Hand Washing Directions

Finally! Some directions! My hands were getting so dirty and I didn't know how to wash them!!!

Sake & Ham

Ahhh.... Sake and Ham. That would be good for dinner...

Now where did that idea come from?

Click picture to enlarge: click "Back" to go back

Free Air

Finally! I was getting tired of holding my breath!
You know one day, someone is going to come up with the idea to tax air...

Grand Portage

On June 19 we visited Grand Portage National Monument and High Falls at the Canadian border. Both places are well worth the trip. A video of High Falls as we saw it is below.

CuTRis High Falls Video Link

Gunflint Trail

On June 18 we drove up the Gunflint Trail.

A view of Seagull Lake from the rocks above.

Grand Marais

On June 17 and 18 we stayed at the Outpost Motel about 8 miles east of Grand Marais. There are lots of shops and we walked out to Artist's Point. When in Grand Marais, I highly recommend going to the Dockside Fish Market for a meal of fresh fish. I didn't catch any fish in Lake Superior, but I did try.

Artist's Point

Lake Superior across from our motel

My son could spend hours throwing rocks in the water.

Duluth

We went to Duluth on June 16th and stayed at the South Pier Inn. It was crowded as always, but we were able to walk everywhere after we got to the hotel.

Duluth Lift Bridge

My son likes the seagulls

Ship watching

CuTRis Builds 5-Season Porch

CuTRis Builds 5-Season Porch
UnAssociated Press
June 24, 2014

Unconfirmed sources said that CuTRis has built a 5-Season porch. Most porches are only 3-Season and there are only supposed to be 4 seasons. CuTRis disputed the seasonal concepts; and said that there are 9 seasons on the planet, Vindis 8. Furthermore CuTRis went on, "there is Road Construction Season here in the North Country and that makes for 5 seasons!"

No images of the new porch were available at the time of this story.

I'm Back...

I was on vacation last week. I'll post again soon. I'm trying to get caught up on things...

What About Iraq?

Now that militants are taking over Iraq in a war hundreds of years old between opposing factions of Islam, the sacrifices of America's military personnel are turning into a wasted effort. Still, conservatives in the USA will be pinning this squarely on Democratic President Obama. If you believe such things, think about where Barack Obama was in 1990 when the first Republican President George Bush began this campaign. In 1990, Barack Obama had been elected as President of the Harvard Law Review. In October of 2002, Barack Obama gave a speech in Chicago opposing war with Iraq. Yet in 2003, Republican President and son of the first George Bush, George W. Bush started the second war in Iraq. So when the blame is shifted now to Barack Obama, just think about all of that.

Why is Iraq the hotbed of murder and human rights violations—when that was one reason Saddam Hussein was so hated? Saddam is gone now and there is no strong leader anymore. The leaders of the Iraqi army ran away when attacked by the al-Qaeda forces. These people have been killing each other for a long long time. We should have never gotten into that mess. And yet though he told us that in 2002, Barack Obama is being blamed for this. Even our nemesis Iran is fighting the extremists! Help me! I need a program! I don't know who we are mad at anymore! Even if House Speaker John Boehner says this is Obama's fault, don't think for a minute I believe that. I know the right-wing isn't satisfied with only one war (in Afghanistan). Well now they might get their wish. Only I have trouble with seeing those cute little brown-eyed children who get caught up in this whole mess that a lot of angry, idiotic adults have created in the name of religion and "freedom." Shame on all of them. They all make me sick.

Bears in the City: Is the DNR Responsible?

Blue-Footed Booby Gets Employees Fired!

Yesterday bing had a picture of a bird with blue feet on their web page. My coworker told me to check it out. Soon a number of people were interested and watching as I pulled up the page.

"I believe it is a booby!" I announced! Sure enough it turned out that this interesting bird was the Blue-Footed Booby. Everyone was excited to see if I was right; so they all ran back to their cubes and "googled" the word, "booby."

Today, they were all escorted from the office by security for accessing inappropriate materials on the Internet...

