The snow was piling up as we waited to ride the light rail to the airport. At Minneapolis/St. Paul MSP, snow-clearing crews were keeping ahead of the snow: across four departure boards, I saw only two cancellations, probably due to inbound cancellations. The weather delayed our departure. An engineer arrived to deal with a frozen… Continue reading A Week in Honolulu
Author: Tom Wilson
Getting a Head Start on Spring
Summer, fall, and the first few weeks of winter in Minnesota are wonderful. Also wonderful are the percussive sounds of a glycol/water mixture being sprayed at our plane in the depths of winter as we start a journey towards the tropics or a Southern Hemisphere summer. The meteorological definition of winter spans three months: December,… Continue reading Getting a Head Start on Spring
Guthrie Theater
It’s no accident the Guthrie Theater is close to our home. The theater moved to its current home in the Minneapolis Mill District in 2006 next to the Mill City Museum which had opened three years earlier. At the time, the choice of new location was brave. The Mill District was mostly derelict, and not… Continue reading Guthrie Theater
The Impossible Takes a Little Longer
Now that we have our indoor gardens on wheels fully operational it was time to think of technical refinements. Maintaining a log of actual water usage suddenly seemed like a good idea. I could think of several benefits of measuring water usage, including: Learn how much water is optimal for each plant so we can… Continue reading The Impossible Takes a Little Longer
Manifold Destiny
A manifold is a wide and/or bigger pipe, or channel, into which smaller pipes or channels lead. Scott, John S. (1992). Dictionary Of Civil Engineering. Springer. p. 269. Over the past few months I’ve been educating myself about ways to distribute water to indoor house plants by building a series of irrigation systems. A manifold… Continue reading Manifold Destiny
Hiking above Palm Springs
In early December we spent a week in Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley in California’s desert southwest. It was still low season, but temperatures were pleasant (60’s and 70’s Fahrenheit). In January, the population of the valley is about 800,000. By June, the population drops to around 200,000 as temperatures soar into the low… Continue reading Hiking above Palm Springs
Kippers for Breakfast
A kipper is a whole herring, a small, oily fish, that has been split in a butterfly fashion from tail to head along the dorsal ridge, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold-smoked over smoldering woodchips (typically oak). Wikipedia. Kippers are a breakfast treat in mainly Anglo locales. I grew up with them in the northeast… Continue reading Kippers for Breakfast
Imagining Art
Getting rid of stuff before we moved into our present home has given me a new appreciation of uncluttered visual, mental, temporal, and aural space. I’ve gained capacity to think and imagine with fewer distractions; I can prize the space between things rather than the things. The Japanese have a term for this: ma, negative… Continue reading Imagining Art
Only in Japan
As we near the end of our visit to Japan, I’ve been going through our photos looking for examples of “only in Japan.” Ryokan, Yufuin, Northern Kyushu A ryokan is a traditional Japanese guest house. Multi-course dinners and breakfasts were served in our room. After dinner, the table was moved and futons and duvets were… Continue reading Only in Japan
