willy water, the mascot

 in the afternoon i went to tour the highland park water tower in st. paul. when i was there at midday to check the tour hours allotment, i noticed a mascot there, called willy water. i got a picture and then went to have lunch at the nearby arby's. when i searched for this mascot online the closest i found was 'willie the waterdrop'. i wanted to have lunch first, then laid down for a while. i am thankful i got the pic when i did as the mascot wasn't there when i went back with about an hour left in the day, to climb the stairs to the top. i had done this tour before, but it had been a while, probably a decade ago. there is a nice view from the observation deck, as one can see both of the twin city skylines from there, along with MSP airport. i got a postcard while there, along with two stickers. one sticker is of willy water, saying 'saint paul regional water services' at the bottom. the other said 'i saw saint paul from the top of the highland tower'. naturally another thing seen from there is the hockey arena named for charles schulz, the 'charlie brown and snoopy' creator, as the arena is just across the parking lot from the tower. i have seen some games there but it has been a while. i liked getting some chores and errand running done before midday, starting off with picking up two orders from the post office. then there was getting an advance ticket for the state fair at cub foods. i picked up a german beer from the liquor store near the post office, so now there are four beers waiting. in the evening i had a sandwich at jersey mike's, and it was nice where an employee put on an oversized hat so i could see what it looked like. i saw it hung up and asked about it, was told it was part of their giving month, in march. before then i got gas at the holiday station and asked about the redbox machine, i have used it every so often. i knew the company had filed for bankruptcy in late june, originally chapter 11 (reorganize) but it was changed to chapter 7 (liquidate). the screen on the machine was blank, was told they are waiting for it to be picked up. two employees were there, but one of them got annoying about it, giving me unsolicited advice even though i had already said if i want a movie bad enough, i will order a DVD copy from amazon. i think the last time i had rented from redbox was to use a free night offer, it was a birthday gift. wikipedia said the company was defunct as of over a week ago. the website was available 'in name only', when searching for locations by zip code, none were found. after having a sandwich i went to get groceries at aldi, then watched a basketball game on TV, on ABC. the WNBA all-stars were playing the olympic team, and the all-stars won, 117-109. later on i went on a walk and found 50 cents. also notable was ordering an amazon gift card from the enterprise rent-a-car website where i do surveys, first time in over a year. i did my first survey in four months, about festivals i have attended. i had passed on surveys for a while as they were asking for information i normally didn't have to give, then upon looking at it more closely i saw it was just my member number and email, not a big deal. i hadn't claimed a gift card in a while as that had changed as well, but also not a big deal. i asked for an available amount to use, and my first choice of gift cards was at the top on a drop-down screen.