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I had an itch to scratch, so I rebuilt my homepage and built in a new microblogging platform that I'm lovingly referring to as my "otherblog."

The site itself got a facelift - much simplifed and more streamlined. I wanted somewhere to write from a web editor, so I made it how I wanted it. We'll see if it sticks around.

This isn't going anywhere. I may merge the two someday, but that would take some serious URL wrangling to make the schemes work. For now, it's just another spot if you want to keep up with me. RSS is available for your reader.

This has been a while in the making. I built a new CMS within my site using Flask to...well, mainly...let me write online again.

This site is already using Flask for some tasks, but it was done mainly for a graduate school requirement. Since finishing my master's degree, I ripped out a lot of the stuff I had to add and left it pretty much alone. Just about a year ago, I added comments to my static site by setting up a small database here. It works well and I was happy to have that added function.

I've been using Pelican since 2023 for my main blog and I like the static site, but I missed being able to just pop open a form and fire off some thoughts. So, here I am.

I'm keeping it separate for now. Welcome to otherblog.

I'm not sure how long that will be, but it is what it is. It's got RSS set up, so you can subscribe to posts if you want updates.

Much of this new site's layout was heavily inspired by Leon Paternoster. Sorry Leon. Thanks Leon. I hope we get to meet someday.

I finally decided it was time to move away from Nova Launcher. I purchased Nova Prime probably 10 years ago for like $6, so I think I got my money's worth. I wasn't thrilled when it was sold and even less when Kevin left back in September. I just needed to take the time to try stuff out.

I landed on Lawnchair. It isn't as customizable as Nova, so there has been some muscle memory re-training this week, but I'm happy overall. I'm glad they're actively developing and I think it's the next closest fit for me.

So long, Nova. You were good while you were good.

I started toying around with a little side microblog because I miss being able to open a browser and make a post. I've used Pelican to generate this static site for a couple years now and I think I'm ready to move back to a web publisher.

I wanted to try and revive Anchor CMS, but I don't have the PHP skills to refactor something so large. I'm comfortable in Python, so I'm extending my homepage, which already uses Flask, to have a blog path. There's a lot to do, but it's something I can pick away here and there in the evenings. It's fun to rethink this space every now and then. I think this will be a good move overall.

Only one book finished in October, but it was a doozie, so I'm okay with that.

Death's End (Remembrance of Earth's Past) - Cixin Liu

A parallel continuation of The Dark Forest. It picks up with a new main character that you follow through the rest of the book. All of the original themes of Three Body Problem tie into this new narrative while bringing some old characters back to pass on obligations and introducing new ones who bring their own complications.

This was a great ending to the story started in Three Body Problem. Some of the physics got weird for me in the end and there were some ideas teased that didn't get played out like I had hoped. But, all things aside, I'm glad I presed on considering how wary I was after finishing the first novel earlier this year.

My wife's parents are moving next year. She and her dad built a gazebo when she was younger and today, it moved to our house.

We'll landscape this in and turn it into a nice little weekend coffee spot.

When I moved into my classroom, there was a great periodic table on the ceiling. Some teacher, previous to me, had students research and create posters for elements that were then wrapped on the ceiling tiles to make an enormous periodic table. It was full of color and was a great piece for the room.

Then, we had an insurance audit.

The auditors decided that it had to come down. I didn't have a choice and it came down at the end of my first year there.

Since then, I've been pining for more color and expression. I decided to do my own "adopt an atom" project with students this year and I got permission to have them paint (as a project option) their own cinderblock in my room. They were already a flat white, so it was a ready-made canvas.

Students each chose an atom (no repeats!) and did some research on physical and chemical properties to reinforce the atomic structure work we've been doing. I also asked them to learn about the name origin along with when and how it was first defined as an element. Lastly, they had to learn how it was used or about a curiosity that particular atom has. I got some great projects and students were genuinely surprised at some of the things they learned. Below is a selection of some of the best murals I got last week. Let me know if one stands out to you.

Others were more literal in their translation, but provide just as much visual interest.

In the end, we were able to do about 30 painted blocks in the room, which was more than I expected. The rest of the students did posters, bringing our total up to about 90 out of 118 atoms described. It went over great and everyone exercised the creative parts of their brains for a change of pace. I'm looking forward to next year's paintings.

