City Pages Best of NoMi Roundup

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Here are the Best of 2011 City Pages winners with connections to NoMi:

Best Undiscovered Neighborhood:  Victory Neighborhood, Minneapolis
Best Local Blog:  The Adventures of Johnny Northside (Two years running!)
Best Burger:  Victory 44 (not really, in my opinion, but we'll get to that in a moment)
Best Neighborhood Bar (Minneapolis):  Tootie's on Lowry
Honorable mention for something that SHOULD be in NoMi, Best Bike Trail:  Grand Rounds, along the Mississippi River.
Various other downtown spots with North in their street address garnered top honors as well, but they are not technically in NoMi.  Out of all of those, however, the best bike shop jumped out at me because we need a bike shop here.  (And a REAL one, mind you, not some taxpayer/non-profit funded program-based notion that will dry up with future budget cuts.)

Now, about that burger (and the best blog)...

Meta-Recycling in NoMi

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman

Ok, I'll admit it. For a long time, I never recycled. I'm not AGAINST recycling per se, I just felt like there were only so many things I could allow myself to care about or be emotionally invested in. Recycling didn't make the cut. I just thought that saving the planet was one of those responsibilities you could pass on to someone else. Like a bounced check or a crying baby.

But then John Hoff just wouldn't let up. He kept on pestering me and pestering me to start recycling until finally I gave in. There was a bit of a problem, though. I called 311 over and over again for several months, and they just didn't get me a recycling bin. I have to say, it's one of the few times in my experience that 311 didn't EVENTUALLY come through.

So after a while, one evening at Good Sports Bar & Grill, I mentioned to John that I STILL hadn't received my recycling container from the city after many months. John takes "green" initiatives to some rather interesting extremes. For instance, he spreads the contents of tea bags across his backyard because it makes him feel at one with the earth. He also coordinated an extensive online campaign to convince the writers of the TV show "Heroes" to recycle the same damned plot device four seasons in a row.

Never one to lose momentum when someone is willing to recycle, John immediately gave me one of his bins to use at my place. Now I go through maybe one Cub Foods' bag of trash a week. If I get around to composting, that will decrease even more. I just love that I'm recycling a recycling container, thanks to a fellow revitalizer!