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Dec 19, 2024: Looking like a white Christmas.
Dec 18, 2024: Six days back in Minnesota and I have yet to see the sun!! Only 12 days until I can return to Indio.
Dec 14, 2024: Good morning to try Peacock’s MultiView - Liverpool and Arsenal playing at the same time.
Dec 11, 2024: Wordle 1,271 3/6* ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 A nice inverted T
Dec 6, 2024: Trying advent of code, in Rust, but with help from GPT this year. Definitely takes the sting out of coding in an unfamiliar language. I’m not …
Nov 28, 2024: Happy Thanksgiving! Although there is a lot I am worried about in this post-election season, I’m focusing on the good today. I’m here in the beautiful Coachella Valley …
Nov 27, 2024: Turkey prepped, broth simmering, mayo-herb rub, ready, pasta sauce for tonight simmering… Gonna be a great 24 hours!
Nov 26, 2024: Downloaded the Windsurf Editor today… It’s built on VSCode, but with a super-advanced Co-pilot. Its truly amazing so far… Really …
Nov 25, 2024: Sometimes our little slice of heaven is just too nice for words.
Nov 25, 2024: Love our new Samsung “Bespoke Fridge” especially the Whisky ball feature… It looks like it might use an ice press to turn large …
Nov 24, 2024: Tough night for the Loons in LA. But we got a second on TV. And we made some new friends in the supporters section!
Nov 24, 2024: Matching to the stadium. Two hours early for our safety.
Nov 12, 2024: Three years ago I bought an MBP Max w/64GB of memory. I use it in clamshell mode 99% of the time. The Mini M4 Pro is calling me… Seems like it …
Nov 3, 2024: Grand Staircase Escalante and Bryce Canyon We awoke in the dark, to the sound of rain dripping outside our door. Falling back did not result in a lot of extra sleep. When it was light enough to …
Nov 3, 2024: Beautiful late afternoon hike in Bryce Canyon!
Nov 3, 2024: To the right darkness and storms. To the left sunshine and hope. Vote Harris. Walz!
Nov 3, 2024: Burr Trail overlook
Nov 3, 2024: Capital Reef!
Nov 3, 2024: Capital Reef We love to use the drive to California each Fall to visit some of the national parks. But it is tricky to find a national park to visit this time of …
Oct 31, 2024: Lunch stop in Victoria Springs. Nice little campground. Definitely a more scenic route through Nebraska than the interstate.
Oct 31, 2024: Leaving Spencer Iowa. Snow. Definitely time to head for the desert.
Oct 30, 2024: Westward ho!!
Oct 27, 2024: So conflicted. I want Liverpool to stay ahead of city, but I don’t want Arsenal to fall way behind.
Oct 22, 2024: Beautiful late fall bike ride!
Oct 22, 2024: The fruits of my first try at making bacon on the Traeger. 8 pounds of pork belly from Costco, 12 days of curing, and almost 4 hours of smoking led up …
Oct 18, 2024: I’m really excited to begin this next chapter for Luther College: www.luther.edu/offices/p…
Oct 17, 2024: Full moon on the lake. Tried to remove the dock with AI but it didn’t do a good job.
Oct 14, 2024: Wordle 1,213 3/6* ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Not that three is so great, just wanted to mark today as my 1000th wordle. Win streak is 100% thanks to rounding.
Oct 12, 2024: Family work day at the cabin! Clearing space for a potential pickleball court. It was raining, so the risk of wildfire was quite low.
Oct 10, 2024: Wow! Love those Aurora Borealis! Even if it is slightly cloudy.
Oct 10, 2024: Northern lights
Oct 8, 2024: Beautiful bike ride this afternoon!
Oct 8, 2024: Two scientists — one of them called the “Godfather of AI” — share Nobel prize in physics - BBC News Wow! Books by these two are among the few that I …
Oct 4, 2024: Steam off the water and a few clouds in the sky on this chilly October morning.
Oct 3, 2024: WellsFargo must be the leakiest CC company in the world. Card compromised, ok, we’ll send you a new card… New card compromised before I …
Sep 21, 2024: Bought this at the Madison farmers market today!
Sep 14, 2024: Enjoyed watching the Loons win tonight over Saint Louis. But the sideboard ad for Purina… “Our City. Our Pets.” I just couldn’t help but wonder if …
Sep 14, 2024: 10 years of sustainable open source - Read the Docs This resonates so strongly with me. I feel like I could have written this about Runestone.
Sep 10, 2024: Why do they keep turning his mic back on!?!
Sep 10, 2024: Just a followup post on the DDoS https://blog.runestone.academy/2024/09/10/distributed_denial_of_service_2024.html Any thoughts on how to be better …
Sep 10, 2024: Spent the day trying to find ways to fight the DDoS running against Runestone Academy. I think I have a solution for now, but suggestions are …
Sep 7, 2024: Man, this USMNT match against Canada is awful! We need Poch!
Aug 16, 2024: Runestone Origins Had fun visiting friends in Alexandria the last two days. I even got to revisit the site of the Runestone. Check outRunestone Origins on the Runestone …
Aug 12, 2024: We have been busy making runestone.academy better. Check out our post on all the new features!
Aug 5, 2024: An Extra Day in Reykjavik We were just ready to walk out the door to drive to the airport when this happened. The Delta app said our flight was on time, but our incoming plane …
Aug 4, 2024: A Day in Reykjavik A Day in Reykjavik We left our beautiful seaside house and headed to Reykjavik for a day of city touring. We were very lucky in that our AirBnB host …
Aug 4, 2024: A Day on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula We arrived at our AirBnB in Grundarfjörður on an amazing evening. We have a beautiful view of the ocean and Kirkjufell mountain right out our window! …
Aug 2, 2024: Geysers and Waterfalls and Nap Time Today was a pretty easy day, we wanted to give the grandkids a bit of a break and let everyone else have an easy morning. So we had our breakfast, and …
Aug 1, 2024: Vik to Reykholt Today we moved from Vik to our country house on the golden circle. It was a little shorter day with a couple of waterfalls, a trip to the farmers …
Jul 31, 2024: So Much Adventure Every country seems to have its own unique kind of natural disasters to worry about. Whether it’s hurricanes, sandstorms, typhooons, tornadoes, …
Jul 30, 2024: Puffins and Sneaker Waves and Glaciers (Oh My!) The weather today was super promising! Small chance of rain, medium chance of sunlight, and big chance for adventure! Our first stop was the home of …
Jul 29, 2024: Family adventure to Iceland Our Iceland adventure started nearly 10 months ago. We told Kaia, Tanner, Josh, and Rachel that we wanted to bring the whole family on a vacation. …
Jul 13, 2024: My thoughts and prayers are with …
Jun 30, 2024: Whisk on son!!
Jun 16, 2024: Great father’s day weekend. Family wedding yesterday and then a flight to Seattle today. I get to do work I love and spend my 38th anniversary …
Jun 3, 2024: Time to head home Well, it’s been a great trip, but it is time to head home. We have a night in Lisbon and then an 11AM flight to Philadelphia tomorrow morning. …
May 31, 2024: The Seven Hanging Valleys This morning we were up early and out the door to do the seven hanging valleys hike. It is about 4.5 miles along the coast in Algarve. Each of the …
May 30, 2024: GUILTY by a jury of his peers!! 🇺🇸 What a day!
May 30, 2024: Adventures with weather in the Algarve The plan for our first full day in Carvoeiro (pronounced curve-way-go) was to go sea kayaking through the amazing Benagil sea caves! When we arrived …
May 30, 2024: Driving to Obidos and Ericeira After our busy day in the Douro Valley it was time to head south! Our first stop of the day was the Europcar desk to pick up our electric ID3. But …
May 29, 2024: Douro Valley The train ride started peacefully enough. However when the conductor came to check our tickets the guy across the aisle was unresponsive. Like does he …
May 28, 2024: Chillin in Algarve
May 26, 2024: Day one of our adventure — first time in an electric car, and in a foreign country! What could go wrong?! Ummm, how do we get this thing to charge??? …
May 26, 2024: Food Tour We started today with a short walk to meet our guide, Maria, for a food tour of Porto. Maria is a private chef and sommelier who does these tours as …
May 24, 2024: Porto Arrival As much as I was dreading the flight on Ryan Air, it was a very smooth and uneventful flight. We had upgraded to premium tickets so we had assigned …
May 24, 2024: Pico do Areeiro We woke around 7 again this morning. One possibility was to do the difficult hike from Areeiro to Ruivo, the so called “peak to peak” hike. A hike …
May 22, 2024: Levada das 25 Fontes (alt) This is our first full day on Madeira after flying Minneapolis to Toronto to Lisbon to Funchal, overnight, etc. etc. We powered through a half day of …
May 8, 2024: Northeast Migration Spring 24 It is time for the annual migration back to Minnesota. Close up the house in the desert for the summer, and get in the car for a few days. This spring …
May 3, 2024: Good morning Mr(s) Coyote!
Apr 9, 2024: When @liss@micro.blog and @imyke@mastodon.social talked about Apple’s household robot on (@upgrade@relayfm.social), like a roomba that could do …
Mar 31, 2024: Google translate is not perfect. Please bring me a helping of imperfect octopus! God help the Monkfish with a tourniquet!
Mar 31, 2024: Since it is now April 1, UTC… One of my all time favorite April Fools' day pranks! The Spaghetti Harvest: www.youtube.com/watch
Mar 24, 2024: Runestone Academy: SIGCSE 2024 I am Just back from Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) 2024 conference in Portland Oregon. This is my 20th year going to …
Mar 15, 2024: Wordle 1,000 🎉 3/6* ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Happy 1000 wordle, 787 played, best streak 410
Mar 7, 2024: Hey friends and former students! It is Giving Day today at Luther College. Please join me in supporting this great institution. …
Feb 16, 2024: So… these are our choices, a good (yes.. aging man) or a fraudster, convicted multiple times. HOW. IS. THIS. EVEN. A. CHOICE? Please, have at …
Feb 7, 2024: Greens Keeper’s Revenge day today! Lots of interesting obstacles to play around!
