Meet Norbert Nerdly

It's been one of those weeks. With nothing but a message reading "taking a vacation, told Norbert to get something ready," the Lemming disappeared. Norbert Nerdly, the inside — person — at A Small World of Websites, dutifully produced content for today's post. But he's no Lemming.

Thank you, Norbert. We all appreciate the effort, and hope the Lemming will at least send a postcard before next Friday.

More of life with the Lemming:

• "Another Holiday for the Lemming"
  (August 7, 2015)
• "With the Lemming at Aunt Ida's"
  (January 23, 2015)
• "Chicken Soup and the Lemming"
  (January 16, 2015)
• "This Year We Gotta Get Organized"
  (January 2, 2015)
• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Holiday Travel Plans"
  (December 19, 2014)

The Lemming Regrets ...

Apparently the circumstances are of a technical nature: something to do with a computer and preventive maintenance. Also mentioned by the Lemming: contemplation; a Nero Wolfe novel; and an easy chair.

Meanwhile, the Lemming suggests that readers look on the bright side: the Lemming could have asked Narcissus-X back as a guest blogger.


(Narcissus-X, proffering plenteous provisos. (August 14, 2015)

More — and less — related posts:

• "The Lemming Will Be Back"
  (September 28, 2015)
• "Escape From Klagfinster Poster"
  (September 25, 2015)
• "Island Flight"
  (September 11, 2015)
• "Speak Softly - - -"
  (September 4, 2015)
• "Narcissus-X Proffers Plenteous Provisos"
  (August 14, 2015)

The Lemming Will Be Back

First, the good news. The Lemming will be back.

Maybe that's not good news. It depends on your viewpoint, but the Lemming thing's it's a 'plus.'

Now, not-so-good news. The Lemming needs a vacation. More accurately, the Lemming is taking a vacation. It started several hours ago.

The Lemming shall return. There might even be something ready by Friday. Then again, maybe there won't. That depends on what the Lemming runs into during the next few days.

That didn't come out right. The Lemming doesn't run into things. Not that way. It depends on what the Lemming finds that might conceivably be of some interest.

No, that's too wordy.

The Lemming definitely needs a vacation, and will be back — as soon as the Lemming gets back, and not a minute sooner.

Island Flight

Getting there isn't necessarily half the fun, the Lemming writes. It is, however, an essential prerequisite to arrival: so the traveler may as well relax and enjoy the process.

More from the Lemming, and an alliterative artist:

• "Narcissus-X Proffers Plenteous Provisos"
  (August 14, 2015)
• "Another Holiday for the Lemming"
  (August 7, 2015)
• "With the Lemming at Aunt Ida's"
  (January 23, 2015)
• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Holiday Travel Plans"
  (December 19, 2014)
• "Holiday for the Lemming; or Time, Tide, and a Tired Lemming; or the Lemming Takes a Break"
  (June 6, 2014)

From the Mind of the Lemming: Postcard

Having a great time. Will be back soon.

— the Lemming

Vaguely-related posts:

• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Amateur Night"
  (September 20, 2013)
• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Guest Speaker"
  (September 6, 2013)
• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Valentine's Day Dragons"
  (February 14, 2012)
• "From the Mind of the Lemming"
  (January 6, 2012)
• "A 21st Century Look at 19th Century Visions of the 20th Century"
  (January 4, 2012)

Lemming Tracks: The Lemming Took Monday Off

Somewhere in the late afternoon today, the Lemming realized that no micro-reviews had been written, no posts posted, and pretty much nothing at all had been accomplished today.

Nothing of a 'productive' nature, that is. The Lemming had a great time, hanging out with family and playing Sim City 4.

Even a Lemming can take a vacation, now and again, I suppose.

I plan to be back on a 'normal' schedule, whatever that is, tomorrow.

But then, the Lemming has planned a lot of things, over the decades. Like Rabbie Burns wrote: "...The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley...." The Lemming suspects the poet may have been having a hard week when he wrote that.

Full text of the Robert Burns poem:

• "To A Mouse, (The best Laid Schemes O' Mice An' Men)"
  Robert Burns, Old Poetry (1786)

One More Thing: A Hurricane's Coming to the American Northeast

Just so you know the Lemming's paying attention: Earl's coming to New York!

"Earl Downgraded, but Suffolk Remains on Alert"
City Room, N.Y. / Region, The New York Times blog (September 2, 2010)

"The National Weather Service has downgraded Hurricane Earl to a Category 3 hurricane as of 2 p.m. Thursday, but a tropical storm warning remains in effect for Suffolk County, where sustained winds of more than 40 miles an hour are expected to blow in Friday afternoon, with gusts of up to 60 miles an hour. All up and down the East Coast residents were preparing.

