Category Archives: Mysteries

2022, Automotive, education, Family, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Park It!

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It’s been a parking lot few days for me.

There is a strip mall near Nonny’s place that we visited more than once (Panera, post office, UPS store, Walgreens and Starbucks – we had a lot of errands to run).  It is very poorly designed, with parking spaces laid out every which way and with some one-way arrows that everybody ignores.

YA’s game of choice on her iPad this weekend was Parking Jam – in which you have to get all the cars out of a parking lot without jumping any berms to crashing into other vehicles. 

Then when I ran out to get a few things this morning before work, I drove by the backside of the Hub parking lot.  If you have ever seen the backside of the Hub parking lot, you’ll know that it is just wasted real estate.  All the entrances to the mall are on the other side and no one parks in the back – not even employees.  But this morning I noticed that in the last week they have re-painted all the parking lines back there.  What a complete waste of paint and time!

I mentioned to YA when I got home that clearly parking lot design must be a completely neglected part of architecture school – they can’t teach this and have so many folks be so bad at it?  Or can they?

Were you a good student at school?

2022, Business, education, Food, History, Mysteries, Travel

Where in the World is VS?

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It’s been awhile…… here are some clues.

The Botanical Garden, which opened to visitors here in 1859, is the oldest public garden in the US and among the top three public gardens in the world.

The first US kindergarten was started here in 1873 by Susan Blow.  (You can still see her original class room!)

The Eads Bridge, completed here in 1874, was the first arched steel truss bridge in the world. The bridge continues to carry automobiles, pedestrians, cyclists and light rail trains!

Several new foods were popularized here in 1904: the hot dog, the ice cream cone and iced tea.

Famous folks from here:  Maya Angelou, Yogi Berra, Daniel Boone, William Burroughs, Vincent Price, Stan Musial, Marlin Perkins.

What do you think?

2022, Family, gardening, home, Kids, Mysteries, Nature, Technology, Weather

It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature

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Mother Nature is just messing with me. 

With my front and back yards full of flowers, I do need to think about water during the summer months, especially if there are going to be so many 90+ degree days.  I watch the weather forecasts like a hawk to try to determine if Mother Nature is going to gift me with any free precipitation.  If it’s going to rain, I really don’t to pay the City of Minneapolis for extra water.

It seems that almost every forecast of rain the past month has been a chimera – it shows as 50% or 60% and the radar shows the dark green riding right over my location – then nothing!   Or else it does a very insulting sprinkle for 3 minutes.  Last night I had the sprinkler on in front and when I went to water my baskets in the back, YA gave me grief.  She said “it’s going to rain… it’s 80%”.  I continued along, watering all the baskets and the bales while she made fun of me.  As I finished up, it started to lightly sprinkle.  She smirked as I came in the back.  Then 5 minutes later I smirked when it hadn’t even rained long enough to wet a tissue. 

I know weather is capricious but I would have thought that by now, forecasters could get a better grasp on this.  I’ve said many times that if I were to look for another job, it would be as a weather forecaster.  Then I could get a big salary to be on tv and the fact that I was wrong half of the time wouldn’t count against me on my annual review!

I guess for the rest of the summer, I’ll just assume there will be no rain, unless I wake up to it in the morning!

How much do YOU believe in weather forecasting?

2022, education, Media, Mysteries, News, Stories, Uncategorized

I Missed It

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Boris Johnson resigned?  When the heck did that happen?

I know I’m not thrilled reading the news these days but I do check in every few days.  Yesterday I saw a couple of things on Facebook that drove me to CNN.  Lots of news about the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination but nothing about Boris.  So I thought I’d check out BBC.com.  Absolutely nothing.  Thinking it was a fool’s errand, I just typed “Boris Johnson” into Google and finally found the news.  Seems as if four days later, it isn’t a headline any longer.  Like you shouldn’t blink or you’ll miss big chunks of what’s happening in the world.

The year after I graduated from high school, I spent 8 weeks living with a family in Mexico (their 2 daughters had spent the summer with us the year before).  Back then – yes, when dinosaurs roamed the planet – no BBC.com, no CNN.com, no streaming.  Just the daily newspaper, which in that corner of Mexico really did not carry any international news at all.  I felt a little cut off from the rest of the world while I was there – I’m assuming it’s how those bio-dome folks must have felt.

I came home from Mexico on a bus through Nogales to Albuquerque – stayed in a hotel one night and then flew home the next day.  That morning in Albuquerque I took a long walk and before returning to the hotel, I stopped at the corner drugstore and bought copies of several news magazines (Time, US News & World Report, Newsweek, even the Atlantic Monthly).

