LOOK at the Capitol

A strong southeasterly wind today led, as it usually does, to a ride to the the big building found in that direction from where I live.But today I did something different. My usual pattern has been to ride a leg to the south to Summit Avenue, thence east to the Capitol, thereby setting up a final leg to the northwest with a complete tail wind.

While I was walking around the neighborhood this winter thinking about whatever it was I wanted to think about I considered this whole Capitol loop thing. It occurred to me, finally, that I was riding a leg to the south, into a quartering head wind, then a leg to the east, into a quartering head wind, just to set up what was, to be sure, an extremely pleasant ride home. The problem is that the Capitol is only about 7 miles from home. So I was riding more than 15 miles of head wind to set up a 7 mile stretch of feeling strong.

So today I road in the the opposite direction.

Seven miles of pretty hard work into a fairly brisk spring breeze but then the rest of the way with quartering tailwinds.

Insert state motto of the State of California here.

I paused at the Capitol where a group of my fellow citizens had peacefully assembled to petition their government.I heartily approve of that sort of thing, particularly when they rent their own toilets.

Just a small addition to yesterday's government related bits: I did not mean to imply that I disapproved of the decision to open County Road C2. The deal is that that small strip of land may not have been paved and it may have had a wooden barricade but that was public property, dedicated by the original plat as a public street, the property of all of the taxpayers of the city, not just those who live nearby. Whether or not I agree with the decision I totally support the right of the government elected by the eligible voters of this city to assert the rights of public ownership. It also doesn't hurt my feelings that the result of the decision is to add to the tax base of the jurisdiction to which I pay the greatest portion of my property tax.

My position of real estate is that if you want to control the use of any particular piece of real estate it is best that you own that piece of land. If you don't own it the entity that does may make a decision contrary to the one you would have made.

Of course, I also refer to the wise words of my Uncle Al, who is reputed to have said, if you think you own that land just try not paying your property taxes and find out who really owns it.

Private ownership of real estate is not a natural right of the universe, it is an imaginary concept, totally and completely created by the rule of the law promulgated by the citizens and government of the place where the real estate is located.

End of that rant.

I ended up coming through the Fairgrounds looking for a late in the ride loop. I didn't see any clowns but I did find evidence that the circus, and indeed the clowns, are in town.It is worth noting at this point that the Shriner's actually do some important charitable work, supporting the Shriner's hospitals.

EG: NA
CB: 55
AOWG: 66

Still March but some definite activity has started in the corn field.That could be a planter but I actually think it is a sprayer, a machine for the application of perhaps fertilizer, perhaps an herbicide or a pesticide. I know that one of the issues with corn is despite its ability to produce prodigious amounts of cash per acre that cultivating corn on the same piece of ground year after year can lead to a proliferation of pests including pests that can become resistant to the main stream pesticides. They have been growing corn on that piece of ground every year that I have lived here and it is an agricultural experiment station, I am going to guess that they are testing pesticides and that machine over there today is just applying the newest witch's brew.

LOOK at redevelopment

Here's an update on Anne Marie's Pet Grooming.If the city is accepting proposals it seems likely to me that the site is already publicly owned. It may have already been foreclosed upon. My mind runs wild and leads my imagination to some sort of city bonding backed construction on a marginal piece of land next to the railroad tracks is how that strip mall got to be there in the first place.

Wasn't the real estate bubble grand?

There really isn't any reason for this picture except that I had ridden over there to get a look at the new housing development and the sun happened to come out.What's interesting about the big new houses is that the site abuts County Road C2. "County Road" sounds like it should be an important thoroughfare but in fact at that point County Road C2 is a pretty sleepy residential street. In fact, it is not even a continuous street. To the west of the big new houses is one of the earliest post WWII developments in the city (think ramblers). Even though the street was platted and dedicated to the public actual construction of pavement ended where the houses ended. Eventually there was some new development from the east side and some more of the street was paved. The story told by the people on the west side is that they were promised by city government when the east side was developed that the street would not go all the way through, that it would NEVER go all the way through as leaving it unconnected would preserve the residential character of the older neighborhood. The gap between the pavement coming from the west and the pavement coming from the east is only a few yards, such a small distance that one of those wooden barricades was erected to keep miscreants from just going ahead and driving through there anyway.

