine and augment the entire universe around you completely altering much of what you new in the first game in a couple of instances.

Bioware's biggest selling point was that actions from the first game affected the story in the second game. They certainly weren't lying, but in most cases they were rarely that important or they would only give you an advantage/disadvantage for a few mins. There were probably only a few instances where decisions were VERY important (like if Wrex lived, who you killed, a couple NPC decisions). For the most part, your decisions had some minor ripples where half the time they result in you getting... an EMAIL!!!! Yea... a bit over hyped. If they continue this motif into the next game, they really need to up their effects. Although, I need to know if anyone has imported a character who let the Citadel Council die in the first game. I didn't play all the way through with my renegade character so I am not sure if there's an all human council or not. 

Anyway, this game is an absolute must have. I give it a 9.5 out of 10. This game continues to make Mass Effect my favorite game series. I just hope they can wrap the series up eloquently for a story so deserving of a grand finale. 

LOL 

I swear to God, even though I've been living here for 6 years and I've been coming to this state practically every year of my life before then, I will not understand one thing about Minnesota, which perhaps can be extended to the Upper Midwest....

What is your obsession with pickles... I mean soooooo many people love pickles and just eat them whole... on a stick even! Deep fry them at the fair. You get pickles with hotdogs in many places. I mean, you even have pickles in individual plastic wraps at Blockbuster. I don't get the obsession. Almost all of my friends LOVE pickles and its just simply beyond me. Nowhere have I lived or visited has a culture been so pickle demanding.

I know its been awhile since I've updated and I've been trying to. I'll just let you know whats going on in my life so that maybe you all will forgiveth me :(.

A ) I've been watching over a sick relative and will continue to be doing so for the long term. I'm not going into details here on my blog but suffice to say its been rough on the family and I'm in charge of morale I guess, so my father says. 

B ) Still job hunting... .lame

C ) I've been writing a short sci-fi story and I'm pretty close to posting the first part of it. I say short only because I have no clue how long its gonna be, I'm kinda winging it. I like stories that kinda evolve by not knowing whats going to happen next myself :P. Although, I do realize that i have to watch for plot holes. But I hope it turns out respectable.

D ) I got some photo editing software so I've been going through a few of my photos and sprucing them up a bit. I'm also looking to add some of my England Photos to my photo tour spaces, but who knows.

E) I tried embedding google wave into a page but I guess you can't just post the code into a post or page on this software :P. I tried, oh well. If someone has better luck, please do share.

F). I've been baking bread! I have about a 50% success rate.... oh well :P

Here's one picture of my bread. I'm still struggling to get them to rise well, but whatev.



So far no one has taken me up on my offer of a blog "web ring". Oh yea... pulling out those Web 1.0 terms. HA. And finally....

I thought these two youtube vides were pretty cool. The 2008 one is way better, but I do have to admit, 2009 wasn't THAT bad for music. 2007 was downright awful. 

I just wanted to say thank you all for the nominations and Trixie awards. I really do appreciate this great honor. First and foremost, I wanted to thank all the staff, especially those who had their hands directly in the process of making this entire cookie sheet of Trixies. These awards take a lot of work from the page design, to reading the nominations and actually creating the awards, never the less the $5,000 prize that goes with it.... :P (just kidding folks). Anywho, I'm just glad that I can use this blog space to talk about random things and the place where I live. I enjoy having this blog and I hope you all enjoy reading it. On that note, I would like to announce I got even MORE books on my area from its lost architecture to its history so hopefully I'll have more random things to post about my area. 

Currently I'm in the middle of a large snow storm thats looking to dumpe 16 to 22 inches of snow in this area. Thankfully I got to put my car in my grandmothers garage so I don't have to deal with digging my car out once the storm is done. Unfortunately this same storm has cancelled both my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day plans (in conjunction with family illness). So my holidays are being spent with just my grandmother and brother. Its going to be a low key affair, but thats okay. So far we have about 8 inches on the ground with 10 to 14 more to go. Hopefully I get to go out on Sunday and take pictures of the nice newly fallen snow. 

On that note, I wanna wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. This is a nice time to reflect on the year and to enjoy the company of your family, even if this is the only day you can stand to be around them at all. Its hard to imagine that the "00s" are already done and a whole new decade is about to begin. So Happy New Years to everyone as well and don't party too hard.

