iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lots of new businesses and buildings that have been thrown up in Minneapolis' North Loop, remarkable that not one of them is as visually interesting as this last example of a dying breed. The whole area used to look like this. Now it is identical to every other city's enclave for monied elites.

A cracked stucco wall with a plywood board over the door has rusted metal letters that read "Commercial Ato Radiator Repair Radiators Heaters Gas tanks" And in large ref painted letters "Auro Radiator Re" but the rest is cut out of the frame. Large weeds ate springinging out of cracks in the sidewalk.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Three Rivers Park District runs an excellent campground, that is fully connected to the Minneapolis trail system. Do you want to go a dedicated bike-in camp site that costs $11? Beat the traffic? Avoid the crowds in cabin country? Kids love it, they might even ride part way.

Cargo bike sitting in the shade under a tree at
Lake Auburn campground bike-in site. it is a black Bullitt front-loader with a colorful woven basket of camping gear, a folding chair set up for a kid to ride and a kids bike strapped to the side. A long tail bike peeks out from the background.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The powerpoint slide the feds showed the grand jury to try and pin conspiracy charges on Minneapolis protesters would be a sick tattoo.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I have been pretty tied to a pour-over method over the years, but trying out this 1940s Wear-Ever Drip-O-Later to reduce how much coffee I go through. Something nostalgic about how it tastes, and can make two pots worth using less grounds than one pour-over pot.

A 1940s aluminum wear-ever drip-o-later coffee pot sits on a black counter near a window, shining in the morning sun.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Jacob Frey promoting Minneapolis music from his official handle, seems like a lay-up, right? Not if you spell Nicollet wrong in the press release! AI bot mayor.

Press release about Minneapolis Mile of Music that includes the words "From Nicollett all the way through Loring Parl to Eat Street Crossing..." Clearly AI can't spell.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

The only good cars are strapped on to cargo bikes. #carryshitolympics

A lil tikes plastic car in the classic red and yellow color scheme is strapped to a black front-loader Bullitt cargo bike parked in a driveway. A kid does a cartwheel on the grass behind it.

POV of a child holding the steering wheel of a lil tikes plastic car "driving " down the street.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Made some more T-shirts. "A. I. Ain't It"

Black t-shirt silkscreened in pink and red streaks of ink. It reads "AI ain't it" along the top of a high contrast silhouette of a skeleton holding on to a chainlink fence and having all of her flesh exploding off her body from a nuclear explosion shockwave. Sarah Connor's terrifying prophecy as depicted in Terminator 2 that kept me up at night as a kid.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Messing around with paper stencils on a silkscreen, on a bunch of thrifted shirts. Made 11 shirts to give away to friends. Turns out I have a lot of friends so...Cutting another stencil to do a second run!

A black sweatshirt with a silkscreened image in white ink of Woody Guthrie standing with a guitar slung around his neck with "This machine kills fascists" scrawled on it in his distinctive handwriting. Around him the words "Fascists Bound to Lose" are printed on stencil letters.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Richfield needs to reclaim its former borders.

Yellow 1879 map of Richfield shows a much more expansive area than modern day.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Ok, I found the shirt. Going to wear it today and remember the man that helped get us through winter in America as we find ourselves once again, waiting for spring, and a brighter day.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

They ultimately were open Friday. But saw a sign banning ICE from entering posted on the door now.

Photo of Matt's Bar in Minneapolis with a sign taped to it that reads: EVERYONE IS WELCOME HERE EXCEPT ICE.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Minnesota residents not going to give up. Snoopy is Minnesotan as well. Reminded of that today, seeing all you heroes hanging on street corners, slipping further and further into that "Fierce Vulture" alter-ego.

Iconic Charles Schultz comic panel of Snoopy at the top of a small twisted tree, hunched over, vulture-like, looking at once menacing and determined.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Even the local hardware store is trolling ICE now.

