Detroit Lakes and the Antique Adventure!

Today is a memorable day for me, although I don't remember it. 

According to local weather archives, the morning of 8 October 1969 was chilly in the upper 30s to lower 40s, gradually warming into the mid-to-upper 50s. Clouds moved in, bringing wet conditions in the afternoon. Local records show that by daylight hours surfaces and roofs were wet from rainfall as light breezes made it feel even cooler. 

On that day, there was growing public anxiety regarding artificial sweeteners as the FDA investigated genetic breakdowns in laboratory animals, causing public panic over diet foods and drinks; protests against the Vietnam war were being organized at the University of Minnesota and Moorhead State College. The Minnesota Twins had just fired manager Billy Martin despite leading the team to an American League West title, while the Minnesota Vikings, led by quarterback Joe Kapp, were on their way to winning the NFL title and would eventually appear in Super Bowl IV at the end of the season, which would be the last before the NFL/AFL merger. 

In the arts, the Guthrie Theater premiered Uncle Vanya, which was the last show directed by Tyrone Guthrie at the theater he founded six years prior.

That was my world when I came screaming into it 57 years ago at exactly 4:21 PM. I don't scream anymore. I just swear a lot. It's a bad habit, but people who know me embrace it. It's me.

Earlier this week, as an early birthday gift to myself, my wife and I enjoyed a couple days in Detroit Lakes; a simple, low cost getaway. We visited the city in July and decided an encore was needed since we didn't get to see much in the single day we were there this summer.

DL, as most Minnesotans call it, is probably best known as the home of WE Fest, one of the biggest country music festivals in the nation, a summer staple since 1983. I've never attended WE Fest and I don't think I ever will. But my brother and his wife were there for the very first one, so I do have a little connection.

No, we were not in DL for country-pop or country-rap or whatever it is called these days. We were there to just relax. Lakeside Tavern and Bucks Mill Brewery were fun places to visit, as was Disgruntled Brewery in Perham, where we stopped to watch the Vikings game.

We had a lovely view of Detroit Lake and took in a couple stunning sunsets. But the highlight was an antique mall not far from our hotel, SuLaine's Antique Mall. Nothing like 14,000 square feet of historical junk to make my day! I have been to other antique malls and found the prices a bit ridiculous, but at SuLaine's, I thought the prices very reasonable. It made it difficult not to go on a spending spree.

We spent hours there and I don't think we actually saw everything. I was disciplined with my purchases because, honestly, we don't have a lot of room to put stuff. But the few things I did buy, I just could not resist!

I burst into a happy dance (not a sight to behold) when I unearthed this bad boy deep in a corner shelf:

A coffee cup from the original Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Now, I need another coffee cup like I need to gain another 25 pounds. As a personal policy, I don't buy coffee cups anymore because we just don't have the space. But come on, the Sands is where the Rat Pack used to play! Are you kidding me? Sold!

But my most intriguing purchase initially seemed the most mundane. 

Fun fact: I absolutely love old maps. The history and ever-changing roads, routes and landscape have always intrigued me. When I saw this old Standard Oil road map, memories I totally forgot suddenly came rushing back. My father had a Standard Oil map; as a matter of fact, almost everyone did because I am fairly certain that Standard Oil used to give them away as a courtesy to drivers (and as an advertising gimmick). In honor of my dad, I had to take one home. It was sealed in a plastic envelope when I bought it, so I couldn't look at it until I got back to the hotel. 

The map was printed in 1958, using a template from 1957. I know this because of these numbers: 8-575614-2. The 8- is the last digit of the year it was printed. The next six numbers 575614 are Rand McNally's base plate (1957-1956) for that geographical region and the -2 is the second printing. This particular plate code was the Kerr-McGee/Deep Rock Minnesota Map. [Yes, it is completely amazing what a small amount of information AI can provide answers for!]

But when I unfolded the map, this is what I found, much to my chagrin!