"People hoping to get to and from the East End via Long Island Rail Road will have a hard time doing so Friday. The only train from Penn Station going all the way to Montauk Friday will leave at 12:39 a.m. Heading toward the city, trains will leave Montauk and Greenport at 5:30 a.m.

"After that, the railroad is suspending service east of Speonk on the Montauk Branch and east of Ronkonkoma on the main line...."

And eastern Canada, too.

"Hurricane watch closes N.S. parks"
CBC News (September 2, 2010)

"Parks Canada will close several Nova Scotia parks and historical sites this weekend due to the impending arrival of Hurricane Earl.

"Kejimkujik National Park, Kejimkujik Seaside, the Fort Anne National Historic Site and the Port Royal National Historic Site will all close Friday. Parks Canada will reassess the closures Saturday.

"The Canadian Hurricane Centre has issued a hurricane watch for four Nova Scotia counties and expanded its tropical storm watch to include large sections of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick...."

Looks like one concern is that Earl and Labor Day Weekend will reach the New England states at about the same time. You'd think that folks would have more sense than to start traveling into an area that's about to have a late-summer storm - but I suppose not everybody pays attention to the news.

Lemming Tracks: The Lemming is Taking the Day Off

The Lemming is taking Sunday off this week. I plan to be back Monday morning, and start catching up on posts here.

Ah, Getting Away From it All, With Nothing But a Smartphone, Cellular Modem, Bluetooth Headset - - -

"The Best Tech Travel Gear"
PCMagazine (August 12, 2010)

"Whether you're hitting the road or taking to the skies this summer, you'll want to pack these mobile-minded Editors' Choice winners.

"When you're traveling, the technology you bring along is as important as anything else you shove into your suitcase. If it's a business trip, you need the right tools to keep you connected and productive—even while you're in transit. Choosing the right GPS, netbook, smartphone, or cellular modem, for example, can make the difference between a successful, worthwhile trip and a frustrating waste of time.

"And when you're on vacation, unless your goal is to disconnect, you want gadgets to keep you in touch and entertained. (Think tablets, digital cameras and camcorders, and MP3 players.)..."

The gadgets covered are:

• Smartphone
• Cellular Modem
• Bluetooth Headset
• GPS
• Digital Camera
• Pocket Camcorder
• Netbook
• Tablet
• Portable Media Player
• Noise-Cancelling Headphones

Some of these things I can see carrying along on a business trip: but a vacation? Camera and camcorder: sure, that I can see.

But the rest? It seems to me that carrying this stuff along to, say, a cabin somewhere in Minnesota's lake country isn't much different than staying in your room with the blinds drawn and the air conditioner on: except at the lake you'll be warmer, and spending several hundred dollars extra.

Still, for folks who want to spend money on travel and lodging for their vacation, without paying too much attention to where they are: this article seems to be a pretty good overview on some of the tech to buy.

Free Fall for the Fourth of July

"Family Aims High for Ultimate 4th of July Vacation: Zero Gravity Flight"
Space.com (July 2, 2010)

"It's about to be the Fourth of July and I am going on a family vacation to the nation's capitol. This time around, we will not be going to the usual tourist destinations. Instead, we are taking a giant leap into the world of space tourism: All five of us will be spending our Independence Day suspended in gravity as we embark on our first family Zero-G trip.

"Many children go through a phase in their lives when they want to become an astronaut to see what it feels like to fly in space. It wasn't long ago that I was one of those starry-eyed kids and little did I know that I would get the opportunity of a lifetime to feel weightlessness before I even turned 23.

"As a political journalist, I spend the majority of my time following stories with fascinating characters and complex storylines chock-full of melodrama and power struggles. However, I must say that this has to be one of the coolest assignments I will ever have in my career...."

I think this article's writer had fun - both covering the assignment, and writing about it. There's a sort of 'personal' touch that's not always there.

Or maybe it's my interest in space flight.

A few quibbles: It's not "zero gravity," technically. "Weightlessness" is closer, since while the Boeing 727 is in its 30-second parabolic curves everyone in the cabin is 'floating.'

Sounds like fun, although I wouldn't recommend the experience for anyone susceptible to motion sickness.

And, until we get regular passenger service to low Earth orbit, those half-minutes of free fall are about as close as most of us could get to experiencing space flight.

Related posts:

• "Taxi to the Stars, No: To Earth Orbit, Soon"
  (June 5, 2010)
• "Bigelow Aerospace: Space to Rent or Lease, in Orbit"
  (January 20, 2010)

More:

• "Humanity in Space: The Next Few Decades"

Lemming Tracks: The Lemming's Taking the Weekend Off

The Lemming's been a bit frazzled lately. I live in America, April 15 is coming up, and - the Lemming wrote about this before. (Lemming Tracks: Tax Time Surprise, March 22, 2010)

I Could Use a Break: So I'm Taking One

So, I'm taking the weekend off. Pretty much, anyway. For this blog, Apathetic Lemming of the North, that means that you can expect the next post somewhere in the late afternoon of Monday, April 12. Central Time, that is. That's UTC minus six hours - except when the American government is yanking us around, temporally.

