Flooding a Rink

It's December and it's been below freezing this whole month in the Saintly City. In my walk to gather full spectrum photons as part of my quest to ward off Seasonal Affective Disorder, I came across an employee of the City of St Paul engaged in an activity foreign to much of the country. This dude is flooding a skating rink. It's a new rink at Linwood. I haven't seen skaters there yet, but after the ice is well established there will be cheerful youngsters blading around on the surface. There is an art to creating a good skating surface in the great out of doors. There are quite a few people on the Iron Range who can do it, and I think that Mr Moohoo has some familiarity with the skill.


The days continue to shorten. Today here was 8 hours and 51 minutes. The people of Tromso, Norway near the burg of Sjovegan, where Hansine Hansen was born, have a much shorter day. It's north of the Arctic Circle. I was there on the day of the summer solstice in 2000. The sun stopped rising there on October 17th and won't be seen again until the middle of February. No sunsets either. Then in the middle of April the sun refuses to set and stays up until the middle of August. They only have about four months of the year when it is possible to see a sunrise or a sunset. We should send them photos of the beautiful sunsets we see every summer over Lake Michigan. The following link is useful in finding the length of days almost anywhere on earth.
Link to worldclock

There was tennis at Wooddale tonight. Tennis Dennis was on his game and we had some great points before he and Bill won the first set from Bob and me, 6-4. Then Dennis was my partner for the second set and we won a rare bageled set. TD's hip began to hurt him so we had to forego a third set. TD is still mobile enough to play. but he's starting to think that his hip replacement is going to happen soon.