Jan 25, 2024: Just finished Dan Moren’s All Souls Lost 📕
Jan 11, 2024: Runestone Roadmap for 2024 blog.runestone.academy/2024/01/0…
Jan 10, 2024: Finally finished Mistborn: Hero of Ages 📘Not sure how I feel about the ending, but at least the series had an ending! And, I liked it enough that I’ll …
Jan 8, 2024: After 10 holes of golf today I got a notification that an air tag was following me… Nobody else in my foursome even knew what an air tag was, …
Jan 5, 2024: Read about a victory for open source and open content in CS Education: …
Dec 22, 2023: Messing around with Advent of Code today. Wrote my first Rust and first Julia programs. After 20 years of Python programming in another language is …
Dec 21, 2023: Just back from two weeks in the Antarctic. I think these are some of my best photos ever! 📷. See https://reputablejournal.com for shots from the whole …
Dec 17, 2023: Andvord Bay Our last zodiac adventure! 😭 But our first chance to put foot on the continent proper. Not an island off the content but the actual Antarctic …
Dec 16, 2023: Damoy Point This expedition is just so amazing. Every time you think you have seen “the best” then another day comes along with another bay, or a change in the …
Dec 16, 2023: Antarctic Circle Crossing Polar Plunge Day Today we officially crossed the Antarctic Circle. It’s a unique club to belong to. We were supposed to have a zodiac cruise or a …
Dec 15, 2023: Argentine Islands Antarctica is a continent. It is not “owned” by any nation, but is governed by an international treaty. Countries may maintain research bases in …
Dec 14, 2023: Yolaour Island An easy afternoon to see some Adélie Penguins. So this is the third species of penguin that we have seen: starting with Chinstrap, then Gentoo (yes …
Dec 13, 2023: Flanders Bay What started as an ordinary excursion turned extraordinary when we found ourselves surrounded by humpback whales! We were just cruising through some …
Dec 13, 2023: Enterprise Island This morning the waves were larger than yesterday and the skies were much grayer. So we had another zodiac experience, but much bumpier and wetter …
Dec 13, 2023: Useful Island One of the guides is sponsoring a Haiku contest: Cute little penguin Penguin Personality Penguins are stinky We could smell the colony of Gentoo …
Dec 12, 2023: Recess Cove This afternoon’s excursion was a zodiac cruise, rather than a hike. Everything we saw we saw from the side of the boat. We were lucky enough to have …
Dec 11, 2023: Palaver Point Achievement Unlocked - seventh continent visited. This morning was very exciting! We awoke to a sunny day, and very calm seas knowing that in just a …
Dec 11, 2023: Crossing the Drake How many oceans are there on earth? Most of us learned about four - Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic. But there is a fifth called the southern …
Dec 10, 2023: Buenos Aires We decided to splurge and book our overnight flight to Buenos Aires as Delta One tickets. There are some nice perks with that. Easy drop off of …
Dec 1, 2023: Fun fact about Runestone Academy. The GPTbot is our number one source of bot traffic. Thousands of hits daily.
Nov 14, 2023: My favorite quote of the day: “The most efficient way to get through this is to listen to what he has to say.” “We are not here to hear what he has …
Nov 2, 2023: Mesa Verde Today started out with another harrowing drive. We received about 3 inches of snow overnight, so my first duty was to clear the snow off the car. The …
Oct 29, 2023: Westward Migration Today began just North of Denver, dry roads and a cloudy sky. We had coffee and got our day started, we were on the road by 8:00. Our path today would …
Oct 23, 2023: Minneapolis Fall Colors I just had to stop during my ride, to enjoy the Fall colors, looking across Lake of the Isles toward downtown.
Oct 18, 2023: This is a theme for me in 2023… Individual thinking versus institutional thinking. From Bloomberg: “Still, any lawmaker who crossed party …
Oct 14, 2023: Home! Feels like we are unpacking a months worth of stuff!
Oct 9, 2023: Happy Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving! or Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s day! We are in Canada and Thanksgiving and Columbus day are on the same Holiday. It …
Oct 9, 2023: Niagara
Oct 8, 2023: Rainy drive to Green Lakes State Park After a fitful night of sleep due to the on again off again rain, and in between the rain the wind blowing the rain out of the trees along with many …
Oct 7, 2023: Dear AppleTV Some vague excuse about a dispute between MNUFC and local broadcasters is not an excuse for not broadcasting the game I paid for. …
Oct 7, 2023: Mixed emotions on the departure of Adrian Heath at MNUFC. But probably time for a change. I certainly appreciate all that he has done for the club …
Oct 7, 2023: Franconia Notch Stat Park Onward to New Hampshire! We have turned the corner and started heading back west. We got to Acadia a day early to try to maximize the nice weather, …
Oct 5, 2023: Cadillac Mountain Sunrise I woke at 1:15AM, three and a half hours of sleep left. Darn, I did math, now my brain is awake. Breathe slowly and try to get back to sleep. 2:30, …
Oct 4, 2023: Acadia Day One Lets get going by 9 Jane said. No problem, time for coffee and morning puzzles etc. My watch and phone said it was only about 8:15 and Jane was …
Oct 4, 2023: Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia
Oct 2, 2023: Acadia! We have arrived!‘s
Oct 2, 2023: Halifax for Jane's big six oh Halifax has a nice food scene and a pretty boardwalk along the bay. We saw several cruise ships leave and arrive, and got to try a local specialty. A …
Oct 2, 2023: Riding the Adventure Trail in Nova Scotia The plan was to bike about 14 miles to Lunenburg, have some lunch at a brewery, and then bike back to where we parked. Drive back to the camper and …
Sep 30, 2023: The Cabot Trail I have to admit I was a little whiney. Not yet 7am and Jane was ready to go. It was barely even light outside. But we had to get going. We are driving …
Sep 28, 2023: Middle head
Sep 28, 2023: A day on the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia
Sep 27, 2023: The Table Last night we had a fabulous dinner experience! On Prince Edward Island there is an old church, that once was a barn, but is now a restaurant. It is …
Sep 25, 2023: Prince Edward Island This morning we woke up at almost 7AM (Atlantic Time) way late for us usually. I lost whatever unspoken contest we had, and got out of bed to turn on …
Sep 25, 2023: Over the Confederations bridge to Prince Edward Island. The longest bridge over ice covered water in the world. 8 miles long and high enough for …
Sep 24, 2023: Bless the Broken Road No I haven’t suddenly become a Rascal Flatts fan! But 40km into the 120km stretch of NB 108 (New Brunswick 108 East) that phrase came into my …
Sep 23, 2023: Catching Up I’ve missed a couple of days along the way, so with today being a “day of rest” I thought I could catch us up. Corning This is going …
Sep 22, 2023: The Château Frontenac in Quebec City.
Sep 21, 2023: A beautiful end to a nice day and nice dinner in Montreal
Sep 20, 2023: Another great day test post A lot of driving today, but still some great scenery!
Sep 20, 2023: Waterfalls Today our goal was to explore some of the other state parks and hikes near Watkins Glen, verifying whether Ithaca really is “Gorges”, and try out a …
Sep 18, 2023: Two Hikes: Letchworth and Watkins Glen We started this morning with a hike from the upper to middle to lower falls at Letchworth State Park, and ended with the Gorge hike at Watkins Glenn. …
Sep 17, 2023: Great morning hike in Letchworth State Park.
Sep 16, 2023: Day One Cabin to Indiana Dunes NP Mostly just a travel day, but with a short hike at the end. Going through Chicago is never fun, but gave us the quote of the day from Jane: “Oh my …
Sep 15, 2023: There is never a good time to pull a camper through the Chicago metro area.
Sep 15, 2023: We are underway on a rainy Friday morning. Next stop Indiana Dunes National Park.
Sep 11, 2023: No matter how much fun lies ahead, it is always a sad day when you have to take the boat out of the water!
Sep 7, 2023: Now I’ve ruined the NYT letterbox game for myself. Wrote a program to solve it, and rediscovered the Trie data structure. Very fun little …
Jul 13, 2023: Feels so good to be productive! Develop in monorepo setup, deploy with docker. New feature done and tested in no time.
Jul 11, 2023: Spent the morning chasing down subtleties in nginx configuration. Some things are just not intuitive. To trail a slash or not to trail a slash, that …
Jul 7, 2023: Hey @manton and @danielpunkass this is a generous theory, but maybe the cage match in question was really referring to twitter vs threads!
Jun 29, 2023: github is experiencing an outage…. Seems like a good excuse to go outside and play.
May 23, 2023: The top 10 reasons why you should host your OER textbook on Runestone Academy. blog.runestone.academy
May 22, 2023: Nothing ruins a ride like a bear in the middle of the road. Luckily I didn’t have to reverse course as something spooked it and it ran off into …
May 15, 2023: Due to travel, weather, and illness, its been a month since my last bike ride. It felt great to be back in the saddle.
May 14, 2023: Spending Mother’s day doing Spring chores at the lake. Its so great to be back and enjoying lake time again.
May 13, 2023: MNUFC looking truly awful tonight. Lucky escape midweek, but tonight is just boring soccer.
May 2, 2023: Unscheduled stop in Acapulco due to a medical emergency of a fellow passenger. Sitting in the harbor waiting to transfer the patient. It looks like it …
May 1, 2023: Life at the foot of a Volcano. Taken from Cerro de la Cruz in Antigua Guatemala. I would love to learn some new post processing techniques to remove a …
Apr 28, 2023: Cloud forest hike in Costa Rica. A good lesson in biodiversity.
Apr 27, 2023: Where does all our stuff come from? Going through the Canal. I grew up in farm country so I’m pretty familiar with how food gets to the grocery store. But what about all the other stuff we buy at all the …
Apr 26, 2023: In the middle of the Gatun locks. Right next to a tanker.
Apr 25, 2023: A Day in Panama After docking in Colon we joined our tour group for the day to see some of the sites in Panama. This tour included stops at the new locks – Wide …
Apr 25, 2023: Watching a tanker exiting the new canal.
Apr 24, 2023: Cartagena
Apr 22, 2023: Day at sea today. Spinning class, pickleball, and glorious time to just read. Fun science fact I learned. The distance to the horizon in km is the …
Apr 22, 2023: A nice addition to cruising is pickleball at sea! We just got on the ship so its too early to tell if the court will be busy. Playing on a metal floor …
Apr 7, 2023: Good morning Coachella valley.
Apr 6, 2023: Listening to @danielpunkass and @gruber on the Talk Show, while using Chat GPT to add docstrings to a pile of undocumented Python APIs!
Mar 15, 2023: Runestone Academy at SIGCSE 2023. If you are in Toronto for the Technical Symposium, please stop by and say hello!
Mar 12, 2023: I’m happy to say that we received good news from the IRS in the mail. Runestone Academy is officially approved as a public charity under section …
Mar 11, 2023: Watching Minnesota United on a snowy field in mostly white kit does not make for great TV viewing! ⚽️
Mar 7, 2023: Having additional insulation blown into the attic today… I can hear them walking over my head. I wonder how often they misstep and come through …
Mar 6, 2023: Engineering 📷 Lots of cool engineering in my life, but not always so photogenic. I really enjoyed this visit to the Vicksburg National Military park …
Mar 5, 2023: Tile 📷 Our bathroom remodel is finished. The new tile looks great. Much better than the giant unused bathtub that used to take up this space.
Mar 4, 2023: Zip 📷 A lovely night for some sous vide steaks. A ziploc works almost as good as a vacu-seal bag. Seemed like a good entry for the micro.blog march …
Mar 3, 2023: Solitude 📷 When it is cold and the dead of winter and you are at your lake cabin and nobody else is around…
Mar 2, 2023: Weather 📷 This is taken from my patio in Indio CA. The mountains in the background are usually tan not covered in snow. In fact we are looking …
Mar 1, 2023: Secure 📷
Feb 23, 2023: Another big day of home improvement DIY… New ceiling fan in the bedroom and new LED lights for the guest bathroom. 100% LED compliant now.
Feb 22, 2023: We were so tired of waiting for hot water to get to our shower. Running a recirculating line would be very expensive. But then we found this: Pressure …
Feb 21, 2023: Some of the coolest clouds ever in the desert.
Feb 20, 2023: Landing in Palm Springs. we dodged a late winter storm due to hit Minnesota tomorrow. Great to see friends and family for a few days.
Feb 16, 2023: Very excited today, we just booked an Antarctic expedition cruise for December.
Feb 11, 2023: Got to see the Loons (MNUFC) in preseason action against the New York Red Bulls this afternoon here in the Coachella Valley.
