turning over & heading north

On my way home from work tonight, my dear Subaru reached a milestone:

Many happy, reliable returns, loyal friend!

I'll be packing on even more miles tomorrow, when I head for the North Shore for a much-needed backpacking excursion along the Superior Hiking Trail. Nothing too intense or long, maybe 20 miles total, but in the woods and just the thing to unwind from a busy busy summer.

The meteorological community at large seems to agree that it will be beautiful, near perfect weather this weekend. Hooray! But even if it rains for 72 hours straight, I still intend to enjoy myself. Photos to come...

more fall fashions

Sort of a "Nanook of the North has a day at the beach" look.

gazing fondly at my sweaters

Don't get me wrong: I like summer. I even like my crazy summers at the library. But I'm ready to be done now. Done with the much-too-frequent 90-degree days, and trying to exercise my furry dog without giving her heat exhaustion (seriously- she falls down), and with said craziness at work. I'm sort of counting down to Friday, the last official day of our Summer Reading Program and the beginning of a little breather.

Then maybe the weather will get cooler, and I can pull out the warm clothes. Or buy some of the new fall stuff that's started coming in at work. REI, that is. The library currently doesn't have a women's casual wear section.

For the sake of visuals, here's a random comic I found online:

fun ways to call the kids in for dinner

Have I mentioned that my sister is having a baby? Yes, Lucy will be a big sister in December. Little Fisch #2 is a girl, and the plan is to name her Olive. Which means that together, their nicknames will be Ollie-Lu. In the event of a third child, does anyone have ideas for a name that would shorten to something resembling "ya"? Then they could have a complete set: Ollie-Lu-Ya. We haven't come up with anything yet. And no, Yahweh is not a viable option.

Speaking of Lucy, I haven't featured her on here in a while. Here' s a fun arms-back flying pose that morphed into some kind of grand ballet bow:

unexpected connection

When the list of the eight people still missing after the bridge collapse was released a few days ago, I was shocked to recognize one of the names. Scott Sathers was in my high school graduating class. We were never more than passing acquaintances at most, and I had no idea what had become of him after high school. Still, of 10,000+ people who crossed that bridge every day and the 13 who probably lost their lives, actually knowing one of them is a little surreal. Scott was a nice guy from what I remember, a bit of a class clown in a preppy kind of way. Good-natured, not cruel or mean. Played hockey, which I never would have remembered without looking at our senior yearbook. I haven't had a chance to visit the site yet, but when I do it'll seem that much more real- or maybe unreal, I'm not sure yet. Because now I have a face to go with my respects and prayers, even if it is 12 years out of date.

Scott is on the left

Objects of My Affection II: The Complete Harry Potter Collection, UK editions

And now they are complete:


I bought the first three Harry Potter books when I was living in England in 2001, back when they were thinner and more packable, because I liked the alternate covers and the shorter, friendlier size, and because that was their country of origin and it seemed appropriate. Of course, once I started down that path, I felt compelled to make the set match. Fortunately for me, international mail and the online mega-power of Amazon.com made that not only possible, but easy and affordable. Sure, I got them each about a week after they were released, but that small show of delayed gratification has paid off with a complete set that makes the concrete-sequential and anglophilic chunks of my soul smile.

Here are the covers:

I like how the cover styles, like the contents, get older as the books progress. There are 5 different artists altogether. I do like the American GrandPre covers, but I like these better. And when I take the dust jacket off to keep it safe, the illustration is printed on the actual cover as well, so it's still pretty. Plus even the doorstop-sized middle books rest nicely in one hand while you're reading, and you can turn pages with the other hand. It's the little things, you know?

"We'd like to thank Hormel a lot..."

"...for their generous support of Spam...alot."

That was the introduction, and it just got funnier from there.

