Scouting trip...

For some reason, Jen wants to see Fargo before we move there. So we're using the very happy occasion of the wedding of our dear friend Dave Wilson and his lovely bride Vicki to swing through Fargo.

Dave & Vicki's wedding is Nov. 5 near Davenport, Iowa. We're flying into Chicago on Friday afternoon, driving to Davenport, enjoying the festivities there, then taking off on Sunday for Fargo. Should be about 10 hours. We'll spend Sunday and Monday nights in the fabulous Hotel Donaldson, drive to Minneapolis on Tuesday morning, then fly home.

Joey and Ellie are going to stay home with family and friends. Katie is coming along, even though when Jen asked her if she'd like to go, she replied, "No, I'd like to delay frozen death as long as possible."

Oktoberfest 2006...

There's been some speculation about whether we'll be holding Oktoberfest in Fargo next year. Frankly, I wouldn't hold my breath -- it would be like moving to New Orleans to teach the locals a thing or two about how to put on Mardi Gras.

According to its very informative Wikipedia entry, Fargo is 40.6% German and an additional 35.9% Norwegian, which, for Oktoberfest purposes, is effectively the same thing. The local Irish population hardly registers, and the local Polish population doesn't.

So I think we'll be attending someone else's party next year. We'll try to bring back some tips for Rockville Oktoberfest 2007.

What does this mean? It means that you'd better show up for this year's Oktoberfest if you'd like to bask in our hospitality anytime soon. Pay no heed to the rainy weather today: Saturday is forecast to be beautiful (see right).

Mmm.... burger... D'oh!

On my Fargo visit, I ate lunch at the Great Northern Restaurant & Brewery, housed in an historic train depot in Fargo. It was about 3 p.m., so I was not surprised to find the place empty. I read and sat alone in the large windowed room at the north end of the building, and was graciously served one of the best hamburgers I've had in some time -- they're not afraid to cook them medium-rare there. I thought, man, a few places like this can make a city a very tolerable place to live.

I described the burger and setting to Jen in some detail when I returned home. But last week, while combing the Net for real-estate listings, she came across this article in the local paper, the In-Forum: "Great Northern’s closure leaves barrels of beer, building in limbo." Arrrgh. Yes, I guess $14,000 a month in heating costs can eat into profits. Perhaps the owners -- two or three owners back -- who refitted the train station as a restaurant shouldn't have made it quite so sunny inside.

A sign.

Now, why would you need a sign with a fire hydrant on it next to a fire hydrant? Oh.

First thoughts....

This undertaking was suggested to me by a good friend who maintained his own blog chronicling his year as an Army officer in Iraq. I wouldn't have had the audacity to describe this as a "deployment blog," except that it was Grant's idea.

Yes, it's true -- we are heading to Fargo, North Dakota, in August 2006 for a year so I can take a judicial clerkship. When I started applying to judges across the country this past summer, for some reason I had set Fargo as my point of most distant reference -- Would we be willing to move to, say, Fargo, for this?

I mentioned this to a law-firm colleague I worked with over the summer, who replied, "I loved Fargo!" She'd clerked for the judge I'm to clerk for (though her next step -- clerking for Chief Justice Rehnquist -- is not in the cards for me). She assured me that as long as one learns to bowl, one will make it through a Fargo winter just fine. Mentioning her name in my cover letter to the judge was apparently enough to score an interview with him and an offer once I met with him.

The kids have taken the news of the move pretty well. It helps that it's months and months away. Katie did figure out right off the bat that she won't be getting any days off from school for snow. Apparently, that's not quite true, though -- they do close the schools in instances of extreme cold. Exactly how extreme it has to be is unknown. The record low was -39 degrees in 1996.

We need to find a place to live there, whittle down our pile of stuff for the long move West, and find a renter for the house here. It's that second step I'm most worried about at the moment, though that could change.

Hardly anyone asks me about what clerking actually entails, or what I thought of the judge, or anything else. Fargo's winters have fully captured their imaginations. The thought of the five of us moving to Fargo has so immensely amused our friends and family that we really should have moved there years ago -- this announcement has measurably improved some people's months.

For those of you who are going to ask constantly, I have provided up-to-date Fargo weather in the right-hand column. Click here to see Fargo's monthly average temperatures as compared to Rockville's.

Thanks to everyone who made sure to let us know that Fargo had its first freeze -- and two feet of snow* -- last week.

* Editor's note: Apparently, the reports we received on this storm were imprecise; other areas of North Dakota received two feet of snow and had the National Guard called out, but Fargo didn't get its first snowfall until Nov. 15.