Over the cliff

The word from our weatherman is that the temperature around here is about to go over the edge of the cliff.

Not tonight. But starting late Friday night, when the temperature goes below zero F, it's not going to rise above zero for a few days. This could be our coldest stretch of weather in maybe two or three years.

Right now, my aviation weather maps (no, I don't pilot a plane) tell me it's below zero in eastern South Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. In a day or so, everywhere on this map--from Winnipeg in one corner to Indianapolis in the other--is going to have a minus sign in front of the temperature. Even at midday.

That's what winter is like up here. Actually, this will be our first really cold spell this winter. We've regularly been having below zero nights, but the highs have stayed at least 10 above until now. But the people around here are well-trained: When they hear of a major snowstorm or a cold wave about to strike, they make a beeline for the stores in order to stock up for the next few days when they expect to be snowed or frozen in.

There's still very little snow to speak of here. We have maybe four inches on the ground, which is way less than normal. And though we should be getting some Friday night when the cold wave hits, it shouldn't be more than two or three inches. It should be blowing around pretty good. We're too far from Lake Superior for major lake effect snow, but the wind will still be huffing and puffing and making a big fuss.

On most mornings last week, we woke up with a fresh powdering of snow. This thin layer reveals the little dramas played out over the night before, told in the footprints you see in the snow the next morning. Rabbits. Cats. Birds, who usually come along in the morning. Even a deer from time to time.

Here are some prints from a feline visitor we had by the front steps the other day. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I'll share ...


Tuesday morning, when I was putting on my jacket to go to work, I looked out the back window and saw a crow in the back yard. (I thought at first it was a raven--looks more like a crow now.) Ordinarily, crows and ravens are wary of people holding cameras, but this one was preoccupied.

You see, my wife likes to throw out bits and pieces of old bread and buns and other things that get too old. Her bird friends who come over nearly every morning enjoy them. This morning, four crows were there, and this one stayed because he saw a good morsel in the snow.

But it was frozen to the ground. Sometimes he'd look up for inspiration ...


Sometimes he'd look down at the project ...


But most of the time he just kept at it, pecking away at it over and over, hoping to poke it loose or to tear off a morsel ...


At times, he would hold it down with a foot as he tried to get a nibble ...

It's not an easy life for our critters in winter. They gotta do what they gotta do.

I drove to Iron Mountain later Tuesday, to visit my mom and cover a basketball game that night. For the first time, I was able to get got some pictures of snow drifting off fields ...




I also took some photos of woods roads--where wood that has been cut to length has been stacked. It makes for a pretty winter scene ...


Especially when the sun is shining and the sky is blue ...


But when it's winter and the sky is blue like this, you know that it's c-c-c-c-cold out there. The wind out of the northwest that creates the drifts comes from the Arctic Circle.

FYI: This is the same stretch of road--Wisconsin Highway 70--where I got the fall color pictures a few months ago. And the snapping turtle pictures early last summer. It's a road that I enjoy driving. And I drive on it a lot.

I won't be driving on it this weekend, though. Too damn cold to go anywhere.

It's (yawn) January, after all

Oh, I was cracking jokes all day today. Just trying to make it through another dull January day.

If you have noticed the relative absence of posts recently (myself included), I guess it's just due to the season. Kinnigurl mentioned that she thought her latest post was boring, I told her not to feel sorry about it--it's the more boring time of year, so it only follows that the posts about our lives (your version) are also a bit, well, y'know, they're not that dazzling.

My own included, most definitely!

I have had another very busy week at work, and I am getting really tired of it. This pace will continue through mid February, when it will ease off just a little, and then in mid-March it eases off a lot. My goodness! I'll get to spend more than one or two nights at home each week. The extremely busy sports schedule will be over until next September. I'm quite ready for the next few weeks to pass by.

All right, enough complaining about that--won't do anything to make the time pass faster. Besides that, of course, I'm doing stuff for my mom and a local company for which I am a director, and it all means just more pressure and stress. OK, enough about that, too.

