May 28 to June 9, 2003, we joined my cousin and her husband on a Baltic cruise on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary. It was a marvelous time, Copenhagen start and end; St. Petersburg, Russia, June 3 and 4; the other days Stockholm, Helsinki and rural Finland, Estonia, Gdynia (Gdansk) Poland; Oslo, Norway. […]
For years we’ve subscribed to short season (usually 6 concerts) of the Minnesota Orchestra, a magnificent band! This mornings Minneapolis Star Tribune, page one, featured the debut of a new conductor. As the review in the Variety section headlines: “Thomas Sondergard makes an epic debut”. Here’s the front page photo: Here’s the program descriptor of […]
I’m ending this week with ‘miscellany’ – there’s far too much going on to write about everything. Here goes: VLADIVOSTOK Earlier this week, Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin met near Vladivostok, Russia. I am a long-ago Geography Major. Back then – the 50s – I would only have known it had to be a […]
POSTNOTE: Chuck W sent his own blog commentary, which can be accessed here. * Today is the 22nd anniversary of 9-11-01. It was a Tuesday. Over the years, I have written often about aspects of 9-11 and its profound impact on me, personally, but I wondered, this year, why the attention? It is, after all, […]
An unwritten rule of the road in these parts is don’t mess with summer, which ends with Labor Day. Makes sense to us. So, when we met J. Drake Hamilton of Fresh Energy on August 18, I said I wouldn’t pass information along till September. By our Minnesota rule-of-thumb it’s now Fall. We’ve been a […]
Yesterday, the day after Labor Day, was the first day of school here. At my coffee place, the Blackboard had been cleaned and a question for the day appeared: The previous day, I’d stopped by the Middle School where my daughter is Principal, and gave her my more or less annual calendar taken at the […]
PRE-NOTE: I have made additions to the posts for August 11 (Lahaina), August 22 (Ukraine) and August 24 (Stairs). Access through archive at right on this page. * A current important issue in Minnesota is the design of the Minnesota state emblem. More on that below. One week ago I was at Huot MN, a […]
August 31 additions follow the photo. Two earlier posts: Lahaina(8/11/23), and Ukraine (8/22/23), are available here. Both solicit comments, and are thus incomplete. This is a work in progress – check back in a week. The General topic of “The Stairs” is here, handwritten, brief: Dick B 1940. As noted, this in the 1940th post […]
Added September 5, 2023: from Minneapolis Sunday Tribune September 3, 2023: Ukraine kids 2023 STrib 9 3 23 Added August 31, 2023: A few of us who visited with the Ukraine students added comments after the gathering. Mine is the last one of this group. from Martha: The Hopkins t-shirt [ln one of the visitors?] […]
Added August 31, 2023: It has been three weeks since the catastrophic Lahaina fire. It essentially has disappeared from news, replaced by the latest headline this morning “Idalia slams into Florida, Georgia”, and on the TV talk about how Congress may resist disaster relief – too expensive, too many. And the narrative about climate change…or […]