Excuse the crummy title. I ran into an interesting graphing problem in Google Sheets that I'm documenting here for anyone else who might have the same question or problem.

We're finishing up a unit on thermochemistry and we're capping it off with a lab where students decompose hydrogen peroxide with an iron nitrate catalyst and measuring temperature change. They collect data for about 20 minutes and then use their data to calculate the enthalpy change for the system. I'm basing this on a procedure from Charles Marzzacco published in the Journal of Chemical Education. His procedure includes a graph of his trial data:

I wanted my students to some more analysis with this lab, so we're going to make the same graph to estimate the maximum temperature of the system following the addition of the catalyst. I'll give me a chance to talk about trends in data, what linear regression does for us, and then calculate their results. The problem is that this kind of regression is not easy to do in Google Sheets. It took some creative use of duplicated data, help from Tom Woodward, and some questionable personal choices.

Here's the graph I ended up with:

This worked by duplicating a subset of data in the source sheet. The original data is the main graph, recorded like normal. A trendline can be added, but it looks at the entire dataset where I only wanted the best fit from the highest temperature to the end of the run. Tom suggested using a QUERY function to copy data past time n to plot another series on top of the full run.

text =QUERY(A1:B20, "Select A, B WHERE A >= 8", 0)

My higest temperature was a time 8, so the formula grabs every temperature past that time. This formula has to go in the next column over on the same row as your target temperature. This will add another series to the chart that can be formatted the same as the main line so it is invisible to the user. In the chart editor, this series can have a trendline added to show the trend for the subset.

Finally, I used Sheets' FORECAST function to give it the subset of data to calculate the Y intercept at time n. The formula in this case was:

text =FORECAST(5, E8:E20,D8:D20)

This goes on line 5 of a third pair of columns to be graphed as a third series as the intercept of the vertical line at time=5 and the regression line. Here's what the sheet itself looks like:

It works, but it's kind of a pain. I'm going to have students graph this one by hand and maybe next time, we'll build some more spreadsheet wrestling time in.

It's been a minute since I've posted about painting, so here are some paintings from the second half of the year.

This has become more therapeutic for me. I'm still finding my style and I'm settling on a technique I like. I've committed to small(ish) paintings so there isn't as much pressure to "do it right." I've also stopped painting on the backs of pages because my wife has asked me not to so she can cut some out from time to time.

In June, we went to visit some friends in Minnesota. They live right on the Mississippi River headwaters, so I took some time to paint while we were there.

I made some smaller, looser versions while we were there as well.

The time we spent in Minnesota kicked off our summer. You can read more about it in its own post.

I didn't do much in July, but in August, I went back to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for a camping trip and I took my paints along.

I think my favorite from the trip was this painting of some birch trees near a campsite. Most of what I'd done so far on the trip was flat and hard-edged. I managed to get some nice blending on the background for these birches which makes it feel a little more vibrant.

September and October have been small landscapes in the evenings. Some are from home, others are from reference photos.

Warning: this post includes information about raising and processing (ie, butchering) chickens. There are no graphic details, but it does recognize that meat comes from animals which are living up until harvest day.

We are finishing the growing season right now. Last weekend, we had out annual chicken harvest and this week, we've spent a good portion of our time outside, cleaning up the flower garden.

The arrival of October marks the start of the end. The bees are busy drawing down, reducing their numbers, and preparing for the cold winter months. This year, we harvested nearly 400 pounds of honey that went for sale through our farm and some partnering farms locally. All of the hives have received their final mite treatment of the season and will only have a couple more weeks before I put on the insulating covers to get through the winter.

This year has been strange. Normally, our chicken harvest is at the start of October so we can take advantage of cooler weather. This year, our harvest day was a balmy 83 degrees Fahrenheit, which made things a little more sticky than normal. Thankfully, the yellowjackets didn't bother us too much. We worked for two days and got 192 chickens in freezers for four families. Chicken, for as annoying as they are to care for during the hottest part of the summer, are consistently our least expensive protein.

This year, the kids were more into it than ever before. The oldest girls worked hard for several hours. The adults all agreed that we felt the most comfortable we've been. It only took us seven years and seven harvests to get to the point where anyone could jump in anywhere to get things done.