Feb 8, 2023: Greenskeeper's Revenge! Today the mens club event was very fun. The obstacles on the course were a great mid season reminder that I just play for fun. The first hole there …
Feb 5, 2023: Making ribs for our friends tonight. Two more hours until they are done. But what else are you going to do on a Sunday night in an over 55 community …
Feb 5, 2023: Today’s NYT Sunday crossword theme was so fun. Favorite clue: “You there, holding the Quattro razor! Scram!” - Schick hog go! And …
Feb 1, 2023: I think ChatGPT is my new goto search engine… Me: “explain the difference between propane and natural gas” ChatGPT: - A very good …
Feb 1, 2023: I do try to have empathy for all of you all southerners, but as a northerner, a little freezing weather is just life. I came back to Minnesota (from …
Jan 30, 2023: Also, the mountains were just stunningly beautiful with new snow added overnight. Nothing beats playing golf in shorts and seeing snow on the …
Jan 30, 2023: I think this is as close as I’ve ever come to a hole in one! The ball is on the opposite side of the cup from where I teed off so I don’t …
Jan 29, 2023: I just realized how inconsistent I am… During the board of regents meeting I strongly advocated for faculty. But with my developer hat on, I …
Jan 24, 2023: Lets say you are a teacher, and you know that when you are teaching there are 1000 other classes across the world learning the same material. How …
Jan 24, 2023: Today’s rabbit hole was about monorepos and polyliths. I really think this is the way to go for Runestone but before I make the jump I would …
Jan 21, 2023: Finally got to play with a Christmas gift today. My new Ruixin knife sharper, it definitely takes practice, so I haven’t tried it on my best …
Jan 18, 2023: All of this rain has left our San Jancinto mountains with more snow than usual, and a beautiful backdrop for today’s round of golf.
Jan 17, 2023: What to do when your open source community lets someone down? Promises were made, now classes are starting tomorrow and the recipient of those …
Jan 16, 2023: I finally got time to post a retrospective of 2022 for Runestone Academy. Give it a read and feel free to comment or discuss here.
Jan 12, 2023: Shoutout to Susan Rodger and all of her students at Duke University! The stream of Paypal donations to Runestone Academy over the past few days puts a …
Jan 8, 2023: Bowling Bowling for the first time in well over a decade. I’ve never bowled at a place where the score is kept automatically for you. A fun night out …
Jan 6, 2023: apropos of nothing I think it is funny that all modern apps and editors have the command palette that is nothing more than a nice gui wrapper around …
Jan 6, 2023: Oh man, did this feel good!!
Jan 5, 2023: Count me among the Americans who would love to see a coalition of moderate Dems and Reps in the house come together and thwart the crazy far right. …
Jan 5, 2023: Has anyone in the GOP heard of this Einstein guy? He said: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different …
Jan 5, 2023: The Joys of Winter Flying This morning I got Wordle in 2! Here is Proof: Wordle 564 2/6* ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Since I won’t post this until tomorrow, I’ll tell you my first …
Jan 4, 2023: I don’t get it in two very often. Wordle 564 2/6* ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Tomorrow I will explain why this is very amusing.
Jan 4, 2023: I just thought it would be fun to say hello from 30,000 feet. After a lot of waiting for de-icing and runway plowing we have escaped the Minnesota …
Jan 3, 2023: Back home after six hours… The first time I’ve ever seen them close the Minneapolis airport. We might have made it out tonight but it is …
Jan 2, 2023: The bookshelf feature has spawned all kinds of fun. Extracting all the books on my kindle, converting ASIN’s to ISBNs, getting genre …
Dec 30, 2022: New Instructor Dashboard I’ve been working on a new instructor dashboard the last week using Plotly + Dash. Its taken a while to wrap my head around the declarative …
Dec 29, 2022: Shoutout to @canion, @burk, and @martinfeld for a fun podcast - Tight Thirty on Hemispheric Views. Here are my own photo selections: [A Reputable …
Dec 29, 2022: Favorite photos of 2022 Inspired by the latest episode of Hemispheric Views, I decided to choose some of my favorite photos of the year. It is really hard. From our hike in …
Dec 26, 2022: I watched Spirited and Elf in a 24 hour period. I loved them both. I only know Ryan Reynolds from Wrexham and I’ve never been a Ferrell fan. Now I’m …
Dec 24, 2022: Merry Christmas
Dec 24, 2022: A regular heat wave, with a high of 3 degrees today. It will soon be time to get to work on the Christmas Eve “meat fest”. Sausage, …
Dec 22, 2022: The kids all got on the road early this morning to beat the winds – One set just arrived and the other still on the way. Its crazy to watch the …
Dec 21, 2022: I’m ready to declare the winner of the snowman building contest! ☃️
Dec 18, 2022: Post World Cup Walk. I don’t know when the wind is going to come up and destroy all of this beauty. but I’m going to enjoy it while I can.
Dec 18, 2022: Who else is thrilled that we get 30 more minutes of ⚽️? Lets go 🇦🇷
Dec 18, 2022: Wow! what a strike by Messi! ⚽️
Dec 18, 2022: Hello Sun!
Dec 17, 2022: A Snowy Morning Walk We arrived at our own private winter wonderland about 5:00 last night. The lane to our cabin greeted us with a wonderful site. The driveway, on the …
Dec 17, 2022: I love the change of seasons! I took this last fall when the light was beautiful. I took this an hour ago. Fresh snow, still coming down.
Dec 16, 2022: Arriving at the cabin for Christmas is like pulling into a winter wonderland !
Dec 16, 2022: After three days of snow it was great to see the sun for a few minutes! Everything looks so clean and white.
Dec 15, 2022: Trying out the Warp terminal app today. I love it so far. I’m starting to think there is something to all of these amazing Rust apps.
Dec 15, 2022: A snowy december night in Minneapolis. Dinner at home then a two block walk to the Guthrie Theater to see a Christmas Carol. What could be better for …
Dec 14, 2022: OK, I’m officially on break until the end of the France Morocco match. ⚽️🇲🇦
Dec 13, 2022: Just let me talk to a human! I have a simple question - can I go to an apple store and get a battery replaced in my wife’s 2017 macbook pro …
Dec 13, 2022: Nothing but zoom all day today! Thankfully I could still stream ⚽️⚽️🇦🇷on my iPad.
Dec 11, 2022: I love having a grandson that is just old enough to play hot wheels. Bought this giant pile of track used online. I thought I should do some QA before …
Dec 11, 2022: The stockings are hung by the chimney with care… And leaning against the chimney is the Ho-Ho-Hoe, every home should have one. Time to get a …
Dec 10, 2022: Really looking forward to today’s ⚽️ matches! Hoping for Morocco and England to advance!!
Dec 8, 2022: Beautiful sunny winter day in Minneapolis, time to head out and see what the PT has to say about my knee.
Dec 7, 2022: I guess my Feb 2009 purchase of Mars Edit 2.0 does not qualify for an upgrade to 5.0 🤪 But happy to support your work @danielpunkass ! My first Micro …
Dec 7, 2022: Last night, Leo Kottke at the Guthrie Theater! Even nicer that we could just walk there from our condo! No parking, no hassle.
Dec 6, 2022: Morocco… through to the quarter finals ⚽️ 🇲🇦 With the USA eliminated I’m definitely pulling for this group.
Dec 5, 2022: It’s the return of the condo Christmas pole!! Flurries just outside the window!
Dec 4, 2022: Back in Minneapolis for the Holidays. Got a new little tree for the condo! Lights are already included so no patience required. Happy to be near …
Dec 3, 2022: Crazy surprise in the mail today! I wasn’t even aware that this was in the works.
Dec 2, 2022: Last night’s project. I think this is a candidate for the sweet setup.
Dec 1, 2022: In March 2015 we had the great joy of visiting Morocco for a week. It is great to see them doing so well in the world cup! ⚽️ ✈️
Nov 30, 2022: Sharing the wealth... This topic has always been tough for us, as parents. But I love our financial adivisors, and I think this recent post really nails it. Key quote: …
Nov 30, 2022: Anyone have experience with plotly + dash? I’m working on a new dashboard for teachers that use runestone.academy and I really like what I am …
Nov 30, 2022: PSA: You cannot score a safety in ⚽️ ! Looking forward to watching team USA in the knockouts! I loved attacking football in the first half and the …
Nov 30, 2022: Just a shout out to @manton – I’ve been looking for an inexpensive site monitoring service. updown.io looks like it will work great for …
Nov 29, 2022: I’ve been working on importing posts from my old blog the last couple of days. Its been fun to re-read some old posts and relive old travels. …
Nov 29, 2022: Wow!!! What an ending ⚽️ way to go team USA! I can breathe again.
Nov 29, 2022: Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a day… There are so many interesting and bizarre conclusions to that quote if you google a bit… …
Nov 28, 2022: I just got off the course, and I’m happy to report that my golf score is trending downward.
Nov 27, 2022: This micro.blogvember experience is great motivation for returning to other open web systems I’ve used in the past. Glueing together RSS feeds …
Nov 26, 2022: I have made a commitment to be committed to my commitments, whatever they may be. Especially if one of them is completing the microblogvember …
Nov 25, 2022: Our family has developed a nice ritual for Black Friday. Inspired by #OptOutside we don’t do any shopping, but take a nice hike instead. Going …
Nov 24, 2022: Happy Thanksgiving! What is your favored turkey cooking method? I spatchcock it and put it on my kamado joe. It retains all the moisture and comes out …
Nov 23, 2022: All the Things I am Thankful for I thought it would be fun to share a text and picture blog post of all of the things I am thankful for! So here goes, …
Nov 23, 2022: an update on microblogvember progress, I have made 23/23 days now! This has been fun and has introduced me to a lot of new people. I like this …
Nov 22, 2022: just for fun, I made today’s microblogvember word “graze” my first guess on today’s wordle. It worked out just fine. Wordle 521 3/6 …
Nov 21, 2022: This morning we have a frost delay. My tee time is now 9:30 instead of 8:30. A frost delay… you would think that I see ice out my window or at …
Nov 20, 2022: Well, game one of world cup 2022 is in the books. I’m looking forward to some conversation about ⚽️ here on micro.blog over the next weeks. It …
Nov 20, 2022: I was saddened to read that elon restored the account of the former guy. I sincerely hope we are not in for a repeat of the insanity!
Nov 19, 2022: Watching the celebration of life for Rick Torgerson, who led Luther College and is someone I truly respect and honor. His son quoted Dr. Seuss: …
Nov 19, 2022: I really wanted to take a novel approach to today’s microblogvember, but I couldn’t think of one.
Nov 18, 2022: Last fall I rode my bike the length of the Mississippi I only had to change a flat tire five times along the way.
Nov 17, 2022: Just curious, who here remembers playing the game “Barrel of Monkeys” when they were a kid? I certainly do. A little searching tells me …
Nov 16, 2022: I sent in my absentee ballot after checking it twice. But myvote.wi.gov has no record of me voting in this last election. I am worried that I am a …
Nov 15, 2022: Todays microblogvember word brought back fun memories of choir warmups. “Aluminum Linoleum Aluminum Linoleum” up and down the scale.
Nov 14, 2022: Not my words, but these James Taylor lyrics work: There’s something in the way she moves Or looks my way, or calls my name That seems to leave …
Nov 13, 2022: Went to the Margaritaville pickleball tournament this afternoon (Nationals)! I have to adjust my whole concept of what it means to play the game at a …
Nov 12, 2022: Just checked the News - I like the Time headline: “Good Job America. You Didn’t Destroy Democracy.” Truly a relief, as I was …
Nov 12, 2022: I have a suspicion that supper will be a little late since I forgot to take the pork out of the freezer. I’m thinking that I can make up a lot …
Nov 11, 2022: Continuity camera inspired the purchase of a stand for what looks like another mini-display next to my main monitor. I kind of wish universal controls …
Nov 10, 2022: I am going to recommend that my minister checks out this place in Temecula…
Nov 9, 2022: This post has a little bit of everything: sunshine in the foreground, ominous clouds over Joshua Tree, and even a faint rainbow that I didn’t …
Nov 9, 2022: This pic has a little bit for everyone. Sunshine, ominous clouds, and even a rainbow.