Flash forward to today when the developer of the big new houses believes, probably correctly, that it will be easier to sell the houses (and at presumably higher prices) if the development is connected to a street that goes through to the major streets of the city. For that connection to be achieved the few yards of County Road C2 need to be paved.

I am sure everyone can imagine what happened next and what has been happening since.

End of story? The developer won.

Progress marches on.

Eventually when I got home the sun completely broke through and we are now experiencing a very pleasant late afternoon, not up to the standards of earlier in the month but definitely way acceptable for March.I well recall the expedition to the Target Center to see the circus. Here's a couple more details: Emily, Yuko and Emily's Dad had the three seats one in from the aisle. I always prefer to sit on the aisle so I was a bit taken aback but figured that the aisle seat was single, most likely there wouldn't actually be anyone sitting in it.

Instead we found a somewhat seedy looking middle aged circus fan, sitting alone with a giant bag of salted in the shell peanuts. By the time we arrived he had already created an enormous peanut shell mess. I surveyed the situation and I took the second seat in, Emily third, Yuko fourth. A good time was had by all, including, I believe, peanut guy.

If I recall correctly, the exact quotation would be, "It takes strength to eat Easy Cheese".

I apologize for substituting a knock off brand of aerosol cheese. To my surprise and chagrin the nearest grocery store does not stock the actual "Easy Cheese", a Kraft product again if I recall correctly. I didn't want it to turn into a quest so I just went with what they had.

Pretty nice looking day, don't you think?

LOOK at Sabo

Yesterday's temperatures had the audacity in this most unusual of weather cycles to rise only to about the average high for the date. Perhaps we should be alarmed (but we aren't really) by the realization that average felt too cold to ride.

Overnight a strong warm front passed through. It was for sure one of those fronts where the weather barometric pressure maps have lots of isobars jammed really close together. I know this is true because I have learned that lots of isobars jammed really close together means really strong winds.

It was windy.

It might have been the windiest ride ever (I know I say that every time) and this time I was out there trying to get some miles with a sketchy early season fitness level.

It was really, really hard.

I rode into Minneapolis for the first time this season. I was heading for something really Minneapolis iconic for today's photo.A couple of cables on that really pricy pedestrian/bicycle bridge in the background snapped earlier this year and the bridge is still closed for inspection and or repairs. The blog post title comes from the name of the bridge, the Martin Olav Sabo Bridge, named for the former long time Minneapolis area congressman who no doubt played a significant role in obtaining funding for the bridge. Minneapolis now has someone named Keith as its representative in Congress. Keith is probably a pretty good reflection of what the people of that district want in a congressman, but, come on, Martin Olav Sabo?

Behind the strong weather front, is, as often happens, some unsettled weather. You can just see it starting to happen in the bridge photo. I realized I was like 10 miles from home and they were starting to fog it in. It suddenly felt like rain.

The good thing is I had ridden into the teeth of a gale to get to that spot and when I started for home I discovered that despite my fatigue I was suddenly really strong.

Who doesn't love feeling really strong?

The sky got progressively darker and the air felt damper and damper as I neared home but then, in another upset, just as I got near enough for the horse to smell the hay in the barn the clouds parted again and the sun came out.

EG: NA
CB: 64
AOWG: 69

The circus is coming to town.Perhaps later this week there will be clown photos.

