So Long 2008, Hello 2009 (i.e. the year of the gopher's stadium)!

Hi All,

It's been a busy finals, holiday, and break season so we apologize for our blogging hiatus. We finished up 2008 with a bang on our 10-day trip to Seattle to visit friends and family. It was great to see everyone and we are so glad we had the opportunity to go.

This past year has been a busy one for us again with lots of new experiences and growth. Here are a few highlights of 2008 for the Bengtson-O'Brien clan:

* I did my first conference presentation at the Midwest Sociological Association's Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO. We road-tripped with our friends Nick and Shannon and a great time seeing a new city.

* We spent the summer working at Clearwater Lodge on the Gunflint Trail in Northern Minnesota. It was an amazing time of camping, meeting new people, canoeing, and hanging out in our new favorite town, Grand Marais.

* We moved to St. Paul and have an apartment in a fun historic neighborhood, perfect for walking our new dog, Mosby!

* Will began his counseling internship at North Central University. He is counseling students and is working with a great staff.

* We again had season tickets to Gophers football. We figured we had nowhere to go but up after a 1-11 season last year, so we were shocked they started off the season 7-1. Unfortunately, they ended up losing the last 5 games of the season, but we still had more to cheer about this year and are hoping for even more next year.

* Stephen (my brother) and his girlfriend, Kirstin, got engaged! We are so excited to have a new sister in the family!

* Our friends, Jill and Tory, got married this fall in southern California and we were lucky enough to be able to go out to celebrate with them. It was a wonderful reunion with friends and it was great to escape the Minnesota weather, even if only for a weekend.

I know you must be thinking, "Wow, 2008 sounds like it was really eventful, how are they going to top it?!" Well, we are working on that. Here are some things that are in the works for 2009:

* I am returning to southern California for my friend Ashley's wedding in February. I will be happy to trade the -30 degree temps for anything above 50!

*Will is graduating from Bethel with a Master's in Counseling Psychology in May. It will be the end of a long and busy road and he is really looking forward to being done with school (and I'm a bit jealous myself!).

* Will's brother, Taylor, is graduating from the University of Washington this year, so Will is planning a road trip out there for the early summer.

*I have a conference in San Francisco this summer and another in Atlanta in the fall, so we are looking forward to doing some more traveling.

* And I almost forgot, the Gophers' new outdoor stadium opens!!! We are STOKED!

Well, that's the scoop. We will do our best to keep up with this as school begins...

Till next time,
Kirsten

Trip Pix

New Years


&

Christmas

Into the sunrise

I cannot get over the final broadcast of The Current's Morning Show w/ Dale Connelly and "Jim Ed Poole" (Tom Keith). (Tom/"Jim Ed" is retiring)

For you out of state-ers, these two have been doing a Garrison Keillor-esque variety show for the past 25 years. Since we moved to these Twin-towns, we've been enjoying some solid radio play on The Current (much more enjoyable than KEXP...but that's another post). However, the morning show was a disconnected, zany show that was hard to stomach at first. With its birthday songs for loyal listeners, kid friendly folk sing along songs, and the last second prepared sounding skits about nothing it is different from the radio my generation knows.

Maybe it was the move to the elder St. Paul, or turning 27, but I've been loving this show for the past 3 months. A complete change of appreciation. And now it's gone. I'm sad that I wasn't in to it earlier on.

But today I'm sad that I was in the audience at the Fitz or having pancakes at the church next door. What a beautiful way to go. I hope my retirement party is half of this. From the packed house, to the bands that showed up at 6am to make the show completely live, to sad tribute songs, to the all the we wishers on the live blog burning their eggs at home while crying over the end of this era, it was a bittersweet tribute. I choked up...after just 3 months.

There's no way I can do this show justice. I'd encourage you to listen to it. Read the live blog transcript. Check out the photos.

And get into the next wave. Dale is starting a show on HD radio, but you can get the live feed online. Or check out the new Current Morning Show, starting tomorrow.

Enjoy.

Top Albums of 2008...oh how i love the current

(this list was heavily influenced by this weekend of studying with The Current cranked...)

Here's your completed ballot.

