mcgyver5: Minnesota

Sun, 23 May 2004 02:45:54 GMT

Just took Maggie and Frank and the two kids next door fishing at Lake Nokomis. I spent the whole time untangling lines and freeing snagged lures. I got to cast once. Everyone took their shoes off and waded and Maggie eventually fell over and got wet. She immediately turned blue and started shivering, so it was time to leave.

It was the first fishing adventure of the season and I was totally unprepared and disorganized. 2 out of the 4 fishing rods aren't working right and I didn't have half the stuff we needed.

So, for me and for anyone planning to take kids fishing, here is what you need:

5-gallon bucket
folding chairs
vest with pockets for tackle
plastic cutting board
a bunch of hooks with the barbs filed off.
change of clothing
snacks
sandals that can go in the water.
tools: pliers, scissors, knife
one working fishing pole for each kid
one lure or hook per pole already tied on
bait you don't mind getting wasted
sunscreen
bug repellant
drinking water

DNR Trout Stream Easement GIS Layer

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 21:23:59 GMT

My cube neighbor is creating a database of all the easements owned by the state along trout streams. It will soon be available in GIS format. That is, you can download the data and make pictures like this, which is the new data layed over arial photos. This particular selection is Lower Gavin Brook in Stockton, MN:

Trapping Turtles

Sat, 03 Apr 2004 04:13:33 GMT

This is a turtle tag. If you are a turtle seller or recreational turtle trapper, all of your traps require one. The DNR sells about 50 turtle licenses each year. Three people here have told me they taste like chicken. If not prepared properly they can be very high in contaminants because their fatty tissues store contaminants from their scavenger diet.

To prepare a snapping turtle, you chop the head off and let it bleed out for 24 hours because the involuntary movements last that long. If you don't hang them up while they are bleeding, they can crawl away without a head and get lost. Turtle is a popular item on the menu of area restaurants west of St. Cloud. I want to find out where I can try some.

Thu, 01 Apr 2004 21:02:37 GMT

Roland just came by the office. He is always interesting to talk to. His work is organizing fishing education events. He is putting together a kids fishing training event outside the Twins game on May 10. The DNR puts on lots of great family events like this. The schedule for all of these is on the DNR events calendar . He also told me about two blogs by friends of his: True Life and David Anderson's Lost City.

Woodland Mayhem

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 20:44:47 GMT

Cold and windy morning. Took my kids plus the kids next door to Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield. On a long path through the woods, I got far ahead of the gang and while waiting, I picked up a stick and started whacking dead branches off of a tree. Whack whack whack.
I started remembering how I used to do this all the time as a kid. Whack whack whack.
When I returned to the present, I noticed that all four
kids were gathered around in mute astonishment. The responsible adult was whacking the crap out of a tree. And with each whack, they felt a constraint
on their own behavior fall. Once they recovered their wits, they all started searching around for sticks of their own. There were lots of fallen trees around that needed whacking. Were they ever tired when we got home.

Thu, 25 Mar 2004 02:02:31 GMT

My most memorable live music experiences:

