One place I forgot to mention in my earlier post is crossing the Bay Bridge, where, according to our Garmin GPS system, we left the bridge and floated in our car above the Bay. Very cool, yes, but to the wife, whose concern about crossing bridges over water sometimes gets a firm grip on her solar plexus, the image on the screen simply contributed to her unease. My comments about the new-looking elements of the bridge didn't help either, I understand now.What we did in California!
The weekend is over, but it was one filled with activities, including a mini-triathlon, an estrogen-packed Bunco party, and a pleasant trip to Sioux Falls. I was pleased enough with the results of the triathlon, but I couldn't help noticing that I was only slightly behind my fellow 5-decade competitors. That 41 seconds was, I suspect, partly due to my bulging waistline and partly due to having tested the spin bike and the treadmill at speed on Wednesday before the event. I was still sore! Now I'm sore again, but mostly from the swim. Progress continues to be made.
We're getting a little tired around here of our friend the winter season, a visitor that has overstayed his welcome, lingered too long and been too demanding. Today it's almost March and with temperatures at 9 degrees, wind at 22-29 mph to make it feel like it's freaking -12 degrees. Yuk! It makes me think fondly of those February days in Dodge City, KS, when I could walk to school in my shirt sleeves. I wouldn't be a whole lot better off down there today; it's 26 with the wind blowing like it always did. 
The promise of warmer times comes in many forms. Yesterday's mail brought one of them even as the weather reminded us that spring still has a way to go to arrive. But the Gurney's catalog and its wide variety of fruits and vegetables helps one picture what summertime can be, even as the snow is still two feet deep in the yard.
Joseph and Mary seem to be looking for their lost infant in a snowbank in this Madison photo of a yard that once was green and warm but hasn't been for some time. When spring comes, they may find a chilly little bundle of joy.
When we finally made it home yesterday after a long day at work, some after-work socializing, and a game in which the DSU men whupped up on the BHSU Yellowjackets, we found this lovely box with even lovelier cupcakes inside.
The wife and I have enjoyed ABC's strange series LOST, and tonight they begin what they're saying is their final season, but who knows--maybe the network will get swept into the kind of time warp that makes the characters' noses bleed and fall down. Noting what their cash cow has done for them, we may soon find the ABC network execs all shouting, like Jack does, "We've got to go BACK!" 
Frost, that is. It was cold today, but there's usually an upside. This was the view from our kitchen window. 
Things might be bad in other parts of the world, but here things are well enough. The sun comes up, our house is warm, we had a good day with some friends yesterday and could take the time to play in the snow and eat together, and we've got good jobs that allow us to do most of the things we want to do.
Dr. Dan took this photo of Mr. W comfy in his winter sweater, blanket, and bed, comfortable and warm, within the reach of the wood stove.Season's Greetings from Dakota State from Tom Jones and Kevin Rydberg on Vimeo. Colleagues put together this cool video to extend greetings from us here in Madison to you where ever you are. Cheers!
Little Walter doesn't have a lot of insulation on his bony frame, so getting outside on a day like today (about 10 degrees) to do his business just does not offer any bonuses. Does it help to add pink booties and a little doggie jacket? I doubt it.
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending Dr. John Laflin's introductory literary criticism class as a visiting poet. It was a pleasant experience, with students who don't typically get to see me in that role, and they had good questions that led to some interesting discussions about individual poems and about writing in general. 
The previous post cited G.E. as the source of a great idea, but a magazine article I read afterward put a real buzz-kill on that, noting how G.E. is the scourge of the Hudson, pouring millions of gallons of PCB's in the river since forever ago. 
As I buzzed around town today, doing errands, helping neighbors, tending my own business, I couldn't help but notice the many flags flying to commemorate Veteran's Day, once a day celebrating the end of war. We do seem to have lost some of our aversion to war, though perhaps too few of us pay enough attention to the costs, in life, respect, and dollars not spent on better things. 
23 kids in two houses? Next door to each other? That's what it was in the 1970's when the Johnsons lived next to the Nelsons in Ft. Pierre. There were more kids on the block, including the Comptons, whose boys were notorious for mischief. 
landing the lead role in a production of Hamlet, to be played in the park. He doesn't want to do it. He hates Hamlet. His agent appears from California with a lucrative offer for another TV series, "Night School," to feature an idealistic high school teacher who moonlights as a semi-super hero.
I was intrigued by this story on the New York Times about a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, Arthur Rothstein, who in 1936 traveled through South Dakota documenting the drought years. He was apparently fond of the skull, hauling it around and taking pictures of it willy-nilly to document how damned dry it was here then, cows dying everywhere. His photos are in the Library of Congress, still with misleading information about them, at least according to James Curtis, who published a book on the subject in 1991: Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: F.S.A. Photography Reconsidered.
Subway riders looked around confusedly when we didn't shuffle through the doors Wednesday morning. Food vendors wondered what to do with their "chunky luncher" platters. Playgoers pondered what might have resulted in the four empty seats, ones usually populated with the most responsive audience members in Broadway (or off-Broadway) history. Empire State Building residents looked out at the Rock and saw that these four were gone (sob!) gone.
And we avoided landing belly-up on the slippery highways Saturday morning as we left Minneapolis. We got safely home again.
and 11,000 other runners took to the streets at 8:00am to tackle the 26.2 miles that makes up the Twin Cities Marathon course, navigating the streets around the lakes and rivers that make up the most beautiful urban marathon in the US. 