Your albums:

The Black Keys - Attack & Release
Passion Pit - Chunk Of Change
Calexico - Carried To Dust
Maps Of Norway - Die Off Birdsong
Terry Lynn - Kingstonlogic 2.0
Cold War Kids - Loyalty To Loyalty
Nada Surf - Lucky
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Pershing
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Mates Of State - Re-Arrange Us
Santogold - Santogold
Caesars - Strawberry Weed
Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
Animal Collective - Water Curses
Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons…
Ben Folds - Way To Normal
The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
I'm From Barcelona - Who Killed Harry Houdini

Your Write-in Selections:

Stars - Sad Robots
+/- - Xs on Your Eyes
School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms

Get Excited for Christmas Music

Gotta love Sufjan's contributions to Christmas music...

Thanksgiving Pix

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving in Willmar. http://picasaweb.google.com/willo11/Turkey08#

Tory and Jill's Wedding Pix

Here are some pix from our 25 hours of bliss in Orange County

http://picasaweb.google.com/willo11/TKJBOCWedding11808#

Depressing

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1148237/1/index.htm

AS YOU may know, the Oklahoma City Thunder held its first-ever home opener last week, against the Milwaukee Bucks. Me, I headed to the only place to be on such a historic night: Floyd's Place bar in Seattle.

Strange thing, though. When I showed up just in time for the 5 p.m. tip-off, ready to watch the Sonics—oops, I mean the Thunder—Floyd's was cold and empty; it was like walking into a Kafka novel. The walls of the venerable Sonics hangout were still painted yellow and a green foam finger made its pointless boast behind the bar, but there was no game on the TV and not a fan at the rail. The only patron was a white-haired gentleman mumbling incoherently into his beer, and he didn't look much like a sports fan. Though, on second thought, maybe he was. That's how bad it is in Seattle these days.

Think your city's suffering? Imagine if your favorite team bolted town after 41 seasons, not for some cosmopolitan burg but a dusty outpost where oil derricks qualify as urban skyline. Now imagine turning to your city's other teams for solace only to find each to be avert-your-eyes abysmal. Welcome to Seattle, home of the Sportspocalypse.

Don't take it from me, though. Here's Sherman Alexie, the brilliant Seattle writer and National Book Award winner, summoning all his powers of eloquence. "It is," he proclaims, "the worst f------ year ever."

To recap: Last season, the Mariners lost 101 games despite a $118 million payroll, which is sort of like splurging for gastric bypass surgery only to get fatter. They had a designated hitter who couldn't hit (Jose Vidro), a high-priced pitcher who couldn't pitch (Carlos Silva) and a general manager (Bill Bavasi) who, judging by his record, seemed better suited to philanthropy. "A terribly misevaluated roster," says David Cameron of the blog ussmariner.com. "Probably one of the worst baseball teams of the last 40 years." And Cameron is an M's fan.

Football provides no refuge. The Seahawks were supposed to contend, but through Sunday they were 2--6, and lame-duck coach Mike Holmgren has begun to resemble a walrus with acute acid reflux. Beloved U-Dub is even worse. After an 0--7 start Washington announced it would let coach Tyrone Willingham go at the end of the season; the Huskies are 0--1 since. "It's so bad around here," laments longtime Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Art Thiel, "that people turn from sports to the financial pages to cheer up."

This is epic, once-in-a-lifetime badness. Don't even try to compare your city. Sure, the Bay Area's got it rough, and yeah, Cleveland is going through a dry spell of, oh, two generations or so. But to lose like this, on so many levels, is unprecedented—hey, even Philly is all sunshine and rainbows right now—not to mention bewildering. "We're not the Vanderbilts of losing, like Chicago with the Cubs," says Alexie. "We're like the nouveau riche of losing. We don't know how to react."

Everywhere there are cruel reminders. Instead of a Sonics game, Key Arena is hosting Disney's High School Musical on Ice. (What's worse, it'll probably draw twice as well.) Even the Seattle clichés are in the cellar. Coffee? If Starbucks were an NBA franchise, it would be clearing cap space; the company is closing hundreds of stores in the U.S. Grunge? Grunge got sent to the minors years ago, and only its bastard progeny like Nickelback remain in the Show. And rain? Well I suppose rain never loses—only those who slog through it day after day do. Like, you know, the people in Seattle.

Brent Barry, the former Sonics guard who considers the Emerald City a second home, is so bummed that he wrote a poem called When It Rains, which he recited on Seattle sports radio last week. ("A chapter left unwritten, a generation with a gap/Forty-one years of NBA action, and now no one can clap.") Says Barry, who's now with the Houston Rockets, "I know there are more important things in life, with the economy and the election, but it's like a black hole up there."