A pallet of ICE NO MOR branded ice melt is displayed on a Minneapolis sidewalk outside a brown brick building.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Deer graze near headstones in Minneapolis where two labor organizers are buried. 10k people attended their funeral in 1919 after they were found bludgeoned to death by the train tracks during an attempt to unionize the railway workers. News accounts said they were hit by a train. Propaganda!

Long morning shadows on deer-trodden snow and leaning headstones in Soldiers and Pioneers Cemetery on Lake Street in Minneapolis. Close inspection reveals as many as 5 deer foraging for food among the ghosts of martyrs from 100 years ago.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Frozen Minnehaha Creek was good today, switching between the packed single track on shore, and picking a line on the fresh snow. Fun following animal tracks, footprints from various shoe sizes, and a section that was clearly left packed by a kid rolling in the snow.

$Sun refracts off of a snow-covered Minnehaha Creek, where a repeated print of a snowsuit left by a small kid rolling in the snow has been bisected by a bike tire print.$

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Sure is pretty. Don't drive.

A cold, inky black Minnehaha Creek splits a snow flocked tangle of trees on either shore.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

First time using Old Time Cobblers on Lyndale and Lake: full Red Wings refurbish and resole, feel great. Not too many left doing this in Minneapolis.

Black Red Wing with fresh new white soles stitched on. Red linoleum floor beneath the foot it's worn on.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Lake Harriet, standing on a cold beach with strangers on a Tuesday night in November.

Pink, green and purple Aurora with some dark trees reaching with bare branches

Colorful aurora over inky water and city lights in Minneapolis.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Tacos El Kevin has figured out the gender inclusive restroom pretty well.

A yellow door with a male/female sign on it, but also the name Kevin.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

People willfully ignorant of local history should not be put in charge. Like, this is all very well-documented. The sad truth is there is a tragedy behind many things we take for granted.

Screenshot of comment form for Lyndale design proposal: "You ever wonder why the paths around the city lakes are divided into walking and biking paths? They used to be shared, someone died."

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

River was nice yesterday. No public water access to this entire pool means that any boats need to come up through the Ford Dam. If you have a canoe or kayak there are other ways in. It was just me, saw no other boats in 4 hours paddling. That bagpiper in St. Paul was the only thing not relaxing.

Puffy white clouds are reflected in the inky water of the Mississippi looking north towards the trestle railroad bridge that connects Minneapolis and St Paul.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

If it didn't work so well as this, I would have made the bar swap already.

A Bullitt bike with 3 coolers strapped to it, two red and one blue behind the saddle.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Like the Minnesota Twins, Summertime is having a fire sale, so get it cheap before it gets too smokey, rainy, or just ends entirely for the season.

A view of White Sands Beach on the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi. The trestle bridge stretches across the dark summer green that lines the shore. A few small trees straggle up out of the water edge, a storm-stunted ash with bared roots, and a half-dead willow. Too young children play on the empty white sand under a bright blue sky scattered with white cloud puffs.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Unfortunately I lost or broke all my other physical Pixies media, but cranking this, the most important one. Seeing them live tonight in St. Paul.

Photo of the cassette Bosonnova by Pixies. It is a red saturn-looking planet that reads Pixies around the rings, surrounded by a black and red negative of what looks like the surface of the sun .

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

That NYT article about Alpha, the for-profit AI school in Austin has all these photos that are kind of terrifying if you zoom in and see what the adorable youngsters bathed in sunlight are looking at on their screens.

Screenshot of a screen a child is looking at in photo from a NYT article. When you zoom in it appears to be a transcript some strange dialogue about women wooing soldiers. Possibly from a novel or play from the early 20th century, completely devoid of context and weird for a what looks like a middle school kid to read anyway.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Made it in to shore just before the storm, loaded up the canoe, and took shelter under a bridge for a bit. Then continued on my way doing the slightly sinister bike-pulling-a-canoe-in-the-rain-at-night thing. Singing softly to myself with made up lyrics.

