Benchiness

Sometimes, if you warn that you may have to post a picture of a bench, sometimes you have to do it. This, thus is a picture of an extremely artistic bench that I saw in Port Charlotte this last spring. It's one that someone applied a great deal of loving attention to, and thus deserves an audience, even one as small as my humble blog.

Today I got another phone call from PP in Tanzania. It was again garbled, but this time it was live instead of on my answering machine. The garble was only one way. I could be understood clearly on that end, but any and all responses from there were garbled on the google phone connection. It made for tough communication, so we tried iChat with video feeds from both sides. Against my power to explain it, the iChat session was as clear as those to much more technologically inclined countries. So we chatted a while and I was able to see a bit of the place where she lives - including her mosquito netting. She's traveling to Mikumi National Park tomorrow, about two hours away, with her band of UMB grad students. It seems that all is well, and that she will have stories to tell.

I played some tennis today, and although the slump is not really over yet, I seem to be getting slightly better results. I will turn down the volume on my whine.

A Bike Rode By

Sometimes while you're walking for exercise in a public spot, something a little odd will go by. As I was strolling about Como Park in the early evening with the Girl From the North Country (GFTNC) a guy on a very tall bike rode by. I think I've seen him before, but it was a first for GFTNC. Maybe GZ has seen him before on his rides in the Twin Cities, too.  The guy rode up to the door at the Conservatory, turned around and rode off. I don't know how he gets up on that tall bike, or how he negotiates a dismount, but it must take a bit of planning and perhaps a ladder. He gave us a subject to discuss on a very pleasant August evening.

A baby duck, or perhaps an adolescent was swimming in the lily pad pool outside the Como Conservatory. The area was pretty much devoid of humans when we walked by, and the duck seemed unafraid of the large creatures mere feet away. I guess if you live in a park that busy, you get used to intruders. So I took his picture.

We walked for a while and then drove to the airport to pick up Unky Herb and his lady friend as they returned from their vacation in Washington state. I guess they had a pretty good trip, but now must get readjusted to the mundane every day world.

I heard from the Prairie Princess today. She called using google voice from her perch in Africa. I was gone so she left a message on the answering machine. It was badly garbled, but I was able to discern that she was doing ok and that she'd try again some other time.  Even garbled I recognize her voice.

The realtors have not yet called about how the land on the Yellow River should be priced and sold, but today I was reminded of the direction of flow of the river.  I should have remembered from my childhood, when one day I lost my favorite cap in the river and my dad tried to retrieve it by casting a hook at the end of a fishing rod as the cap drifted to the north with the river's current.  He didn't ever retrieve it, as I recall.  I think it eventually sank to the bottom of the river.  Memory is odd.  I remember that incident, but can't remember what I ate for lunch today.  Oh yeah!  A Southwest chicken salad at Ronald McD.'s with low fat dressing.  But I don't remember what I ate yesterday for lunch.

Yellow River

I finally did something that I had been meaning to do all summer.   And last summer, too. I took a drive to northern Wisconsin and talked to a realtor about the possibility of selling the chunk of land on the Yellow River that I own jointly with my sibs. I took along a consultant former realtor to make sure I didn't blunder into alien territory (PW).  I came away with promises from two realtors to have a look at the land and give us some options as to price.  Perhaps we'll be able to move the property, perhaps not, but it seems like a good time to take a chance. One of the other lots of the six in the set is also for sale - the one just next to ours, on the other side of the gully, one belonging to the children of the next to youngest of Lillie's sisters.

It was an interesting trip in many ways.  We stopped at the Webster Cemetery and looked at the state of the graves of the family members interred there. As we were trimming some branches off a tree near Grandma Anderson's grave we ran into a woman. She asked if I was related to the Andersons. I admitted to being a grandson of my own grandparents. She said that her uncle John was the guy who watered the flowers and otherwise tended the graves. He also planted the pine trees near the graves.  It turns out that she is my cousin's cousin - and lives in Webster now.  Her uncle John is 89 and lives in Grantsburg, so several of my readers can guess his identity.

