| Directory | January 9, 2000 | Archives |
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Ok, let's talk ice toys. Last Sunday morning was bright and calm and there were lots of people out on the big white playground that is the lake. Ice fishing season had opened the day before. There's a good 10 inches of ice on the lake and a dusting of about an inch of snow on top of it. It's quite comfortable out there when the sun is out and the wind isn't blowing.  People use ice augers like this one to drill their ice fishing holes. Snomobiles make too much noise; a quiet electric one or one you could pedal would be nice. With a few more inches of snow we'll be able to ski right down the lake into town.
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Yesterday was another brilliant day out on the lake and I saw the coolest ice toy ever. There were six of them. I couldn't get close enough to them to see how they worked. Basically blades attached to the bottom of a wind surfer thing, but the riders were recumbent. They go very fast and turn gracefully like birds, sometimes in formation. They are called iceboats.
The Heron's overall occupancy rate for 1999 was about 40% which is great considering that our goal is 50%. Already this January is much busier than last. We have two long termers. Jamey, a young woman just out of college, is staying 2 weeks while she takes the police training course at Unity College. Alex is a high school junior from Philadelphia who is staying a month. His school lets juniors do a special project in January of their junior year. Alex is working with a teacher at Unity College doing bird and fish counts on the Pond. He has to get the ice fishermen to let him count what's in their creels. I have the year's receipts and stuff spread out on the coffee table and I organize it while watching the NFL playoff games. I'm thinking that Indianapolis is actually the New Orleans team. They have Mora and Peyton, and there's old Archie in the stands. They just moved out of the voodoo zone so they could win a few games. If they're not on, my basic rooting strategy is to pull for the old guy, or the short guy, or if nothing else for the team playing at home because all those people who bought tickets need too feel that they got something for their money. Football is like action cartoons for adults: combatants who don't look like many of the humans I know distinguished from each other only by the color of their uniforms and caught up in fictional enterprises.
As I'm sure most of you did, I watched the New Year's Eve observances move around the world. One of those global village Marshall McLuhan what are you doin moments. The exotic rituals and giant choral moments were much more interesting than the party scenes that came later in the evening.
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