Big election tomorrow

I've heard someone who should know say that November is the cloudiest month here in the People's Republic of Minnesota. Today was cloudy and glum. But there is an election tomorrow and I thought I might be able to get some photos of lawn signs or something election related of note. It seemed to me that if I had a walk around the area of a private liberal arts college, I might see some political action. Lucky for me there is such a college not far from here - near the corner of Snelling and Grand.  Close enough.  I took a hike through the heart of that campus and found it pretty much devoid of political signs and activity. Maybe they are sitting this one out. Even the areas around the college where I suspect some students and faculty might live, there weren't that many signs and the ones I found were of the preprinted variety. Kind of boring after that home made Nader '08 sign from yesterday.

So I went to some recent archival material for a blog photo. This is the Governor's Mansion on Summit from a walk yesterday. There weren't any political lawn signs there either, but the front door had been tastefully decorated for Halloween trick or treaters. The guv gave out candy on Halloween between 5:30 and 6:30 pm that night. I think he may have got in some politicking later in the evening and no doubt he's at it again tonight.

And finally, a not so cuddly looking cat, a big cat living a lonely life at Como Zoo, doing its level best to be cute. Taken yesterday afternoon. I don't have a house cat, or dog for that matter, so this is close as I can get to a cute cat picture today.

Happy New Year's Eve

I went to the city zoo to check out for myself the Siberian Tiger's enclosure. It was about 19 degrees and the tiger was out pacing around his living area. He seems acclimated to his environment and I feel pretty confident that he's not going to climb out of his place. The lowest fence segment is 15 feet high with in-facing fence extensions at the top. The few other people who braved the elements seemed sure of their safety, too. On my way back to the warm areas of the park, I stopped to visit the two polar bears in their concrete enclosure. I'm less sure of the security of their area. They don't have the in-facing extensions to the top of the walls that the tiger pen has. The bears seem well fed and reasonably content, but they are slightly higher on the food chain than my favorite primate, so I didn't stay long. And it was cold.

I had a nice brisk walk past the golf course and over to the lake and back to where my car was parked, maybe a couple of miles total. I burned some calories walking and more trying to keep my toes from freezing. Tomorrow is expected to dip below zero. January begins.

Google map street view of the McNeeley Conservatory at Como Park. It's a nice tool to see what things looked like sometime last summer. Credit to Google.


Is there a blog theme for January first?

Happy New Year, 2008.

Tigers and White Elephants

Sib's Pie Party at Tousan's tomorrow. White elephants expected. no tigers welcomed.



The deadly tiger incident at the San Francisco Zoo has been of interest the last few days. This interest comes naturally, because I occasionally visit the Como Zoo in the Saintly City, which has a few Siberian Tigers of the size of Tatiana, the tiger that killed the guy in San Francisco. Our Siberian Tigers are used to the cold and snow, which is their natural habitat and have a decent size pen in which to romp. Also it is pretty plain that the walls around the enclosure at Como are more than 12 feet 5 inches in height. You don't get the up close and personal view that must have had some appeal in California, but it seems highly unlikely that the St Paul tigers could scale their fences. I'm going to check it out again the next time I feel a need to view wildlife, but it seems safe enough. This is a photo of one of the Siberian tigers in repose, not agitated by taunting or hungry for revenge or (shudder) primate meat. In any case, I'm not as likely to feel completely comfortable in the presence of tigers for a few weeks.



George Miller came to America on the ship Parachute, which I find today, while roaming the internet, was a sailing ship built in 1826, two years before the journey of the old boy to these shores. The Marquis de Lafayette, for whom G.L. was named, was in the U.S. in 1824 for the dedication of George Washington University. Isn't there some story about one of our ancestors being Napoleon's tailor? Does anyone remember? Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo on June 18, 1815 and was exiled and died in St Helena on May 5, 1921. The story may be credible.