Soul Asylum played at Springfest 1989. I was black and blue for three weeks afterwards, partly from pogo dancing and partly from being hit in the head with a vodka bottle. My friend from Madagascar tried to get us all to stop pogo dancing because it was freaking him out. They played "That's when I reach for my revolver" during which I had a moment of stop action reality where I was bouncing off of people, bounding around the dance floor with no effort, barely touching the floor, barely inside my body.
Hank Williams Tribute night at the 400 bar. The best entry was the lead singer of Trailer Trash up there belting out hank songs with his cowboy hat and cowboy boots. Wowee was I ever drunk.
Greg Brown played at the "Alternative Energy Fair" in Forest Lake in 1991. About 16 people attended. He got up on stage, looked around and said, "What if they had an Alternative Energy Fair and nobody came?" It was a beautiful night and Greg did not disappoint.
Union Station at Winnipeg Folk Festival. Alison Krauss is something else. Years later, while working at Pillsbury, I saw a poster for Union Station in someone's office and stopped to say how much I liked them. The owner looked at me blankly and said that he only had the poster as part of a promotion they were doing.
Mandy Rogers and the Treefrogs singing "I never get your love" in my backyard.
My introduction to the Twin Cities music scene was seeing The Wallets at the St. Paul Armoury in 1985. The Blue Up also played. One hundred kids with flannel shirts tied around their waists.
Lonnie Brooks playing at Wilebski's Blues Saloon in Frogtown. 1986. I made the faux pas of telling the people I was with that he sounded like the Rolling Stones. "The Rolling Stones sound like him", I was assured.
Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeans playing at the Cabooze. I accidently got in a shoving match with some woman over who was going to stand where, but other than that, it was very enjoyable.
Run Westy Run at the Cabooze. I was there with Sean McCarthy who I worked with at Ciattis. Sean is worthy of a whole seperate post. Their lead singer was so cool, whipping himself around the mike stand and stuff. I used to be into that sort of thing.
Fugazi at the Heart of the Beast theatre. The room was packed and hot with no room to dance so the crowd just kind of mashed itself first against one wall and then against the other. A black kid was pulled out of the audience for fighting and brought up on stage. Some poor fool taunted him from the audience and the removed kid took a spectacular dive over eight rows of fans and brought his fist down on the guy's face with a POP that was heard across a room packed with 200 noisy people. That almost shut the show down. Good thing it didn't. I really worked something out of my system that night.

Wed, 24 Mar 2004 03:12:37 GMT

Went to Clouds in Water zen center just now. It is right in downtown St. Paul. Someone stopped me at the door and asked me if I knew what to do in a 35 minute sit. I said, "Yeah, yeah I know what it's all about."

Except I didn't know.

Zen meditation is different than what I have practiced for the past few months, which is vipassana, also called insight meditation. So different that they pulled me aside for special attention. Zen meditation is breathing and focusing on the breath in order to quiet the mind.. Vipassana is breathing and paying attention to what floats by in order to quiet the mind.

One obvious difference is that Zen meditation has a lot of structure and rules. You hold your hands here. You sew your own robe. You focus here. You sit like this and walk like that. It was explained to me that rules make things easier because then you don't have to decide where to focus your breath or which direction to face.

When the instructor took me out in the hall and told me how things were, he had me sit for 10 minutes with the special posture and special focus on the spot one inch behind my navel. Fire crept into my back and knees, but I got an idea that this kind of practice could produce the kind of holy stupor that I crave. I have decided to leave this type of practice for after I get more practice at the insight meditation.

Wed, 17 Mar 2004 04:16:55 GMT

New Minnesota weblog. All about canoe racing. A Radio weblog. He works at the DNR, in fisheries no less.

Date at Southdale

Sun, 14 Mar 2004 04:16:32 GMT

Tonight Kate and I found ourselves in the basement of Southdale Mall eating at Marshall Field's Boundary Waters Restaurant. The mall energy does not penetrate this restaurant, I was happy to discover. It was a decent place, reasonable prices. I had the almond encrusted walleye and enjoyed it, but not as much as the walleye I had at the broiler.

After dinner, we saw Starsky and Hutch. I laughed. Beyond that, I got nothing much to say about it. The leader of a local band called Har Mar Superstar appeared as a disco dancing contestant, Disco Dave.

Review of Poachers Caught!

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 05:02:25 GMT

From Poachers Caught!, a book by a retired Minnesota Conservation Officer:

In mid-March, a crust formed on the melting snow overnight, preventing already weakened animals from getting to food sources only 30 feet from the trail. Deer were slowly starving.

Many rural dogs located these weakened populations and their primitive instincts prevailed. The size and breed of the dog had no bearing on the dog's desire to kill; they were pets transformed into wolves. The morning was the critical time for the killing sprees. The snow, still crusty after a cold night, would support the dogs' weight and allow them to take long romps far from home over the frozen surfaces. A pack of mutts would actually form a hierarchy, the largest and strongest dog assuming leadership.