Fishing: Back to Basics

As an urban angler with a busy schedule, I have set out to try to fish frequently this summer by utilizing short amounts of time available to me. This morning I was fishing from shore in a fairly deep pool I located when walking. I had fished here yesterday morning, having only one worm that I lost while removing some discarded fishing line that some unethical fartknocker left behind. While I was busy doing good, my bobber went down and when I pulled in my line, the worm was gone. Subsequent casts with the same lure I caught a northern on last week, were fruitless.

So this morning I found three worms and attached a hook to each one so it wouldn't crawl away. I then casted into the pool on the edge of the lake—and immediately caught the sunfish in the photo. I caught and released about eight more in the twenty minutes I was there. I used all three worms and none of the sunfish were very large—but it was fun anyway. In fact, it reminded me of a time when I was a young child at my aunt and uncle's cabin on Mitchell Lake where I would stand on the dock and catch sunfish, perch and bullheads all day.

Now, as an urban angler, I remembered fondly how much fun that was; and I look forward to fishing with my son when he gets just a little older.

Laser Pain Specialists

I'm not sure what possesses a person to want to go somewhere where someone will cause them pain with a laser! It sure doesn't sound like much fun to me. However, I guess if I ever decided to do it, I would want to go to a "specialist."

A Fine Morning for Fishing

Yes, I do work. But if you are willing to carry your fishing gear in your car and  stop for a few minutes... a half hour... maybe more, then you can get some fishing in almost every day.

Allied Waste

Allied Waste, also known as Republic Services has the city contract for our trash hauling services. I've not been happy with them a couple of times now. Most recently, they added a charge to our bill after the billing cycle was already paid. It was for an increase but was not explained. I was ticked-off because I don't think anyone should be able to add a cost/amount to a bill that has already shown as a lower amount and been paid. The guy from the city said they can add the charge legally; though it is not a good way to handle customer service.

So I have taken the liberty of writing this explanation for Republic since they saw no need to do so.

* Your bill reflects an increase that was in effect--but did not show on your last billing statement. That increase has been added to this billing cycle.

Sincerely,
The Fartknockers at Republic

Butt Wash

As grade school children everywhere can attest, if you add the word "butt" to anything, it is much funnier than it was before...

I Fished for Several Minutes...

I fished for several minutes today and I caught this Northern on a lure I bought at the dollar store. I released it and then I had work to do.

Comment About Student Loan Debt

When I went to the University of Minnesota (years ago), I worked full-time and went to school part-time so I could pay my way. Not so long after I graduated, The U of M changed its policy so that part-time students would always be last to register for classes (previously it went by credits earned). The university effectively removed the method I used to get my degree and has forced students to go full-time whether they can afford it or not. This was done to increase the likelihood of students graduating in four years. This was for the outward appearances and statistics. It took no consideration of those working their way through school as I had to do. I believe this is wrong for a state school.

http://time.com/2847507/student-loan-debt-barack-obama/

TC Bear Statue Shot by Police

All Bears Will Be Killed on Sight

TC Bear Statue Shot by Police
UnAssociated Press
June 9, 2014


A statue of TC Bear was unveiled yesterday at Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins. The statue immediately sustained considerable damage, as police from multiple jurisdictions began shooting the statue because they thought that it was a real bear. Police and several mayors justified the actions by saying the bear statue looked like it was ready to attack.

Snapper

I took a few minutes out of my busy day to cast my fishing line in one of the nearby lakes. I didn't catch any fish but I saw this Snapping Turtle.

Guns, Police & Squad Cars

Rounding the corner about 5:30 PM with my groceries yesterday, I drove up on the scene of numerous police at the apartments down the block. I saw two officers carrying assault rifles so I believe "they meant business."

This was the same day the news was talking about a young man murdered in Minneapolis over the weekend, a shooter on a college campus in Seattle and three police officers shot in Canada.

As a country and within our local communities, guns and violence are getting out-of-hand. It is time to identify who, what where and how and eliminate this threat. Of course, America's obsession with guns may be partly to blame...

