The T3sk3y Defenestrator

Being a big fella, sleeping on public transportation (or private transportation for that matter) is totally out of the question. I can’t recline enough to make a difference, the wrap around neck pillows don’t do anything, and I just can’t lay down anywhere – even if I have the entire row. On top of all that.. I consider the whole airline reclining seat thing unbelievably rude – so I don’t do it myself.

I saw the device that I thought would be the ticket a few years ago in SkyMall (you know.. the inflight shopping magazine). I never bought it, then they stopped carrying it. Now that I’m flying about 18 hours (one way) to India, it was obvious that I would need to do something. After a bit of searching, I found exactly what I was looking for:

• No, that’s not me.
• Yes, it looks stupid.
• Yes, I think that I’ll actually be able to sleep like that.
• Yes, you’ll all be jealous, someday.
• No, you can’t borrow it.

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Tuesday night, we celebrated Heather and Dad’s birthdays (Oct. 24th and 31st, respectively) by having dinner at the Mediterranean Cruise Cafe’ in Eagan and doing some go-karting at Pro-Kart Indoor.

The food was awesome – we all ended up getting the Cruise Feast – Gyro meat, Chicken Shish-ke-bab, hummus, rice, filafel, and salad. The service was top notch, too – the owner came out and served us directly.

It’s surprising leaving the city to eat (yeah, I know.. I don’t live in the city). They still allow smoking out there. Heck, they offer hookahs for smoking in the bar. Wow, do those things smoke up the place. After 6 months of glorious smoke-free dining in Minneapolis, it just seems vulgar. Even being on the other side of the restaurant, we still stank by the time we were done. It was the only knock against what was a great dinner!

After a little detour caused by not bothering to check the map, we ended up at Pro-Kart in Savage, MN. Dad, Uncle Juan, Heather, and I each bought two eight minute sessions. Jacqie and mom decided to sit it out and watch. Dad’s friends Charlie and Hoop joined us for the fun. Of course, with three ringers with race experience in the bunch (Uncle John, Charlie and Hoop) – we had our work cut out for us.

We got our quick instruction and headed out to the track. The European 6.5HP Honda-powered carts barely fit a few of us – it was a mighty snug fit to get in the bucket. I quickly figured that what I’d lose in power-to-weight ratio, I’d make up for in traction in the corners. Since the entire track was corners, I figured this would help.

Race one was a lot more tiring than I thought – it was tight turn after tight turn. I managed to pass everyone but Uncle John. I rode his bumper for about 5 laps and just couldn’t get past him – I’m not crazy enough or something. The biggest challenge of the first race? Keeping the half-pound of gyro meat south of my larynx. My best lap was about 22.400 seconds, which put me in 2nd for fastest lap (John had one that was 22.240).

Heather nearly threw in the towel since she struggled a bit in the first race. After some pointers and some cajoling, she agreed to give it another shot. She turned out to be born again bad.. she spent the entire race mixing it up with John, Dad, Charlie, and Hoop. I ended up going out first and spent 6 of the 8 minutes trying to catch the pack. Once I caught up, I managed to pass Hoop, Heather, and Dad (sorry about the t-boning!) but couldn’t catch Tio Juan again. Grr.

Best time race two? 22.200. It even felt faster! My favorite memory of the night was the big grin on Heather’s face after race two – I’m glad she gave it another shot.

Happy Birthday, Heather and Dad!

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One guarantee about a fall BWCA trip is that at least one day per trip is going to be rainy.  This trip was no exception – it started raining well before dawn.  It let up just long enough for us to make a breakfast of pancakes and canadian bacon at the campsite.  Fortunately, Wally’s back had recovered enough overnight to allow us to make this journey.

Our plan for the day was to make a day trip to the most beautiful lake in the BWCA – JAP Lake.  JAP Lake is a small lake that is on the only direct route south out of Seagull Lake.  It’s a rough route to get to JAP – several small lakes with no campsites and some rough overgrown portages lie to the south, a monstrous 515-rod portage goes to the north.  You don’t see JAP Lake without some effort.