This is my least favorite time of the year. The days are short, and it's cloudy all the time. Well, most of the time. All the beautiful green is gone (except for the pines). And while we had a snow shower this afternoon, the real story of our winter so far is how little snow we've had. Right now, the last week or so of January, when we are supposedly in the dead of winter, there's just about 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground (7 to 10 cm). We had a very warm December, but it's been seasonably cold during January.

The days are getting longer. Tomorrow is supposed to be 2 minutes, 23 seconds longer than yesterday. But when the sun is hidden behind clouds all day, how can you tell? Recently I promised to go out on a pretty winter day and get some nice pictures. But when work has allowed that, the weather hasn't. And vice versa.

One more thing has ticked me off recently--that comet. Comet McNaught is its name, and for skygazers in the Northern Hemisphere, it is, indeed, a big "naught." Because now that it's gotten nice and bright, it's only visible south of the Equator. Grrrr.

I just heard of it on the last night or two it would be visible in our area--we were supposed to look at the western sky just after sunset. But it gets back to that same old problem: How can you tell exactly when it's sunset when it's overcast and the sky is one more or less uniform shade of gray?

Those of you in Oz and the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, enjoy it for me. Supposedly, it's the brightest comet in the last 40+ years and is easily visible to the naked eye. If you live in the right place, of course.

All right, add that to the list of gripes I'm not going to talk about any more.

In my free time (when I get some and am not trying to catch up with blogs), I have been watching the movie "Chushingura." This is the movie based on the true story of the 47 ronin in Japan in 1701 who went to great lengths to avenge the death of their lord. But I've been only been able to watch it in bits and pieces--and the movie is 3 1/2 hours long. From what I've seen, I like it a lot. But my wife doesn't care for movies like that, so I have to watch it by myself, in bits and pieces.

One more joke before I quit. My wife and I had to run some errands late this afternoon--credit union, bank, library, drug store, supermarket. The last stop was the supermarket. The checker asked the normal question: "Paper or plastic?" Silence followed.

"Well," I said, "you know it's January and your brain is only working at half speed when you need time to think that one over."

I know it wasn't brilliant. But give me a break--it's January, after all.

Tears in my eyes

A few days ago, I attended my aunt's funeral. And for much of today, I was fighting tears in my eyes.

Wait. The two facts are not related.

I'm not feeling entirely healthy. Maybe lack of sleep. Maybe too much running around lately. Maybe the sudden return of normal winter weather. Maybe things on my mind. But I'm feeling weary. Tired. A bit stressed. More than a bit.

And after living nearly all my life without sinus headaches, I've battled several recently. One was earlier today. All that pressure under my eyes and behind my nose. My eyes watering. I went home early from work, just to lie down and try to rest. I covered wrestling tonight, and that seemed to go OK. I'm feeling better now, but I'll be taking something before going to bed.

The trip to my aunt's funeral went well. I finished off the paper Sunday morning, and we left for Minnesota about 1:30. Around 4:30, as my wife dozed next to me, I saw a sight I love and only see very rarely where I live. A train. Hey, I like trains, and there are very few trains where I live--most of the tracks here were torn out years ago and turned into recreation trails.

This train was running parallel to the highway. I eventually outdistanced it, and my wife woke up a little later. The track was still nearby, and I suggested we pull over so she could see it. She said OK. The driver was due for a break, anyway.

We pulled off onto a side road about a hundred yards and waited. And waited. The train had to be coming here. I looked at the map. This was where the tracks go.

About 15 minutes later, as I was getting impatient, I heard a horn. Grabbed my camera and went out to document the big occasion. By now, it was about 10 minutes after sunset and getting dark quickly. So here we are ...

That's a CN locomotive pulling a long string of Wisconsin Central hopper cars. Wisconsin Central is owned by Canadian National.

On we went. Through Ladysmith, towards Minnesota, listening to the NFL playoff games. We knew snow was in the forecast, and just as we neared the bridge into Minnesota, we ran into light snow. About 15 miles further, we found a motel for the night. Very small room. Maybe I should have gotten a picture, but I didn't. Anyway, we were tired and soon were asleep.

