Pre-Ramble:  There’s no denying it – even over a full year out, election season is clearly underway.

And, Minnesota politics has quickly turned into national politics with Tim Pawlenty and Michelle Bachman shuckin’ corn and tradin’ barbs in Iowa over the weekend at the Straw Poll event, and President Obama kickin’ off a Midwest meet-n-greet in the Mississippi River Valley.

The Straw Poll is a “seriously-it’s-just-for-fun” pre-season photo-op where voters pay $30 to put a kernel of corn in a jar with a picture of their favorite candidate taped on the front of it. (New democracies take note.)  This time around, Michelle Bachman got the most kernels in her jar and Ron Paul got the next largest amount.  Somewhat surprisingly, former Minnesota Governor Pawlenty got the third largest number of corn kernels in his jar and dropped out of the race after that.

Minnesota continues to enjoy political attention as President Obama winds his way through the heartland not campaigning. His first whistle-stop was Cannon Falls, Minnesota. I’ve never actually been to Cannon Falls, but I suspect it’s like a lot of small Minnesota towns … simple, earnest and showing a little bit of wear.

The President, showing a little bit of wear himself, rolled up in a brand-spankin’ new Presidential Bus (not it at right).  Commissioned by the Secret Service, the vehicle – a cross between James Bond and the Partridge Family – cost just over $1 million and is equipped with 5-inch thick armored panels, black-out windows, advanced communications technology, flashing red and blue lights, and lots of other top-secret stuff.  It isn’t easy for a president to be both accessible and bulletproof.

Extra pickles?  President Obama spent a better part of the day hanging with “the people” and talking about issues in folksy terms. The Orator-in-Chief was droppin’ “g”s all over the place … talkin’ about “gettin’ stuff done,” … “doin’ this and that,” … and “makin’ the hard choices.”  I think I even heard him say “betcha” a couple of times (which is soooo Minnesooootan, doooon’t ya knooooww … ).  At one point, caught up in the moment, the President made the down-home suggestion that someone get the grills going … like a backyard barbecue.

The Take-Away:  Mr. President, if given a choice between brats or, for instance, jobs, I’m thinking that American people would pay $30 to put their kernel of corn in the “gainful employment” jar.

Pre-Ramble: Day eight of the Minnesota government shut-down …

The fact that our governor and legislators couldn’t/didn’t do the job they were elected to do is lame and unacceptable.

The Take-Away: Here’s a list of all of the members of the Minnesota House of Representative and the Senate. Print yourself a copy to take into the voting booth, so you can be sure that you never vote for any of these individuals again.

Pre-Ramble: For the uninitiatied, the word Flugtag is pronounced “flew’- tog” … rhymes with “blue’-fog” and it means something like ”Flight Day” in German. 

I consider myself an expert, now that I have attended the goofy event which was recently held in a big Saint Paul park on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi River. Once you’ve shared the Flugtag experience with 90,000 people, you can’t help but be a fan.

Basically, the Red Bull Flugtag features a bunch of teams of five folks who design and  fabricate largely aerodynamically challenged human propelled contraptions that are launched off a 30 ft. tall platform into a body of water below. The Flugtag events are as much about creativity and showmanship as they are about actual flight. (In some years, the winning teams put down some pretty pathetic distances.)

According to wikipedia, Flugtag was invented by Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz, “… although the format was originally invented in a small English seaside town under the name “Birdman Rally.” The first Red Bull Flugtag was held in 1991 in Vienna, Austria. It was such a hit, that it has been held every year since in over 35 countries across the world.

Flugtag 101 – Anyone is eligible to compete in the Flugtag event, although I’m guessing that there is a mutant genetic component found in the DNA of individuals who would actually sign up. To participate, each team must submit an application and their contraption must meet the criteria set by Red Bull. For example, each flying machine (again, the term “flying” is used loosely) must:

• have a wing-span of no more than 30 feet
• have a maximum weight of 450 lbs. … including the pilot
• be powered by muscle, gravity and/or imagination
• be unsinkable (Wasn’t the Titanic billed as unsinkable?)
• be constructed entirely of environmentally friendly materials
• have no loose parts (… it is unclear how rules officials can control for the flotsam and jetsam created by entries that break into smithereenes upon impact)
• have no greater than one square foot of advertising
• be accompanied by some kind of clever/lame skit and choreography to cool amped up music

Team members must wear a helmet, life preserver, mouth guard, goggles and are probably asked to sign a big fat Flugtag waiver. Entries are scored by a random panel of judges in three categories – distance, creativity and showmanship.

The Take-Away:  Are you ready for this?!! … The record for the longest Flugtag flight is 207 feet, set on July 24th, 2010 IN SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA by the team “Major Trouble and The Dirty Dixies” (record-breaking contraption shown above) in front of more than 90,000 people, which also set a record for the biggest attendance at a Flugtag event in any U.S. city!!!  To see the record-breaking flight, click on the Red Bull Flugtag link here.