Outline
Do Something Fun
This past weekend I went to Duluth with my friend Brett and the singular goal of skating. We did not know what skate parks existed in Duluth, but we figured that with a population of 86,000 people there must be at least one. We set out at around 10:00am in his navy blue Pontiac Vibe. On the way there we listened to the entirety of Protest the Hero’s album Kezia and drank basically an entire gallon of water. It reminded both of us of when we were in highschool.
About an hour away from Minneapolis and an hour away from our goal we stopped at a gas station to fill up and get icees. The gas station attendee asked where we were headed and we said “Duluth, to skate”. She recommended a skate-park a little ways down the road right off of the freeway. We hopped in the car and followed her directions. It was a small unnamed park with metal ramps and smooth concrete ground. It had a fun curved grinding feature pictured bellow that neither of us had ever seen before. Brett slammed it like a PRO.
After leaving this park it was a straight shot to Duluth. Upon arrival, we stopped at a small skate shop so that Brett could pick up a new deck and I could get a jacket. The jacket that I bought became, and still is, the most expensive article of clothing I own (discounting old prom dresses) at $115. Bellow is a picture of the jacket with me inside of it standing in front of the Duluth bridge the following day which will be talked about later.
While we were at the skate shop we asked the sk8 attendant if there were any parks nearby. He was all about our skatventure and recommended a bunch of parks. The first stop was a small run down DIY park built under a bridge. The park had very rough ground which was not super pleasant to skate on but we still scooted around for a while.
We were both hungry after leaving the rough grounded park so we stopped to get Subway before hitting the next spot. I had a turkey sandwich with extra banana peppers and Brett had a meatball sub. The sandwiches were delicious and economical. The third and final park was by far the most extensive and best kept. This park was also under an overpass but this one had pleasantly smooth ground. Additionally, There was a beautiful mini ramp (❤❤❤) and lots of small blocks and transitions to play around on. At this park we met some darn amazing Duluthian skaters. Although this was intimidating, I stand firm in the belief that the best way to get better is to skate with skaters who are better than you are. Bellow are some images depicting our time at this park.
This park gave us a combined total of 8 new bruises and a handful of small contusions but we couldn’t have been happier with the experience. We stopped skating at around 1am when it got too dark, the people with the lights left, and we had both fallen one too many times.
We looked around for hotels but there were no rooms available at 1am on a Saturday for under $150 a night. Not wanting to drive all the way back to Minneapolis in the dead of night, we pulled into residential Duluth and slept on top of a bunch of skateboards in the back of his Pontiac Vibe. My last thought before falling asleep was that I could not imagine a more comfortable sleeping arrangement.
We woke up at around 5:00am and went to an adorable diner that served adorable hash browns and homemade raspberry jam. There were little journals at each table for diner patrons to write and doodle in. Pictured bellow is my personal favorite entry. Also pictured is Brett’s favorite entry.
After breakfast we parked near the Mississippi and skated around for a couple of hours. We geeked out over bridge engineering and spooked people with Brett’s loud wheels. We looked at a crazy cool light house and laughed at an old joke collaboration. Bridge, Lighthouse, and old joke shown bellow.
We left Duluth when it started to drizzle. It was a superbly pleasant experience that will hopefully be repeated sooner rather than later.
Mind Map
Although I can see the merit in doing a mind map, I do not think that it is a good way for me personally to organize my thoughts. I found myself traveling very tangentially and that I was prone to traveling outside previously outlined groups such as “water” or “land”. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I did not like that I often repeated things. It just seemed to get very disorganized very quickly.
Suggested Themes
- Transportation for kids
- Sub theme is worth doing because you can go very deep while still being confined to individuals who cannot actually transport themselves. So there is there potential to be very creative — transport with wind, water, air but it is not overwhelming because these people cannot actually use these things for themselves, the transportation is always facilitated and they must be transported in a particular way.
- - How are kids getting around in/on water, land, air
- Kid transport for fun
- Safe kid transport
- Fun AND safe kid transport
- Small land transportation that is attached to your body
- I like this because it is kind of niche but still has a lot of creative potential. I am also personally interested in skates which is a form of transportation attached to your body and I am interested in how I could innovate it further. I do not think that people usually think of shoes as a mode of transportation — more fashion — but I would like to explore how to potentially change that.
- - Skates
- Kinds of skates
- Innovative shoes
- Twists on shoes — example: heelies
- Skis+snowshoes
- Public transportation
- Public transportation is a very monitored and controlled species of transportation. Any kind of variation on it will generally need to be brought on by public user demand or simply by passengers finding ways to improve their personal experience for themselves. Seeing that public transport is often a much cleaner and greener alternative to personal cars I would like to explore ways to make it more attractive and accessible.
- - Buses
- How to make public/pooled transport more attractive
- How to make public/pooled transport ‘greener’
- Public transit ways to make ‘green’ commuting easier/more accessable
10 silly Ideas
I found brainstorming these ideas to be a supremely fun activity. Uninhibited by manufacturability or realistic potential I let my imagination play however it wanted to. Ultimately I came up with more than 50 ideas (some of which shown in list format bellow) from which I chose my 10 for their drawability and creative appeal.
Timeline
Wed 9/19: Start mind map, no pictures
Thurs 9/20: Draw in pictures, beautify mind map. Figure out what “Fun” activity is going to be. Plan to complete fun thing over the weekend.
Fri 9/21: Complete the 10 silly ideas — reference mind map if stuck. If 10 silly ideas do not get completed, plan to finish/polish them off on Saturday 9/22.
Sat 9/22: Pick out suggested themes from mind map, complete writing assignment around suggested themes. Polish off drawings for 10 silly ideas and scan them into the computer.
Sun 9/23: Do something fun! Document it!
Mon 9/24: Look over all parts of assignment, make sure it is completed with a satisfactory degree of quality. If it is not, fix it. Gather pictures, write blog post.