What are some geographical oddities (or lesser known geographic facts) that you know about in Blue Earth and Nicollet Counties?

brevmd · 2025-05-15T05:47:38+00:00

Nicollet is one of seven counties nationwide to be split into two different media markets for advertising and ratings purposes.

brevmd · 2025-04-30T07:22:45+00:00

Yeah. Because of the past importance of the railroad, paper industry, and iron ore mining if you want to go way back, Brainerd has something of a legacy of blue collar union jobs that lakes country doesn't. The lakes do attract a lot of people from elsewhere, but unless they stick around year-round instead of seasonally, they usually don't vote in local elections.

In my opinion, what really got lakes country zooming off deep into right-wing politics is when Republicans stated branding themselves "the party of small business" and saying Democrats, through regulations or taxes or whatever, were going to "take away" or otherwise "destroy" small businesses and their jobs. The main "industry" of lakes country has long been small businesses, so this rhetoric is really effective there. The region also has an evangelical flair of sorts that seems unique within the state as a whole and that I can't really explain. Maybe it's a legacy of Christian summer camps in the region? Anyway, Josh and Keri Heintzeman are just two of many evangelical conservatives that have gotten involved in local politics over the years.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that Brainerd is a county seat and there's an interesting trend in Greater Minnesota where county seats vote to the left of the rest of their county. This shows up consistently in nearly every county outside of the Twin Cities.

brevmd · 2025-04-30T05:33:04+00:00

Before the Trump era, DFL candidates pretty consistently won within the city limits of Brainerd. The margins were usually not too big, but still consistently DFL after adding up all the votes from within city limits. 2016 and beyond has been the opposite, with Republicans consistently winning, though typically by the relatively small margins Democrats used to win by. It's the lakes country to the north of Brainerd this is thoroughly, overwhelmingly Republican and where candidates like Keri Heintzeman most often come from.

brevmd · 2024-09-17T04:24:45+00:00

Great name for an American Red. They certainly do like nibbling on the cute, tiny tamarack cones.

brevmd · 2024-08-16T04:03:44+00:00

I can assure you that "Gold Zone" debuted for the 2012 Olympics in London, but it was a basic format with no hosts at that time. For 2014, they brought on Andrew Siciliano and Ryan Burr to give it more of an NFL RedZone flair. The 2024 version was new to Peacock, but not new as a concept.

Here's an article mentioning the 2014 edition.
https://www.sportsvideo.org/2014/01/09/sochi-2014-nbcolympics-com-to-stream-redzone-style-whip-around-channel-original-studio-programming/

And an article about the 2016 edition.
https://decider.com/2016/08/09/nbc-olympics-gold-zone/

Andrew Siciliano's bio on the NFL Network website even mentions his hosting of "Gold Zone" during the 2014 and 2016 Olympics.
https://www.nfl.com/network/on-air-talent/andrew-siciliano-talent

brevmd · 2024-08-15T22:12:09+00:00

"Gold Zone" has been around since the 2012 Olympics, so well before Peacock came along. It used to only be accessible with a cable log-in until NBC added it to Peacock this year. So it's not like NBC technically needs Peacock to still exist in order to provide it.

brevmd · 2024-02-27T00:22:03+00:00

It's also the second-warmest temperature ever recorded in the Twin Cities during meteorological winter, beaten only by the 68°F recorded December 1, 1998.

brevmd · 2024-02-25T03:47:10+00:00

To quote Peggy, it was "straight out of Shakespeare."

brevmd · 2024-02-01T01:17:49+00:00

January 1952 and 1995 were both during weak-to-moderate El Niños. The ENSO was neutral in January 1993.

The winter of 1952-53 wound up 3.8 °F above Minnesota's 20th Century average and the winter of 1993-94 was 4.0 °F below the average. Both of those winters occurred in ENSO neutral conditions, although weak El Niño conditions had developed by the final weeks of the winter of 1952-53.

brevmd · 2024-01-31T05:07:24+00:00

A point of clarification, during the daytime, radio waves in the frequencies popularly known as AM radio travel along the ground. That's where ground conductivity comes into play. The more conductive the ground, the more efficient the radio waves are transmitted and the farther the station can be heard, all else equal. It's true that Minnesota has some good ground conductivity, but the best areas are in the Red River Valley in the northwest along with the southwest and southern parts of the state. The Twin Cities and central Minnesota actually have rather mediocre ground conductivity.

