Blowing & Drifting

The pathetic “winter” of 2011-2012 has given me a case of un-seasonal affective disorder. I can hardly overstate how much I look forward to winter – the snow above all, but also the cold, the storms, the crisp blue-sky days… This year, we’ve had almost none of that. With only a few brief exceptions, temperatures [...]

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If Mother Nature respected my wishes, She would have blanketed southern Minnesota in snow six weeks ago. In fact, I would have been happy with snow six days ago. But we’re still snowless here, so I figured that a solid gravel-road ride could stand in for my three-year streak of skiing on Christmas Day. It [...]

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Exactly one year ago – on December 23, 2010 – I skied for 45 minutes in the Carleton Arb. According to last winter’s training log, I’d skied a total of 12:27:48 by then, beginning on November 14. So far this winter, I’ve skied one hour, a couple weeks ago, just after we received our only [...]

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Over our lives together, Shannon and I have enjoyed some everyday accomplishments – buying houses, having kids – and some less-ordinary ones – earning doctorates. Yesterday was a day for a very un-ordinary accomplishment: the publication of Shannon’s first book. This is the culmination of a lifelong dream and a lot of hard work. It’s [...]

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As the girls get bigger, sledding becomes easier and more fun. Already this winter, we’ve twice made the short drive to a relatively big and steep hill near Julia’s school – a hill they found too scary even last winter. They’ve loved it both times this winter, which I find exciting. And I’ve also been [...]

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Tonight the girls entertained themselves while I cleaned up the kitchen with the “Naughty or Nice” game at santaclaus.net. They laughed for literally a half hour straight, putting everyone they could think of into the game: themselves, their friends, classmates, fictional characters. And on and on. Santa’s a pretty soft touch; he hardly ever gives anyone [...]

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Friday afternoon, as we headed downtown to do some window shopping, we admired the beautifully-decorated evergreen outside our neighbor Mary’s place. We mused about how it would be nice to have a nicely decorated tree outside our house too. Before I could even get to thinking much about how to make that happen, we’d run [...]

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The girls were outside this morning by 7:30, having a blast sledding in the half-inch of snow.

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Friday afternoon, I rode home through the Arb, which wasn’t unpleasant:

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With the opening of Carleton’s new Weitz Center for Creativity, the College gained several great new spaces for the display of art and other visual materials. The crown jewel is the Perlman Teaching Museum, which is right inside the front door of the Weitz Center and which has two excellent inaugural shows running right now. [...]

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The girls were VERY EXCITED about Halloween – Vivi way more than Julia, but still. They had a blast on Friday at the Halloween parties at school, and we had fun on Saturday carving pumpkins fun on Sunday at Carleton’s big Halloween carnival (despite this “I won’t smile for you” portrait) and fun today trick-or-treating – [...]

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Wednesday, I took the day off to do a long gravel ride, my first substantial bike outing after the Almanzo way back in May. I had initially intended to do an all-day century, but then I decided that my legs probably couldn’t handle a hundred miles of gravel cycling. Luckily, the guys down at my [...]

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Who’s with me? Meet at the corner of Spring Creek Road and Wall Street Road, and we’ll storm some turkey farms, or knock golfers off their carts, or something.

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Yesterday, Carleton dedicated its second wind turbine, a gift from two alums that will significantly cut the College’s energy costs and reduce its carbon footprint. In true Carleton fashion, the dedication ceremony was neither too formal nor too casual – a low-key gathering at the turbine (a mile or so east of campus); some remarks [...]

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I’m not much into the girls’ milestones. I mean, I pay attention to them and mark them as significant, but I don’t get choked up about first steps, going to kindergarten, or whatever. I figure that they’re growing up whether I like it or not, and that it’s not worth getting too sentimental about that [...]

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