Thursday, June 30, 2016

AM heavy rain

I had given up hope to be honest.  I was hunkered down waiting for Poland v. Portugal when I happened to glance out the window and noticed that the street in front of our house was dry.

Digression:  my favorite Brexit story has only a little to do with the EU.  Tony Blair was being interviewed on one of the cable outlets and after the handwringing had played out the host mentioned to Tony the Euro 2016 results from the first quarterfinal (England 1, Iceland 2).  The former prime minister replied that everyone in the UK was Welsh now.

I went out for a ride and missed almost all of the game although I did get back in time for part of the 2nd OT and the penalty kick shoot out.

It was a nice day for a ride with only a few damp spots still present in heavily shaded areas.

I made it all the way out to Lake Vadnais.
That algae is pretty distasteful looking especially considering that I drink that water.

I was riding the reverse direction of the usual ride and that meant that I wanted to ride towards home on the Snail Lake swamp/Grass Lake trail.  The trail descends down along the east side of the main swamp.  I usually take a traverse at a dry land spot and finish on the west side.

That dry land spot was under water.

Further along the east side trail was under water.  However there was a group of children out for a ride with somebody's mother and one of the kids knew that you could ride off the trail along a newly created dirt path and get past this particular water hazard.

I did that but then at the south end the trail over to the tunnel to Grass Lake was under water.

I had gotten quite a ways south by now and mostly wanted to just get out of there without having to take a multiple mile detour and/or without having to climb a particularly nasty little hill, short but very steep.

I hoped to jump back on the Grass Lake portion of the trail on the south side of the tunnel.

That's the tunnel back there with about 4 or 5 feet of water.
Needless to say the trail here was also under water.

I made it up the hill but I was not happy.

We had some heavy wind here last weekend.  Not much happened in our immediate vicinity but part of the joy and wonder of riding a bicycle is that you get to see a lot of stuff that isn't visible from you side yard.
As I say, we didn't have any of that in our immediate vicinity.

What we did have was AM heavy rain followed by the rest of the day being way plenty nice enough for a ride.

Friday, June 24, 2016

Perfect photo conditions

I got all the way over to the Falls today and had a pretty rare photographic experience.  I was standing at what must have been the very edge of the shadow cast by a cloud bank.  The Falls were in the sunlight but I was in the shade and therefore did not have to battle the effects of sunlight directly onto the lens which so often make photography over there difficult.
Today was just point and shoot.

Of late I ride more than I blog.  This one was taken Tuesday I think, a first look at one of the rain gardens that I frequently ride past.
The plants which will eventually produce the cardinal flowers are over there on the right but nothing is in bloom yet.  Not to worry, it will soon be an oasis of color.

I have heard that there is a new Martha's Cookies coming to the north end of the Fairgrounds.  This is one of two construction sites on what could plausibly be considered the north end.
The other spot doesn't look like a concession stand, the windows don't look like anything where you could efficiently conduct commerce.  The construction at this one looks more like it.

Across the street from the Fine Arts Building, near the Salem Lutheran Church Diner.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Heat warning

Hot and humid, check on your vulnerable neighbors, limit outdoor activities, thunderstorms and tornadoes coming later in the day.

I stayed inside.

But we had a visitor thanks to her mother wanting to visit me on Father's Day.
The visit was very much appreciated.  The baby was sweet, animated and lively.  She now likes being upright and facing the room.  She stiffens her legs and stands up.  Someone has to provide balance and lateral support but she is standing up on her own two legs.

Today she talked and talked, still not in a language that any of the rest of us understand but clearly she wants to join the conversation.

For those who recognize the shirt, in Euro 2016 results from earlier in the day in Lille, France and Suisse played a nil-nil draw.  France wins the group and advances to the knock out round.

The Tour de France rolls out less than two weeks from today.

The storm seems to be staying mostly to our north, at least the most severe aspects.  I just now saw a report on the crawl underneath the basketball game on TV that the storm has produced SOFTBALL sized hail.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Customer service

There was a thunder storm with a lot of wind I think last Friday and then a heat wave over the weekend.  Our internet service became problematic.

Off when we wanted it to be on but then check back later because it might very well be back on.  No service at all on Saturday, off and on on Sunday, then running perfectly when the service technician came by on Monday.

Off and on again on Tuesday, off all day Wednesday, off and on on Thursday, then working perfectly again when the second technician came by on Friday.

