November update, I went to New York

"Teach a man to fish and he eventually breaks his fishing pole."

- Winston Churchill

Okay you don't need to google that, I'm pretty sure Winston Churchill never said it. I did however, break both of my fly rods this year. One broke mid-cast and the other broke during a messy release. Fortuitously both were under warranty and were able to be replaced, though I missed a couple months of fishing at the end of the summer.

During late June I participated in an informal fishing contest sponsored by a local fly fishing shop. Given ten days, participants caught as many different species within the area as possible. I was pretty far out of the winnings, but had fun and got a lot of fishing in.

The relative importance of participating was maintaining my schedule and routine during the competition, as if every day is an opportunity to wake up at 4 AM, drive to Wisconsin, fly fish for 12 hours, drive home, ride my bicycle to the YMCA, swim a half mile, catch the paper, do the puzzles, make dinner, have a beer, wash the dishes, do the next day's New York Times Crossword puzzle, fall asleep, wake up and go to work the next day without pretense.

I'm not "saying" that's how it went, because it wasn't, it was only one of ten days.

The whole thing smacked of effort, as they say.

So around about mid-summer, I bought a round trip ticket to New York. I've been happily employed as a retail associate for almost a year now, and a vacation seemed warranted. Luckily I was able to get the time away from work and I started planning my visit for late October.

I flew to Newark airport on a Monday, and walked, and walked and walked. I walked across the Brooklyn bridge, I walked through Soho, Chelsea, Chinatown and the World Trade Center Memorial. I found the Fearless Girl statue, facing down the New York Stock Exchange; I walked past the Flatiron building, wrapped in scaffolding 22 stories high. I took some pictures, had a couple slices of pizza and got home in time to meet my hosts before they started their Tuesday morning.

Tuesday I went to New Haven, Connecticut and saw the Peabody Museum. On Wednesday I went to the Meat Packing District, visited the Whitney Museum, purchased a three day Citi Bike membership, found the 14th Street YMCA, swam and had more pizza. 

Thursday I started early, riding a Citi Bike past the UN Building, through Central Park and stopping at the Guggenheim museum. I've never seen anything like Central Park, or the constant throngs of people in and around the city. The Manhattan Riverfront Greenway was safer than riding in the street, and every view of the Hudson and East rivers was worth the effort.

With half the day remaining I made it to the American Museum of Natural History and The Metropolitan Museum of Art before they closed - eventually riding my way back to the Chelsea YMCA to swim again before having a late night Chinatown dinner and beer with my host.

These two museums, the Natural History Museum and The Met - are grandiose in scale. I only had enough time to see one specific room of The Met, and happily viewed paintings of the Abstract Expressionist style before going to the roof and watching the sun set over Central Park. 

Friday morning I saw the sunrise and got on the New Jersey transit to Newark before 8 AM.

While I was there my streak of New York Times crossword puzzles went past five hundred days. As I sat in the courtyard of the Natural History Museum and finished the Thursday puzzle without googling the answers or querying a blog for hints, I thanked whoever I could for the opportunity to be there, accomplishing something I had struggled with for so long.

So there it is, a couple of big events in the past four or five months. I think I skipped a few things, but most of it is in there somewhere.

Thanks for reading.

Manhattan, NY, 10-23-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, New York, 10-23-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney

Minneapolis, MN, 9-22-2019, photo by Michael McKinney

Peabody Museum, New Haven, CT, 10-22-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, New York, 10-25-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan ,New York. 10-24-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Saint Croix River, MN. 8-1-2019, photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, NY, 10-23-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan ,NY, 10-22-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, NY, 10-24-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Minneapolis, MN, 8-23-2019, photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, NY, 10-21-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

March 2019

February was a long slog, snow kept falling and the temperature plummeted more than once. After moving to Minneapolis last year I didn't know what to expect in the winter. The streets in my neighborhood are closer, tighter, more lined with cars and alleys than bike paths along Summit Avenue, Saint Clair Avenue or the much hyped Cretin Avenue bike path.

The decreasing width of the one way streets due to heavy snowfall is not entirely new, last summer, within six weeks of moving, Hennepin Avenue was torn up for a construction project, and buses were running through Fremont and Girard Avenue one way streets ... that's a full size metro transit bus, between parking on both sides of the street, on a one way, every day, on schedule. Pretty much close to schedule, anyway. So I spent a little more time on NiceRide bicycles, and found their convenience reassuring, if the bus was not on time, there was usually a way to get to where I wanted to be.

