Coop's Corner: 2025

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Infinity's End, Lake City MN Robotics Team - 2025/03/02

The long weekend's competition took place in Duluth, MN and included 110 teams from various high schools in the upper Midwest. Initially I'd have been the bus driver assisting with taking the team to Duluth on Wednesday afternoon as well as bringing them back home Sunday morning but those plans changed.

So instead, I left home before 5 Saturday morning planning to see what I could see during the final day of their competition. I'll post images here on my blog for a better look and feel at the day's events, check out the video here.

From the Lake City Graphic (2/27/25)

I avoid the MN route whenever possible...

Red Alliance!!.....

After that match I was ready for some coffee, to get up and move....

Hibbing isn't that far away....

Lunch time.....

Chocolate Cashew Bears made it home....all 4 of them

Robot-hauling trailers from everywhere...

Past the Curling Club once again...

Back to the Arena for more matches....

Introducing Lake City's Infinity's End 2861....

I decided that it was time to leave, do some shopping and more exploring....

I'd walked enough....

And was ready to do some driving....

Down to Park Point....

Coffee in the truck....my view of the Superior, WI shoreline. Only 15 degrees or so but that sun...out of the wind....felt pretty nice.

My intention had been to spend the night at my favorite Rest Stop down on US 53 but I changed my mind, decided to drive home instead. It had been a Very Fine Day.

Seemed to be not a bad weekend for the Infinity's End folks as well.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

2024 Iowa Moto Guzzi Rally - (posted 2025/02/19)

Finally, finally...only months late. Made a video as well, uploaded to the video place. A way for many of us to warm up during some very cold February days.

I rode down early Thursday, Friday Greg, Steve and Kevin joined me to seek out a few more of Iowa's Freedom Rocks. I had started that quest early summer and thought it would be fun at the rally to find some more of NE Iowa's landmarks. Saturday I went out on my own, hoping for the typical Pork Chop dinner and parade through town. The pork chop happened, the parade did not.

Images follow.....

Bubba.....the artist that created all of Iowa's rocks.

Franklin Hotel in Strawberry Point for lunch...

Ice cream in Guttenberg....

Joe's pizza and ice cream, we seldom visit the park without a visit across the street.

And finally our last Freedom Rock in Guttenberg....

Friday evening's roast beef dinner...

Miles of experience in this combo...

Alley Murals in Elkader....

Early morning stroll through Elkader, waiting for breakfast at the Gear.

Breakfast....

Saturday I went out exploring on my own...some towns...roads....sites I'd not visited before.

And I thought there were times our driveway was 'Special'....

This was where I pulled over to see if I could figure out why my Engine Fault light came on. A quick online search told me No Speed Sensor Feedback. Finally last fall I had the new part installed and I was delighted that the computer had in fact kept track of accumulated miles....but scared me when they came up as kilometers.

I'd ridden past this place many times, curious but never curious enough to actually stop. The Sherman Swift Tower in National, Iowa

Back to the rally site in the Elkader campground. Was fun seeing this sign denoting Etta's sidecar role. Once again, I'm 50/50 drawing win-less.

Waiting for the parade through town that never happened....

There was weather overnight...

Ron brought his "Remember Sleeping Bag" pendant....

Stopped for breakfast in Plainview on my way home.

Another great event, how could it be anything else? I sent my check to Dennis yesterday for the '25 event. July will be here soon!!

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)