Category Archives: Just Talking…

November 7, 2019.  In the photo here your first thought is…not much.  That’s because, to our civilized eyes, there is nothing interesting to see.  The horizon line dominates the scene, not a building, road or cell tower to interrupt it.  … Continue reading →

July 4, 2019.  Twenty years ago to the day as I write this, winds spawned by a fast-moving weather front tore through Minnesota’s Boundary Waters and adjacent Quetico, Canada, at speeds of over 90 mph, snapping the tops off 200-year-old … Continue reading →

August 1, 2019.  I have a reverse commute—starting in urban St. Paul, driving southwest through the suburbs, then into the countryside of Spring Lake Township south of Prior Lake.  It gets more and more pleasant the closer to the office … Continue reading →

June 1, 2018.  Several years ago I skated across the lake near which my office sits and found a lovely patch of the ancient Midwest.  It was a sedge meadow—a place where life had gone on pretty much as it … Continue reading →

February 1, 2018.  I’d been anticipating it for a week, so yesterday I woke up in my usual fog, made coffee and a lunch, forgot to shave, and hustled out the door to -7 F temperatures and a car dusted … Continue reading →

December 27, 2017.  It’s been fifteen years since I started commuting from St. Paul to my country office, and it’s time to take stock.  In that time Highway 8—or 220th Street in the extended Minneapolis street grid system (evidence of … Continue reading →

October 25, 2017. Years ago in a former job and former life, there was a man in the volunteer leadership of the organization I worked for who was a transportation planner and engineer. He was also highly placed in the … Continue reading →

September 8, 2017.  It’s amazing to me how much of the world hinges on the workings of tiny things.  I’m reading about Alexander von Humboldt, the most famous man you’ve never heard of, who paid attention to those small things.  … Continue reading →

September 3, 2007.  I passed this morning a postage stamp piece of the original, authentic Minnesota.  It’s just a little scrap of land wedged between two highways and the federal lands containing the Veterans’ facilities and other administrative chunks, all … Continue reading →

August 27, 2017.  A noteworthy moment in the history of the planet occurred with few of my countrymen noticing.  On Friday, April 21, 2017, the United Kingdom got all its energy needs without burning an ounce of coal.  Coal, as … Continue reading →