Commenter ChristyP makes an appearance on the blog.

Sometimes I wish we lived in the sort of town that would make our friends say, "Aren't we lucky we know somebody there? Let's go visit!" instead of "Yeesh, why would you want to live in a place where, five months out of the year, you have to breathe through your mouth so your nose hairs don't freeze?"

Fortunately, on occasion an academic conference or some other annual meeting will occur in Minneapolis, and then people remember we live there, and together those two things make it worth coming, at least when the conference is in June and not January.