(NOTE: Recent maps list JAP Lake as Poulsen Lake.  I immediately dismissed this as PC nonsense.  I later came to find out that JAP isn’t a reference to the land of Sushi – it’s an acronym for James and Ann Poulsen!  Who knew?)

We packed for the day trip, bringing with our lunch, cameras, fishing gear, and our rain gear.  As it turned out, we’d need the rain gear almost immediately.  As we crossed from Gillis to Bat Lake, the rain started to come down.  We pushed through Bat and Green Lake and over our favorite nasty portage to Flying Lake.

We canoed north across Flying Lake in the driving rain and made our way to the “70 rods, my ASS!” portage to Fay Lake.  It was raining hard enough that I was hesitant to pull out my camera to get any pictures.  This finally let up a little while we took our snack break on the portage to Glee Lake.  Even traveling light – you still build up a big hunger!

In about 1995, Kermit and I made the same trek to JAP Lake in very similar weather conditions.  At one point, it even hailed on us as we tried to portage through a swamp.  This trip wasn’t as severe, but the conditions brought back memories.  The BWCA has a strange beauty in bad weather – and in this remote corner of the BWCA, it adds to the desolation.

I was amazed how much things had changed since the last trek through the area – the massive blowdown in July 1999 hit this area especially hard, sweeping some ridgelines clean.  Forest fires finished the job started by the blowdown.  Signs of the forest making a comeback were already in evidence, though.

We paddled across Glossy and Elusion Lakes and climbed down the last short portage to JAP Lake.  JAP looked nothing like I remembered it – The 150-year-old cedars were mowed flat, and the island campsites were stripped clean.  My favorite island campsite was nearly destroyed – the giant pines and cedars were completely uprooted.

We pulled up and had a hot lunch of tortilla soup and sandwiches.  We had to eat and turn back quickly since it was 2:30 PM and it took us almost three hours to get up to JAP Lake. This would put us back in our campsite at 5:30 – which is getting late in the short fall days.

Nobody felt like goiing back across “70 rods, My ASS!” on the way home, so we took an alternate route that lead us across Bingshick Lake and down part of the Chub River to Flying Lake.  Again, this was a swampwhacking route that I had never taken before.  But, given the choice, I might do that route again.  It certainly seemed easier!

The rain cleared up somewhat on our second trip across Flying Lake, allowing us to take some pictures along the black cliffs:

It turned out to be the nicest night of all to enjoy the campfire, in spite of the difficulties we had gettiing the wet pile of wood to ignite.  The Tufvanders made a big pot of Chicken and Rice for dinner and we relaxed until about 10 PM.

All pictures from the trip can be found at:

BWCA 2005 Photos

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… for commentary on White Castle that inspired me to have lunch there today:

the white castle

Gotta love it.. sliders, chicken rings, fish nuggets, onion chips… pepto bismol.. mmmm..

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My tickets are booked! I’m only doing the trip to India this time. I’ll probably do the China portion either late-2005 or early-2006. As it stands now, I leave Nov. 3rd. I’ll do a quick stop in Amsterdam before continuing to Bangalore. I’ll spend the week in meetings in Bangalore and I’ll have a few days over the weekend to look around, ride elephants, eat curry or whatever before flying home on Tuesday the 15th.

I think I’ll skip bathing in the Ganges. Cholera = no good.

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A couple of weeks ago I had a strange epiphany during the day.. it was one of those life changing moments that you knew would define who you would become. It was like one of those moments similar to when a person decides they are going to go for a gold medal, or run for president. I’ve waited a bit to talk about it on here just to let it sink in a little.

I’m going to try to win an Ig Nobel Prize.

The Ig Nobel Prize is, as defined on their page: Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people LAUGH, then makes them THINK.

Previous winners include a man that invented prosthetic testicles for dogs (called Neuticles), a rotary device that assists childbirth through centrifugal force, a study of whether people swim faster or slower in syrup (done here at the U of M!), a man that photographed every meal he had in 34 years, and a report on the effect of country music on suicide.

