Photo from Paperback Exchange

The Internet has changed my reading habits. Well, duh.

But in my case, that’s a bigger deal than it sounds. My whole life, I’ve been a voracious reader — almost compulsive. Growing up, my family always teased me that I’d rather read the back of the cereal box than talk to them at the table. And they weren’t far off.

In recent years, however, I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading books. I sit at home in my favorite chair, laptop on my knees, and wander the Web. There’s always something new to find, and I can endlessly indulge my interest in my favorite topics: politics, history, sports and automobiles. I can tell you details about state legislative races in Illinois and Georgia, who started at left tackle for the 1952 Cleveland Browns and how much a rare woodie station wagon sold for at the latest Scottsdale auction.

But recently, I’ve begun to feel the itch to hold a book in my hands — to spend hours absorbed in a page-turner, putting off bedtime because I just can’t stop, even though I’m nodding off. I miss the feeling of having two or three books in progress at once, picking one up from a table or countertop and starting up where I stopped.

So over the weekend, I visited a few of my favorite bookstores and stocked up. At Paperback Exchange in southwest Minneapolis I bought a couple of detective thrillers by Walter Mosley, Bill Clinton’s favorite mystery writer. At Half Price Books in the Miracle Mile in St. Louis Park, I got a history of American radio and a history of American railroads. And at Barnes and Noble, I scored a deeply discounted coffee table book on 100 years of automobile advertising.

I spent the weekend curled in my chair, barely touching my laptop, reveling in the cozy feeling of reading a book while rain thrummed on the roof. If you’ve had the feeling of digital overdose, why not pay a visit to one of these independent Twin Cities bookstores? And check out these tips for making time to read.

They packed ‘em in at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul on Monday night, a crowd of hundreds braving a spring snowstorm to hear a speaker who could melt any snowbank.

Dr. Steve Perry is founder and principal of one of the nation’s top-performing schools, Capital Preparatory Magnet in Hartford, Conn. Capital Prep, a public school, sends 100 percent of its students (primarily low-income students of color) to college. And Perry has no patience with any school that does less.

Minnesota’s self-image is that of an education state, Perry said — then noted Minnesota’s immense racial achievement gap. “So don’t pull a muscle from patting yourself on the back,” he added to gasps and applause from the well-dressed, racially mixed crowd.

But Perry saved his sharpest barbs for teachers’ unions, urging the crowd to rethink longtime political affiliations with the unions.

“I say specifically to the unions: I hope you’re here tonight,” he said in a rising voice. “Because every time you fight to keep a failed teacher, in reality, you’re killing kids.”

The event was the first in the “Minnesota Meeting” series, sponsored by the Minneapolis Foundation and its RESET education program. Sandra Vargas, president and CEO of the foundation, introduced Perry with an exhortation to do more than talk about education reform.

“This is not just a discussion,” she said. “This is about taking action.”

Education reform is fast moving to the front burner in Minnesota; RESET is one of several groups pushing for change, including MinnCAN, which does amazing research and advocacy work on education topics. Fast Horse recently recently began working with MinnCAN. Keep your eyes and ears open for a lot more on the subject.

Photo of Dr. Steve Perry courtesy of Capital Preparatory.

Foxsportsnorth.com

The only teams winning championships in Minnesota these days are women. The Lynx won the WNBA title in 2011 and made the finals in 2012. Meanwhile, the Gopher women’s hockey team just capped a perfect 41-0 season with their second straight NCAA title.

So why does anyone hesitate to call this Gophers team the best ever?

Coach Brad Frost wasn’t willing to claim the top spot, settling for calling his team “one of the best ever, if not the best ever.” ESPN’s Mike Cook came close, but qualified his open-and-shut case with a “maybe.” Even goalie Noora Raty couldn’t quite bring herself to make a simple, straightforward declaration.

“No other team has done this, so we’re a better team than anyone else has been throughout the years,” Raty said after the championship final.

Well, if they won’t say it, I will: This is the best women’s hockey team ever, and has to be counted as one of the greatest college athletic teams in any sport. This team averaged more than five goals a game while giving up fewer than one. It won by three or more goals 80 percent of the time. And only three times did an opponent even finish a game within one goal of them.