A canoe is sitting on a trailer attached to a bike. The bike has a bright headlight showing green bushes and a trail ahead. The red taillight shines off the concrete bridge overhead and the limestone footings. The canoe is wood with cane seats and has a red/green nautical light mounted to the end closest to the camera. The ground looks wet and puddly.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Now that I have a working Walkman again, going through my cassette collection: Geto Boys' Bushwick Bill in his 1995 solo album "phantom of the rapra" So much better than I remember it. A highlight is when he breaks the 4th wall, telling the assigned FBI agents to "listen up" on "Mr. President".

A cassette tape case on an old oak table. The cassette is Bushwick Bill, phantom of the rapra. The lettering is in yellow over a dark gothic looking photo which shows a woman in black walking down a floral carpet staircase holding a candlestick, while a dredded Bushwick Bill peers out from behind a grand piano wearing a partial white "phantom" mask and old fashioned poofy sleeves under a black tuxedo coat. Half a ghostly skull is overlayed with 50% opacity.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Not my most ridiculous contribution to the #carryshitolympics but everything fit nice on the cargo bike, and turns out the Yepp seat can perfectly cradle a propane tank.

4 large bags of ice stacked on a Bullitt cargo bike, with a LP gas tank strapped into the child seat at at the front outside a gas station.

View from the cockpit of a cargo bike loaded with ice and a propane tank on the cargo area.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

At least one of the photos I saw of an officer wearing HSI insignia looks like a MPD officer who used to moonlight at Ken & Norms. Maybe no longer with MPD, IDK. I just don't forget faces.

Officer in a blue shirt and tactical vest, face obscured by grey gaiter stands with hands on belt with green tactical vest on outside a Minneapolis restaurant.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Example of technology devolution: I have tried every type of LED and CFL and nothing beats these incandescents that are only available as a lucky find at the thrift store.

A yellow box with a $1.99 sticker over an image printed in blue of three classic incandescents. The text reads: STANDARD LIGHT BULBS General Electric 75 Watt Three Bulbs.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

I have a hard time when an international touring act shouts out "what's up Indianapolis" from a Minneapolis concert stage, so for Kare 11 to mix the cities up is pretty lame.

"Minneapolis makes hustory with civilian hires in police reform effort"
Indianapolis-In a historic move aimed at reform and transparency...

An article from KARE 11 that uses two city names interchangeably, one in MN, one in Indiana.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

They seem to want to take a lot of things from all of us, these next few years. I hope they don't try to take the view from the Minneapolis side of the river in the spring. That would be the very last thing.

A blue sky with white poofy clouds floating and some wispy pale ones too, hovering beyond them in the distance. The sand in the foreground looks warm and khaki colored. The Mississippi surface is still but for a tiny ripple. The cliffs on the St. Paul side shine white in the sun while the leafless trees appear crispy brown like a marshmallow held near coals almost too long.
Lake/Marshall bridge steps over the dark water off to the left where cottonwood blossoms intercede.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Just a narrow little stretch of open water along the north shore of Lake Harriet, between the ice and shore. Very hard paddling into the wind, then just sailing back to the bike.

A wooden canoe slips through the grey sky colored water between the rotten ice and the treeless shore. There are two empty seats, a canvas bag, a ball cap and a couple paddles scattered about the bottom.

A Bullitt cargo bike rests on its kickstand by the shore of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. It has a long wooden canoe with cane seats on a bike trailer attached to the seat post. It looks very windy.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

I googled "Elon on Social Security" for you if you can at least read a few headlines to get to the gist of why people might want to protest.

A screenshot of all the articles about Elon Musk that come up when you google "Elon on social security" in case someone only gets news from state-run media and honestly believe that he is just eliminating inefficiency, not burning down the entire federal government at the behest of his handlers: Putin and Xi.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Why did I just see two F-16s fly over the full moon in Minneapolis?

A sillouette of trees frame a full moon. A steak of light that was roaring like a fighter jet streaking in from the top left.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

The creek was a color I have never seen today. I did not get too close.

