More snow

St Cloud was hit with another snowstorm yesterday and today. It is Presidents' Day so we didn't have school today, which is good, because I am pretty sure that we would have cancelled school today because of all the snow.

I am less than mobile but I did get out and take a few photos. Let's just say that getting in and out of my car is a bit of an adventure. The final diagnosis was three broken and two or so cracked ribs, plus the soft tissue damage. All that really means is that for the next few weeks, six or so, transitions and coughing and sneezing and all sorts of things that I am discovering everyday will hurt. Hopefully it will hurt less every day, but for right now, it's noticeable.

But who cares? The snow was beautiful. My apologies, of course, to Harry Callahan.

Day 6

I am tired of this...It almost a week since I fell, and I am still pretty much confined to my couch. I go back to the doctor tomorrow and hopefully back to work full-time after that. I am weaning myself off of the"hard stuff" and learning to live on Motrin. So far it is working, though I am still moving very slowly, and the transitions between standing and sitting etc give me pause. But I will live. Wasn't too sure about that until the last day or so, but I will be back at it.

So I took a few photo. I was guessing that I would have taken 150 photos each of the days in England. I have taken 19 in six days. Not exactly what I had planned.

Where I was supposed to be...

So it is Sunday evening and I should have been about 12-15 miles south of Oxford. It was 53 in London today, and I am betting it would have been a good day for a walk. But I shouldn't mope. It was warm in St Cloud today so it is almost the same.

I did damage myself--cracked ribs and stretched and tore ligaments. My rib cage served its exact purpose quite well. It bent and compressed, but didn't break and it did protect more vital organs. That said, everyone keeps telling me (in case I didn't figure this out) that hurting your ribs is one of the most painful injuries that you can experience. If you carefully treat your ribs, it will take 6-8 weeks for them to feel better. If you just ignore them, it takes 6-8 weeks for them to feel better. The first week is supposed to be the worst, and all I can say is "I hope so."

So, a few days off from work until I can moderate my wincing and narcotic usage. Then it is back to work, at least until I find the next place for an adventure.

What should be, isn't...

Right about now I should be landing in London, stretching a bit from the 9 hour flight. Instead, I am riding a couch, barely able to stretch. Jason, O, icy parking lot, 1. My conversations with the doctor indicate some things were torn/strained or whatever, but until I get into the doctor, she couldn't say for sure. I am mobile, but very very sore. Little things cause me to pause, like the transitions between sitting or standing, or coughing, and even walking. This status would prevent me really enjoying the trip that I had planned, so I cancelled. Ouch, said my non-refundable tickets but a louder ouch was heard from my ribs.

As a faculty member said yesterday, gravity means more when you are fifty, and that is true. I could be a case study for that. I don't know if I would have bounced right back up 20 years ago, but I might not have been so sore. I told someone yesterday that I am adult to know that I made the right decision in not going, but I am enough a kid to be terribly disappointed by not going. I know I needed and wanted a break from work, but this was not how I wanted to do it.

More soon, but from my couch, not London.

Whining...

I am writing to whine...I fell this morning, and all my not inconsiderable bulk (-: landed on my back in my parking lot. It probably set off the seismic sensors at the college! I wish I could say I did this while I was trying to save the three year old and her cute puppy from a speeding bus, but alas, I fell while taking out the trash. I know, pretty glamorous, eh? What a dashing fellow am I. A friend immediately asked my about my hip--I am getting older, you know.

I don't think I damaged my hip, but at the least I bruised ribs and perhaps cracked one or two. I vaguely remember the feeling from the distant past and wrestling. My body is still doing the self assessment thing to see if it is just sore or seriously damaged--right now it only hurts when I breath or try and sit up or stand. This would be inconsequential if I weren't planning on walking with a backpack for five days, and of course to get there, I will be chained to a plane seat for 8+ hours. A little worried about this. At the least, my Motrin bill just went up. This will change my trip, but I am hoping to salvage it. I will just move more slowly!

Fog

It's been kind of lousy for photos lately, but here are a few from this morning. It was foggy and a few of the trees were frosty.

Time for a walk

I read a remarkable book recently, one that has inspired me in many different ways. It was a gift from friend, and as I hope you all know, some of the best gifts are books. Or rugs, but that is a different story...

The book is by Patrick Leigh Fermor, a writer who is considered by many to be one of the best travel writers ever. Certainly he is the best that I have ever read. The first of his books that I read is the story of a remarkable walk that he started in in 1932. At the age of 17, he left England to walk to Constantinople, all across Europe in the tumultuous years before WWII. It is amazing story, and is also very humbling. As he walked he quoted Homer, in Greek, of course. And Shakespeare. And and and... Certainly public schools in prewar-England prepared 17-year-olds differently than our American schools prepare teenagers. Or those with Ph.D's, for that matter. It is an impressive book.

