tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29117594422712389272024-03-20T23:07:12.642-05:00The Singing PillowSusanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-73617684824291798882019-09-11T13:27:00.000-05:002019-09-11T13:27:04.410-05:00ChangesLast week was my first week of retirement. Since Monday was Labor Day, it was only a four-day week, which is always good. As it happened, I had engagements of one sort or another planned during each of the four days (ooh, I don't have to compete for those scarce evening haircut appointments anymore!!). Thus I got out of bed each morning, albeit later than during my working days, got dressed, and actually got any number of things done most of the days.<br />
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Today is Wednesday of week two. Monday went great because I had plans. Plans for some errands, then plans for trying a new dinner recipe--an attempt to create a favorite restaurant meal featuring exotic new (to me) spices. I did miss a massage appointment that had failed to register in my brain as being on that same Monday with those other things, but otherwise a perfectly executed Monday.<br />
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Other than that, week two features no daytime engagements. I have things going on in the evenings, but my days are free. So yesterday and today I have failed utterly at the very first task, getting out of bed. I am having breakfast now at 11:27 am, which is about when I made it to breakfast yesterday. Yesterday I managed to go for a walk, and that's it. I excused this as a deserved "day off".<br />
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I thought about the realities of being retired for a year or more before I actually retired. In the weeks prior to retiring I began making lists. I have categories of daily activity: cleaning/gardening, working out, creative pursuits, volunteering, house projects. Each category has bullets of all the things I haven't managed to do up to the present, but imagine I will do now. What I discovered in the days of week one is that even if I assign an hour a day here, two hours there, I need roughly 18 wakeful pre-dinner hours per day to fit everything in.<br />
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So as of this morning, here are the things I have learned. Before I go to bed each night, I need a plan for the next day to bribe/cajole myself out of bed. Planning is not my favorite thing, but it looks like maybe one of my first tasks needs to be: plan the rest of the tasks. It will help to schedule at least one fun thing each day (fortunately my bar for fun is pretty low). I am considering getting myself a big bag of gummy bears and telling myself I can't have any unless I've finished doing something. Ooh, first task: get bag of gummy bears...Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-15839144818496895462010-07-24T16:40:00.001-05:002019-09-11T11:57:23.792-05:00A Good Day's WalkToday was a puppy dog's dream day of camping. Well true, it did not begin with pancakes or even french toast, but there were a couple bites of blueberry muffin. Then we got in the truck and headed off to Lake Wissota State Park. We drove in, parked the truck, and started walking. <br />
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There were lots of trails, and they were largely vacant so the dogs got to run around with no leashes and sniff things at will. At one point we lost Tucker who must have seen a chipmunk or something and took off into the woods after it. We had to call him and wait a minute while he crashed his way back to us.<br />
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We are camping very close to this lake, but it is one of those lakes that is pretty much visible only by boat. The shoreline is fairly steep and quite wooded. We did find some stairs down to the lake itself, but the edge of the lake was muddy and rocky and fairly covered with algae. (Of course the dogs walked in it.) <br />
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The trails went through woods and also wildflower prairie. There were loads of mushrooms, lots of wildflowers, little Charlie Brown baby pine trees, and some really green groundcover that looked like moss with little juniper fronds. Some really pretty pine trees we are unfamiliar with. <br />
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We started out more in the woods and shade, but on our way back we were more in the sun and prairie. The dogs were pretty tired, and they started running ahead about 15 yards, finding a tree they could stand or lay in the shade of with their tongues hanging out, and wait for us to catch up. When we came alongside they would run ahead to scout out another patch of shade. We think they'll be comatose the rest of the day.<br />
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Of course Scarlett, who had found something noxious at home yesterday to roll in and was already fairly smelly, came across a dead skunk in the path and immediately rolled in it. So she was banished to the floor of the truck on the way home, which she would normally fight tooth and nail, but she just curled up on my bag and went to sleep instead. (I just looked up--both dogs are asleep under the picnic table and Tom is sleeping in his lawn chair!)<br />
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It turned out that we happened to visit a place that Tom has been before. We used to work with a guy from Eau Claire who fishes constantly, and Tom went fishing with him once. Yesterday when we drove to the campground, Tom recognized the lake and thought it was the same one they fished. Then today at the state park we drove down to the boat ramp and he said that was where they had put the boat in. That was a trip where they caught 50 crappies, so you can bet your sweet bippie that we'll be coming back with fishing licenses and a boat of some sort. (Mmm, crappie dinner...)Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-81680373219248044032010-01-06T22:38:00.002-06:002010-01-06T23:30:45.885-06:00Old Dog, New TricksI don't mean to keep harping on this, but I turned 50 last October. Fifty is a weird age. I loosely belong to a group of people from our church, the Pacem Singers. Some of the Pacem Singers are also choir members, and some are not. We are available to sing for people who are homebound, or in a nursing home or the hospital, and we generally sing a selection of hymns and other favorites. Depending on the situation and people's availability, maybe just a few members go, or maybe a larger group goes--it is a different collection of folks each time. Many of these folks are, ahem, "mature". So this afternoon we're singing (at a nursing home just minutes from where I work), and the lady next to me commented that she was grateful I was there with my young voice. At first I didn't think much of her comment, because you spend the whole first part of your life being a younger person, and you get used to hearing such things. But after about a minute I thought, "Hey, wait a minute."<br /><br />I keep being surprised by the things a person can learn essentially for the first time in middle age. This has occurred to me on a number of occasions, so I know there are several examples I could cite here to flesh this idea out, but since my brain is 50, I don't remember what they are. (Sorry.) These are things that could just have easily been learned earlier, but for one reason or another I just didn't learn them until now. (I just bought my first eyelash curler, but I'm not sure that counts.)<br /><br />I am still trying, after all these years, to figure out how to get myself to clean house. I keep coming up with new strategies that don't work. I have improved over time, but there are still tasks that get put off for weeks or months that are really supposed to get done on a regular basis. Or seem like they would be simpler if done more regularly. Or at least would make daily life more pleasant if things were cleaned as opposed to not cleaned.<br /><br />(I have considered that the most obvious strategy is to get a cleaning lady. We have had cleaning ladies at various points in the past, usually when the house is for sale, although for one stretch we had one just because, and that was great until she got pregnant and took a break. And in general, I would just as soon have a cleaning lady. That would just take some initiative and research and something like $200 a month. It's on my list of things to do, which should be enough said right there.)<br /><br />My biggest bane is the bathrooms. I did discover the flylady <a href="http://www.flylady.net">(www.flylady.net</a>) a few years back while I was unemployed. She advocates a daily "swish and swipe" of the bathroom counters and toilets, but I am going to venture a guess that the flylady does not live in a house with four bathrooms. I did try that for awhile, and while it was OK when I was unemployed and had more time in the mornings, when your counter and toilet are still practically spotless from yesterday, it's hard to convince yourself you really must do this extra step when you're running sort of late.<br /><br />Our house was built in 1992, during the period in which the "master suite" was considered very important, and thus we have a gargantuan master bathroom complete with n-person whirlpool tub, shower, and his-and-hers vanities. So my most recently conceived cleaning strategy is that I ought to assign certain days of the week for certain parts of the bathroom. Wednesdays, I thought, I could clean the toilets. I'm thinking maybe Monday would be the shower, and Tuesday could be the floor (ugh), and Thursday or Friday could be the counters (this one is a putzy job because of all the stuff on the counters). <br /><br />There is nothing particularly novel about this strategy, since for generations it seemed "Monday is wash day," but my generation seemed to think that all such folklore was outdated and silly, so some of us are only now rediscovering old wisdom. There's that saying about how those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it, or at least waste 50 years reinventing the wheel.<br /><br />So, it's January, first week of the new year, and it's Wednesday. To start off, I have to be at the dentist at 8AM, which means I have to be up quite a bit earlier than I have been getting up lately. At least it is so cold out I don't have to walk the dogs. But we have choir practice tonight, so it's going to be a late one, and I usually am pretty much done by the time we get home at 10PM. (I could point out that the result of the dentist appointment is that next Wednesday I'm having my first root canal, but that isn't until 9AM, which ought to leave plenty of time to clean the toilets next Wednesday in the morning.)<br /><br />Anyway we get home, and I let myself off the hook--you can just goof off. You don't have to clean the toilets. And that's just the trick! I thought, hey, I can do this, it will only take a few minutes. So, I not only cleaned the toilets, I did a couple counters and put a load of laundry in! (Now if I can only figure out which day I'm going to run the vacuum cleaner.)