He worked for a while then called in a third tech who arrived at about dinner time on Friday.

It is working right now.

I wonder if the problem might be related to what I rode past on Roselawn Avenue towards the end of my ride today on a day when it was just a tiny bit too hot for a somewhat past his best if used by date bicyclist to be out there riding.
The branch is clearly leaning against the cable TV/internet wire and then touching the ground.  I don't think that is our direct line but it is definitely in our neighborhood, only about five blocks from our house.  I just cannot imagine that that branch can be anything but not good for our hopes of high quality cable TV and internet service.

Here's the mid-June corn report.
The old cars are in town this weekend for the big show at the Fairgrounds.

I rode by on Como and even that amount of exposure was a bit too much.

Nice day, hot, not too windy.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

The faster I was

I have for the past several years been describing my daily ride as the two hour ride.  I have posted occasionally on days when I was really strong (the older I get the faster I was) and it seemed relevant that I had finished the two hour ride in under two hours.

Of late and particularly so far this year I have found that the two hour ride is frequently more like a two and a half hour ride.

That's sort of OK, I don't have an actual job.  I can afford to just ride around, no need to push it.

Today though, I finished the two hour ride in under 2:15.  Not quite there yet but almost as fast as when I was faster.

Today I rode the Capitol loop, east and southeast down to the big white building, up the hill to the Cathedral, down Summit to Saint Thomas and then back across at Pelham into the nearby neighborhoods.  The winds were light, the temperatures were pleasant, I had a very nice ride.

It wasn't until I took a Fairgrounds loop as I neared home that I saw anything that beckoned to my camera.

My experience says that the benches come out at the Fairgrounds in August as the Fair approaches.  The exception is that newly sponsored benches appear as soon as they are ready.  Benches are color coded at the Fairgrounds, yellow benches appear in the yellow area, red in the red area, blue in the blue area.  Except that the first year of the bench the sponsor can specify a particular location.  Here in what I am pretty sure is the yellow area are two new benches.
The blue bench says "Philly cheese steak" an the red bench says "Elvis is here".  The white placard is the same on both benches, "Meet at Andy's Grille for Philly cheese steak and dancing" or some such thing.  This first year the benches and the message gets displayed in front of Andy's Grille.  Starting next year those benches will be advertisements for Andy's Grille but will be located elsewhere on the grounds.

I suppose this is a good point to insert that we have never actually sampled the Philly cheese steak at Andy's Grille.

So, I have ridden more than a couple of times since the last time I posted.  Mostly I didn't take any pictures but sometimes I did.

Backlog.

A grey day in May.
This is a very early photo.  The corn is doing much better than that.
We have had some rain and the ground is full of moisture, the corn is about to take off.

There is a new construction project over on the corner of Roselawn and Cleveland, a new iteration of the Bell Museum.  As part of the project this marker has been placed at the corner.
There's something Bob said on one of his first albums, "My Back Pages".  I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Bloggers informational note:  The link is to a really good version of My Back Pages which unfortunately does require sitting through a 15 second advertisement to get to the content.  In this case I deem that an acceptable waste of the always most valuable commodity: time.  You get Roger McGuinn of the Byrds doing the first verse, Tom Petty up next followed by Neil Young, a guitar riff by old slow hand Clapton after which he sings.  Through it all you can pick up Bob rasping along on the chorus and at last he takes a verse.  And then George sings and Neil takes a guitar riff.  It's a worthy watch.

Happy birthday to the most wonderful daughter anyone could ever have possibly had.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Lunch from the food trucks downtown

Except for Norah.  Norah's Mommy brought Norah's lunch.  The rest of us had lunch downtown but only after we found a picnic table on the street along the tracks.
Lunch was good, but it wasn't long.  A lunch time outing with a baby is not going to evolve into three martini's.  Soon enough Norah wanted to go home.

At that point we were all fine with it.  Those older than two and a half months had all had some good food from one of the trucks and the two and a half month old person had her mother.  It seemed like a good time to start moving towards where Norah lives.

I had a vague remembrance of one of Norah's Mommy's wedding photos taken from down there by the tracks.  TCWUTH remembered pretty much where the couple was standing for the photo so we tried to recreate.
I took several and what I like about this one is that the train looks like the train instead of just like a moving billboard.
Norah was sweet, lunch was good.