Thank heavens for Bob Sansevere of the Pioneer Press, who’s never afraid to take a bold stance — except it’s not so bold in this case.

“When you have the first perfect season in your sport and win the national title, it’s OK,” he wrote.”You can say it. Best. Team. Ever.”

See those crosstrees way high up? I stood on those. Yikes!

The news that an Australian billionaire plans to recreate the Titanic got me thinking about replica ships. I’m probably priced out of anything but steerage on the Titanic II. But I once took a trip on a replica ship that was more rewarding than any luxury voyage could possibly be.

The Endeavour is a replica of the ship used by Capt. James Cook on his great voyage of discovery to New Zealand and Australia in 1768-71. Cook was the first European to visit the east coast of Australia and Botany Bay, where Sydney is today. To commemorate Cook’s voyage, the Australian National Maritime Museum built a replica of his ship and sailed it around the world in the 1990s.

Avid amateur sailors could pay a hefty fee to come aboard as crew members for a week or two as the ship traveled the globe. At the time, I was working as a newspaper reporter in North Carolina. As the Endeavour worked its way up the East Coast, I was offered the chance to crew the ship for free with the understanding that I’d write a story about the experience. (It was so long ago that there’s no copy of my story on the Internet!)

It was an amazing experience. For a week, I slept in a hammock and stood duty four hours on, four hours off. That’s right — we never got more than four hours of sleep or leisure at a time. Under the direction of a skeleton crew of professional sailors, we climbed the rigging at all hours and in all weather, furled and unfurled sails, scrubbed the decks and tied all manner of unusual knots.

But perhaps the most lasting benefit I gained was a love of the historical novels of Patrick O’Brian, which are set in the British Royal Navy of the same era. All my fellow crew members were big O’Brian fans, and after my week aboard, I read the first book in the series and was hooked. I’ve read all 20 of the books, which are known as the Aubrey-Maturin series after the two main characters. They served as the basis for the Russell Crowe movie “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.” In fact, I just spent most of my free time over the last couple of months reading all 20 of the books again for the third time.

I’ll watch with interest the Titanic II story as it unfolds. But I’ll always cherish the sailing trip I took in a much humbler vessel.

Image via The Music Void

I’ve been a loyal listener to terrestrial radio all my life. (That’s the industry term for regular over-the-air broadcasting.) Many of my best moments with terrestrial radio have taken place in cars. In high school, we drove around in cars listening to Top 40 hits. In college, I caught the tail end of FM radio’s glory years, when DJs bound to no format played whatever caught their free-form stoner fancy.

As a young adult, I was in a long-distance relationship with the woman who became my wife. She was in Colorado, I was in Minnesota. I used to make the 1,000-mile drive to Denver straight through in my dad’s pickup. I’d get off the interstate and take the two-lane highways, listening to whatever local radio station I could pick up until its signal faded, then catching the next one. I’d hear the farm reports, whatever music they were playing and a lot of unique local programming.

In recent years, I’ve been a regular listener to sports talk on KFAN, news talk on MPR, local programming on WCCO and 24/7 holiday season music on KOOL 108.

But last month I got a new car. And it had an important feature I’ve been lusting after: satellite radio. I know I could plug in my iPod and have my own mix, but I like the serendipity of not knowing what’s coming — hearing a gem you haven’t heard in a long time, or haven’t heard at all. And the chance of that happening on terrestrial radio is increasingly remote.

Terrestrial radio is also increasingly homogenized, as corporate ownership and syndicated programming have destroyed the local autonomy of hundreds of radio stations nationwide. Now, if I made that drive to Denver, I’d likely hear the same handful of national talk shows on every AM station. There’d be few local DJs, local news reporters or local programming. Music choices would also be homogenized — beamed to the broadcast station via satellite from the mother ship, ironically, but without the variety that true satellite radio offers.

