Castles in the Air

Poster on my office wall

It's hard to beat a journey that starts with deicing fluid rumbling onto hollow metal. Before you know it you're six miles above a perfectly blue Pacific. Then, just as the sun is thinking of setting, you arrive in HNL (Honolulu) to a terminal with walls open to fragrant tropical vegetation.

The reality has to be nuanced. Ask the honeymooning couple just off the plane in HNL anxiously waiting for the no-show lei greeter.

Welcome to the Land of Brochure-Speak: there's still time to escape.

Walking into Forbidden Places

We were riding the Delhi metro when we became aware of dirty looks, and, oddly, all the other passengers were female. 

Ikebukuro Station

This picture evokes vivid memories.

April 2013, I'm underground in Tokyo, in Ikebukuro Station, the second busiest train station in the world with over 2.7 million passengers a day.

Urbex Lite

United Crushers, Dinkytown, Minneapolis

Recently, a friend and I "walked the Green Line," a light rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul which starts service in June. Along the way, many structures caught our attention, including the "United Crushers" grain silos in Dinkytown, Minneapolis.

The silos have been disused for years. There is no "United Crushers," this is not a division of ADM (the Archer Daniels Midland Company); this is carefully applied graffiti.

Later, I fixated on the pictures in a blog entry describing a visit to the top of this abandoned structure. This type of exploration is clearly illegal and dangerous, but I find the whole idea quite exciting. Behind the facades of our cities, there are new layers to be explored, exposed, and explained.

Frozen Lakes and Lost Places

Frozen Lake of the Isles, Minneapolis

Kilauea caldera, Hawaii Big Island

"Why do you live in Minnesota?--The winters are too cold. You should move."

I hear this from a person who brought up a family in a Minneapolis suburb. When her husband retired, they moved to a new subdivision in the Arizona desert. There is no good response because I was presented with a false dilemma. Any response would only sound defensive or absurd.

I was pondering that dilemma yesterday. With Arctic air building, I walked across a frozen Minneapolis lake thinking about walks across frozen lakes in warm places.

Art for Everyone

Spoonbridge and Cherry (Oldenburg), Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Today, on my walk to The Wedge Co-op to pick up some groceries, I popped into the Walker Art Center to catch their Claes Oldenburg exhibition before it ends its run in January. Afterwards, it struck me there were learning moments for my nephews (5 and 6). This blog entry is for them.

Our Traditional Tree

Life, Phase 3, is an opportunity to simplify. Simplification will become a necessity when, one day, we move from our current home to something more manageable.

Japan's Islands off Islands

Sakurajima, active volcano off Kagoshima, Southern Japan, March 2013

The winter is setting in, and won't budge for another four or five months: it's time to think about travel to warmer places like Southern Japan.

Selling LEGO

As LEGO Technic creations go, this vehicle is as basic as they come. For me, it represents a point in a process I've been following with my two nephews (5 and 6): I'm trying to discover if they have the potential to be interested in LEGO.