The Lemming's written about that, too:

• "I'm Blaming Daylight Saving Time: or, Not"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (March 17, 2010)
• "Daylight Saving Time, Again: Get Ready for Mandatory Jet Lag"
  (February 23, 2009)
• "Daylight Saving Time: A Modest Proposal"
  (October 26, 2008)
• "Daylight Saving Time Strikes Again"
  (March 8, 2009)

Don't get me wrong: as I wrote in Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space, I think Daylight Saving Time may have made a little sense. Sort of. 90 years ago. Now, not so much.

But I suppose it could be worse:

• "The French Revolution's Calendar: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time"
  (September 22, 2009)

Good grief: I've wandered far off-topic. Time to call it a day (Saturday, specifically). The sky is shining and the sun is blue - or rather, the other way around - and it's time for the Lemming to get some R & R. See you again, late Monday.

Lemming Tracks: The Lemming's Taking a Short Vacation

There's a poster I saw, decades back, that read something like this: "I've worked long and hard for this nervous breakdown, and think that I have it coming: as soon as the workload eases up."

Or something like that.

One of the advantages of being my own boss is that I can give myself a vacation any time I like.

One of the disadvantages of being my own boss is that I know just how much won't get done, if I don't do it.

However, last month being as interesting as it was, I think it's a good idea to give myself a long weekend.

So, this is the last post that the Lemming will publish, until sometime on Tuesday, October 13. See you then!

What Kids in the Car Shouldn't Have

"Five Things Not To Let The Kids Bring In The Car"
Brad Moon, GeekDad, Wired (August 24, 2009)

"Summer is drawing to a close (sorry, but it is) and it's time to tackle the dreaded chore of cleaning the vacation detritus collecting in our vehicles. I try to keep my truck reasonably tidy throughout the year, but when summer vacation season hits and the truck becomes the primary family wheels, it can be tough to keep up. The aftermath, come late August or September, can be grim. A typical fall cleaning session takes me an entire day with the vacuum, carpet shampooer, assorted scrubbers and cleaning potions and yields bags of dirt, sand, crumbs, pieces of broken toys and stray Pokemon cards. I've learned a few lessons along the way and I'm using that knowledge to produce my own list of banned items and substances with the goal of more pleasant road trips and easier fall cleanups. Needless to say, it isn't popular and I'll be the first to admit that it's quite possibly even more arbitrary than the TSA's Prohibited Items list...."

The Lemming is recovering from Monday morning, so please bear with me: and take my comments with a grain of salt. Or a shaker-full, to taste.

This post, on Wired's GeekDad feature, is one that I've run into for decades. Not the same words, of course, and the content is a bit different each time. But the 'what not to do on vacation' is a perennial favorite in some periodicals. This particular had a particularly nostalgic aura for me, since the author's writing style is suited to print format: with really long paragraphs.

I've learned that many online readers have the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel, so I try to keep paragraphs short. But I'm getting off-topic.

Back to the Micro-Review of a Veteran's Advice on Kids, Trips, Toys and Tribulations

The list of items, and discussion of why each should be verboten starts with:

"Those grabby pincer things they sell at all souvenir shops

"These plastic claw things are ubiquitous in gift shops, particularly zoo gift shops, for some reason, where they're usually fashioned so the grabby part resembles an animal's head. Robot hands are also a popular choice, and dinosaurs are always fair game...."

Next on the list is chewing gum. About which the author is quite correct: you do not want to get chewing gum in your hair. It's not a particularly advisable adjunct to the hair of any member of the family, when it comes right down to it.

Seriously? Taking this piece as a matter-of-fact bit of advice for parents of pre-teen kids, it's pretty good. Practical - and quite obviously written from experience. My wife and I have four surviving kids, and I recognize the situations.

There's a sort of bonus at the end: two items that parents should take with them on trips with the kids.

• Diaper wipes
• A lint roller

There's an explanation for why each of those items are handy. If you haven't discovered it already, there's a mess of off-label uses for diaper wipes.

I'd suggest taking your kid's personalities into account before pointing out just what those all-purpose cleaning sheets are, though.

Hot Sand in Cancun: Beach Sand Stolen?

"Mexico shuts Cancun beach, alleges sand was stolen"
The Associated Press (July 30, 2009)

"Surprised tourists found their little piece of Cancun beach paradise ringed by crime-scene tape and gun-toting sailors on Thursday.

"Environmental enforcement officers backed by Mexican navy personnel closed off hundreds of feet (dozens of meters) of powder-white coastline in front of a hotel accused of illegally accumulating sand on its beach.