LOOK at Vadnais

When you do something hard it always feels a bit more rewarding when the pool of others doing the same thing is suddenly restricted. So it was today. It still looked a lot like yesterday outside but temperatures dropped another 10 or 15 degrees. It was 48 when I headed out the door and there is just nothing like sub-50 degree temperatures to thin out the outdoor exercise crowd. I reverted to SmartWool socks, long pants, long sleeve jersey and full helmet liner (that means ears covered). North into the wind was still a tiny bit coolish but it was also mostly private, only a few others had ventured out on their bicycles.

I took the full 8 lakes tour. Here is LOOK at Vadnais.I like that red branched bush there on the shore. The wheel set also features red, it is the Mavic Ksyrium Edition Anniversaire, a special edition with all black spokes except for one red one on each wheel and red hubs.

Cool it may have been for March 2012 but the TOPWLH pointed out to me that it is plenty warm for March in general. According to something she read in the newspaper this morning, last year on this date the temperature was 18 and there was still four inches of snow cover.

Vadnais on the summer bicycle was a lucky accomplishment for March 25.

LOOK at this

It's the fewest miles ever ridden in a season on the Axis. But I was out yesterday and all of the streets in Roseville have been swept, even the usual trouble spots like the Hamline bridge over 36 and the Hamline-County Road C intersection. I ride most of my miles in Roseville (no surprise there), the streets in Roseville seem already in summer riding condition. Today's light winds were from the north making today a Roseville ride for sure.

I went down into the basement to get a different bicycle, a bicycle with skinny, high pressure, low rolling resistance tires. A bicycle that weighs nothing, nothing at all.

The surprise was that the tires still had fairly good pressure. Not good enough to ride on, to be sure, but the tires had enough firmness to make the pump back to ride pressure fairly easy (and I do have my good pump in the basement).

Here is a LOOK at today's bicycle taken in the shadow of the Shoreview water tower.The frequent Guest Rider will no doubt catch the additional significance of that photo.

Anne Marie's Pet Grooming has closed up in that Shoreview location and moved somewhere else. That means that that particular strip mall now has ZERO, count 'em, ZERO tenants. With no income you can't even break even on taxes and upkeep without even considering mortgage payments. I suspect that foreclosure and/or tax forfeiture is in the near future.

Here is a another photo of the same spot. I include this not because it provides any new information (although the picture of my bicycle IS better). I include this because this is a genre more usually explored by my elder siblings, the self portrait.I was wearing my optic yellow jacket when I took the photo but that is the point in the ride where I took it off and folded it into my pocket.

It may be March but it is summer.

Well, not quite summer yet.

I already provided this information off-line (that means in the living room) to TOPWLH but she remarked that she expected to receive the information in new internet content. I had not necessarily intended to include this in today's posting but given that she is expecting it:

EG: NA
CB: 62
AOWG: 77

So it was a pretty nice day for March even if it was 10 or so degrees under the most optimistic predictions.

I rode a summer bicycle.

We've been tricked

Human beings around here have been tricked into discarding their winter coats and all of their wool in favor of the much lighter weight clothing of summer. Well, maybe not tricked, because it has been plenty warm enough for summer clothes. Still, with thoughts of cold and wet Memorial Days lodged in my memory, with remembrance of snow in May, I counsel not letting the wool get too far away just yet.

But we aren't the only ones being tricked, a major hornswoggling has been perpetrated on the flowering shrubs. I annually publish the first flowers I see, here it is this year:There are both a white and a purple blooming bush in that one and here is another variety of white seen about one block later.I have let a couple of days go when bicycling would have actually been possible. Each of those days was wet in the morning with 50 percent or more predicted for the rest of the day. I am a bit chagrined that the 50 percent ended up on the dry half each of those days. But it is still March and one doesn't want to court overuse strains this early in the season. I felt good today, it was a nice day to be riding a bicycle.

A bit of bicycling

It was entirely too windy today for bicycling but as we all know come late October we will rue the passing of any day when we did not ride in March? when bicycling was theoretically possible.