On a blog related note, I'm thinking of creating a blog ring page to link to other people's blogs. This blog ring will be mostly "casual" so I prefer to add blogs that DO NOT talk about SC4 (predominately). But if you're interested in adding your page to mine, feel free to message me or post in the comments. I'll take a look, even if your page is exclusively SC4 related, I'll at the very least take a look. But my goal is to increase blog usage and posting (even for me) and I find that if more people are posting, the more likely I am to post as well. I'd like to specifically add blogs that use PERSONAL photos of where you live (anyone can google for crying out loud). Other casual blogs are welcome as well.  

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Thank You all once again! PEACE!

 
On election night in 2000, candidates Al Gore and George W Bush awaited the returns in one of the closest elections in United States history. The polls were very tight in many battle ground states. Pundits pondered the possibility of a mathematical blip that would allow the winner of the electoral votes to lose the popular vote and still become president. Many considered the possibility and some were saying that yes, there was a chance, but somewhat low. Most of the statistical modelling that used polling data came up with a roughly 1 in a quarter chance of this situation (where the Obama-McCain election didn't have a single instance of this occurring in a 10,000 simulation run). As the polls came in, the numbers were extremely close, many states waited til far later than normal to report their numbers. Al Gore looked ready to take the White House as his margin in the popular vote grew. Of course, he knew that the popular vote wasn't technically what would win him the White House, but it is nice to have as in all but a couple elections, the winner of that vote DID win the White House. However, complications in Florida led to a one month recount challenge that remains very controversial. Democrats feel they were robbed of their vote and Al Gore unfairly lost an election where he earned one million more votes than his counterpart (and in the interest of transparency for you readers, I agree). In 2004, Kerry was looking for a similar break in Ohio and even though I voted for him, I agreed on principle that Bush was elected (unfortunately). I did hope that a second screwed up election in a row would unite the Republicans and Democrats into abolishing an archaic system. The arguments for keeping it are outdated and principally undemocratic. 

The main argument is that the electoral college is there to protect the small states from being out voted by the big states. But to me thats a pointless argument. Why should small states have more proportional say than large states in NATIONAL matters. We are all equally affected by presidential decisions. There is no reason that a voter in Wyoming has basically 3 times the voting power than a Californian. This is a national vote and everyone should have a fair and EQUAL part in deciding the presidency. Yes... Wyoming is a small state and only has 3 electoral votes, but there are a great number of small states and they unfortunately have a disproportionately higher say. During the founding of this country, the electoral college made far more sense when vote counting would have taken too long and sending representatives to the capital made logical sense. At this point it was reasonable to send people to represent your populace to make a vote collectively. During this time, many people didn't really even know the platforms of the candidates (and in many cases who they even were) BUT they knew what they stood for and sent their representatives (in this case not the House Reps, but the electors) who understood what their voters were looking for and decided what was the best course of action. But as we've advanced and vote counting and campaign information became readily available, we've figured out that the electors were pointless. We no longer vote for electors like we used to and in many states, faithless electors are forbidden (voting independently of your voters). So why do we still have electoral votes!?! 

Another "reason" for keeping the system is to force candidates to stop by small states to earn their votes (as they have a disproportionately higher say). Of course this has never in reality panned out. Many states, big and small are completely overlooked based on polling. A simple look at a campaign spending map will show you how much of the campaign really exists in less than 1/3 of the country. Obama AND McCain skipped many states. Some states haven't seen a Presidential candidate in decades. Abolition of the electoral college will force candidates to get votes from everywhere. Democrats wouldn'tt abandon cities like New Orleans because the state as whole is relatively red, and the same goes with cities like Austin, Atlanta, Memphis, Oklahoma City and so on. Republicans could target rural areas in relatively populous areas like Upstate New York (where "rural" is far more dense than "rural" South Dakota). If anything, the Electoral College limits prospective campaign stops. Even "safe areas" like NYC would still require Democrats to visit to maintain enthusiasm to make sure they have a lock on the millions of votes. Instead the Democrats can just rely on the "as long as we have more than them, we have the state" argument. 

Others argue that abolishing the electoral college would create a city-oriented campaign. I see nothing wrong with that... people tend to live in cities. God forbid that where more people live, they have more power! Besides, its not like any of these rural districts aren't still political heavyweights in the House or Senate where they can eat all the pork they want (I'm looking at you Alaska). 

