Dinner and an earthquake

We had a very nice anniversary dinner this evening at McCormick and Kuleto's Restaurant. Our menus said "Happy 25th Anniversary" on them, we got a lovely cake and the company was exquisite, of course.



When we were walking back to the hotel, a T-shirt booth saleswoman said, "did you feel the earthquake?" And, of course, we didn't. Rats. I feel about earthquakes the way I feel about tornados, which I've also never experienced. Actually, the day my oldest son was born, we did get a 5.3 earthquake in White Plains, NY.

Alas, we apparently were the only people in the region not to feel the earthquake, for when we got back to the room, the TV was full of anchorpeople talking to people who reported it created a "rolling feeling," which I presume is the earthquake version of "it sounded like a train," for tornados.

It was, according to the TV, a 5.6 quake -- not real big -- centered down around San Jose.

Anyway, back at the room we recreated the original wedding toast, which we do every year, although we didn't bring our special crystal glasses out here.




Oh, and I found this picture of a tough Carolie on "the rock," from earlier today.




You don't want to mess with that.

Happy anniversary and all that

Today completed the tourist portion of our trip, on this the 25th anniversary. So we celebrated "the ball and chain" (as Carolie said) by traveling over to Alcatraz for the morning.

It was sightly drizzly and cold, which is appropriate weather for the trip, I think. I was interested in some of the history, Carolie was particularly interested in the takeover on behalf of Native Americans in the early '70s, but I think we both were most interested in some of the flowers and greenery around the island, all of which - I guess - had to be brought from somewhere else. We also spotted a few hummingbirds about.

And, of course, took dorky pictures...



... which are tough to screw up with such a pretty city for a background...



Carolie near the water tower...



And the obligatory shot from inside...



We spent about three hours over there and then walked up to North Beach for lunch at an Italian Restaurant and then back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours before going out -- somewhere around here -- for our anniversary dinner.

This afternoon, I checked the mail from work and see we've hired the online editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press (will the last person in the newspaper business please turn out the lights?) to replace me, so that I can go off and write online stories and play online host and that sort of thing. I haven't yet got it fully figured out in my mind how it's going to work or how it can possibly be successful but I'll come up with something.

I probably shouldn't have checked the mail until vacation was over because it's one more thing to think about.

Still, tough to exhale around Casa Collins.

Sigh

It was hard getting "in" to the vacation today as there was a family crisis back in Minnesota and we were pretty powerless to do much about it. We were on the way to Muir Woods to see the redwoods when the first text messages started arriving. Within a few minutes, though we were outside of cellphone range.

So here's the big trees.



We found this deer nibbling on something. He didn't seem to mind us much.



It's pretty hard, with a cheesy camera like mine, to get a good picture. There isn't enough light to get a good picture without a flash, and the trees are too big, so a flash just makes a dark picture. I gussied this one up a bit.



Carolie hid in this one, but I found her.



We stopped in Sausalito on the way back and walked around -- a bit in a daze, frankly -- for a half hour...



The weather is foggy and cool. We made our back into San Francisco and headed for Haight-Ashbury. We made contact with #2 son, who had told us earlier in the day that a speeding ticket that wouldn't go away was likely going to result in his losing his paramedic job. Very sad.

By the time we made contact again, he had apparently decided to join the Army Navy , something Carolie says he's been thinking about anyway. I presume this is an article for another day; I've written in the past about my ability to worry. I stay up late and look out a window into the night and think about my kids often. I've done a bad of job of letting go. There's a war on, I've heard, and this one isn't going to be easy. I don't know how people do it. I can't just shrug my shoulders and say "oh, well."

So I sigh instead.

We pressed on walking up a huge hill. Before I got to the top, I had to stop. I wasn't sure if I was having a heart attack or a panic attack just thinking about things. We stopped in a cafe but I couldn't bring myself to eat. You know how people say "I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach"? Now I know what they mean.

