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I don’t know how you are during online/call-in meetings where a variety of topics are being discussed, but I try to get other things done while it’s not my topic.

But sometimes I get too involved in the other thing and then I’m not paying attention to the meeting. See point number 3 in this list, for my opinion that most people don’t really multitask.

And then I end up feeling like this:

I suppose this doesn’t make as much sense to people who aren’t familiar with that scene in the Star Wars movie.

We did a few things related to water this past summer. I normally post a vacation recap after our vacation, but I neglected to do so for 2024.
So instead, you’ll get some photos of water-y things we did, both on vacation and not. With things warming up it’s time to think about water rather than snow again.

We did some waterfall and river exploring. This was in Big Falls County Park on the outskirts of Eau Claire, WI. Note that if you’re wondering how to get to Big Falls County Park to visit the falls and go wading, you want the south side – come across on 9 Mile Creek Rd then up N. 130th Ave to the park entrance. Nothing wrong with the north side, but if you want the normal experience use the south side.

Here is what it looks like when you come to the end of the trail and first see the falls.

And then if you go down a level here’s what it looks like.

And this was what I saw looking back up at the falls – the boys testing out the waters.

They worked their way down the falls and were wading through the river. There was a lot of it you could wade through, but there were some spots that required swimming.

That was our stop in Wisconsin. Then we went over to Minnesota, where there are a lot of lakes so we did lake things.

Mainly tubing

and wake surfing. Here’s how one starts wake surfing.

And here’s how it should look just after starting. The wave does settle down and become smoother and then you can stay ahead of the break, if all goes well.

As far as I can tell, the main difference between tubing and wake surfing is that in wake surfing the boat driver is working with you to help you but in tubing the driver is working against you.

Then from Minnesota we went back into Wisconsin but only to pass through to the UP of Michigan. There we got to do some cliff jumping into Lake Superior.

I jumped, although it was not pleasant. It wasn’t that bad, but I don’t need to do it again. I may have needed a few minutes to work myself up to it. My youngest was in the same boat, but once he jumped he liked it and kept jumping.

Then he got the idea in his head that he wanted to swim across the channel, which was basically the open seas of Lake Superior. Here is what it looks like from the POV of the jumping spot.

In fact, that picture is of him and his cousin-in-law reaching the other side.

And here is their swim back. The water is about 8-10 feet deep right next to the cliff, so in the open water like that it’s probably 15-20 feet. The weather was good though so not much of a current for them to fight.

Then from Lake Superior on the north side of the UP we moved to Lake Huron on the south side of the UP. That was a very shallow section so our activites there were more relaxed, like hiking, kayaking, and rowboating.

We did some other water stuff throughout the summer. Here is a trip to Lake Michigan, which was mostly sitting on the sand and wading in the cold water.

And rounding out the travelogue here is our river tubing trip.

This is the end of the whitewater rapids in Ann Arbor, MI. They have a feature there called the Cascades, which is a manmade series of small falls so that kayakers and canoers can bypass the dam on the Huron River.

Those falls are also fun for tubers, as it’s basically a class 0 rapids, or level 1- or whatever is the easiest thing you could do. And if things go bad, all you gotta do is stand up and walk, as it’s about waist deep.

I was hanging streamers the other week for someone’s birthday and I wondered why we always twist streamers when stringing them up.

So I ran one straight, with no twist. And it looked very sad.

That got me thinking about other things that are generally known as bad if unvarying. I came up with three:

• Streamers (the crepe paper party things, not people online)
• Singing a music note
• Long hair

People seem to agree that in each of those, an overlaying frequency is good – a twisting or a vibrato or some curls or waves.

I thought of those three items, then I wondered if I could think of any more. I saw I got two from the sense of sight and one from the sense of hearing. Maybe there could be examples from the other senses?

Sense of smell? No, no examples of a varying scent being more interesting than a straightforward scent. Scents themselves are interesting enough, I suppose.