PW and I trekked to the lot site and checked out the state of the property. Of course, I couldn't remember the dimensions of the lot, nor could I find the corner survey stakes. But I took a photo of the river, except that it was upstream from the bridge (the one near County Roads FF and U).   And towards the Fort.  It's posted below.

The fat's in the fire.

A New Statue

Yesterday Bill Clinton was in town to dedicate a new statue on the capitol lawn in St. Paul. A lot of current and retired politicians showed up for the dedication. I wasn't invited, as far as I know, but today was a beautiful day and the PW and I wanted to see what the statue looked like, so we went down there to scout out the location of the memorial. The Happy Warrior, Hubert Humphrey, has been gone from this world for 30 years. Yesterday Walter Mondale and Skip Humphrey, HHH's son, were there along with our current senators and a smattering of Representatives and unveiled the statue. Today, there were far fewer people and no politicians at all there to view the site, which is just north of the Charles Lindburgh memorial and somewhat closer to the capitol itself. It's not a bad likeness from what I know of HHH, and a pretty nice tribute to the former VP, multiple term Senator, and one time mayor of Minneapolis.

The Minnesota State Capitol on a beautiful August day. The scaffolding indicates that work is going on maintaining the very old building which is much in need of repair. We walked around the grounds, looking at most of the memorials, but the capitol building itself was locked. One of the guys who was catering an event in the afternoon said that the building was to open at one p.m., but we didn't hang around to go inside.  It's quite a nice capitol building.  I dare say one of the top 50 in the nation.

The Viet Nam War and Korean War Memorials are both quite striking and remind me of the many wars we have fought in my lifetime. As is the newer World War II exhibit. 

Another memorial at the Minnesota Capitol is dedicated to living soldiers, those who survived their time in the service of their country.

Just a word of congratulations to Andy Murray who won the men's singles gold medal in straight sets at the London Olympics. It was a big day for the Brits and the Scots today, and not so good for Roger Federer and the Swiss. Murray also was able to win a silver medal in the mixed doubles - one of the best tennis days for the English populace since about 1937 or so.

Tennis stuff

The weather has improved. It's cooler and less humid today and thus much more pleasant. We had eight of the codger crew at tennis this morning at our usual meeting place. We had enough time to play about a set of tennis before light rain started to fall. Rain makes for slippery courts and a chance for injury, so we curtailed the activity and quit playing. It was okay by me, because I seem to be in a mild slump. It doesn't seem like I'm playing much worse, but my results have generally gone south. It partly has to do with the quality of the opposition, but I'd rather be winning more of the games that seem to be slipping away. So I'm taking a few days off from tennis ball thumping and hoping that rejuvenates the quality of my play.

It was a good day for other USA tennis players, especially those named Williams. Serena won her gold medal match over Maria Sharapova 6-0, 6-1.  Maria reportedly only got in about half a dozen of her patented shrieks during the match. Then Serena paired with Venus to win their semifinal doubles match over a Russian team to assure themselves of a medal in doubles. And the Bryan twins (Bob and Mike) won the men's doubles gold over the French pair (one was Tsonga) in straight sets. A pretty good tournament for USA tennis, a group which has been in eclipse the last few years.

I'm pulling for both of the men in the men's final, Federer and Murray, but I think it would be really nice if Murray won a tournament at Wimbledon, him being so British and all, and the Olympics being in London and other areas of the kingdom. I'm hoping that the queen (Lizzy) shows up to bolster the spirits of the best British tennis player of his generation.  It'll probably be a pretty good show.

Incidentally, today's photo has nothing to do with tennis, but it's a recent photo that I sorta like.

I have heard from the Prairie Princess.  She has landed at her home for the next few months - Sokoine University - in Tanzania in the mountains outside of Dar Es Salaam.  She has some internet connections and probably will be doing some blogging again soon.  I'm anxious to see the photos.

Number

Number is one of those interesting words with more than one meaning. Usually it's numeric, but it can mean more nearly numb. (Or is that like "perfect,"  incapable of comparison, i.e you are either numb or not numb without gradations of numbness).

