snowdeal.org > ex machina

the eric update - day 1827: happy birthday to odin!

2009-07-04T09:48:00.001-04:00

sigh. today is the day our little baby turns five.

which means, odin wakes up to find a parade forming in front of grandma's and grandpa's house while he eats breakfast on the front porch.

this is the year that i stumble when odin asks why they have a parade and fireworks for his birthday :-)

thanks to all who have been following along to odin's adventures for a half a decade! more later!

well, that explains all the sirens during the sauna.

2009-07-03T23:22:00.000-04:00

gladstone is not a very large town in the upper peninsula of michigan so it's a little unusual to hear police sirens blaring late at night as you're trying to enjoy your sauna.

turns out, a 10 year old stole a car and was tooling around the blocks closeby!

he crashed into a residence, a stop sign and a tree before being apprehended.

luckily, no saunas ( or people ) were injured in the incident.

the eric update - day 1826: visiting the kitchitikipi ( the big spring ).

2009-07-03T22:00:00.000-04:00

whoohoo! we can now cross of visiting michigan's largest natural freshwater spring from The List of Things To Do.

kitchitikipi means "big cold water" and the name is appropriate; the 300 feet by 175 feet by 40 feet deep lake is fed by a spring that flows at the rate of 10,000 gallons per minute at a constant 45 °F throughout the year.

if you look through the open bottom of the observation raft you can clearly see the sand on the bottom ever shifting as the emerald spring water is forced up through the bottom by hydraulic pressures created by the surrounding geography.

it's certainly not something you see every day, but i'm not sure it's worth going too far out of your way to visit. though, if you're near manistique, check it out.

oh, and bring the "bug dope". the skeeters will eat you alive.

the eric update - day 1826: castles made of sand and a really happy pushkin.

2009-07-03T21:57:00.000-04:00

i think pushkin enjoys coming to the UP even more than odin because he gets to run, run run on the beach with wild abandon while only occasionally coming precariously close to wrecking castles being made of sand.

pushkin: ISTHATADUCK? ISTHATADUCK? ISTHATADUCK?

odin: not amused.

the eric update - day 1821: The Great Pre-Birthday Party!

2009-06-28T23:51:00.000-04:00

it's hard to believe but odin's 5th birthday is almost here and this year we decided to have a pre-birthday party at norskedalen, a local norwegian-american culture center, before his "real" birthday party with family in the upper peninsula of michigan.

of course, if your name is odin, you simply must play a few round of your new favorite game kubb, or viking chess, with guests!

since we usually typically are on vacation during his birthday, this was his first we celebrated with his friends and i must say that it was a bit daunting to plan a party for 15 youngsters and their parents!

i think everyone had a grand time.

odin really, really, really enjoyed getting together with all his friends and we're all super appreciative to everyone who came out and made it a wonderfully fantastic, memorable day.

you can click on each image for a brief description.

the eric update - day 1821: the little prince.

2009-06-28T22:05:00.001-04:00

odin, somewhat patiently hanging out on the most super awesomest tree swing before his pre-birthday party with a few friends.

lazyweb: name that native prairie plant!

2009-06-27T23:21:00.002-04:00

c'mon lazyweb, help me identify this native prairie plant on the organic valley hq grounds.

a beauty, no?

update: informed sources tell me it's an ox eye sunflower.

um, yeah, gardening is totally stress free.

2009-06-27T22:41:00.002-04:00

in addition to our home garden and employee garden, i'm also helping to maintain a much larger community garden at organic valley.

clearly, someone has a sense of humor - all the moreso when you have a lot more weeds than the chief marketing executive's plot ;-(

stress free or not, the 50 or so tomato plants in the community organic valley garden are coming along quite nicely! i think we're going to get to use the organic valley kitchen to process the bounty.

whatever you do, don't tell theresa marquez.

2009-06-27T22:02:00.001-04:00

i went out to organic valley hq to tend to our employee garden and i noticed the plot maintained by theresa marquez, cropp/organic valley's chief marketing executive, was just bursting with peas.

so, i might have helped myself to a couple hundred.

just kidding, she said they were there for the taking and i was all too happy to take her up on the offer.

she has an astounding garden, and while picking peas i wondered how many chief marketing executives take the time to tend to an employee garden.

my guess is that the answer is none.

the eric update - day 1820: picking pre-birthday party strawberries!

