When I was a young boy into my preteen years, I loved the outdoors. Dirt, mud, sand, rocks, snow, water, and sludge were all my friends. I also had a lot of time on my hands to explore, a luxury of little responsibility and a product of being born in the very early 1980’s where you were sent outside until it was dark.
It should come as no surprise that a boy with those ambitions would take on the task of making my own ice luge. I know “Cool Runnings” was a popular movie, coming out in 1993. I, however, didn’t get inspired by it.

The names, faces, and stories of all the people I’ve met and interviewed over the course of the last 20 years are flooding back to me as I sit down to write this column.
This will be my final column.
After almost two decades working as a writer for the local newspapers, I’ve decided it’s time for a career change.
Thank you to all of you who have welcomed me into your lives and homes and trusted me to share your stories. It has been an honor.

The world may look at climate change in many different ways. I believe one thing that can’t be denied truthfully is that it is changing.
As president of the Twin Cities Meteorological Society, I have developed a growing annual Minnesota State of the Climate event. I am lucky to be friends with two of the state’s climatologists who are awesome at remaining neutral to the numbers, as well as being supportive of this endeavor.

These are my daughters.
The above photo was taken at the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s (MNA) Annual Awards Banquet last week. They are holding the awards I received at the event, the adults-only event.
Yes. I did the unspeakable.
I registered my 10 and 13-year-olds for the event and brought them, along with my husband, to a professional work event.
It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

A written agenda now accompanies me to the dinner table.
After my family of four eats and finishes chatting about our day, I pull out my list, which sets my daughters’ eyes rolling.
Anna and Ellen, ages 13 and 10, think it’s ridiculous that I now have a “Family Agenda” notebook, but they do sit up and pay attention when I click my pen into action mode.
I begin:
- Are we going to cousin Gus’ basketball game tomorrow. If so, how are we going to make it happen?

I was in much better shape as a child and throughout my young adult life. I played little league, county pee-wee, and varsity baseball. There is one time where I remember running the fastest I have ever run in my life. I WAS running for my life.
Okay, maybe I wasn’t running for my life but I was pretty darn scared of what might unfold if I stopped! Let me explain.

My teenager almost wrote this column for me.
Almost.
Thirteen-year-old Anna did agree to help me out, but then, she received a text from a friend… and I lost her.
She was actually excited to finally share her “version” of Ingebrand family life in this space (after having me write about her for so many years), but she IS a teen and catching up with her best friend after Christmas tops helping me do my job.
So, you get me, again.
It’s the day after Christmas, and I have writer’s block.

If you don’t know from my first column, I am an avid weather guy. Not just the casual “I like to know the weather today” guy. I am the guy who is really into weather, severe weather to be exact.
I’m a storm chaser but it goes beyond that. I am the president and had been the newsletter editor for the Twin Cities Meteorological Society. I am also a lead trainer and board member for Metro Skywarn, which teaches SKYWARN severe weather spotters for the National Weather Service here in the Twin Cities.

One night, a couple weeks ago, I had a nightmare. Dreams or remembrance of dreams I may have had is a rare occurrence for me. In my nightmare, I stood in a hazy old air hanger, gymnasium, or some similar building. Somehow I knew that the Nazis were coming to look for me and take me away, as if I was in Germany. I had at least a little time to prepare. Different indistinguishable people came by and offered me suggestions of how to hide, where to go, and what to do. Finally, it was time, and I remember starting to crawl up warehouse racking and onto roof trussing of this building.

I remember being scared to go down into my family’s unfinished basement by myself when I was young.
My family’s rule was that you could only have one can of pop a day, and I wanted my quota, but the pop was stored down in the basement. Getting one required me racing down the steps, averting my eyes from a spooky backroom area, dashing to the stash of pop, grabbing one, and then racing back up the stairs.
To this day, I have no idea why the basement bothered me.

There is nothing more welcoming than going home after your first day at a job that requires typing as main function than to cut your fingertip. I managed to accidentally cut myself Wednesday evening while removing a knife in a cardboard sheath from a new box of kitchen knives. I can vouch that the knives were sharp for sure! The emergency department at Mayo Clinic Health Systems in New Prague patched me up with 6 stitches. It’s definitely not fun typing this with a swollen and freshly stitched fingertip.

We’re rookies.
It’s obvious that my husband, John, and I need to step-up our game now that both of our daughters, Anna and Ellen, are active in school sports.
Our 8th grader plays tennis.
Our 5th grader plays volleyball.
Two kids. Two sports.
It shouldn’t be that difficult for two parents to follow, right?
Well—for the first time ever—our girls’ schedules collided last week with both kids having a match/game on the same day, at the same time in different cities.

Of all the different articles and subjects I write about each week, composing a personal column is always the hardest. Telling the world about my everyday experiences in an amusing and relevant way is the worst form of writer’s block.
I’m guessing that in the 22 years I’ve been the editor of the Messenger, I’ve written more than 1,000 of these personal pieces. I’ve told stories about dressing up as the Easter Bunny’s helper, visiting the grade school, and then getting trapped in the boys’ bathroom in said costume while kids tried to talk to me.

Minnesota is home to 14,000 lakes, 12,000 loons, 135,000 seasonal lake cabins and 3.9 million newspaper readers. Really?
Really. Every month, 86% of Minnesota adults read newspapers’ print and online issues, according to a new Minnesota Market Study conducted by Coda Ventures. The study measures media usage and purchase behavior of Minnesota adults across urban and rural zip codes (see full-page ad in this issue).

The subject of this column might be a little late, but the message is still as relevant as ever.
In the United States history, many groups have not been treated the same (women, blacks). In the beginning, they have been denied access to public places and not protected under certain laws (Nope, not touching last week’s SCOTUS decision).

To cap off the school year, my daughter Ellen’s fourth grade class created a living wax museum of great leaders.
Out of the list of dozens of names, my little redhead chose Lucille Ball.
Why did she chose Lucille Ball? Because she was a redhead. (You’ve gotta love 10-year-old logic.)
Things started out great.
Ellen dove into the research work, reading books about Lucille Ball’s life and watching “I Love Lucy” episodes on her tablet.