After processing, we use the parts to do a mega batch of stock. This boils for a full 24 hours in the big stock pan on the fireplace. We are able to put nearly every part of the animal into use somewhere. We came home with about 5 gallons of stock. It sounds like a lot, but it will not last us the year. We'll end up making more out of the whole birds we cook during the winter months to keep our supply up for soups.

Our flower garden is also drawing down. We sold far more than we anticipated, which was encouraging. We learned a lot about how to manage a production flower farm and we're planning on expanding next year. The goal is to double the output and share some product with a neighboring farm who wants to offer flowers but cannot spare the growing space.

Finishing fall chores takes a lot of work because we're deep into the school year and tired from the summer months. The days are getting shorter (and cooler, thankfully), so our rest time is coming. We're already looking ahead to a good season next year, but we'll take the time off gladly.

Two books in September. School has started back up, so my reading pace has slowed way down.

The Place of Tides - James Rebanks

his is the third Rebanks book I've read and I enjoyed it as much as the others. He took a chance to live on a duck station island on the Atlantic coast on Norway in an effort to see how people carve out these perfect, isolated lives. Rebanks realizes that this view is a fantasy and that he's missing out on the bigger picture.

The anecdotal storytelling is thoughtful and each chapter brought new insight from the quiet lives of the duck women.

Point B - Drew Magary

I've ready Magary's other books, The Hike and The Postmortal. Those both surprised me in ways that this one didn't. I think this had too many tropes for me to really get into the characters. I don't feel like I connected in any way with the group and it felt forced from start to finish.

That said, the book does explore some interesting ideas in how the world would change if teleportation really were possible. Written in 2020, it foreshadowed the (then, even more so now) tech surveillance that we all live with, whether we like it or not.

I had never seen sideways door handles. My cousin Kristie's Civic felt like the coolest car I'd been in. I wanted it. I wanted to drive a car like it when I finally could drive myself.

A wire snaked out of the tape deck. I hadn't seen that either. We weren't limited to cassettes anymore. Now we could listen to One Headlight from the CD itself.

I wanted that, too. I craved the freedom represented by the Civic.

Michael Pershan had an interesting post on the role of practice software in the classroom. Instead of taking down the various practice apps that promise growth and student achievement with "personalized" practice, he looks at the value of whole group practice, which I am 100% on board with:

I also find teaching to be at its most satisfying and productive when the entire class is pointed at the same target.

This year, my classes have shown exceptional potential to peer-teach. The personalities have magically been very well balanced and I see so much potential in the shared-practice moments when we're working on whiteboards.

This is dynamic. Depending on how students answer, I’ll change the questions they’re served. Look at me—I’m the algorithm. And I’m getting an enormous amount of information from the kids, though thank god there’s no teacher dashboard.

Less dashboard, more whiteboard.

I realized that I never wrote a June reading blog post, so here it is three months late.

Classic Starts: Peter Pan - Tania Zamorsky (Adapter)

This was a modified version of the Peter Pan story by JM Barrie. It was approachable for the kids and they were able to hear the original plot without too much old English getting in the way.

Magician: Apprentice - Raymond E. Feist

I first read this book years ago. On a re-read, I remembered feeling like the first third followed The Lord of the Rings formula closely - elves, dwarves, forests, mines. Then, the story picks up its pace and falls into it's own unique plot. The tension is relentless as characters are split and the danger levels rise. The book ends with a huge cliffhanger and made me want to find the next book immediately.

Midnight in Chernobyl - Adam Higginbotham

I teach Chernobyl in my chemistry class each year and I should really just read this book to my students. Higginbotham goes into wonderful detail about what happened in the accident and why from the technological and the political angles. The conflict between the Soviet apparatus and the engineers on site brought tension through the whole narrative. This is absolutely worth reading.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling

Another read-aloud for the kids. I think this is one of the better books. Lots of interwoven plots that all build up into a good finish. My kids were enraptured during the rescues of Buckbeak and Sirius.

Four books finished this month.

Magician: Master - Raymond E. Feist

The second half of the original Magician novel is incredibly powerful. It follows the main characters across two different worlds and many years until they come to the climax and have to figure out how to survive.

