Where I Stand

Today I was over at the State Fairgrounds for the Back to the 50’s street rod show, sponsored by the Minnesota Street Rod Association. In recent years, they have had more than 13,000 vehicles. Due to the economy, this year the total might be more like 11,000. Trust me, each of those totals are vastly more than one can appreciate in one day.

Last year I decided that photos of cars look better when taken from a lower angle, so I sat down on the ground for most of my shots. This was, to put it mildly, tiring. This year I hung in there much better, nearly twice as long, by kneeling rather than sitting on the ground. Kneeling worked out particularly well because I was wearing my knee pads. Now, I fully understand that this made me look like a card-carrying dork geek. But, at my age, you only need to kneel on pavement without knee pads about twice to appreciate their value.

As I review my photos from the Back to the 50’s events, I invariably notice how many of my shots are of vehicles painted orange. Orange is a popular color, but not nearly as popular as one might think from looking at my photos. Apparently I am drawn to orange street rods the way a moth is drawn to a flame.

Better photos from today are on the web here.

I recently finished reading the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. The basic point of the book is that the pre-Columbian population in the New World was much larger than commonly appreciated and did not sit lightly on the land. The diseases spread by the European explorers meant that very few newcomers to the Americas saw anything other than a continent that had been recently depopulated. Among the interesting points I ran across in the book:

• Maize was deliberately created, an impressive feat of genetic engineering that, if done today, would warrant a Nobel Prize.
• Commenting on the fact that the native people of the New World never utilized the wheel, despite having small wheels in toys, the author points out that Europe struggled for centuries with a very basic plow. When the Europeans finally learned of the moldboard plow, developed in China, agricultural output dramatically increased because what had taken multiple teams of oxen could now be accomplished with a single ox.
• Rather than domesticating animals, Native Americans used fire to manipulate ecosystems so that they were kept at the desired successional stages. As Lewis and Clark headed west they were traveling through not a wilderness but a game farm managed by and for Native Americans.
• Slash-and-burn agriculture is considered to be the classic way to grow crops in the Amazon. But, that only became viable when the iron axe arrived in the New World, since clearing land with a stone axe takes roughly 20 times as much effort.
• Stone Age people of the Amazon were a historical novelty, created by the arrival of Europeans.
• “The forests that the first New England colonists thought were primeval and enduring was actually in the midst of violent change and demographic collapse.”
• The vast flocks of passenger pigeons that settles saw were not representative of their pre-Columbian numbers, but were the result of ecosystems that had been disturbed, what are called outbreak populations.
• The massive buffalo herds seen by early explorers likely represented the largest numbers ever seen in the New World, the result of sudden, dramatic decrease in Indian numbers.
• Because of the diseases they preceded them, Europeans by 1800 were seeing pristine wilderness that they had created.

On June 7, the Idaho State Journal newspaper in Pocatello ran a major story on Doug’s recovery from his bike accident. Now on the newspaper’s website, they have a multimedia presentation from Doug’s participation in a 5K walk. You can get to the presentation from here. Click on Miracle miles under Galleries.

Pat and I were in San Diego this weekend to see Greg get his doctorate from UC San Diego. In addition, he and Sarah got engaged. Major developments!!

On Saturday, my brother Doug Stuart walked in a 5K in Pocatello, Idaho. This was a noteworthy event because last October he was lying on the road in Pocatello, paralyzed from the chest down due to a bicycle accident. On Sunday the Pocatello paper had a big article about Doug’s recovery and participation in the 5K. A brief excerpt from that article can be found online.

On Sunday, Doug’s son Chris was racing in the final stage of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic. This was a major race, with some of the top U.S. pro teams in attendance. Chris finished in 15th place in that stage, which is pretty darn impressive. It is even more impressive when one looks at this photo, and realizes that Chris (rider #72) hit the pavement during the race.

Last year North Oaks did not have its Community Fair. This year they kicked off a slightly different event, The Great North Oaks Get Together. We had been having a drought, and the rain hadn’t begun at the start of the 10K race around Pleasant Lake this morning. But, a few drops fell during the race, and by early afternoon the rain was in full stride. Better photos from today are on the web here.

This afternoon I was over at the Afton Alps Ski Area for a mountain bike race, the Afton Avalanche, a race I photographed last year as well. Actually, they have a series of races throughout the day. I showed up to shoot the 3 races that started at 1:15:

• Comp
• Expert & Pro Women
• Expert & Pro Men

The first two groups raced for 18.9 miles, while the latter race was for 25.1 miles.

While I was shooting I must have bumped a button on the camera, because it was switched into manual focus mode for a while. There were indications that this had happened, and eventually even a thick-headed guy like myself picked up on the clues. Even in spite of that screw up, I still got some decent shots, which can be seen on my bike photos web site.

Last night I was up at the velodrome in Blaine for the first time this year to photograph the action. This was the second Thursday night of racing this season, and they had a surprisingly large field of competitors. Last night was the first time that I had seen 3 women compete in a men’s event (a Cat-3 scratch race), and it was also the first time I saw a woman in a Madison. Exciting night of competition, which suggests there is a good season to follow.

Better photos from last night can be found on my bike photos web site.

It has been observed that many English words have slipped into obscurity, even though more complicated versions of the words live on. Take, for example, the word “ruthless”. It is such a common word that one might gloss over the fact that it contains the root word “ruth”. I’ve never heard anyone use that root word in a sentence. You never hear anyone say something like, “He seemed gruff and mean when I first met him, but then I saw him around children and noticed that he was really ruth.” And to reinforce the point, spell check has no problem with “ruthless” but flags “ruth” as a mis-spelling.

In this morning’s Star Tribune there was an article about a street-paving project in Shoreview. The reason this is noteworthy is that the street is being paved with a new type of concrete, a “green” street surface that will eliminate the need for storm drains. This is called pervious concrete. It is made with gravel and cement like regular concrete, but without sand, producing a material with a porous quality similar to that of a Rice Krispies bar.

I had heard the word “impervious” so many times that I had neglected to notice that hidden (in plain sight) within it was the root word “pervious”. But, as we can see, in this case the seemingly lost root word is staging a comeback.

[Note: Last year I photographed an event that demonstrated a "green" blacktop material. That seemed quite interesting, but at the time I didn't pick up on the fact that the blacktop was pervious.]

Pat and I were recently in Boston for Mark Fabiano’s wedding. During the rehearsal dinner, the bride’s mother got up to quickly summarize her family, noting that she had a pair of twins and a pair of Irish twins. I had never heard the term Irish twins, but Bob Brown kindly explained. Irish twins are a pair of babies born not very far apart (9-12 months). Bob then put this in context by telling a joke:

An Irish fellow asks his priest when he can resume relations with his wife after the birth of their child. The priest replies that this depends on whether the woman’s hospital accomodations are a private room or a ward.

Obviously the term “Irish twins” is sometimes considered derogatory.