Pedestrian Alert!

Consuelo meets Segway

We had a half day of on Saturday morning, and two of our co-workers, Norita and Darlene, invited us to try out the Segway tour on the river walkway in Indianapolis. They had done it, and thought it was so much fun, they wanted to go again. We both thought this would be a lot of fun, and agreed to do it.

The morning started with thunder and lightning at 6:30, but a glimpse of the radar loop indicated that no serious rain was on the way, so we headed down to White River State Park, almost in the heart of downtown.

The state park is where Indy put several of their museums, as well as many grassy areas and a wonderful promenade along the river and old barge canal. The promenade makes a wonderful Segway trail.

Norita and Darlene get Seglegs

The tours are set up for a maximum of 6 tourists and a tour guide. When we arrived, they already had 6 for the 9:00 AM tour. But it turned out that there were 2 no-shows, perhaps due to the weather, so we got to go. After a 10 minute instructional session, letting us know what would happen if we made common Segway mistakes, like jumping off, or trying to go too fast. Then we each had individual hands (and feet) on instruction until we got the hang of it.

In my opinion, riding a Segway is a little like a cross between riding a bike and skiing. As I got on the first time, I kept trying to balance myself, and the Segway responded by actually balancing me. The result was that the handle bobbed back and forth as we argued about what was up. But I quickly got my mind to stop overreacting and started moving forward and backward, running and stopping, and turning. The nest way to turn is to come to a stop, and lean the handle in the direction you want to turn. You just go around in a circle that way.

Downtown from the Promenade

After about 5 minutes of practicing, we headed down the sidewalk toward the river. For the first 10 minutes or so, we all had our Segways in the 'turtle' mode, which limited our speed to about 6 miles and hour. Knowing what it was like to reach maximum speed was important, because when the Segway slows itself down, the handle comes back at you. The automatic response is to push forward, but that just leans you back more. What you need to do is lean forward into the handle, so that you continue forward at full speed. After we got accustomed to this, we were all switched out of 'turtle' mode, reaching a new top speed of 10 mph.

The first part of the trail is inside the state park, along the White River, and lined by huge limestone blocks that are a common building material in Indy. We stopped a couple times for a view of downtown, and too a snap or two. You can see from the picture that the weather had not cleared, and we did get a sprinkle or two before we got done.

Norita, Consuelo and Darlene on the trail

After that, we crossed the Washington Street Bridge, which took us out of the park, and went down the other side of the river for a quarter mile or so. A sharp right turn onto the New York Street bridge brought us back across the river, and more parkway along the IUPUI campus. Here we saw McCormick's rock, the only remaining artifact of the founding family's homestead. The McCormick's later gained fame in the spice trade, and set up their empire in Baltimore.

We continued on to the canal. The walk along the canal is very beautiful. More museums are here, including the Museum of Indiana, which has playful symbolic blocks throughout the facade around the building, one for each county in Indiana, depicting an important characteristic of that place. Muncie, for example, has a bunch of pickle jars with Garfield in one, symbolic of Garfield's creator living there.

Mahlon at McCormick's Rock

Farther down the canal, there are fountains, waterfalls, and gondolas are available for Venetian style paddles with wine and cheese.

We spent nearly 2-1/2 hours on what was supposed to be a 1-1/2 hour tour, so long that the manager had gone out to look for us. But we were just moseying along, enjoying the scenery.

By the time we were done, I was comfortable enough on the Segway to do a little Segway dance, to the music that was playing in the clock in front of the Indiana Museum. And true to form, Consuelo liked it so much that she wanted to buy one, just for fun.

Downtown Indianapolis

Soldier's & Sailor's Monument

By Saturday, June 21, the Red Cross has fulfilled their sheltering and the need for feeding had been reduced to a level that could be handled by catering companies. Since our 24 hour operations had ceased, our directors decided that headquarters could be unstaffed on Sunday, so we got an unexpected day off. Actually, we were on standby from 11:00 until 2:00, but nobody called.

After 2:00, a group of us decided to wander around downtown, then see a movie and dine out. The city's big sight in the middle of downtown is the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Meridian Street. The monument is surrounded by a large circle, decorated with statues and wonderful old streetlights. The buildings that face the monument bow in respect by having curved facades, so that the circle reaches from the monument into the downtown face, the city pauses here to acknowledge those who gave their lives. Each of the 4 sides of the monument is inscribed with the wars fought by those honored.