No matter. I've spent a working lifetime using numbers - the numeric kind. The computers and memory dumps, that I'd have to examine to determine what caused software glitches, used binary numbers. The binary numbers were always bunched up and printed as octal numbers (base 8) at first, but later in my working life they were further bunched into hexadecimal numbers (base 16). The 16 cardinal hex numbers are written 0,1,...9,a,b,c,d,e,f. where f is 15. I used to be able to convert them to decimal in my head, but since I retired five years ago I only deal with decimal numbers.  I think if humans were born with twelve fingers rather than ten, we'd be dealing with a base 12 number system, whatever that would be called, and it would be easy.

I like numbers, maybe almost as much as Santini does - although I think she's more familiar with the decimal variety. My favorite number is four. I've sought it out as the number on my back when I have played on organized softball and soccer teams. Since I now mainly play tennis, I usually don't wear a number on my back.  I'm not quite as reticent to use the number 13 as some, but I consider it unlucky and casually avoid it when possible.  I'm not sure where it got such a bad reputation, but there is a name for the phobia it engenders - triskaidekaphobia.  I think the subject has appeared in one of Mr Moohoo's blogs lately.

I like number jokes. I blogged one a while back. (There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary numbers and those who don't.)  The commenters added a few others in a similar vein.

Another in the intermittent series of benches encountered wherever I happen to encounter them. This one sat and sits on the shore of Swan Lake somewhere north of Floodwood.  Near Pengilly.   It has just the right amount of wildness and neglect to make it attractive to my lens.

These photos have little to do with the theme, but I took them lately and it is after all my blog. This is a close view of a female duck at Richfield Nature Center yesterday.

USTA codgers

For the first time in a year or so I played in a USTA league tennis match. There is a division in USTA for men over 60 - Super Seniors it's called. I agreed to play on a team of players rated 4.0 tonight at Fort Snelling, a place that I played twice a week all winter. The courts are somewhat different in the summer, because they take the bubble down and play takes place outside. That means that wind is now a factor in play. It's a new team for me, but I've played with many of the players before over the last ten years or so. Tonight my partner, Ahto, and I played against a pretty good team who play out of White Bear Lake, a team of players that often have won the leagues they play in. There are only three teams in this league drawn from all over the Twin Cities. I guess by this age most players have given up tennis and moved on to golf and shuffleboard. The guys that are left are hardcore, but still codgers. It'll take a while to get used to playing with Ahto, but we were competitive before losing 6-4, 6-4. It was windy. It was fun and as I told Ahto as we left the courts, we are all winners just by showing up and competing. Ahto is 66 and agreed immediately. I love this game.

The heat wave has dissipated a bit and I have a few photos that I've taken in the last few days. I've mostly been playing tennis and doing some walking around the neighborhood and some of my favorite parks in the Twin Cities.

My flower planter after being upgraded by the Girl From The North Country (GFTNC) a couple of days ago. The colorful flowers that were originally in the planter were flooded out by a couple of big rainfalls. They look quite a bit better now that there are new colors in the pot.

A single sunflower growing in the neighborhood not far from home.

A native American mask posted near Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, taken in a walk by the falls over the weekend with the GFTNC.

I changed my blog's header photo today. The white heron's image was captured about a year ago as it stood in shallow water in Lake Como.

1001

It's not a prime number. 1001. But it's a lot of posts. I have a few photos from the last several days while I was taking a break from blogging to commemorate a thousand and now I'm beginning the second thousand. I have some photos from several trips to Como Park, where I often walk for exercise and to appreciate the natural and near natural areas around the lake and the Conservatory.

I caught a bee at work on this orange flower at the butterfly garden near the frog pond at Como.

Some whitish flowers growing outside and near the Como Conservatory.

Three ducks at Como Park, swimming at ease in the summer sun.