Sense of taste? Same thing as smell, for this exercise. Too much of one smell or taste would cause it to wane, but generally you switch scents or flavors not make them wavy. I don’t even know how you could make a flavor wavy.

Sense of touch? I do see this happening here. Some examples are a back massage or foot rub doesn’t just press in one place (queue video of Bugs Bunny head massage). Also it is not unusual for people to pat backs when hugging. Why do they do that? In the interesting of promoting this theory, I’d say the answer is because unvarying hugs are not as interesting.

I don’t know what else to do with this realization – sharing it here is about the extent of its usefulness.

This is a guide for how to play the game The Chameleon. This game is simple in concept but after playing it I found that it is difficult to play, in that it’s quite nuanced and you need the whole group of people to have the same level of nuance. You can certainly play regardless, but to play correctly takes some practice. Without that, you can still play and it might be funnier than normal, which might be what you’re looking for. There’s a difference between playing a game right and having fun with it. This game isn’t easy to play right but it is easy to have fun with, if any of that made sense.

1. How do I win?
By blending in well with the others.

2. How do I blend in?
By being able to guess the secret word that everyone but you knows.

3. How does everyone else know the secret word if it is secret?
At the beginning of the round, cards are dealt face down so that everyone gets one card. The front of the card has the secret decoder key, except one card. If you get the one blank card then you are the chameleon. Everyone else gets matching decoder keys so they all know to find the word.

4. How do they find the word?
There is one card that goes face up in the middle of the table and that is the word card. There are different word cards, and it lists the theme and then a bunch of words related to that theme. The secret word is one of those words, and the decoder key tells everyone which specific word it is. Your job as chameleon is to guess which word on your turn it is based on the vague clues that everyone else is giving, and you do that by giving your own vague clue so that no one else would know you’re the chameleon.

5. How do I guess the word if I happen to be the first person to give a clue but I’m the chameleon that round?
That’s a tough one – you’ll just have to guess well and give a clue that’s vague enough to cover some of the bases but not so vague that people know that you don’t know the word. At the end of the round people will vote for who they think the chameleon is, but there’s usually a lot of chatter before that and you’ll get a feeling for how well (or how poorly) you’ve done.

We played it and everyone seemed to have fun, even though my poker face is so bad that people knew I was the chameleon as soon as I was dealt my card.

There, now go play The Chameleon.

Due to a convergence of topics in my life one day, I happened to be inspired to put this together.

Transcript:
There’s a grief that can’t be spoken
There’s a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Employees now work from home

Here they talked of parts production
Here it was they booked their time
Here they sang about RTO
But RTO never came

From the office in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with Zoom calls ringing
I can see them now
The very roads that they had driv’n
Became their last commuting
To the lonely parking lot, at dawn

Oh my friends my friends don’t ask me
What this office space is for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where people will work no more

Here are some more mini reviews of books. I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: Simon Thorn Series by Aimee Carter

This was a good book, but I recommend against reading it, unless you read German. Because it is a 5-book series, but only books 1-3 are in English. I read book 1 then book 2 and liked them. We have book 3 but it was while reading book 2 that I realized I could not get books 4 and 5, so I didn’t bother reading book 3 because then I would have been farther into the story. So I decided to cut my losses.

If you do read the first book, which is the Wolf’s Den, then just stop at that because you get enough to appreciate the story. Save books 2-3 until books 4-5 come out. Or learn German.

Next up: In the Blink of a Screen by Terry Pratchett

I was wondering what Terry Pratchett book to start with to introduce me to his writing, when I saw this book at our library. It’s a collection of short stories, so I figured that was a good way to dip my toes in the water.

For the most part, the stories were engaging and not objectionable. I do remember thinking that one or two of them were inappropriate, but I don’t remember any details of what or why at this time, so maybe they weren’t that bad.

