Nathan Bliss This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Metscape: That buzzing sound? Mosquito season

   www.startribune.com/stories/46 - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/7/2002   Last Visited: 4/8/2002

   But Nathan Bliss of Bayport is standing by with some suggestions.
   
   "Once you start putting a lot of detail on a flag, it has a lot of information, but it doesn't immediately draw attention," Bliss said. "The state flag of Minnesota is a prime example. And it looks like 32 other state flags."
   
   Bliss's interest in flags never flags. A former mayor of Bayport, Bliss is a member of the Frostbite Flag Society -- a casual group of flag lovers from Minnesota and Wisconsin -- as well as the North American Vexillogical
   
   Association, a multinational flag study group. (Today's vocabulary builder: A vexillum was a square flag carried by Roman troops.)
   
   He designed not one but two Bayport city flags -- one that was adopted during his term as mayor in the late 1980s and the current version, adopted in 1996, after the city ran out of the old ones. Both rely on bold, unique, abstract designs.
   
   Bliss owns more than 100 flags, and says he has a strong feeling about the Bayport flag.
   
   "I think every home in Bayport should have one," he said.
   
   A travel checklist
   
   Perhaps inspired by the minimum daily requirement of outside validation required by many Minnesotans, a Web site called Epinions.com has a running consumer rating of the Mall of America. Current results: 81 percent recommend it. That's down from 86 percent several months ago, but still higher than most politicians' approval ratings.