A person cannot be dissuaded by wind when a string of records for high temperatures is persisting. I believe today makes 8 of the past 10 days when we have had new records set. Sometime in the future when people are discussing unseasonal temperatures this 10 day stretch is going to be legendary. I believe it is officially 80 out there again (average high for the date is 43).

I say out there because I am back from riding 20 miles on a too heavy bicycle into too strong winds and am therefore inside, knackered. It feels good.

I only got one picture today, it is of some very early preparations for planting which I spotted over at the farm campus.I feel certain no actual planting has occurred as the University Extension is among those who keep telling us not to plant until after the last freeze, an event which could be as much as two months in the future.

But I do have a couple more things from the weekend that I want to throw out. I have this picture of my travel companion on Park Point in Duluth just before lunch yesterday.Imagine this if you can, she is up on a sand dune and seems reluctant to come down. That never happens.

We went to lunch at the FoodNetwork recommended Duluth Grill. I highly recommend the video found here. We did not realize it at the time but in looking at the video I realize that we were waited on (at the counter) by what the video calls the wife of the owner (doesn't that make her an owner?).

We endorse the opinion of the FoodNetwork, the food was most excellent.

It is only a little bit odd that our best and most interesting meals of the weekend were lunches. Friday we ate at the arena during the hockey. Sunday we left town at what could have been dinner time. Nope, our best meals were the two lunches.

Here's another look at the game, probably not the last. We love those Gopher women.And we aren't the only ones. The Governor of our state also thinks pretty highly of them.But we are home now and bicycling has resumed. It is going to be quite a while before there is another hockey game. Perhaps life will revert to something more recognizable and usual.

What fun would that be?

Sunday afternoon

Hanging out in the Northland

We went to Wisconsin, as pointedly observed by TOPWLH, twice yesterday. On our first visit, the navigator/operator got a little confused coming back into Superior from Barker's Island, ended up in the wrong lane, and, whooops, we were back on the Blatnik bridge. We had not finished our business in Wisconsin (we had not yet had lunch at the FoodNetwork recommended Anchor Bar, I recommend watching the video) so the navigator had to execute one of those off and back on operations at the first opportunity and return us to Badgerland. Three times across the Blatnik, two times in Wisconsin, that makes a full day.

This sign looks to me like it is giving out good information. She is standing on Barker's Island (in Wisconsin), that's Minnesota in the background.Particularly sharp eyed and knowledgeable observers may be able to identify the hangars over there as part of Sky Harbor airport at the end of the road on Park Point. Those with comprehensive knowledge of Minnesota geography will know that Park Point is in Minnesota (and that Barker's Island is in Wisconsin).

Earlier in the day we were out walking. We walked over to the really superior big lake they have here. On the way back the GRider commented that here was an eating opportunity that was only going to present itself occasionally. You just don't get that many chances to dine at Red obster.Just go ahead and humor us.

We were amused.

We spent most of the rest of the day up and down the mostly linear city of Duluth, including a stop at Kitchi Gammi Park on the north (or as the locals would say, east) end of Duluth.For those familiar with Longfellow, no, that isn't an error. That's the way the good folks here choose to spell it.

We also tried to check in on the famous Hawk Ridge but couldn't get all the way to the most famous observation points. The road is not maintained in the winter and despite the outside temperatures, it is still not quite not winter in Duluth.

We are having fun, all that remains is the hockey.

Go Gophers.

No bicycling today

Despite the fact that it is a gorgeous day.

In fact, it is even a gorgeous day here in Duluth. Therein lies the problem, we are in Duluth, much too far from my bicycles to allow for any actual riding.

We are in town here (again) to follow our favorite hockey team in the pursuit of this deal:They are off to a good start, playing the first period of last night's game at warp speed (stolen from Rachel Blount's game story) followed by two more periods of plenty good enough to advance to Sunday's championship game. Yup, Sunday. So we will be in Duluth all weekend.