Apparently while I was in Mexico, there was a problem between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus.  Despite having the top news magazines of the day in my hands, I couldn’t really figure out what had happened.  If you don’t read the first news stories, it’s hard to “catch up”.  To this day, I’m not really 100% sure exactly how it all played out although I know that Cyprus is divided by a Green Line with the Greeks in the south and the Turkish in the north. 

I’m a little worried that this is how it will be for me and Boris Johnson.  I’ve found a few op eds and I THINK I’ve got it down, but am still a little surprised at how fast the story came and then went!

Anything gone missing in your world this week?

2022, Family, Fantasy, home, Kids, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Dessert Anyone?

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I am not usually a procrastinator; in fact, I’m usually the opposite.  I almost always start with the thing I don’t want to do and then reward myself with the more pleasure task afterwards – unlike Oscar Wilde, I like to have the dessert at the end.

But every now and then I encounter a project that just throws me for a loop – a project that lingers and lingers while I find excuse after excuse to not get to it.  It tortures me and I keep putting it off, even though I remind myself that it won’t take as long as I think, it won’t be as hard, I’ll feel so great when it’s finished.  About the only way I’ve found to counteract this is a deadline.  Once there is a deadline, then I’m all in for getting it done. 

My front porch (yes, she’s going to talk about the front porch again) is right up there.  I didn’t have any problem scrapping (although it was taking forever), no issues with sand blasting (although tim helping did set up a deadline if I’d needed it), no issues with replacing the broken glass panes, no issues with getting all the glass to the correct recycling center, no issues with sanding the window frames.  

Getting the ceiling done – I’m just tilting at windmills.  I simply cannot get myself to stain the ceiling.  It started with taping up the plastic – took me a month to figure out how to trick YA into doing it with me.  Of course, I could have done all the taping on my own in less than 30 minutes, but I just couldn’t make myself.  Now that I don’t have plastic on the to-do list, you’d think the staining would be easy.  But no… again, every time I think about it, some other thing that is much more enjoyable “needs” to be done. This past weekend, I spent close to 10 hours in my studio…. cuz I really need more cards, right?  Right now I’m trying to think of how to trick YA into the staining as well.

Any projects you’re procrastinating on right now?  Any thoughts on how to get YA to do the ceiling for me?

2022, Business, History, Kids, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

Flair?

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The other day, when we were talking about ads, I had the tv on for a bit in the afternoon and I looked up just in time to see a young woman sporting a pair of jeans that were definitely flared at the ankle.  I actually backed up the ad to confirm I had seen it correctly.  Not only were the jeans flared out but the word “flare” actually flashed across the screen.  After fifty years it was a little hard to believe that flare jeans have become retro.

I called YA to confirm that flare jeans are “in” but she was very quick (and very vehement) in pointing out that it’s just a little flare that is in, not the huge wide flare jeans that were popular back in the 70s.  I remember the outfit that I put together for the first day back of sophomore year in high school.  Wide faded flare jeans with a “Make Love Not War” sweatshirt and a watch with a huge white wristband.  I thought I was the cat’s meow.  During the time that flared jeans were popular, I altered a few of mine by slitting open the leg and expanding the flare with bright patterned material.  All the rage!

YA tried to get me to promise not to purchase any flare jeans for myself.  She said “just keep your seventies memories to yourself.”  I’m pretty sure I should be insulted but I can’t quite figure out how.

Anything you’d like to come around again?  Or not?

2022, Business, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Toilet Paper Math

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I’m always confused by the array of claims on the packages as I walk down the toilet paper aisle, with enticements that I can really get a great deal if I only buy so and so’s product. “18 of these rolls = 82 smaller rolls” announces one Charmin package, while the next Charmin package claims “24 = 108”, and yet another insists that “12 = 48”. Cottonelle, on the other hand, goes for broke claiming that 12 Family Mega rolls = 128 regular rolls.

I just can’t get the math to work. I have taken enough statistics classes to know how to lie with numbers, but I just can’t figure out how the companies arrive at these claims. I wonder if they used another product quality as an enticement? “This package will fit under your bathroom sink and leave enough room for the iron and boxes of tissues and cleaning products” or “These rolls will fit in your toilet paper dispenser without getting stuck because they aren’t too big in diameter.” Now, those are claims that resonate!

What advertising gimmicks are you susceptible to? How good are you at doing math in your head? What are your favorite or least favorite ads or commercials?

2022, Baboon Achievers, Baboon Blog Redux, History, Mysteries, The Baboon Congress

Memorial Stats

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I got a tour of the farm on Saturday.  It’s bigger than I was expecting although I think if I laid out all the photos that Ben has taken over the years, I should have probably realized its actual size.  We got to talking about the blog and how many followers we have now and I thought I’d do a Stats Update.