2009-06-27T21:29:00.002-04:00

whooey, the strawberries are coming in strong!

we're going to make some mighty good strawberry shortcake for odin's pre-birthday party bash out at norskedalen tomorrow!

you can see the wall of raspberries behind him that are just beginning to ripen.

the end of the freaks.

2009-06-25T21:08:00.000-04:00

driftless locals will no doubt mourn the end of freaks of nature. check out their myspace page to listen to a few of their "...daring feats of improvisation and sonic expression."

a good time was had by all on their last occasion together. more shots here and here.

friends of the freaks might enjoy this shot from october 2006.

the eric update - day 1814: a friendly father's day game of viking chess.

2009-06-21T23:56:00.000-04:00

naturally, if you're visiting a norwegian-american culture center and your name is odin, you can't pass up the opportunity to play a game of kubb or "viking chess"!

the rules are straightforward enough - knock down all your kubbs ( wooden blocks ) without knocking down the king in the center of play.

the swede in the blue crocs was quite pleased to have odin play, although i must admit that we lost to our opponents ;-(

the eric update - day 1814: odin fly fishes for father

2009-06-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

we spent part of father's day at norskedalen getting ready for odin's pre- birthday party and enjoyed the sights and sounds of their midsummer festival.

driftless angler was there and odin got a chance to practice his fly fishing casting skills.

it seems that his aim is true :-)

happy father's day!

and, yes, his soccer shin guards have become everyday wear.

the eric update - day 1813: the day everyone simultaneously turned on the air conditioning?

2009-06-20T22:50:00.000-04:00

hmmmm. odin and i were hanging out getting ready for Yet Another Bike Ride when the power went out. neighbors emerged from their houses and we all quickly confirmed that the outtage wasn't limited to us. odin and rode to a nearby intersection and a friendly police officer who was trying to guide traffic at one of 3 traffic lights in the county told us that 3/4 of the county was without power. activity from lots of fire engines and emergency vehicles reinforced the impression that Something Big was happening. reports from twitter ( and facebook ) further reinforced the impression.

reports from the local paper seem to indicate it was a localized incident.

/me wonders, what's up?

the eric update - day 1812: not a tall tale about odin's eyesight.

2009-06-19T17:28:00.002-04:00

during The Nightly BedTime Ritual we often like to tell each other Tall Tales, improvising and evolving them with grander and grander plot twists.

if you're relatively new to odin's adventures, the following may seem to be just such a tall tale, but it's as True as True could be.

a few days ago i took odin to his umpty billionth eye exam and we were all quite pleased to hear that his sight has continued its gradual improvement over the past year! his eyesight is 20/30 which is almost normal for a 5 year old ( typically 20/25 ). there's even a chance that he might not need glasses, which i find hard to believe since both of his parents are nearsighted. but even more importantly, his retinas look astonishingly healthy as his eyes continue to grow, which is remarkable given all the scar tissue on his retinas from the surgery that prevented him from going blind.

and so, perhaps, five years later we can think a little less about retinopathy of prematurity. it proved the curse of the nicu to be true and caused an emergency transport to a new, scary nicu and an emergency laser surgery with 1,500 burns in each eye and innummerable eye exams with dilated pupils and bright lights shone in odin's eyes. its effects brought news of possible legal blindness and the day we thought he had really gone blind only to discover he had a late vitreous hemmorhage ( eye filled with blood ) that somehow, improbably, had no associated retinal damage.

perhaps.

the eric update - day 1809: odin's equine observers of breakfast.

2009-06-16T22:16:00.000-04:00

after all these years, odin is not nonplussed when i sit next to him at breakfast to take a picture of him gingerly arranging his toy horses snout to snout, observing him while eating french toast.

he says, simply, "poppi, they're sweet."

i think, for a moment, of huginn and muninn.

the eric update - day 1808: the boys ( and girls ) of summer.

2009-06-15T23:18:00.001-04:00

preschool's out for summer! which means summer fun has begun!

for the very first time odin is starting soccer and tee ball lessons and continuing swimming lessons .

phew!

i was never a big organized sports guy, but odin loves, loves, loves doing anything that involves being outside and running around, so we thought it would be nice to give him opportunities to test out lots of things and decide what he likes and doesn't like.

the potential downside? if you ask him what his favorite sport is, he'll tell you all of them :-)

as usual, despite not ever having played soccer before, he picked it right up and enjoyed getting right into the middle of the action.

so, maybe wearing a red shirt wasn't such a good choice.

2009-06-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

the eric update - day 1807: delivering birthday party invitations.