Someone, once upon a time, wrote on my map! At first I was bummed. But soon I realized this was even more of a treasure. I started imagining why someone would scribble information on, of all things, a map -- who wrote this? When? Why? And most of all, what does it mean? The information is fascinating, although I can't decipher all of it.

I believe this says, "Mrs. Evanson"... "Ede(?)"... CR 30047" ... "Kilseth"... "Swanson CR3-6363" 
Oddly, this information is crossed off with an X. Could they be names and phone numbers?

"Mrs. Lyle Fugle, Fargo" ... "Sophia" ... "Mrs. Morris Olson" ... "7 yrs ago 84" ... "2 or 3 days" ... "slept(?) away" ... "old age" ... "heart attack 56"

I am convinced that "AD5-6541" is a phone number, which was the typical exchange you would see from the 1940s-1960s. Perhaps it was Mrs. Lyle Fugle's number? The information in general is jumbled and doesn't follow a logical pattern, which makes it hard to understand. To make it more difficult, much of the handwriting is a challenge for me to work out.

An interesting clue I did find on Ancestry.com: one Lyle Fugle died in Fargo, ND on 15 May 1964 at the age of 63 years old. He worked as a dividend clerk. His wife's name was Margaret; they were married in 1943 and she had a graduate degree in social work. Could these be the same people referred to here? 

Of course, this mystery will never be solved, nor will I ever know who wrote this information or why they decided to write it in the middle of a map? 

History's mysteries are everywhere. A simple little find at an antique store can send you on a wild goose chase if you are willing to be led away!

Anyway, that's my birthday post. Maybe I should enjoy a beer. I survived 57 years. That's worth a toast, right?

A Leaky Sky and The Old Farmer's Almanac, No. 235

 The sky is leaking rain today, only 55 degrees. I'm not sure if this is good weather even for a duck.

We went through a summer drought here, no rain for about a month, and now we've gotten more than three inches over the past few weeks. That's probably a good thing, though. According to The Old Farmer's Almanac, this winter will have below average snowfall and an

unusually mild start to the season, punctuated by sharp temperature swings and highly unpredictable precipitation patterns.

While that forecast sounds mysterious and impressive, it is awfully vague. It basically says Minnesota's winter will be predictably unpredictable. It will get cold... and it will warm up (it is called the "January thaw," and it happens every winter). It might snow a lot... and it might not (no, that's not really helpful). Honestly, it doesn't tell me much that I don't already know, aside from a mild December and below average snowfall.

Where did this forecast come from? The answer is actually kind of fun.

Way back in 1792, when the  Almanac was first published (it is the oldest continuously published periodical in North America), the original publisher and editor,  Robert B. Thomas, invented a secret forecasting method using both solar activity and astronomy. This secret formula is still used today. 

Robert Thomas published The Old Farmer's Almanac from 1792 to 1846. He died reading the proofs for the 1847 publication. He's an unsung American icon. 

The Old Farmer's Almanac boasts an 80% weather forecast accuracy claim. That's refuted by the University of Illinois, which conducted its own study and found the Almanac to be accurate roughly 50.7% for temperatures and 51.9% for precipitation, citing that a random guess would be accurate 50% of the time. 

But scientific data be damned! The U.S. government so respected the Almanac's accuracy, that when a World War II German spy was caught with a copy of the publication, Uncle Sam instructed the editors to change their description from "weather forecast" to "weather indications," fearing the enemy could use its long-range forecasts to schedule attacks. A less definitive "weather indications" felt less certain. Fearing censorship, the Almanac complied.

Abraham Lincoln famously used The Old Farmer's Almanac's 1857 edition to acquit an innocent man on murder charges, proving there was a new moon on the night a witness falsely claimed to see the accused fleeing the crime scene in the "bright moonlight" (the witness subsequently admitted to lying under oath). 

An original copy of the 1857 Old Farmer's Almanac (No. 65), used as evidence by a little known defense lawyer from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. 

I confess, I am very fond of the Almanac. Whether its forecasts (or "indications") are accurate is unimportant to me: in the end, it is a connection to my parents. Those 288 pages give me a warm, tangible connection to my youth. It feels like home. 