Nov 9, 2022: I was certain that the fix I pushed out midweek yesterday to my servers was safe. But I was wrong. Not to worry, I made everything right in a couple …
Nov 8, 2022: I can never remember how to spell consensus… my brain is convinced that there is a second c in there somewhere.
Nov 8, 2022: I Just finished reading Ken Follett’s Never. I would love to hear what others thought of the book!
Nov 7, 2022: I am afraid that my recent knee / MCL injury is giving me too much insight into what its like to get older. Hopefully the MRI on thursday will be good …
Nov 6, 2022: I have enjoyed my first few days trying to use micro.blog regularly. It feels good to be out of the echo chamber that is twitter.
Nov 5, 2022: I used to be exempt from this kind of injury and silliness but darn, my first day back at pickleball and I have to ice my knee. I can think of a lot …
Nov 4, 2022: Today’s Microblogvember word admiration made me stop and recall some of the people I admire and those who have influenced the arc of my life. …
Nov 3, 2022: For today’s Microblogvember challenge I will engage in a little shameless self promotion. Runestone Academy has high quality interactive …
Nov 2, 2022: feast your eyes upon the beautiful fall colors of Northern Minnesota. Day 2 of Microblogvember
Nov 1, 2022: I’m very happy to announce that Runestone and PreTeXt have received an NSF grant for “sustainable open source ecosystems!” Read more …
Nov 1, 2022: I must say that I cut quite a dashing figure at last night’s black light party! I think I’m off to a good start for microblogvember.
Oct 30, 2022: Westward Ho! Instead of camping our way to California this Fall we decided to make it a four day drive. We stayed in, gasp, hotels! This is really our first …
Oct 27, 2022: Superior Fall Colors Timing the fall colors is a tough game to play. It’s hard to predict when they will peak because there are so many factors at play. Jane did all of …
Oct 15, 2022: Fall Walks on Bone Lake After a couple of years of taking long camping trips during the month of October it has been wonderful to be at the cabin for the “Fall colors” this …
Jul 28, 2022: Devils Tower The road home runs through Devils Tower National Monument. A monument who got its name from a misunderstanding between the Native Americans name “Bear …
Jul 25, 2022: Yellowstone Scenery Although there was a huge flood in Yellowstone just over a month ago there was very little of the park that was closed to visitors. We took full …
Jul 24, 2022: Mud Pots, Hot Springs and Geysers Educational Post Alert (EPA)! Did you know there are four kinds of geothermal features in Yellowstone? And that Yellowstone has more than half of the …
Jul 23, 2022: Grand Teton - Cascade Canyon The first ferry across Jenny lake leaves at 7am she said. We decided to shoot for the 7:30 crossing, which turned out to be a brilliant move. First we …
Jul 23, 2022: Grand Teton Icons What do Oxbow bend, Schwabacher landing, the Moulton barn and the snake river overlook all have in common? These are all iconic sites to see in the …
Jul 20, 2022: Exploring Custer - Day 3 The morning dawned crisp and clear, it was great to sleep with the windows open taking in the cool clean air. I made my coffee, and thanks to our …
Jul 19, 2022: Mexican food so good… Today (Day 2) was a day of driving across South Dakota. What do you see when driving across South Dakota? Billboards, lots and lots of billboards. …
Jul 18, 2022: The Adventures Begin Every five-ish years we have a special trip with our good friends Brian and Holly. We were all married on the same weekend in June, but one year …
May 9, 2022: Hiking the Wire Pass Canyon Unfortunately our lottery attempts were a bust and neither of us got selected. So we did the next best thing and hiked Wire Pass. Getting to Wire Pass …
May 8, 2022: Cruising Lake Powell Houseboat by sheer cliffs private beach with no neighbors billions of bright stars After piloting a 50 foot houseboat for an afternoon, I think I’m …
May 6, 2022: Driving to Page Today was mostly just getting from Zion over to Page Arizona. We had to take the camper through the tunnel, which was interesting because they make …
May 3, 2022: Long wait in the middle of nowhere today. On the highway with no cell service. When we finally got to go we learned the source of the stop. We are …
May 2, 2022: Zion Narrows - I Know how to Save a Life Suddenly floating Down the river goes my wife Someone grab her hat! It was a beautiful morning in Zion National Park, we were up early to get to the …
Apr 30, 2022: The journey home starts today! One night in Vegas Baby! Specifically the Las Vegas RV Resort. Probably the largest RV park we have ever stayed at and …
Dec 22, 2021: My Helper
Nov 29, 2021: Seminole Canyon State Park After some city time we were excited to get back to nature. Its hard to believe that we only have six days left before we arrive in Indio. Living in …
Nov 3, 2021: Winter Wonderland at White Sands I was looking down at my phone or something inside the car when we made the transition. I looked up and saw this sight! It looked like we had suddenly …
Oct 30, 2021: Big Bend National Park After a beautiful night at Seminole Canyon, we were on our way to Big Bend National Park. This is a good time to see this park as Big Bend is …
Oct 28, 2021: San Antonio - Welcome to Texas We pulled out of the campground in the dark. The first time I can remember us breaking camp in the dark. It was not that early it is just that the …
Oct 26, 2021: Food Fun in NOLA We arrived in New Orleans on Sunday, not the best day to visit restaurants, but we were able to make it work for us. Sunday Night Galatoires on …
Oct 25, 2021: End of the Line - Riding the Delta Yesterday was the official end of my Mississippi River ride. I rode way out on the delta to Venice, or the southernmost strip of land in the state of …
Oct 22, 2021: Natchez Trace After days of really flat, really boring, riding / non-riding today was a welcome breath of fresh air. The Natchez trace is a really nice ride! Its a …
Oct 21, 2021: Google Maps — You. are. Fired. Due to my back pain I rode with Jane today from the Mississippi River state park to Lake Chicot state park. I’m not too sad as it was 80 miles of …
Oct 18, 2021: Zooming to Tennessee My back felt better this morning, and with 52 miles on the schedule it felt very doable. Especially with all my new ointments to soothe my muscles and …
Oct 17, 2021: Saint Louis to Fort Kaskaskia Today was another 50 mile day, but thankfully the weather was 180 degrees from yesterday. Cool, sunny, and with a very light breeze that was almost …
Oct 17, 2021: West Memphis to Mississippi River State Park This is one of the most beautiful state parks with really nice campsites. After riding nearly 60 miles today, my back was so sore that I knew my long …
Oct 16, 2021: A Dogged Ride to Fort Pillow Today I saw fields of cotton ready for harvest for the first time in my life. What a sight! Acres of white “flowers” against a backdrop of green. …
Oct 14, 2021: Trail of Tears State Park From Fort Kaskaskia we drove to the Trail of Tears State Park. This park marks the spot where thousands of Cherokee were driven across the Mississippi …
Oct 11, 2021: Halfway there? Or am I finished? A battle of will! Today started out promising. Like any morning in the camper I made myself some coffee. Unlike most mornings the cell service at Pere Marquette was so …
Oct 10, 2021: Hannibal / Hamberg to Pere Marquette I awoke with heavy legs this morning! The plan was for Jane to drive me back across the river, retracing part of my ride from yesterday. Then, to drop …
Oct 10, 2021: Not that kind of biker Although today was a “day of rest” we still made a short ride into Grafton for lunch. I’ll ride this same path again tomorrow so this made up for a …
Oct 8, 2021: Nauvoo to Hannibal Today was a total washout. I woke up and looked at the forecast and radar only to see a huge patch of rain heading our way. Strangely from east to …
Oct 7, 2021: Mississippi Palisades to Muscatine Today I did 86 miles but it was a very relaxing day of riding. The majority of the day was on trails and it was nice to be away from traffic and …
Oct 5, 2021: Pike’s Peak to Dubuque After a wonderful weekend in Decorah for our 35 year class reunion, we arrived at Pike’s Peak state park just after dark. This was to be our first …
Aug 17, 2021: 02 Bemidji to Brainerd — My First Century 02 Bemidji to Brainerd - My First Century Yesterday the ride from Itasca to Bemidji turned out to be shorter than expected by 10 miles. Today’s ride …
Aug 14, 2021: Prelude (Day 0) Mississippi Headwaters We had a lovely 20 mile ride around Lake Itasca planned for today with a stop at the headwaters of the Mississippi. As the sign says, 2552 miles! That …
Aug 13, 2021: And the journey down the river begins
Jun 4, 2021: Idaho! On our way home
Jun 4, 2021: Three Days in Chelan Well, I think it is time to head East. When we started making our egg scramble for breakfast this morning the sausage had mold on it, and so did one …
May 31, 2021: Snowy Adventure The North Cascades (America’s Alps) is a beautiful stop on our journey. Not to mention the warmest temperatures (72 degrees) since Indio! It is also …
May 29, 2021: Deception Pass State Park Yesterday was laundry day and hang around the park day. Jane headed into Oak Harbor to wash a load of clothes while I stayed at the camper to catch up …
May 28, 2021: Jane Can not Control the Weather This morning we woke up to a bit of broken sunshine at our campground. The water was as smooth as glass. A bit of rain left over from last night was …
May 27, 2021: More Photos from today and 1986 This morning we went through all the weather in about 30 minutes! We started out at our Salt Creek campsite, where the forecast was for 60 and …
May 23, 2021: Thunder Island Brewery in Cascade Locks
May 23, 2021: Crater Lake The plan had been to bike around crater lake. Then we learned that the road was not open yet. Although it is May 22nd, they had not yet opened the rim …
May 22, 2021: Crater Lake
May 22, 2021: The Avenue of the Giants 8:00 This morning we are getting an early start and I’ve decided to record this in real time, or at least near real time. We have another 50 miles on …
May 13, 2021: El Capitan State Beach - The Adventure Begins This morning began with Coffee and a quick, but promising, Zoom meeting with the folks from ProjectSTEM.org, about how Runestone and ProjectSTEM can …
Apr 17, 2021: Almost to vail
Apr 17, 2021: Snow flurries in Utah.
Apr 17, 2021: Vegas
Apr 17, 2021: Katie Kukulka, an information officer with the California Energy Commission, takes photos during a tour of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating …
Apr 17, 2021: 3.5 hours on the road
Apr 17, 2021: Two hours on the road
Apr 13, 2021: Glad to see the official announcement of Apple’s “Spring Loaded” event next week. I’ve been living with a cracked screen on my iPad long enough.