One of the statues

The tower itself is 284.5 feet to the observation deck. While a small elevator toils back and forth for a $1 fee, stairs surround the elevator shaft and can be climbed for free. Since I deferred gaining knowledge of the height until I descended, I happily began climbing the stairs for the top. About halfway up, with no end in sight, I began to be far more curious about the height. I stopped a few times, but made it to the top in due time, soaked in sweat in the warm early summer afternoon. The view was partially obstructed by dirty windows, but worth the climb none the less.

Only now, late in the next day, do I realize the growing pain of my body's reaction to climbing up and down a 24 story building. My thighs and calves are beginning that sore, sore sensation which makes me give pause to moving at all.

Dance crazy teens

After my exercise, I wandered back to the Simon Mall, and found these energetic teenagers working some sort of machine that looked like a cross between Twister, Tetris, and Galaxy Quest, on which they danced crazily trying to keep up with a scrolling screen displaying foot patterns on a floor filled with tap touch sensitive pads. The longer they danced, the faster the screen scrolled. And the two of them were in sync, for the most part. I was reminded of the Irish step dancers.

A short while later, we saw the latest Indy Jones flick, paying homage to the state in which we are now serving. In this sequel-sequel, the actors seem to have aged faster than we have, but are as energetic as when they started. We marveled at the incredible supply of dry matches they kept through raging rivers and icy wells.

Later we dined at PJ Chang's, an upscale Chinese Bistro which had excellent food and service, at a fairly reasonable price.

Consuelo stayed home through all this, catching up on her reading, and getting our laundry done. I favored her with half of my dinner, cold but delicious, for which she was grateful.

And tomorrow, I'll see if I can walk.

One week down

We've been on the job for a week now. Though we're not working that long a day anymore, we fell asleep around 8:00 last night. We're not used to a working day schedule, and we're getting worn down pretty well by the end of the day. We're not doing hard physical work, but we are keeping busy every day. Mahlon is working in staffing (HR), doing data entry to a database, and reconciling the database against the piles of paperwork that are mounting as volunteers come and go. Part of the function of the database is to provide HR information to the other departments, and part is to manage the cost accounting for staff costs, which is primarily expense funds and hotel rooms. After the disaster is over, the chapters and Red Cross National will use the info to manage their disaster response staff and plan appropriate training courses.

Consuelo is taking care of all the expense money that the volunteers are getting. All of the national volunteers like me get Red Cross debit card with a starting balance that corresponds to their daily allowance for food and incidentals, usually supplied by their chapter before they leave home. But some people, like Consuelo and I, are never at their chapter (ours is Elkhart, IN), so she supplies them with cards. Local Indiana volunteers who are not part of the national response system are getting a smaller stipend, mostly to cover the cost of fuel. They've been doing a lot driving in this disaster, because the flooding covered a fairly wide area, and because many of the hotels in the affected areas were damages by the floods, and they are travelling back and forth to Indianapolis.

We've drastically reduced the request for volunteers to fly in. Some more may come in to replace people who go home. We're beginning to process more paperwork for people leaving, which will provide the checks and balances on the system for the people and resources spent during the disaster, at least from an HR perspective.

Still don't know when we'll go home. Staffing is one of the first to arrive and last to leave, so we may be here until July.

The Red Cross's mission is immediate response to alleviate loss of life and suffering. The shelters and feeding are the primary elements of that first response. Those functions are beginning to wind down here, the 3 open shelters reported a population of around 80 people yesterday, down from around 500 initially. We've also released some of our feeding trucks to head west to the Iowa and the just started Illinois DR (declared disaster area). We have two kitchens open, but one will probably close this week. Meanwhile, we're still ramping up on the personell side. ARC provides some emergency cash for people in affected areas, and counsels people to help them reach other resources, like FEMA, and with mental health issues. That will go on for a couple weeks yet, I expect.

The Red Cross is designed to be first response, and FEMA's job is to pick up the ball for the next leg. As the victims of the floods go home, or determine that thay can't, FEMA will take them the next way, so our job will be done.