The Almanac was a constant presence during my childhood. We always had a well-thumbed copy lying around the house, either lounging on the kitchen table or tucked away near my dad's rocking chair. Dad enjoyed the day-to-day forecasts, which were always set to a little poem. Mom liked the gardening tips and recipes. A September without a new Almanac would've been like Christmas without presents at our house.

Today, we live in an age of constant stimulation. A continuous bombardment of the senses: text messages, emails, phone calls, never-ending social media notifications. Our brains are never allowed to pause. The Old Farmer's Almanac feels like a welcomed stretch-and-yawn back to a much slower and much simpler time. A time to reflect as the raindrops puddle in the yard. A time to simply study the steam rising from a cup of coffee. A time to just be for a while. 

Photo by Ava Branstner

I love that the Almanac is still here.

I love that the yellow, woodcut cover has never changed. I love that a 235 year-old "secret formula" is still used to predict weather patterns (no matter how nebulous it might be!). I love that the editors have refused to succumb to an all digital format or AI generated crap. And I love that the publication still sells greater than three million copies a year. 

I thank The Old Farmer's Almanac for never really changing in well over two centuries. Sometimes, progress is overrated. 

So here's to publication No. 235...

I know if my parents were here, they'd already have their copy. 

My copy is arriving tomorrow!

First Day of Autumn, 2026

 Today is the fall equinox as the Sun crosses the equator and heads south. Days are shorter, shadows are longer, the air no longer tropical. Migratory birds have taken wing as squadrons of Canadian geese check their visas and go south. 

We haven't seen a hummingbird for about a week now. Like clockwork, they are off to their destinations in Mexico and Central America. It is amazing those little zip darts can fly that far. 

Hopefully, they will be allowed back into the United States next spring. 

My wife and I joke that we are now of the age where sitting on our deck watching the hummers dive bomb each other is our primary form of summer amusement. In their absence, I guess our new entertainment will be our substantial squirrel population: the grays versus the blacks versus the reds. Daily, non-stop drama. Hmmm... maybe that will be the subject of a future post?

Yeah, we live a simple life.

An empty feeder and an empty hummingbird swing means summer is over.

It is easy to overlook autumn because those delicious summer days and soothing summer nights are gone and another brutal winter lies ahead. Yet in a way, fall is an anticipatory season. Those first white flakes are not far away and my son once said he really looks forward to that.

"Why?' I asked him.

"I guess it is because I haven't seen snow in a while," was his thoughtful answer.

Even though autumn can be a very short season, it is actually my favorite. The confetti colors, the smell of wood smoke drifting from chimneys, the crisp air, hot apple cider, brittle leaves crunching under foot and sunflowers in bloom.

Oh, and football season!

A bright-eyed sunflower on our deck. We planted it this spring. A sure sign of fall.

So here's to autumn and the memories of summer. 

...and to hummingbirds. Come back soon, guys.

Attack of the Anonymous Keyboard Warriors (So Scary!)

 I have found a new inspiration to post a bit more here. Heck, it has only been six months since my last post, it is not like it has been half a year or something.

And that right there... that right there is where the anonymous keyboard warriors attack.

Six months and half a year are the same thing, but those anonymous keyboard warriors would be very quick to point out how dumb I am for not knowing the difference.

~

I launched this humble little blog five years ago, and I have had almost 95,000 people visit. I think that is awesome, but it has come with a price.

You see, the difficult thing about blogging, or finding the motivation to continue posting, is this: There are people out there who delight in insulting others anonymously. As usual, this is the pond scum who cannot differentiate between sarcasm, irony, cynicism and satire.

Fourteen months ago, I posted about an expedition in the South Pacific to find Amelia Earhart's long lost plane. The post was part genuine curiosity, and part sarcasm. I found something on Google maps that looked interesting and suggested I had discovered her plane (all by myself!!) on Nikumaroro Island, where the Taraia Object can be found. 