About two or three inches of snow fell during the night. The guy at the motel brushed the snow off the car, which was nice of him, and we made our way south into the suburbs north of St. Paul. For breakfast, we stopped at a retro-looking McDonald's ...

Once upon a time, all McDonald's looked something like this. (I even worked at one while I was in high school.) This one, alas, had an ATM and DVD rental machine inside. Didn't see those while in high school. Also, napkins could only be found in one place, by the soda dispenser.

When we're on the road, we like to get a Sausage McMuffin for breakfast. For the rest of the day, we avoid McDonald's. The night before, we found an Arby's for supper just after crossing into Minnesota. We both love their roast beef.

Anyway, this McDonald's was near a shopping center, and they had a bubble-wrapped building under construction nearby ...

Of course, the bubbles keep the workers somewhat warm during winter, so they can do interior work. It was about 10F at the time.

From there, off to the funeral. No trouble finding the place--Irene had pointed it out to us before, so I knew where I had to go. From there, we visited the cemetery, located walking distance from Irene's house. And after that, we visited the house. So did some of the other cousins and their families.

Irene had sold the house some years earlier to the local school district, with the provision that she could spend the rest of her days there. It turned out to be over 10 years' worth of days. We all wanted a last look at it. It's a given that the place will be gone in six to nine months.

Here is the house ...

See that window on the upper floor? My mom and dad took my future wife and I on a trip to visit relatives during the winter before we got married. I slept on a cot in the attic, and she slept on a sofabed in the living room. But during the night, she climbed up the stairs to be with me.

They also had an odd-eyed cat, and we got a photo of her holding the cat. Sure wish I could get my hands on it now. Beautiful photo--shows the different color eyes perfectly. Ah, memories!

So I and the cousins walked around the house and saw ... cat prints in the snow. Of course, Irene's wild kitties. They tell me she had cut back to six cats towards the end. They were there but hid when the humans arrived. This looks towards the back door, where Irene would feed them every day. A sad picture ...

Worry not, however. A nephew of hers who lives nearby is feeding the cats now, so they aren't going hungry.

Both before and after the service we renewed acquaintances with my cousins, my mom's younger brother (who is now 86) and his wife. Three of the six cousins attended--two live far out of town, and one (living in Wisconsin) couldn't get off work on short notice. It was nice to see them all again.

We were also advised that Irene had left "some dimes and nickels" and that it would be split up 11 ways. Since Irene never had any children, each of the nieces and nephews (including me) gets a share. It's more than dimes and nickels, folks.

About 2 p.m., it was time to start the long drive home. One final stop for a photo. Of course: that bison ranch. This time, all the bison were in a pen ...

It was their ... (pause for dramatic effect) ... bisonpennial.

Good night, Irene

My original plan for this weekend involved visiting my mom on Saturday and then sitting home, watching the NFL playoffs on Sunday. (Yes, I know there are Saturday games, too, but the Sunday games seemed better.)

Fate had other plans.

At about 9 a.m. Friday, while I was working on an article at the office, I got a phone call from a cousin living in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.). She was crying, and she told me why: My aunt, the matriarch of my mother's side of the family, had died at the age of 93.

Her name was Irene, and she was my mom's sister-in-law, the wife of her older brother (He was the oldest of three children, my mom was the youngest.), and I'm sure my mom was closer to her than anyone else in the world--outside of me and my wife, of course.

So instead of visiting the nursing home Saturday, I left work at noon Friday to drive down there and deliver the news in person. All things considered, she took it pretty well. She was sad, but then said Irene she was back with her husband, who had died in 1992.

My Aunt Irene--remember, she's 93--lived in the suburbs north of St. Paul. It's condos and urban sprawl today, with a big school next door. But I remember that back when I was a kid, when we visited, it was all rural homes and farm fields. The old family farm, where she was raised, was right across the road.

After my uncle died, Irene kept living in her house by herself, leading an active life, even driving down into St. Paul at times. My mom (and I) really admired her spunk and spirit. Very easy-going person, very kind-hearted. Very much like the farm girl she once was.