Anyway, back on the wharf later in the day, bought some popcorn and made a friend.



Within a few minutes I was like freakin' Tippi Hedren



Tomorrow morning, we're going over to Alcatraz. And then at some point we're going to try to figure out the mass transit system to get to Ocean Beach.

Sigh.

Biking the bridge

There should probably be some sort of law against things being this pretty. I mean, geez, isn't a bit of a crime that, say, North Dakota can be so boring and San Francisco can offer as much as the peripheral vision can absorb? Note, of course, I've never been to North Dakota; I've met North Dakotans, however.

We rented bikes for the day and headed down to the Golden Gate bridge, and rode across. Just gorgeous.



You have to be careful biking. Because of the crowds, bikes use one side of the bridge and pedestrians use the other. But the place is thick with rude riders, wearing their Spandex covered with European trademarks, and riding way too fast. I'm presuming they're not happy with the tourists who are invading their city and their bridge although if I were ever stupid enough to stop and chat, I'd probably find out they are from somewhere else. North Dakota, per chance.

Anyway, this ship was making its way under the bridge as we crossed. Probably another shipment of cheap postcards from Korea. One thing I noticed. Where's the wheelhouse? Seriously, I can't find it anywhere. Click on the image for a bigger picture.



On the other side -- the Marin County side -- we stopped at an overlook, which gave me the chance for another picture. I also called Patrick to get an update on the Patriots game. He told me they were up over Washington 17-0.



Then, back to the other side -- didn't run across any jerks on bikes going in the other direction. Oh, one thing. As we started back across, an RV airplane was circling above the bridge. That was cool. And so was the helicopter that flew under it!

One last picture on the Marin County side.



And one on the San Francisco side...



And one of the city... sort of...



What was really cool is there was a B-25 (at least I think it was a B-25) flying around, along with a couple of other warbirds. The weather was outstanding: 70s and very little wind.

As we rode back, I got a text message from Patrick that the Patriots had taken a 31-0 lead.

What a perfect day!

Dinner with some of Carolie's friends tonight. Heading for the redwoods tomorrow morning. It's fun being a tourist.

San Francisco: Day Two. The "til Death Do Us Part March"

I love to walk. I love to find out where roads and other things lead. This is not always a shared passion, although Carolie gave it a good go today as we pretty much walked up one side of San Francisco and down the other, and then back again.

Back when I worked in Manhattan, my mom and dad came to visit and I pretty much walked 'em the length of the island. My dad called it a "forced march." Carolie calls today the "til death do us part march."

It was fun.

We started off riding the cable car over Nob Hill to Union Square. Carolie thought it would be fun to sing that Judy Garland song. That's never been done before, I'll bet.


We're not much for shopping, which is bad since Union Square is full of about every big department store ever. We stopped in at Macy's, though, because there's a Post Office there and Carolie had to mail postcards. But not before stopping to to try out for a mannequin.



Union Square is the scene of some big violent protests on the eve of the Civil War. Carolie things that's "union" as in "the north," whereas I think it's "union" as in sweatshops. We never did find out which it is, although we did find this guy singing "When you're smiling (the whole world smiles with you") So Carolie sang it back at the guy, we threw some money in the bucket and took a picture.



I notice when cable cars come by, you end up with a picture of people taking a picture...



Then we stopped at the Cable Car Museum, where all the, ummm, cables meet and where the power comes from. This was a very cool place. To move, the driver adjusts a clamp onto the cable that is always moving at 9 mph.



Using the handy, dandy guide book, we navigated to the "crookedest street in the world," although we had to walk because the cable cars were all full as they came by.



The street wasn't as interesting to me as the flowers and plantings along it. It was lovely. Then we tried to find Chinatown. It a long, long, walk, mostly because I couldn't figure out which bus to take. But we found it...



See that look on Carolie's face? I've seen that look before. I saw it in Manhattan once. So we had lunch.

