By: Renee Richardson on January 16, 2012 - 6:14pm - Add new comment

Movies are just better on the big screen. That’s if the person next to you isn’t checking their smartphone every 5 minutes (they better be a brain
surgeon waiting for a call to the ER). For some reason they don’t think lighting up a dark room disturbs anyone around them. Seriously? How did
people make it through a 90-minute movie before mobile phones? Must have been a tougher breed of cat in the old days. They were willing to be
off-line to actually munch some overly priced popcorn and focus on a film. That’s why the theater can beat the comfort of the living room. It has your

By: Renee Richardson on March 8, 2012 - 12:02am - Add new comment

Big names are playing doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.

Andy Roddick is playing with Minnesota native Mardy Fish. And America's top doubles team, Bob and Mike Bryan, will be looking for their first BNP Paribas Open title. It's hard to believe the Bryans, who have been so successful on courts across the globe haven't nabbed this title in their home state.
Other tops seeds taking to the doubles court include Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

By: Renee Richardson on April 16, 2012 - 10:02pm - Add new comment

Minnesota's mercurial spring just took another turn, adding white stuff to the mix after pretty much shunning snow when it was welcome in late December, January, February and even March.
It's good for the fire prevention. After this last downpour of rain, the green-up could be in full flight if the sun came back with just a little punch. While the sun was out this afternoon, it wasn't enough to entirely melt the snow in Brainerd yards.

By: Renee Richardson on October 7, 2012 - 11:39pm - Add new comment

If the Olive Garden in Baxter looks a little different to you, it's not just that it's new to the lakes area.
The much-anticipated restaurant addition to the lakes area isn't the same Olive Garden. The chain changed the look for its new restaurants creating a rustic stone exterior and using a farmhouse look with exposed wooden beams and character of a farmhouse in Tuscany, Italy as a model.
"This is how they’ll all be from now on," said Olive Garden General Manager Miranda Ahlers. "We’re one of the newer ones to have the exact layout we have."