The object I found was a shipwreck, which is well documented. I knew that. Unfortunately, this was ill received by the simpleton crowd.

Anonymous keyboard warriors, having no idea who I am and clueless to my sense of humor, attacked me like you wouldn't believe.

Among the less insulting comments were, "How dumb." "Do your research" (I love that one). "Your an idiot" (that would be "YOU'RE an idiot," you jeenyus -- and yes, I intentionally misspelled genius, just in case you are wondering and are sitting at your keyboard ready to attack). 

In 2021, I turned on the comments here for anyone, including folks who wanted to remain anonymous. I enjoyed the feedback. I liked exchanging ideas with people. I liked creative criticism. But that was a mistake. Something has changed over the years. 

Why have people become so fucking vicious to others? Why do people type things that they would never dream of saying to you face to face? Have we always been this awful as human beings? Is the lack of accountability hiding behind a keyboard given us this "courage" to be bad people assholes? Do we feel better about ourselves belittling others? 

Indeed, something happened. And I know what it is. It isn't a mystery. But I will keep that to myself.

It is especially hilarious when something is written tongue-in-cheek and it flies like a fragile bluebird over the heads of those who are intelligence-starved.

Don't get me wrong, because deep inside I know the vast majority of people are good. I see it everyday at my workplace. But there is an old saying that goes, "One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel."

Anyway, after weathering so many negative comments, I thought about just closing this site. Why would I open myself up to that kind of abuse? 

But giving up is not in my DNA. I swing back.

I am going to continue to write what I feel like writing and I am going to write more frequently. If I post something that pisses somebody off, then I am doing something right. Like they say, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

This site is still open to all public search engines and open for the public to read; however, if you want to leave a hurtful comment, you now have to be a member of this blog. If you want to call me "a fucking loser," you can't hide behind your keyboard anymore. You will be required to identify yourself so we can have a little discourse. 

And if you look at my occupation on my profile, I am not an interpretive dancer. That's called humor. It is also called irony, because I am a white middle-aged male and I can't dance.

Cup of coffee, 27 March 2026

 A chilly but sunny morning here, unfortunately it feels much colder with a brisk northwest wind. The weather is schizophrenic this time of year: 70 degrees one day, 30 degrees the next. I've got a few things on my mind, so have a cup of coffee and let's talk.

My Wall Drug coffee cup. I like the old "cafe" design. I got this on vacation in South Dakota a few years ago.

For the last few weeks I have been slowly weaning myself off social media. In light of recent world events, I found myself spending too much time on Facebook, Reddit, X, Threads, etc. and it was starting to kill my soul: A state of constant anxiety. Inability to sleep at night. A never-ending pallor of impending doom. 

I decided I cannot live like this. I am old enough to remember life before social media. And it was a much better place.

I deleted all but one app: Instagram (and that is strictly because my kids like to send me things like memes, reels, or whatever the hell you call it). I don't scroll Instagram. Instead, the only time I open it is when I have a new message.

While I want to stay informed of national and world events, I have found that social media is a breeding ground for misinformation. These platforms are contributing the the downfall of our society and it is burrowing an addictive, anxiety-ridden, toxic wormhole into our consciousness.

But what caused me to finally say enough was enough? The conflict in Iran was the last straw.

First, almost everything we see on social media these days is AI generated. And so many people believe everything they see without questioning or scrutinizing. Education is important, folks.

Second, any web site can call itself a "news source" and it can post any fiction under the sun. There's always a simpleton or a malcontent out there who will take a story at face value and repost on social media, especially if the content fits their agenda.

The cesspool known as Facebook is especially bad. That platform is full of gullible, uneducated, village idiots. "News stories" are shared as Gospel without verifying a single legitimate source ...then the name calling, arguments and threats start. Family vs. family. Friends vs. friends. Strangers vs. strangers. Day after day after day. 

Daily exposure to this can kill your joy for living really fast. 