Just after sunrise, I patrolled the edges of yards known to have "pack dogs" looking intently for fresh canine tracks entering the woods.

The first set of tracks was quite large, ambling ahead of two smaller prints. The thin crust was unable to hold my weight, forcing me to limit my forward stumbling to the deer trails. Within five minutes of my grueling march, I spotted the first sign of mutilation: a yearling deer lay half buried 3 feet off the deep path. It appeared to have hardly struggled while raging teeth had torn it apart. Dogs on a deer mission seldom eat their prey; they only kill for the primal thrill!

Twenty yards farther was another red swirl of devastation. Two more fawns lay a few feet apart amid a layer of brown and white hair strewn about the otherwise white surface.

Before my morning trek was finished, I witnessed 16 carcasses of deer, all slaughtered and left for the ravens and coyotes to complete the feeding cycle.

I appreciate the book. It gives a real education in natural resource enforcement.

I learned:

A good way to poach fish at night without attracting attention is to sink a light into the lake and spear the fish as the come to check out the light.
Don't tell the conservation officer that all the fish you have cut up and packaged are rock bass. He won't believe you.
Poach in an area without vehicle access or surrounded by private lands.
Don't mark the path to your illegal gill netting operation with orange tape
If you use booze to control the alchoholic butcher that processes your poached deer, keep the shack were he lives locked.

There is a great deal of "It was a dark and stormy night" writing here. However, the exciting stories and insight into north woods culture make the "forward stumbling" through the flowery prose worth while.

Pretty much a meat and potato storyteller, he wades into the technical detail of his work without a look back. I find the details interesting. He has a deep knowledge of the biology of the resource he is trying to protect and great skills at watching and dealing with people. I read in the Star Tribune that he published the book himself. He could have used a better editor.

Despite the rough writing, he made his poachers come alive. There are sheepish tourists that know they are breaking the law, drunken, gun toting hard core poachers who physically intimdate the officer. He nails the descriptions of these people and that in itself is entertaining.

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 05:13:16 GMT

If you are into end-of-the-world scenarios, this one about the pentagon preparing for "Abrupt Climate Change" filled me with dread. Younger Dryas here we come.

What does the web have to say about it?

Doug Carmichael's Roughcut sees a use for it in the upcomming campaign.

This British blogger sez the british press sexed it up into a "suppressed secret report"

boingboing has a good post about how speculation turned into certainty in the press.

Article in the Oakland Tribune sez:

Left-wing bloggers and conspiracy-minded environmentalists seized on news of the report as a sign that President Bush still is hiding the real threat to America and that Mother Nature must be a Democrat."

Me? I don't want to believe it either. I like disorder and the concept of mankind punished by the gods as much as the next guy, but climate change doesn't get me there. I will be really really really sad if the Gulf Stream goes away. It seems like kind of a hard thing to get going again after it stops.

We can prove that our climate is changing and prove that climate change has happened very abruptly in the geologically recent past. The report does what good science fiction does; takes true trends and spins a tale around them. All the screaming doesn't help. Look how easy it is to point at the hysteria surrounding this report and use that to dismiss all talk of global warming.

Minnesota Visit Notes

Sun, 22 Feb 2004 17:09:32 GMT

My dad and Ellen just left. A great visit; immersive, as it must be to get our fill so we can last until we see them again.

Some highlights:

Jackson Street Roundhouse. We took Frank for a ride on a real train. Good place for a birthday party. They have a nice Thomas-themed play area as well. $5.00 per person.
Minnesota History Museum. There is voluntary donation box. I would never have brought a 2 year old and a 4 year old to a history museum, but it was perfect for kids. They have a three story high "grain elevator" that they can crawl around in...and a working Segway on hand that got my dad thinking about getting one.
Eating at the St. Clair Broiler. Their walleye is excellent. Maggie's tearful pleading for a forbidden malt inspired both my dad and Matt to order ones for themselves.
Playing keep-away from Jake.
Mall of America trip - outfitting Maggie for upcoming wedding and eatin' some crepes. Though that trip ended in screaming hysterics, it was, overall, a nice time. I got Maggie up from the fit she was pitching on the floor by telling her she could throw a dime into the fountain to make a wish. She stood up and threw the dime in while screaming at the top of her lungs, "I WISH I COULD STAY HERE FOR-EVERRRRR"
Baby-sitting for Lolly. She interacts as if she is about 9 months old. Uncanny.

ice fishing

Tue, 17 Feb 2004 02:29:32 GMT

I just came back from ice fishing on the St. Croix river. It is beautiful beyond imagining down there, but I froze my flesh to the point of morbidity and didn't catch any fish.