Here’s the complete list of past winners: Ig Nobel Past Winners

I think I can win this. Bedheads are a good start, but I think I may have to photograph it for 50 years to qualify. 1 month was hard. So, I’m thinking hard about my contribution. If I could somehow correlate my bedhead to my days performance, my mood, my behavior, the stock market, NASCAR, or how it’s somehow Bush & Halliburton’s fault, I might have something!

Of course, I’m open for ideas, too..

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Friday started out as Thursday ended – clear and rather cold. At some point during the night, it went below freezing making it tough to get out of the sleeping bag. A quick peek out of the tent door revealed a magical sight:

The fog that moved in during the morning chill was being burned off by the dawn sun. It’s really amazing to see! I scrambled out of my tent, grabbed my camera, and started snapping pictures like crazy. The one that I linked to above is my favorite of the bunch, and perhaps my favorite of the entire trip.

Heather enjoyed it by sitting near the lake reading her copy of “The Root Beer Lady” – the autobiography of Dorothy Molter. For those not in the know, Dorothy was a woman in her 70′s that lived in the BWCA most of her life until she passed away in the early 80′s She made root beer on her little island on Knife Lake and sold bottles of it to thirsty canoers. Heather read several chapters to us over the course of the trip, and it really hit home since Dorothy only lived about 10 miles from where we were staying.

Shannon, on the other hand, decided that the crisp morning would be the perfect time to swim. This insanity spread to my wife, who also decided to jump in. The novelty wore off quickly for them as they raced back out of the lake with a lovely blue tinge to their skin and a head-to-toe case of goosebumps.

We made up a breakfast of Bagel McMuffins (I -still- think a McD’s in Grand Marais is a $1M idea!) and set off for our day’s journey. We had planned to head northwest through French Lake, cross into Peter Lake, and loop back around somehow. When we got to French Lake (Insert cheesy radio jingle “It’s another Heather Top-10 Lake!!” here), we decided to take a quick look at the waterfall dividing Seahorse and French Lake along the portage to Seahorse Lake.

When we got to Seahorse, the Tufvanders saw the swampiness and decided to try to fish it. I have looked at the Seahorse – Warclub chain in the past and had been curious about how passible it was since it looked very swampy. The lakes turned out to be quite pretty, in a swampy sort of way. Both were navigable by canoe, but we were forced to portage over a beaver dam at one point.

We had lunch between Warclub and Fay Lakes consisting of shrimp, lime, tomatoes, and avacado on tortillas. It was a refreshing lunch in spite of the very underripe avacados that were still stonelike. We had planned on turning north and going to Jap Lake (now renamed Poulsen Lake on the map for some dopey PC reason), but since it was 2PM by now – we elected to head back to camp.

This route also required us to do the two ugliest portages in our area back to back – the 70 rod portage between Fay and Flying Lake, also known as “Dagobah” (named by Kermit) or “70 rods, My ASS!” (named by Wally) and the buttkicker between Flying and Green Lake.

We split from the Tufanders on the last couple of lakes so that they could get more serious about fishing. Heather and I gathered some wood along the portage and loaded it into the canoe since the wood selection was pretty bad near our campsite. Wally and Shannon made it back shortly after, no fish in hand.

Since swimming was out of the question for me (due to chilly water), I decided to rig a forest shower. I heated some water, filled a water carrier, grabbed a bungee and a tarp and headed into the woods. I placed the tarp on the ground, hung the bag in the tree with the bungee, and proceeded to take a hot shower. When I came back to camp all cleaned up, Heather and Shannon both decided a hot shower sounded great and took turns using it. Meanwhile, Wally kept muttering “I don’t need a shower. I can tell when I need a shower, and I don’t. If I did, I’d take one. I don’t. If I did, I’d just hit the hotspots with a washcloth. I don’t need to. I don’t need a shower.” Shannon returned a few minutes later and said “Wally! Your turn for a shower! You -need- one!” Wally stumbled into the woods muttering and grumbling.