One of the obvious problems with the electoral college is that it enforces the "auto-coalition system" (otherwise called the two party system). Since it requires a majority of the electoral votes to become president, third parties (or potential new parties) would have to fight an increasingly tough battle with each major candidate. This would force people to concede power and force an automatic coalition. In 2008, the Democrats had a tough fight over the nomination knowing full well they had to come to some agreement before the general election or lose to the Republicans. If we divided the Democrats into the two main constituents, the Blue Dog and Liberals, there would have been no hope against a single Republican candidate. But lets pretend that the divide in the Republican party was a bit more transparent (there was a divide, it just wasn't as visible; See enthusiasm gap). If there were 4 major candidates it would be unlikely that anyone would get the 270 or more to win the election. This would have gone to the "tie breaker" phase which would leave the party (or parties) in power in Congress with the keys to the election. 3rd Parties have no hope in getting into office under the electoral vote rules. Ross Perot had an impressive show at the ballot box in 1992 but failed to garner a single electoral vote. He received nearly 19% of the vote. Yes, of course he would have still lost but imagine if people voted how they really wanted to if the electoral math wasn't so against him. 

Another ridiculous argument in support of the electoral college is that it neutralizes turn out disparities. Does anyone who truly believes in democracy find that insane!?! Too bad if one side came out more than the other! Thats how voting works! If you can't mobilize your voters to vote, than thats an issue with your platform and campaign, not the system. Minnesota pulled out the highest turnout in the nation at 78%. Arizona, which has the same number of electors at ten, had a turnout of just 56%. A 22% difference yet the implications in voting were exactly the same. Arizona neutralized Minnesotan voters. Hardly democratic in my book.

I'm not gonna go through some of the other arguments unless prodded. You get my drift in terms of how undemocratic and out of date the electoral college is. 

This got me thinking. Gore lost to Bush despite having a 1 million vote margin nationally. Although in terms of elections, 1 million votes is chump change, a 1 million vote margin and STILL losing is a bit depressing and in my book morally wrong. One million people throughout the nation lost their voice because of a few hundred people in Florida. Illogical. But, I sat there wondering how high could this number theoretically be. 2 million? 5 million? So I decided to do a little model with these basic assumptions to find out the ABSOLUTE maximum (as of 2008) vote margin that you can win but still lose the presidency.

1. All Eligible voters turnout. 
2. The bare minimum of 270 electoral votes to win
3. The electoral "loser" will receive all 100% of the votes in the state that he did win (that totaled 268 Electoral votes) He will earn 50%-1 in the "winning" candidates states.
4. The converse would be that the "winner" would win by a hair; 50%+1 and lose the other states entirely
5. There are no third parties
6. I am ignoring contemporary political trends and partisan identities. I.E. Any state can be won by either candidate.
7. I would add up the winner totaling the smallest electoral votes to reach 270.

So... some assumptions I had to add after doing the math...
7. Any state split in exactly in half would have the loser "lose" a vote to keep the margin at just 1 vote. Otherwise, the margin would be 2. Example, a 5-5 split would be turned into a 5-4 split. Otherwise it'd be a 6-4 split if it was a zero sum situation. Although this really doesn't matter cause this would only alter the final sum by a couple dozen votes.
8. Adding up the smallest states by electoral vote didn't get me to exactly 270. In order to get into EXACTLY to 270, I removed the largest state with electoral votes equal to the margin (this would eliminate the "overshoot") and further exaggerate the margin. Eliminating the smallest states to get to 270 would not maximize the losers numbers (as they have disproportionate say, I.E. more electoral votes per person than bigger states). In this case its Massachusetts. 


Table 1: The Popular Vote Totals By State and Nationally


Figure 1: Popular Vote Percentages


As you can see, the numbers are staggering. The absolute maximum margin that someone could lose by in the popular vote and STILL win in 2008 was 113,425,484. 