All that water from Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois is making its way into the Mississippi. They're expecting record flood levels, and it's all working its way down, due to hit E. St. Louis today. Several Mississippi levees have broken or been topped, and every time one breaks, it relieves a little of the pressure on the rolling flood waters. But within a few hours, it resumes its climb toward the peak. Most of the areas flooded by the broken levees so far are farm land areas, and a few small towns. East St. Louis is a major city, with a population of 155000 or so, and if the levees go there, we'll start seeing problems on the same order of magnitude as Katrina in New Orleans.

Here in Indiana, they suffered 3 major calamities within the last 2-1/2 weeks. Tornadoes in late May, followed by record rainfalls (10-12" in about 5 hours) on 6/8 and more heavy rain last Saturday night. The town of Franklin, which had begun to clean up from the first flood, having cleared away debris into huge piles to be hauled off, found that junk all floating through town again on Saturday night in the second flood. As you can imagine, some folks are pretty depressed. Many lived in areas that were not in any known flood plain, and so did not have flood insurance. But they got flooded nonetheless. My heart goes out to them. Consuelo and I are doing a little bit here to help.

I'm sure you've seen the appeals to help the Red Cross replenish their disaster relief funds. If you can help with that, please call 1-800-HELPNOW or go to http://www.redcross.org and make a donation.

And a few people have wanted to get to my log of our volunteering activities in after Katrina in Louisiana. Tose pages can be found here.

Off to Indiana to help with the floods

We gave ourselves a break from scraping wallpaper, walking by the ocean, and enjoying spring in Maine to help the Red Cross responding to the floods in the Midwest. We are volunteers in the Disaster response system, available to help when needed. We would prefer to go in our RV and stay in it while we volunteered, but the need was immediate this time and we were too far away.

We were deployed to Indianapolis, Indiana this time. Our jobs are in staff support, helping register incoming volunteers, point them to their supervisors, and processing the paperwork needed to get them out to the disaster sites. We expect to be here for 10 days or more, then we'll be back in Maine.

Indiana got hit by tornadoes on May 31. On top of that, heavy rains (up to 12" in 5 hours) arrived June 8, and more rain on June 13 re-flooded some area as they tried to dig out. It's not as severe as the flooding in Iowa today, but a lot of people need help here, and the Red Cross has over 500 volunteers in Indiana and a few counties in Illinois out of our headquarters.

If you're so inclined, send a few dollars to the Red Cross. You can reach them at 1-800-HELP-NOW.

Lobsters

I received an email from Al Larson, a friend from my working days at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, asking about lobsters. I wrote a detailed response, which the few other blog readers out there might like to read. Or not, your choice.

Lobsters, ayuh... they are wicked good.

A typical Maine lobster boat

Lobsters are ingrained in my background, so I guess I just figured they were in everybody's. Bad figuring. I'll write this to you, and then perhaps excerpt it for the blog. You may be getting more than you asked for.

According to NOAA, lobsters is the most valuable fishery in the Eastern United States. The 2006 lobster catch was 92.5 million pounds, and valued at just under $400 million. They are low in saturated fat, a good source of protien, and high in selenium. (http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/amer_lobster.htm)

Growing up in western Massachusetts, our family had an affinity for the ocean, but we were not right next to it, as we are now. My Dad worked for Westinghouse in Springfield, and the only place I can remember going for summer vacations was to Misquamicut Beach in Westerly, Rhode Island. They camped in their own tent before I was born, but later on they would rent a cabin there for a week. Mostly the days were spent on the beach, but sometimes we'd go to dig our own clams.

Lobster buoys onshore

We also made many one day trips down there to enjoy the beach. It was about 2-3 hours each way, and we would usually stop for dinner on the way home from the beach. I always had lobster at those dinners. They were relatively cheap then, as there were more than enough available for the market, which had not discovered them much. They were kind of a novelty to me. You had to work so hard to eat one... cracking the hard shell, digging out the clear, soft meat from the claws, sucking the legs to get the flavor. Then getting the tail open and getting the fibrous, chewy chunk of meat. Then drenching it in melted butter. Often served with a bunch of steamed clams and corn on the cob.