<br /><br />I've also been opening the mail each day or two instead of letting it pile up. But check back with me in February and see how well my new strategy is holding up. No promises.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-42972167303177093022009-10-23T22:24:00.002-05:002009-10-23T22:29:02.301-05:00"America Spends a Lot on Defense"In lieu of writing a post myself today, I'm just going to cut and paste <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/10/america-spends-a-lot-on-defense.php">one</a> out of <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org">Matt Yglesias' blog</a> from today. These are numbers that deserve more play:<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote>Yesterday, congress appropriated a <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/64377-senate-to-vote-on-defense-bill#">$680 billion for the Department of Defense in FY 2010</a>. Chris Preble <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/10/23/the-fy-2010-defense-authorization/">observes that, shockingly enough</a>, this $680 billion isn’t even the whole bill:</blockquote><p></p> <blockquote><p></p><blockquote>The defense bill represents only part of our military spending. The appropriations bill moving through Congress governing <a href="http://appropriations.senate.gov/news.cfm?method=news.view&id=6b6cf582-075d-4a01-9755-db31863e3528"><strong>veterans affairs, military construction and other agencies</strong></a><strong> totals $133 billion, while the massive <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN20448819">Department of Homeland Security budget weighs in at $42.8 billion</a></strong>. This comprises the visible balance of what Americans spend on our national security, loosely defined. Then there is the approximately <strong>$16 billion tucked away in the Energy Department’s budget, money dedicated to the care and maintenance of the country’s huge nuclear arsenal</strong>.</blockquote><p></p> <p></p><blockquote>All told, every man, woman and child in the United States will <strong>spend more than $2,700 on these programs and agencies next year. By way of comparison, the average Japanese spends less than $330; the average German about $520; China’s per capita spending is less than $100</strong>.</blockquote><p></p></blockquote> <p></p><blockquote>Preble says that this enormous expenditure “flows directly from our foreign policy.” But it’s worth also saying that our foreign policy flows from the vast scope of our defense spending. My biggest concern about the war in Afghanistan isn’t overblown feasibility concerns, but the failure to take seriously David Obey’s point that we should put this in <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/10/david-obeys-radical-idea.php">some kind of cost-benefit framework</a>. Arne Duncan doesn’t have a $700 billion per year budget to play with as he tries to help American kids learn. Jay Rockefeller doesn’t get to say “I could make this health plan really good by kicking the ten year cost up to $7 trillion.” People are <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/10/famine-in-ethiopia.php">starving in Ethiopia</a> for want of a fraction of the DOD’s <em>daily</em> budget in food aid. </blockquote><p></p>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-2845146744576978212009-10-19T20:14:00.003-05:002009-10-19T20:23:41.896-05:00TidbitsI might really be done with the writing project now. Today I actually worked on something else for an hour and a half. I have a feeling I'm going to be working on the leftover grunt work for awhile, but I'm not sure I care. My sense of fulfillment and reward has been so ground down that I'd do pretty much anything if it wasn't writing that document.<br /><br />I was sick yesterday--I'm not sure with what--but the upshot seems to be that my neck and back are all messed up again. My next visit with Sunshine may come sooner rather than later.<br /><br />We went in on Saturday and put a down payment on the new kitchen countertops. New sink, new faucet, Tom's planning to tile the wall for the backsplash. He started working on running the gas line for the new stove. We also decided to get a new dishwasher "while we're at it" (they have to drill holes for it in the countertop), but we haven't picked that out yet. Pretty exciting. But we have to clean out the kitchen before they do it, and cover everything or put plastic over it because of the dust. Sounds like a big mess. Also an opportunity to toss stuff that is in the cupboards that we never use, but I know we won't do it. You never know when you might want that.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-15830082879539605012009-10-16T23:29:00.002-05:002019-09-11T12:04:31.343-05:00On a lighter noteSince I was grumpy in the last post, I'll try to be more upbeat. (That was Thursday night, the end of my week; today is the first day of a three-day weekend!)<br />
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Several nice things have happened lately. Last week I took my car in to have the interior "detailed." Now it is all clean and shiny inside. No more dog nose prints on the windows. The seats and carpets are clean. There is no dust, no schmutz, no ground cereal in every crevice. Even the scratches on the dash from Tucker's toenails seem much less noticeable. It's like having a new car! Which is nice for a little Corolla that just rolled over 100,000 miles (in less than five years!).<br />
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The other thing was that my daughters and son-in-law gave me a gift certificate for my birthday for massages at a local spa. I went in for the first one on Sunday afternoon. The gift was well-timed because my back had really been hurting lately. I've only ever had a few massages, and they were all the Swedish style. I've never had any Shiatsu, except perhaps for a 10-minute chair massage. This place does "fusion" massage, which means they combine the two styles. I'm no massage expert, but I believe Shiatsu is the sort of massage where they find the little balls of muscle tension and work them slowly toward a bone, where they press on them while you ponder just how long you can tolerate whatever level of pain this is called. My masseuse's name was Sunshine. She was quiet, a little shy, but she has arms and fingers of steel. The room was toasty warm and dark, and they had a CD of ocean waves playing. The massage was great, especially after it was over. Sunshine says I should not be feeling "discomfort" during the massage, so I guess next time I'll have to have her back off a bit, but I thought this was one of those no-pain-no-gain instances. Want to get my money's worth and all that. I could go for another one right about now.<br />
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<em>Update:</em> I wrote the first part of this post yesterday at the beauty salon while getting a perm. Then I published it hastily last night before bed, tired and with an aching head. Thus I forgot to mention the outcome of the massage. My neck, shoulders, and back, which had been a mat of knots and taut muscles, was all relaxed and supple again. For the next couple days I was afraid to make any quick movements, or sit funny, or sleep for fear I would screw it all back up again. It still feels pretty good, but I'm going to be looking forward to my next one in a few weeks.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-13655857929957967322009-10-15T23:14:00.002-05:002009-10-15T23:41:41.556-05:00Cold and Mostly GloomyYou're not supposed to talk about the weather, I know, but I can't help it. I really like to talk about the weather. We lived in California for three years, and it was very difficult for me because there is really no weather to talk about. Which doesn't mean I didn't try, because talking about the weather is what I do. Understanding Midwestern transplants humored me, which was nice. (Our church had co-pastors, a couple, and she told me she'd lived there for 10 years and so far, every year, the weather had been atypical. Whatever the weather was doing, it was not normal. We were there during a dry patch. Tom's older brother was there earlier, during a wet patch.)<br /><br />Anyway, I just did a little online research, to help bolster my grumblings about our recent weather. On September 24th our high temperature was 80. It was 72 on September 27 (that *was* 19 days ago). Since then, we've hit 60 twice (we're supposed to be nearly 60 on Sunday--I can't wait!--but you can't get your hopes up, they announce these expected highs just to mess with you). It was 41 at 1am this morning, and I can't report on yesterday because I can't find it on the internet, but except for 1am this morning and maybe yesterday we haven't been over 40 since last Thursday.<br /><br />I've put away my shorts and gotten out my turtlenecks, sweaters, leather coat, and scarves. Our leaves never turned colors, except for a few drought-stressed trees. (It may not have been a good color year anyway, since we had long stretches of cool, or dry, or rain all summer.) The ash trees dumped thick piles of green leaves on the ground just in time to get snowed on, and the other trees are still wearing their leaves. I don't think I've ever seen a winter where the leaves are still on the trees. It will be interesting to see how that plays out--if we wind up with a mix of leaves and snow on the ground, or if there is no snow and we just wind up outside raking in 38-degree November weather. (There's something to look forward to.)<br /><br />So, between the rain, gloom, cold weather, and shortening days, and the fact that I am still winding up the dreaded writing project at work, it is really feeling like winter. We really might be almost done with the document though. I have certainly given up all caring. I wrote one more new section today and gave it to my boss to "improve," and honestly I don't care what he does to it. Not in the slightest. As long as I can point our last batch of unassigned requirements to it and call it a day, I'm happy. I'm going to make one last pass making sure that "hidden paragraphs" wound up hidden or not hidden appropriately, and I'm good. I cannot be persuaded to care about anything else.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-76012189301373053932009-09-30T22:44:00.003-05:002009-09-30T23:19:12.953-05:00Random NotesThere was frost on the ground this morning. First morning my hands were chilly on the morning dog walk (and if I had put them in the pockets of my leather jacket, which I got out for the first time this morning, I would have found some gloves). Yet somehow this morning, unlike Monday and Tuesday, I decided to man up and *not* wear a turtleneck. I've just changed into my jammies and warm fuzzy robe and slippers, and I feel much better now. (A little warm actually, but that's 50 for you.)<br /><br />I got to work this morning to discover that I will be mapping requirements and doing rework on the document for at least the next week. I can't say it came as much of a surprise.