The industry has only its own greed and shortsighted creative decisions to blame. Federal deregulation in the ’90s set off a rush to consolidate that led to the rapid growth of Clear Channel, Cumulus and other radio conglomerates. Borrowing heavily to expand their empires, they overextended. Then the Great Recession cost them advertising dollars, and the appearance of iPods and satellite radio gave listeners options other than the increasingly bland and standardized fare pumped over the airwaves.

No more Superstar

Now several of the conglomerates are hurting financially, going through round after round of layoffs, like the one that recently cost popular KFAN morning host “Superstar” Mike Morris his job at the Clear Channel-owned station.

I doubt if I’ve given up terrestrial radio for good. After the novelty of my new satellite-equipped ride has worn off, I’m sure I’ll want to check in on Kerri Miller, Dan Barreiro and other favorite local voices. And I’m not ready to say goodbye to my Saturday NPR favorites: “Car Talk,” “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” “A Prairie Home Companion” and “American Routes.”

But terrestrial radio is losing me. And if they’re losing me, they’re losing the war.

Sifting through the post-holiday mail — a mix of sales fliers, late-arriving Christmas cards and the usual assorted junk — I was tempted to toss out an envelope from 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment.

My wife has long coveted an elliptical machine, and over the holiday, we bought one from 2nd Wind. So even though the return address on my envelope claimed to be from Dick Enrico, CEO, I figured it was a routine mailing of some sort to follow up on our purchase.

I was half right. It was a follow-up, but it was hardly routine. It was a handwritten note of thanks from the CEO.

Dick Enrico

“John,” he wrote. “Just a note to express my appreciation for your purchase from my company. I would welcome any comments or suggestions that you may have. Regards, Dick.”

Comments or suggestions? All right, then — here’s a comment. This is without a doubt the first time I’ve gotten a thank-you note from the CEO of a company as big as 2nd Wind, which has more than 45 stores in nine states. I did write a fairly sizable check — around $2,000. Still, I feel certain that multitudes of Americans made $2,000 purchases over the holidays — without getting a handwritten thank-you note from a company CEO.

And here’s a suggestion: Keep treating your customers like this, Dick. If you do, you may find that they wind up praising you on blogs and in conversations with friends and associates. Not to mention coming back to your store next time they’re in the fitness market.

Does one of these cups scream “cheap” to you? From left, cups from Holiday, McDonald’s, BP and SuperAmerica. [Photo: Evan Taylor]

One great ripple effect is the improvement in coffee at gas stations and fast-food joints. Most of the big gas station chains — OK, call them convenience stores if you want to be fancy — sell very good coffee, and for about half the price of a coffee shop. I’m a frequent coffee customer of both SuperAmerica and Holiday.

So it was a bit jarring recently when I noticed that SuperAmerica had rolled out a new cup design. It’s a plain, stark, white Styrofoam cup with the SA logo on it. They’d previously been using a rust/brown-colored cup, similar to the one Holiday uses (see photo above).

To me, the stark white foam cup screams “cheap gas station coffee.” It doesn’t have any warmth or visual richness or sense of luxury. It’s downscale. It makes their coffee seem less than it is. Really, SA puts out a good cuppa joe. But to me, they’re undercutting it with the cup.

Look at the lineup above. Holiday and McDonald’s both use white foam cups, but they wrap them in a rich, warm-colored wrapper. The other cup is from a BP station. It’s also foam, but it’s done in a sort of elegant, faux-aristocratic design that I guess is meant to evoke images of British country estates. Not my preferred style, but at least they’re striving.

I asked a few of my colleagues for their opinions, and they mostly agreed with me. The dark cups seem more upscale, less like “sludgy, gas station  coffee,” in Jenji’s words. Natalie didn’t take a stand on the aesthetics — but added that from a branding perspective, she understands why SA would go with the white cup. It makes the brand stand out more, she said. It’s clean and uncluttered, with nothing to distract from the logo.

Diane had nothing but universal disdain for the lineup of foam cups: “Not sustainable!” she declared with finality.

What do you think?

“Oh, I get it,” Andrew said. “You like to live in the meat world.”

