My 96' Chevy Blazer in the forefront with the lighted State Capitol behind the evening I got my camera phone for the first time in December 2004
INNER CITY: Growing-up in the east of St. Paul's public schools in the Battle Creek neighborhood, I (Sal) attended many culturally diverse programs and events. I remember in Battle Cree Elementary (Environmental Magnet), our first grade teacher�s husband dressed in a �kilt� (eg. mini-skirt) to show the Scottish outwear during a performance of many ethnic-cultures represented in our school. Then in Battle Creek Junior High-Middle school, we had to do some dance from our ethnic background and performed it in front of the whole school assembly (I remember some of my classmates and I performed the famous Filipino Tininkling (sp?) dance, which I was somewhat familiar). In gym class, dancing was part of the academic genda, which I learned how to dance polka and some other ethnic dances that I can�t remember to this day. Then in Harding Senior High School, we had a cultural fair (eg. Festival of Nations held annualy in St. Paul), which I was able to do a Philippine booth with some of my Filipino-American peers/friends and cook some lumpia (Filipino egg-rolls)....more
East-Side View of Downtown from Mounds Park by Hwy 94
Mississippi River at Indian Mounds Park
"A view of the Mississippi River as it curves to the south at the edge of downtown St. Paul MN. Taken from Indian Mounds Park at two different months of the year, October and December 2005"
Tour de St. Paul
Saint Paul Time Lapse Drive
"Driving through the historic main streets of Saint Paul Minnesota."
I gave a tour to some UMM/Morris friends of my hometown on the July 4th weekend of 2005, which we visited some cool places (e.g. Korean Restaurant on Snelling Ave, Latino/Chicano West Side District, Rosedale Mall, etc.......
Como Park- Conservatory
Ge, Gina, Sachiko, and Jose in front of "newly built" visitor entrance of the conservatory. We just finished a long walk after attending the 26th Annual Hmong Soccer Tournament. Our main mission was to visit the Japanese Garden.
State Capitol
Ge, Sachiko, Gina, and Jose chilling at the front steps of the State Capitol
We waited about an hour and a half for the fireworks that were being shot up for the Annual Taste of Minnesota
Tour of St. Paul with a Couple from Bulgaria on December 2006
Above are pictures from inside during a 10am mass on Sunday, December 10th with friends from Bulgaria and my mom (Dad and Uncle Totoy happened to be there too when we came to visit towards the end of mass around 10:40am)
Beautiful view facing east towards downtown St. Paul
Woodland Hills Church
my local home church when visiting my family once a month in St. Paul
Open Door Evangelistic World Ministries Headquarters, 615 East 28th St. in Minneapolis.
Gatherings will feature local ministers and talent. Call 612-879-9099. Also, special dedication ceremony at 1p.m. on the 18th. Open Door has been ministering to the needs of the Phillips Community for the past 14 years. "Come celebrate this new facility that will enable us to more effectively evangelize and provide many vital community services."
".... at Phalen Lake Park, St. Paul, showcase cultural heritage of the local Asian Pacific Islander communities, it also will include cooking demonstrations of Asian street foods on Saturday, July 11, and special make-up tips sessions for Asian women on Sunday, July 12!
The annual two-day family-oriented Dragon Festival kicks off at 10 a.m. on July 11. The event’s all-volunteer planning committee is proud to promote the 2,400-yr-old tradition and sport of dragon boat racing. There also will be colorful displays of cultural heritage and performances in an effort to increase cross-cultural understanding. The year-round planning will result in a weekend of exciting festivities featuring:... "
"SAINT PAUL, Minn. - Among the thousands of student who graduated from high school this week, there was one story that caught FOX 9’s attention. His name is Dionne Griffin. He is smart and gifted.
A couple of years ago, he was also poor and homeless. His is a story of determination, a generous stranger and a choice that would change his life.
There are moments and places that define us. For Dionne griffin, it's a curb along Victoria Street in St. Paul. At 15, Griffin was homeless, desperate and hungry.
He was thinking about shoplifting from a Holiday Station around the corner on west Seventh Street. But at that moment, fate in the form of a middle aged woman came driving down Victoria Street.
She said the right words at precisely the right time. She gave Griffin some money for food and told him to keep praying. He said that was an emotional turning point for him.