<br /><br />I may or may not have already mentioned that I am turning 50 next week. Major birthdays are a lot more annoying than minor birthdays. As a general rule one must decide what one wants for one's birthday, where one wants to go out to eat, etc., but on a major birthday you can't just get an ordinary gift or go to an ordinary dinner. I keep trying to reframe this: gee, what would I love to get but would normally never think of buying; where would I love to go but normally wouldn't. I should be viewing this as an opportunity. But mostly I have other stuff I want to be spending my October weekends on. It know it would be better for everyone, including me, if I would quit grumbling and appreciate the moment.<br /><br />I have moved the "crafting" chair over to the table the laptop is on. I haven't done any crafting in quite some time now, although theoretically Christmas is coming and I have big plans. I'm not sure the furniture rearrangement is a good omen.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-42455420188821288992009-09-29T21:08:00.005-05:002009-09-29T22:47:41.607-05:00BackSheesh--I've been gone so long Blogger made me sign in. I was so excited this morning when I went to work: today was the deadline for peer review comments on a document I have been helping to write for the last couple months. I have been writing, getting comments, rewriting, formatting, fighting with a new document tool (Open Office), and generally hating life since the beginning of May.<br /><br />Twitterer @badbanana had a tweet one day that made me laugh out loud: "<span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">I had to hunker down and do some serious writing today. Which is why I made a working flute out of a carrot." That has described my days pretty accurately. I considered buying some handcuffs to chain myself to my desk with. (Sorry, with which to chain myself to my desk.)<br /><br />A week ago I worked over the weekend (and into Monday, because that's how these things wind up) to finish the last section and try to fix as many cross-references as possible. Then it got packaged up and sent out for the formal review, which was scheduled to end today. (Fortunately, or unfortunately, most of the reviewers are also authors, which means that commenting is going to be somewhat superficial. Although a lot of my comments weren't altogether superficial.)<br /><br />My boss says he's going to do all the rework, which I really don't believe, and my other boss says he's got someone else creating the huge table at the end mapping all the requirements to sections of the document, which I don't think is attainable for one person in our time frame, but at least for this moment I am technically done with this document. (Until May when we have to update it again for our next release.)<br /><br />I am now free to resume my life as an engineer. I feel sort of like someone getting out of the hospital after a long illness. Except of course we have a ridiculous deadline coming up just before Christmas, so there is no time to waste "getting back into it." Instead of feeling like celebrating at the end of the day, I was sort of numb. (OK, I had just finished spending over a week reviewing 300 pages of tech-speak, so that is probably understandable.)<br /><br />Anyway--coming home at night after wrangling words all day did not leave me in much of a mood to get on the computer and write blog entries. This morning I had that feeling you get in the spring when the birds come back and start singing again (even if fall and 50-degree high temperatures did descend on Minnesota this week, and the s-word appeared in the forecast for northern Minnesota for the first time). So here's hoping I'll be making more frequent appearances.<br /></span></span>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-6421280642228607162009-09-12T14:59:00.002-05:002009-09-12T17:59:15.411-05:00A Spouse in the HouseI'm assuming that every married person occasionally daydreams about what it would be like to be not married, and have all your time "to yourself" so to speak. Somehow you imagine you'd spend lots more time doing various things you feel you're not doing enough of normally.<br /><br />I've had a chance to try that out this week (my husband is on a business trip), and, unsurprisingly I guess, it turns out that left to my own devices, I spend a lot of time surfing the internet and staying up way, way too late playing Spider Solitaire on the computer and doing crossword puzzles. (I say unsurprising because I already spend too much time doing these things. Now I'm just free to spend more time without any of that peer-pressure sort of guilt that occurs naturally because there's another person in the house who knows what you're doing.)<br /><br />Last week my head was filled with ideas of all the things I could do during this time when I would be on my own. I could do whatever I want! I could spend hours on my own pet projects without worrying that I was neglecting our relationship! I have a list, of course, of things I wrote down that I would like to do (or that I ought to do). Too bad Spider Solitaire is not on the list, or I'd have something I could check off.<br /><br />He had to get up ridiculously early on Tuesday to make it to a 7:30am flight, so I got up early, and got to work before 8:30. The plan was to get up early, now that my internal clock was all realigned (I did wake up at 5:45 the next morning, but didn't get up for another half hour), come home earlier, and try to "get some things done" in the evenings. I'm always searching for that singular event that will shake up the inexorable slouch toward later and later every day, and was pleased to have found one. I made it to work before 9:00 the second day, but I started logging in from home to do a little work each evening (so I could leave the office earlier!), and pretty soon I was up until 11:30 each night like usual and getting up late since I'd worked the night before.<br /><br />Last night, a mere 60 hours from that early Tuesday wakeup, I turned the light out at 2am.<br /><br />So, repentant now, I'm resolving to do better next week. So far today has been a washout--I finally decided maybe I'd go out and try to wash bugs off the front of the camper and it started raining. I'm sure there are other things on my list that don't require going outside, but hey, that was what I was all geared up for. Now I think, being Saturday and all, that the dogs and I will live large and go get some fast food drive thru for dinner, and I can rack my brain to try and remember what movies I've always wanted to see that he doesn't want to watch.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-36565811652130756502009-09-03T07:19:00.001-05:002009-09-03T07:21:48.366-05:00Tweet of the DayWell, yesterday, actually. And it was from <a href="http://twitter.com/badbanana">@badbanana</a> (who else):<br /><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><blockquote></blockquote></span></span><blockquote><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">Obama is going to address the nation's schoolchildren? One good fart joke and the Democrats control Congress for 60 years.</span></span></blockquote>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-80706233587687145862009-08-07T21:17:00.003-05:002009-08-07T21:44:00.691-05:00Easily AmusedI had lunch today with some former co-workers I haven't seen in quite awhile, and as it turned out, two of them had plenty of hay-baling experience earlier in their lives. So I heard quite about about how hay is baled, moved, and stored. I wasn't taking notes, however, so I cannot write a very thorough review of what I learned--my apologies. I can say that some sort of spinning fork thing is how the circular hay bale gets started--the first bits get caught in that and then it builds up from there.<br /><br />Meanwhile, my excitement for the weekend is that I ordered a home carpet cleaner. My sister-in-law has a Bissell that I have borrowed a couple times, and I've rented a Rug Doctor several times. We have new carpeting on the second floor of our house that is less than a year old, and the carpeting on the main floor is only about two years old. The new carpet is frieze, which apparently likes to be vacuumed more frequently than the dense pile we had before. I can promise myself I will begin vacuuming regularly, but that doesn't make it happen. So I also promised myself I would wash it several times a year, which gets a little expensive if you're renting a Rug Doctor each time.<br /><br />Before we went on the Montana trip Tom noticed that one of his favorite web sites, NewEgg, had a Hoover for $149 (with free shipping) that had gotten pretty good reviews. After we got back from the trip, the NewEgg deal was still there, plus Amazon had the same unit at the same price. And thanks to my friend Sheila, who friended me on Amazon Prime, I was able to get it with 2-day free shipping from Amazon. <br /><br />So it arrived this afternoon, and I commenced unpacking and assembling it. I was expecting an all afternoon experience, because several reviewers had commented that it required quite a bit of assembly and they wished it came a little more put together out of the box. Assembly turned out to be two bolts and one screw. (I decided that these folks should definitely avoid Ikea.)<br /><br />My initial reaction is that it seems perhaps not quite as durably made as the Bissell, but I like the rotating brushes, and it comes apart quite nicely for cleaning. The Bissell has this ingenious scheme where there's a plastic membrane in the tank that allows the dirty water to refill the same tank the clean water is pulled from, but the Hoover has two separate tanks. (Reviewers who mentioned this difference seemed to prefer the two-tank arrangement. Obviously they are not engineers.) <br /><br />I was a little worried that maybe the tanks were smaller, but I looked it up and they're both one gallon. I was surprised that I did our whole family room on one gallon of water--I didn't remember being able to do that. The machine handled very well and I was entirely satisfied at least on the first outing. The carpet looks much better, but I think I'm going to do it again on Sunday afternoon because the first "coat" took out tons of dirt. I'd also like to do the upstairs, but I might not get to that this weekend.<br /><br />This is the beauty of owning your own. I don't have to do it this weekend. I can do it whenever I want! And I can do it more often this way. I kind of like cleaning the carpet, and it's not much fuss--these machines are really well designed so they're pretty easy to use. So I think it will really happen. Maybe I should hire out. I can clean carpets when I retire.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-26800994955239345762009-08-01T21:40:00.000-05:002009-08-01T21:41:21.835-05:00Hay!Today we drove back across eastern Montana and western North Dakota to Jamestown. We're camped north of Jamestown at the reservoir campground. We drove for ten hours, got set up, and grilled a bison steak that we bought in Big Timber. It was great--so tender! A baked potato, some leftover carrots, a little salad and some cantaloupe--a great meal anywhere.