Next up: Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Our library website shows recommended books to its patrons. I’m not sure if it is personalized based on your reading history, or if it’s just whoever paid to have their books promoted, or just randomized. But we got a thing touting the book Starter Villain by John Scalzi. It looking interesting enough that I looked into John Scalzi a tiny bit, and people seemed to prefer his earlier book Kaiju Preservation Society better, so I thought I’d start with that.

The book had an interesting premise and clever writing and a good story. Everything you would want in a book.

Except it was full of foul language and the characters seemed to have come from a DEI checklist. It wouldn’t have been so bad except the one person who was a “they” but I didn’t realize it so I read a whole chapter thinking it was about a group of people but no, the “they” was one person, so I had to re-read that chapter and then pay extra attention in subsequent chapters.

Anyway, the very many bad words is the reason I recommend against this book. And then I looked up John Scalzi’s other work, and some of the reviews mention the language. Normally sci-fi writers seem to avoid a lot of objectionable content, but that is apparently Scalzi’s calling card that he wants to be known for so, as best I can tell, all his books have foul language and so I will not be reading anything else by him. I returned Starter Villain to the library unopened.

What would be good is if we could get like the TBS or USA Network version of this book. They are famous for editing out bad words when they broadcast a movie – making the movie more family-friendly when they air it. Someone should do that for Scalzi’s work. He might disagree, but I don’t think the story would be harmed at all by replacing bad words with milder words.

Last up: I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle

This one I think I saw in a review by World Magazine. I wish they would have a section on their website with all the books they’ve reviewed. With not much to go on and never hearing of Peter S. Beagle before, I just jumped in.

It was a good story and was very entertaining. My only complaint is that just before the end of the book, he had to put one bad word in there. There was nothing foul before then, and it seemed out of character for the book. Like she could have used the word “dung” instead and that would have fit better, to me. It’s like how for some reason the ratings people decided a PG-13 movie could have one F-word and still be PG-13. How does that make sense – if the word is bad then it’s bad.

Anyway, if one s-word is enough to keep you away the you have been warned. With kids wearing shirts with bad words on them these days, I feel people in general are desensitized to bad words. But that’s another discussion for another day. Overall, I still enjoyed the book.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

Every year we go ice skating in the winter. We usually hit up an ice rink during the holidays with family. And then when our pond freezes the boys will go out there some times and skate.

And we did all those things this year, but then we also made a trip to Toledo. Toledo has a fun place called The Ribbon.

The Ribbon is a skating path. Here is what it looks like from above:

They have roller skating in the summer and ice skating in winter. It is cooled, so they can keep it frozen throughout the winter season even if the temperature goes above freezing.

And there is a slight elevation change, just a few feet overall and gradual. It’s most noticeable on the back stretch coming back to the rink, where you don’t need to do anything because gravity propels you down the path. Not too fast, but enough that you can stand on the skates and keep going.

The skating path is wide enough for 3 people, which is good because couples tend to skate together and you still have room to pass them.

And they have a nice firepit in the middle of one of the arms, so you can take a break and warm up if you want.

And if you want to host a party, you can rent a cabana. When we were there, we saw a couple of cabanas rented, with people hanging out. Plus some people had roasting forks with marshmallows, so I’m guessing the cabana rental includes an option for smores.

And then for those who don’t like the contraints of The Ribbon, it is attached to a small rink.

It’s a nice little respite from The Ribbon, in that you can stop and not be in anyone’s way.

I chose the above photo because it shows the decorative tower between the rink and the river. I’m guessing it looks better at night.

The Ribbon is 1000 yards long, so about 2/3 of a mile. It didn’t seem that long because it loops back on itself so everything always seems close.

There is a natural ice path (not refrigerated, so it’ll melt on sunny days) in Muskegon at the luge adventure sports park. That one is only 1/4 mile long, but it is in the pine forest and is a little more spread out. I haven’t been to that one, but it’s another option.

Then of course there are a bunch of ice skating paths in Canada. And in looking up these places, I found a place that makes them. So you can petition your own city to install an ice skating path.