2.5 hours sleep and one lucid dream on the plane later I put down on the ground this morning in MSP. (For the second time in a week, though I actually got out of the airport this time. That layover from SF *was* magical, though — who knew $4 bottles of water tasted so good? — and I think I had the same pilot!?)

Light rail -> bus to Kopplin’s. Milstead is there, chugging cream to empty out containers for his floral arrangements for competition on Friday. “What day is it today?” he asks me in earnest.

A judge is here: with a full printout of the USBC schedule and a list of judges. Thank you. That will come in handy! (Brent Fortune, those prank phone calls are from me.) I start plotting my plan of attack. USBC coverage (the slower, less videographed format than my Bushwick neighbors Zachary and Katie will be doing) from me will be over at CoffeeGeek starting Friday morning.

But in order to enjoy the Midwest fully I am in the Twin Cities a little early and I am very, very tired. So tired my tenses are all over the map. I leave for awesome lunch and chat and come back to hunker down and do work while a slow threat of SCAA people trickle in. (“Hello, we’re from El Salvador.”) By the end of the day I will have consumed:

1 Chemex of Brazil Fazenda Santa Terezinha COE (brewed while I showed): 5:30am
1 Brazil Calabria Daterra macchiato: 11:00am
1 Konga co-op Yirg shot, 11:30am
1 Clover of Brazil Fazenda Cachoiera Yellow Bourbon, 2:00pm
1 Clover of Brazil Cerrado Daterra Farm Reserve, 3:00pm
1 Brazil Calabria Daterra macchiato, 5:30pm (thank you Patty, this one pushed me over the edge)

(Also, Barista Pat informs me that instead of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota is really “more like 15,792”. It turns out to be 11,842, but point taken.)

By 5:53pm I am hammering out details of USBC coverage, still not sure how I’ll get to Northeast Minneapolis tonight, or where I’m sleeping tomorrow, and I kind of a little tiny bit already want to die. But it’s also awfully nice to be here.

More to come.