Apr 10, 2021: A really nice round this afternoon at Heritage Palms! And yes, I can still put it in the water from here…
Apr 10, 2021: A Winter in Indio I never thought of myself as a Snowbird, but even with COVID-19, our second Winter in Indio is amazing! In college we used to joke about getting …
Jan 6, 2021: Dubuque to Mississippi Palisades Today was a rough day. The hills were steep, the good people of Galena seem to hate bikers, and I was chased by a goat. First, the hills. There were a …
Mar 14, 2019: AI in the Dominican Republic This all started a year ago when the government posted a travel warning for the Playa area of Mexico where we had booked a week at an all inclusive …
Feb 3, 2019: Welcome Back to Minneapolis Well it was bound to happen, and as we like to say, it could have been worse. Landed at MSP just before 9:00 this morning. It was 1 degree Fahrenheit …
Feb 1, 2019: Darwin Research Center We started our day today with a visit to the Darwin Research Center. One of the main projects at this center is the preservation of the many different …
Jan 31, 2019: I 💙 Boobies By this time of the trip the routine was well established. Breakfast in the morning, then off to the zodiacs for an adventure / hike on shore. Back to …
Jan 30, 2019: Galápagos Day 4 — Santa Cruz The activity of the morning was a “long” walk around Dragon hill on Santa Cruz. The main objective was to see the Land Iguanas. These creatures have …
Jan 29, 2019: Galápagos Day 3 — Pinnacle Rock If you google Galápagos Islands you will almost certainly see this picture: You will likely see even better photos than the one above as we were there …
Jan 28, 2019: Galápagos Day 2 Looking out the window in the morning we couldn’t see anything. Had our luck changed? Were we going to have a rainy day after all? I went up on deck …
Jan 26, 2019: Galápagos Islands!! Iguanas fighting over territory, thousands of crabs, two species of sea lions, lizards galore, birds and even a snake; this is what we saw on our …
Jan 24, 2019: At the Equator It turns out that Ecuador is a great place to study the equator. It’s not in the middle of a jungle, but runs close to Quito with lots of varying …
Jan 23, 2019: Cusco Cooking! After a morning with Chef Jose you will definitely believe that Peru is the center of the culinary universe, and has been for thousands of years. Did …
Jan 22, 2019: Machu Picchu It rained hard all night long, and it was still very cloudy when we got up for breakfast. But, by the time Fernando picked us up to go to the bus, the …
Jan 21, 2019: You never know who you will meet on the Inca Trail I woke up around 3:30AM when I heard a few splatters of rain against the roof of our Casita. The alarm was set to go off at 5AM, groaning internally I …
Jan 19, 2019: Into the Sacred Valley The flight from Puerto Moldenado was blissfully short. It was almost comical how many first time fliers seemed to be on our plane. When we left the …
Jan 17, 2019: Amazon Observations When is a vacation not a vacation? When you are on your third day in a row getting up between 4 and 5 AM. It turns out that the animals are on a …
Jan 15, 2019: Into the Amazon We walked to the light rail station which took us to MSP, from there we flew to Atlanta and onward to Lima Peru. We spent a very short night in the …
Dec 30, 2018: Ladder Canyon Turn left at the arrow. Hmmm? Would you turn left and head into the rocks here? Despite the giant arrow made of rocks right in the middle of the path …
Nov 26, 2018: Post Bike Tour Quiz Post Bike Tour Quiz What country would you be in if I told you the following facts? 90% of the people are home owners, 10% are renters and 0% are …
Nov 22, 2018: Bond, James Bond... Island Bond, James Bond... Island Wrong side of the island, wrong end of the beach! That would be the headline for the way our trip started this morning. We …
Nov 21, 2018: Cooking with Pearly Cooking with Pearly Stand under the clock tower facing the roundabout at 9:00 and my husband will find you. Those were our instructions from Pearly, …
Nov 21, 2018: Progressive Trivia Champions! Progressive Trivia Champions! On our first day at sea we looked at the schedule of activities on board the ship and Jane said, “We should go …
Nov 20, 2018: Sunrise to Sunset in Bagan, Myanmar Sunrise to Sunset in Bagan, Myanmar One of the cool things about this Azamara journey is that the ship stays for three nights in Yangon (old Rangoon) …
Nov 14, 2018: Yala Safari Yala Safari Today we got caught up in a traffic jam in the middle of the Yala National Park in Sri Lanka! But it was for a good reason, a Leopard. …
Nov 13, 2018: Driving a Tuk Tuk in Colombo Driving a Tuk Tuk in Colombo This morning we had a morning at sea and we arrived in Colombo Sri Lanka noon. Jane had arranged a tuk tuk tour for us …
Nov 12, 2018: Kochin: Houseboats and Driving Kochin: Houseboats and Driving I think that no blogging about India would be complete without some comment on the driving! It is a great example of …
Nov 11, 2018: First World Problems First World Problems “First world problems eh?” We all use that phrase to acknowledge that when we are complaining about our iPhone being …
Nov 8, 2018: A Wadi Wadi tour of the Hajar Mountains A Wadi Wadi tour of the Hajar Mountains Our guide’s name was Oscar, He is a Masai from kenya, but immigrated to Dubai and works tours out of the …
Nov 7, 2018: Dubai: City of Contrasts Dubai: City of Contrasts I once listened to an interesting 99% Invisible podcast that said that Las Vegas was the petri dish for architecture in the …
Oct 27, 2018: City Life City Life Its a misty late October morning, the farmers market isn’t open yet, and the Liverpool Cardiff match is on the TV. Below us the …
Sep 9, 2018: Yosemite Yosemite The plan was to go to Napa. But we have been to Napa in fact we had been to Napa already this year. So instead we decided to try Yosemite. …
Aug 26, 2018: T-minus 29 days !! Today’s visit really got me excited. Downtown Minneapolis here we come.
Aug 12, 2018: Sunday evening at the lake. Weekend-ers are heading home and things are peaceful and quiet.
May 6, 2018: Chapel Talk - May 7 2018 The following is the transcript of my chapel talk. You may be able to view it here. Luke 24: Now that same day two of them were going to a village …
Apr 24, 2018: Lifelong Luther As this will be my final Ideas and Creations contribution I hope you will indulge me in a little look back over my relationship with Luther College …
Mar 10, 2018: Remembering John Carlis Everyone wants to belong, and for a young man from a small town in southwest Minnesota who went to a small liberal arts college as an undergrad, the U …
Mar 2, 2018: A Detour on our Cording Cutting Journey I wonder how much data we have used this period? I asked my wife as we were streaming Premier League football on YouTube Tv at 4K resolution on …
Jan 30, 2018: Understanding Entrepreneurship -- Part II -- New Beginnings Whenever I teach this JTerm course on entrepreneurship, friends and colleagues often ask me “do you miss it?” Meaning do I miss the …
Jan 29, 2018: Understanding Entrepreneurship -- Lessons Learned (part I) The students are on the plane home, and I am now in Napa taking a few days of R&R and thinking about what I learned during the month of January. …
Jan 17, 2018: My Life in the Computer History Museum My Life in the Computer History Museum Its been six or eight years since I’ve taken a group of students to the Computer History Museum, and am I …
Dec 8, 2017: Who Are We? I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately and I know others have been repeating this question as we struggle through the strategic planning …
May 25, 2017: Fending Off “Day 2” at Luther College I’m a fan of Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, whether its because he “got it” and was the first customer of Net Perceptions or because of his fascination …
Mar 19, 2017: Spring Break 2017 Spring Break! Boy did I need one! With everything going on at the college, I really needed a few days away from school to clear my head and have some …
Jan 24, 2017: Bula from Likuliku Lagoon With a view like that you would think I could write something really inspirational for this final post of our journey. Four weeks of travel with some …
Jan 21, 2017: Is this Hobbiton or Nerdvana? For as little as I wanted to go to the stinky spa yesterday, Jane wanted to go to Hobbiton today even less. She’s not a big Lord of the Rings …
Jan 20, 2017: A Day at the Spa... or 45 minutes of Smelling Bad Gas I woke up several times during the night, and each time I did I could hear the rain battering the metal roof of our condo. Around 5:30 Jane woke up …
Jan 19, 2017: No Mount Doom for You The goal for today had been to bike the Timber Trail. But since the forecast was for lots of rain we arranged to postpone that until Friday. My next …
Jan 17, 2017: Kayak Sailing When Jane told me that if the weather was right we might be able to sail our kayaks I was perplexed. “How do you add a mast to a Kayak?” I …
Jan 15, 2017: Only Mid Thigh Estuary: the tidal mouth of a river where the river meets the tide. The final leg of our hike today ended with an estuary crossing. We arrived about …
Jan 13, 2017: Driving the West Coast After two weeks of organized tours and bus rides we struck out on our own today in a rental car. New Zealand drives on the left and there are many …
Jan 12, 2017: Milford Sound As we walked back from Ultimate Hikes to the Lovely St. Moritz hotel we stopped at the Real Journeys office to check on our reservation for Milford …
Jan 12, 2017: Three Days on the Routeburn Track Day Zero We arrived in Queenstown just in time to appreciate the change in temperature. We left the 90 degree weather in Melbourne and arrived to 70 …
Jan 6, 2017: The Great Ocean Road Arrival and Trolly Tour We arrived in Melbourne and took a little dinner tour of the city on a dinner trolly. We thought it would be mediocre food, …
Jan 5, 2017: Great Barrier Reef (batman) WOW! we haveve just finished a day on a live aboard dive boat where we did 4 dives and 2 snorkels on the great barrier reef. I saw Nemo, Dory and all …
Jan 5, 2017: Hiking the Valley of the Winds Today we flew three hours and 1.5 timezones out of our way to see a big red rock! I’m not sure where to start unpacking this, the 1.5 timezones …
Dec 31, 2016: Happy New year! Happy New Year! Celebrating the new year in Australia is definitely something special. Everywhere we went the air in the city smelled like barbecue, …
Dec 31, 2016: Eucalyptus in the Air One great way to get over jet lag is to just get up in the morning and get going again. Although we only made it until 8:30 last night we did manage …
Dec 31, 2016: Hello Nemo! I’m sitting by the window of our flat in Pott’s Point with the view you see in the picture above. (Except its morning now). We are …
Dec 18, 2016: All the Christmas Presents are Early We leave the house tomorrow morning and we won’t be back until January 26th. (Note to would be robbers: The house has security and is well …
Jun 30, 2016: Wrapping up the RV Adventure We are on I-94 heading across North Dakota today, the amount of road construction almost makes us long for Hwy 2 in Montana. Our anticipated day of …
Jun 29, 2016: The Hike to Iceberg Lake We were just passed Ptarmigan Falls on our way back down when from behind me I heard, “Oh Crap!!” I thought Brian must have hurt himself …
Jun 27, 2016: Slow Down You're Movin too Fast “Slow Down!” Ok, this was not delivered in the sing-songy spirit of the Simon and Garfunkel hit by the same name. Despite the fact that I …
Jun 25, 2016: Tie Your RV Down As we got in the car to head over to the hot tub at the KOA in St. Mary’s Montana, I pointed to the rope tied to the rear view mirror of the RV …
Jun 23, 2016: Taking a Break on a Rainy Afternoon “A clean underwear!” came the shout from the bedroom of the RV. “Thanks Holly, you just provided me with the opening line for …
Jun 22, 2016: Wardrobe Malfunction at the Hot Springs Happy Anniversary! Jane and I have been married 30 years today. People will say that is quite an accomplishment these days, I just can’t believe …
Jun 20, 2016: We are older than we think Sitting in our campsite in Banff, my feet are up, I have a Gin & Tonic next to me, the campfire is started, the sun is still high in the sky, …
Jun 19, 2016: Arrival in Banff It was difficult to get out of bed this morning. The rain was making rainy sounds on the roof and there was a chill in the air. Windows were cracked …