Sometimes we would have lobster at home, but shipping them around in the 50s was not that practical. A traditional New England event was the "clam bake", where all of the above mentioned food was thrown into a pit fire and baked for a few hours, usually for a party. My Mom loved to throw parties, and one time did a clambake in Monson. But the usual way to cook them is to drop them, live, into a big pot of boiling water, and cook them for about 10 minutes, and she would do that sometimes. Once boiled, they come out bright red.

As I grew older, I still had a longing for the ocean. When I was in college in Lowell, Mass, on the first warm, sunny spring day my roommates and I would drive a hour to Salisbury or Hampton Beach on the Mass-New Hampshire border, just to frolic on the deserted beach. When I got married, and had my own kids, my first wife was a Girl Scout staffer, and we tended to work in the mountains of Western Mass, even spending one summer at a camp there, me driving 1-1/2 hours to work in the Connecticut River Valley. After that, we camped in our pop-up, occasionally going to the beach, but just as likely to go to the mountains and lakes. One year we went to Cape Cod in September, because the crowds were gone.

Eventually I got a little sailboat and a divorce, not necessarily in that order. My kids and I would use it on the lakes and at the ocean. My girlfriends of the time loved to sail, and I would go to the Connecticut shore, where I knew about a launch ramp that provided access to a long, private sandy beach about a mile offshore. On the way home, we'd often stop at a shoreside restaurant which sported picnic tables with checkered plastic tabecloths and served piles of clams, steamed or fried, lobsters, and corn on the cob. Very memorable to me.

Lobster traps stored on a dock

I finally met Consuelo, and I moved to Minnesota. That was practical, the jobs were there for both of us. Consuelo grew up in Cuba with the ocean nearby, and has fond memories of spending summers with her grandmother at the shore, going to the beach every day. So we both had ocean desires, and partially fulfilled them when we bought our timeshare in Key West, right on the ocean.

But for more than 20 years, there were no lobsters... they don't grow in Florida (they have different, lesser ones there) and though we could see them at Barlow's grocery in Minnesota, the price was enormous. The only time we got to the New England coast was when my son Paul got married and moved to Ipswich, Mass, on the North Shore. We got lobsters once there, because I had a craving. It cost us close to $100 for 3 lobsters, which we took home and boiled.

Nowadays, lobster is an expensive delicacy. Most restaurants which serve it charge "market price", meaning, you have to ask for the price, and if you have to ask, you can't afford it. And while I love it, I won't go out of my way for it when there might be a fillet mignon or New York strip for half the price. So it's been pretty rare for me, until we moved to Midcoast Maine.

Lobsters have been food for folks here since the first Europeans sailed in to fish in the 16th century, long before the Pilgrims arrived. Then, you could walk along the rocky shore and pick up 3-5 pound lobsters in the water. They were a staple in the diet, and until the 1980s, families here had lobster like we had hamburger. When canning was developed, they tried canned lobster, but it was difficult to pick, and the rest of the country could care less about it. Only when air transport became practical (and that may go away here soon, too) did the rest of the country discover the sweet, buttery lobster meat. And they even started a nationwide restaurant chain, Red Lobster. Now there's a demand, and that demand drives the lobster fisheries in Maine.

Lobster is the ONLY ocean aquaculture that has not seen dwindling stocks in the past few years. Part of that is due to the nature of the lobster, but more is likely due to the limits that the lobster fishermen and fisherwomen have placed on themselves. Lobsters are caught in traps, lobsterpersons can place up to 800 traps, costing about $30-40 each. The traps are baited with cut up fish, and "soaked" for 2-4 days, when they're pulled up and checked, and rebaited. The lobsters in the trap are checked for size, and sometimes tagged. Lobsters too small or large are thrown back. The small ones grow, and the big females are far more productive than the smaller ones. The keepers are usually 1 to 1/2 pounds, though there are some up to 3 pounds.

Lobster boats have "typical lines", meaning the shape is designed to fit the funtion. Most have a power winch right next to the wheelhouse, operated by the lobsterman to pull up the traps, which are set on the wide coaming, opened, and emptied through a door in the top. Lobsters in the keeper range are thrown on a table. He then slides the trap to the "sternman", who re-baits it, closes it and pushes it off the stern. While the sternman rebaits, the lobsterman uses a gauge to check size on the marginal ones, and puts the keepers in the tank. The whole process takes 1-2 minutes, depending on the depth of where the traps are placed.

