Monday, September 04, 2006

News from MN, 9/04/2006

Hi ya-all,

Lots of happenings from the last 3 weeks. Lets start with the new Zach
car of the month. Actually, it has been a good 2 months since his last
new old car. He traded in the '72 MG midget for a '94 Miata. Still 2
seats, but this time slightly larger than a loaf of bread. 1st picture
shows the boys about to launch into convertible mode.

Picture 2 shows a table for of dead dirt balls. We were trying to build
balls of mud into cool shiny spheres. The Japanese call them
durodangos. We had a good time playing with mud from the center of the
earth (actually, from the hole, but pretty close), and got a couple of
balls pretty round and shiny. I'm still polishing a few, so will
picture-ize them when they reach perfection.

Speaking of the hole, I have good news for all you worried about death
from colaplisification (that would be all but about 1 of you). We
reached a depth where we had to jump to reach the bottom of the 20 foot
ladder, so we decided to see what happens when you fill it with 1000
cubic feet of water. 3rd pic shows the hose doing its thing all over
the wet slimy ladder I got to climb up. Pic 4 shows Nick sampling some
of the fine brown slim that came up after 5 hours of watering (tastes a
bit like dirt).

After we filled it up, Nick, Helen, Aya, and I went up to the Guthrey
theater in Minneapolis to see The Great Gatsby. Zach came home, saw the
pit full of water and no sign of us. And my car was still in the garage
(we took Helen's car). Slightly worried about is swimming in the
bottom of the pit, he tries calling me, but I'm busy navigating around
city traffic (I was circling the metrodome while billions of baseball
fans were flocking for playoff determining game), so can not answer.
So he circles the pit with increasing concern, trying to figure out if
and why I would ever leave home without my car (a rare event). After
about his 4th call I manage to pry the phone out of my front pocket and
throw it to the back seat where Nick answers it. Nick says hi, listens
to some screaming, then hands it back to me, saying 'its for you'.

So a few days later, we determine through thourough scientific
experimentation that the 25x3x3 foot pit was transformed into a 9x5x5
foot pit, with a bottom that seems not like quick sand. So Nick jumps
in, then decides he wants get out with no ladder or other sensible
device. After watching Nick scramble unsuccessfully for 15 minutes,
Zach decides it looked like fun, so he jumped in too (5th pic). They
found a couple of sticks and after another 30 minutes, kind of got one
to stick enough to scramble out. And then they headed for the shower.

Last week I joined Helen and Aya on a trip back to Hanover, NH. 6th pic
is Helen sporting some fun/goofy/movie star sunglasses on our bus ride
out of Boston. That next pic is me pretending to be an Ivy league
student on the Dartmouth campus in Hanover (thats where Helen went to
medical and engineering school). We had a great week, doing lots of
fun stuff like mushrooming, kyacking, sail boating, biking, and
badmitting.

That last picture is a a picture of Helen's son Noah. Actually, just
his nose and eyelid, with a couple of happy people smiling in the
background. I have better pictures of Noah, but we all got a chuckle
of the nose shot, and I've overflowed my picture quota for this week, so
for now, this is all of Noah that you get.

Bruce

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