Jun 17, 2016: The Worlds Largest Buffalo This morning we left the Pratt’s at 8:00, right on schedule. I took my first shift in the cockpit. This thing drives pretty nicely except when …
Jun 16, 2016: Packing up and Heading Out Mobile blogging! Her is my view as I write this post. Where to start? We awoke this morning and split our preparatory duties. The women went to …
Jun 15, 2016: Prelude to a Recreational Vehicle In preparation for our big RV adventure Brian, Holly, Jane and I all attended the Minnesota United FC match tonight. The match was played against …
Jun 12, 2016: Biking with Blaise Blaise Schaeffer, my former student for all of 3 weeks, is on a cross country bike journey. He was riding right past my lake house on Bone Lake, and …
Mar 19, 2016: The Bucket Dive The Bucket Dive According to our dive logs it’s been 13 years since we did our last dive. So, when we decided to make a last minute trip to the …
Jan 23, 2016: No Easy Solutions No Easy Solutions If you were king how would you end poverty? Not an easy question to answer, even if you were king with a magic wand its not an easy …
Jan 21, 2016: Entrepreneurship and the Common Good
Jul 1, 2015: Rome Arrival Rome Arrival We began our outing to Rome with a walkabout starting at our hotel. The hotel, Smeraldo, was very conveniently located just two blocks …
Jun 26, 2015: Day 178 Day 178 We have been away from the USA for 178 days. With the rulings of the supreme court back home this week, it is easy to feel like we are …
Jun 24, 2015: Happy Hour in Prague Happy Hour in Prague
Jun 22, 2015: Summary of Azamara Cruise Summary of Azamara Cruise For future reference I like to record the itinerary and favorite stops from a cruise. So here goes. Azamara Journey June 12 …
Jun 21, 2015: Cooking in Istanbul Cooking in Istanbul Since we had done all the usual tourist things during our previous visit to Istanbul we decided to try another popular thing to do …
Jun 19, 2015: Evening Concert in Ephesus Evening Concert in Ephesus The cat, of all things, stole the show. Earlier in the day we had learned about the cats of Ephesus. Apparently the …
Jun 18, 2015: Biking in Patmos Biking in Patmos We may have missed 2 or 3 km of paved road, but other than that we pretty much covered the island of Patmos today. And what a great …
Jun 16, 2015: Death March from Fira to Oia Death March from Fira to Oia There were six ships in the harbor at Santorini Celebrity, MSC, Azamara, Holland America, and Saga. Azamara was …
Jun 12, 2015: Walking the Walls of Dubrovnik Walking the Walls of Dubrovnik After a beautiful sailaway in venice we traveled to Croatia where our first stop was Dubrovnik. This is a beautiful …
Jun 9, 2015: Lake Como by Lake Lake Como by Lake The conversation started like this: Incoming: Robert, I am not available now, and I have a funeral to go to at 4, but I can meet at …
Jun 8, 2015: rest and relaxation on lake como After cleaning up the flats and saying our goodbyes to all of the students Jane and I are now comfortably ensconced in Villa Monte right outside the …
Jun 1, 2015: saying goodbye to malta These are my shoes. I bought them for the great adventure of 2015, I started to wear them on January 1 when we left the USA. According to the health …
May 28, 2015: cooking in malta The first thing I should say about cooking in Malta is that there are around 600 reasons not to cook within walking distance. Some of our favorites …
May 23, 2015: adventures with flask-cors I want people to be able to write and host the static parts of any book on any server. You can think of each page in a book as its own single page …
May 17, 2015: unexpected adventures Morning Climb to Castelmola Since the students were planning on sleeping in this morning, Jane and I decided to explore on our own a bit. High above …
May 16, 2015: climbing mount etna The van arrived right on schedule, 4:45 AM, and we were all in the courtyard in front of the flat on Triq DePiro ready to go. This is our last group …
May 10, 2015: enjoying island life on a warm may day Every day is a good day when you are on a boat, in the beautiful blue Mediterranean. After a bit of a mixup on the bus this morning, we got to spend 4 …
May 5, 2015: writing a runestone lab the easy way As part of the grand reorganization of the various tools and software associated with the Runestone Interactive project I am planning to also write a …
May 2, 2015: A Tale of two Scams Gastronomic Negotiation “Sir, you walk past me every night. Please give me a chance! I will give you an appetizer and free baklava for …
May 1, 2015: Istanbul “You want a fish!?” Said the night watchman with confusion. “No,” I said, “do you have a cork-screw?” doing my …
Apr 20, 2015: biking in london Think you have done it all in London? The museums, the London Eye, the changing of the guard, the Thames, the list goes on. Here is a great way to …
Apr 19, 2015: fa cup semifinal The first words I read as my phone synced up email in the passport control line at Luton were “still no tickets.” The message went on to …
Apr 11, 2015: homeward bound in 77 days Somehow the midpoint of this journey escaped my notice. Its not surprising as it has been a busy and amazing two weeks, full of new cultures and new …
Apr 9, 2015: andalusia biking summary I’m just going to put all of the images into a big slideshow for this post. data-cycle-fx=scrollHorz data-cycle-auto-height=container …
Apr 5, 2015: biking in andalusia After a week in Morocco, Jane and I are now biking in the Andalusia region of Spain. Whereas Morocco was a bit of a mental and cultural challenge the …
Apr 4, 2015: Lost in the Souks Lost in the Souks As I dropped Jane and Tricia off at the spa for their pedicure the young man at the door said with a grin, “I’ll give …
Apr 1, 2015: A visit to the Kasbah A visit to the Kasbah Sometimes when you are travelling it is the unplanned things that can surprise you the most. At dinner last night we decided to …
Mar 31, 2015: A Night in the Desert A Night in the Desert “Camel noses!” came the answer from the back of our mini-bus. The question was “what is one memory or thought …
Mar 27, 2015: Morocco -- Sensory and Cultural Overload Morocco -- Sensory and Cultural Overload As I sit here on the rooftop terrace of our Riad in the Medina of Fez, the sky is turing purple as the sun …
Mar 16, 2015: We're driving in our Car We’re driving in our Car One thing we never thought we would do in Malta was drive a car. From the way our neighbors fly down the road, to the …
Feb 28, 2015: Go Go Gozo Go Go Gozo The first thing you notice when you get to the Cirkewwa ferry terminal is how close you are to Comino and Gozo. All this talk of using EU …
Feb 22, 2015: I Want to be an Archeologist I Want to be an Archeologist I think I might want to be an archeologist when I grow up. In the last week we’ve had four lectures involving …
Feb 18, 2015: Adventures of an Expat Cord Cutter Adventures of an Expat Cord Cutter Even thought I’m living abroad and traveling for an extended period there are a few entertaining parts of my …
Feb 11, 2015: Butchers, Bakers, and Sandwiches Butchers, Bakers, and Sandwiches After a cold morning of touring the colliseum and other ancient roman ruins, we had the chance to meet the Maltese …
Feb 8, 2015: Ostia Antica Ostia Antica Ostia Antica Ostia is about a half hour train ride away from the center of Rome, back in the direction of the airport and the coast. In …
Feb 7, 2015: Vatican Day Vatican Day The Vatican Hiding behind the ancient dirty exteriors of the buildings of the old city of Rome are beautiful palaces, with works of art as …
Jan 29, 2015: Acclimating Acclimating A confession: I like my creature comforts. I like my nice modern home with in-floor heating and its “open concept” design. I …
Jan 21, 2015: One Night in Bangkok One Night in Bangkok After a short morning flight from Siem Reap, we arrived in Bangkok, for what seems a bit more like an extended layover than an …
Jan 19, 2015: Sixty Minutes of Inspiration Sixty Minutes of Inspiration Today was another one of those days that was thought-provoking, uplifting, and inspiring. This morning we had a new …
Jan 18, 2015: Siem Reap Cycling Siem Reap Cycling “Those stairs are too steep,” said our guid Sina. Those stairs must be climbed I said to myself. We were only about an …
Jan 17, 2015: Early Morning Temple Early Morning Temple Wake up call, 4:30 a.m. Oh-dark-thirty as some would say. After a full day of travel yesterday, from Halong Bay, and a crazy …
Jan 17, 2015: Lifestyle Reflections Lifestyle Reflections Note: I wrote the first part of this post as a draft, while in Cambodia, and then forgot to “un-draft” it. So I just …
Jan 17, 2015: Halong Bay Halong Bay We’ve just finished our morning stair workout. Four hundred thirty seven stairs to climb to the top of Ti Top island. The island was …
Jan 14, 2015: Biking and Cooking in Hanoi Biking and Cooking in Hanoi This will be my last post for a few days. Tomorrow we board a Junk on Halong Bay, and I’m certain we will not have …
Jan 11, 2015: Out of my Comfort Zone Out of my Comfort Zone The following post appears on the Luther College Ideas and Creations Blog Saturday, 12:30 p.m.: Our guide told us the best way …
Jan 11, 2015: The DMZ Bar The DMZ Bar Dear British Lady in the pink denim shirt: Thanks for an entertaining evening of dining. I’m just sorry it had to come at the …
Jan 10, 2015: Hang Me Hang Me The name of our lunchtime restaurant today was Hang Me. “Do you know what that means in English?”, I asked our guide. “Hung …
Jan 9, 2015: The Red Bridge Cooking School The Red Bridge Cooking School One of the things I have been anticipating the most on this trip is to take some cooking classes. Today was our first …
Jan 8, 2015: The Flood Gates of Hoi An The Flood Gates of Hoi An Throughout all our time so far we have refrained from buying anything, at the markets we have visited, despite the …
Jan 7, 2015: To Market to Market To Market to Market It all started with motorbike parts. Our first day on the motorbikes, we went into the market. The first street we turned down was …
Jan 7, 2015: Hoi An Nighttime Hoi An Nighttime After four days of non-stop activity, we took a short flight North to Hoi An. Hoi An, is a very much a vacation area for Vietnamese …
Jan 6, 2015: The Meekong Delta The Meekong Delta The Meekong Delta The picture pretty much sums up our experience here the last two days. We have both pushed ourselves outside our …
Jan 4, 2015: My Life as a Tunnel Rat My Life as a Tunnel Rat For Sale: Spacious multi-bedroom dwelling, Over 150,000 square kilometers. three levels, the lowest will withstand even the …
Jan 3, 2015: Ten Thousand Things you can Haul on a Motorbike Ten Thousand Things you can Haul on a Motorbike To say that there is a motorbike culture here in Saigon is a bit of an understatement. The population …
Jan 1, 2015: The Gang's all here The Gang’s all here All of our students arrived safely by 11:00 last night. We got them up early this morning for a bit of sightseeing and …
Dec 15, 2014: Advent, Anticipation, Adventure Advent, Anticipation, Adventure In the Christian church, Advent is a season of waiting, a season of anticipation. Normally, we are waiting and …
Oct 5, 2014: The Sous Vide Adventure Begins When we were in Las Vegas last fall, I had the most delicious steak I’ve ever eaten. It was at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill. This blew me away. …
Aug 5, 2014: iowa startup accelerator It has been an exciting day! I just got back from Cedar Rapids where I attended a mixer of mentors and teams at theIowa Startup Accelerator. The …
Mar 26, 2014: Winter Skiing in the Spring Winter Skiing in the Spring Two days of skiing at Tahoe are in the bag, but what a difference between the two days. Yesterday we got the true spring …
Mar 25, 2014: Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe A Rare Day Lake Tahoe is beautiful. We arrived last night from Napa and got to our VRBO home, it is great and we had a beautiful view of …
Mar 23, 2014: the word of the day is malolactic Brought to You by the Letter ‘C’ I must confess, after all of the Chardonnay I’ve consumed, and I have consumed my share over the …
Mar 5, 2014: easy publishing with runestone interactive During my January travels, I also converted this blog from tubmlr, which had been frustrating me for a while, to Octopress, with which I have been …
