I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I feel like all the oxygen just got sucked out of the room. This horriffic tragedy in Conneticut as just made me realize how insignificant any of my "problems" are. Hard to think or write about much else, but maybe a theraputic blog might help. so I'll try. Life here is good, winter is coming on, snow has arrived with more coming. The leanto I built this fall for the ATV while Lesley was in New Zealand is working out very well. After plowing snow I park it inside the leanto which is heated and has a floor drain, and all the snow melts off. I plug it into a charger and keep the battery ready for next use.

I have also become a TV weather watcher for a Duluth, MN station. A niece of mine is married to the TV weatherman for one of the local stations and he convinced me to become "uncle George" reporting from up the Gunflint Trail, which is the name of the road we live on. I call in my temps and precipitation totals every day. I did tell him that during fishing season there won't be many reports, because I will be fishing then. Lesley says she will pick up the slack, perhaps he will call her Aunt Lesley.

Another big project, for me anyway, has been the transfer of about 200 music CD's onto the computer first and then hopefully onto an Ipod. Wow, Lesley and I are really moving into the 21st century fast. We got cell phones in April for the first time, a new LED hi def TV in Oct, got rid of dial up and got hi speed internet via satellite a few weeks ago, plus Lesley bought her first computer ever last month. She is already doing facebook, tweeting people (whatever that is) doing a site called stumbleupon.com which is a really neat site to follow anything that interests you, also she is looking into skype phone service so she can talk to and see the family in NZ. This old brain is having trouble comprehending all this technology so rapidly, but am trying to hang on. I went to the local Radio Shack and paid a young lad to show me how to move the music from CD's to the Ipod. Lesley is friends with the Best Buy "Geek Squad", but between us we seem to be getting it done. After I get all the CD's transferred, one electronic project remains. We have a few VHS tapes and movies from a video camera that I want to move to DVD and from there probably to a computer. We have the machine to do it, I just have to figure out how to use it. Maybe another trip to the local Radio Shack is in order.

After all of this, I may be able to get to reading some books I have started but not finished some time ago. That is what we are supposed to do up here in winter, but have been so busy, I just haven't gotten to it.

Oh, did I mention doing the exercise program every other day so I'll be ready for next summers canoe/camping trips? Two trips scheduled so far, one into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area here in MN, and one planned to the Quetico Provincial park in Canada. We are talking about a third trip, but it is not planned yet. Both trips will be about a week in the wilderness with no facilities at all. You may remember the pictures from our trip last summer, hopefully we will have more to post later this summer. Plus fishing this summer of course, and we may build a garage for the motorhome. I think Lesley and I can do it, except for the roof. We'll need help with that part.

Whew, just writing all of that made me tired, and worse, my coffee cup is empty, You know what that means.