He’s right — I do. And I’m not the only one, as I pointed out in my weekly MinnPost column today. The trade show business is a $24 billion industry, and Eagan-based Skyline Exhibits is thriving as one of the largest suppliers of trade show booths and displays.

But other indicators make me question the future of meat. My wife just returned from a weekend at SOFA, a major trade show for the fine arts business (SOFA stands for Sculpture Objects Functional Art). She said the number of exhibitors was noticeably down. Even more worrisome: SOFA used to mount four annual exhibitions across the country, but it’s now been cut to one, in Chicago.

I’ve been attending the International Builders Show for several years with our client Marvin Windows and Doors. It’s the biggest trade show for the construction industry — attracting more than 100,000 attendees at its peak. In recent years, attendance hasn’t been much more than half that.

The tough economic times we’ve been through are no doubt a key reason for weakness in trade show attendance. Housing was hit harder than any other industry, and discretionary purchases of pricey craft pieces probably have taken a backseat for all but the most well-heeled buyers.

But as the world becomes more wired, it will only get easier for businesspeople to stay in the online world. And I think that will cede a big advantage to those of us who like to press the flesh.

Credit: Tebowing.com

Tim Tebow was a great college quarterback. But now that he’s in the NFL, he’s joined the ranks of celebrities who are famous mainly for being famous. Example A: “Tebowing,” his signature move. After making a play, the devout Christian often drops to one knee, head bent in prayer. The move has been widely copied – sometimes in praise, more often in jest, as when actor Robert Downey Jr. was photographed Tebowing at the Academy Awards.

Outside of the Moonwalk, it’s tough to think of another celebrity move that’s more recognizable. And Tebow appears to recognize its value – he’s filed for a trademark on Tebowing.

When I was growing up in Minnesota, the North Stars’ leading sniper was Bill Goldsworthy, who celebrated his goals with a one-legged, fist-pumping move called “the Goldy Shuffle.” On rinks and ponds from Warroad to Winona, you could see kids doing the Goldy Shuffle after putting the puck behind a goalie.

What if Goldsworthy had trademarked his shuffle? Would we all have had to find a different mode of celebration?

Probably not – because it appears that Tebow is seeking a trademark not to prevent football players from dropping to one knee during a game, but to prevent disrespectful use of his signature move on T-shirts and the like.

I searched for distasteful Tebowing parodies – and, surprisingly, found few. But there’s certainly plenty of Tebowing gear available – much of it presumably unauthorized.

So while I don’t doubt Tebow’s sincerity in protecting the purity of his passion, I’m not ruling out the possibility that he may have one eye toward cashing in on what’s proven to be a popular market niche.

But if Tebow’s career continues on its current course as backup quarterback and punt-squad blocker – even in the nation’s biggest media market – the novelty of Tebowing will run its course quickly. And a Tebow T-shirt will be about as relevant as those Mientkiewicz jerseys you occasionally spot at a Twins game.

This post originally ran on DuetsBlog, a publication of the Minneapolis law firm Winthrop & Weinstine.

For the past five months, Fast Horse has been working with a Twin Cities-based nonprofit on an ambitious goal: Return the voice of real people to politics. Jefferson Action just took a big step toward doing just that.

After more than a year of planning, Jefferson Action’s Reclaim November, Ohio! project brought together 45 ordinary Ohioans to assess the candidates in the 16th District, one of the nation’s hottest congressional races. Meeting for a total of 10 days spread over two months, the group’s efforts culminated in a much-anticipated appearance on Saturday by the two candidates, who engaged the group in a lively and intense discussion of the key economic issues facing Ohio.

Media interest was high, with attendance from all the key outlets in Akron, Canton and Cleveland, along with Ohio Public Radio and National Public Radio. What they saw was the kind of discussion that’s virtually unheard of in today’s political world, where candidates typically field softball questions from handpicked audiences.

After the candidates finished, the panelists assessed their performance and issued a voters guide to help inform the people of the 16th District. Jefferson Action hopes to put its Citizens Election Forum process to work even more widely in the coming years.

We’re proud to work with Jefferson Action on this effort, which has the potential to change how politics is practiced in America.