I have been trying to swim more and more regularly, struggling to learn how to share a lane with another swimmer - I reflected to somebody once how playing basketball is the closest I can get to role playing as an adult, sometimes putting myself into the character of a player taking a free throw, or lining up a three point shot like Ray Allen, ice cold as the buzzer signals the end of the game. Unflappable.

Nothing makes me flap more than trying to swim in a lane with somebody, and it is not without precedent. I just don't want to be hit, or hit, or be disturbed for the twenty minutes it takes me to swim a half mile.

Sometimes, it is the only twenty minutes in a 24 hour period I can be in motion and not expect somebody to walk in front of me, to drive in front of me, to imperil or inconvenience me with side stepping, back stepping, waltzing to and fro, the tango, the sashay, the "whatever it takes to not get hurt or hurt", the "get out of my way" maneuvers that become a high school student's common practice as he or she makes their way from one class to another.

Who expects that from adulthood?

I aspired to loving, and being loved in return, and instead I have, "worry about being hit or hitting in return."

So anyway, that's what I like about swimming; even if I need to learn how to share a lane, I get those twenty minutes or so of just concentrating on my breathing, the floating and the kinetic drift of my body through the water. It is not a simple thing, despite Michael Phelp's large diet and carefree attitude, it is not at all like that.

Besides that, I got to reading "The Right Stuff" last year, and then watched the movie. I liked the book quite a bit, as it holds true to the essay form Tom Wolfe displayed in "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test", sometimes interjecting personal opinions and embellishments that may or may not be true but really fill out the images and characters well. My daily efforts at crosswords and sudoku puzzles continue, sometimes to less than commendable results; not inconsequentially, gradually requiring less and less antagonism.

There has been some bike riding and baking so far this year, but more constant priorities have returned, as reliable as the Spring snowstorm that accompanies the Minnesota State Boys Hockey tournament; Will I be able to renew my lease? Will I have a place to live? Can I stay healthy? Is there a reasonable career I can establish for myself in middle age? When and where did all of the time go?

These studded tires are something else.

Photo by Jim McKinney

Late February

I had the good fortune to be accepted into a study abroad program in college. It was more than twenty years ago, and through some miracle I found myself in Ireland, England, Scotland and then turned loose upon the European continent for six weeks. Having had the opportunity to see Germany and Ireland, Scotland and France, I now wonder more at the capacity to diminish travel accessories than the panacea of architecture, art and culinary experiences I missed out on.

I brought a portable CD player that only worked on level ground, needed two AA batteries for three hours of music and a carrying case with 40 compact discs, and if traveling with a few books was not enough, I bought more books from a Parisian bookstore called Gibert Jeune and carried them home to gather dust on a bookshelf for twenty years. Last summer I finally got around to reading one of them, and let me tell you Leo Tolstoy had it right, "We can know only that we know nothing..." but you can skip everything but the last fifty pages and it still makes sense.

I don't do a lot of fishing in the winter, and while I initially made efforts to ride my bicycle as frequently as possible, my winter cycling is woefully thin compared to many, many regular cyclists commuting throughout the winter in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. What I have noticed from previous mileage is the tendency for roadways to become narrower as the snow accumulates along the peripheries. Bicycle trails are well maintained however, so negotiating debris fields along certain stretches of roadway between moving traffic and parked cars seems unnecessary by comparison.

Last year's total mileage was about a third of where I was four years ago, I appreciate the fancy Velo Viewer infograph telling me I climbed Mount Everest once, but it is not as comforting as not having foot pain. As such I spend more time riding Metro Transit buses and trains, watching the consistent diaspora of bicycle styles between Minneapolis and Saint Paul. On the same day a casual observer will see skinny-tired steel frame single speed fixies with leather strapped pedals being ridden through the same snow, slush and ice as a person on a carbon fat bike with monolithic tires set to 9 psi. The benefit of there being ample snow means the cross country ski trails are more usable, where it is more likely to see a fat biker negotiating single track mountain bike trails than a rebuilt single speed.

Speaking of ample snow, it just snowed again and it sounds like it will snow some more before March. By April it might still be around, but hopefully the transition between road tires and studded tires will not include too many instances of the former on ice or the latter on asphalt. 