Other platforms such as Threads, X, Reddit, etc. are filled with paranoid doomsdayers, who clearly have nothing to do but doom scroll all day while curled in a fetal position. Sadly, it doesn't take much to follow them down that morbid blackhole and I admit they nearly got their hooks in me before I finally woke up.

Third, every news source in the United States has an agenda; to understand this truth is to be ahead of the game. Today's "news" falls into two categories: it is either anti-Trump or Trump-sponsored propaganda. Both are designed to divide us and it has worked spectacularly well. 

A certain faction of our populous has been led to believe if you are anti-Trump you are anti-American. Not only is this an unpatriotic, un-American way of thinking (if you know American history, you know this to be true), it is groupthink at its finest, just as Orwell predicted some 77 years ago. 

What do I mean by this? Over the years, I've know many people who were anti-Obama, anti-Bush, anti-Clinton, anti-Reagan (yes, I am that old). Did I ever think those folks (who are good friends/family/co-workers) anti-American? Of course not. Just because your political beliefs do not align with the current president's agenda, it does not make you "an enemy of the state" (unfortunately, that's a quote). However, that is the current climate in our country. 

And this sentiment is as un-American as you can possibly get. Wait... how is that un-American?

The United States of America was founded on differences. It was founded on open debate and intellectual discourse. It was founded on argument, exchange of ideas and, ultimately, compromise. The Founding Fathers were not a bunch of "yes men." They were feisty dudes who yelled, pounded tables and bickered a blue streak, but they all had a common cause: love of country. That's been recently minimized from our collective consciousness, but it doesn't change the truth. 

And the first step to the truth is getting news without an agenda. 

I have found four excellent news options: Reuters, Associated Press, BBC and Al Jazeera (yes, Al Jazeera; this is a trusted, impartial, internationally award-winning news organization -- rednecks ain't gonna like the name, but once again, education is very important). These are the news sources I personally trust.

So what do I do now that I am not scrolling on social media? The site 1440  is incredibly refreshing (I am providing the link here just in case anyone else is seeking a "way out" of the perversion of social media). The 1440 site is free and is full of awesome stories for the intellectually curious. They also provide daily news updates (email) which are balanced from an assortment of agencies, along with daily interesting tidbits from around the world.

 I am going back to a more simple time. It is difficult to do these days, but I am determined to get there. 

Go outside. Start writing. Learn a new skill. Start reading. Find a hobby.

Think of how much of your life is wasted staring at a screen. This is just a temporary stop. Make the most of it.

 

The Land of Hype and Hyperbole

 If only it felt as nice as it looks outside. 

Blue skies, bright, blinding sunshine bouncing off the snow. But it is about 10 degrees with a nasty 30 mile per hour wind, making it feel like -2 degrees Fahrenheit. 

There was a significant snowstorm about 70 miles south of me this weekend. I was right on the border of the storm, stuck in forecast purgatory; literally, "1 inch to 13 inches of snow", but the unknown forced me to stay at my workplace Saturday night (I must be within 20 minutes of my work when I am on-call, and I had no idea what the weather was going to do; nor did Mr. Weatherman). 

Turns out we got perhaps three inches, maximum. 'Tis the "Land of Hype and Hyperbole," I like to call it.

Looking out my window on this chilly Monday, 16 March 2026

Turns out, not much happened workwise this weekend. But it was one of those things where I couldn't do much but wait for my pager to go off, so I made a huge dent in a new book I am reading, John Williams: A Composer's Life by Tim Greiving, which I am just loving.  

I knew nothing about Williams prior to opening this book, and what a life -- what a career!! Of course, he's known for his close association with Spielberg, but Williams was in the music/television/film business for twenty years prior to meeting Spielberg. 

Williams had already scored films such as The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Fiddler on the Roof and Valley of the Dolls as well as made-for-television movies such as Jane Eyre and the infamous (to football fans) Heidi, plus television series like Lost in Space (he wrote the theme song), Gilligan's Island and Wagon Train, just to name a few. If that wasn't enough he had also already won a Grammy and an Academy Award. At 43 years old, he was considered perhaps the best film composer in Hollywood. 

