• How could the Librarian have fooled me? We rangers have known that we may not feel joy or gratitude for years. Put on a sensible skirt and I swear, you think you can pull anything ...
• ... and why the hell haven't I gotten my ranger skirt yet?
• In all seriousness, the Librarian had to deal with that onslaught of snow that slammed so many of you when ( Read more... )

Anonymous Jess just called me from the shore of Lake Superior to announce his sixteen-hours-old engagement!

I already had plans to attend in my head when he asked if I would do so as a groomsman, so I now know of at least one more return to my native northwoods on the horizon. For the first time in awhile, I feel excitement at the prospect.

Such matters have gotten a bit lost in light of recent robberies, but as you may recall, we recently revisited wintry Wisconsin and, even more recently, I returned to work with Save the Bay.

For the most part, we strayed little from the Sister's house in Wisconsin and just enjoyed the company of the Cousins and various other family types that ( Read more... )

The frozen tundra met us and left us with temperatures of no degrees, but we had a nifty time in Eau Claire (and I in Duluth) nonetheless. I will post in detail later, but as I have to work tomorrow, I will leave a cryptic montage of images in the meantime:


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Well, old eyeglasses, actually, but not as old as the ones I've used since my good pair gave out minutes before 2007 expired. It only took me a month to get to the optemetrist, where the receptionist took exactly two minutes and no money to fix them. It took much longer to get the Boy out of there, as they had both an exceptional one of those ( Read more... )

Earth Day always meant much to me not only for its broad environmental message, but its history as well. Having grown up in Wisconsin and spent my adulthood in California, I feel a particular connection to two important figures in the development of our nation's environmental ethic who made the same journey: John Muir and former Senator Gaylord ( Read more... )

The poor Wife has had a difficult time of things lately, and really needed some time for herself. She planned earlier this week to take some such time today, but alas, our daycare provider's child had a stomach bug, leaving the Wife to care for the Boy in the morning. Utterly unable to concentrate on any academic substance at school, I concocted a ( Read more... )

Ma called the other night with a bombshell; she offered to buy me a $600 plane ticket home so that I could take an examination for a chance at a park ranger position with Wisconsin State Parks. I thanked her for the offer, and said I'd need the night to talk it over with the Wife and look over my school schedule to see if I could afford to fly back ( Read more... )

A big, bad update from the not-so-frozen tundra:

First and foremost: the Boy weathered the familial onslaught of the holiday itself well, only to encounter the first scary sickness of his life the following day; welcome to Wisconsin, baby! See 
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While I can't claim the resounding victory 
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