Downtown parking douchebaggery and other random thoughts

Most days I ride the bus to my job in downtown Minneapolis. On the rare occasion I do drive I usually park in a ramp about a block from my building that has a pretty good "early bird" rate. Over time that rate has fluctuated from $6 to $7 to $7.50 then back down to $6.99. Yesterday I was about to get on the bus when realized I had left my laptop at home. So I walked back to the house, grabbed the laptop and hopped in my car. As I pulled into the ramp I noticed the sign still said $6.99. When I pulled up to the paybooth, I handed the guy a twenty. He handed me back my change and I went to park. But then I realized he had given me $12.50 change. Something didn't make sense. It turns out the company that runs that ramp, and several others downtown, added a "+tax" to all their signs. So even though it said $6.99 it came to $7.50. This strikes me as technically legal, but realistically a slimy thing to do. I have NEVER seen parking ramps advertise their rates with a +tax caveat. If it is posted one buck for the first hour and you leave within an hour you pay one buck. So DAP, the company that runs these ramps, decided to raise their rates and were either to cheap to print new signs, or wanted to deceive customers by adding small print to something that has been up for months that you glance at as you are driving by. Lame.

Brewing Update
Last weekend the wife and I bottled the beer.

Ready to go (note the bottling tube attached to the spigot):



Pop in the carbonation tablets:



Bottle Away:



I ran into one dilemma after bottling-the instructions called for the bottles to be kept around 75 to 80 degrees for seven days. That is a hard thing to do in a Minnesota house in January. I ended up buying an electric blanket to put in the box with the bottles of beer. It did the trick perfectly. Today is the one week mark. Next we keep them at room temperature for another week, then I get to see what this concoction tastes like.

Good Food

The in-laws are visiting this weekend. Last night we all went out to dinner at Bali. It is the only true Indonesian restaurant in the Twin Cities. Really great food for pretty cheap, and the atmosphere is nice as well. Afterwords we walked two doors over to Salsa La Salsa to get some dessert.