The squirrels are chowing down on the White Pine cones. There’s one over there eating one as you might eat a cob of corn. Eating one and then hopping over to the base of a different tree to inspect the fallen cones for a follow-on course. And he just found one right there half the […]
Yearly Archives: 2024
Hillary
Tue, 23 Jul 2024, 06:17 PM (-06:00)
1. Breakfast at the Hotel The guest room in my dad’s condo in Ottawa was always, shall we say, a bit cramped. The desk and the bookshelves that lined two walls and the old-school four-drawer file cabinets took up about a third of the space. The fold-out sofa bed took up another third. That left […]
Mom and Dad
Tue, 23 Jul 2024, 10:53 AM (-06:00)
My mom loved wild tiger lilies. She collected seeds from along the road and propagated them on the hill. While I was in Canada, they started blooming. Hi Mom! My dad loved donuts. He lived just around the corner from a Tim Horton’s. On the way back from Canada… Well don’t judge me, please. Hi […]
No One Would Ever Publically Admit
Sat, 20 Jul 2024, 09:48 AM (-06:00)
Let’s just say that I’m glad I wasn’t flying yesterday, or crossing a land border, for that matter. Or managing production CloudStrike software. All that hoo-hah makes me think about four things… 1. Config files Software systems often come in two parts: (a) the code that does the heavy lifting, and (b) config files with […]
Swimming Across the Lake
Mon, 15 Jul 2024, 06:03 PM (-06:00)
1. Rules Based Order Old hands — those whose memories of this place go back before their memories of this place, those who recall the cacophony of frogs before the chorus fell silent, those who remember when the southern end of the lake was still wild, before lakeside swimming pools and fertilized lawns replaced the […]
Danny and Donny
Thu, 11 Jul 2024, 11:05 AM (-06:00)
1. Winter Dogs When I got to the shower house, an old man came out. It was a hot day. He took several small steps toward the pop machine near the door where Coke and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper logos beckoned from brightly lit buttons which he studied carefully, pushing one and then another with […]
Boolean Rain
Wed, 10 Jul 2024, 12:31 PM (-06:00)
In general, we’ve had remarkably good weather on this Texas-to-Michigan trip if you ignore the heat during the first couple days. In particular, we haven’t had to contend with rain if you ignore the morning we quickly broke camp in order to beat a storm approaching from western Arkansas. We only recently retrieved our raincoats […]
Night Lights
Wed, 10 Jul 2024, 08:23 AM (-06:00)
On one- or two-night trips, it can be a hassle to set up all the regalia. On longer stays, we sometimes go for it. Parked now for several days on a sandy patch of flat ground behind the cottage at the top of the hill, this has been a longer stay.