The wind came up that night and made it a chilly evening around the fire. Wally tweaked his back working on the fire and decided he needed to go lay down since he really couldn’t walk or do anything around the campsite. This made for a very early evening and we all turned in pretty early.

All pictures from the trip can be found at:

BWCA 2005 Photos

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It’s not every day that you get stuck with a needle 4 times.

And yea, as I walk through the shadow of the valley of Bangalore,
I shall fear no ailment
for I am vaccinated.

I started my day by getting vaccinated for:

• Typhoid
• Hepatitus A
• Polio
• Tetanus

And, I get to pick up a two week supply of anti-Malarial and Cipro (just in case). Whee. I did have to laugh – I had a choice of anti-malarials. One that could induce psychotic episodes, and one that won’t. Hmm.. might have made the 20 hour plane ride more entertaining..

The upshot is that my arms are sore – two in each.

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In the show “The Amazing Race”, the contestants go around the world over about 6 weeks. I found out yesterday that I get to do it over 9 days. It looks like I’ll be doing a complete circumnavigation of the globe in early November for work. Thus far, it looks like my route (including layovers) will be:

Minneapolis – Amsterdam (layover) – Bangalore, India – Chennai, India – Mumbai, India (layover) – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (layover) – Taiwan – Minneapolis

It would be cool – if I got to see something outside of the inside of an airplane! Well, I’m going to try to build in a layover day or two to rest & look around a little since I’m going all that way.

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Our first full day of the 2005 BWCA trip started early at the um, quaint Gunflint Motel in Grand Marais. When we left on Wednesday night, all the gear got chucked into the truck without much thought to packing. Now, it was time to actually load the packs in the hotel room. We quickly got this done and checked out of the hotel room.

We wandered the four blocks into downtown Grand Marais to find breakfast. The local coffee shop took care of everyones need for caffeine (well, except mine!), but didn’t offer much in the way of breakfast. That’s when inspiration hit. I made the mistake of asking if there was a McDonalds in town, since I am the world’s biggest Egg McMuffin fan. I love the dumb things. The person at the coffee shop said “Sure.. there’s one 80 miles East in Thunder Bay, and another one 80 miles West in Two Harbors”. Ah, I think I could make millions with a MickeyD’s in Grand Marais. My wife vigorously disagreed..

After another couple of errands – including one to the gas station to get a “ham, egg, and cheese muffin”, we headed North up the Gunflint trail. It was a perfect late-September day – 60 degrees, clear and dry. We pulled into Tuscarora Outfitters on Round Lake just about noon. We quickly got our rental canoe, loaded all the gear, and were on our way within the hour.

Normally when I go to the Boundary Waters, the goal is to make a really big loop, averaging 10-12 miles / day. The Tufvanders preferred to base camp and day trip – so we decided to give that a go. Our base camp was going to be on Gillis Lake – about 8 lakes in.

We pushed hard all afternoon, jumping from lake to lake and from portage to portage. By the 2nd portage, Heather already had a blister from her Merrill sandals – how does that happen? That blister would plague her the rest of the trip. We went from Round – West Round – Edith – Brant – Gotter – Flying – Green – Bat – Gillis on our journey to our campsite. The 80 or so rod portage (Note: a rod is about a canoe length, or 17 feet) from Flying to Green lake was a rough one – and it just about did in Wally. Heather wasn’t too happy about her blister by then, either. Lucky for us, we’d get to cross that portage 4 more times!

We pulled into camp at about 4:30 in the afternoon. We got a great site on the north side with a fabulous view of the lake. We put the tents up, gathered firewood, filtered some drinking water, and started cooking dinner. I prepared a BWCA favorite of mine – brats, fried potatoes, and beans. Yeah, they are heavy to carry. Just ask Heather.

We enjoyed a little time around the fire before turning in about 9:30 as the temperature plunged to near freezing. It’s amazing how early you turn in when you don’t wear a watch!

All of the pictures from the trip can be found at:
BWCA 2005 Photos

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