welcome to FTR. your avatar is freaky.

Hand 1 - don't min-raise. {misread HH}

Either put in a real raise and hope he has a hand, or just call. I would re-raise his turn bet.

He's either a donk with QQ+, AQ+, or he has 88

Hand 2 - I like pre-flop. It defines your hand, but denies odds.
{I misread the HH. A raise of $8 to $11 would be good}

I like flop because you don't want to blow out worse hands. You have to bet turn, pot is already full buy-in, some pseudo draws are coming, just put it in here. No reason to do anything besides push river