8:11 AM

It's only 8AM and I've already eaten several Animal crackers...
I keep telling myself that I can stop anytime I want. But can I?
It's the stress! I need something to get me through the day!
Oh great. Now comes the rationalization!

"tired of young black men getting killed by guns"

I feel bad for the woman. Her son was shot to death. Yet when she said she was tired of young black men getting killed by guns, I had to agree—and I also had to wonder who should be doing something about this? Should it be police? Asians? White People? Black People? It seems that most (if not all) of the shooting of young black men is done by other young black men. So I am of the opinion that the answer should come from within the same community that these victims and murderers are coming from. Why are so many young men carrying and firing guns? What kind of family support are they growing up with? The news stories always make it sound like the victims were completely innocent, yet there are people who can show evidence trails that say they are mixed up in some questionable stuff. Most of us are tired of people getting killed by guns and by violence—such as what happened at this victim's (supposed-to-be peaceful) tribute. Apparently some people have to fight even at a memorial! What has happened to create such a horrible and ongoing situation? Who is going to stop it? Who should stop it? This can't be blamed on racism or lack of opportunities or all the crap we've heard before. This is about values and ideals and turning away from what is good and right for the children. This is just damn sad. And the people who know who the shooter is, and believe me someone knows, need to turn in the murderer(s). They need to do it every time something like this happens. No matter who it is or if they are friend or family they need to be caught.

Last Night at Band

Last night when I was with the band, halfway through our jam session I made the decree (It should be noted that many years ago I decreed that I could now decree things) that we should play our songs differently than how we usually do. To me, this is always fun because it opens things up to new ideas and better yet, a lack of preconceived ideas. No one can say, "You aren't playing it right!" It was very fun and I think we sounded pretty great! I was also not experiencing that awful crackling sound through my amplifier that I had last time we jammed. After removing components one by one from my system to try to isolate the cause, I decided the likely culprits were my guitar pickups which had become loose and were moving and vibrating. Dave informed me after, that during the testing phase, we plugged his guitar into my system and got the same noise. Darn! That was true! However, the bad noise was now gone leading me to conclude that it was one of those all-too-common situations where even after something is fixed, it has to exhibit the same symptoms at least one last time to make you doubt that it was really fixed. That way, you will start taking more stuff apart needlessly. Fortunately, that was not the case last evening and we had a very fun jam session.

Tiny Turtle

I found this little turtle while walking today. I was swarmed by mosquitoes when I stopped to take this picture.

Let the Bear Alone!

It's all over the news. "a bear" has been spotted in the Twin Cities. My response to this? Let the bear alone! There... how hard is that? It is thought to be the "same bear" in Savage and in Woodbury. Well that is possible; but perhaps if there is one, there could be two. So what happened to the first one? Well, some trigger happy cop shot it. Well isn't that nice? Now, we have a potentially dangerous bear because it is wounded. Nice job! If I was your boss I'd have your badge dumb-ass. It is also thought to be a young bear. It seems "someone" has put a lot of "thought" into this issue. Except that no one knows anything about what ought to be done or not done. Bears live in Minnesota. You should let the bear alone. While I like Minnesota and I like living here, I am appalled by the treatment of our wildlife—when it happens to show up in the city. People up north live in close proximity with bears. You just follow some simple rules. Avoid leaving food or garbage around; because bears eat pretty much anything, and let them alone! If you have to, make a lot of noise to chase them away. Believe me, the bear doesn't really want to live in the city. It is probably lost, scared and inexperienced. And now it is wounded thanks to the Minnesota authorities who while living in a "wilderness state," don't know any other means to deal with wildlife in the city except to shoot it. What the hell is wrong with them? I have seen bears in the wild. I have camped in bear country. I once spent a week on Admiralty Island with a whole bunch of Brown bears. They didn't kill me because I know how to leave them alone! So stop reporting on the sightings. Stop shooting. Teach your kids how to live with wildlife and enjoy it. Most of all, let the bear alone!

Pay Dirt

We paid a company to bring us dirt.