Pug and Tomas' stories parallel one another and new characters like Laurie and Kasumi add depth to the cultures of both worlds. This really is a fantastic series and this book is probably the best of the series.

Dracula - Bram Stoker

I needed something to read on a camping trip and this was on sale at he bookstore. Victorian literature isn't my favorite, but this felt okay to me. There were still long sections of exposition in the form of journal entries and letters, but I was invested enough in the characters to plow through the descriptive language.

The dread builds quickly from the start, but then tapered off in the second third while everyone tries to figure out what to do. The final third felt fast-paced again as the group put their plan into action.

This wasn't my favorite book, but I can see why it's considered a classic.

Birds Aren't Real: The True Story of Mass Avian Murder and the Largest Surveillance Campaign in US History - Peter McIndoe

I'm starting to become a Truther.

This was a detailed backstory of the US government's bird drone surveillance program, starting with it's inception in the 1950's through the current state as of 2024. It's time to wake up.

The text includes helpful handouts, kids lessons, how to lead your own local Birds Aren't Real rallies, and how to overthrow the US government to finally put and end to the mass surveillance.

If you're not familiar, "Birds Aren't Real" is very much satire and doesn't take long for the schtick to be laid on quite thickly. It was a fun first few chapters, but started to wane in the middle. I felt like I was more or less skimming by the end just to finish it.

The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu

I picked this up reluctantly because I wasn't thrilled with The Three Body Problem. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and had a really hard time putting it down as I worked my way through. It's a more "traditional" science fiction story that spans a vast amount of time while humans work out a way to deal with Trisolaris. The Wallfacer project was compelling and the arc of Luo Ji and others kept me reading. I was unsure about finishing the series after the first book but now, I'm excited to pick up the third volume to find out what happens.

I was able to go camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) for a week-long camping trip before heading back to school. The last time I had gone, my wife and I were just married, so it's been over 15 years. BWCA is part of Superior National Forest and runs along the Minnesota-Canada border. Six men, including myself, spent a full week on the water.

It's a little bit of a tradition to keep a diary on trips like this, so I kept notes about our days on some paper that I'm transcribing here along with photos I took on the tip. I also put together an interactive map so you can see the routes and stopping points for each day on the trip.

Day 1 - Sunday, August 3

We left South Bend, IN at about 5:30 AM for the 11 hour drive to Ely, MN. This is a small town near Fall Lake, which is one of the entry points for BWCA. We always go through an outfitter called Packsack because they are incredibly friendly, are a family run business, and have a great lodge/bunkhouse for a really reasonable rate. We grabbed one last meal in Ely at the Frisky Otter and then decided to check out the Kawishiwi Waterfalls between Garden Lake and Fall Lake. This dam used to be a place to run lumber down from the logging camps in the north before being turned into a hydroelectric plant for the city.

We went back to Packsack and checked over gear one more time before turning in.

Day 2 - Monday, August 4

We woke early to load up the van and head out. Campsites are on a first-come basis, so we wanted to beat any early rush for the day to try to get some prime location. We put out from Entry Point #24 around 9:00, canoed across Fall Lake and portaged into Newton Lake. We paddled the length of Newton and portaged again into Pipestone Bay. The site we wanted was already taken, but site #1587 was available.

We set up camp and then went back out on the canoes to fish along New York and Gary Islands across the bay. We caught some smallmouth bass and northern pike and enjoyed seeing several eagles. In the evening, the wind died down and the lake went glassy while we listened to loons wailing across the water. We enjoyed a dinner of steak and au gratin potatoes cooked over the fire.

Day 3 - Tuesday, August 5

Gray and windy this morning. Pancakes and bacon with potatoes for breakfast before breaking camp. We pulled out around 9:00 and headed north for Basswood Falls.

We canoed the length of Pipestone Bay - there was a lot of wind and some rain threatened, but didn't actually come. It was a leisurely paddle - we stopped to fish in a couple of coves along the way but didn't have any luck. We had a short early lunch at the USDA gauging station where they monitor water flow and lake depth automatically for the bay. This is just past the point where motorboats are allowed to go (they can't get across portages further in the park), so from here, it got much quieter.