I didn't take any pictures but it was very fascinating, although I'll admit the best part was in a park where lots of men were playing cards and gambling -- and so were lots of old women -- and some old lady was chasing a drunk guy with her cane. We don't know what it was about because we don't speak the language but all the other old ladies were cackling. Very funny.

So we checked off the "Chinatown" chapter on the guidebook and, it was about 3:30 by then, so we headed for the "romantic San Francisco tour" in the book, which started along the Embarcadero near Pier 17 with lovely views of the bay and Bay Bridge. We couldn't really see anything because the piers are in pretty bad shape and were closed.

So we headed up the stairs near Filbert Street. Very high to the top and houses built into the side of the hill all had lovely gardens. So Carolie stole, yes stole, some to put in her hair (there's that song about going to San Francisco with flowers in her hair). Taking your own picture results in mostly goofy looks, so here. This was halfway up the stairs.



Oh, speaking of lovely views...



A few hundred more steps took us to the top ... and the Coit Tower (shown here earlier as viewed from the crookedest street.



I took a picture of downtown.



And a nice picture of a lovely couple with very little scenery to help in the background...



Then, following the guidebook exactly ("I'm doing San Francisco 'by the book,'" I told Carolie). We ended up down in a park in the North Beach section, which is a heavy Italian neighborhood. This church behind Carolie was where Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe posed for a picture after their wedding. I'm pretty sure, by the way, that Carolie and I have lasted longer than they did.



I looked on the Web, but couldn't find the picture of them. They married at City Hall, by the why.

Then, again by the book, we stopped at a small shop for some truffles, then headed for dinner, stopping to buy a rose for Carolie (the book said to ), and then to a little Italian cafe for pizza and wine.



I took this picture on the way for my son, Patrick, to show how there are special parking places for motorcycles. I think the one in the middle is the same model as his. I'll bet Patrick would have fun with his motorcycle here. He could go up the hills really fast and then go airborne at the intersections like Michael Douglas and Karl Malden did in "Streets of San Francisco."

Tomorrow, we're going to try to walk or bike across the Golden Gate bridge.

I took my heart to San Francisco

A few years ago, I visited San Francisco for the first time, while making a presentation or two at the Integrated Media Association conference (integrated in this case means "online," by the way) and thought it would be a great place for Carolie and I to visit.

Next week is our 25th anniversary and so what better place to celebrate than San Francisco!

We arrived this morning and we found our hotel down on Fisherman's Wharf. All of my highbrow acquaintances advised against the wharf because it's basically a tourist area. But we are, when all is said and done, tourists.

Our hotel looks out over Alcatraz -- in fact I'm sitting on the bed watching a big container ship pass by Alcatraz (probably more cheap junk from China coming in. Carolie just showed me a postcard she took with Alcatraz on it. It was printed in Korea. They took the picture not more than a mile away... and then imported it from Korea!).



We were pretty hungry so we had lunch at The Franciscan Crab Restaurant. We headed up to watch the sea lions when we ran across someone with a stack of brochures for Grey Line Tours. He "comped" us a tour up to the redwood forest...somewhere... on Monday...and $50 in dining. And all we had to do is listen to some pitch for some time-sharing-like place for 90 minutes.

Now, frankly, I've always wondered if I could withstand one of those things and it seemed like a challenge and Carolie is always fun to watch with challenges like this, so we said sure. It was actually pretty interesting, but we just don't take a lot of vacations where that sort of thing makes any sense at all. I believe they were looking for an investment of $29,000.

Now I tend to believe that any "investment" that includes the popping of a balloon and a bunch of people clapping whenever anyone makes it, is probably not a good investment.

So, about 80 minutes later, our salesman pulls his manager over in a last-ditch effort to sell us something and I said, "Anthony did a great job of making his presentation, but let me tell you why no balloons are going to be popping here today...."

So we got our coupons and out the door we went. We stopped by to see the sea lions and came back to the hotel.



And the obligatory picture with Alcatraz in the background...