Traps are often placed in strings of 2 - 6 traps, usually with a colored buoy on a rope on one end, and a "toggle" on a rope on the other end. Toggles are doughnut shaped floats which provide a measure of safety if the buoy should disconnect, as well as floating the rope to keep it off the bottom. The buoys are numbered and painted a specific color to distinguish them from all of the other lobstermen. In a locality, like Friendship, the colors are registered in the town hall, and marked on a board for all to see who has what color. Lobstermen, like all successful fishermen, are very territorial, and while they don't "own" any part of the ocean, they carefully place their traps in known good locations, securing their spot only by getting there first. There have been occasional shooting wars between lobstermen over territory. Lobster fisheries operate year round, though most lobstermen work other jobs in the winter and avoid going out in the ocean when it's snowing. The main season is late June through November. Off season, traps, buoys, lines and lobster boats are stacked wherever they'll fit, all over town.

The catch is brought to the working wharves along the shore. The wharf operators transfer the lobsters into floating crates, strung together along the docks. They also sell bait to the lobstermen, trucked to the wharf from other fisheries, and kept in icehouses on the dock. And, they negotiate the prices and sell to the buyers, and arrange shipping, usually to the local airports. Lobsters from here fly out of Portland and Bangor to the world.

As it turns out, Friendship, Maine is in the geocenter oif the lobster industry. This small town has one of the largest lobster industries in the state. The long thin islands and jagged coast provides enormous shoreline length for its actual width, and the muddy bottoms are good habitat. There are several wharves in town, and yes, we can go to the docks and buy them. Last summer we were getting 1 pound lobsters for $5 each.

Until the development of the cheap, reliable diesel boat engine, Maine lobstermen used sailboats to go fishing. One distinctive design is the "Friendship Sloop", designed for work, and some were built in the barn on our property in the late 1800's. A few still exist, all converted for recreational cruising, and they gather here in July for a regatta. They were around 30' long, and designed to be "single-handed", sailed by one person. Later, the classic wooden lobster boat came along, now being replaced by fiberglass. And they do stop for fun, now and then. One event during "Friendship Days" in late July is the Lobster Boat Races in our harbor.

Like many midwest farmers, lobstering is a family business, often handed on from father to son (or daughter). Like family farms, the economy challenges the family to invest wisely and maintain their equipment.

Maine Spring

Lobster stuff in storage

If you read this blog regularly, you'll notice that when we arrive at our summer place, whether Minnesota or Maine, blogging and photography nearly stops as we invest our energy in opening up the house and getting some necessary work done. It's not new and different territory, so I don't generally feel like writing about it. The result is that I may go for several weeks without posting. Such is this case this year. Now we're getting caught up on housework, taking a few more pictures, and as of today, anyway, spending a few minutes to write.


We have been enjoying the Maine spring. It comes later than most anything south of us, even southern Minnesota. I think we've only had one day over 70 degrees this year, and it's the 1st of June. It's been sunny, and most days in May, our perception of the weather has been better than the forecast would indicate. We've had many sunny days when rain was expected. And the coolness has been nice. Not too cold at night (mid 40's) and not too hot during the day.

We've been working on the house, I left out "hard " from that last sentence, because we've been getting things done, but taking it easy, too. Partly, this is due to the heavy colds both Consuelo and I have had over the past 3 weeks, it took some of the wind out of us.

What we've accomplished so far this year:
1. Cleaned everywhere
2. Primed all the ceilings that were replace last winter, after we left (most of the house)
3. Removed the remaining wallpaper in the living room and primed and painted walls and cieling.
4. Painted ceiling in dining room
5. Replaced all the furniture that was moved out for ceiling work
6. Bought and placed new sofa, including removing door casing to get it in the room
7. Installed indoor-outdoor carpet in kitchen
8. Installed new light in dining room
9. Moved sewing room downstairs to kitchen dining area
10. Got pontoon ready for water
11. Installed sump pump and dehumidifier in basement

In addition, we've decided to minimize our trips to town, which entails buying larger quantities of food when we go, organizing our parts lists for the house purchases, and cooking more at home, including making our own bread. We're averaging one trip a week.

There's still a lot to do, and we'll keep chipping away at it. Meanwhile, we'll stop and smell the roses, too. At least we will when the roses come out.