Sunday Crosswords

No tennis today. It was a beautiful day and I was outside quite a bit. One of the tennis crowd had an open house this afternoon, so I spent a couple of hours talking about tennis and the unfortunate closing of the Lilydale tennis facility. And how sorry we are that the new owner is losing his shirt because the real estate market, especially for condos, seems to have tanked. He has yet to demolish the old building and seems to be in arrears on his property tax payments, according to interested and informed sources.

The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles had one of those nasty little gimmicks today. The title, "Buried Treasure" was meant to refer to the gimmick: use the symbol for gold (AU) in a single square in selected words to answer a clue. There was reference to Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" song and a requirement to supply some of the lyrics. Thankfully, google knows almost all things, even 53 across, the first Shia imam, Ali. "I've been a miner for a heart of gold" are the Neil Young lyrics.

I close with a photo from the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis on the mighty Mississippi. The new Guthrie Theatre is in the middle of the photo, with the "bridge to nowhere" protruding towards the river. There were people on the deck when the photo was taken. It offers a high view of the collapsed 35W bridge, but at a considerable distance.

Two Bads

It is KS's last full day in the USA this time around. She and I went to Super Target for vitamins and discovered sushi and Pocky. So we went on a picnic to Como Park. Sadly, Como Park was struck with vicious winds on Saturday and the picnic area was strewn with old oak trees felled by nature's might. The area pictured is near the big picnic area, very near the zoo. The large crumpled oak was surrounded by its past glory. KS is there for scale and her acting. The whole scene was very sad.


We took a ride over to the University of Minnesota to see if we could glimpse the 35W bridge rubble. The public has been restricted to just barely a glimpse - see below. It's protected by yellow tape and rent-a-cops. It was much less illuminating than the TV images, but it was real and there is an impact to that. They are still searching for four missing people who went down with the bridge.


I measured the Toyota Matrix's gas mileage in our return from Michigan. I filled up in Holland, once in Roscoe, Illinois, and again this a.m. at the Seventh Street Super America. We traveled 562.8 miles, used 16.595 gallons of petrol for which we paid $46.72. Ergo, 33.91 mpg, $0.083 per mile, $0.0277 per mile per person. Even with a fairly heavy foot on the gas the Matrix was exemplary.

The blueberries we brought home from Michigan were Eliots. I didn't ask the blueberry seller of the variety when I bought them, but I now know blue crop's taste. These are the much tarter Eliots. So it goes.

KS leaves in the morning for the Orient. It seems like she just arrived and now it's nearly time for her to fly back.