Well, Irene didn't really live by herself. She had cats living around there. Lots of cats. Feral cats. She fed them with bulk cat food, and her back yard was their hangout. You frequently could see at least a dozen hanging around outside. She explained that she never took one inside for a pet--because the other ones would have their feelings hurt.

That's one story. Another was one of Irene's more timeless sayings about larger-than-normal vegetables--that "It don't many of those to make a dozen."

Now she's gone. I quickly reworked my weekend plans. Instead to finishing up the paper on Monday--the day of the funeral in the Twin Cities--I wrote for most of Saturday, getting my stories finished and photos processed. On Sunday morning, I'm laying out my pages, and then we'll leave for the Twin Cities Sunday afternoon. Too bad about the football, but ...

We'll attend the funeral Monday and will visit with the relatives part of that afternoon before driving home Monday night. Maybe we'll drive all the way back home Monday night, maybe not. It's about 265 miles from here to there. As a side note, we'll be driving right through Ladysmith, where we visited over New Year's, and a short visit to the in-laws there is possible. Hopefully, this time we won't get bogged down with Animal Planet.

The last time my mom (and I) saw Irene in person was in June 2004, when I drove her over for a visit. I have a few photos from that trip.

This first one is about 10 miles from my mom's house, in northeastern Wisconsin, after I picked her up. Yes, that's a black bear. It was crossing the road when I saw it from about 150 yards away. I stopped and tried to grab the camera from the back seat. The bear, meanwhile, turned around and seemed ready to go back into the woods when he seemed to suddenly remember, "Duhh, dat's right, I wanted to cross the road!" So he turned around a second time, and that's when I got this photo ...


After that, I was determined to keep the camera closer, in case any other photo ops took place.

Not more than a half hour later, we were on U.S. 8, heading west, when we saw a big dog standing on the other side of the road, about 100 yards away. Wait a second. That's no dog! The brindle coat. The large head. The pointed ears. The intelligent eyes.

"That's a wolf!" I said, braking my car and plunging my hand under my legs for the camera bag. My hand found it--just enough to push it across to the other side of the seat. I fumbled around excitedly for it, finally found it, then fumbled to undo the latch on the case, then lift it out, take off the lens cap, turn it on and get it pointed in the right direction.

While all that was going on, the wolf slowly ambled our way, sort of a trot. He passed right outside my driver's side window (as I continued to fumble the opportunity away), circled around behind the car, off the shoulder of the road and into the woods. Gone. The opportunity ... gone. I was upset, to say the least.

At least I got some photos of some buffalo. Just after you cross over from Wisconsin to Minnesota on U.S. 8, there's a big bison ranch, so I stopped to get a few photos of some of the most majestic animals in North America ...


We arrived and visited for a while, going out to dinner. The camera came out that evening when Irene went out to feed the cats. As soon as she went back inside, the cats made a beeline to the dry food ...

And they weren't shy, either. As long as I got photos from the kitchen window, I was fine. If I went outside, they would run away.

The next day, we decided that my mom and aunt would spend the day talking, while I drove around to see the sights of the Twin Cities. I got myself a new camera bag at one shop and eventually wound up at the Mall of America, to the south of the Twin Cities. This is the mega-mall of all mega-malls. If it's not the biggest in our continent, it's darn close. I took a few photos. This one shows a kids' amusement part, Camp Snoopy, entirely inside the mall ...


I also got to see the space shuttle and International Space Station--made entirely of Lego blocks. See the little Lego logos? ...


The more unusual sight of all, at least to me, was a Green Bay Packer fan shop--right in the heart of Minnesota Viking territory. They had big photos of Brett Favre, green and gold uniforms, cheeseheads and everything ...


We all went out to dinner that night. Then, the next morning, it was time for us to head back home. I took a picture of my mom and Irene ...


And I got a photo of Irene getting a photo of me ...

Never had a chance to see her photos.

Over the last couple of months, I had been thinking to myself that if my mom feels good enough this summer, maybe I could take her to visit Irene again this summer. The last two visits (the previous one was in 2002) were (in my mom's words) "probably the last time I'll get to see her."

She was right about the 2004 visit. These photos were their last moments together.