This one should prove that we are in Duluth:We got an early enough start to allow an excursion on the way up. We hopped off the freeway at Carlton (that's near Cloquet for . . . oh, wait, that isn't going to narrow it down much for those without a comprehensive knowledge of Minnesota geography, is it?). This is the Saint Louis River below the dam just outside of Carlton.Below the dam the river travels through a scenic gorge that thanks to the foresight and generosity of one of our early settler robber barons has descended to the people of the state as a state park, Jay Cooke State Park. Here's the link up, Jay Cooke was the main financier of the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Construction of the North Coast Limited route was begun just outside of Carlton (the other side of town from the dam).

He might have also been interested in this, lots and lots of people have found this fascinating over the years:That's the famous quartz outcrop in the bedrock underneath the highway bridge over the river below the dam. It looks more impressive in the summer time when there isn't snow nearby to screw up the contrast. In the bright light of summer you get good contrast of the whitish quartz against the dark colored granites in which the outcrop occurs.

Anyone who has ever had gold fever knows that gold is often associated with quartz outcrops and this particular outcrop has probably been hammered for a sample at least several hundred thousands of times. Enough times to convince everyone who pays attention that this particular quartz outcrop is non-gold bearing.

We didn't have our rock hammer and we had a hockey game to get to so the quartz was spared the indignity of being sampled yet again.

Bicycling promises to resume when I get back into proximity with my bicycles as the weather forecast continues to be for May-like temperatures in March.

Too early, too far, too hard

Some things have to be relearned over and over.

Today wasn't a perfect day. It was pretty close to perfect for March 15 but the recent run of 4 of 5 days with all time record high temperatures has some of us acting a little picky. It was nice enough to induce me to attempt the 8 lakes tour.

So here is something never ever before seen on this blog. Here is a picture of Sucker Lake taken on March 15.There is quite a bit of ice still apparent on the lake.

And here is the jewel of the northern lakes, Lake Vadnais.Visible in that photo is about all of the snow pack I came across during today's ride. It was cold on the downwind side of both of those lakes.

Both Sucker and Vadnais have pavement. In both cases the pavement is a remnant of what was at one time a public street running through the park past the two lakes. It isn't really a street anymore and as such does not receive regular maintenance during the winter. That's northern climate talk for they don't plow the snow. As a result during a usual winter the snow accumulates in what is, for both lakes, a pretty deep woods environment. A thick and heavy snow pack forms. Come spring the reopening of those roads has been one of the last signs that winter has been defeated.

There was just this one spot on the Vadnais portion of the road that I was concerned about. There is a short stretch just before my usual ride arrives at the parking lot where the road turns from its usual north-south orientation and runs briefly west to east. This short stretch (pictured above) is in the shade of a substantial growth of mature pine. Usually the snow lingers in that spot.

The ride report for this earliest ever ride out to Vadnais is in all honesty today's ride was too early, too far, too hard.

But the only way the restore the desired level of fitness is to do the work. No one was injured, I didn't have to call for assistance, the bicycle is back in the garage. It was too, too, too but it was good. It's a process.

Let's try south

Nice day.

Really nice day.

Today I rode in just shorts and even ended the ride in short sleeves (arm warmers pushed down). It was so nice that today produced that annual hideous display of worst case pasty white flesh. The tan line on my thighs is faded and a bit ambiguous but it was sufficient to allow me to haul the shorts up to the appropriate position and head out the door. A couple of hours later the skin tone is only slightly less hideous but as with many things in life, it is a process.

I have a couple of more or less standard spring rides, one north, one south. Each comes in at around 17 miles which allows for a couple of loops somewhere along the line and a ride of 20 miles. That is almost always enough for this time of year.

Today I did the ride to the south. 22 miles. It was hard.

The south ride takes me to Town and Country and back. The vegetation at the golf club is showing just the tiniest early tinges of green. Is there a color that fits that description?

The loop that I took to raise the mileage from 17 was a familiar one, through the Fairgrounds. It has been winter, it is time to check in and see what is new.