The people I was with all work for DNR fisheries and were kind of suprised at how slow it was. Walleye usually migrate there by now to get ready for spawning. We had two fish finders along and the guy who lives near there said that usually you can watch schools of fish swim by. Today there was nothing. We just saw our lures on there. Perhaps they are a little slow to make it up there this year.

Anyways, I had three hours to contemplate a hole in the ice. Jack caught two walleyes that were a little too small to keep. Then, right as we were getting ready to leave, he caught this bizarre thing with legs and gills called a mud puppy. It crawled around on the ice for a few seconds before freezing to a stop and then got pushed back down the hole. As they say, on a river, you never know what you'll catch.

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 00:29:58 GMT

I sat on a park bench for an hour this morning and meditated. The temp was hovering at about zero. I was dressed warmly, but the air slowly scalded my face and legs. I had a very tough time with meditation this morning, not so much because of the cold but because I was really wide awake. My brain kept throwing to-do lists at me and after a while started throwing plots for great sci-fi short stories at me. The plot of one was of a guy who gets ahold of a biofeedback device. A simple little thermometer that clips on to the end of his finger and tells him his skin temperature. After a few weeks of experimenting he finds he can warm his fingers with his mind and do things like heat one finger up to 150 degrees while the one next to it is 50 degrees. He eventually takes it to far and cooks one of his fingers until his knuckle pops like a microwaved egg.

One trick to meditation is not to be frustrated when you find yourself wandering, but to just say, "oh, here I am again in science fiction land" and go back to watching the breath. I then realized it's kind of like wind-surfing where you are cruising along for a while and then you fall off. You gotta recognize the falls as part of the game and get back on. Going back to the breath is like getting back on the board.

Wed, 11 Feb 2004 15:21:26 GMT

For our fifth anniversary, Kate and I stayed at a B&B in Red Wing called the Candlelight Inn. A fine place to stay. We went out to eat at the St. James Hotel there and had a decidedly mediocre meal. The service was just weird, like we were somehow shitheads for not ordering drinks or something. My steak was OK but walleye that Kate got was dry and boring to the point of being unedible. The next day we drove to Winona. On their main street deserted storefront follows deserted storefront. We went to the Watkins museum. Then we went to the Polish museum, which was the most confusing museum I have ever been to. "Sign The Guestbook!", shouted the crazed attendant as he barred admittance to those who dared pass unregistered. He then went back to watching a TV program that featured someone being strangled under water. I signed my name as Zybignew Scoobidooski. The museum was confusing. There was a priest named Paul Breza and there were some logs and there were lots of pictures of sports teams, but nothing to tie it all together. I guess it had some value; I learned that there is a Polish history to Winona and that the timber industry helped grow Winona. One of the logs had the following plaque:

This log was found in 1932

by Stan Breza (1911 - 1967)

buried in the mud by the Misssissippi river

I had to read it three times before I figured out that it was not Stan Breza buried in the mud, whether by his own people or by the river itself, but the log.

We ate lunch at the Acoustic Cafe in Winona. A clean and sunny hippie establishment that plays Neil Young albums and serves great coffee.

Mon, 02 Feb 2004 01:07:57 GMT

I was channeling some bad parent energy today. I mean, I just had no tolerance. So obvious it was that I needed a break that I was encouraged to GET OUT. So, I went cross country skiing at the Hyland Lake Park Preserve. Kids thronged the visitors center and snack bar when I first got there at 3:30 but the crowds soon thinned out and I was just about to do the same when I realized they had lighted trails. I had them all to myself. Exercising to the point where the air 3 inches away from my body is a comfortable 70 degrees sure beats the chill.