Griffin had spent his early years in Chicago, with his parents and six siblings. The happy days did not last long. Their home was in foreclosure. Then the family split apart.
Griffin's father and brother came to Minnesota to stay with relatives and relative strangers.
But his life started moving in a different direction that day on the curb. Soon after the family had scraped together enough money to move into an apartment of their own, things were also turning around at school. Always a good student, Griffin became a great one. He rededicated himself to his studies at Humboldt High and earned a 4.1 grade point average.
He found supportive teachers, like French teacher Madame Dianne Hopen, who saw untapped potential.
"His brain is constantly tying things together not just from his course work also his life experience,” said Hopen.
That experience would become an essay . That essay would help Griffin win the Horatio Alger scholarship. A few weeks ago, there was a trip to Washington, D.C. where he met other winners from around the country.
Soon he won other scholarships. He won the Dell, the Wallin and a Kirby Pucket scholarship. He has earned a told of $72,000 for college.
He said it all really began with $5 from a woman driving down the street. He'd never see her again.
"I think it's a little bit magical, maybe she was an angel,” said Griffin. “I do believe in angels."
He's working full time at Ecolab, repairing computers. This fall at the University of Minnesota, he'll be majoring in economics and finance...
*GoodnewsEverybody.com Youth-Adolescents, High School, Teens, Teenagers, etc...
"
Lights $10 per vehicle Friday and Saturday and Holidays; $8.00 value nights Sunday through Thursday; Limousines/Passenger Vans/Mini Buses $15; ..."
"IBEW Holiday Lights in the Park is back for its second year in Saint Pauls Phalen Park, opening November 24 and continuing through December 31. Last year's first annual holiday light display attracted more than 40,000 visitors in its first year, raising more than $50,000 for local charities."
"In the early years, the settlers lived close to the fort along the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, but as a whiskey trade started to flourish, the military officers in Fort Snelling banned them from the lands the fort controlled, with one retired fur trader turned bootlegger, Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant particularly irritating the officials. By the early 1820s the area had become important as a trading center, a destination for settlers heading west, and was known as Pig's Eye Landing. In 1837, a treaty between Henry Schoolcraft and about 200 Dakota Indians displaced the natives from the site.[1] In 1841 Father Galtier established the Saint Paul Catholic Church and the name of the settlement was formally changed to Saint Paul in honor of the newly constructed church and Father Galtier's favorite saint.
The next 10 years saw continued growth in the area and in response to that, the Minnesota Territory was formalized in 1849 with Saint Paul named as its capital. In 1850, the city narrowly survived a proposed law to move the capital to Saint Peter when territorial legislator, Joe Rolette disappeared with the approved bill.[3] In 1854, Saint Paul incorporated as a city and, in 1858, Minnesota was admitted to the union with Saint Paul becoming the 32nd state capital."
"Museum admission is $6.00. Admission for children under 5 is FREE. This includes admission to the new Toy Train Division next door in the Chimneys Building on Saturdays and Sundays. "
Twin City Model Railroad Museum at Bandana Square
"Sunday, August 16 starting at 2:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
$10 at the Gate
Children 10 and under free; Immediate Family of 3 or more - maximum $30.00
Gates open at 1 p.m. - Bring Lawn Chairs or Blankets"
"ST. PAUL — Clouds periodically gathered, rain threatened and the wind was blustery, but that didn’t stop 23,000 people from converging on Harriet Island Regional Park in downtown St. Paul for “Rock the River” on August 16. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association-sponsored event brought together some of Christian music’s most popular bands, and also included several Gospel messages from the Rev. Franklin Graham throughout the event’s seven hours.
Bands
The gates opened at 1:00 p.m. and by 2:30 p.m., the official start of the event, Harriet Island Regional Park was fast becoming packed. Even though the event was geared for youth, the crowd included families with young children, parents of teenagers and others interested in hearing musical groups: Kirk Franklin, Superchick, DecembeRadio, FLAME, Lecrae, Canton Jones—and the headliners for the event, Flyleaf.
Each group played roughly a 30-minute set, followed by acts that performed while the stage was set-up for the next band or the Rev. Graham’s Gospel message.
