| The Calends |
Ice fishing houses are bursting out all over, but not on Little Bass yet.
The new Pub & Grill in Cohasset has experienced yet another set back. Due to construction delays it now wont be open until after the first of the year. |
| December_2nd | 9 inches of snow to blow this morning. Sinclair Lewis once said: Winter is not a season, it's an occupation. How true it is! And you guys down south who are fighting the ice along with the snow have it even worse. |
| December 3rd |
The winter! The brightness that blinds you, The white land, locked tight as a drum, The cold fear that follows and finds you, The silence that bludgeons you dumb. The snows that are older than history, The woods where the weird shadows slant, The stillnes, the moonlight, the mystery, I'd bade them good-bye.......but I can't. -- Robert W. Service (circa 1910) Do you suppose that's the reason some people have for living in the Northland in the wintertime? |
| December 4th | According to Ward and Adrian (who put out a few tip-ups yesterday) 60 or 80 feet off shore the ice is about 6 inches thick already.......but geez is it ever slushy. |
| The Nones | "If you're not gonna like the answer, don't ask the question." Back in my old IBM days, that was one of my six rules for surviving in a large corporation. |
| December 6th |
It was 20 below zero when I went to bed last night (Winter will soon be here)
but right on zero when I got up this morning........a warming trend apparently.
PS: Click HERE. |
| A Day of Infamy | In spite of what I said on the Calends, I understand that the new Bar/Grill in Cohasset is now open for business. I'll go there tomorrow and give you a report. |
| December 8th |
28 below zero this morning. (One of the deer hunters in Cabin # 5 decided
to wait for the temperature to go up a bit before he goes into the woods,
which sounds like a good decision to me.) We have both snow AND
cold..........what a nice spell of winter in December for once. The new
furnace in Cabin 4 must be doing its job because the water is still flowing
in there, although the temperature in the crawl space under it is getting
dangerously close to the freezing point. Florio's Bar and Grill (the new place in Cohasset) is more of a grill than a bar. The menu is typical for a little grill (burgers, sandwiches, steaks, etc) but they do have broiled shrimp which I'll have to try, and the prices seem reasonable. It looks like a nice place for lunch or even supper, but it doesn't seem like the sort of place a group of people would want to go just to have a beer or two. |
| December 9th |
27 below zero at 6:00 AM. Geez, I love cold or snowy winter mornings.
To Ryan and Katie who arrived on Friday and left this morning: It was a pleasure having you here and I sure hope you come back sometime. Thanks again. The snow is good, the ski trails are in good shape, and I have a couple of cabins available. Come on up!!!! But you might want to wait till this cold spell is over and the temperatures get back to normal. Let me know. |
| December 10th | Near midnight these days, Mars is very high in the sky and very dominating. Go out and take a look at him while he's still here. |
| December 11th | Life in a perpetual rut is not all that bad of a life. There are a lot worse things than being in a perpetual rut. Last night a friend of mine went to a Christmas party in which all of the attendees, except him, were lawyers. |
| December 12th |
Deep in December it's nice to remember although you know the snow will follow. Deep in December it's nice to remember without a hurt the heart is hollow. Deep in December it's nice to remember the fire of September that made us mellow. Deep in December our hearts should remember And follow. -- Tom Jones and Harry Schmidt (1965) |
| The Ides | The ice is 9 1/2 inches thick where the front porch usually is. Last year on 12/7 there were 6 inches and on 12/22 there were 9 inches, so we're more than a week ahead of that even though the lake froze later this year.......of course it has been a very cold December so far. The year before that (2005) we had 10 inches on 12/12, which is about the same as this year. |
| December 14th |
Geez, I feel low today. I did yesterday too, and I don't
know why; there is no particular reason. Yesterday I spent a
good part of the afternoon wandering through Walmart, K-mart,
and Ace Hardware. I didn't buy anything and I didn't even
want to buy anything.........I just wanted to wander. This
evening I have to go to a short birthday celebration for a
friend of mine. I don't want to go, but I suppose I will.
They're each gonna ask me why I seem so sad, and since they
wont accept "I don't know" as an answer I'm gonna have to
swear, at least half a dozen times, that "I'm fine" (which is
actually the truth). I've got a ton of things to do today,
but I'll bet I wont do a single one of them.