The official temperature has apparently climbed into the 70s, not so at the Cattle Barn (CB) at shortly past 2pm.The always optimistic west grandstand (AOWG) was 77. The EG display is still on the fritz.

Here's something completely new at the Fairgrounds.It is, I admit, a bit less intimidating than an alligator warning but that is only about two miles as the crow flies (or as the coyote trots) from my backyard. I guess I won't be letting my bunnies out to play in the yard overnight any more.

The Ford plant has closed. I read in the newspaper at the time that the last run of light trucks produced at the plant was a run for fleet purchase by, if I remember correctly, Orkin. The Ford plant is gone but there are several hundred of those white soon to be Orkin pick ups still hanging around the Fairgrounds.I posted this last year on April 12.

Aside from any criticism of the technique (unwarranted, I have since read the manual), this is interesting in view of this photo taken today from more or less the same area of the parking lot.The streets to the south are still a bit sketchy but I believe that for rides to the north that I could haul out the other shoes and the nice bicycles. The season has begun, with today's ride in the books I am now more than 1 percent of the way to the annual mileage goal.

It's a process.

Backwards so far

It is pretty common for there to be weather complaints in the early part of the season. Yesterday it rained. That's a complaint, it isn't the usual March complaint. Today it didn't rain.

I commented last time about how relatively clean the streets already are. About a month ahead of schedule the streets are getting cleaner. I happened upon the City of Roseville sweeping crew today, out completing this annual task quite a large bit earlier in the year than they completed it last year.About three blocks later I crossed the municipal boundary into Arden Hills and came upon the City of Arden Hills sweeper. Same brand, identical in appearance except that Arden Hills paints their sweepers in a shade of tan.

I know I commented last year on first observance of sweepers and as a tech savvy blogger I probably should link to last year's post. I've got something going on on the stove upstairs so I am going to forego the link, maybe someone else can find it.

It must be apparent from the photo that it was a pretty nice day out there today. Here's another unusual bit though. In a reversal of usual form today I had to wear a jacket for the first time. Obviously early spring riding usually involves finding the right layers by gradual subtraction. Today it was addition.

And I later got a bit of a reminder of what to expect from March. Today I rode all the way out to the Shoreview water tower and discovered that the bit of Island Lake in front of the tower is still quite thoroughly iced over.Here's a bit of a spoiler to the whole story though, by the time I arrived at that point in the ride I had removed the jacket.

I was upwind of the lake for the photo. When I rode around to the downwind side it was definitely cool enough to wish for a jacket. But it is a small lake and I was quickly back into temperate climes.

Tomorrow's prediction is for another all time record high temperature, the consensus among the numerous resources that I check is for something in the 70s.

We're having some fun now, I tell ya.

DST notes

Yesterday I received notice via the interwebs that a member of my gene pool was out compiling mileage in Minnesota. She tweeted this notice.

I am working on building up my tech savvy so that I can retweet or something but for now I will just say I have a blog and I have all of my important files backed up on an external hard drive. It isn't much but that's going to do it for tech savvy for right now.

Yesterday was a swell day for Minnesota bicycling as a new all time high temperature record was set at 66F, eclipsing the old mark by 7 degrees.

Today was not quite as nice but it was still an exceptionally pleasant day. Bicycle season began.

Bicycle fitness is poor as one can imagine after more than 100 days of no bicycle riding. The first couple of miles it felt even worse than it actually was but eventually I remembered a bunch of stuff, like early season spinning in a low gear. Small ring, middle of the cassette, it started to be OK.

I next had to relearn that it is best to take some water with you when you go out for a bicycle ride. Here my lack of fitness worked in my favor as I was still near home, circling the nearby neighborhoods, when the lack of water dawned on me. I was able to swing by home without major inconvenience or dehydration.

