(no subject)

Ok, this had me in stitches last night.

Take a look at the Wikipedia entry on Rola Bola. It's right over here.

It seems like a pretty straightforward article. But look at the headline above the list of things you can do with a Rola Bola. Pretty good, no?

Even better, go down to the fifteenth item in the list, right after "Quarter jumping turns" and right before "Riding two rollers going in different directions." I couldn't stop laughing!

Someone was bored and having some fun....

The Keweenau Vortex

Along US 41, just northeast of Calumet, and a little southwest of the unincorporated community of Allouez, is the Prospector's Paradise rock and mineral shop. They sell all manner of rocks, minerals, fossiles, gemstones, and precious metals, both local and from abroad. The piece that most stands out in my mind was a multi-kilogram polished sphere of solid lapis, with a price tag several thousand dollars higher than any car I've ever owned.

Along with the signage for the store itself and an 'Ancient Copper Culture Museum' (which I was unable to find, though I didn't ask about it since we were passing through) was this sign. It was so memorably strange, I had to take a picture.





I love tourist trappy stuff like this! My assumption is that it's a Mystery Spot sort of place; there a number of them around. Regrettably, we didn't experience it first hand as we were just passing through and it's location was not immediately obvious.

While we were in the store, one of the owners was complaining loudly about some group of 'weirdos' who were taking pictures of 'piles of junk' outside the store that nobody had any business being interested in. I tried not to express how much I resemble that remark. She was suspicious that they weren't taking pictures of 'something interesting' and seemed to be worried about some kind of land rights issue that was pending.

I think the two people on the sign may be the owners of the shop, though I'm not sure. I think there was a resemblance, but I'm not the one to ask about such things....

This store was just a few hundred yards down the road from a nifty antique shop called "The Last Place on Earth". I love it.

(no subject)

I think that I'd kind of like to create a Facebook account. My entire immediate family as well as aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. are all on it. I have a number of friends who have one too. Where they're all concerned, I have no problem creating a Facebook account and just being me, unfiltered. I really don't think any of them would be very phased by my life.

On top of that, I would be highly amused by the thought of people I went to school with (not that I really remember many of them) might see me there and be boggled. 'Cause admittedly, my life has turned out rather weird. I'm happy with it, but admittedly, it's outside the mainstream in several respects.

My problem is that many of the people I work with are on Facebook too. They don't need to know what's going on in my personal life. No, they really don't. Maybe there's some way to only allow certain people to see certain things like on LJ. I suppose I could manage dealing with that, though it would be annoying. I thought about creating two accounts, one with my real name (which would probably never get updated, to be honest, 'cause I barely unlazy enough to want to keep two social networking doohickeys updated, much less three, and have to figure out which one gets what level of info). Bleh. The other one would be Stormdog or something. Except someone told me that, technically, real names are required on Facebook, so I don't know if that would fly.

For those of you who manage Facebook and don't want coworkers (or maybe your family) to see all, or any, of it, how do you manage? Is there a way to do it without be headaches?

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And here's another abandonment picture, instead of the small-town UP shots I've been posting. I hope you're enjoying all of them.





This is the Lake Superior shoreline at the site of the Mohawk Stamp Mill.

Stamp mills processed ore removed from mines by pulverizing it with a series of machines to remove the copper. Copper was shipped to a smelting facility, while the rest, ground and smashed into a coarse-grained sand, was washed down into a body of water (Superior in this case).

This sand reaches about half a mile out past the original shoreline, sits in ten to fifteen foot dunes, and stretches literally miles down the shore, millions of tons of what used to be the underground rocks of the Keweenau, now become fill for artificial land. This material is completely inorganic; nothing grows in it. Standing here is uneartly, like being in a moonscape.

The concrete tunnel is the structure that once held a wooden launder, the chute that the stamp sand and water mixture from the mill was sluiced downward into Lake Superior through. As the shore of the lake filled up with waste sand, the chute was just extended further and further out over what had once been the lake waters.

Much fascinating information about this site is here at The Copper Country Explorer.

This picture is also a neat one for me because I can see improvements in my photography. This one is by no means perfect, but I shot a number of pictures here last year and none of them were as interesting as this one.

This one would be better if the concrete wall was at a sharper angle away from the viewer, and if the concrete column at right was a little further into the frame to allow a view of the dunes stretching out behind it. But not too far; I want it large and in sharp focus to give a reference point for the rest of the columns along the length of the foundation as it stretches into the distance. But hey; I actually had a sky for a little while!

And, as always, comments and criticism and anything you think would make for a better picture is more than welcome. I won't always follow them, but I love ideas!