Tomorrow, we'll probably get up earlier than most of California (I'm guessing we're going to fall asleep before most of California tonight!) and follow the tourists guidebook on a walking tour. At some point we'll rent a bike and try to bike across the Golden Gate bridge to Sauselito and then take the ferry back. Or maybe not, depending on how old we feel.

(PS: I know some folks have posted comments, but they haven't shown up on the public page; not sure why. But keep trying. I think there's a little problem with the blogspot server which should be fixed at some point, I'm sure.)

Erasing evidence

My kids left the nest early, far earlier than I thought possible, but they left behind plenty of evidence they were once here. Many years ago, they were allowed to paint their rooms in whatever fashion they chose.

One chose black, the other chose red and blue, as the basis for a "Cleveland Indians" room. The black room was repainted last year into a lovely (in my opinion, since I did the painting) southwest "feel."

When the Cleveland Indians room kid left, I got over the loneliness of the empty nest, by embracing its newfound status as an aircraft parts hangar. That lasted about a year, until more parts went on the plane, and my wife announced it would be her new office.

So this weekend, we boxed up the remains of the room and I began patching holes. Son #2 was not wise to the ways of hanging Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, and Jim Thome pennants with two sided tape. He was a fan of the hammer and nail.



Yesterday I started the process of repainting; first with a fresh white coat of paint on the ceiling.

The task ahead is bittersweet; it's like taking an eraser to 14 years.

Podcast: CurrentCast - 10/4/07

Occasionally, here at work, we've kicked around the idea of making the daily "news" rundown on The Current a podcast. I'm not sure whether it works or not, but I'm testing the idea. So, this is a test. Enjoy... or not. And here's the second one.

I had a dream and all I got was this T-shirt

When I was a very young man, The Mercury and Gemini space programs occupied much of my attention. I would someday go into space, I was told and I believed. It was right there on the Jetsons.

Later in life, I realized I would not achieve my dream.

When I was young, I followed a terrible baseball team -- the Cleveland Indians. But I knew someday, my team would win a World Series; there was so much time. There is significantly less time now and things being what they are in baseball economics, it occurs to me that the Indians will not win a World Series in my lifetime.

Given the choice, I'd gladly have traded a ride in space for an Indians championship. But it is not likely meant to be.

Dreams die hard, and while I still hope one might come true, these days I'm just excited to get a new T-shirt every 12 years or so.

Lessons from Tiger

I took the day off from work yesterday and went golfing with my youngest son. I am not a good golfer at all (my streak of never breaking 100 is intact), but I do love to play the game, especially when I'm with one or both boys.

We had survived four holes but on the 5th hole, Patrick's game deserted him and -- he being a Collins boy and all -- he was frustrated that his expectations were not meeting reality. The occasional golf club would go whizzing through the air with every bad shot and by the end of 6 holes, I wasn't sure we were going to make 9, let alone 18.

"One of the things that makes Tiger Woods great is his ability to forget about the past holes and shots, and concentrate only on what he can do something about now -- the next shot. It's a metaphor for life," I said, hoping he would understand how it applied not only to the game, but hoping that he would see how it applied to his other troubles, and hoping he understood what a metaphor is.

I said all of that as I took a mighty swing in the middle of the fairway with a 3-iron, driving a divot 25 yards and the ball about 30, as I added, "of course Tiger Woods is a pussy."

By the 7th hole -- a Par 3 -- I was in a bunker, Patrick was 10 yards from the hole with his first shot. I don't know if he got the message, or got lucky. But his game was improving; mine was tanking.

A couple of hours and Patrick's first birdie -- ever -- later, I had no game at all and the 18th hole opened with a terrible shot on the old man's part. A second shot was so bad I could only think of one thing to do. And so I threw my golf club across the fairway.

I tell this story because of a comment my oldest son made when I was telling it to him today. "Typical parental 'do as I say; not as I do,'" he said.