Feb 1, 2014: reflections on january 2014 I left home on December 27 2013. When I left I had 3 bags packed. One for our trip to Mazatlan to celebrate the new year with our friends the …
Jan 30, 2014: on 14 inches of powder The weather report said we had 6 inches of snow overnight. From the moment we walked out the door it was clear that they had underestimated the …
Jan 25, 2014: final visits My daughter Kaia is getting married next summer. This is not new news, the proposal was made an accepted last June. But planning is in full swing now, …
Jan 22, 2014: applied math and physics You know those yellow lines on the football field? They are harder to draw than they look. Think for a minute about all of the different field …
Jan 20, 2014: transportation cogitation This is a post I’ve been thinking about for a few days. Its a serious post, but especially after today, its surrounded in humor. Here’s …
Jan 18, 2014: the social implications of a self-driving car Today we moved south, from Fisherman’s wharf down to Menlo Park. But most of the day was spent at Google. This was certainly a day that everyone …
Jan 17, 2014: a lesson in venture capital “Ann is on a roll, we are going to be late.” I texted to Phillip. Indeed she was. Ann Winblad was the first investor in my Company, Net …
Jan 14, 2014: changing the world, jterm 2014 The following is a republication of a post I wrote for Luther College’s “Ideas and Creations” Blog. Changing the World: …
Jan 14, 2014: there is no cure for curiosity Curiosity is the cure for boredom. There is no cure for curiosity. We began our day with a visit to PR firm, Schwartz MSL, Bryan Scanlon gave the …
Jan 13, 2014: student blogs A few people have asked for the links to the students blogs. Here they are: Isaac: Jackie: Erik: Gage: Kelsey: Collin: IsabelLe: …
Jan 12, 2014: a golden bike ride What a great day for a bike ride! We rented some bikes at Blazing Saddles, right next to the hotel. Then took off for the golden gate bridge. It was a …
Jan 10, 2014: the starlight coastal A 23 hour train trip? At some point that seemed like a really charming idea. Eight hours in, I’ll say that the bloom is off the rose. Its been a …
Jan 9, 2014: how many trees in the state of washington? What? There is no real way to know the answer to this question, but it is one that was posed to the group today. How do you handle uncertainty? How do …
Jan 8, 2014: jterm 2014 - day 1 at amazon Jeff Bezos likes to talk about technology and civilization and where we are at in terms of the analogy that we are still at “Day One.” He …
Jan 8, 2014: envisioning the future Today was a big day. The Microsoft mother ship. We began our visit with an hour in the Envisioning Center, this is Microsoft’s take on the …
Nov 4, 2013: chapel talk - 11/4 nehemiah 13 1-3, 23-31 This is the text from my chapel talk yesterday. The video (mostly of the top of my head) can be found on the Luther Portal. Make sure you go to the On …
Sep 1, 2013: john riedl tribute This is the short tribute speech I gave last Friday at the University of Minnesota. Actually, I had to edit my speech to be shorter than this, so I …
Aug 13, 2013: runestone interactive announces new editions of interactive textbooks Today I'm really pleased to announce that have launched version 2.0 of our interactive computer science textbooks: How to Think Like a Computer …
Apr 14, 2013: making python3 my default I'm finally there. After a long time of writing books using Python 3, and teaching in Python 3 on a daily basis, I'm finally at the point where I'm …
Feb 16, 2013: to infinity and beyond We passed 3 million entries in our log data for InteractivePython.org which got me to wondering about how we are growing. The site has been live for …
Jan 30, 2013: and now it can be told Loyal readers will remember that last summer we cruised to Alaska, and some very secretive things were happening on that cruise that I could only …
Jan 24, 2013: the debary institute Its been a great J-Term. A trip to Vail for some Skiing, and a trip to Florida to solve the worlds problems with great friends at the DeBary …
Jan 12, 2013: everyday python - new blog I've decided that it will be best to keep my personal blog separate from the new Everyday Python blog project. All of the infrastructure to make the …
Jan 10, 2013: vail 2013 I just got back from four awesome days of skiing in Vail and Beaver Creek. The Colorado resorts have a really cool new way of handling the ski …
Jan 2, 2013: generating a password - part 1 OK, here is the first installment of the new Everyday Python series. Today I'm just providing a link, as I still have some infrastructure work to get …
Jan 1, 2013: introducing everyday python Everyday Python¶ It is always risky to make your New Years resolutions public, but this is one I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and so …
Aug 8, 2012: here's the headcam video of the zipline at icy strait. video/mp4mp44803601910
Aug 4, 2012: euchre etiquette How do you know you have an enduring friendship? When after more than 27 years as friends, and seven days of traveling together you can play Euchre …
Aug 1, 2012: icy strait / hoonah I mentioned type 3 fun in a previous posting, and although there was plenty of type 1 fun to be had in Icy Strait I’d like to begin this post …
Jul 31, 2012: type 2 fun Our guide for the Mendenhall glacier trek told us that there are 3 kinds of fun. Type 1 fun, is just “fun fun.” Its good while its …
Jul 28, 2012: ketchikan Its a lazy, rainy afternoon here in Ketchikan Alaska. We are back from fishing and have warmed up with some lunch and a nice soak in the hot tub. The …
Jul 27, 2012: secrets onboard the millenium Good morning from stateroom 7199. I’m looking out the back of the ship at a lot of very low hanging clouds. We are in a “family …
Jul 24, 2012: how to think like a computer scientist interactive edition After hosting the interactive edition of How to Think like a Computer Scientist on the Google app engine at thinkcspy.appspot.com for over a year, we …
Jul 5, 2012: saying goodbye to namibia Sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Safari this morning. We've checked out and are just hanging here until about 11:00 before we head to the airport. It …
Jul 1, 2012: almost back to windhoek Well, here we are on the B2 not 55km from Windhoek and the Safari Hotel. Suddenly our coach makes a very bad noise and we begin to coast down the …
Jun 29, 2012: photo highlights from namibia Well, its really hard to pick out the photo highlights from this trip, but I decided to take a quick stab at it during my hour at the internet cafe …
Jun 27, 2012: lions and rhinos and springbok, oh my! etosha! If someone had told me six months ago that in the span of 24 hours I would see nine Lions, two Rhino, four Elephants, three Hyena, one Jackal, a …
Jun 22, 2012: rev. p. hanock kindergarden. Our second stop of the day yesterday was at the Rev. P. Hanock Kindergarden. This 'school' was a metal building that was a maximum of 12 feet by 12 …
Jun 21, 2012: okahandja woodcarvers market Here we are back on the bus after a stop at the woodcarvers market all of us laughing our heads off. About 70km North of Windhoek we stopped at the …
Jun 19, 2012: windhoek After a quick stop at the Parliament, and an unsuccessful attempt to visit the Christkirche we visited the meteorite monument in downtown Windhoek. …
Jun 17, 2012: you must really like to fly "You must really like to fly" was the comment of the flight attendant from Scotland on our British Air flight from Heathrow to Johannesburg. What …
Jun 5, 2012: runestone interactive What a week its been! So much has happened in the last week that I just have to take some time out to organize my thoughts and get some of this …
Jan 25, 2012: hosting a web2py app in the cloud I consider myself pretty up to speed on web development. I’ve spent the last two days trying to find a hosting solution for the data structures …
Oct 7, 2011: new commuting strategy I can see the campus from my house, its about a 20 minute walk, all downhill for the first half of the trek, then slightly uphill the rest of the way …
Sep 19, 2011: pizza oven I love it when a good plan comes together. Last summer we decided to finally take the plunge and build a pizza oven at the lake. After looking at the …
Mar 23, 2011: joshua tree national park I think I said that the plan for today was to head to the Palm Springs tram, and do a little hiking at the top of the tram then enjoy a nice lunch in …
Mar 18, 2011: adding a module to skulpt Now that I’m back from traveling in South America I’ve started on a project to add a turtle graphics module to skulpt. Skulpt is a …
Mar 14, 2011: cruise wrapup part i Its the last day aboard ship, and it has been a day of mixed emotions. We are excited to get back to our friends and family in Decorah, yet we have …
Mar 14, 2011: cruise wrapup part ii I've been back in Decorah for less than 24 hours, its been a little more than 48 hours since we got off the cruise ship in Valparaiso. It was great to …
Mar 10, 2011: tsunami warning! This is weird, but I woke up this morning wondering about the question: "what are the ships procedures in case of a Tsunami?" Would we head for the …
Mar 9, 2011: on the high seas We are sitting here having our morning coffee and hot chocolate watching the waves crash and roll. We left the Straits of Magellan sometime in the …
Mar 7, 2011: ushuaia Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. It is in the Patagonia region, and the Tierra Del Fuego province of Argentina. Thats a lot of …
Mar 4, 2011: my name is ferdinand and i'll be your waiter We have great table mates this cruise! Kim and Rico from Houston, Shyla and Yogi from Ohio, and Rachel and Howard from New Jersey. We look forward to …
Mar 2, 2011: biking punta del este The city of Punta Del Este has about 10,000 regular inhabitants, even though when you look at the picture of it you could easily imagine that it hosts …
Mar 1, 2011: montevideo, uruguay I’m sitting here watching the sun come up over the city of Punta del Este. The water is perfectly calm except for the waves created by some of …
Feb 28, 2011: buenos aires It was a beautiful two days in Buenos Aires. Lets start with moving in to our room on the ship. Other than the taxi driver overcharging us dumb …
Feb 26, 2011: hiking in the iguazu national park Have you ever had an experience where afterwards you said, "it took my breath away!"? Today was one of those experiences for me. I was awake, with the …
Feb 25, 2011: south american beginnings And so it begins. Another travel adventure. This one just Jane and I. The itinerary is a South American Cruise from Buenos Aires, Argentina around …
Feb 13, 2011: python in your browser... in javascript! I’ve recently been looking for ways to run Python in a browser. There are lots of reasons why I think this is a cool idea. For example, creating …
Jan 27, 2011: second edition of data structures book is out! Now that I’m back from my JTerm travels, I’m happy to let you know that the second edition of Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data …
Jan 25, 2011: the long road home 4:00 PM Laguardia Airport I have never wanted to be home so badly in all my life. The group of 16 is sitting here in the American Eagle concourse of …
Jan 24, 2011: 30 rock So today Craig and I had an afternoon to do some site seeing. Despite the cold cold temperatures here in new york we decided to start with some Dim …
Jan 23, 2011: jet lag recovery mode I'm sitting in Starbucks off Union Square, its 6:30 here in Manhattan and I'm wide awake. I made it until about 9:30 last night but then fell soundly …
Jan 21, 2011: premier league I can't think of a better way to end a trip to London that with a Premier League Football match. We were very fortunate to get group tickets to the …
Jan 19, 2011: we will rock you Yesterday was another great day in London. We started out at 8:00 with our daily discussion of the assigned reading. 24 of the 26 members of the class …
Jan 18, 2011: wimbledon After the rain and dreary weather of the past many days it was delightful to get up this morning and head outside to see the sun. The early part of …
Jan 17, 2011: training for the olympics The first stop on our tour of London was a walking tour around the Olympic venues. To get there was easy. Take the Picadilly line from Russel Square …