Alexie, an actual poet who was involved in the failed Save Our Sonics campaign, admits that he's cried 20 times in the last year. How many men do you know who've cried 20 times in their lives? "The other day I tried to watch [the Thunder]," says Alexie, "and I saw Earl Watson take a stupid jumper, and I missed him so much."

Now that is grief. Still, there has to be somewhere to turn. Cameron, the blogger, considers his options. "I don't know," he says. "Who are we supposed to root for? Go Boeing?"

Not a bad idea, though he shouldn't get too attached. I hear Little Rock is looking to land an airplane manufacturer.

Photo Update

here are some photos from the past few months...a little less picturesque than the BWCA unfortunately.

http://picasaweb.google.com/willo11/OctoberUpdate#

October Update...on the 11th

Long, long overdue…

Who: Kirsten, Mosby, and Me
What: An overdue life update
When: the past 7 weeks; since 8/17/08
Where: St. Paul, the 651, 55102
How: via the world wide web; our blog

Okay, cheesy. But how do I capture the past 45 days? To say much has happened, would be a bland understatement.

How about a timeline? If you haven’t noticed, I’m a chronological thinker.

8/17 We packed up the trailer and headed back to the cities to live with our friends, Nick and Shannon, until we found a place.

8/18 I started my clinical practicum at a college counseling center in downtown MPLS. I’m working with a fantastic team of therapists, and seeing college students with all sorts of issues. It was slow starting out but it’s been picking up of late.

8/17-22 Kirsten sifted through craigslist for an apartment until we found John Dillenger’s old place in Ramsey Hill (near the StP. Cathedral) It’s got its quirks, but it’s a nice old building in a fun neighborhood. We’d love to have you stop by.

8/28 Headed south to Caledonia for the first (annual) Bengtson reunion at Mark and Nora’s place. It was a great way to wrap up the summer: bbq-ing, lawn games, sitting out on the porch, talking about the BWCA, etc.

9/2 Kirsten started her 3rd (believe it) year at the U. It consists of less classes, all on the St. Paul campus, and some busy RA work. As she hits up her last year of course work, and a bit of a lighter load, I’m in the midst of my busiest year…

9/3 We went for a run. Not just any run, but the first training run. We are looking at getting into 5Ks. Hopefully we can finish one before the snow falls (aka Will’s depressed for 5 months).

9/9 My first night of classes at Bethel. It’s the beginning of the end. I’m finishing up my masters (in counseling psych) by May 23 (for those of you tracking). I’ve got less classes, but way more work as I complete the practicum and need to write my thesis. In other words check back on the blog in 9 months.

9/13 Hit up the Gopher (currently 4 times as many wins as last year) game at the dome. So ready for the new TCF Gopher stadium. While we’re still a year away, both potential and stadium wise, it’s been fun to do the M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A chants again.

9/13 (part II) After the first game, we headed over to the Maplewood Petco to find a four footed friend. And we picked out (formerly named Buster) Mosby. He needed to get neutered so we had a week to get ready for this hyper lab/shepherd mix. He seems a bit more puppy than we expected, but he is a cute trouble maker.

9/15 Stated my new job…as a Manny! I’m working with a family out in Stillwater, so it’s a bit of a commute. But the hours are perfect. It’s a huge find in this busy year. The family is incredibly fun, even at 6:30 in the AM.

9/17 Finally hit the big Two-Seven, after months of talk (ask Kirsten). Not feeling old, but definitely ready to be done with school.

9/27 Headed down to Winona (yes the name sake of Ms. Ryder, the actress) for a wedding of an old school and youth group co-worker friend, Matty V. It ended up being an opportunity for Mosby to meet Scooby at Kirsten’s parent’s house. Scooby is a bit bigger and less friendly, but in 48 hours the two pups became cordial.

Well, so much for timelines. Maybe next time I will bust out a genogram for you. But anyway, I’m sure I forgot some things, maybe even something major, but hopefully I’ll be back to blogging regularly. Well at least regularly for a crazy busy student. Until next time…

Editors note: I actually wrote this on Oct. 1st, but since we don't currently have the net at the apt. I was unable to post it until now. Things are picking up also, but hopefully the blog will also improve with the internet returning. However, while not much of note has happened, 10/11/08 the Gophers became bowl eligible with huge win. Hopefully, more on that later...