So now I need to come up with another metaphor; one that reveals parents not as people who think they are perfect but don't live their perfection, but as flawed creatures -- just as flawed as everyone else -- including kids -- but striving nonetheless, against all odds, to try to be, not perfect, just better. Better than an hour ago, better than yesterday, better than when we were at 20. Quite often failing, but still swinging nonetheless.

My wife tells me my kids are afraid of disappointing me, which must be an awful thing for them. If only they knew -- as they will someday -- that we are all afraid of disappointing someone, that we are frustrated by our own imperfections, and that the only difference between us all is that we are at different stops on the same journey.

Soaring

The news media, sometimes justifiably so, gets the occasional incoming fire for the way general aviation is portrayed. But sometimes -- more often than aviators care to admit -- reporters get it right.

Such is the case of this morning's New York Times which has an inspiring article on soaring -- gliders as we know them.

Positive stories like this can enhance general aviation far better than any politician or any paranoid pilot's organization (are you listening Phil Boyer of AOPA?).

Perhaps it'll do for flying what the media did for men's hats a generation or so ago.

(Cross posted from Letters From Flyover Country)

A river runs through it

It's amazing, really, how little things can suddenly occupy your "brain time." There are big issues in the world to consider. Thomas Friedman wrote in his column yesterday, basically, that nothing we do to conserve energy (oil) is going to make a difference. The Red Sox are in the process of losing a massive lead in the American League East. And there's a little pin-prick of a hole in my rain barrel.

Want to guess which one is driving me crazy?

Figuring we'd have a drought this summer (we did), I bought the rain barrel from Aaron's Rain Barrels last spring, mostly to keep my new perennial garden in bloom during the dustbowl season.

It worked really well.



This picture was taken fairly late in the season, so you can't really see how much the butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds (and me, of course) enjoyed the oasis on McKinley Drive.

We had a day of rain earlier this week and when I got home last night, I found this.



Talk about your water torture! It's just a little pinhole there... somewhere. But I have no clue how to fix it. I'm pretty sure duct tape won't work.

Update: Got a note from Aaron this afternoon while I was out having a great day of golf shooting a bad game of golf with #2 son (108).

Yes, you can easily fix that, if barrel(s) go dry sometimes the metal hoops loosen, what you need to do is get a hammer and a flat piece of metal and tap the hoops up tight. I use an old railroad spike to do this at home before I ship the barrels out and every once and awhile I get an email about this. I have yet to have a barrel out there that someone is not happy with but if after repair this is the case feel free to let me know.

Makes sense to me. Let me clarify that I'm completely happy with this barrel. It's the coolest thing, and I don't even mean because I water my plants and get a whiff of old bourbon at the same time. I highly recommend Aaron's service. I just don't know much about barrel construction in order to handle these things. Now I do.

The irrelevance of fatherhood

When my kids were small -- very small -- and I'd take them out somewhere, inevitably some person would stop to pinch their cheeks and look at me and say, "awwww, are you babysitting today?"

It drove me crazy and I'd say to them -- as politely as I could -- that, "no, I am fathering today."

But back then, I was naive, fighting the societal norm that, for the most part, fathers don't matter. I first suspected this when the same kids would run for mom when things got tough. I told myself it was nature; there's a physical connection with a mother that no father can duplicate.

I was playing catch with my youngest son once and I tossed him a "fly ball." The normally sure-handed lad badly misjudged it and it hit him in the nose. He went... screaming... for mom. Perhaps he thought it was the first salvo in a Dad attack.

I am rarely disappointed in my children -- far from it -- but I find myself quite often disappointed in myself where fatherhood is concerned. I always envisioned myself as providing a somewhat moral or ethical compass; one that my kids would follow, if not unquestioningly, then at least hesitantly.