Yes... of course this is a very hypothetical situation. Of course you can't get everyone to vote, or everyone in a single state to vote one way. This is merely the hypothetical maximum boundary for the 2008 election. Of course naturally the numbers can only apply to the 2008 election due to differences in population, and reapportionment that occurs every ten years. There's probably some distribution of all possible scenarios that could come up with a "realistic maximum" at which the chance of winning an election without the popular vote would be...say... less than 25%. My guess is that this realistic maximum would be around 2.5% (where you will have a 25% chance of winning an election while losing the popular vote by 2.5%). Conversely, at 2.5% margin, 25% of the simulations would succeed in an election despite the loss (if given enough runs). Do I have any numbers to back this up... of course not thats just mere conjecture. I'm not a statistical genius so thats outside of my power. I presume that the 75-25 value would be pretty consistent throughout time fluctuating for the very reasons I explained up above but roughly around this area. Can you imagine the revolution if a candidate won the popular vote by 113 million votes. 

There is one good thing about the Electoral College.... thats the nifty maps and often finding out who won before the final polls close. Take THAT parliamentary/unitary democracies!!!!

Sometimes its the little things in life that kinda make your day. I had just one of those moments driving from down south from near Mankato back to my place in Saint Paul. The drive is mostly boring since the urban growth boundary kinda kills development after Shakopee. Between Mankato and Shakopee, there are only 4 towns in roughly 60 miles, and none of them really have anything beyond gas stations, and a few bars. I mean... there are literally only TWO McDonalds. Yea... scary right? So besides the pleasant looking countryside, the drive is pretty much left to my own devices. Going 70 mph down this highway, I'm usually singing or thinking about random things Unfortunately the drive is incredibly lonely.  

However, yesterday... a "little thing" occurred that made me happy. After passing a truck on the outskirts of Le Sueur I came upon a light blue/teal car with a novelty license plate which, for privacy purposes I'll call him "Mr. Happy". In my review mirror I saw a white car fast approaching. I figured he come to pass me but instead he stayed behind me... So I thought pretty much nothing of it. About ten miles pass and we are the only cars on the road and we are all within only a couple car lengths of each other. It felt like a convoy! They were keeping me company. When that tractor with its hazard lights took up the right line, we all pulled a nice synchronized vehicular maneuver that looked straight out of the movies. I was having quite a bit of stupid fun. This little convoy made me feel special. We made it through Belle Plaine without incident despite an additional ten to twenty cars on the road. We swerved around the slow ones and maintained the integrity of our convoy with Mr. Happy in the lead.  We continued on through the country side together, with the distances between our cars roughly constant. 

But than we hit Jordan and Mr. Happy decided the right lane was too long and swerved into a small opening in the left lane! Our lead vehicle abandoned us! As the light turned green, his lane proceeded while ours remained stalled behind a painfully slow truck carrying soil. I was saddened. After a mile... I was disturbed... there was no novelty license plate to remind me that we are in this drive together! I mean... the white car behind me was reassuring, but I can't focus my eyes on him for safety reasons. But then I saw... just about 1000 feet up the road... "Mr. Happy"!!!! I looked down at my speedometer and I noticed I was ONLY going 65 mph... the speed limit is 65! I still had a bit of head room for my speed. I switched to the now open left lane and passed the truck, a bunch of tractors, and god knows what else. Suddenly I see Mr. Happy get back into the right lane and there was space... The convoy was reunited!!!

Or so I thought... the white car was missing... I looked briefly in my side mirror and noticed that he got stuck in the left lane when another car in front of him tried to pass but wasn't going particularly fast. I was worried. He had been there for nearly 40 miles! He helped me through the disappearance of Mr. Happy. Thankfully, that car pulled back into the right lane and the white car resumed his position back into the convoy! After just about 4 miles... the convoy was back together. The traffic began to thicken so I knew full well that our convoy was threatened. We reached the 2nd to last light and I saw a blinker.... it was in my rear view. 

The white car wasn't going to make the journey to Minneapolis-Saint Paul. I bid him farewell. But I still had Mr. Happy and we continued our journey through Shakopee past farm equipment and construction trucks. We maintained what was left of the convoy all the way til we hit Bloomington...

Nearly 60 miles after our journey began I said farewell... I said.... "Sorry, this is the big city, you're on your own" and pulled away passing him as his lane slowed. I never saw Mr. Happy again, but I thank him for his extended journey. Once we hit 494, I knew it couldn't last... two cars... together... around 1 PM, in the big city. It just wasn't meant to be. My normal license plate (although not novelty is TOTALLY easy to remember) and his novelty plate just couldn't be together any longer. 

Mr. Happy... White Car... it was a pleasure to drive with you!