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<br>I'm convinced that one thing America does prodigously is grow hay. We must have passed thousands of bales of hay in the past week. If we were to do the trip again I would create a photo album of hay bale arrangements. Most of them are scattered out in the fields where they were baled. Often they are stacked in neat lines two or three tall. Today we even passed a couple balers at work, and a couple tractors moving bales. The landscape is absolutly covered with hay growing and hay bales. (We also passed grass along the sides of the road and in the off-ramp areas that had been baled.)
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<br>We did pass a lot of cows, and quite a few horses, and even some sheep who would be eating this hay, and I get that they eat it all year round. But we're talkin' really enormous quantities of hay.
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<br>Maybe if I drive around Minnesota I can find good hay bale sculptures to photograph. For a really thorough treatment I'd have to get someone to show me how the baler works to roll it up from the inside out.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-3668496192832064042009-07-30T22:29:00.007-05:002019-09-11T12:20:06.725-05:00Gallatin Forest Day TripsWe've taken side trips the last two days into the Gallatin National Forest. Yesterday's goal was to visit the Crazy Mountains, and today we went to the Natural Bridge and Falls on the Boulder River.<br />
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All up and down the Rocky Mountains, if you look on a map, there are named "ranges," and clumps of mountains named the X-and-Such Mountains. The Crazy Mountains are just north of Big Timber, they are a small cluster of mountains on their own, on the eastern edge of the Rockies. The tallest one, Crazy Peak, is over 11,000ft tall, which is pretty tall by Rockies standards. According to Wikipedia, the original Crow Indian name for the mountains was the Crazy Woman Mountains, and referred to a woman whose family was killed in the westward settlement movement, and she went insane and lived in the mountains.<br />
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The forest service has primitive campgrounds and hiking trails throughout the national forest areas. Montana seems to scoff at pavement, a lot of the rural roads are dirt or gravel roads. On the map it looked like one of these campgrounds was right up in the Crazies, and we wanted to get a closer look at them. So we hopped in the truck and started jolting across the countryside toward the mountains.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNb0xZ26Hn-N1bGEP26sOR1nTsoGlWbV9l3SyKwC1cuCIlrEE_PMEmZE1bSms66FcPRocu4T7kCMlXYtyC7X557ezsqaCQB_o6MxkOpeQkLsqaXUvQKmFhpGIUDl_iYm4KIcxhiw7d6kkM/s1600-h/IMG_0262.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364474606457859346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNb0xZ26Hn-N1bGEP26sOR1nTsoGlWbV9l3SyKwC1cuCIlrEE_PMEmZE1bSms66FcPRocu4T7kCMlXYtyC7X557ezsqaCQB_o6MxkOpeQkLsqaXUvQKmFhpGIUDl_iYm4KIcxhiw7d6kkM/s320/IMG_0262.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
One of the things I find interesting about the countryside is that it is like a multi-level floor plan. One area is at one level, then there's a large step up and another large flat area is some twenty feet higher than the first.<br />
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This drive went through quite a bit of private land, with rustic old wooden cabins. There were a lot of beautiful horses. In one place we had to stop the truck to let a herd of them pass on the road. (At first I thought they wanted to come see if we had any treats for them, then we realized they just wanted to get by us.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi7mXstcPgNzEp4TgQGZB7VaFGTzChu9olTPnYRSNucAanI9zMNGmeU6cvA4X9VbVGZZIr3_Vr7zki4dXEg7Cc6pw6_1RHKKRHJA4UB4c6IsrppOSGXkRqQSJHnSXQIeRYUjcfsukYG5fU/s1600-h/IMG_0257.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364474610153026130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi7mXstcPgNzEp4TgQGZB7VaFGTzChu9olTPnYRSNucAanI9zMNGmeU6cvA4X9VbVGZZIr3_Vr7zki4dXEg7Cc6pw6_1RHKKRHJA4UB4c6IsrppOSGXkRqQSJHnSXQIeRYUjcfsukYG5fU/s320/IMG_0257.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
The road to the campground led us through a canyon into the Crazies, next to Crazy Peak's next door neighbor. We took pictures of wildflowers and pine trees and horses.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6PMOnT4kIW7labEb7UGYqe41wM2CPhSAd0BpZrZjhZKtyOsZ488fKZFthVY2myXlJpxN5clyxhoZNdCWuVKVLYM9wpOVP5z2PunxUKPFal7aY8LqomWLVVyAEA5bQaou-7jDaGMkTlBa3/s1600-h/IMG_0253.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364474621151535762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6PMOnT4kIW7labEb7UGYqe41wM2CPhSAd0BpZrZjhZKtyOsZ488fKZFthVY2myXlJpxN5clyxhoZNdCWuVKVLYM9wpOVP5z2PunxUKPFal7aY8LqomWLVVyAEA5bQaou-7jDaGMkTlBa3/s320/IMG_0253.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<when 262="" connection="" crazy="" is="" mountains="" my="" network="" of="" pic=""><pic 257="" horses="" of=""><wildflower 253="" pic=""><br />Today's trip took us south of Big Timber </wildflower></pic></when><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRXB_wJrlonA1Af9cKIV_OL10odcwjuknEFXjcQxU6aDyQC-DUxqYcrisQRgjK-cuth3MuK4NTCF0l8QzF6nIptuLrCuoGyJtxIDqJKqzAAkR9CWRqIEgCNFyJQ3npCWgOInxMjWC_brTj/s1600-h/IMG_0269.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364630708549198866" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRXB_wJrlonA1Af9cKIV_OL10odcwjuknEFXjcQxU6aDyQC-DUxqYcrisQRgjK-cuth3MuK4NTCF0l8QzF6nIptuLrCuoGyJtxIDqJKqzAAkR9CWRqIEgCNFyJQ3npCWgOInxMjWC_brTj/s320/IMG_0269.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 240px;" /></a><when 262="" connection="" crazy="" is="" mountains="" my="" network="" of="" pic=""><pic 257="" horses="" of=""><wildflower 253="" pic="">along the Boulder River to the Natural Bridge and Falls. This is an area where the water has worn an underground path through the rock. During the high water in the spring, the water goes over and down a high falls, but during lower water it goes under the rock and comes out below. </wildflower></pic></when><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYOCx1qIXSTEqCgBZUEqmL6KlUbsP4ngXf-KCVYbph0p89hGVpNhsLIF5dqM0eIZzsGlOlIXR0I7WoDN1wpA1ouqfodmZs5Km_sq3q5P2FwlVxm3ezOnnOaSrmjm8f2SzJv8l9HhbfbHws/s1600-h/IMG_0270.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364630709945280290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYOCx1qIXSTEqCgBZUEqmL6KlUbsP4ngXf-KCVYbph0p89hGVpNhsLIF5dqM0eIZzsGlOlIXR0I7WoDN1wpA1ouqfodmZs5Km_sq3q5P2FwlVxm3ezOnnOaSrmjm8f2SzJv8l9HhbfbHws/s320/IMG_0270.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 240px;" /></a><when 262="" connection="" crazy="" is="" mountains="" my="" network="" of="" pic=""><pic 257="" horses="" of=""><wildflower 253="" pic="">There was a natural limestone bridge over the falls, but it collapsed in 1988. The falls area and the canyon around it was lovely.</wildflower></pic></when><br />
<when 262="" connection="" crazy="" is="" mountains="" my="" network="" of="" pic=""><pic 257="" horses="" of=""><wildflower 253="" pic=""><br />I apologize for the drunken quality of these photos--I seem to have difficulty seeing whether things are level when I'm looking at the camera. The first photo is the rapids above the falls, before the water goes "underground." </wildflower></pic></when><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7Y4nBuSChghIvnHcmIFltP-hH8FXQIc5VvihnuzJUxCgftynZduBTlbuvZiBrXUyzYX-humEiv5rpgvlGzEcDrjsoryx-fKiOubPRjA4xaZpGjeHbA4esCFzCOYRm9IKiTXbomtzzu0k/s1600-h/IMG_0276.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364630719283902274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7Y4nBuSChghIvnHcmIFltP-hH8FXQIc5VvihnuzJUxCgftynZduBTlbuvZiBrXUyzYX-humEiv5rpgvlGzEcDrjsoryx-fKiOubPRjA4xaZpGjeHbA4esCFzCOYRm9IKiTXbomtzzu0k/s320/IMG_0276.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 240px;" /></a><when 262="" connection="" crazy="" is="" mountains="" my="" network="" of="" pic=""><pic 257="" horses="" of=""><wildflower 253="" pic="">The second one is looking over the top of the high falls. The third one is opposite the falls. The high falls at the top are dry, and the water is coming out of the underground channel.</wildflower></pic></when><br />