We continued north on Basswood Lake across very windy open water, but we did see a loon floating nearby on the way, so that was nice. It didn't dive too quickly, so we were able to get a good look at it.

We landed on the Basswood Falls portage near the Canadian border around 11:30 AM. It was a very busy spot today, with a large group heading into Basswood from the portage and another group heading in ahead of us. This is a long portage - 340 rods (5,610 feet) - which is over a mile in one direction across some rugged terrain. You have to portage here because the waterfalls of the river aren't navigable by boat. We couldn't get it all in one load, so that meant we had a three mile hike to get past this point.

I carried a canoe on the first leg with two other men while the other three carried packs. We didn't try to double-pack this portage...it's just too long and you'd get too tired. We stopped on the way back after dropping the canoes at the end to rest at the waterfall and eat a second lunch. The falls have a large granite slab you can sit on and dip into the water to cool off.

We pulled out of the falls and paddled along the Basswood River to another portage at Wheelbarrow Falls. We considered a campsite just past the portage, but decided to just push on the last mile and a half to get to Lower Basswood Falls. We pulled into site #1548 midafternoon. We took some time to admire the waterfall and then set up camp.

There was a large open space for all the tents with a nice fire grate set up looking out over the water. A large granite rock gave a windbreak, which did us some big favors later in the week.

We were all incredibly tired, so we settled in for jambalaya for dinner. On this stretch, we saw a river otter, several beaver lodges, and bald eagles. Still no moose.

Day 3 - Wednesday, August 6

Our new site was so nice, we stayed the next three full days to rest and enjoy fishing and paddling day trips. We woke up on Aug 7th to a little rain in the night that continued into the morning. We had pancakes and bacon again around the fire and then hopped into a couple canoes to fish the inlet right off the campsite. I caught two good-sized smallmouth bass while some of the other guys caught a total of six walleye. We had fried walleye for lunch instead of the normal summer sausage, cheese, and nuts, which was a real treat.

After lunch, we took the canoes and made the short portage to the lower part of the falls to check it out. We ended up paddling up Crooked Lake to some Native American pictographs which you can see on the cliffs of the western bank. The "Picture Rocks of Crooked Lake" have a very interesting history which suggest they're over 200 years old. We spent the entire afternoon fishing and drifting along in the canoes.

The paddle back to camp was tough - a strong headwind kicked up in the afternoon and we had to work our way back. We fished and caught a couple of northern pike and another smallmouth bass right before we decided to portage back to our site.

Dinner was wild rice soup with more fishing after. No more walleye, but I did get another smallmouth. That's all I seem to be able to catch so far.

Day 4 - Thursday, August 7

Today was our first nice sunrise of the trip. We had burritos for breakfast and anoter full day of rest at camp. I caught a little smallmouth after breakfast and spent the rest of the day reading my book. I finished the book after dinner.

We were treated to the "swan mafia" show today. When some Canadian geese arrived at our small cove, a pair of trumpeter swans came from way across the lake to kick them away. One of the swans - I'm assuming the male - would paddle over and chase each goose individually, honking and hissing. Later in the day, I spotted a pair of otters coming into the cove to eat. They came up on shore and wandered around for a little bit before popping back into the water and hunting in the reeds.

Today was hot - maybe 80 degrees, which was hotter than every other day so far. Some more thunder in the afternoon while we swam to cool off, but no rain. We made a big pot of macaroni and cheese for dinner with cornbread cooked on the flatiron. A dragonfly swarm took over in the early evening and I watched them hunting flies and mosquitoes. Bugs got bad after sunset again.

I did not get in a boat today and we're planning on spending one more day here because the fishing is so good.

Day 5 - Friday, August 8

Another gray morning. We had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast and decided to paddle up to Moose Bay in Canada in hopes of actually seeing a moose.

The trip there was calm - no wind and glassy water. We climbed an enormous granite outcropping just before the bay to get a better view of the area. There was so much moss and lichen on the rock that it felt like walking on a sponge.

We paddled north to the river at the end of the bay, watching for moose, but didn't get lucky. The wind was really picking up and clouds were moving in, so we went south to a campsite and ate lunch on shore. After lunch, we let the wind push us all the way back across the bay to jig for bigger fish one more time. We had a loon pop up out of the water less than ten feet from the boat before he realized what he'd done and dove again. We had a couple strong bites, but no luck, which is probably for the best.

