Cold Rocks

The next to the last Minnesota Rocks has been installed since my last trip to Mounds Park. It had been the object of some vandalism last spring some time, but it's back in place and all cleaned up. The wind chill when I snapped this photo was one below zero, so I was sure to keep the camera warm ahead of time. This rock was sculpted by Javier Del Cueto, a Mexican stone carver. It's called "Wave." I spent about 45 minutes outside, walking up to the the Indian Burial Grounds that dominate the park on St Paul's East Side.


The Davis Cup is going on in Portland, Oregon, as I write. The first match was won by Andy Roddick and James Blake is up two sets to one in the second of two matches today. The doubles are tomorrow.

The theme for tomorrow is "big snow storm." The weather guys are predicting at least six and maybe ten inches of cold whiteness for the day. The shovel is ready.

Today is the last day of November and I won't need to use the term "albatross" any more for a while.

Minnehaha Creek In Early Winter

This may be turning into a hiking blog some of the time, although I will still report tennis activity as it occurs. In the interests of outdoor activity and getting that life fulfilling full spectrum light to my retinas, I decided to visit the oft-visited Minnehaha Falls. Today's temperature ranged between 8 and 18 degrees, so it was a coldish trek. There has been no real snowfall yet, although that is expected to change over the weekend. The cold has performed some feats of decoration on bodies of water, and the falls are quite attractive, festooned with icicles formed as the water's mist goes over the precipice. It's a much slower flow than the summer flow and the falls a much different place.


I decided to follow Minnehaha Creek until it merges with the mighty Mississippi. I hadn't made the hike since sometime back in the sixties, but it seemed like an attractive way to spend an hour or so. The paved sidewalk ends before the creek-river merge, but the path is well worn and I knew I could find my way back. The trip was a lonely one. I saw only one other human along the way, another older guy taking a hike. The photo below is the spot where the creek flows into the river - not as dramatic as the falls, but an interesting place some distance down river from the Ford Bridge and down the hill from the Veteran's Home.



Tonight was another mixed doubles match. The hardcore girls were there and the tennis competitive. Jerry and Becky were a little off their usual game and so Barb and I won, but the tennis was pretty good. I heard some more stories about tha nationals. They started out nervous and lost the first set 6-2, mostly because they were overhitting, trying to overpower the other team. Bur soon they realized that they weren't playing super teams and settled down to win the next set and the tiebreaker and the rest of their matches in the tournament. They did well, the hardcore girl and the guy with an artificial hip.

Only 23 more days to the solstice. There were 9 hours and 5 minutes of day today, from sunrise to sunset.

Cold, Clear, Thin Ice

Yesterday was cold and calm. Today was not so cold, but windy. It felt just as cold as yesterday. Since there has been only flurries thus far this season, the ice has frozen clear, without a layer of snow for insulation. My mid day trek was a search for ice. In Minnesota this time of year it is a quest that is easily fulfilled. Thus the photo with the requisite "Thin Ice" sign for those foolhardy enough to venture onto the hardened HOH.

It was cold enough outside that I sought refuge in the Como Conservatory, and thought that I could get some photos in the flower garden. Two problems cropped up. The camera was so cold that it gathered condensation on the lens and was unusable for quite a while. And the flowers were being traded out from the fall flower show to the poinsettia show which starts December 1, this next Saturday. It was nice and warm in the Fern Room.


It is curling night. The Miller Rink will be at full strength tonight, I think. Wireless has returned from Paris and is expected back on the indoor ice at SPCC. We have a losing streak in progress that needs some inspirational curling to curtail.

It is Wednesday and Herb (UH) and I spent about an hour using iChat technology to talk with Kagami Sensei. She is studying hard for her Japanese language test which is scheduled on December 5. She's learning grammar and other idiosyncrasies, but not getting enough social interaction. She had Thanksgiving with Roberto and other assorted Americans. Miki and Roberto rounded up a turkey and roasted it in the tiny Japanese style oven, plus Roberto made some gravy. KS said that the turkey smelled wonderful, just like home cooked bird.

Only 24 more days until the solstice.