<when 262="" connection="" crazy="" is="" mountains="" my="" network="" of="" pic=""><pic 257="" horses="" of=""><wildflower 253="" pic=""><br /><pic 269="" above="" falls="" the=""><when><pic 270="" falls="" from="" top="" upper=""><pic 276="" below="" falls="" from=""><br /></pic></pic></when></pic></wildflower></pic></when>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-9222427908432010062009-07-28T22:41:00.004-05:002009-07-28T23:37:00.682-05:00Day Trip to YellowstoneWe all climbed in the truck (Tom and I, mom and dad, and the two dogs--it was cozy) and took the great circle route from Big Timber to Red Lodge to the Yellowstone entrance by Cooke City, through the park, back out the North Entrance at Mammoth, up to Livingston and back to Big Timber.<br /><br />Last night we discussed how long this would take and when we needed to get up. So we decided to aim for 7:30am, thinking it was going to take 12 hours. Major sacrifice by Tom and I to be ready to go anywhere at 7:30am, ameliorated slightly by the fact that we are still on Minnesota time which made it feel more like 8:30. But I decided that the only way I would be ready to go anywhere at that time would be to skip the whole shower-do-hair thing, so I can truly say I've been camping now having spent a day with no shower.<br /><br />The initial question was the weather. We could not get any straight sort of weather prediction for the coming day. (Or, should I say, we got every sort of weather prediction for the coming day.) So we decided to get up, look at the sky, and see whether we would take the trip today or wait until Wednesday or Thursday. When I took the dogs out this morning at about 6:15 for the morning outlet the sky was completely clear. So we made the sandwiches, packed the water, and went. (The day turned out to be beautiful until late afternoon--pretty good I'd say.)<br /><br />The first milestone was to be scones in Red Lodge. Red Lodge is a really cute town, and we spent quite a bit of time walking around it, but the place that made the scones was out of business. We found a bakery to buy apple turnovers and "<a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/Butterhorns-Aka-Rugelach-Rugulach-Snails-Schnecken-50901">schnecken</a>" (I googled those, they go by about five different names) so all was not lost.<br /><br />From Red Lodge to the Yellowstone entrance is a mountain pass road over the Beartooth Mountains. What a beautiful drive! Mountains, meadows covered in wildflowers, streams, rocks, winding climbing hairpin-turned roads. Here is a shot of us at a scenic overlook near the top.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpHfUxn76GxFJBTJdWGbyFZ7HFcUkh1UB5aRoYVvDEkdtYOuJHsdwVOupR0-C2a74nGDtznwaVIIhiI4dgcJwiN_qCUO-0T5gd6InBTS8pn3jlcDVuRlnl_gvYPFba8zotPNec570JpCJj/s1600-h/IMG_0196.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpHfUxn76GxFJBTJdWGbyFZ7HFcUkh1UB5aRoYVvDEkdtYOuJHsdwVOupR0-C2a74nGDtznwaVIIhiI4dgcJwiN_qCUO-0T5gd6InBTS8pn3jlcDVuRlnl_gvYPFba8zotPNec570JpCJj/s320/IMG_0196.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363729295150668578" border="0" /></a><br />To me this looked like a pretty big trip, so I was ready to just dip into Yellowstone on the north road, see Mammoth Hot Springs and head back out. But once we got into the park we wound up driving the upper loop--stopping at Tower Falls, taking the North Rim Road and looking down on the Lower Falls and Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, then wrapping around the loop back to Mammoth Hot Springs. Here's an obligatory shot of the canyon, which is so beautiful the photo is pretty much required. Also a shot of the four of us on the North Rim.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUA2KIAdXBm8cDkg3fXCfBFNv9JspJnBuoNBQ-IA0_S8dGNGiKxT62QPY4JddigT86fEwCmlxNJKYA3TlmwVVMI-9B1caz85tqDysR8NzFlFG4rsXW070yf1VD66Ah_VECJ8irpFokkAY/s1600-h/IMG_0234.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUA2KIAdXBm8cDkg3fXCfBFNv9JspJnBuoNBQ-IA0_S8dGNGiKxT62QPY4JddigT86fEwCmlxNJKYA3TlmwVVMI-9B1caz85tqDysR8NzFlFG4rsXW070yf1VD66Ah_VECJ8irpFokkAY/s320/IMG_0234.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363731549721492146" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAKfxMLL75fFW3wnXbPCuJLrHRLLslU2eyI22fwofqHEcae0ZEtN93qfQwaJHBH-6FQOWtQUnYWrAlPITT4_JQPkyohqGGGTJ50DLCybSmB-xDqkVuMvXqO4AD-gz0Q8t5Q6e9eQucuwI/s1600-h/IMG_0230.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAKfxMLL75fFW3wnXbPCuJLrHRLLslU2eyI22fwofqHEcae0ZEtN93qfQwaJHBH-6FQOWtQUnYWrAlPITT4_JQPkyohqGGGTJ50DLCybSmB-xDqkVuMvXqO4AD-gz0Q8t5Q6e9eQucuwI/s320/IMG_0230.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363731562450364834" border="0" /></a><br />We had very good luck with wildlife. On the northern road after entering the park we saw several large herds of bison, including a rather flirtatious couple just off the roadside. On our way out we saw a gaggle of big-horned sheep just up the hillside from the road. There was at least one rumored bear that was just out of sight (there are always one or two of those).<br /><br />I was pretty excited to go to Mammoth, because I have visited the park only once before, and we did not get up to Mammoth, and the pictures of it look so cool. Having been there I can confirm, it is really really cool. Alien and otherworldly. Water loaded with calcium and minerals gets squeezed out of the ground, heated by the underlying volcano magma, and the minerals harden as the water runs off, leaving these glacier-like rock formations. We have a number of great photos of this, but I'll show this one.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYB3ETTVrVkJcylzcqRvb0jBfcIuX6ewncyb8C_fF80ZYnR3npHHqF4sgnnWxXdf6miecLc5K1JTd3IgYXHSwrNtOJ_198s-CRgZzxlvJ74qHunzU9lo7y08RXDPSy8ZIDXPaQwbs0ddcX/s1600-h/IMG_0239.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYB3ETTVrVkJcylzcqRvb0jBfcIuX6ewncyb8C_fF80ZYnR3npHHqF4sgnnWxXdf6miecLc5K1JTd3IgYXHSwrNtOJ_198s-CRgZzxlvJ74qHunzU9lo7y08RXDPSy8ZIDXPaQwbs0ddcX/s320/IMG_0239.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363731561549120786" border="0" /></a><br />We ran into all sorts of road construction, of the sort where one direction holds up and waits while the traffic from the other side uses the one available lane. Except with the added twist that everybody gets to wait awhile while the men working work with no traffic at all. At one we sat for about 20 minutes, while the bikers ahead of us swatted mosquitos off their faces and necks and got basically eaten alive. (At one hold-up Tom got out of the truck to wander off taking wildflower pictures, at another in the town of Cooke City he ran into a drugstore for batteries.) So that ate up quite a bit of time, and in Livingston we spent about a half hour trying to get some pizza from the Pizza Hut, so all in all it was 13 hours door-to-door. But a day of simply stunning mountain scenery. Just beautiful.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-89956032184343886482009-07-27T00:22:00.000-05:002009-07-27T00:23:59.663-05:00Arriving at Big TimberThis morning we headed west out of Glendive across eastern Montana. What beautiful country! Interstate 94 follows the Yellowstone River all through this part of the state, along with the railroad. A lot of the area is undeveloped, although we did see some farmland and some horses. More huge fields, some beautiful expanses of golden wheat, and quite a few cornfields, irrigated and improbably bright green against the buff yellow of the surrounding hills. We saw a brightly painted red and white building touting their red angus beef, but unfortunately we did not see any of the cattle. We did pass a couple livestock yards, and numerous gargantuan grain storage facilities that were probably the size of several city blocks, but in the vast openness it's hard to appreciate their size. In one area, all the hilltops were dotted with pine trees. Some areas had considerable trees, and others were open prairie. Everything is so big it defies photography.