"And the Oscar goes to…wait…never mind…"

Posted on March 6, 2009 by canoelover

So a funny thing happened to me today.  Actually, a hilarious thing happened to me today.

So I get this email from Outside Magazine:

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:48:22 -0500
To: Darren Bush
Subject: Outside’s Best Companies

Hi Darren:

As you’ve probably heard, your company has been selected as one of Outside’s Best Places to Work for 2009. Congrats! Everyone at your company should be very proud of this accomplishment.

The ranking of the 30 best places to work will be unveiled in a special May 2009 issue of Outside magazine, which will hit newsstands on Tuesday, April 14.

Outside’s Best Places to Work has become a key issue for the magazine and we will launch a major promotional effort to highlight the winning companies in conjunction with the newsstand date. I am working directly with Outside’s public relations team and will be your direct contact for coordinating the promotional efforts of this launch.
 
Please respond as soon as possible so that we can move forward with our outreach. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Best,
L—–  Z——— 

I responded essentially that this was news to me, but thanks, I’ll get the materials you need together for your press releases.  Didn’t think much about it, honestly…I was in the middle of cutting a radio ad when it came over the Blackberry.
Less than an hour later I get this email:

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 12:12:23 -0500
 To: Darren Bush
 Subject: RE: Outside’s Best Companies

Hi Darren,

My most sincere apologies.  Unfortunately, there was a mix up with email and unfortunately Rutabaga did not make the list. 

Thank you for your understanding.

Warm regards,

L——

Wow…
Okay, I understand…technical error.  The guys from Price Waterhouse put Keanu Reeves in the Best Actor envelope by mistake.  Stuff happens.  I responded thusly:

From: Darren Bush [mailto:darrenb@rutabaga.com]
 Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 1:14 PM
 To: L—– Z——
 Subject: Re: Outside’s Best Companies

L—–,

Gee, I thought we sucked. Thanks for confirming. 🙂

Sincerely,

  Darren Bush, Rutabaga Paddlesports

Her response:
From: L—— Z——-
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 12:16 PM
To: darrenb@rutabaga.com
Subject: RE: Outside’s Best Companies

My most sincere apologies.

L—— Z——

I called her.  I didn’t want her to feel bad.  Apparently this went out to a few other people.  At least one was really unhappy, had called his wife, etc.  I told her that I thought this was better than winning, because it’s a much better story.
And it is.  I don’t need Outside Magazine to tell me I’m a good employer, the employees are all the feedback I need, and so far, they think our shop is a pretty good place to work.
Respectfully and humorously submitted,
  Canoelover
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Pet Peeve No. 362-A

Posted on March 4, 2009 by canoelover

So my friend Jean sent me this awesome book of poems.  Lovely stuff, lovely friend.  I love good poetry.  So does Jean, which is why she’s my friend.  She had it sent from a used book store because it’s out of print.  Beyond sweet of her, to find me an out of print book.

So imagine if you will my dismay at seeing what an English major with a mechanical pencil did to this lovely book.
So, if you underline something, does it make it more profound?  I say, no, it does not.  I say it means someone in a tweed sport coat with leather patches on the elbows told you that the word rain was significant.  So to accentuate the significance, you underline it.  Why? It’s because that’s what English majors do…deconstruct and underline.  Heaven forbid you just read a poem.
And hollow soldier is underlined twice because everything else was already underlined.  So, riddle me this…if everything is underlined, why underline anything at all?
Pencils down, English majors.  Take notes in a notebook, but keep your poking, prodding, deconstructing pencils out of my books.  Do not write “foreshadowing of death” in the margins.  Do not write rhetorical questions to yourself such as “sexual tension???”  Do not, under any circumstances, write the word “hegemony.”  Just…don’t…do…it.  Break the grip and walk away.
Bemused, perplexed, and just a tiny bit annoyed,
  Canoelover
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Just another day at the office…

Posted on March 3, 2009 by canoelover

I believe that the best way to keep an office efficient is to keep people as uncomfortable as humanly possible.  That’s why four days a week, we’re all dressed in our finest Hickey Freeman suits with Gucci loafers.  Nylons and heels for women, just to make them even more uncomfortable.  Because discomfort brings productivity.  And happiness.  And loyalty from your workforce.  Ask any goose-stepping third-world commandant.

Bodie, The Chairman of the Boards
However, we like to change it up a little.  Like on “Dress Like A Paddler Who Just Woke Up” Tuesdays, when we have our staff meetings.  Tuesdays are also, coincidentally, “Bring Your Toddler To Work” day, so Tuesdays are pretty relaxed.  Wednesdays, it’s back to the formal office wear you would expect in a corporate environment like ours.
It bears mentioning that Monday is “Bring Your Cute Puppy To Work” Day.  Lisa, however, was given a written warning for not following our office dress policy as written in the Handbook of Unreasonable and Arbitrary Expectations.  Her lack of discomfort created a serious productivity drain that was only partially offset by working one-handed with a puppy.
Sarcastically submitted,
  Canoelover
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It’s March…

Posted on March 2, 2009 by canoelover

Snowcover?  We don’t need no steenkin’ snowcover… 

…and I am one happy dude.
It was chilly, a brisk 18 degrees, but with the sun shining it felt like 28, which in Wisconsin is t-shirt weather.  I had a long-sleeve merino wool shirt and pullover and that was it, and frankly, I felt fine so long as I kept moving.