The paddle home was hard. The wind really picked up and we had to work the entire way back to make any kind of progress. When we got back, I immediately fell asleep. When I woke up, I decided to do a couple of paintings. I need to work on painting water...I'm no good at that.

Dinner was tuna & noodles, which was very filling after a really hard day of paddling. I went fishing after dinner in a canoe and caught the smallest smallmouth in the lake.

Day 6 - Saturday, August 9

We had an enormous thunderstorm over night. It brought very strong wind and over an inch of rain with constant lightning and thunder from 2:00 AM until after 7:00 when we came out of our tents. A tree fell down and landed 15 feet from our tent. We were quite fortunate that no one was hurt.

We managed to get a wet fire started and made burritos for breakfast again. When we finished, we broke camp and started our way down the Horse River for the first five miles of the day. It was extremely reedy and hard to tell where a good path through the water might be, but broadened out after the first portage into something more manageable. The river was home to at least a dozen beaver lodges along the way to the next lake.

We stopped for lunch at campsite #1116 on Horse Lake before paddling across the lake to make our way into Fourtown Lake for our final night camping. This was a long trip with five separate (shortish) portages and three carryovers through shallow areas on the river. We landed at campsite #1106, right on the entrance to Fourtown Lake.

At camp, we took out our wet stuff and dried it on the large rock outcropping over the water in the afternoon sun. Most of us jumped into the water to try and get rid of some of our accumulated camping patina.

We ate chili and cornbread for our final meal and were gifted with an evening of shockingly few mosquitoes. We stayed out around the glowing embers of the fire, looking at the stars before the full moon rose over the lake and washed everything out. We saw one large meteor flash across the sky, leaving a blue wake behind.

Day 7 - Sunday, August 10

We all woke up around 7:00 this morning and at the last bag of oatmeal for breakfast before cleaning up. We pulled into Fourtown Lake before 9:00 and paddled south into a strong headwind. Once we were off the lake, we had three portages between small ponds before Mudro Lake.

Mudro ends in a long, winding channel through the reeds at the southwest corner of the lake. We saw several more beaver lodges and had to cross one beaver dam built across the stream. We made it to entrance point #23 on Mudro Lake at about noon. We pulled all of our gear off the water and made a phone call to Packsack for a pickup.

When Gene - the former owner - arrived, he offered us cold drinks (I had a Sprite) and a nice ride back to the bunkhouse. At Packsack, we were offered cold beers to celebrate our safe trip. It also happened to be the final day of Ely's "snowmobile motocross" event where men race snowmobiles across the water. It was nuts.

We drove home on the 8th day of the trip, August 11th. This was the longest I'd been away from my family by myself and I'm thankful to my loving wife who encouraged me to go. I feel rested and relaxed and ready to head back into the school year. I'm hoping that we'll be able to take our own kids in the next couple of years for their own adventure.

Only a couple books in July - I was pretty tired each night, so reading was pretty slow.

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism - Sarah Wynn-Williams

I picked this up after hearing about the legal battle over its publication earlier this year. "Careless" really runs through the entire book. Facebook leadership is careless in how it approaches problems. They care careless over how employees are treated. They are careless over very clear, very real impacts the platform has on the world. The stories are heartbreaking and illustrate the toxicity of power when there are no checks in place.

Sarah's credentials makes the entire memoir credible and gives a deep look into one of the most influential companies in the world. The details of her trauma are hard to read, but give acute insight into the attitudes and behaviors of top leadership at Facebook.

Interestingly, after finishing, I had an exchange with someone on Mastodon about the author's own lack of responsibility for what happened during her time there. I think I read this with a little bit of a lens already in place and I missed that angle.

The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu

After seeing the trailer for the Netflix series, I grabbed a copy from the library and set in. It took me a little while to get oriented to the main characters, but once I had each of them straight in my mind, I enjoyed the book more. It's a difficult book because of the complexity of the Chinese cultural revolution in the 60's and how it affects characters later in life. Given that it's a translation, I'm not really surprised to have struggled with different aspects of the narrative. There is a thick portion at the end with a lot of high-level physics detail that could have been simplified, but it also set up the scope of the main conflict, so maybe it was done correctly.