<br /><br />It seemed like we were climbing an elongated staircase going from Glendive to Billings, but it turns out that we climbed just as much from from Billings to Big Timber, and even further from Minneapolis to Glendive. We started out at 830 feet and are now at 4091. When we go home next weekend we'll be able to coast half the way!<br /><br />We are camped along the Boulder River, which is pretty full and rushes by with a bit of a roar. I am looking forward to sleeping to the sound of it, and with "good sleeping weather"--temps maybe below 60! When we stopped for gas today in Billings it was 98, so I could go for some cool. Snuggling under the blankets, as opposed to being clammy and thinking "get 'em off me!" at four in the morning. Does make it a little more difficult to pry oneself out in the morning to let out the dogs, however.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-67844904496190529442009-07-26T17:33:00.003-05:002009-07-26T17:43:32.896-05:00Trek Across North DakotaIt's Sunday morning and we have left Glendive, Montana on our way to Big Timber. We had a nice day yesterday driving across North Dakota--much nicer than I expected. At first we were heading straight into a stiff northwest wind which meant bad gas mileage and stopping frequently. Since our daughter went to college in Moorhead, we've made the drive up 94 to Fargo many times and knew that that was not a particularly interesting trip. (Tom used to refuse to go up there just because of the four hours of boring drive there and back.)<br /><br />Once we turned westward the wind was not right in our face, and as the day wore on it eventually died down. I was expecting North Dakota to be flat. Much of Minnesota is flat, except for the parts that are near rivers. North Dakota had what I would describe as rolling hills, although the hills had interesting "shape features". It looked as though it had been a huge desert once, with sand dunes and piles of sand heaped up to points, and then one day it all froze into rock.<br /><br />Most of it was cultivated into enormous fields, with occasional batches of cows (including lots of cute baby cows). There was that huge sense of space you get out in the<br />countryside when there are not a lot of trees and you can see for miles and miles. The road wound around just enough that you didn't get that feeling of one long straight stretch of boredom you get in some parts of the country. Unfortunately I did not have the presence of mind to have the camera at hand, so I will have to try to capture some of it on the trip back. (Then I can get a shot of the exit sign for the town named Home on the Range.)<br /><br />We stopped for gas in Dickinson, and just west of that you come to the "painted canyon", and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. There was a rest stop with a scenic overlook, and we saw just enough prior to that to know we needed to stop and see it. Here's a representative picture:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif2Dv_hsQWas3Prk608m5euteQNcQ3p8RmJPO9tqBcQPlehDGh9Vq-FvkAwajJPYoXWC3XkkKYzquAAN1pzFJjlNRaUpzw3K5nzRxFrkSzkhBrbZaNhqBLamKKrmRJKpG7HYxB9ATb68lE/s1600-h/IMG_0167.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif2Dv_hsQWas3Prk608m5euteQNcQ3p8RmJPO9tqBcQPlehDGh9Vq-FvkAwajJPYoXWC3XkkKYzquAAN1pzFJjlNRaUpzw3K5nzRxFrkSzkhBrbZaNhqBLamKKrmRJKpG7HYxB9ATb68lE/s320/IMG_0167.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362902518548087762" border="0" /></a><br />We were pretty tired puppies by the time we got things set up in Glendive. The campground there was quite nice, and we had a pull-through spot which makes it extra easy. Our spot was at the edge of the campground, looking out toward the sunset and more buttes. I was googling our directions to Big Timber this morning, and I have a feeling we'll have a beautiful drive today and wind up in a completely different kind of setting than we just left.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-73631222335586998372009-07-23T23:10:00.002-05:002009-07-23T23:14:59.879-05:00Amish Furniture<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgTllvVX93TwAzdCS8n7yEYv0brJhmscqPb3zXKfcoxeReAmB2eDx20UQRUQwSDOTD16ubVHBM4ULGn6SvlYS4xRDZ2gkyLoMxkaAOnbDFF3eOtcTRh44el1npHVyeVU4vpJEsYkBVY4G/s1600-h/IMG_0164.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgTllvVX93TwAzdCS8n7yEYv0brJhmscqPb3zXKfcoxeReAmB2eDx20UQRUQwSDOTD16ubVHBM4ULGn6SvlYS4xRDZ2gkyLoMxkaAOnbDFF3eOtcTRh44el1npHVyeVU4vpJEsYkBVY4G/s320/IMG_0164.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361875281936657778" border="0" /></a><br />Here is a picture of the new table and chairs--they look lovely! And they arrived in a normal truck, with no horses. The whole family came up for a trip to the cities however, including a young son who was very frightened of dogs (my house with three excited pooches was not the best place to be visiting). They were vying to see who could bark/yell the loudest.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-75923290260493771342009-07-22T21:14:00.002-05:002009-07-22T21:26:28.600-05:00Cassius SpanielI've decided that Butterscotch floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. The floating is quite something--I wish I had a video! :-) She must have expended so much energy crying today that she is pretty quiet tonight. She and Tucker spent quite a bit of time catching toys, but otherwise pretty low key.<br /><br />In other news, a dinette set we ordered from an Amish furniture maker over Memorial Day is arriving tomorrow morning. So I'm going to work from home in the morning, which makes life easier for dogs. (The Amish are networked. The family we talked to doesn't make tables and chairs, so some Amish from Indiana made them.) I'm assuming there won't be horses in the driveway--I guess we'll see! I'm not sure I want to know how long it takes horses to get here from Harmony. The bad news: I have to clean off the kitchen table.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-70100028110044438492009-07-21T22:21:00.004-05:002009-07-21T22:41:01.361-05:00Some Pictures<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1uncppKdGHYuapFhCgHzFzzOmlytK68vM5xHbzpS7chsyoaEhJdpCQSiAcQ4y9wgY0hl_ML-V8Mheg_4Pu_CBRurA9VUOAnK2rzoGpksk-rLtxIaNjIa1vBzz3YG0_LHUyOm0CDD4-Chv/s1600-h/IMG_0157.JPG">First, here is a raspberry-picking picture from Saturday--aww, how pastoral:</a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1uncppKdGHYuapFhCgHzFzzOmlytK68vM5xHbzpS7chsyoaEhJdpCQSiAcQ4y9wgY0hl_ML-V8Mheg_4Pu_CBRurA9VUOAnK2rzoGpksk-rLtxIaNjIa1vBzz3YG0_LHUyOm0CDD4-Chv/s1600-h/IMG_0157.JPG"><br /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1uncppKdGHYuapFhCgHzFzzOmlytK68vM5xHbzpS7chsyoaEhJdpCQSiAcQ4y9wgY0hl_ML-V8Mheg_4Pu_CBRurA9VUOAnK2rzoGpksk-rLtxIaNjIa1vBzz3YG0_LHUyOm0CDD4-Chv/s1600-h/IMG_0157.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1uncppKdGHYuapFhCgHzFzzOmlytK68vM5xHbzpS7chsyoaEhJdpCQSiAcQ4y9wgY0hl_ML-V8Mheg_4Pu_CBRurA9VUOAnK2rzoGpksk-rLtxIaNjIa1vBzz3YG0_LHUyOm0CDD4-Chv/s320/IMG_0157.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361120018841884290" border="0" /></a>Next a couple pictures of our canine guest, Butterscotch, one with resident dogs included. It is very difficult to find B. sitting still enough for a picture, and even more difficult to get any of them together. Maybe better ones on Friday, stay posted.