So what, I like a book...that happens now and again. Reading it made me want to walk somewhere. As much as I would like, I can't quite spend several years walking across Europe, and frankly, the Europe that Fermor walked across is sadly long gone. Besides that, I simply don't have the skills to do what he did. But I am not without resources, chief among them the internet, and I went looking for a walk that I might be able to do. And I found one.

One week from today I head for England and after a day or two in London, I am taking a walk, from Oxford to London. I think if I make it the entire way, the walk would be about 90 miles. I plan to walk about 70 or so, from Oxford to the outskirts of London. It should be about a five day walk--you can't have mountains along a river tow path, so it should be an easy walk. If I can avoid the siren call of little pubs, book stores, and the odd bakery and other charms of 500+ year old villages, I should be able to do to it if I can walk for six or seven hours a day. I am hoping that even an old, slightly pudgy guy should be able to do that! Plus, I am crazy, but not so crazy that I am going to do this in a three day rain storm. The temp should be in the 40s, but if it is colder or rainy, I will simply head back to London, where I know they have book stores, pubs, museums, bakeries, and Wagamama's. Trust me, only good weather will keep me away from the charms of London.

Hopefully, I will have all the good things-- good weather, good light, good shoes, and good travel. But how can bad can it be?

More soon

Cheers!

Yikes!!!!

moon over Minnesota

Ok, it wasn't the full moon of last night, but I was in Minneapolis recently when the sky was clear and the moon was bright. I should be out there tonight taking pictures because it is almost daylight with the reflections off the snow. But it is also cold--its 15 below at 11PM, and it is expected to drop to at least 25 below. If it gets that cold, it will be be colder than it's been since the early 1980s...

It is 45 in Seattle, and 37 in London...Am I in the right place?

Finally...

So at last, my new computer! I know that it is just a thing, but it does become part of me, mostly because it is my window to the world, and a tie to a few people. It does make the world a bit smaller.

It snowed last night again, causing one of my friends to say, "Good, I won't get out of my routine of shoveling every Friday night!" My phone said it was cloudy with flurries this morning, but my eyes saw a different world than what the MSP weather station predicted. These are nothing great, but I had to blog something, didn't I?

11111, or, 1/11/11

It has been a month since I last blogged--way too long for me, though I suspect that the few who read this minded the interlude all that much. What can I say? A broken computer, the holidays, work, life, etc, all contributed. As did a bit of laziness, I suppose.

But I am back at it. School has started more or less smoothly, much of what is going on at school I am can or at least I am accepting/ignoring, I get my new computer in a few days, and I have kicked myself in the tukas so that I will not be lazy.

I suppose I am not feeling that badly because I don't and haven't had all that much to say. Or if I have had things to say, they aren't all that worth repeating or writing down. But my close friend Jay challenged me to a mini photo contest on landscapes, and I am trying on that score. He had a great head start, as he was in the Southwest for two weeks while I was stuck in the cold and snowy Midwest. At least I have entrees in the contest, albeit weak ones as I have not been that inspired. Still, these are the landscapes of my life. They are from my house, of my house, or near my house. I am intrigued by the cube of a barbershop which is less than 125 feet from where I park my car. Several of these are from my deck. The sign is from the Ace Bar and Grill which is across the street from me, and confirms that it is the land of Lutefisk. My living room, my space, has changed a bit in the year I have been here. It isn't any cleaner, but it is warmer, in many ways.

More soon

A Cold Neighborhood

For those of you without internet or the Weather Channel, Minnesota and Wisconsin have been socked in with a major snowstorm. They are already calling it "THE BLIZZARD OF 2010!" on the local news channels. That this is the only blizzard so far of the whole year makes that understandable, if still a bit overstated. But that is easy for me to say. St Cloud "only" got about 8 inches, and the wind is "only" blowing about 30 MPH around here. South and southwest of here received up to 20 inches of snow.

So it wasn't a day for a long drive but it was worth going through the park, the same one that was pictured last week. These pictures show better visibility than there actually was. It was (and is) a real live blizzard. I am glad I am in for the night in a warm apartment with good smells coming from the kitchen. Every now and then, I peek out the window to watch the wind whip the snow into unmanageable drifts.

On a sad note, I have to note the demise of a good friend of this past year and a half or so. Above is a picture of my Macbook, the tool used to post almost all of these blogs these past months. Since then I have saved almost 15,000 photos that I shot this past year on this computer, and written almost 300 blog posts with this computer. It slipped through my cold hands and slippery down coat yesterday, and fell on concrete. It was after a crappy, crappy day at work, and I was almost in tears. And I would have been if I hadn't discovered that although the screen is totally toast, it does still work with an external monitor. Talk about small favors, but it does seem that the real value of things, just like the value of life, is the memories, or in this case, the memory of a still functioning hard drive.