The Dark Time

It was 5 degrees this morning and the wind chill was 8 below zero. I think that this is the first negative wind chill for this winter season. Pretty cold.

I walked along the river in the Saintly City for about an hour a little after noon. The temp had risen to 12 degrees and there was no discernible wind. I didn't get any photos of note, so I'm going to publish without one. Instead I'm injecting some data relating to the amount of light we get this time of year. And you wonder why we're so grouchy. We are only about 4150 miles from the north pole.

Today is November 27, 2007. The length of the period of daylight at the latitude of St Paul (45 degrees north) is 9 hours and 9 minutes (9.15 hours.) That is 38.125% of a 24 hour day. The winter solstice is scheduled for Dec 22, 2007. On that day, the shortest of the year, there will be 8 hours 45 min 56 sec or 8.767 hrs of daylight. That is 36.53% of a 24 hour day and 56.13% of the daylight on the day of the summer solstice. The days don't get shorter very fast in the next three weeks, but they do get shorter.
The summer solstice was Jun 22, 2007, and on that day at this lattitude there were 15 hour 37 min 6 sec (15.617 hrs) of possible daylight (65.07% of a 24 hour day)

News of the Day: The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has officially announced that Germany's Tommy Haas was not poisoned during the Davis Cup semi-finals in September. I'm not sure why they are so sure. I think that if he had been poisoned they would have used substances that would be undetectable by current tests.

The Davis Cup final begins Friday in Portland Oregon against Russia. Andy Roddick, James Blake, and twins Bob and Mike Bryan will be competing for USA.

Thin Ice

We are on the cusp of having ice on the lakes 24/7. The weather creatures are prognosticating most of a week wherein the temperature will remain below the freezing point of water. We'll have ice houses on the lakes in a couple of weeks at that rate. My daily walk to get enough full spectrum light on my retinas took me by the lake at La Parc de Comeau again today. It was about 37 degrees in the heat of the afternoon. The migrating waterfowl were in the lake, either swimming or strolling about on the thin ice. All of the rest of the lake was flat and iced over, except for the pool that the fowl were using. I'm not sure that I can identify all the species in the photo, but there are, for sure, geese and Mallard ducks among them. Wildlife on ice. My walk covered at least three miles, maybe more, and the geese were all over the parc, fouling the paths and the grass. They are fowl most foul. Vermin.



There was tennis again at Wooddale. The feat now is to avoid taking home the turkey trophy for winning the fewest number of games. The trophy was brought into the mix a few weeks back by Bill and so far, except for one exceptionally bad day, I've been able to go home without "big bird." My scores tonight were 3-6, 6-4; mediocre in the grand scheme of things, but good enough to stay turkey free. Poetically, Bill has been in possession of his own trophy most of the time.

The turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving are still haunting the fridge. I had some more of the mixture of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and wild rice again tonight. I made it palatable by adding teriyaki sauce, olives and salsa. Yum. I'm discarding the rest of the leftovers soon, before the threat of ptomaine gets too unmanageable.

Only four more days in November. Then I'll be able to take a rest day from this blogging albatross.

The Band Plays On

Sunday, the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend. In addition to continuing the eating season, I went to the hockey game with Gino. It was the Lady Gophers against the North Dakota Fighting "Native American Named" Ladies at Ridder Arena. There has been controversy about the North Dakota University nickname for quite a while and now the difficulty is to be resolved by requiring the school to get the ok to use the tribe name from the tribe itself within two or three years. The Sioux tribe is talking it over. It was a pretty good game with the local lasses winning 5-3 for a weekend sweep. The picture below is the UM pep band working the crowd. The tuba section had their own personalized jerseys and attitude to match.



The temperature reached 46 degrees today and that is apparently warm enough to do some biking. There was a nice blue sky for several hours during the day. The wind was present but Herb said it wasn't too bad. Herb managed to traverse 4 miles on his velocipede while I was spectating at Ridder Arena. Nice job, Herb.

This is an inspirational video from YouTube that I really liked. It's simple emotions touched me, and although most of you may have seen it, I'm furnishing the link. Paul Potts is, or was, a cellphone salesman in England.