<br /><br />The five of us went for a walk together tonight, and I'm not sure who was the most tired when we got home. I thought we would all be lying around panting, but Butterscotch didn't really wind down until after another hour of chasing the other two dogs around the family room. Right now everyone is chilling and thinking about bedtime.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfCkR7iaW2WncfOP7M2I1RlwPbvPaSKyqCRi7So7U8xKvsk2u_iaEkl3IioD1KB5vlJh9XaAko49WjuEySwqH_kweqEnfGV0Ld5NtvLh2TPNBsjCK86r3aHe1ASBbwg2-z5zG5l6Y-JakV/s1600-h/IMG00069.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfCkR7iaW2WncfOP7M2I1RlwPbvPaSKyqCRi7So7U8xKvsk2u_iaEkl3IioD1KB5vlJh9XaAko49WjuEySwqH_kweqEnfGV0Ld5NtvLh2TPNBsjCK86r3aHe1ASBbwg2-z5zG5l6Y-JakV/s320/IMG00069.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361123109725874370" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3v_7DI4ugU6Z6aUCU-ifuyjo5u86BfxQ8bazLIR3IFWyILS1cXkgDdbv5iGmgwDsZk31kUIwvD79qNdo7SVxIVZFrjC_aQecrxTy1HTUKe39t9Zms1IoMfF_CzrF5A3UocIQx-r7p6RUc/s1600-h/IMG_0162.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3v_7DI4ugU6Z6aUCU-ifuyjo5u86BfxQ8bazLIR3IFWyILS1cXkgDdbv5iGmgwDsZk31kUIwvD79qNdo7SVxIVZFrjC_aQecrxTy1HTUKe39t9Zms1IoMfF_CzrF5A3UocIQx-r7p6RUc/s320/IMG_0162.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361122607215648962" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBrKSjcGy98FKD4wKgG4Wf3iGQD-THxBfFKiQiSiLqfcftc5XjutFOimaoB0WqyQDFsf87A9KDgSACegP5nNU5npjItr-q77AqUdgByKlNzTk9oay3QLufsEXjtW-JJQgkUAqmCBrAVjRT/s1600-h/IMG_0159.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBrKSjcGy98FKD4wKgG4Wf3iGQD-THxBfFKiQiSiLqfcftc5XjutFOimaoB0WqyQDFsf87A9KDgSACegP5nNU5npjItr-q77AqUdgByKlNzTk9oay3QLufsEXjtW-JJQgkUAqmCBrAVjRT/s320/IMG_0159.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361122600271182754" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZO8aTF5WonO1U8fkUODOT69xMy6xu0j2Ggt3vRgocW97VRfeyBgqKClYVfq9kKmlPiFmOSoU3Y94SFuLKOOZ41nxBoRPKhnm6U_5-CcHDG7g1nyUpbf_TjPmBlgbgWt8XGBFKZpZDqehg/s1600-h/IMG_0158.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZO8aTF5WonO1U8fkUODOT69xMy6xu0j2Ggt3vRgocW97VRfeyBgqKClYVfq9kKmlPiFmOSoU3Y94SFuLKOOZ41nxBoRPKhnm6U_5-CcHDG7g1nyUpbf_TjPmBlgbgWt8XGBFKZpZDqehg/s320/IMG_0158.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361122590724778722" border="0" /></a>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-37725590459416262992009-07-20T22:56:00.002-05:002009-07-20T23:11:47.515-05:00Expecting ButterscotchI apologize for the lack of blogging of late. Time has been short, and I've been spending the time I have vegetating. Work has been more draining than usual. This last weekend I actually managed to get some things done for a change--from picking raspberries and making jam to housecleaning. (The raspberry jam is really zingy this year. We went to a new farm to pick, and the plants seemed a little stressed--possibly from our lack of rain. Anyway it made for some really flavorful jam!) I also started up another blog for a group we're taking part in at church, so that may be siphoning off a little energy. (Although I'm hoping not to be the only contributor to that one. If I am, it will not be continuing long--I already have a blog!)<br /><br />Tomorrow evening when I leave work I'm going to pick up Butterscotch, a five-month old Cocker spaniel. We are dog-sitting her until Friday evening, so that promises to bring all sorts of excitement to the household. We've added a tie-out to the back yard, we've purchased some rawhide chews so everyone gets to have one, and I've tried to reduce the number of things near the floor that look good to chew on. I expect Tucker to have a ball, but we'll see. (His neuroses have resurged lately, so I'm hoping this will help him out of his funk.) I will post some pictures!<br /><br />In the meantime, we leave Saturday morning for a week in Big Timber, Montana, so there will be packing and so forth going on. I'm definitely ready for another break in the action. (A person could get used to this every-other-month vacation schedule.)Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-5119432583528427652009-07-16T22:44:00.002-05:002009-07-16T22:55:39.389-05:00Senators On ParadeOy--this is the kind of week I've had, I laughed uproariously when I read <a href="http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/07/confirmation-hearings-of-master-yoda.html">this</a>. First I must say that I've actually listened to parts of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings this week, because MPR has been broadcasting them live, so they've been on during at least parts of my morning commutes. I have tremendous admiration (?) for people who listen to these things for the purpose of reporting on them, or live-blogging them, because really an hour is about all you can possibly stand, especially that first day when each senator is just flapping their gums about whatever and the nominee has to just sit there and smile and take it all in.<br /><br />So, in that spirit, I will quote just a portion of <a href="http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/07/confirmation-hearings-of-master-yoda.html">Confirmation Hearings of Master Yoda, Day Two</a> (if you enjoy this, go read the rest):<br /><span class="rss:item"><span class="fullpost"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Senator Jeff Sessions:</span> Master Yoda, I don't see how you can possibly judge impartially. First of all, you are clearly green and you talk funny. I just don't think you can be sympathetic to white people. Second, it's my understanding that you are actually an alien from the planet Degobah.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yoda:</span> In Degobah I have resided, but my actual birthplace no one knows.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Senator Jeff Sessions:</span> Well, that's just the point. I mean, we don't even know where President Obama was born, much less you.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yoda:</span> Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.</blockquote></span></span>In a similar vein, there is also <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/opinion/16collins.html?_r=1&ref=opinion">Gail Collins' column</a> in the NYTimes today.<br /><br /><br /><span class="rss:item"><span class="fullpost"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-16928134483695197642009-07-12T23:10:00.003-05:002009-07-12T23:26:41.131-05:00Fun LinksThis is a cop-out of a post, but I've got a couple videos to share.<br /><br />The first one is a song. I'm not a big country music fan, but this recent video is from a band in Canada who had a guitar damaged by United Airlines baggage handlers and got nowhere trying to get the airline to take any responsibility, so they made a video. The song is quite good, the video is good, and I like the singer's voice. There are two more videos on the way, this is the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fshortformblog.com%2Fculture%2Fa-musician-with-a-bone-to-pick-sez-united-breaks-guitars&feature=player_embedded">first installment</a>. I'm about ready to go buy one of their CDs.<br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5YGc4zOqozo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5YGc4zOqozo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br />I guess the next one is also a song. This is a really <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Psfn6iOfS8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fandrewsullivan.theatlantic.com%2F&feature=player_embedded">inventive video</a>. They've got some sort of software to convert speech into "singing," but the stuff they added and the way they split-screened the various bits is really quite good. This is sort of a paean to partisanship, featuring Sarah Palin of course, and our favorite Michele Bachmann.