Crowbait

Here we are in the driveway. And ole' crowbait decided to let lose a big fart and scare himself so that he started crowhopping for a few seconds. I wasn't expecting that.

Rainbows at High Falls

Now that the rain and cloudy weather from earlier this week is gone, the high water level in thePigeon Rivercombined with bright, sunny days means that the rainbows at High Falls are incredible! I captured these photos today at Grand Portage State Park throughout the morning and early afternoon hours. With clear skies and mild temperatures in the forecast for the next few days it looks like it's going to be a perfect weekend for waterfall watching!

Attack!

I can't help it. Her tail was just too temping. I had to jump on it.

Blank Canvas

For many of my cycling friends, winter is the time for making big plans. Like the vast snowscape outside, the seasons ahead spread out, blank canvas-like, glittering with possibilities. We are increasingly spoiled for choice here: Beautiful unpaved rides, formal and informal brevets, invitational weekend getaways - it's enough to make one's head spin. And it all requires budgeting, scheduling, prioritising, oftentimes with advanced planning and registration. And so in the coldest days of February, over cups of scalding coffee, cyclists speak in agonised whispers of events to come in the summer months.




I used to listen with curiosity and detached amusement. As someone who generally resists planning, I could not imagine scheduling a summer's worth of weekends around cycling events. But this time around I am getting swept up in it all.




Staring at the pile of snow outside my window, I find myself considering ahill climb race. I don't expect to do well at all, but I think I might enjoy it. Feeling that is a surprise to me; wanting to do it is a surprise. But when I imagine the climbing and the festive atmosphere, I want to be there - pedaling and feeling the strain, delirious as I strive for a summit I might not have the stamina to reach. Weird, isn't it, the things we can enjoy.




Plodding along the riverside trail, I contemplate this year's brevet series. I love the idea of randonneuring. But truthfully, I don't think I am serious about it - or ready for it, depending on how you look at it. On long rides that pass through beautiful places, what I really want to do is explore, carry a big camera, stop any time I like and constantly take photos - which is at odds with being on the clock. It might make more sense to finally put aside some time for a light multi-day tour.




Cleaning the salt and crud off my bike after a slushy outing, I remember long dreamy rides on unpaved roads. It seems almost fictional now: Going from the "baby" D2R2 route to the hair-raising loose descents of the Kearsarge Klassic in a matter of weeks, riding borrowed bikes with unfamiliar components,rental cars at 5:00 in the morning... Absurd. But oh how I long to do it again (minus the borrowed bikes, I hope), andhow I long to find more rides in the same vein. I am even willing to plan in advance and make commitments.




This winter is turning out to be brutal. But the months ahead are a blank canvas, and putting down the initial sketch is keeping me sane.

Snowflakes

This morning there were snowflakes frozen on one of our windows. So very pretty to be able to see every part of them like this.

FGS Conference - Some Thoughts

Overall I think the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne was one of the best organized that I have attended. The speakers were top notch and the selection of lectures was almost overwhelming. There are really only a couple of complaints I have, and I heard most of them from several other attendees as well.

1. The 2-hour break between the opening and the first lecture session on Thursday really was not necessary. In my opinion it was a waste of time. And I know of several people who did not attend Thursday morning because of that reason.
2. The 30 minute break between each session was the longest I've ever seen at any conference. Perhaps at another venue it would have been necessary but the rooms where the lectures were held were within a few minutes walk of each other. There were some lectures held at the library but it was still only about a 2-3 minute walk from the Grand Wayne Center. Fifteen minutes would have been more reasonable, twenty minutes at most.
3. The 2-hour lunch break was a bit much but I understand it was necessary because of the luncheons offered each day (each at $20 a pop, none of which I attended). It did give me a chance to browse some periodicals at the ACPL and I took a nap in my car on Friday ;-) so the time wasn't really wasted.
4. I've already mentioned the syllabus, which was 650 pages or so, and is a good resource. But something really needs to be done to offer it optionally in a different format. There are a number of ways it could be done to please those who still want a hard copy. A suggestion made by several people was to provide separate booklets for each day. Perhaps they could reduce the price of the conference for those that are willing to download it or even send a CD to early registrants before the conference. After the second day there were still a lot of people carrying the syllabus around and almost all that I saw had loose pages.

A video of a portion of the opening session of the Conference on Thursday morning is on Dick Eastman's blog. I'm in it ;-) That's my blond head you see in the center of the picture at the bottom of the frame. . . I was sitting in the fourth or fifth row, in front of the podium.

Dick Eastman attended the same session of the FootNote meeting that I did and took a couple of pictures. I'm in two of them though I don't know if he'll post them when he gets around to posting pictures of the conference on his blog. . .

Also attending the same FootNote meeting was Ceil Wendt Jensen. Now, I'm usually not one to go up and introduce myself but got up the nerve to do so this time and am glad I did. Ceil is very pleasant, congenial and easy to talk to. I mentioned that I'd heard of her through a recent post by Jasia (about the podcast Ceil did with Dear Myrtle). In the process I found out that I didn't know how to pronounce "Jasia" as I said it with a "J" which is actually pronounced as a "Y" and the "a" is more like "ah" so it's something like Yah-c-ah. I also discovered what Jasia's real first name is, but I'm not going to tell. . . I made the comment that I rather envy Ceil, Jasia and Steve since I consider myself an ethnically challenged researcher - one with no historical family traditions based on where my ancestors came from. The last of them came over so long ago (1832) that trace of any traditions that might have been have completely disappeared. Ceil suggested that I could become an honorary Pole...

While exploring the exhibit hall one day I had the opportunity to 'help' one of the vendors, who shall remain anonymous, with a slight technical problem he was having. I had stopped at the booth to introduce myself and he mentioned that his laptop had powered itself down after not being used for a while and it was not restarting as it should have. My suggestion was to see if it still had power. . . turns out the power cord had come unplugged from the power strip. He was a bit embarrassed that he hadn't already checked on that but we had a chuckle over it and I went on my way. I'm sure he would have figured it out eventually, but I was amused by the incident, but then I am easily amused.

For information on the lectures I attended, check out my previous posts on the conference:

• Genealogy Conferences (my contribution to the Carnival of Genealogy)
• FGS Conference - Day One (Wednesday)
• FGS Conference - Day Two (Thursday)
• FGS Conference - Day Three (Friday)
• FGS Conference - Day Four (Saturday)

Links outside this blog:

• opening session video on Dick Eastman's blog
• recent post by Jasia about the podcast Ceil Jensen did with Dear Myrtle
• Michigan Polonia which is Ceil Jensen's website, not to be missed if you are doing Polish research

Wild Locust

Close up of a wild locust tree blossom.