iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

It’s that time of year again: roasted maple seeds from silver maple helicopters we collected off the sidewalk

About a cup of raw maple seeds. Squeezed out of the fat end of a helicopter (samara), they are dark green and shiny. About the size of a pumpkin seed but shorter and plumper

A pan of roasted maple seeds, now lighter green and speckled with brown

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

It’s 4 degrees out and the school bus app says my kids’ bus will be 45 minutes late

Screenshot from the K-12 bus app showing estimated pickup time as 9:34 AM. It was supposed to be 8:45

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Picturing Frank Gorshin when I read this

ICE spokesperson quoting the “Riddle me this” delivery of actual cartoon villain The Riddler

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Soft shell turtle, Lake Hiawatha beach, this morning

Green-brown soft shell turtle with a snorkel nose

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Missing your Kia Sedona? It may be idling at the end of my alley

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

You left your trash kayak in North Mississippi Regional Park

Kayak-shaped object made of wood and metal wrapped in plastic on the riverbank

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

River bottoms ranks pretty high on the remote feeling x proximity to central cities chart.

Tangle of thin, yellow vines that look like spaghetti on thick undergrowth

Trees on the edge of the Minnesota River

Broken cottonwood trunk covered in leafy green vines

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Is something going on with the catalpa trees? I’ve read they leaf out later than most other trees, but a bunch of the boulevard catalpas near my house are totally bare or only producing leaves on some branches

Catalpa tree with no leaves, just last year’s seed pods hanging from the branches. Bare canopy against blue sky

Small boulevard catalpa with no leaves in front of a green bungalow

Boulevard catalpa that is mostly bare but has leaves sprouting on one of its branches

Catalpa with brown seed pods from last season. No leaves. Sunny spring day

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

When your neighbor’s giant silver maple rains down helicopters on your lawn, make toasted maple seeds

Little hands reaching for plump, dark green toasted maple seeds on a white dinner plate

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Surprised a red tail hawk mid-meal traipsing through the woods below Longfellow Gardens

Red tail hawk in flight through the woods. Might be something in its talons? Early spring day.

Same bird flying right over the photographer

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

I think the final paragraph applies to the column itself

Screenshot of column reads: “In all the noise Trump made about DEI, no one is asking how he plans to create opportunities fairly.”

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

The Hiawatha Golf Course winter gate is OPEN. Now for some snow

Wide open gate in a chain link fence surrounding a golf course. There is signage just beyond the gate with a map of the XC ski trails. Brown grass, bare trees and no snow

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Pew pew! Lake Hiawatha making a racket today in the subzero temps

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

You are looking at the saddest doggie who has ever lived. He is going to cry until someone takes off the cone

Six-month-old puppy with a fuzzy wire-hair face looking dejected in his post-neuter cone

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 31/10/2024

The hand-cranked drain snake may be the worst tool ever devised. Bad at its job, anti-ergonomic

A black and gray plastic drain snake tool with a hand crank and trigger

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 26/09/2024

Sexual dimorphism in the common loon

Shiny metal loon sculpture near Allianz Field

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 13/09/2024

Lots of excitement in my office over Bluesky adding video

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 29/08/2024

I thought I’d discovered something when I found this lilac bush blooming in late August, but a guy who saw me taking a picture said there’s a blight going around that causes die-back and then blooming. Weird! (Smelled nice, though)

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 19/06/2024

Seems like the wind has shifted MPS arrivals to a flight path directly over piano lessons, so I’m plane spotting. Every one of these is a plane

A plane flying low over south Minneapolis, seen through a window on the second floor of the Music Lab

Small plane, probably with a rich person inside

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 11/03/2024

Bravo to the NYT editor who attached this selection of links to the bottom of this Trilobites column

New York Times Trilobites column about caecilians headlined “Bizarre, Wormlike and Oozing Milk for Their Babies.”

Collection of links at the bottom of a New York Times story titled “A Guide to Dairy and Plant-Based Alternatives.”

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 06/03/2024

Ice is out on Lake Hiawatha. Looks like a new record

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 23/02/2024

I guess the mascot has evolved. This is a cool look too

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 13/02/2024

I guess I can understand illustrating a cheap, slapped-together “Little Red Riding Hood” with swipes from another public domain work (Tenniel’s “Alice in Wonderland” under a red cape), but giving the story’s grandmother Mona Lisa’s face seems gratuitous

Illustration from Little Red Riding Hood that is a just-barely redrawn version of Sir John Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland

Illustration from a Litttle Red Riding Hood of the story’s grandmother embracing LRRH. Grandma looks like the Mona Lisa in a bonnet

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 13/02/2024

“Where are the spiders?” The question everyone living in the green area is asking themselves

Infographic from a children’s book titled “Where are the spiders.” Map of the entire continental US oddly highlights just four species from four separate states.

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Dylan Thomas @dylanthms.bsky.social · 05/02/2024

Looks like my washing machine was preparing a big surprise

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