Early season skiing on man-made snow, Minneapolis . Photo by Michael McKinney

Finding the bike lane, Minneapolis. Photo by Michael McKinney

Art Shanty Projects on Lake Harriet, Minneapolis. Photo by Michael McKinney

2017 Velo Viewer Infograph, Michael McKinney

December Sunset, Saint Paul. Photo by Michael McKinney

Skiers racing along Nicollet Mall, February 2018. Photo by Michael McKinney

After finishing War and Peace around Mid-Summer, the remainder of my Goodreads Reading Challenge was mostly non-fiction books, with a couple of Tom Clancy and John Grisham books in there too.

 

Michael's 2017-reading-challenge book montage

Michael's favorite books »

Tight lines.

Early December

The weather has abruptly dropped off the shelf, as many local weather forecasters had been expecting. After a very warm November and unprecedented wildfires and hurricanes in the national forecast, some Minnesotans may have begun to expect a similar calamity in their weather system. Obviously not, as lakes and creeks have begun freezing and the daily temperatures resume their typical below freezing averages.

Three category four hurricanes in a row through Central America and wildfires throughout the western United States have made the anticipation of weather less a premonition of happiness than a prayer for strangers caught out.

Summer in Minnesota was enjoyable, I again volunteered for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency as a Volunteer Stream Monitor along Minnehaha Creek, a 22 mile stream through Western Minneapolis flowing out of Lake Minnetonka. Since a 2014 flooding, changes in the stream and surrounding bodies of water have mandated changes in the way it is managed, and following along as a volunteer has been a gradual evolvement from passing spectator to willing participant.

My responsibilities as a Citizen Stream Monitor are fairly simplistic, and often the process of getting to my water collection site is more complicated than the process of measuring the turbidity or generating quantitative judgements of the recreational or aesthetic potential. I hope to resume my volunteering when the snow and ice melt next year, but for now it is back to planning for winter bicycle riding (studded tires and bring a bus pass just in case) and volunteering with the City of Lakes Loppet Foundation during their Loppet Festival in Minneapolis, which this year coincides with the Super Bowl.

Stay Warm!

Minnehaha Creek Northern Pike, Photo by Michael McKinney

Minnesota Nice Ride late season, photo by Michael McKinney

Bread, photo by Michael McKinney

Pottery through the Saint Paul Community Education Program, photo by Michael McKinney

Me with a Largemouth Bass, anon photo

Saint Paul Mural, photo by Michael McKinney

Mountain Biking on July 4th at Wirth Park, Minneapolis, photo by Michael McKinney

Minnehaha Creek Smallmouth Bass, photo by Michael McKinney

Minnehaha Creek Largemouth Bass, photo by Michael McKinney

November Update

Walter Donovan: Where are these missing pages? We must have them back!

Elsa Schneider: You're wasting your breath. He won't tell us, and he doesn't have to. It's pretty obvious where the pages are... He's given them to Marcus Brody.

Henry Jones Sr.: Marcus!? You didn't bring him along, did you? He's not up for the challenge.

Walter Donovan: Brody sticks out like a sore thumb. We'll find him!

Indiana Jones: The hell you will! He's got a two-day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan. He speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom. He'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the Grail already.

[Cut to Marcus in İskenderun]

Marcus Brody: Does anyone here speak English? Or even Ancient Greek?

- Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

That quote reminds me of It's a Wonderful Life, and the uncle who keeps a pet crow. The holidays are approaching, the weather has cooled off and fishing season has wound down for me. Three weeks ago the bail spring on my fishing reel broke, so I contacted Daiwa and their customer service department kindly forwarded me two new ones.

It took a little elbow grease but the new spring works, the reel is again functional and next year I'll hopefully get back to enjoying the distance from Minnehaha Falls to Lake Calhoun, which has formally had a name change to its original Dakota name, Mde Maka Ska.

As far as baking, biking and books goes, here are some recent efforts:
A couple loaves of bread from my Half Ass Kitchen;




My Goodreads reading list for the 2016 Reading Challenge; 

 

   

      2016 Reading Challenge
   

       

         
       
     

        Michael has
            completed his goal of reading
            40 books in
            2016!
     
     

       

hide

     
     

        44 of 40 (100%)
     
       

          view books
       
 

...a recent bike ride from Saint Paul to Lake Minnetonka, about 46 miles on a sunny afternoon;

Sometime over the summer I happened to see a number of beautiful sunsets over Lake Hiawatha, so I thought I would add a photo of that in here too.

Tight lines, rubber side down, don't forget the salt, adieu, ciao, whatever.

Happy holidays.

Lake Hiawatha Summer sunset 2016, Minneapolis. photo by Michael McKinney.

I apologize for the sloppy formatting and inaccessible hyper links.