A swollen Minnehaha Creek has a yellow/ pea soup sheen as the water flows between two leaf-cluttered banks covered in small trees.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

A lot of bad news. Switching my kitchen radio to TAPE from RADIO.

A picture of a cassette copy of the Sade Album "Promise". SADE is spelled out in all caps in red on top of a photo of the artist on a beach in a blue button up shirt looking sideways at the camera with red lip stick and a Mona Lisa smile. The plastic of the case is scratched and dusty.
"Contains bonus tracks not available on the LP"

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Rode the studded tire bike to work, so I could sneak some Minnehaha Creek ice in for a short part of the commute. Made me a little late, but maximum joy. Crystal clear in spots, riding on a fish tank with little brown trout darting under your tires.

Garmin map of Minnehaha Creek, with a route directly on top of the water. Starts at Cedar, ends at 12th Ave. 19 degrees.

Garmin map of Minnehaha Creek, with the route starting at Chicago Ave and ending at Cedar. Temperature 9 degrees.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Winter is running for its life out here.

A dirty, leafy, snowman leans into a puddle in a misty field full of snow with mud poking through.

A sad little snow man appears to be wading across a giant puddle in the gathering dusk.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I went to Full Cycle, the used bike shop at 35th and Chicago. That place has everything. Needed some new grips for my winter bike, got some really cool dead stock ODI Mushroom grips.

Classic 80s style blue bmx bike grip on black handlebars with a sheepskin crash pad, mounted klunker-style on a mid century Huffy Silver Jet that was locked to a rack on the sidewalk, by a grey painted building with bright orange trim around the display window.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

I really don't get to St. Paul as much as I should, but I do go look at it pretty regularly and find I'm glad it is there.

Grey November sky reflected on the water flowing under the Lake Street bridge from the beach just south on the Minneapolis side of the river.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

I remember having conversations years ago with people who would qualify for protection under the DREAM act, not understanding their reluctance because "I have too much at risk to give over that information to the government, what if the government changes." Now I understand.

Screenshot of CNN article about plans to target Dreamers for deportation.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

I woke up with a sore neck and way too many Aurora photos. Between the copper thieves stealing the wiring out of streetlights and the constant solar storms, the night sky is full of visible excitement, even in the city.

Pink sky and green streaks of the Aurora above Minneapolis framed through the dark leaves and power lines.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

Getting close to peak color by the Mississippi. Might have been my last swim of the season, water temperature is dropping with the shorter days and cooler nights.

Peak color over on the St. Paul side, just south of Lake/Marshall bridge, as seen from the Minneapolis shore. The water looks dark and cold and there are a few wispy clouds in a pale blue sky. The trees are a riot of green, yellow, orange, and red.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 27/09/2024

First time seeing a shark in the river!

A truly terrifying rubber Great White Shark puppet bobs in the shallows near shore on the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi River, just downstream from the trestle bridge that crosses into St. Paul.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 24/09/2024

Fall color update from my favorite beach in Minneapolis: St. Paul greens fade to dusty yellows, no orange yet.

The looking to the northeast through the Mississippi Gorge as it passes through Minneapolis and St. Paul. The trees are just starting to turn towards fall, the Lake/Marshall bridge arches gracefully in the distance, where the river bends out of sight.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 12/09/2024

Even if it was an accident, this cowboy tag I encountered in a Bloomington middle school stairwell is amazing and the kid has a future.

A beige wall has some scratches in it which could be interpreted as resembling a cowboy with a big chin, an unexpressive mouth, no nose, and pin-prick eyes resting under a hat with an enormous brim.

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Doty @corbindoty.bsky.social · 28/08/2024

The last White Castle on Lake Street, resting peacefully in a pine box. Closed casket.

A plywood sheath wraps every inch of the former White Castle at the corner of Lake and Blaisdell in Minneapolis. A bunch of fluffy clouds crowd the pale blue August sky beyond and a saggy chain link fence languidly guards the site so none may approach.

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