It's been hot lately, actually most of the month. Yesterday was a tennis day and even though the thermometer in my car said 97, we played a couple of sets and it was actually fun. It helps if you get hydrated ahead of time and strive to stay hydrated through the whole process. There were seven guys who were willing to spend an hour and a half in the sun and all of them were still feeling pretty well at the end of the day. I walked off feeling well, but I came home to air conditioning, a little snack, and a short nap.

The Olympics begins on Friday. I guess there will be a pretty good tennis tournament at Wimbledon as part of the competition. I'm looking forward to watching some of the competition, hoping that NBC will squeeze some of the good matches into their coverage. I'm planning to watch some of the events on the internet. It is reported that all the events will be available on line. It would be pretty nice if Andy Murray could win the singles, since he's been stymied in his efforts to win Wimbledon in the best of five set format that is used in tennis grand slam events. In the Olympics winning two of three sets is enough.

I enclose a video that I encountered on the Discover Magazine site.   It's one of the earliest uploads of non-text data to the internet - purportedly.  It's a bevy of beauties from CERN singing a do-wop song to the scientist boy friends in their lives who prefer their collider to them.  It also has a section featuring Cray computers from the early nineties when I was doing software for the same machines.  Very nice memories for me.

[7*11*13 = 1001]

One thousand

It's time that I blogged again. I've been short of material (that usually means my photos are of below par quality) and not much really exciting has been happening. But I'm invigorated by Mr and Mrs Smith's trip to Paris and the prospects for some good blog reading, and by the fact that I just realized that this is my 1000th blog entry - the first was May 3, 2007.

It's been a hot few weeks and this week was a kind of reprieve from the 90's and 100's of the early part of the month. I've been to Como just walking around (JWA) and have a few pictures of the place where I take quite a few photos. The Conservatory is pictured from a somewhat different angle than usual, on the slope down toward the frog pond. I guess frog pond is a good enough name for it - there is a stone frog in the pool, or maybe it's concrete.

A duck on the stone frog's head.

It was 88 today, with reasonable humidity. The usual tennis crowd gathered at Marie courts and we played some tennis. I've been somewhat off my game lately, I think because of the difficulty of dealing with the heat and humidity and staying adequately hydrated. Today worked better because I made a conscious effort to get ahead of the water need by drinking a couple of large glasses of water before leaving the house for the courts. It seemed to work and my level of fatigue seemed to be less than during the height of the heat wave. I think I'll stick with the regimen for a while to see where it leads.

I spent some of the morning watching the 10th stage of the Tour de France. It was a mountain stage and Thomas Voeckler, the popular French cyclist, won the stage. There has been some talk about doping again in this year's race, but so far the unexpected strong riders haven't been caught, if indeed they're doping. It was a good race, but it's less fun when it seems like there is cheating going on.

I don't think that there is any doping in professional tennis. But then I didn't think that there was any doping in baseball for a long time and it turned out that there was quite a bit of it.

Prairie Grass

The heat of summer has arrived. The Strib weather guy says that we'll be in the mid 90's for highs most of the week, topping out at 100 later in the week - maybe Friday. It sounds warm, but we have electricity, a commodity that apparently is lacking in parts of the East, where they're having a similar heat wave. So far, I've been maintaining a normal schedule, even playing tennis in the late afternoon. On Saturday, we had seven codgers at Marie Park in the morning, all well into their sixties or more. The next test is Monday afternoon.

I have some photos from late last week which I took on various walks with the GFTNC around more natural areas in the city. We checked out Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, a place where the Prairie Princess helped transform to a prairie with ambitions to turn into an oak savannah. The prairie grass looks very healthy and has a much different look from the usual lawns of other parks. The oak trees are doing pretty well, too.

On another day on a hike around Lake Como with the previously mentioned GFTNC, we encountered this bird sitting in a tree. I haven't posted a photo of this variety of bird before, so I took a chance. I think it's a Carolina Wren.

The Prairie Princess is just a month away from her field work trip to Africa. She'll be spending five months in Tanzania, at the Equator, then hopefully coming to Minnesota, home, for Christmas. Lately she's been going by a nickname of Daughter of Norway, but may have to temporarily change to something more African.