The band Superchick understood the challenge of trying to reach today’s youth for Christ. Tricia Brock, lead singer of the band, believes kids want authenticity. “The generation now, they want genuine,” she said. “They read through people putting on an act. They’d rather us be us. The kids are saying, ‘I want it to be real. I want to know that you’ve messed up, because I know that I’m going to mess up. We want real Christianity.’”
Gospel message
Three times during the seven-hour concert, the Rev. Graham stepped on stage and gave a Gospel presentation, not unlike the presentations that have become hallmarks of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
Before the first Gospel presentation, when asked what his prayer was when he got on stage, the Rev. Graham said, “That God would just use the message to touch the hearts of these kids. And the message I’m giving is not my message, it’s God’s message. That God would just use it to reach another generation.”
At the end of the evening, 966 people responded to the invitation to commit their lives to Christ. Trained counselors waited at the front of the park as kids and adults made their way to the stage. Counselors also walked through the crowd, responding to those who could not make it to the front.
Youth focus
While the BGEA and the Rev. Graham have included youth nights and other similar outreaches in the past, “Rock the River” was a new effort to target America’s youth with the Gospel.
For Dave Gibson, pastor of missions at Grace Church in Eden Prairie and member of the “Rock the River” finance committee, he believes reaching this current generation has many significant challenges. “I think we have a lost generation, a generation that’s in terrible distress, the Rev. Gibson said. “This is the future of our nation, the future of the church. We really need to reach this generation.”
Rob Ketterling, lead pastor of River Valley Church in Apple Valley and also co-chair of the “Rock the River” executive committee, believes in many cases the church is starting from square one when it comes to reaching this generation. He says many kids today do not have a church background, which makes them even more difficult to reach.
In talking about the youth, the Rev. Graham said, “For so many their lives are upside down and in a mess and they don’t even know why.”
But that’s why the focus on music was such an important factor, the Rev. Ketterling believes. “The music brings down the walls,” he said, “and then it opens it up to the message. Music is their (America’s youth) message.”
Culmination of four cities
The “Rock the River” event in St. Paul was the final event in a four-city tour, which started in Baton Rouge and went up the Mississippi River to St. Louis and then the Quad Cities. In the end, more than 112,000 people attended the events in the four cities and 2,871 responded to the invitation to commit their lives to Christ.
The Rev. Graham said, “I’m so excited we’ve had this opportunity to share the message of God’s love with all of these young people. It’s a chance to change thousands of young lives."
River Descending in Downtown St Paul's Raspberry Island Island April 2nd 10 '
"The "Mighty" Mississippi River descending at Raspberry Island during the 2010 Spring Floods. This was taken over a week after it's peak on April 2nd 2010." Mississippi hits flood stage in St. Paul, MN , from youtube.com
Wikipedia "Four cities made bids to the Republican National Committee for proposals to host the 2008 Convention. Those cities were Cleveland, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, New York City, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. The RNC Selection Committee made its recommendation for Minneapolis-Saint Paul and on September 27, 2006, the RNC made its decision public that the 2008 National Convention would be held in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota.[1] The RNC made their decision earlier than originally scheduled due to the fact the Democratic National Committee also had Minneapolis-Saint Paul as a finalist among bidding cities. (After the RNC's selection the DNC removed Minneapolis-Saint Paul from consideration which left only two cities to choose from, New York City and Denver, Colorado). This is the second time the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area is holding the Republican convention�the first one was held in 1892."
Prayer
God of this City
"Lyric Video'
Sports
-Baseball
St. Paul Saints Baseball Promo - Version 1
"This is the first of three promos I created to highlight our playback of Saint Paul Saints Baseball on CTV's flagship channel 15. This initial version was created out of past Saints Baseball footage and a green-screen portion in the studio. " Ball Park Fans & Friends, plan for a "new" ball park in downtown!! Toyota Baseball-Photos
"Whose heart doesn't soften at the sight of a kitten, puppy or foal? We're instinctively drawn to a nest of chirping chicks, ducklings paddling madly after their mother, or a tiny chimp clinging to a parent.
This book is dedicated to animals - wild and domesticated. Our lives are richer because of them. They deserve our respect and protection. Although we barely scratch the surface in this little book, we hope it will inspire your awareness and support of those organizations who are working tirelessly on behalf of the animals in our world."
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