Cardinalis cardinalis (male)
The birds were out in force.  Pine Siskins were everywhere, but of course I couldn’t get any pictures of them because they were, as per their appelative nature, hiding in the pines. I did get a decent shot of a few Northern Cardinals, as they are twitterpated and singing their hearts out.

Cardinalis cardinalis (female)


So I walked around for a half-hour or so, listening for birdsong and feeling joyful that at least some of the creatures of the woods were optimistic about Spring coming on in a few weeks.  Red-Breasted Nuthatches (Sitta canadensis) ahnk-ed their way up and down an old beech looking for something tasty.  They’re a favorite bird of mine, and there are always a fair number of them in the silver maples in our front yard come April.

Buds on a Magnoliaceae

Just standing in the sun listening to to the birds was food for my brain and my heart.  The buds that were already formed were sure signs that we had turned the corner, and after a few days of 60s and 70s the Arboretum would be a riot of color and scent.  I like it when that happens.
As I was walking back to the Element (and the dog) I heard a crunching, two sets of feet…turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo), poking along through the light snow cover scratching for frozen crabapples.  They didn’t see me at first, but turkeys are not easy to stalk, so I just waited for them to come to me, and they did.

It was a pair, and the male was disturbed by my presence, even though his behavior didn’t change all that much.  His head was a dead giveaway – his skin turned bright blue and his wattle turned brighter red.  Turkeys telegraph their emotions with their skin color, and the change is pretty amazing, kind of like an octopus.

As the happy couple passed me and took off for the woods, I took off for the car.  It wasn’t a long walk, but it’s definitely going to be something I do more of moving into the Spring.  After all, ephemerals are just around the corner.  Crocuses and pasqueflowers are only weeks away.  At that point I shall become insufferably cheerful and will post all sorts of minutae about Asarum canadense, Sanguinaria canadensis, and a bunch of other canadensids.  And Dicentra cucullaria.
Optimistically submitted,
  Canoelover
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Italy Redux: Erice

Posted on March 1, 2009 by canoelover


One tends to associate different styles of towns with different regions of Italy.  Tuscany and Umbria have hill towns.  Emilia-Romana has old flat cities with cool Byzantine architecture.  Campania has colorful villages covered with bougainvillea and window boxes of rosmarina prezzemolo.  Liguria has brightly-colored stucco-ed houses in their hillside towns overlooking the sea.

So Erice seems like an anomaly, a hill town in Sicily of all places. What the tourists don’t know and the travelers do is that Sicily is dotted with hill towns…Erice is just one that is more frequented due to its and and its beauty.

Erice is old.  It was once Eryx, not a Greek colony but an aboriginal people who settled western Sicily around 1100 B.C.  The early Ericeans were often conflicted when it came to political allegiances, mostly favoring Greek influences, which resulted in the city’s destruction by Carthage in the first Punic war.  Not to worry, the Romans took it over and it has been continuously occupied since then.
Erice has a distinctly medieval feel.  The largest castle (the Castello di Venere) is Norman, built on the ruins of the Roman Temple of Venus.  The Castello Pepoli dates from the tenth century Arab occupation, and the streets are lined with houses that are undoubtedly from the 1400s with in-fill from 1600-1700 century buildings and churches.  Nowhere in this city will you find the ornate baroque architecture that is so predominant in southeastern Sicily.  Truly, western Sicily is barely Italian at all, having more in common with Greek and Arabic cultural forces.  This lack of ornament gives Erice a wonderful, stark feel that was lovely for us to absorb.  The cold weather meant the parking lots were empty, and we had the city to ourselves, seeing on a few other people walking around (it was Sunday) and all the houses were shuttered against the cold and wind.
The Mother Church (Chiesa Matrice) of Erice is really something.  The architecture remains mostly as it was originally constructed, a Romanesque church, but the construction suggests that one of the masons had read a magazine article about the new Gothic stuff going up farther north, so there are hints of Gothic arches and a few little details that are endearing.  Still, no huge vaults (except for the front porticle), and certainly no stained glass to speak of.


Ian and I walked around for a few hours and enjoyed the beautiful streets.  The flagstones are wonderfully symmetrical and after the rain (and snow!) they were slippery and somewhat treacherous, but we watched out footing.  The unusual amount of rain made grass grow up through the stones, which added a soft texture, and overall it was lovely.


This is the largest piazza inside the walls of the town.  It is not a huge town, easily navigated from one end to the other in ten minutes.  Note the sign that says “no parking on any of the piazza.”  Note that four cars are ignoring it.


Looking back from the top of Erice (750m above sea level) eastward toward Mount Colfano and Punta del Saraceno (Saracen Point – told you this was Arab territory).


Castello di Pepoli.  Lovely castle. That said, you couldn’t get me to Erice in the summer for all the cassata in Palermo.  No way.  The smaller “guest castle” was built by the Baron who owned this castle during the 18th century, and sadly has fallen into disrepair.