"Mexico spent $19 million to replace Cancun beaches washed away by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. But much of the sand pumped from the sea floor has since washed away, leading some property owners to build breakwaters in a bid to retain sand. The practice often merely shifts sand loss to beaches below the breakwaters.

" 'Today we made the decision to close this stretch of ill-gotten, illegally accumulated sand,' said Patricio Patron, Mexico's attorney general for environmental protection. 'This hotel was telling its tourists: "Come here, I have sand ... the other hotels don't, because I stole it." '..."

I've heard of beaches with hot sand: but not 'hot' this way.

The AP article gives a pretty good look at the reaction of tourists, but doesn't - in my opinion - explain why, by implication, a hotel building a breakwater to retain sand on its beach is 'stealing' sand. Maybe it's the sort of principle that applied in classrooms, where if a student brought something special in his or her lunch it was a case of "I hope you have enough for everybody."

'Artificial' beaches are pretty common a little north of here, in Minnesota's lake country. We've got sand-bottom lakes, where you can get a sandy beach by peeling back the sod. But, we've also got mud-bottom lakes where resort owners haul sand in - and can get a bit peeved if people carry it off the property.

So, there may very well be a legitimate complaint, down in Cancun. I just wish The Associated Press had given enough detail for us to understand it a bit more adequately.

Oh, well: On the 'up' side, there's a map and two photos.

Want a Stress-Free Vacation? This May Help

"Seven tips to make your trip stress-free"
CNN (July 14, 2009)

"To some it's a vacation, to others it's a holiday. No matter what you call it, it's a time to relax.

" But with packed summer flights, ever-tightening budgets and scammers pulling fast ones on unsuspecting travelers, it's easy to make mistakes that could turn your hard-earned vacation into a nightmare. Before you go leaving on a jet plane here are some simple tips to insure happy trails.

"Internet finds deals, troubles. The old adage "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is" still applies, even in the Caribbean.

"Before you hand over your credit card for that inexpensive travel package, do your homework and find out exactly what's included...."

The article doesn't mention common sense all that much - although the phrase does show up in a heading - but that's what it's about. With helpful details.

Like making sure that your health insurance covers what you're planning to do. And dealing with sunburn before it happens.

This isn't the ultimate, covering-all-bases tome on how to avoid unpleasantness on vacation: but it looks like a good place to start.

Me? I'm staying home.

French Cube: A Fishing Shack, With Telescope

"Carre D'etoiles French Cube"
Tiny House Blog (July 3, 2009)

"Carre d’etoiles: a Tiny, Portable Prefab Cube from France

"Yesterday materialicious discovered the neatest prefab cube and I had the hardest time waiting until today to share it with you.

"The concept of the design is for a vacation getaway for resorts where you can experience a window to the sky, and an island of liberty. You can rent these at several places throughout France and use the included astronomical telescope to penetrate the mysteries of the universe...."

This post includes 10 or 11 photos (the last one is actually a pair of similar pictures) of this U-haul approach to vacation residences.

Judging from the chair in one of the photos, this Carre D'etoiles French Cube is about the size of a large ice-fishing house: the sort of thing folks here in central Minnesota tow out on lakes in winter, and generally put back in storage before the ice melts.

Pictures of the interior show a very efficient, tightly-packed residence, with a lavatory that doubles as a shower and enough room for two people to live - provided neither of them experience claustrophobia.

Old Joke, New Tech

"The Misdirected Vacation E-Mail"

I first ran into versions this joke before there was email, but it's still funny.

Family and Fishing: a Personal Blog

"Nathanael Fishing"

A post from the "Simply Cheryl" blog shows that blogs can reflect many diverse lifestyles. In this case, one that involves a guy fishing in Minnesota.

In his place, I wouldn't stand quite so straight.

Vacation Pictures Online: From Lebanon

Viewing a collection of somebody's vacation photos isn't in most people's Top-Ten list of favorite things to do.

The Memories from Lebanon vacation pictures just might be worth the time it takes to view them.

Aside from the (my opinion) better-than-average photos, I've got a newbie's interest in the photo album effect used. This I want to look into.

New Directory for Minnesota Travelers

As if there weren't enough of the things around, there's a new directory on the Web: Minnesota for Web-Wise Travelers.

This one focuses on businesses and institutions in Minnesota and the Red River Valley of the North which have a website, or at least a Web page, dedicated to themselves.

Minnesota for Web-Wise Travelers is for vacationers, business travelers, or anyone else interested in where to shop, catch a movie, play golf, fish, eat, or visit a museum. It even has a list of web-savvy wineries and breweries in Minnesota.

I'm pleased with the content of Minnesota for Web-Wise Travelers, but that's only natural: I created it myself.