We have 12, 672 followers.  Of course I don’t really know what this means on a day-to-day basis except that at some point in the past 12 years, since Dale started up the Trail Baboon, 12,672 folks have hit the Follow Trail Baboon button.  One of the things I do know is that having all these followers does NOT mean that 12K folks are reading the trail every day.

Most days we have somewhere between 200-240 views from 60-70 visitors – that includes us.  The average number of views is 2.46 to 3.25.   The average number of comments the last couple of years is 50.  Sunday is the slowest day on the Trail.  And for reasons that pass understanding, Wednesday is typically the busiest.  I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that the days that generate the most comments are book days, music days and food days.

Over the years we’ve had visitors from 202 countries.  Pretty remarkable since Google says there are currently 193 countries in the world!   US has the highest number of visitors, followed by India, the UK,  Canada and then Spain.  The countries with the least are Gabon, Sint Maarten and Chad (just 1 visitor each).

The Trail is a more subdued space these days, but relatively stable.  Our least busy year was 2016, when Dale was cutting back and preparing to retire from the Trail.  2021 was the most active year since baboons took control.  One of the most interesting things I discovered while researching the stats is how many of us kept the blog going while Dale was on sabbatical the summer of 2015 and then during 2016 when he was tapering off.  This is not meant as a heavy-handed hint – although any pieces would be happily accepted by me and Renee – just an interesting phase of our history.

Any fun memories to go along with the Stats on this Memorial Day?

animals, books, Fantasy, Food, Mysteries, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Large House Cats?

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Last November there was a post that I clipped part of and have kept on my desktop.  I don’t remember what we were talking about but this string always intrigued me:

Part of the reason it has stuck with me is that it reminds me of two books.  My dad loved everything written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially the John Carter/Mars series, so I’ve read quite a few as well.  In the Gods of Mars series, the Therns have bamboozled another species, the Barsoomians, luring them with the promise of a journey to paradise, when in fact, they just get captured and eaten.  My father and I had some long conversations about this; he thought it was the best justification for being a vegetarian he had ever read.

The other book that our conversation reminds me of is The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell.  Also science fiction and a similar scenario in which the traveling Earthman discovers that the dominant species eats the non-dominant, although to his eye, they are both sentient beings.  There is also a VERY disturbing sub-plot in which the Earthman is basically kept as a pet and from his (and the reader’s) perspective, abused and maimed, although his “owner” fairly easily deflects and explains those actions away.  And it was believable.  Way too believable.  It took me a few years to work up the nerve to read the next book in the series.

Even though all these memories got dredged up back in November, I still thought it was a funny exchange. Although I’m pretty sure I’m already the pet of my cat Nimue….

What’s the most exotic animal you’ve ever fantasized about getting as a pet?

2022, Business, gardening, Mysteries, Nature, Uncategorized

Too Much Mulch

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It’s my Menards time of year.

One of the upshots of the “more flowers, less grass” way of life at our house is mulch.  We like the look of mulch around all the flowers and now that the front yard and boulevard are essentially all flowers, that’s a lot of mulch.

“A lot of mulch” and “very small Honda Insight” aren’t usually phrases you see in a sentence together.  That’s because you can only put 8 2-cubic foot bags of mulch IN a Honda Insight if you want to continue to see out the back window. (You could transport more if you used the backseat and not just the hatch but that lesson learned was ugly.)   If you go through 25-28 bags of mulch in the spring, that means several trips to Menards.  Yes, I’ve looked into having a boatload of mulch delivered, but one of the things I know about myself is how unhappy I will be with a mountain of mulch that might get rained on before I get to it, is taking up driveway space and is also making me feel guilty until it’s all gone.  And the savings isn’t that great anyway.

Mulch trips are in the morning – it’s cooler, plenty of room in the parking lot, not too crowded in the store – so for four mornings in a row, there I am, with my mulch on a big cart.  There is an older woman who works the first register shift every morning and she is NOT a happy person.  Could be that she resents working so early.  Maybe she resents still having to work at all at this stage of her life.  Might even be that she’s just not a morning person. 

I try not to take this personally, but I’m a chatter.  Every morning I say “good morning”.  Once I said “Eight of them (the bags), if I counted right”.   Couple of times I’ve said “see you tomorrow”.  Yesterday was “Thanks”.   Nothing from this woman.  Not even a smile, which I would have thought would be helpful in a customer service role. 

The mulch trips are probably over for this spring but I have determined that if I need more, I will probably just leave this poor woman alone when I go through her lane.  It won’t hurt me and maybe it will give her a little relief at 6:15 in the morning.  Of course, it’s not as much fun.

Tell me about a time you’ve gotten GREAT customer service!