Then he met a 25 year-old film geek named Steven who was a Williams "fanboy" and desperately wanted to work with the music legend. I think it is very akin to compare their fortuitous union with that of Lennon and McCartney in pop music: the meeting of two geniuses from which the rest of the world was rewarded with a lifetime of entertainment.

One of the interesting bits that I have read is that Spielberg strongly recommended John Williams to his friend George Lucas, who was struggling with a "space opera." Lucas thought it would ultimately be "a film to be watched by 10 year-old boys on a Saturday afternoon." As partial payment for his work, Lucas offered Williams 1% of the film's box office earnings.

Star Wars has earned approximately $10 billion at the box office; 1% of $10 billion is $100 million. Not a bad day's work.

Remember,that's just ONE film. We won't even go into the remainder of the Star Wars series, Jaws, the Indiana Jones series, the Jurassic Park series, E.T. (The Extra Terrestrial), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler's List, Home Alone, the Harry Potter series... well, you get my drift. The man is simply the greatest movie composer of all time and no one else is even close. Period. (Oh, did I mention Superman?)

Anyway, what I meant to say before going off on this tangent is that I am enjoying this book very much.

So that's it for now. I will update again, soon. Meanwhile I will sit in my easy chair and sadly watch the world burn. I have a feeling the other shoe is going to drop soon, I am just not sure which shoe; I am hopeful of one and fearful of the other. 

I promised myself not to get political on this site, so I will stop there. 

(**Gemini, Google's AI platform, tells me that it was Alec Guiness who was offered a percentage of the box office receipts, not Williams. However, author Tim Greiving has done impeccable, detailed homework in this biography and I trust his years of research over a shitty one second AI search.)

Hella Kids

This morning I finished All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Everyone on the planet has heard of this classic, published 97 years ago, but I had never read it. It was an incredibly heavy book (emotionally heavy; the book itself is just 179 pages). 

The story is based on Remarque's own horrendous physical and psychological ordeal in the trenches of France during World War One. The reader is truly left with a sense of how horrific and utterly senseless war really is. It should be required reading for every world leader. 

But that assumes every world leader can read.

"The only good thing to come from war is camaraderie."

On a lighter note, my part of this big world woke up to cotton candy fog this morning. "Thick as pea soup" as my mother used to say, although I don't remember her ever making pea soup, In fact, I'm not sure what pea soup even looks like. I'm guessing it is thick and green, which is nothing like fog. 

A better descriptor would be "Thick as Campbell's mushroom soup." That's definitely better. Opaque and gray-ish. It resembles two-day old phlegm but it tastes great. Or should I say, M'm! M'm! Good!

But these murky mornings are welcome here. As we inch closer to spring, hour by hour, fog forms like the ghost of winter, slowly fading, melting, releasing its death grip. It actually feels satisfying to turn on the fog lights as one ventures out and about. 

Speaking of, I drove my son to jazz band this morning; he has jazz practice every morning at 7:30 AM. I give him credit, because jazz is meant to be played at midnight, when you finally find the pocket and the atmosphere of a smokey nightclub is just right; capturing that groove right after breakfast is impossible, but you do what you have to do. 

As I headed home, navigating the roundabouts, I approached a rusted out Dodge Durango from behind. I could see white lettering stenciled on the back window and being the curious type, I had to inch closer to see what it read:  

"HELLA KIDS IN THIS BITCH" in capital letters (a fancy, dancing script to give it a classy touch). 

I am too old to understand this vernacular, so I had to look it up. It turns out "hella" actually has its roots in 1970s and 1980s slang in the Bay Area of California. I'm not so sure about that because I grew up in the '70s and '80s, and I never heard of the word "hella" until No Doubt came out with a song called "Hella Good" around the turn of the 21st century. 

I presume "hella" is an adverb; roughly meaning "really" or "very." If so, the phrase "hella kids" doesn't make a lot of sense to me. "Hella kids in this bitch" obscures the meaning even more. The "bitch" part could mean the Durango itself, or perhaps it refers to the driver of the Durango, who could be pregnant. 

