Big Lake Break

Once again we spent our summer vacation at the cottage on Big Lake, Shawano County, Wisconsin. Once again words escape me (me!?!) and I turn to images:

From 2013 06 Wisconsin

More photos after the jump.

Before Silicon Valley, There Was Paper Valley

From 2013 06 Wisconsin

Long before Richardson's Telecom Corridor or even California's Silicon Valley, the Fox River Valley in northeastern Wisconsin was known as Paper Valley. The combination of Wisconsin's vast timber resources and water and power from the Fox River was ideal for making paper. The resulting paper mills created prosperous communities and wealthy paper barons with names like Kimberly and Clark. A hundred years ago, it was said that there were more millionaires per capita in Neenah, Wisconsin, than in any other city in America.

After the jump, the Fox River today.

First Day of Summer in the Steger Garden (2013)

From Flowers

Memorial Day in the Steger Garden (2013)

From Flowers

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Source: Abraham Lincoln.

Late Spring in the Steger Garden (2013)

From Flowers

Eaton Canyon Emergency

So... we decided to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Pasadena, California, hiking in Eaton Canyon.

From 2013 03 17 Eaton Canyon

It was the best of times...

More photos after the jump.

Spring in the Steger Garden (2013)

From Flowers

Early Spring in the Steger Garden (2013)

From Flowers

A White Christmas in Richardson (2012)

From 2012 12 Christmas

More Christmas photos after the jump.

Merry TubaChristmas - Dallas 2012

From 2012 12 TubaChristmas

TubaChristmas was celebrated in Thanksgiving Square in downtown Dallas at noon on Christmas Eve, the 35th annual performance of over 200 tubas, sousaphones, euphoniums and baritones. One musician has attended all 35 annual concerts. Another began playing only this September. After a two year absence (in China), John returned for his tenth TubaChristmas. Oh, the joyful sound!

This year's concert was dedicated to Alex Burton, long time Dallas and Ft. Worth TubaChristmas Master of Ceremonies, who passed away in 2012.

More photos after the jump.

Late Autumn in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

More photos after the jump.

Thanksgiving Day (2012)

From 2012 00 Miscellaneous

"Don't let the turkeys get you down."
-- Sandra Boynton

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Autumn in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

More photos after the jump.

Late Summer in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

Another look, after the jump.

Summer in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

She loves me. She loves me not.

A Museum, A Cottage, and A Wedding

From 2012 06 Wisconsin

Our summer vacation in Wisconsin included a day at Milwaukee's Museum of Art, several days at the family cottage on Big Lake in Shawano County, and attendance at Lisa and Dan's wedding in Appleton.

More photos after the jump.

Late Spring in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

Another photo after the jump.

Even More Spring in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

Another photo after the jump.

Richardson's Finest

A sight you definitely don't want to see when you look out your front door.
Unless you need help. Then you want to see 'em all there.
Experiencing mixed emotions on a Saturday afternoon.
That's all I know. Don't ask me any more.

All of which reminds me of this story...

When Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London, he occupied himself with writing a history of the world. He had finished the first volume and was at work on the second when there was a scuffle between some workmen beneath the window of his cell, and one of the men was killed. In spite of diligent enquiries, and in spite of the fact that he had actually seen the thing happen, Sir Walter was never able to discover what the quarrel was about; whereupon, so it is said -- and if the story is not true it certainly ought to be -- he burned what he had written and abandoned his project.

Source: George Orwell.

Delete my blog? Don't you wish!

More Spring in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers