In 2008, there was a natural terrain motocross track in Searles, MN near New Ulm. It was open for a few years and was always a good time.
Author Archive: Brian
Google’s Role in Social Distancing
I thought this was interesting! Google is taking anonymized, aggregate data from Google Maps for public health officials to understand responses to social distancing guidance related to COVID-19.
Here is the data I pulled for the state of Minnesota. It looks like in general, 38% less people are travelling to work, 35% less people are travelling to grocery stores and pharmacies, and 58% less people are travelling to restaurants, cafes, and shopping centers. Rice County seems to be doing slightly worse at sheltering-in-place compared to the average in Minnesota, except in the travelling to work and parks categories.
Source: COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports (https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility)
The more you know!
The more you know!
Does a USB drive get heavier as you store more files on it?
Believe it or not, they get lighter. USB drives use Flash memory, which means the the ones and zeros of your data are stored on transistors. When you save data, a binary zero is set by charging the float gate of the transistor, and a binary one is set by removing the charge. To charge it, we add electrons, and the mass of each electron is 0.00000000000000000000000000091 grams. This means that an empty USB drive (which mostly holds zeros) weighs more than a full USB drive (which has ones and zeros). Add data, reduce the weight. However, you would need to weigh more USB drives than exist on the planet together at once before the difference in weight became easily measurable.
Believe it or not, they get lighter. USB drives use Flash memory, which means the the ones and zeros of your data are stored on transistors. When you save data, a binary zero is set by charging the float gate of the transistor, and a binary one is set by removing the charge. To charge it, we add electrons, and the mass of each electron is 0.00000000000000000000000000091 grams. This means that an empty USB drive (which mostly holds zeros) weighs more than a full USB drive (which has ones and zeros). Add data, reduce the weight. However, you would need to weigh more USB drives than exist on the planet together at once before the difference in weight became easily measurable.
(source: Dr. Peter Bentley, sciencefocus.com — https://www.sciencefocus.com/…/does-a-usb-drive-get…/…)
Not All is Doom and Gloom with COVID
All joking aside for once, if there’s one thing I can say about all this Coronavirus “craziness”, “pandemic”, “panic”, “crisis”, “precaution”, “stupidity” (pick the adjective you most relate to), it is this: People are forced to think out of the box for solutions to problems they never thought they’d encounter, and this is NOT A BAD THING! It shakes up the status quo and forces people out of their comfort zone.
People will have to educate themselves on using technology to get work done, instead of forcing mostly unnecessary (and potentially hazardous right now) in-person meetings.
Businesses owners will have to remain agile and adapt their business models on the fly. Especially now, as bars and restaurants are being forced to close. They have to. Otherwise they have no choice to close and layoff all their workers.
Yes, the stock markets are down. If you are on a long-term plan to retirement, it’s going to recover no problem. This is an opportunity, not a crisis. Make the best of the hand you’re dealt now!
Above all, don’t sweat the small stuff. So, you may need to use a fabric cloth instead of a paper towel. So you may have to meet a new neighbor to borrow a couple of eggs. The world survived many centuries without all the modern conveniences we take for granted now. Use it as a way to learn history, and use it as a way to learn something new.
Nearly nobody has framed this event as a positive one. Yet, with a slight change of mind, there can and will be good things that will come out of this that will help us, and will help the country grow stronger. Get ready for a wild ride guys! This is no doubt a story people will be able to tell their grandkids about. 
Let’s all make the world better in small ways
Wise words. If only… If just only… we could all spend time doing work making the world better in small ways. Theorizing about large changes in the world is disillusioning because people don’t think they are that powerful. But in reality, a lot of us doing small meaningful things is what can actually change the world for the better.
I’m a New Mac Owner!
I never thought the time would come, but I have to announce I’m a brand new Mac owner! Mind you, it’s not a new Mac, but I am a new owner! 
I received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition!
Wow! I received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from our District’s Representative Jim Hagedorn for the “Hidden Gem” award I received from the Faribault Virtues Project. It was an honor to be recognized for some work I’ve done over the years preserving history in Faribault and Rice County. If we all pitched in and helped our community in one or two small ways, what a wonderful place our world could become!
Two Brians honored for preserving history
By ANDREW DEZIEL adeziel@faribault.com Sep 12, 2019
Two Brians from Faribault were honored on Wednesday for selflessly using their spare time to preserve a bit of Faribault’s history.
Community members heading the Faribault Virtues Project Virtues Project seeks to strengthen are hoping to identify unsung heroes in the city with the Hidden Gems initiative.
The surprise event was to honor the men as Hidden Gems, a program spearheaded by the Virtues Project-Faribault, part of an international campaign launched in 1991. The Virtues Project seeks to strengthen communities and help people to live more self-empowered lives. Among the 100 virtues which the project seeks to highlight are creativity, flexibility, and self-discipline.
A hallmark of the Hidden Gems recognition is that the recognition is intended to come as a total surprise to the honoree.
When Brian Schmidt and Brian Klier walked into the Carlander Family Room at the Rice County Historical Society, they were greeted by several dozen friends, family members and co-workers, excited to honor them for their generous donations to the community and the way they exemplify the 100 virtues.
Brian Schmidt
Brian Schmidt currently serves as the president of the Rice County Historical Society. When he’s not working at Malt O’Meal/Post Consumer Brands, the Faribault native loves to share his immense passion for Rice County history with the community.
Schmidt wasn’t much for history in high school, but his interest in local history was piqued when he started to explore the then-abandoned Fleckenstein Brewery and found hundreds of old, unique bottles. Schmidt ultimately donated the bottles and other Fleckenstein artifacts to the Rice County Historical Society and soon became deeply involved as a volunteer.
Schmidt says he’s always eager to see what historical artifacts people bring to the historical society on a daily basis. Schmidt noted that even though many of the Historical Society’s collections are full of simple relics that had meaning to only a small number of people, those artifacts can still give someone a unique sense of what life in Faribault used to be like.
Schmidt is grateful that he can play a role in preserving a little bit of Rice County’s past for future generations to appreciate and gives tremendous credit to the Historical Society’s volunteers and thousands of members, who he says are like family to him.
“It’s easy for a person to be a volunteer because we have such a great group of people,” he said.
Brian Klier
Like Schmidt, Klier is a lifelong Faribault resident who has worked as a computer technician with the Faribault Public Schools for the last 24 years. Also like Schmidt, Klier said he was never much for history class in high school.
Klier’s interest in local history was piqued in part by a more modern piece of history. While at work, Klier learned that photos of Faribault by the Faribault Junior High School’s video and photography club from the 1970s and 1980s were about to be disposed of.
Klier saved the slides and donated them to the Rice County Historical Society, but not before scanning them and uploading them online. He’s posted many of them in the Facebook group he moderates, “You know you grew up in Faribault when…”
An original user of the group, although not the creator, Klier offered to moderate it after he noticed the quality of the group begin to deteriorate, with few active users and an increased number of spam posts.
With Klier as an active moderator and contributing his own unique content, the group has become one of the most popular Faribault-related Facebook groups. Somehow, Klier also finds time to operate the Rice County Skywarn page on Facebook.
Klier encouraged community members to find what they are passionate about, and consider spending what free time they have supporting related groups.
“If each of us shared one or two things that we are passionate about with the community, I think Faribault would be a much better place,” he said.
Reach Reporter Andrew Deziel at 507-333-3129 or follow him on Twitter @FDNandrew.