2009-06-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

how can odin possibly be almost half a decade old? wan't it just yesterday that he was born on the fourth of july?

no, apparently he wasn't. because he's now a precocious almost -five-year-old with very definite opinions about his upcoming birthday party - e.g.. who should be invited, what kind of cake he should have, what the invitations should look like.

and so, we delivered invitations to his birthday party ( via bicycle pf course ) to his birthday party at norskedalen.

apparently, i'm just along for the ride.

i love it when a plan comes together.

2009-06-13T22:54:00.002-04:00

having procured a trebuchet we needed to move it to a secret, undisclosed location for further testing.

sturdy, strong friends with motivation, tools and a flatbed truck come in handy for this step.

to quote colonel john "hannibal" smith, i love it when a plan comes together.

you can click on each image for a brief description.

the eric update - day 1806: the search for a trebuchet.

2009-06-13T21:10:00.002-04:00

recently, i hatched a plan to build a trebuchet with a merry band of co-conspirators, because who doesn't love flinging things over long distances? and if you're going to fling things over long distances, a trebuchet is definitely the way to go. i didn't want not some wimpy tabletop trebuchet - no i wanted something with more oomph, maybe even one that could launch flaming pianos.

imagine my surprise when i discovered that there was one in the area that was made a few years ago by an enterprising 8th grader for a school project. after a quick phone call, i learned we could use it if it met our needs, and so odin and i went on hunt for a trebuchet nestled in a local valley ( pro tip: it is not difficult to convince an almost 5 year old to go on a hunt to find something that can fling heavy things over long distances ).

it is, i think, sufficiently awesome for the task at hand.

odin is pulling on the part of the arm that holds the counterweight. the opposite end is the throwing arm which needs a rope and sling attached before we can get down to business.

trebuchet rules of thumb: the counterweight should be about 100 times heavier than projectile and the sling should be slightly shorter than the the throwing arm.

yeesh, so if we're going to chuch a 5 pound watermelon, we need a 500 pound counteweight! i'll admit that i'm still a little unclear on how to build a proper sling - it sounds tricky:

"Our troop has learnt that the difficulty of a trebuchet isn't in the construction, but in the fine adjustment of the sling to get the right release point. The drawing above shows how the sling whips around, and then SLIDES OFF THE END OF THE TREBUCHET ARM. You want the projectile (water balloon, rotten potato, flour bomb etc.) to fly out of the trebuchet when the angle of the arm is close to 45 degrees."

sardinistas unite! or rise of the humble sardine?

2009-06-07T23:24:00.001-04:00

i love me some sardines. i mean if there are no steamed clams to be had, how could you go wrong? although i had reduced my intake over the years for no other reason than the fact that kris can't stand them, i've recently actively sought them out because they are a great source of omega-3 fatty acids and my doctor said i should get more omega-3s. who knew there was a whole movement afoot to reintroduce sardines to the American palate:

We want to reinvent the sardine and this time do it a little more thoughtfully," Shelley, 58, explained at recent propaganda lunch here on Cannery Row, which once served as headquarters for the California sardine fishery. "We want to value what these fish can give to us from an ecological standpoint and a health standpoint. And we think there are real ways to enjoy them.

i'm sold. and yet, why do i have to enjoy lightly smoked sardines in a tomato sauce from portugal when my relatives ran the sardine museum in downeast maine fer pete's sake. why can't i get some sardines from maine. surely some young entrepreneur must be working on that.

still life chive blossom.

2009-06-05T15:44:00.000-04:00

the humble chive. repeller of insects while in the garden and rich in vitamins A and C, calcium and iron.

and tasty blossoms - asparagus with sesame & chive blossoms.

the in(toxic)ating rhododendron?

2009-05-31T23:50:00.000-04:00

i've always loved rhododendrons but it wasn't until attempting to identify this species in our back yard ( Rhododendron mucronulatum? ) that i discovered that it's extremely toxic and was supposedly used as a narcotic and hallucinogenic to induce prophetic dreams.

or, maybe it's not so toxic after all? wherein lies the truth?

peonies in bloom. so, where are the torrential rains?

2009-05-31T23:46:00.001-04:00

no, really, every year like clockwork - when the peonies bloom, we get torrential rains within 24 hours.

they've been blooming for 48 hours. a loud thunderstorm moved through last night but just a few drops of rain. i'm almost a little disappointed in our severe weather sensors.

oh, and you'll do best if you look at that photo in a browser that actually knows how to handle color profiles liek safari. the non-safari version pales, literally, in comparison.