Boxes and Curls

Another Christmas has passed into history. Herb and I spent much of the day with gzmoohoo and family. We had some nice vittles and some gift exchanging. It was a snowy day, another 3 or 4 inches of white fluffy clogged the streets again. Today the city fathers declared another snow emergency and sent out the plows and the tow trucks. Below you can see what the street outside my house looked like this morning after I did my shoveling. It's all white and clean looking, but it's also a little cooler than I would like it. But this is Minnesota after all.


Another picture of snow heaped on the rail at the back door. This may have looked better in black and white, because they are about the only colors still out there. It is December and the only flowers are inside heated buildings.



It's boxing day in Canada, the day that the decorations are boxed up and returned to the attic. That may happen in Canada, but I'm waiting until January, at least. One year I left the Christmas wreath on the front door in place until spring and birds started a nest in it. I have been better about getting on with the New Year since then.

It's also curling day. The first game of the evening at SPCC went south pretty fast. We lost to a team that ceded us a handicap of 2 points, but we fell behind 9-3 before capitulating. The second game was better. This was the Miller Rink and we were curling in good luck. The team we played has beaten us pretty regularly in the last couple of years, but not tonight. Mr Moohoo made some good shots, and I had a lucky carom or two and we won our third consecutive game in the league. It was a nice way to end the curling year.

A Siberian Tiger escaped from its cage in the San Francisco Zoo yesterday and killed a young man. I have been to the Como Zoo in the last few weeks, where some Siberian tigers reside, and even posted a photo of a tiger on this blog that day. It is hard for me to see how a tiger can escape from the areas that they are enclosed in. I am waiting for more info, but it makes me a little more nervous about my trips to the zoo. I wonder if the tiger wasn't released by somebody as some sort of act of terrorism. It reminds me a little of the plot from "Twelve Monkeys," a Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt movie of a couple of years ago. Life sometimes imitates fiction.

Zoo Story

For a Tuesday in December it was a pretty nice day. I needed my exercise and the required quota of full spectrum photons, so I went to the zoo to see some animals. Going to the zoo in December is decidedly different than going in the summer. There are not many visitors and virtually no children. Plus there are not many animals that are acclimated to the cold, so most of them are inside. Today in the cold I saw two polar bears, a bison, some sort of goat, the tiger you see below, a cougar and the two timber wolves, Denali and Cheyenne. It was also an interesting time because the staff and whatever volunteers that are there are bored and/or lonely and will talk to odd strangers trekking through. I had a nice conversation with the wolf keeper. She was feeding the two wolves their afternoon snack. It looked like raw animal organs, but meat for sure. She said that it was horse meat. The female wolf doesn't like people and shies away from contact (thus the name Cheyenne or Shy Anne?). The male, however, is cooperative and will allow medical exams and even allows blood sample to be drawn. He' seems to be named after the US national park in Alaska of the same name. The wolf worker said that the male weighs about 125 pounds, but they aren't sure what Cheyenne weighs because she won't get close enough for anyone to weigh her. It was a pleasant chat uninterrupted by any other visitors. When the pieces of meat had all been tossed over the fence piecemeal to the canines, she went back to her chores. I thanked her and went to find the gorillas.



In the primate house, I chatted with a zoo volunteer and a zoo keeper. They were not busy and were willing to share some info about the big apes. The zoo has been bringing in quite a bit of money since they instituted the practice of asking for a two dollar donation at the gate. They have collected so much money that they are building new quarters for the polar bears and after that a better place to house the monkeys and apes. They have three mature gorillas and a couple of orangutans who seem to need more sunlight and some video games to keep them active. Apparently they have enrichment activities for the apes on Thursday mornings to try to keep them entertained and healthy. Last week a woman brought a harp to play for them, and they seemed to really like the music. They were jockeying with each other to get closer to the harpist, who was safely on the other side of a barred door. It must have been an odd sight.

The zoo is an interesting place to visit, even in December. I could get used to retirement.