Summer

What's more fun than visiting cows?

Teachers heart beavers

Building a better dam

If BCE were in the business of selling beavers, don't you think they might do better?

Frank and Gordon--the fuzzified beav pitchmen for Bell services in TV and print ads--are the most attractive part of the company.

(Bell's choice of rodents as corporate spokesfolk is some sort of inside joke. Most customers get it.)

But alas, Bell sells long distance, which is why so many of us are with Primus.

And cell phones, which is why I use Telus.

And home satellite services, which is why I'm with Star Choice.

And internet broadband services, which is why I chose Xplornet.

Apparently somebody at the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan has noticed this. Bell's biggest shareholder is "exploring" its options.

My advice: keep the beavers.

Lose the rest.

What do you get when you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole?

Hot cross bunnies.

But maybe not this year.

frozen easter

Abandoned blog?

So the question becomes: if you have a life, why would you waste a great deal of time writing a blog?

1. Ego
2. Delusion
3. Revenge
4. Self-esteem issues
5. Boredom
6. Brain ooze
7. Ran out of DVDs
8. Over-medicated. Again.
9. New pictures of Vancouver Island trip.

I choose the last.

Mad Santa

Merry Christmas......

"Not even a mouse?"

Wisconsin ... it's nice

I've been in rural Wisconsin a few times recently.

Wisconsin is more than the World Capital of Water Parks.

(I believe the Interstates were only built to connect the water parks.)

It's more than beautifully-groomed cows, and Amish buggies double-parked at the local Wal-Mart.

It's humble, sweet and loveable.

And of course, there are the cranberries.

Warrens is the site of the annual Cranberry Festival (aka Cranfest) ...

The grandest collection of vendors, craftsies and crazies you ever did see.
The caramel-dipped, chocolate-covered cranberries are delicious.

Know your cranberry bog ....

And never stand on the tracks where trains take them away.

There are puppies in the parks ... and sunsets.

Very nice.

The penny drops....

So when you were a kid, didn't you always wonder why a Crayola crayons box had so many shades of brown in it?

In a box of 48 crayons, there were burnt umber, sienna, crimson.

In a box of 100 crayons--and yes, I knew a kid who had such a treasure--there were two shades of cinnamon, amber, tan, beige, scarlet.

Only as an adult do you realize why you would need such an infinite variety of colors that seem to be drawn from just one corner of the palette.

It's called ... Fall.

Landing....

The island...

No summer is long enough.

The sweetest joy as each Ontario summer piles upon summer, is taking friends secret places they've never been.

A secret place shared is never erased.

No imaging scheme, no gigabyte stick has yet been invented that can lock the bubbling curve of one August afternoon's light, time, water and rock quite so well as the human heart.

We ... were ... there.