The holidays in brief

Now that it's the evening of Jan. 8, I finally have a little time to give you a quick rundown of the holidays--at least the parts I haven't gotten around to yet. Mainly, the trip we took over New Year's Eve.

I told you about Christmas, but not about my annual Dec. 24 ritual. That's the Xmas Eve Bowl, which is a football game played locally. Due to the warm December weather, snow was hardly anywhere to be found--until the night before the game, when about three inches fell.

The game features former high school players, both those living here and those visiting for the holidays. It's not exactly touch football, is it? They have been playing this game for maybe 25 years, so it's a holiday tradition around here. I played in the game one year, but my main role is to take pictures and serve as the arbiter in case of disputes. It's just a fun time together for everyone.

This year, temperatures were about 20F for the game, which was played on the local high school field. Here's a quick snap or two of the action ...




Like the issue just before Christmas, the edition of the paper after Christmas also had an early deadline, but once those duties were completed, my wife, younger son and I left for a short trip to visit my in-laws--my wife's dad and brothers and sisters.

We left at about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, the 30th. During one of our pit stops, I saw a rather forbidding sign. I took it that way, anyway ...


We reached out destination, and our first visit was to my wife's youngest sister. She had a new, hyperactive dog, who made friends with David ...

In fact, most of the visit involved talking about the dog and watching a TV program about some animal control people in Phoenix, Ariz. Sadly, that's about all that happened. It got very boring. A waste of a visit. I mean, you can watch TV any time. But we don't visit very often. Make the most of it, no?

We stayed there so late, we arrived at my FIL's place just before he went to bed. It was already past 9 p.m. In another hour or so, we did the same.

There was a little light rain starting as we arrived at my FIL's place. When we got up on Sunday, the 31st, it was raining. Heavily. On Dec. 31. I mean, we've visited there in winter when it was below zero and with about a foot of snow on the ground. There were some remnants of snowpiles here and there, but here's what it looked like out the front door ...


The rain kept falling, but it didn't dampen the spirits of the local bird population. The bird feeders were filled with seed, suet feeders were stocked, and the birds were celebrating, even though the ground was bare. Not that there were worms in the ground or fresh seeds on the bushes, of course. Anyway, here's some of the photos I took (taking into consideration that light conditions weren't good and I was shooting though a window).

First off, a soggy squirrel, who came right up to the window where I was poised with my camera ...


We rarely see cardinals were we live, so I badly wanted to take a picture of the cardinals I saw. This was the best one I got ...


We also saw this woodpecker, who was dining on the suet ...


And while most of the chickadees were going for the seeds, not all of them were ...

... although one of them seems to be having second thoughts.

Alas, I had taken just one set of batteries along, and I forgot to charge them up before leaving. Before long, the dreaded red warning indicator was on in the viewfinder. I took many pictures after that, but before long the sign in the viewfinder said "Batteries exhausted." The camera was done for.

Various sisters and brothers visited during the day, and we talked and visited. We caught up on people, and I showed some of the pictures I had taken during our most recent visit (Memorial Day) on my laptop (before its meltdown after we got home). They enjoyed the show.

That night, New Year's Eve, snow and freezing rain was in the forecast, and we spent the night the way much of Wisconsin spent it--watching the Green Bay Packers' game against the Chicago Bears, while nibbling on chips and enjoying some sodas. Yes, folks, that's as wild as it gets there on New Year's Eve.

The game ended about 10:45 p.m. We switched stations to watch 2007 arrive at Times Square. (New York City is an hour ahead of us.) My wife and I opted to head for bed at about 11:15. But we didn't go to sleep until a little after midnight. ;)

The snow and freezing drizzle overnight wasn't much--less than a half inch. In fact, the sun was up during New Year's Day morning. Take a guess what happened while my wife was watching the Rose Bowl parade that morning.

The world's most beautiful bird, in my opinion, is the blue jay. One of them was visiting the bird feeders that morning. Sitting in the sun just as nice as you please, brilliant blues and white, as I begged my batteries to work for just one more minute. They totally refused. I swear I heard that blue jay laughing at me.