Kids don't do that. Or, more accurately, I guess, my kids don't do that. They, like me, go off and make their own mistakes, suffer their own disappointments privately, and never seek counsel or help unless it's somehow associated with money. On those occasions, my relevance becomes my checkbook. A father should be more than that. I should have given something to my kids that didn't have a dead president on it. At the very least I should've given my kids the knowledge that Dad once struck out on his own, not quite sure who he was, made a stupid mistake or three, and wondered why everyone else seemed to "get it." If I had, then maybe how I navigated my way through that would count for something; maybe there'd be a credibility that my kids could've counted on.

I thought about this last weekend when I read Jeff Opdyke's Wall Street Journal column, in which he talked about the decisions he has to make now that his kids have reached an age where the things they ask for are more expensive than the "old days," when it was only a candy bar. The gentleman has determined that the kid could learn a lot by his saying "no."

Good for him. I wish I had.
As fathers, the one job we have is to get the kids out the door when they become adults, able to understand and handle the world, which includes handling money and making good decisions. The tragedy of it all is we don't get a second chance at it.

I was at the Twins-Indians game the other night with my youngest son, with whom I've always thought I had an honest relationship. We watched the game and then drove around Minneapolis at midnight (it was an extra-inning game) trying to find the 10th Avenue bridge, so we could stop and get a look at the I-35W bridge collapse.

I dropped him at his apartment around 12:30 a.m. and not once during the evening did he mention that he had a problem -- several problems -- that let's just say, "affect" his future. Not a word, until he called his mother a night later and dumped it on her.

I'm obviously disappointed that -- as it turns out -- I'm not a father that can be turned to for counsel. I'm not a father who can be listened to when I say "drive carefully," or "choose your friends carefully" or even "stay out of trouble." I don't blame my son for that; I blame his father who, as it turned out, didn't adequately prepare his son for the "real" world, and didn't teach him that there are consequences to actions back when they were minor, and the lesson could be learned less painfully than when you learn them as an adult.

Now they're not minor consequences, and there's little I can do about it, but sit and worry, wish I could have been a better father and generally wonder how I could've been so stupid to miss so many opportunities to teach my children something that would help them later in life.

It's true, of course, that as the nest empties, our offspring need to be free to make their own mistakes and suffer the consequences. It's how we learn. But it's the irrelevant father's hell that he has to watch.

You lost your rights? So?

On one of the aviation Internet lists I frequent, an acquaintance is upset this week. It seems he was out flying his small plane on Saturday when a woman on the ground, fearing he was too close to a nuclear plant, called authorities to suggest that he might be a terrorist. When he landed, he was detained for several hours.

Now keep in mind that (a) it is not illegal to fly a small plane near a nuclear power plant and (b) small planes have about as much mass as your average Coke can and if you think a Coke can is capable of penetrating a nuclear power plant, perhaps you should focus your attention on the power plants and not the Coke can.

This pilot, however,is apoplectic that in the United States, he can be detained for no good reason. He asked that the rest of us start making phone calls to protest our loss of civil rights.

My reaction? "Dude, where were you when you could've made a difference?"  I don't consider myself one of those people who is paranoid about the government and sees a conspiracy to eliminate civil rights around every corner. But one of the most irritating aspects of life, to me, is the irritation of otherwise disinterested individuals  when they finally get around to figuring out it's  their rights that are eventually  lost. 

Many of these people, I suspect, were on the sidelines chanting, "hey, if you don't do anything wrong, what are you worried about?" just as instructed by the talk show crazies back in the post-9/11 days when other people were warning that the country, in its fear-fed flurry to so something -- anything -- to create the illusion of security, was embarking down a path that would ultimately lead to the loss of  significant civil rights, like being able to fly a plane on a beautiful Michigan morning, obeying the law, and still being detained.

But that was then and this is now. Back then, the outrage might've mattered. Now, it doesn't. The rights the pilot once enjoyed are gone, and they're not likely coming back.

This morning I was reading the New York Times' "About New York" column (In Mass Arrests During '04 Convention, Divergent Version of Events Emerge" (it's on page A21 in the dead-trees edition, online it's in the subscribers-only section.

