Poledancing in the woods?
November 6th, 2005
Bigfork bears like lunch served tall, thin
Most of the chewed poles are west of Bigfork. Buria said the damaged poles are a sight.
“It’s amazing; the first 6 feet is covered with bear hair,” he said. “They’re not just grabbing it, they’re actually hugging it. And they’re biting it right down to the core. That’s dangerous.”
Buria doesn’t believe the activity is sexually related, because the poles are chewed at various times of the year. And the pole-chewing intensity varies from year to year.
OH MY DOG!
November 4th, 2005
Oh, this was NOT fun, it started with “Well, that’s a big cavity.” Uh-huh, ja, duh! Onward with an hour and a half of humorous hell for me, and for the poor dentist, who alternated between “Your jaw and I are having a disagreement” and “It’s oak, it’s hard as oak” and “It’d be easier to argue with a semi” (from someone who doesn’t know me from Adam! How could he know I was a truckdriver!) … but what scared me, more than the needles, was the too many minutes of dead silence that proceeded the ultimate wrenching success… afterwards he was heard making a chiropractic appointment.
And guess who’s too loopy to operate that keyboard!
Does Randy’s deliver chocolate malts by the gross? No straws for 48 hours, but no problem, I’ll just lap it out of a bowl, I’m on all fours anyway.
Getting me to the dentist is like pulling teeth
November 2nd, 2005
I would rather do a backlog of taxes, sit through unending Power Plant Siting Act rulemaking committees, idle in my Petercar in Brooklyn stop and stop traffic, clean fish or even a deer…
But bright and early on Friday… AAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Would Kersten advocate sumptuary laws?
November 2nd, 2005
I’ve got a tooth ache, the one that a big chunk broke out of at an MEP Legislative meeting year before last, and my brain, in pain, goes mainly down the drain.
Someone recently suggested a return to sumptuary laws given the class chasm in society these days. And then I remembered (urp) Katherine Kersten’s recent article:
Lessons of a dress code go far beyond NBA
A classic example of her “logic” could even argue for dress codes within marriage!
Basketball develops “we-ness,” says Buri — the ability to turn away from self and operate as part of a team. This quality is vital to success in life. Buri uses marriage as an example. A good marriage requires the ability to control frustration, take criticism well and resist blaming others for our failures. Rightly played, basketball can teach all these qualities.
How far is it from NBA dress codes to sumptory laws — can’t you just see this playing out, fashion police on the prowl.
There’s this great site about Elizabethan Sumptuory Statutes
Who Wears What I – Enforcing Statutes of ApparelWho Wears What II – Enforcing Statutes of Apparel
Sure enough, I do a search on Elizabethan fashion and find this Ruff:
Jeeeeeez, everybody’s a critic — something about a review of Elizabethan fashion is not complete without pieces of cod? OK, fine, whatever:
Everybody happy???
Nothin’ like touring infrastructure on a beautiful fall day!
October 15th, 2005
Ah, yes, I think I’ll send this post off to Rep. Mike Beard, whose family, like mine, used to spend days off touring infrastructure. This really brought back memories of touring coal plants and dams!
This is Red Wing’s new Twin Bluffs Water Treatment Facility — it’s the input into the city water system, damn, I wanted to see the output!
For some reason it’s not comforting to know that:
The raw water quality in the City of Red Wing contains radionuclides above the future maximum contaminant level, as set forth by the Minnesota Department of Health and US EPA. In addition to radionuclides, the raw water contains iron and manganese that can cause red and black staining throughout the distribution system… The recommended alternative was to construct two new treatment plants on sites where quality raw water could be found. These treatment plants would be capable of removing the radionuclides, as well as the iron and manganese.
Radionuclides???? Hmmmmmm… So that’s why my pups glow in the dark…
It was a great turn out, I guess I’m not the only infrastructure nut on the planet.
They gave tours of the new plant, open only one month so far.
The Red Wing water comes not from the river, but from wells 620 feet down, which sounds like the Jordan aquifer, not the Mt. Simon one that the Waseca gas is stored in! Whew! They add potassium permanganate and manganese sulfate, and it goes through a filter, and supposedly antracite and green sand filters out the iron and manganese, and radionuclides are filtered out with oxidized manganize. Every now and then, they pressurize backwash out the filters, let that settle and run that through the system again too, with the sludge going to the sanitary sewer system for treatment at the wastewater treatment facility. Is that where the radionuclides go? Another hmmmmm… All of this chemical adding used to be done “by hand” and now it’s all computerized, run off a PC up in the office with a yellow lab screensaver. The chemicals are parsed out in “The Chemical Room,” a room that reminded me of a milking parlor, clean, bright, and that strange sucking sound.
It turned out Mayor Donna Dummer was in the group! Although I voted for her, I’ve never met her, and we had an email exchange on Friday on a city issue… funny how that works! Here she is, on the left, talking with the rest of the group, the gracious tour guide is on the right.
Midway through the tour, we were joined by Councilman Gary Nordmark, the new At Large member. He said that next spring, the wastewater treatment plant, over by the Izaak Walton house and Barn Bluff, will be open for full tours. I can’t wait!