Pie Are Squared

It was the evening of the family Thanksgiving pie party. We had nine adults and a dearth of under 25 year-olds. But we had a lot of pie, pizza variety from Papa Murphy and Papa John's (the two papas), and a pair of sugar free dessert pies, compliments of Andy and Tula. The salad that Mark and Peggy brought was very good and varied. There was a sampling of designer beer from Andy and also Gino and BB. We ate well. For the first time in several years we had both Adams in attendance. We talked and laughed and had a good time. This pie party is a long standing tradition and a good way to get together with a lot of the family that we don't always see very often, now that the urge to participate in the MSTRAM bike adventure has gone away.

The tennis playing continued this morning with the geezers at Wooddale, doubles as usual. I tried playing with my Wilson k Six One 95 that I restrung a few weeks back to reduce the tension in the strings from 55 to 50 pounds. I hoped to get some more power from the racket and a little more pop in the serve department. It played pretty well, and I managed to be on the winning side of the two sets we finished, but I'm still not satisfied with its play. The racket is a little too head heavy, and a little too heavy over all. I'm resolved to go back to the WILSON Hyper ProStaff 6.1 racket that I've been playing with lately, and have been for about eight years. Jerry was back from the USTA 7.0 nationals and I had a chance to listen to some of the stories from the matches. It sounded like they had a very good time. I'm looking forward to mixed doubles on Thursday with the hardcore girls to see how the balance may have shifted.

I'm signing up to be on an 8.0 Super Seniors team for the winter session. The team plays on Tuesday nights which fits my schedule nicely. It's a different set of geezers, but they are all 60 plus years old.

Out of the Red Friday

The day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year and the day that brings most businesses to profit for the year, or so the legend goes. I didn't manage to get to a store, but managed to spend some money on a new iBook battery for this computer. It has been losing its ability to hold a charge for quite a while, so the time to help rectify that situation and to jump start the economy coincided today. The Apple Store was happy to oblige my need to spend.

Herb and I talked to Kagami Sensei on the internet this morning. She's having Thanksgiving dinner with Roberto's family tomorrow, and was trying to think of something traditional to bring to the festivities, but the country of Japan is devoid of cranberries and the search for sweet potatoes and marshmallows for a casserole seems to be too daunting. I'm sure that they'll have good food and I'm thankful that she has good friends to spend this holiday with. She's a long way from home. Then she' planning to get back to studying for her Japanese competency test due for December 2.

Back here in River City, with the temp in the 20's and early 30's, Herb and I walked a couple of miles through the neighborhood, and then took in a movie, "Michael Clayton." It's a movie that I like but Herb thought that it was needlessly stress inducing. George Clooney was good as a lawyer-fixer.

Thanksgiving Day

This is the turkey that we ate for Thanksgiving dinner. Thank you, Ms. Turkey.


Some members of the dinner assemblage, shortly after dinner and also after a game of Boggle. We had a good meal and a good time, and I learned how it is possible sometimes to get free color TV sets.


There was no tennis and no biking today. It was cold and the snow fell enough to remind us that we still live in the North Star State.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Large Refrigeration Unit

It's curling night and the Miller Rink will be only three strong tonight as one of the team members is traveling. It's the night before Thanksgiving, which in the past meant that the Bonnies took the night off and we curled at 7:00 pm. As it turns out, we''ll be curling at our normal time. We will be competing in what could be considered a very large refrigerator. The club makes use of that fact by storing its beer along the edge of sheet one. The kegs in the photo are full and destined to filter through the members at a later date.


We had real snow flurries today and it felt like winter is ready to make an impact on the citizens. I walked up to the Cook's store on Grand and Victoria to see what sort of skewers or sewing apparatus was available for keeping the stuffing inside a roasting turkey. They had several solutions, but I may go with some heavy twine that I have in-house. Or duct tape. ( :-) The turkey is starting to soften up on its path to being thawed out, but I may have to use the running water trick to finish the job. I am likely to photgraph the bird in its golden glory for tomorrow's blog. By that time it will be food.

Happy Thanksgiving.