Winter of our discontent

News flash: Minnesota in winter is cold. I had this amazing dream two nights ago where I was on a boat speeding through some bay in California. It was warm, the scenery was beautiful, and then I woke up. The worst part about winters in Minnesota, at least for the last three, is that while they have been cold, there has been little snow. There is some snow today (2-4 inches) but it’s just enough to be a nuisance. St. Paul’s Winter Carnival is getting some press right now, primarily for the ice palace (live webcam!) constructed across from the arena. Since Maggie works there, I’ve driven by virtually every day of its construction. We live right by Lake Phalen, which is where they’ve cut the ice for the construction. (An aside: Lake Phalen’s water level has been down greatly, primarily because of the lack of snow but also because of general drought. They took a lot of ice from the lake; I wonder if that will further lower the lake level by an appreciable amount?)

In Duluth, they have had two feet today. Maybe it’s a good thing that I am not working there any more. At some point I’ll have to update what happened in Duluth last summer. I’ll preview: firms are not supposed to treat their summer associates the way I was treated.

A friendly plug: my good friend Jeff Shaw, who is a freelance writer, has gotten his first piece published in a major publication. His feature on a new U.S. military base proposed on a tiny atoll in Okinawa is now in the Christian Science Monitor, complete with professional map graphics. It’s worth a read. Jeff has had a huge number of pieces picked up before, but mostly they have been with lefty/indy publications with lesser circulation than the CSM. (As a sampling, Jeff has published pieces on bioprospecting in In These Times, the Patriot Act II in the New Standard, protests against nuke subs in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and a bit about watching mountain goats while hiking that was picked up by the Bellingham Herald.) Nicely done, Jeff!

Finally, here is a "representative sampling" of mail I’ve received about the re-launch of this blog:

I wanted to write about you're new blog. Since I am at
least "50%" of teh people who read you're blog we should
get some say.

First of all, more tit's! Their are not enough tit's on
your weblog. If you cant show more "tit's" then I will
read some other blog instead! (The Mars picture was cool
but their were no tit's.)

Seoncd, stop picking on people who dont know how to use
aposytrfe's. It is literally killing me wehn you do
that. Not everyone goes to "law school" fucker! Terel
Owens "never' went to law school!

ok later!

(Thanks for the feedback, dude.)

Finally, I was recently remarking about the number of people who visit my site from Google looking for a translation for "Tunak Tunak Tun" by Daler Mehndi. My estimate is that I have had some 10,000 hits just for that search. As noted back in January 2002, the song has no meaning. It's just words that fit a beat. Think of it as Hindi scat. (I still like the song and Daler Mehndi, by the way. I recently found a CD of his at a local store. I think I'll start collecting.)