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Thank you for being our friend Frey Olson May 19, 2018 - April 26, 2024 By Allan Olson 4.26.24 Thank you for being our friend, thank you for making us your forever home, if we could’ve saved you, we would’ve. Losing our four legged friends is never easy, in our house they aren’t “just a pet” they are our family. Frey, our nearly six year old English Mastiff came into our lives in August of 2018 and crossed over the rainbow bridge to be with others before him on April 26, 2024. Frey was our gentle giant, he was our protector, our laughter and most importantly I think it’s more than safe to say, he was Alivia’s best friend. Have you ever seen a teenager and a Mastiff sharing a twin size bed - or perhaps more aptly put the teenager getting what’s left of the bed when he’s in it. Or perhaps a giant of a dog, staring at her from the doorway of the bedroom saying, “it’s bedtime,” while she’s playing a game or watching something.  He was taught to react to “who’s here” or the alert of the...
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  Reflections on 17 years By Allan Olson For the last 17 years I can honestly say that I have lived my dream job. Was it perfect and glamorous? No, but it was my dream job. I remember as a young kid back home, how I admired the editor of the local newspaper. His job was super cool… he was everywhere with his camera, covering what seemed like virtually every single event that happened in town, including little league games. One day I told him I wanted to do what he did. His response was, “Why? It doesn’t pay very well.” He was right about that, yet he continued to do it, well past my youth.  As a kid I was always taking photos. My goal was to someday work at a small town newspaper as a photographer. I didn’t think I would write because frankly, my grammar, etc., wasn’t high scoring, and I just liked taking photos. I ended up as “editor” at the college newspaper in Thief River because I kept showing up and doing the work. Fast forward a few years… with a college degree ...
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Mindset

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Mindset By Allan Olson I guess it's been awhile since I've put a few thoughts down on anything like this - most of the time my thoughts are banging around my head like a pinball in an arcade game - until it either finds its way out or just get's stuck or lost somewhere.  Lately I've really been working on my mindset, really it probably started back in April or May of 2021 when I read "The Energy Bus," By Jon Gordon. But beyond all of that, everything I've read or listened to in the last few weeks has come back to mindset. Where is your mindset, personally, I can tell you -mine has definitely been on the struggle bus lately. I'm not sure what all it is, the cold days, the early darkness, it doesn't matter - what matters is what I do and I work myself out of this - shall we say, "slump."  In New Years day, I went out for a walk, feeling a little restless and a little downward in my mindset, what a great way to start the New Year. But then I...
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  Goodbye 2021, Hello 2022  By Allan Olson                 Just like that, another year has flown by. Life in my house has not slowed down, but perhaps things have calmed down a bit in our house. While my kids are not “cute and sassy” anymore like when they were little, always coming up with funny stories, now they much prefer to be “correct or smart-alecky” in their everyday lives.                This year my firstborn, Nikolai, graduated from high school and enrolled in college… I am not sure where the time went. As parents often say, “It doesn’t seem that long ago when my little boy was hanging on my leg…” and now, he’s not hanging around his parents much at all, unless it’s for food or use of the laundry facilities.                         ...
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What’s On My Mind…

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By Allan Olson What’s on my mind? Well, my kids might say nothing – jokingly, of course. But in reality, what’s on my mind is the same as is on the minds of millions of others across the world – the pandemic we’re currently experiencing, and what life is going to be like on the flip side of it. Some say there will be a new normal. If that normal has us all being more appreciative of our families, then I hope that’s true. If the new normal sees growth in our mom-and-pop businesses and less in the big box stores, I look forward to that, too. If the new normal is less games to watch at the high school level, because people are scared to congregate again – I hope we don’t see that. Rather, I hope we see more families and fans at more sporting events – locally, rather than just at the collegiate or professional level.  This virus has affected so much at so many levels – on a local level, we have seen the shuttering of the casinos, with the restaurants and bar...
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A Family Geocaching Weekend

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Pic: We failed to figure out the Escape Room, and because we were trying to get away with a heist (stealing the Mona Lisa), we got busted. By Allan Olson By all accounts, the last few months have been busy for everyone in our family – my wife and I with work, and the kids with school and sports, so we felt like it was time for another little family getaway.  Last year we took a spur of the moment trip all the way to Ohio, but this year what we did was nothing of the sort. It was just a little spur of the moment again, but to a different location. Our destination: Grand Forks, ND. Some might wonder “why Grand Forks?” and on most days I might agree, but their lodging is decently priced in comparison to most, it’s not very far away, and they had plenty of what we were really targeting – geocaches. Again, it’s a worldwide game, so we could’ve gone somewhere else with a lot more per square mile than Grand Forks, but they have something nowhere else in Minne...
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A Century of Love

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 My girls, Abigail (left) and Alivia, with their great-grandfather a few years ago. How could one not love the smile on that man. By Allan Olson So recently this page has changed from my weekly ramblings about family and life to some different editorial opinions written and submitted by others. This week I decided to take a moment to reflect on a life – one that had nearly a century on this earth. Last week, we received word that my wife’s grandpa was in the hospital. Taking into consideration his age and the prognosis of pneumonia, we were informed that the odds of keeping him around much longer were not good. As he was well known for being stubborn, we held out the hope that just maybe he would prove the doctors wrong one more time and pull through. Unfortunately, it was not to be. On Friday evening my wife got a call letting her know he had passed. While he was not my “grandpa” in the biological/genetic sense of the word, I have had the privileg...
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