Here's the proof, a photo taken farther from home than I commonly walk.There are some grasses around that parking lot that were planted by the P-ster but I don't think the ones visible in the photo are they. I believe that landscaping project was over on the far side of the lot.

The snowbank proves that we have had snow although we sure haven't had much. The main thing I learned today is that the streets are in relatively good condition. The lack of snow means that much less sand was put down than in more usual years. There were lots of places that are plenty rideable even before any street sweeping gets done. Mostly dry, not much chaff on the streets, if the temperatures hold there will be more bicycling soon.

Oh, one more tech savvy point. I have loaded WordPerfect Office X5 onto the new computer. WP X5 is a new WP configuration specifically designed to run in Windows7 (the OS which I am palping on the new main machine). My bike log is a QuattroPro file (here comes my additional tech savvy bit). I pulled out the flash drive where I have the bike log saved and loaded it onto the main machine (did I mention flash drive?). As we have come to expect with WP, the file loaded without delay or necessity of conversion and opened at first asking.

Blog, external hard drive, flash drive, I have a Twitter account even though I don't use it, I recently fixed TOPWLH's browser . . .

That's going to have to do for now.

As long as I am here

One of the greatest things about a road trip is tunes.

I listened to Empty Glass twice this weekend, once on the way to Duluth and again on the way home. The tune from the album which received the widest air play and greatest acclaim was Let My Love Open the Door.

My favorite has always been this one, the one that caused the car stereo to be cranked up twice this weekend.

You give me an overdose of love
And just a little is enough.

Doesn't Pete look great? He is just a kid.

Hiccup, hiccup, . . . croak

First off, just a note to those attempting to comment:

I enabled comment moderation in the first place because I was receiving robot SPAM comments including comments which included links to probable viruses and probable other unsavory things. I discovered that I could edit and remove comments from anything posted in the previous seven days but for posts older than that I had to jump through a bunch of time consuming hoops to get the stuff removed. I elected moderation. I choose to continue comment moderation. I have moderation set so that any comment on a post more than seven days old has to be approved by me before it appears on the blog (I think).

That's plenty OK during bicycling season because I am on the blog several times a week during that time. During the hiatus from bicycling (aka winter) I am often not on for several days in a row.

My apologies if you find this frustrating. Imagine my frustration at trying to get offensive comments removed and being largely unable to do so.

Anyway, I just moderated and approved like 6 comments, including a couple which displayed frustration at the moderation. It appears to me that the comments may have been on a post outside the moderation time limit. My apologies.

Part of the reason why I haven't been on the blog and why I haven't moderated the comments is that we were in Duluth.It was snowy in Duluth, 6 or 8 inches over Friday night and Saturday morning. We arrived mid afternoon Saturday and it still looked like this on Sunday morning.

Minnesota 2, UMD 0, Minnesota wins the WCHA Final Four tournament championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. As luck would have it when the championship winning goal was scored I was sitting next to the mother of the player who scored the goal. On my other side was TOPWLH and next to her were the two grandmothers of another member of the all-tournament team. We all had quite a bit of fun in that moment.

I also have been off line quite a bit lately because of a death in the family, the death of a long term family computer.

We all know that computer melt down can lead to an enormous hassle. This time the computer gave a couple of very distinct hiccups as a warning. When you press the on-off switch and nothing happens, only the most foolish would fail to notice that you have been given a warning. I reported to TOPWLH that the computer was dead, it would not start. She pressed the on-off switch and it started.

Well!!!!?!

I took that as an opportunity to get out my external hard drive and back up all of my files, most notably 9.5 gb of photos.

The computer started a couple of more times although it needed considerable prompting one of those times. When we got back from Duluth though, nothing, nothing at all.

So now I am up and running with something new, I have reached the point in the process where photos have been copied from the external hard drive back onto the new main machine. I still have some software to load and a couple of pieces of hardware to get back onto the network.

But I am running, I am good to go, back on line.

Let's go Gophers!!!!