Spamalot. A hit Broadway musical based on a cult classic movie. A movie with no real ending, just sort of the end of the reel. And yet, let Eric Idle and Friends take another crack at it, mix in a few other Monty Python jokes and songs at random, and you've got yourself a hi-laaarious evening of entertainment. It was fun to see the scenes I've had memorized since high school enacted on stage, but I think the new or slightly altered bits were my favorite. Like how Dennis the Constitutional Peasant is actually Dennis Galahad, who joins the quest after being talked into it by the Lady of the Lake and her part ethereal water nymph, part cheerleader "Laker girls." Alas, I didn't see the Curry/Pierce/Azaria cast (I'm salivating at the very thought), but the touring guys did a fine job. I think I may have to acquire the original cast recording so that I can add the show to my "you big nerd, how much Monty Python do you really need to memorize?" repertoire.

And isn't this where the show really belongs, here in Minnesota, the cradle of Spam itself?

My other favorite thing: the stage bill. Analogous to the Holy Grail opening credits in quasi-Swedish, there is a title page in quasi-Finnish:

And that fits in Minnesota, too! I needed look no further than the person sitting next to me to find a Finnish last name with an abundance of oddly-arranged vowels. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where I want to be...

kettles and sandstone, and a Bridges-R-Us product recall

I had the day off today, and I escaped north into the woods with my dog. Brynn and I spent the day hiking, rolling in mud (her), and snapping photos (me) in Banning State Park just outside of Sandstone, Minn., about 90 miles north of the Twin Cities.


Like you might guess, the area was developed as a sandstone quarry back in the 1890's or so. The forest has since reasserted itself, and all that's left of the old quarry are piles of conspicuously square-edged rock slabs, holes in the ground, and the occasional ruins, mostly with trees sticking out of them.


I'm a sucker for self-guided trails, so I done some learnin' about quarries and local history. I also learned that the Kettle River along which the ruins stand got its name from the round holes and formations, or "kettles," carved in the sandstone by the water. The accepted geological term for them is actually "potholes," which sounds much more scientific. I have dubbed the uncanny formation below the Eye of God for obvious reasons (photographed from below):


And what stretch of the river is God keeping an eye on? Devil's Gate. As He should.

Maybe someone should kick it in the butt.

It's a lovely park, and it was a beautiful day for a hike; the sort of day I love in the north woods, when you walk through shade into a sunny patch, and the smell of sun-warmed pine needles is present there as if it were part of the sunlight. There's nothing else like it.

I put more photos from Banning on Flickr if anyone's interested.

In one of those "small world" moments, I crossed a bridge in Sandstone that was under construction. I would barely notice usually, but today I noticed. Then I realized there was no construction: it was an inspection.

Look a little familiar? It turns out I had ended up on one of four bridges in the state that have similar construction to the 35W bridge, and the governor had ordered an immediate inspection of all of them. If the state could recall those bridges like cars or harmful-if-swallowed baby toys, they'd be back at the big bridge factory right now, but as it is, Pawlenty had to send the inspectors to them. Whether it was for safety reasons or to search for clues to what happened on Wednesday, I don't know. But two guys were in a basket taking a good look at the trusses. The yellow vehicle on the left is some sort of reverse cherry picker (clam digger?) that dips down over the side instead of lifting up. Very interesting to see. Sandstone is straight up I-35, and on the drive home, the sign warning that 35W is closed south of Highway 280 was the first real-world driving evidence I've seen that it really happened.

And since these coincidences usually seem to come in threes, here's another bridge I encountered today:

I've got your 'structurally deficient' right here!

me and mine are fine

I didn't have my TV or radio on after work today. I found out about the collapse of the 35W bridge (see news sites) through a text from a friend, then another text as a friend told me she was okay, then from a call from a friend in Olympia, who was watching TV and heard about it before I did. Me and my family are all fine. Please keep the missing, injured, dead, and their families in your prayers as the recovery efforts continue. This was a major thoroughfare, and getting back to normal will literally take years.

As it happens, I was on my way to church for a meeting, but it was the perfect place to be. We were able to pray and intercede together, and what else can we really do besides watch the same news clips over and over again?