As planned, we headed for home at about 2 p.m. The trip home was uneventful. We got back home about 6 p.m. On Tuesday, we visited my mom, and later I discovered my laptop's problems.

The laptop is back in operation, after re-re-reformatting and re-re-reinstalling programs. All went well except for one thing: The backup CD I made of files and photos I wanted to keep isn't working. At least, I haven't been able to transfer the files from the CD back to the laptop's re-re-reformatted hard drive. The files are there--you can see them in My Computer--but I can't get them to transfer for some reason.

(Any advice? I'm using Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5, which came with the laptop.)

The funny thing was, I was thinking while doing the backup that maybe I ought to transfer the files to one of my thumbdrives. But I opted for the CD backup. And now ...

It's not a major tragedy. The files I wanted most of all were the edited photo JPGs I have been uploading to Photobucket over the last year or so. I still have the original images on my desktop, but I wanted to keep those edited files, too. So far, no good. Grumble, grumble.

Re-re-reinstalling

Our New Year's weekend trip went OK. We got back home at about 6 p.m. on Monday. I'll recap that another day.

But my main project over the last two days has involved working on my laptop computer, which worked well during on the trip ... but on Tuesday, the day after we got home, proved incapable of booting up. It would hang up partway through. Sometimes the desktop icons would show up; other times, I just get to see that lovely green hill and blue skies, my current wallpaper. Either way, that's as far as it went.

Been there. Done that. This is the third time I have had to hunt down HP's restore and recovery discs, so I can, yes, reformat the hard drive, reinstall Windows and then reinstall all the programs I have installed. XP has now been re-re-reinstalled, and now I'm re-re-re-downloading the various upgrades and service packs. Sigh.

Yes, it's a pain. What did Ian Fleming write? "The first time is happenstance, the second time is coincidence, the third time is enemy action." This is the third time I've done this, and it's getting real old. I've had the computer about three years.

I'm not in a position to buy a replacement now. Maybe in another year or two. Then I can get one that has a wide screen, is much lighter and has much better battery life. I have vowed, however, that whenever the day comes, it will not be an HP. I've had quite enough of those tricks, thank you.

The first time it happened, I lost everything on the hard drive. Everything. Last time (about September 2005), I was able to save some of the stuff, and this time I was able to do likewise. The programs can be re-re-reinstalled. But the document files aren't available elsewhere, so I backed them up to a CD-R.

OK, the laptop is now in the process of installing exactly 63 updates. It's on No. 12 right now. So I'll turn around once in a while (the laptop is upstairs, perched on a chair behind me) to check for progress.

I don't know if I have written about this, but just after Christmas I invested in a new cell phone. Since my contract had expired and I was on month-to-month status, the new phone cost me nothing (once I get around to sending in the forms for the $20 rebate). It doesn't take pictures--I have a camera for that--and it
doesn't do videos. But it's a lot brighter than my old one and should have improved battery life as well. The number keys are much larger and brighter for use in the dark. I'm happy with it.

I don't use my cell phone a lot. For the first two years I had one, the signal quality here was poor--one bar, if that. Sort of defeats the idea of having a cell phone if you can't get a decent signal. But about a year ago they installed a new antenna locally, and now our signal is nice and strong. Happiness is seeing all four bars on the display.

Since the battery on the old one had limited standby use, I usually had it switched off unless I was expecting a call. So that's something else I have to un-learn--from now on, it will be on more often than off.

(It's doing update 42 of 63 now.) Another thing about the new phone is that you can switch off the jaunty electronic melody it makes when it's switched on and off. That was beyond the old one's capabilities, so when I switched it on (such as when I phone my mom from the office), its jaunty tune echoed all over our office, which is usually pretty quiet. The only sound you usually hear is typing. Either stories or web surfing or computer solitaire.

(We're up to 59.) So that's my new phone. I've been adding names and numbers to the directory, and it can quick-dial hundreds of numbers. With the old one, you were limited to 20. Of course, I have less than 20 names in my directory, but you never know.

OK. All those dozens of updates have been installed, and I have to reboot. That I'll do, but that's enough computer work for tonight. I can carry on the "rebuilding a laptop" project tomorrow night.