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-Psfn6iOfS8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-Psfn6iOfS8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />OK, one more, and it is not a song. It is an animated graph. I had to watch it a few times before I figured out what it was. It shows the life expectancy and average income of various countries over time. The size of the circles also shows their populations. The color of the circles is the continent the country belongs to (if you put your mouse on a bubble it shows the name of the country, but sometimes they bounce too quickly for you to read what they are). After you click <a href="http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2007$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194;dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=23;dataMax=86$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2007$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194;dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=23;dataMax=86$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=">this link</a>, press the play button after it loads. (There's a second tab that shows country population over time on a world map.)Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-35591538237263201482009-07-06T22:43:00.004-05:002009-07-06T23:20:58.809-05:00Last To KnowAssuming I ever have some time and some energy that overlap on the same day, I'm going to write a post about the joys of working for the government, which seems to be one of the safest places to be these days, even though that isn't saying too much. However, in lieu of that, today I'll just quote <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/">Joel Achenbach</a>, who blogs and writes features for the Washington Post. You've no doubt been hearing that print journalism is going through some difficult times in terms of profitable business model. Here he was <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2009/07/tabloid_journalism.html">last week</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><p> This is an exciting day at the Post because there are all these amazing structural changes in the editing and copy-flow process that I would explain in detail were I to have even the vaguest understanding of them. </p> <p> There have been lots of meetings and memos. Entire departments have vanished. Where Financial used to be there's now a Taco Bell. Fact: They've told us that, in anticipation of a major architectural renovation of the newsroom, we should pack our belongings in boxes and take anything truly valuable to our homes. Um, sure. Like I believe that. Whatever happened to the decency of giving a worker a simple pink slip?</p> <p> What's this all mean? I am the last to know. But probably the governing concept behind all these changes is "More Cowbell." </p></blockquote>I love the bit about taking your valuables home and keeping your belongings packed in boxes. We had a little spate of people being "walked out the door" recently, and I always wonder--do you get to go to your office and get your stuff? Is it better not to have so much personal stuff in your cube that we'd be talking multiple boxes to get it all out? Do they have an adequate stash of boxes in the back, or would it be a good idea to keep a few in the trunk of your car? I've taken to trying to keep my pictures backed up onto CD so that I could walk away from my desktop without too much frustration, not that I'm expecting to contract a virus soon and have my computer investigated and be fired for doing something inappropriate with work files or anything.<br /><br />(And if you don't know about "more cowbell," it was a Saturday Night Live skit with Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell. I'm not sure <a href="http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/snl-more-cowbell.html">this video</a> is the entire skit, but it's most of it.)Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2911759442271238927.post-70689351469276760742009-07-05T16:54:00.003-05:002009-07-05T17:32:25.133-05:00Dog Days of JulyJust for my kids, who had to put up with me as they were growing up, I have to tell you that I hauled a couple neighbor kids on a long walk yesterday. There are two girls, Becca and Lauren, who live across the street. They are a year apart, both in elementary school. Becca (the oldest) has a real thing for dogs. She knows every dog around, and has made a point of doing as much as possible with them. (Their family finally got one of their own last year--Cosby, a huge white Labradoodle. Naturally our dogs, being anti-social canine delinquents, think Cosby is the Great White Evil. Sort of like Ms. Pafco down the street, the Great Red Menace who walks every day in winter in a large red hooded parka. Somewhere on our morning walk we are bound to encounter her formidable presence, so that my dogs can wake all the neighbors by barking like maniacs.)<br /><br />The last couple days they've been coming around wanting to walk Scarlett, our poodle. (Scarlett is Becca's favorite of our two dogs, which is not surprising as Scarlett is people-friendly and Tucker prefers to bark and nip at people. Not that this deters Becca, she is a very confident and persistent girl. She has made friends with Tucker, and gamely tried to teach him tricks. But she's really fond of Scarlett, which may also be because Scarlett is more portable and likes to be picked up and held.)<br /><br />So yesterday they rang the bell just as I happened to be leashing the dogs up for a walk. Becca has gone on walks with us before, but in the past, she was only allowed to walk around our block. One day, when I said the dogs and I were going to go on a longer walk than that, she talked me into going around the block twice. She is a very persuasive girl, and I'm confident that she will be running for office one day. Well yesterday I said we were going for a pretty long walk, but they asked their dad and he said they could come along.<br /><br />Around the block is an under 15-minute walk. The walk we did is probably about a half hour. We went up to 118th and over to Davenport, and up to 119th and headed east. Eventually Lauren asked me just how far we were going to walk, and I said, "Well, we could take this next turn here and head back toward our houses, or we could keep going to London Dr. and around past your bus stop." Becca immediately said we should go on to London, but Lauren didn't say anything. I have a feeling she was ready to head back, but didn't want to say so. A little later she asked me how we could walk so far, and I told her we had worked up to it.<br /><br />When we got back to the house I told their dad that I had worn at least one of them out. Lauren headed inside claiming that her feet hurt and she needed a big glass of ice water (I had suggested that as we came down the final stretch). Becca had insisted on carrying Scarlett the last part of the way, so Scarlett got off pretty easy all in all.<br /><br />***<br /><br />On an unrelated note, but pertinent to the 4th of July holiday, today in church we sang America the Beautiful, and I was struck by portions of a couple verses that are not exactly the sort of thing you hear nowadays when it comes to patriotic sentiments:<br /><br /><blockquote>America! America!<br />God mend thine every flaw,<br />Confirm thy soul in self-control,<br />Thy liberty in law!</blockquote>(America have flaws? Heaven forfend--only the blame-America-first crowd says that! Self-control? Restrict our liberty with law?)<br /><br /><blockquote>O beautiful for heroes proved<br />In liberating strife.<br />Who more than self their country loved<br />And mercy more than life! </blockquote>The real heroes love mercy more than life, but you don't hear of too many folks stepping up to that bar these days. Be that as it may, it is still an occasion to remember those out there putting themselves in harm's way by serving in the military, and to be thankful for that service.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05137884882024157986noreply@blogger.com0