Getting to Erice is difficult, either by car or by foot.  Switchbacks are the norm.  One really cool thing about Erice is the view of Trapani and the salt farms, where seawater is pumped by windmills into smaller and smaller pools to allow evaporation.  Pretty cool.
In the background are the Egadi Islands, famous for the tuna harvest.
While I enjoyed Erice, the only reason I did is that it was February and 35 degrees.  The hoards of puffy white tourons complaining too loudly about the steep streets were nowhere to be seen. I’m sorry…I’m a snob, I don’t enjoy being around loud people who are there to check off another city and eat from the tourist menu. I don’t require these people to learn to speak Italian, but learning a few words might be helpful instead of just speaking louder.
Head for Erice between November and April, otherwise stay away. 
Respectfully submitted,
   Canoelover
P.S.  One must visit Maria Grammatico’s pastry shop, one of the best in Sicily, apparently.  We have no reason to doubt it.
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I know it’s still winter…

Posted on February 28, 2009 by canoelover


…but that’s a lead of open water there!  The rivers are mostly open, and the water is up, though a tad cold still.  That said, I’m jonesing for a solo canoe trip already.  So today I will clean my garage/boat house, go through the gear piles and get ready for the inevitable.

  Mentre la speranza ha fior di verde,*
      Canoelover
*”While there is still a little hint of green in hope.”   Divine Comedy, Purgatory, III, 135
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Message of the Day

Posted on February 28, 2009 by canoelover

From the minivan in front of me this afternoon on Monona Drive.

Well noted, thank you.
Olfactorally submitted,
  Canoelover
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"It’s just that I find Gene’s cowbell playing a little harsh…"

Posted on February 27, 2009 by canoelover

I love XM Radio. On the way to work I was channel surfing. I got to hear:

  • Hawaiian Wedding – Elvis
  • Sister Christian – Night Ranger
  • Neil Young – Harvest
  • Piano Concerto No. 21, 1st mvmt. – Mozart
  • Don’t Fear the Reaper – BOC

All excellent music (except the Night Ranger, but at least it’s nostalgic.

Lots of ice fishermen on the bay. Next to a small lead of open water. Spring is coming!

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

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Werner the Snowman

Posted on February 25, 2009 by canoelover


I looked out the back door at the deck and Brian had built a snowman.  It was perfect snowman snow, so I don’t blame him.  Before too long he had been all dressed up and was ready for action.

Scott grabbed a couple of mismatched paddle halves from the basement and Werner the Snowman was born.
Werner the Snowman died an hour and a half later.  His remains dripped through the deck and got the UPS Man all wet.
Respectfully submitted,
  Canoelover
P.S.  Neither Werner nor Kokatat nor Extrasport was compensated for this blatent attempt at subliminal advertising.
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Italy Redux: Provincia di Enna

Posted on February 24, 2009 by canoelover

When the average person thinks of Italy they often think of the Big Three:  Rome, Florence, and Venice.  Lots of art, architecture, and museums.  Very few people think of bucolic backwater villages and abandoned stone farm buildings.
Sicily is, on the whole, still very rural.  It takes resources to develop land, and when resources are scarce people tend to stick to the cities.  The whole thing has the effect of eliminating suburbs in Sicily.  Cities end, countryside begins.

This is, with the possible exception of its economic consequences, a good thing.  Suburbia (if case the gentle reader has never been to Schaumberg, IL or Simi Valley, CA) is a pretty ugly thing.
I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles.  This suburban area now describes the entire area that is southern California.  There are no downtowns.  There are no city centers.  Just miles of endless strip malls. I couldn’t go downtown, there was no downtown.  Just a choice of two malls.
Suburbs (Latin for “under the city”) are a function of wealth and ease of transportation.  It’s not a uniquely American phenomenon: Rome has some pretty hideous, souless suburbs too, created more by the cost of living in Rome itself than any desire for a Starter Castle.

I love rural Italy. The people are friendly, easily engaged in conversation.  If you want to make a little old lady in Sicily laugh, speak Sicilian.  That’s because white folks don’t speak Sicilian, ever.
I was in Raddusa, lost because of backroads that were blocked by mudslides, so I pulled over to speak with two little old Sicilian ladies (black dresses, grey hair, small beards).  They were sweet, giving me contradictory directions.  “There might be roads closed that we don’t even know about yet, son.”  True enough.
They saw Ian (a tall redhead, fairly uncommon in Sicily) and asked me why we were in Raddusa.  I told them we were traveling the backroads of Sicily, but, I explained,  U Figghiu miu ‘sta en catenu cortu – “I’m keeping my son on a short lead.”  
The sound of Italian coming from my mouth surprised them, but the sound of Sicilian made these little old ladies laugh with wonderful, toothless laughs.  I’m not a Sicilian expert by any means, but it’s fun to throw out the odd phrase to spice things up.  Cu mancia fa muddichi is one of my favorites, appropriate at the pizzaria:
   “If you eat, you make crumbs.”
Respectfully submitted,
   Canoelover
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