Jan 16, 2011: day 1 in torino A few years ago, I finished a round of Golf at Oneota Country Club and came up to the patio area. A bunch of guys I knew were sitting around a table …
Jan 14, 2011: my name is brad, i'll be your sommelier this evening Sometimes a Swiss Army Knife can make you the most popular guy in your hotel corridor! Some of the students have discovered that when you are in …
Jan 11, 2011: craig's death march to the invisible tower Its that depressing, cloudy, cool kind of weather here in Lausanne. Low clouds and mist that block any hope you have of seeing across the lake, much …
Jan 9, 2011: how lindsey vonn spoiled my day in interlaken The morning started out like any other morning, up at 7:00, a light breakfast, then hop on the bus to the ski slopes. OK, maybe not like every other …
Jan 6, 2011: day 2, or is it 3? I can't believe that I actually slept until 8:00AM. After waking up at 3 AM I was afraid I was done for, but I dropped back to sleep and slept hard …
Nov 5, 2010: in praise of the two fat ladies via The Amateur Gourmet Mr. Game Show was a Hanukkah gift that my parents bought me one year in the 1980s. It looked like a regular board game (small …
Sep 16, 2010: dear apple Dear Apple, You lost a sale today. I know its just one less iPhone you are going to sell, and in the grand scheme of things does not amount to …
Aug 18, 2010: ebook man is cleaning out the library So today I sat in my office and looked over at my library of books, probably about 700 books all together. The top half of the library contains my …
Aug 15, 2010: google app engine service login So I’m working on an app during my sabbatical that has an iPad component and an online Google App Engine component. The Google App Engine part …
Jul 20, 2010: polk county biking Here’s a quiz for you… What do deer, old cars, a saw mill, and black bears all have in common? These are all things I regularly see on my …
Jun 30, 2010: a beautiful last day Well, today is our last official day of vacation. Tomorrow is a day of travel back to Dublin and then we wake up and head to the airport to see Kaia …
Jun 28, 2010: connemara and castles We are staying in a castle! Ashford castle to be precise. It’s about an hour outside of Galway and it’s absolutely beautiful. We arrived …
Jun 26, 2010: world cup disappointment in galway The other night on our pub crawl, Eugene told us a story about the Irish people and how they would conquer the world. He started with the excuse that …
Jun 25, 2010: a day in dublin This morning we are on the train from Dublin to Galway. We woke up to a bright blue sky in Dublin, packed up our belongings, and left our little …
Jun 24, 2010: the roller derby queen in dublin Well last night a bit of Dublin had a taste of some Jim Croce music. I’m not sure where it came from but we were enjoying the musical pub crawl …
Jun 22, 2010: ship building lessons in stockholm Today we heard the name Gustavus Adophus quite a lot. With apologies to my friends in St. Peter I must say he didn’t know much about ship …
Jun 20, 2010: read all about it, biking with mike is great After days and days of using our feet to get around european cities it was time for a change, and what better city to try two wheeled touring in than …
Jun 17, 2010: the nœrøyfjorden This morning we got to sleep in, have a relaxing breakfast, catch up on some email and reading, and then we started our long day’s journey. As …
Jun 16, 2010: beautiful balestrand After the late night heavy metal concert in Bergen, we were all very ready for some peace and quiet. We found it in Balestrand Norway. To get to …
Jun 14, 2010: heavy metal in bergen Last night after we ate our dinner at the Ship Inn we came out to this sight. The tide had gone out and left all of the boats stranded on the sand. …
Jun 13, 2010: st. andrews hole in one! Can you possibly imagine a better way to top off a trip to St. Andrews than with a hole in one? Well thats what I did!! Josh and I were playing this …
Jun 12, 2010: a draw in edinburg One week after watching our Decorah Vikings take third in the state soccer tournament we were back watching futbol again. This time we were in …
Jun 11, 2010: random rants on a train I am writing this on the train from London to Edinburgh where they have just announced the breakfast options. I don’t get the concept of …
Jun 10, 2010: adventure in the white tower Today’s travel adventure involved the Tower of London. No, we were not arrested and tortured by the English royalty. We were on a tour of the …
Jun 9, 2010: bath to oxford Do you remember Sir John Gielgud from the movie Arthur? Jeeves maybe? Imagine the most proper british gentleman you can, and you will have our guide …
Jun 7, 2010: a clean sweep of bath Yesterday we flew from Chicago to London. We tried a day flight instead of an overnight flight and it worked very well. We left Chicago at 9:05AM and …
May 19, 2010: testing In preparation for the big upcoming trip to Europe I wanted to try out a couple of blogging apps for my iPad. I will be on the road for almost a month …
Feb 28, 2010: silicon valley 2010 - summary Here is a great summary put together by the students after we returned. I think it does a wonderful job of capturing the lessons learned on the trip. …
Jan 12, 2010: a new year in silicon valley The second ‘Understanding Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley’ started this week. Yesterday was our first full day of meetings. We started …
Dec 31, 2009: dinner at the chefs table After spending a ton of money in town, what could be better than a great meal on the ship. One of the activities that Jane had researched before the …
Dec 26, 2009: airboat ride in the everglades This morning started out like any other morning. The alarm went off at 6:15 so that we could get up and get on our way to the everglades. We left the …
Jul 22, 2009: beautifulsoup, bonktown and growl Here’s a little script that combines two of my favorite pass times. Python programming and cycling. bonktown.com is a great site that has steep …
Jul 2, 2009: aquamacs 2.0 elisp fun While waiting for the white smoke to emerge on Textmate 2.0, I decidedto revisit an old friend. It turns out the emacsen have been busysince I've been …
Jun 5, 2009: 3 days of r&r in sedona After all of our hiking and rafting adventure we are ending the trip with 3 days of rest and relaxation in Sedona. Our major activities here are a …
Jun 3, 2009: grand canyon - river to rim The call for “Hooaaahhht Coffeeeeee” went out at 4:30AM. It was already twilight in the East and it was time to pack up camp and get on …
Jun 1, 2009: down the colorado into the canyon For three days we had a great raft trip with Wilderness River Adventures. The trip was amazing! For three days we saw the Grand Canyon in a way that …
May 28, 2009: bryce canyon sunrise -- antelope canyon It was an early morning today. The alarm went off at 5:30 and we were out of the hotel by 5:43. We made a short drive up to Bryce Point in twilight. …
May 26, 2009: angel's landing Our first day of hiking in Zion National Park was great! Here is our goal for the day: From the bus stop known as “The Grotto” we hiked 2 …
May 25, 2009: phoenix to springdale Long day of traveling today. Left Minneapolis at 9:05 this morning and just got into our room in Springdale UT at 11:00 Mountain time, or midnight …
May 10, 2009: mit uses python instead of scheme for intro cs I’ve seen several interesting blog posts related to MIT switching from Scheme to Python for their intro course. This is really interesting to me …
Apr 17, 2009: vpython version 5 The other day I discovered that the folks working on VPython have been very busy over the last couple of years. I had given up on VPython because the …
Jan 31, 2009: book plug Here’s a little plug for our book from our Colleague Mark Guzdial at Georgia Tech. This was written last September right after the book was published …
Jan 29, 2009: remember the milk In the past year, I've been a passionate supporter of three task management apps. OmniFocus, Things, and Remember The Milk (RTM). I've switched back …
Jan 26, 2009: python + growl + remember the milk = launchbar task management Intro Once I could add tasks to my RTM account through LaunchBar I wanted a way to quickly pull up a view of what tasks were due today through …
Jan 20, 2009: a mid-winter cycling treat Although the weather back home may have been below zero, in Northern california he sun was out and it was 68 degrees. Perfect weather for a bikeride. …
Jan 9, 2009: creating a group twitter repository For the trip to Silicon Valley I wanted to have everyone be able to twitter about the experience using their own twitter account, but I also want to …
Jun 13, 2007: A Long Long Day A Long Long Day Not much to report today. We got up and rode the shuttle to the airport, we checked in, our flight was on time, we sat on the plane …
Jun 12, 2007: A Day in Brussels A Day in Brussels We got up early this morning so we could have our breakfast and catch a cab to the Leonardo DaVinci airport. We had ordered a cab …
Jun 11, 2007: Ancient Rome Ancient Rome We could subtitle today Information Overload. We spent today with our guide Tony and learned so much it is almost impossible to describe. …
Jun 10, 2007: Touring the Vatican Touring the Vatican The day started out on a bad note when Tony called to tell us that our guide for the day was sick. So, instead of touring the …
Jun 9, 2007: Mamma Mia We are in Pompei Mamma Mia We are in Pompei This morning dawned bright and sunny. Once again the view of the Bay of Naples from our deck was spectacular. As we were …
Jun 8, 2007: Road Trip to Sorrento or Happy Birthday to Dad Road Trip to Sorrento or Happy Birthday to Dad Today we had a very long drive. We left Tuscany and headed all the way south bypassing Rome and Naples …
Jun 7, 2007: A Day of Rest A Day of Rest Today the sun was out and it looked like it was going to be our first beautiful dry clear day. A good day to hang around the apartment …
Jun 6, 2007: Cinque Terre Cinque Terre The word for today is ‘Schiapito,’ which in english means strike. The strike I am talking about is a gas strike. Something I …
Jun 5, 2007: Lunch in Sienna Lunch in Sienna Today we planned to be a light day. We did not get up too early and our only goal was to drive to another hill town called Siena. Jane …
Jun 4, 2007: Climbing Around Firenze Climbing Around Firenze Since cars are not allowed in or around the central part of Firenzi the best way for us to go was to drive to a commuter town …
Jun 3, 2007: The Leaning Tower of Pizza The Leaning Tower of Pizza This morning we got up early to head in to Pisa. We had tickets to climb the leaning tower at 9:00, so we had to get under …
Jun 2, 2007: The Hill Towns of Tuscany The Hill Towns of Tuscany For our first full day in Tuscany we decided to check out some of the hill towns. We went to Volterra and San Giamanginino, …
Jun 1, 2007: On to Tuscany On to Tuscany Our goal was to leave Venice about 1:00pm. So, we got up, had our breakfast and headed over to visit the Doge’s Palace. After the …
May 31, 2007: A Random Walk through Venice A Random Walk through Venice In Venice you can get lost very easily, but not for long. There are signs everywhere point you toward to major landmarks, …
May 30, 2007: Road Trip to Venice Road Trip to Venice This was a long day of driving. First we went back down the mountain, and then we moved a ways to the east and went back up and …
May 29, 2007: Klein Matterhorn Klein Matterhorn This morning we were greeted by a perfectly blue sky, without a single cloud. We had two main choices for our main activity today: …
May 28, 2007: Driving to Zermat Driving to Zermat Breakfast this morning was continental style in the chateaux. Cereal, cheese, bread, tea, yogurt. It was good. We could have ordered …
May 27, 2007: Castles Castles This morning we left Paris for the Loire Valley. Our agenda includes two castles to visit (Chambord and Chenenceaux) and an overnight stay at …
May 26, 2007: Rain, Rain, go Away! Rain, Rain, go Away! The goals for today were... See Rodin’s thinker in the Rodin gardin, visit the Musee D’Orsay, Visit the Versailles …
May 25, 2007: Walking, Walking, Walking Walking, Walking, Walking Yesterday morning we got up and walked down to the marketplace for breakfast. Josh really wanted to buy a box of …
May 24, 2007: The Long Road to Paris The Long Road to Paris A long day! We drove through some rain and thunder to get to the airport in Cedar Rapids. Unfortunately it was also windy in …