A new skiing fee for that park irked me. I have to pay $5.00 combined county and state fees at a park of which I am already a patron? For one of the cheapest sports on earth? Just what contribution did the State of Minnesota make to my outing, I wonder?

Sat, 31 Jan 2004 02:52:01 GMT

I got a tip from a mailing list that it is so cold today that you can take boiling water outside and toss it in the air and watch it crystalize before it hits the ground. I figured, "a good experiment for the kids". So, I boiled some water and filled a one litre pitcher with boiling water and took them outside. So trusting was I of this missive that I stood on the sidewalk and tossed a litre of boiling water straight up in the air and then looked up to watch the show. Half of it did crystalize. The other scaldingly hot half rained down on my upturned face and scalp as I ducked. The kids liked that. A neat puff of snow in the air followed by dad screaming and putting snow on his face. I decided to try again, this time planning to throw less water a lot higher so that it would all crystalize. Boiling water may not all crystalize in the air, but it sure freezes fast. I walked out to the same spot as before and tossed the water with such force that my feet flew out from under me on the ice that had already formed from my first attempt and I landed on my side, more embarrassed than hurt. They apparently loved the show because now they want to do more "experiments".

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 01:55:00 GMT

Ryan's sleepwalking brother will crack you up.

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 04:51:22 GMT

I went to the ECHO homeschool meeting tonight.

There were about 40 people there. 20 of them were new. When asked how they heard about the group they responded in unison: "THE INTERNET" kind of made me feel that what had been promised about the internet was coming true. Brought a tear to my eye.

Karl Bunday was there and invited everyone to his excellent website.

We discussed screening, the test every child has to take before kindergarten. The advice of the group was to either ignore this or let the district know you would be homeschooling when they call you looking for your kid. One mom said the screening experience convinced her to homeschool because her child tested well in the screening and she realized her child would be completely bored in kindergarten. Knowing how destructive he got when he was bored, she decided to make it easier on everyone and keep him home.

Financial Issues: Besides the usual point that its tough to make up the cost of childcare when both parents work full time, they didn't say much about how to know if you can afford to homeschool. One mom there did say she had a full time job with flexible hours. Most of the talk focused on paying for the stuff you couldn't provide yourself. For example, distance learning is getting huge. Even though the distance learning offerings are expensive, the good ones have financial aid packages that make them very affordable.

The state of Minnesota allows a family to get a tax credit or deduction of up to $1500.00 for purchases they make for extra-curricular education. This is available to homeschoolers. In addition, there is a $63.00 per year reimbursement available in Minnesota for education materials. The materials become the property of the school district, but according to the group, the school district never comes looking for their stuff.

Can you compensate for what they might be missing at school?

Someone said, "Sure, just hire someone to beat them up and take their lunch money" A response that I liked was that there will be times that you get worried because your child doesn't learn things the same year that every other 10-year-old learns them, but don't worry, that stuff all gets filled in.

In regards to socialization, the group was of the opinion that no one can homeschool alone. It is important to form a group and make sure that the adults have solid relationships before going forward.

Do you like teaching enough to homeschool?

One of the women leading the meeting said she was glad she never asked herself this before deciding to homeschool, because the idea of droning on all day at her kids but that looking back, it is a different concept of teaching. You are working one on one with children at the same time you are parenting. The advice of the group was "Don't worry if your answer to this question isn't an automatic yes"

One thing I noticed about the group was that there was an in-group of homeschoolers that had ownership of this group. They often broke off into stories about their experiences together and it was clear that there would be no busing program that would allow my child to be a part of their groovy little homeschool co-op.

George Andersen

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:50:06 GMT

Bizarre. [free registration] George Andersen, Minnesota lottery director, killed himself. Nothing attracts attention like committing suicide right before the results of an audit are released. He must have had more on his mind than accepting free tickets to a bass tournament.