I didn't know this was a series and I'm not sure I'll continue reading. Given that there are two more books, this ending felt like it could've been standalone.

Hoo boy the blog hasn't gotten much in it this summer. I think this is becoming a more annual tradition, where it goes dark from May til late August. We're outside a lot and I don't really have much happening in my mind while I take a break from school.

I'll be on a camping trip next week, so there will be a post following that with pictures. Then, I get back into school mode the third week of August and I'm sure that will propmt some writing.

Anyways, I'm still here. This isn't dead. I'll be back...eventually.

A few weeks ago, I came across Every 5x5 Nonogram and it quickly earned an icon on my phone. If you've never done a nonogram, it's a small logic puzzle consisting of a grid and numbers along the left and top edges. The numbers tell you where to mark cells. Two numbers of filled in cells must be separated by at least one empty cell.

I did my first nonogram in Mario's Picross, a GameBoy game we enjoyed. My brothers and I would get to play until we made three mistakes and "died" before the level reset.

Anyways, Every 5x5 Nonogram was inspired by One Million Checkboxes and features...every possible valid 5x5 nonogram layout. There are over 24 million. From the website:

Every 5x5 Nonogram is a realtime, collaborative web game by Joel, creator of Pixelogic.

Can you help solve all 24,976,511 solvable 5x5 nonogram puzzles? Every puzzle has a unique solution and requires no guessing.

Solving a puzzle solves it for everyone else!

As of writing, we are nearly 50% done. Some favorites from my own solving:

Can you help finish?

In what is turning into an annual June trip, we took a trip to visit friends in Minnesota this year. It was a shorter trip - just a long weekend - but we crammed a ton into the visit. We went with another family and between us all, there were 10 children, ranging from 18 months up to 11. There was a lot of energy to burn off each day.

Wabasha is at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Years ago, I visted Memphis with my wife and stood on the bank of the river. It was impressive because of how wide it was, but it wasn't really memorable for its beauty. The Mississippi up in Minnesota is the polar opposite. The river, instead of one large stretch of brown water, meandered and broke off into channels, forming islands and inlets that featured marshes, tall grasses, small side branches, and more birds than you could imagine. Many of our afternoons and evenings were spent on the river fishing. I wasn't super successful, given the amount of time fishing, but I did get one picture-worthy catch.

Wabasha hosts the National Eagle Center which was a short walk from the house. It was a beautiful building right on the river and hosted both live eagles who cannot be rehabilitated along with a very well done museum exploring the ecology of bald eagles, their significance in American culture, and the conservation efforts the center provides.

I'm not one for weird American patriotism wrapped up in bald eagle stuff. Benjamin Franklin actually called them "Birds of bad moral character" because of their tendency to rob other eagles and scavenge. That said, they are impressive birds for their size alone. The eagles in captivity at the center aren't capable of surviving in the wild (one was missing an eye, the other had a mishealed wing which prevented flight), but luckily, there were three nesting eagles - two parents and a juvenile - in the back yard. I was actually able to snag a photo of one eating a fish it had caught just moments before.

I snuck out on a kayak the second morning while the water was calm. I paddled out of the the little inlet we were on and explored some of the river downstream before turning upstream to reach the Mississippi proper. I dipped my paddle in the water, so I've officially kayaked the second-largest river in the United States.

That night, we went to what is probably the most remote pizza place in the nation. The restaurant itself jokes that it's "the best pizza no one knows how to get to." The Stone Barn is actually in Wisconsin, but it's settled into the gorgeous rolling farms which cover the area away from the cities. I won't repeat the story here, but the restaurant is built in what was the cellar of a barn built in the late 1800's and has been turned into a very popular, weekend-only, pet-friendly pizza place. The kids played on the swingset, looked at the goats, and took a hike on the trails.

We enjoyed (too many) late nights and the slower evenings with kids entertaining themselves down by the water or on the swings. We live in an area and go to a church where people come and go. It's sad to say goodbye to friends when they move on, but we also now have a network around the country we can go visit. We're not sure where next year will take us, but we did just have some friends move to San Antonio...