Actually, this isn't all that bad of a feeling. In fact, it's a rather comfortable feeling...........it just isn't comfortable for the people around me. Not because of anything I do to them, but because they all feel like they have to do something for me, which is the very last thing I want. Sigh! |
| December 15th | A Nuthatch is HERE. |
| December 16th |
Take heed: Somewhere around a thousand years ago, the ancient Mayans predicted that the world will end on December 21, 2012. That gives us exactly 5 years and 5 days to prepare. (I have the date correct now, thanks to Larry.) |
| December 17th | The first ice fishing house is out on the lake. It belongs to Lucas, my 11 year-old buddy (and die-hard fisherman) from across the lake. Click HERE. |
| December 18th | The Farmer's Almanac says: "When bubbles in your coffee collect in the center of the cup, expect fair weather. If they form a ring or cling to the sides, expect rain [or snow]". Do you suppose they use methods of that sort to do all their weather forecasting? |
| December 19th |
LMNOP-ZA occupies the north half of a building just east of here on Highway
2. Another part of the building used to be a furniture store but now
the pizza place is converting it to a bar area. The current seating area
will remain separate from the new bar, but the same menu will be available in
both areas. The opening date is now set for January 2nd. Neato(!), eh? Incidentally, their pizza is excellent and I understand that they are now doing deliveries. Since LBLR is so near, I bet we'll see their delivery man here at the resort fairly often this coming summer. Their web-site is HERE. |
| December 20th | The temperature hasn't been below zero, nor have we gotten any snow, in ages. Do you suppose our winter weather is over? Winter doesn't even really start till Saturday. Sigh! |
| December 21th | Happy Winter Solstice to my dear California daughter Teri. Before this day ends she will be in winter..........but us guys here in Minnesota have to wait till tomorrow. |
| The Winter Solstice |
It's finally here! Happy Winter Solstice Day to one and all. Darn!!!! There are large slushy areas near the center of the lake. I'm sure the ice is still solid but the presence of the slush makes it unusable. This is not good for late December. Sigh! Click HERE. Randy and I went skiing this afternoon at the MP&L Trail. It's in very good shape at the moment, in spite of the recent warm weather. |
| December 23rd | Last night I walked across the lake for the first time this year.......and it was GREAT! On the way over to Randy's place the sky was clear, the moon (which is nearly full) was beautiful, and it was followed by Mars as it rose higher into the sky. A few hours later some light clouds were in the sky on the way back, so Mars was not visible, but the moon still shined brightly on the snow. There's a 2nd ice-fishing house on the lake. I don't know how long it has been there because it's south of LBLR and on the west side of the lake which I can't see from the area around the house. It was, indeed, an enjoyable walk. |
| Christmas Eve | Click HERE. |
| Christmas Day |
"And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into Heaven, the
shepherds said one to another, 'Let us go even unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.' And
they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a
manger." -- Luke 2:15-16 |
| Boxing Day | Ah yes........Boxing Day! It's high on the list of my favorite days of the year. Sometimes it's even at the top. |
| December 27th | I talked to a woman yesterday who is in the process of "re-inventing herself", as she put it. Incidentally, I wasn't particularly happy to hear that because I kinda like her just as she is now. But she sounded like she actually knew what she meant by "re-inventing herself" and she sounded serious about it. What does "re-inventing oneself" really mean, do you suppose? Is it similar to what "finding oneself" used to be? Hmmmm........ Actually, I never really understood "finding oneself" either. At times I thought it really meant something, but if I pondered it for awhile I always got confused. Eventually I came to the conclusion that if someone wanted to do something that his friends didn't want him to do, or something that wasn't advancing his career, or something that he couldn't justify financially, he used the excuse that he was "trying to find himself". At least that was the best I could come up with. Maybe that's what she's really doing. |
| December 28th | Light will travel 1,802,613,915,490 furlongs in a fortnight. |
| December 29th | I had Christmas with the kids and grandkids in St. Cloud today, hence: no entry. Of course, some people would say there was no entry yesterday either. |
| December 30th | Is this a forest fire or a sunset? It's looking west from the hill in back of my house, and most the year that scene would be hidden by the summer folliage. It can only be seen in the wintertime. Click HERE. |
| New Year's Eve |
Well, this is it: the last few hours of 2007. We have one
last chance to do something relevant this year, and we only have a
little over 2 hours to do it. What can it be? Think, think.
I gotta think of something. I gotta......and time is running
out. The pressure is on.....think, think. Hmmmmmm, let's
see now. I could quickly write a letter to president Bush
and........no that's way too common. Maybe I could write a letter
to Vladimir Putin and ask him to........no, no. Writing a
letter with a request in it to a world leader can't be
considered relevant. So maybe I could tell one of them to go jump in
a lake and.......no, that wouldn't be relevant either. Maybe I
could get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Is there
a record that can be set in less than two hours? Breath
holding maybe! Nah. Even if I could do it, I couldn't prove a thing
like that in this short time anyway. That wont work.
Tick....tick....tick......one hour and 42 minutes left.......tick......tick......tick......tick....... If I were to sneak down to the new Itasca County Waste Incinerator and, using a hack saw, cut through some of the metal tubes that send cooling water into the boiler I could maybe delay its start-up for several weeks. That would be considered relevant.......but illegal and dangerous, not to mention stupid. No, that wont do either. Tick....tick....tick......one hour and 16 minutes left.......tick......tick......tick......tick....... Think, think, think. 7-6-5-4-3-2-1-Happy New Year!!!!! To the people in New York that is. It's 2008 in New York even as I type, but it's only a few seconds after 11:00 here. Those guys are lucky, it's already the new year there. I hope they're having a prosperous one (as the saying goes), and I hope they find it worth the effort. Now back to the problem at hand........I could take up smoking. No! That would really be dumb!!!! I could give up drinking. No, wait! That would even be worse. Tick....tick....tick......41 minutes left.......tick......tick......tick......tick....... I could go outside and take the first steps in a walk around the world. Of course I don't have to finish it tonight; just begin it. It can be finished at a later date. That's it! I can do that one. It's easy, it's quick, it's significant, and it's relevant. Wait. I'll be right back. I'm gonna go outside and start a walk around the world. I wonder which direction I should go......... I'm back. I went South. I know it's gonna be difficult walking across the South Pole, but in case I don't make it more that a couple thousand miles, at least I'll end up in warmer climes. Darn, that was a good idea. 2007 will go down in history as the year I started my walk around the world. 29 minutes to go and I did something relevant. Boy that was close. Now to relax. And maybe have a glass of claret to celebrate the accomplishment and the New Year. Cheers!!! |
