Background:\u00a0 In 1992, I was working a temp job in downtown Minneapolis.\u00a0 I had two kids, with another one on the way fairly shortly.\u00a0 I was making $6.50 an hour.\u00a0 I can’t complain, of course; it beat having nothing, and I got it through the good graces of a friend of mine whom I’m sure I never thanked nearly enough; I re-learned how to use computers (I’d never worked with a PC before), which enabled me to get my first technical writing jobs…<\/p>\n
…the next year.<\/p>\n
But it was still 1992.\u00a0 And things were tight<\/em>.<\/p>\n Anyway – downstairs from the temp job, a new bar\/restaurant opened.\u00a0 And I walked by it every day on the way to\/from the bus.\u00a0 And the smell coming from the place was fantastic<\/em>; I fantasized about the hamburgers the place must have had for months.\u00a0 Years, really; to me, that smell reminded me of hope for years; to this day, I associate the smell of frying hamburger on the street with being broke, stressed out and hopeful.<\/p>\n And back in 1992 I told myself; someday, when I have enough money, I’m going to splurge on a burger and a beer for lunch at that very downtown Minneapolis joint.<\/p>\n And while things got better – I got my first good <\/em>job as a technical writer in 1993 – I somehow neglected that pledge.\u00a0 For 17 years.<\/p>\n But recently, on a well-deserved day off, while meandering around downtown Minneapolis, I saw the place – it’s still there – and thought “I really should do this”.<\/p>\n So I walked in, and ordered a Summit and a burger.<\/p>\n And it was…<\/p>\n …adequate.\u00a0 That’s all.<\/p>\n Some dreams are best left dreamy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Background:\u00a0 In 1992, I was working a temp job in downtown Minneapolis.\u00a0 I had two kids, with another one on the way fairly shortly.\u00a0 I was making $6.50 an hour.\u00a0 I can’t complain, of course; it beat having nothing, and I got it through the good graces of a friend of mine whom I’m sure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8174,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions\/8174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}