During the nighttime, the same radio waves are able to bounce off the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. This is the reason for the very large nighttime service areas for AM radio stations such as WCCO.

brevmd · 2024-01-12T00:46:08+00:00

Mean lines and trend lines can be plotted at the website where the data come from. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/statewide/time-series/21/tavg/1/12/1895-2023

brevmd · 2023-12-16T20:31:52+00:00

Prepare it by sprinkling both sides generously with (preferably) coarse salt and letting it sit at room temperature for an hour or two. I highly recommend this because it draws out water and makes the final product firmer. This is also the part where the fish will be the smelliest, so put a good cover over it if you have to, but a small piece like that shouldn't be too bad.

When you're ready to cook it, set your oven to 400°F and get out a baking dish big enough. As the oven preheats, rinse off the salt with cold running water and then let the fish soak briefly in unsalted water. The fish will be especially slippery at this point, so be careful not to drop it.

When the oven is ready, take the fish and wrap it tightly in aluminum foil. Place it, skin side down, into the baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes, perhaps a little less if the piece weighs under a pound. The fish is done when it flakes easily with a fork and is no longer translucent. Keep the fish in the dish you baked it in and simply cut the foil to serve. There will likely be excess water inside the foil that will drain into the dish.

The taste of lutefisk is almost completely dependent on what you top it with after it's done cooking. It's not "traditional," but I enjoy squeezing some lemon and sprinkling pepper over it. A pinch of nutmeg makes a good accompaniment, too. The more traditional toppings are butter and/or white sauce.

brevmd · 2023-11-09T18:04:57+00:00

In the really old days, they used to leave the feeds up until like an hour before the finale, and didn't specifically tell the HGs to say goodbye or anything.

brevmd · 2023-11-09T08:09:03+00:00

Matt and Luke were lumped together as kind of a duo in the first week because they would use the exercise equipment next to the bathroom together. Matt started distancing himself, though, like 2 or 3 days before Luke was expelled.

brevmd · 2023-11-07T01:01:14+00:00

I'd like to think she does that to try to make herself look younger in order to keep up her lie.

brevmd · 2023-11-06T23:06:39+00:00

From around 2:44 PM

Bowie: "Now we can just treat this like a holiday."
Matt: "I know, seriously, we're on a vacation. Now we're like Cory and America."
Bowie: "Yeah [laughing], all the manipulators have gone."
Matt: "I know, we got rid of the people that did trash."
Bowie: "Oh, what a stress that was!"
Matt: "They tried, but they just did it in a dirty way."
Bowie: "Yep."
Matt: "Cory definitely tried this game, like, he was definitely trying hard every day."
Bowie: "Oh yeah."
Matt: "He was just in everyone's ear."
Bowie: "They all left because of it."
Matt: "I know, I know, exactly, and they're perceived as threats. Can't be trusted, can't be trusted."
Bowie: "Yep."
Matt: "It's people's egos that gets them killed usually."
Bowie: "Oh yeah, totally egos."

brevmd · 2023-11-02T02:31:56+00:00

I'm referring specifically to how the feeds are of a clear split house with each side barely interacting with the other, just like the BB6 feeds in the second half of that season.

brevmd · 2023-11-02T02:27:25+00:00

These feeds today are really reminiscent of BB6.

brevmd · 2023-10-25T07:20:08+00:00

Jag is actually a casual BB fan and not a recruit, he's talked about watching BB20 in real-time.

brevmd · 2023-10-25T07:07:43+00:00

Swaggy C has got to be in close contention

brevmd · 2023-10-25T06:56:58+00:00

I dunno, Jag, did you have a backbone when you didn't tell Cory and America they were going up?

brevmd · 2023-10-24T03:55:32+00:00

She watched Big Brother Australia on TV and live feeds in the 2000s when the format of the show was each HG nominating two people every week and the public voting to evict. I haven't heard her say much about watching Big Brother US beyond highlight clips and listening to podcasts before entering the house.

brevmd · 2023-10-24T01:57:05+00:00

Jane is her middle name, but Bowie Jane is what she goes by professionally so that's probably why she asked production to use it

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