Personal Concerns and Editorials

I try to keep these postings light-hearted, but an editorial that appeared in the New York Times yesterday compels me to express some personal concerns. The editorial in question was written by Thomas L. Friedman, a gifted individual who I heard speak a few years ago at The University of Iowa. His editorial can be found by clicking here.

Friedman says it all far better than I can, but I want to say that I very much agree with his concerns about the growing divisiveness and bitterness in our country, which is too often fed by the cable news programs, various talk shows, a number of bitter extreme groups and individuals, and a certain past Vice President. I am also deeply disappointed in our elected officials and, specifically, in my own elected officials, such as Senators Grassley and Harkin. I respected that both of them would once take more centrist positions, represent Iowa's true core, and deal with issues in honorable ways. Lately, especially in the case of Senator Grassley, I hear them taking partisan positions only, distorting the truth, and misrepresenting facts. When they do this, they do not represent me. I dare say that most elected officials today worry more about their party and its position of power than they do about two important things: truly and honestly representing the people of the nation, and upholding the true ideals of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

I have begun to believe it true that there is a vast middle population that is being too quiet, that is not holding its elected officials accountable, and that fails to properly restrain those extremist groups and positions that may tear us apart. I hope we have not gone so far down this road that, like someone caught too deeply in a whirlpool, we cannot recover. I've not been good myself about writing to my elected officials or speaking out more about what I want. I think I should change in that regard. Maybe you can too. Also, I want to urge those who have opportunity to influence future generations to teach tolerance, open-mindedness, consideration, fairness and thoughtfulness. This country will not survive if we do not do this, or, if it does, it will not be the country I want to claim as my own.

Go back and click on the link I provided to the Friedman editorial and read it!

Ancient Wood

Warning: This is one of those stories about "things that Bill gets excited about but that others might not find so interesting."

Some time ago, I read the book A Splintered History of Wood: Belt Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers, and Baseball Bats. In about its first chapter, the book discusses sources and types of wood and introduced me to a wood called kauri. Kauri still grows in New Zealand and is protected by the government, but there are ancient kauri trees (30,000 to 50,000 years old, according to carbon dating) that can be extracted from peat bogs in New Zealand, dried, and cut into lumber. The extracted trees are enormous (some as big as redwoods). Here is a little video about such an extraction:

The wood is rare, of course, but because live trees are not cut down to make it available, it is not considered a threatened species, as many other woods are. Still, I understand some New Zealanders object to its export.

What makes the wood so interesting is that when finished, it has an almost luminescent property. When viewed from different angles, it shimmers and shows dark changing to golden and back again. A Splintered History of Wood informed me that the sole source of kauri in the United States is a company called Ancient Wood LTD in Ashland, WI. If you click here, you can learn more about the company and read about kauri, see examples of things made from the wood, see a little video that attempts to show the grain and luminescent nature of the grain, and even purchase wood, if you want (it is expensive!). Ashland is north of us, in a pretty area right along the south shore of Lake Superior (very near the Apostle Islands).

So, on Thursday, Kathie and I traveled about 70 miles to Ashland to visit the company. I wanted to see the wood, see some of the projects they do with the wood, and maybe buy a board for some special projects.

Some of these pictures are a little blurry, because we weren't careful enough about letting the camera focus--sorry about that. Nevertheless, I thought you might find them interesting. To start, here I am standing alongside a 40 foot long board of kauri. The wood really doesn't give off its luminescent look until it is finished.

The company does special order projects with the wood. Many of them involve use of interesting pieces of burl from the lower area of the trunks. They often finish such pieces by covering them with transparent epoxy. This picture begins to show off some of the beauty of the grain.

This piece was in process. They had filled holes in the piece with a collection of interesting stones from Lake Superior and covered them with epoxy. In a next step, the entire piece would be covered with epoxy. Such pieces are then mounted on some type of pedestal to make a coffee or end table.

This one is going to an office somewhere in Chicago.

They call this one the Wisconsin piece.

This table has kauri in the center and seven or eight other woods around the edges. The pedestals in the background show the kauri grain quite well.

I ended up buying a few pen blanks and one board, about 10" wide and six feet long. There may be a Christmas present or two or three or four hiding in that board. Not everyone has something made from a board that may have come from a 50,000 year old tree!

Visits

Our good friends David and Donna were here to visit us for a few days recently. In addition to some fishing outings, we watched some movies (most notably, Frost & Nixon and The Reader), tried out a new restaurant for breakfast, and enjoyed evenings on the deck. We guys tried to even the score of games of Hand & Foot, but alas, the ladies managed to beat us two games to one. That was an improvement, as the first time we ever played, they beat us about a bazillion games to one or two.

David sent me this picture of us which he took during their visit.

Since their departure, we have been out fishing a couple of times. Larger Crappie are starting to bite, and so we are having some good luck with them. Our neighbor invited us out with him Saturday mid-day, and we were introduced to several more good spots for Crappie. Kathie had some luck fishing for Bass out on the river near our home yesterday afternoon, while I worked on my 5000-piece puzzle. You may recall I started this puzzle around the 4th of July. See this earlier posting for details and a picture of the puzzle just out of the box. Here is how it looks now, with maybe 5/8 of it completed.

There is a lesson in planning ahead here. I naively thought it would fit on this table, but as you can see, one of the puzzle's dimensions exceeds the size of the table. So, I purchased a thin sheet of aluminum and rigged up a sort of extension. Thinking of the extra capacity Dad sometimes added to his wagons by adding vertical boards on the wagon sides, Dad might have referred to my approach as "sideboards."

Grandsons

I don't mean to be partial to grandsons over granddaughters, but I did get to spend some extra time with Anders for his birthday and then also to see Henry as a ring bearer in Liz's wedding last weekend. So, I have to post a few pictures of them.

Sandy already posted a picture of Anders with his new blocks set, which I made for him for his first birthday. Here is another of him as he begins to play with them. At this time, playing with them seems to mean "throw them out of the box."

I take this expression to mean that he is pleased with the blocks.

But then...back to pitching them out of the box.

And here is that other handsome boy-about-town after quickly donning most of his tuxedo for the wedding. In addition to the jacket, there was a little adjusting and tucking to do, but I know you will agree he's looking good. That hunter green color was an excellent choice! Green is my favorite color.