Regardless, the essence of the meaning, I am guessing, is a redneck/white ghetto interpretation of "Baby On Board."

Either way, I give Durango credit for spelling everything correctly, because the "t" is silent in "bitch," and it is frequently overlooked. 

Hella well done, Durango.

The Blind Assassin

 This is a quick post for book lovers, because only book lovers know the feeling I have right now: a feeling of contented exhaustion after finishing a great novel. 

As usual, I am late to the party. The Blind Assassin was published 26 years ago, but it was new to me, and I had no idea what to expected when I opened to page one; maybe something about a professional assassin? Maybe some secret agent man shit going on? 

Nope, not at all. Essentially this was a novel within a novel with three different, yet interwoven stories twisting around each other. 

I admit I had the thing figured out about 3/4 of the way through, or at least I thought I did, but then the last 125 pages had me second-guessing myself. Awesome storytelling.

Margaret Atwood turned 86 years old last November and she now has a brand new fan. Hey, it is better late than never!

It is hard to believe, but I am actually going to sit down and write a bit. I have my cup of tea by my side -- the cup is a big, black 20 ounce treasure from the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. It's a great place to visit if you're in the area -- especially if dinosaurs are your thing. The tea is "Organic Peachy Green" by Tazo. I am happy it is "organic," because an inorganic tea doesn't sound very palatable. The Tazo connoisseurs say this tea has a "hint of cucumber," but I'm not buying it. Still, it is pretty tasty.

No, I have not stopped drinking coffee; far from it, actually. Throughout the morning, I've had two pots of Sunrise Blend from New Hill Coffee Roasters. My friend, Kevin, is the owner/operator of New Hill and he roasts and blends fantastic coffee.

This date, February 28, is earmarked in my life and it might be why I was moved to write today. My father died on this day back in 1997. I held his hand when he slipped away. I've always been thankful I was with him when he took his last breath. I will never know if he knew I was there, but I am glad he wasn't alone. Twenty-nine years ago feels like yesterday, but at the same time it feels like a lifetime ago.

〰

So what have I been doing? Working, mostly. I usually have a day off during the week and then embrace these precious weekends. I've been watching lots of basketball lately; I always do in February and March. It isn't nearly as entertaining and interesting as football, but it is better than most things on television. 

I am also reading (almost done) a fantastic novel, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It was a Christmas gift from my daughter who picked it up at a used book store (she knows I love those kinds of gifts). Atwood, of course, is most famous for The Handmaid's Tale, which presently sits atop my desk, part of my lengthy "To Read" list. If it is half as good as The Blind Assassin, I will be happy. She's an awesome writer.

Well, the days are getting longer. That's a positive. This time of year I am always looking for something positive, because this is an ugly time of year. The snow has become a flagrant gray-black, as if its very existence is meant to be offensive. The trees are barren skeletons. The few pock marks of bare ground are dreary and dead. The sky is concrete on most days. On good days, the temperatures rise above freezing for a short time, then the world becomes a skating rink at night. Rinse and repeat. Day after day. 

Oh, and there's dog shit everywhere.

I guess this is called "spring fever," right?

And, as any Minnesotan knows, winter isn't over. My dad used to say we always get a snowstorm right around the boys state basketball tournament. And you know what? He was right every time. I suspect the same will be true this year.

[editor's note: my last post waaay back in July 2025 was about the Amelia Earhart plane wreckage and the Purdue University expedition to Nikumaroro where the mysterious Taraia Object is located. I mentioned there was something very odd on the northwestern shore, which was nowhere close to the infamous satellite imagery that many researchers think is Earhart's plane. 

As it turns out, this is actually a shipwreck of the SS Norwich City, which foundered there in 1929. So, my eyes didn't deceive me; it really was something man-made, just not an airplane. Mystery solved.

By the way, this expedition, originally slated for November 2025, has been postponed until later in 2026.]