For once I agree with David Strom:

David Strom, president of the Minnesota Taxpayers League and a frequent critic of the lottery, called Andersen "a force to be reckoned with in Minnesota politics. Governors came and governors went, but George Andersen stuck around." Strom said he opposed the lottery because "we saw it as an unaccountable source of state funds."

Strom said he never had any personal criticism of Andersen, "but the lottery agency absolutely had too much autonomy. A lot of legislators were intimidated by it. It was self-funding, so they had very little control over it."

The lottery funds, among other things, the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCMR), a famously capricious being that hands out money for environmental projects. The job I had at the Dept. of Agriculture was funded through LCMR.

Sun, 25 Jan 2004 23:57:10 GMT

I am looking for web sites relating to wastewater and found this nugget, a blogger who is posting his Experiences as a water and sanitation engineer in Guatemala....

But I can't find anyone talking about what I think is a huge sleeping budget issue: At some point, we as a society are going to have to fork over huge amounts of money to address water issues. Two big areas are immediately apparent to me: Projects that get water to people that have used theirs up and upgrades to our wastewater treatment infrastructure.

Wastewater:

It was more than 30 years ago that huge amounts of money were ploughed into building municipal wastewater plants. I remember when one of these was built outside of Springfield Mass. Bondi's Island. It made some neighborhoods of Springfield unbearable for a while and we could smell it up on the hill in Longmeadow on summer nights. We used to call a guy Bondi's because he let out a vicous fart one day at lunch.

When the wind is right, I can smell the Pig's Eye treatment plant outside of the DNR. Security guards refer to it as the shit factory. One of the security guards at the DNR told me that she was stationed there for two days, but refused to go back because the smell made her sick. Another guard told me it is where they station you if you make too many mistakes at another place.

I work to keep the daylight world of work and family and recreation completely seperate from the subject of "what happens after I flush the toilet, but stories like "Minnehaha creek hit with 300,000 gallons of spilled sewage" remind me of the existence of an infrastructure that wisks away my defamation.

I am expecting this hidden world to inch its way into our attention. The decay is real. Pipes and pumps need replacing. Spills due to broken equipment are real. It will be interesting to see how communities, especially the ones who don't even want to pay for sidewalks, will deal with it. And it will be interesting to watch politicians, especially the ones who have bullshitted their way into office by promising lower taxes and smaller government avoid the issue.

Labyrinth of the soccer moms

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 02:45:55 GMT

Took the kids to Edinborough indoor park yesterday. It used to be free, now it is $5.00 per kid. But, you are paying for the most awesome indoor play structure in the world. And paying for an environment where you can leave your digital camera and your wallet on the bench while you chase your kids through the maze because the other people there would be like, "why would I want to carry around another digital camera or touch someone else's icky wallet?" Other pictures here here and here.

Crawling around in there, you encounter all these young moms wearing sweats. You have to kind of grunt past them in the dark narrow passageways..... well, looking back, I guess I didn't have to grunt.

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 06:07:34 GMT

The point of this post is to warn people about the bike tunnel under 35E along Shephard Road.

It is cold here, but the roads are clear of ice and it was a crisp, beautiful day. So I parked my car in highland park and intended to ride the rest of the way to work. 6 miles? They are completing a new tunnel for bikes under the highway so I thought I would try it out. Someone else already knocked down the orange fence and the keep out sign and so I rode on through, feeling the thrill of riding my bike somewhere I wasn't supposed to. I heard a distinctive ker-PUNK as something punctured my tire and when I looked closer, I noticed that there were nails and snipped up steel wires twisted into curly-Q shapes strewn all over the floor and standing upright in some of the lines in the cement. So, I had a long walk back to my car. I think tomorrow I will try it again and put up a sign warning people.

Carp Pond at Como Conservatory

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 03:04:59 GMT

OK. A picture of the Koi (Carp) pond:

St. Paul Conservatory

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 03:39:05 GMT

The Saint Paul Conservatory is a nice place to bring kids in winter. It is hot and humid inside there and it is big enough to find a spot to sit and pretend you live in the tropics. We went there on Sunday. Admission is $1.00 for adults