In it, we learn that a wave of lawsuits against the city has revealed certain facts, mostly that the cops arrested innocent people, and then lied to make the charges stick. The problem is in the age of "everyone's got a camera," it's not quite so easy to lie anymore. Videos collected by I-Witness Video  caught the truth... and, in a way, the cops. However, it's taken years.

Now, I'm all for keeping peace and security and I have no doubt that the New York City Police Department foiled a few plots for anarchy (or terrorism) by snaring some of those who would do evil. But it's also clear that the "hazards of mass arrests" include the ignoring of the civil rights that people still have, and the manifestation of the removal of the rights people once had.  It's also clear that many Americans, who might be moved to action if the removal of rights involved, say, a gun, or the right to abortion, don't much give a rip.

Take the case of Ben Kappel, who had just taken the bus in from the airport, and was towing his suitcase behind him as he rushed to meet a friend at the library on 42nd Street. He tried to cross 42nd and Sixth Ave., but was told by a cop he couldn't, so they tried to cross to the east. Then south. Then north. Nope.

The cops, as it turned out... were slowly closing in the entire block with orange fencing. A police commander told all of those caught in the net to "sit down." So they did. Many hours later, the arrest documents for Mr. Kappel indicated he had been guilty of disorderly conduct, for sitting on 42nd Street blocking traffic.

My guess is few people will care about this, even though they've been given the answer to the question of "if you don't do anything wrong, what are you worried about?" My pilot friend ignored these sorts of stories, right up until he lost his rights last week.

My questions are: (1) Is St. Paul (my current home, the streets of which I occasionally walk)  consulting with the New York City Police Department on how to provide security to next year's Republican National Convention? (if so, read this first)  (2) Will the preservation of civil rights be of any importance to the politicians here and the people there?  (3) Can I please borrow your video camera?

This column was originally published on Gather.com and Polinaut.

Reserve now

I know the many thousands of Stirrings fans are anxious to get away to the south shore of Lake Superior. So here's the place for you. To reserve it -- or another cabin nearby -- go here -- Superior Rentals.

Madeline Island

On Saturday, Warren and Karen Starkebaum and Carolie and I headed to the ferry in Bayfield for a trip to Madeline Island, about a 20 minute trip. On the way over -- although you can't really see it here -- I noticed an ore boat was coming down the harbor, apparently heading for Ashland, Wisconsin. The Apostle Islands shelter this area, the big, open, this-is-where-storms-sink-boats part of Lake Superior is north. We found -- I found -- that the '60s are alive and well on Madelaine Island. I've always been intrigued that people are able to make a living -- sort of, I guess -- in ways other than schlepping into a building somewhere and sitting in a cubible. Carolie reminds me that it's not unlike where we lived in Sheffield, Massachusetts, but I reminded her that it was probably easier to keep the '60s alive in the '80s than in the '00s. After a nice lunch we walked up the road apiece when we stumbled on a woman standing in the driveway of her shop, ummm, hula hooping. First Karen... Then Warren, shown here explaining the principles of quantum physics at the same time... And, finally, Carolie... Warren and Karen are now proud owners of a very large hula hoop. We walked up to the marina to check to make sure the other half is still living well (it is) and then back to the ferry, stopping along the beach where a couple of small amphibian planes (one a butt-ugly Zenair were tied up. Later, we saw them take off. It seems like a fun way to travel although, as I understand it, the price of the floats is prohibitive. I hadn't seen a small plane all weekend but in a space of about 20 minutes, a ton of them took off from the airport on the island... Mooneys, Cirrus, 170s. I've got to fly up here sometime! In the evening, Karen wanted to go to the Garrison Keillor show up the street (same place we saw America on Friday night), but as it turned out we sat around outside with some drinks and hot salsa, watched a gorgeous near-full moon rise over the water until it got so cold that it chased us inside. Prior to that, I'm happy to report, we successfull determined that, yes, it is possible to slow the rotation of the earth by running in the same direction as the rotation.