Kayak Trip Report - 3/30/2010 -An Extended Expedition

I went on yet another river adventure last weekend.  This time around, the expedition consisted of Jamie in a canoe, and Denis, Jeff, Brian, and I in kayaks.  Brian was to be initiated into our crew of mis-adventurers.  It didn't take long.

The map of our journey is at the end of this post.

The brief version is that we traveled roughly 12.5 miles in 7.5 hours.  We completed trips 2, 3, 4, and 5 as laid out by the folks at GREAT.  According to their maps, all four trips should take between 7 and 11 hours to accomplish.  Given all that happened, I'd say that we were quite lucky to have finished as soon as we did.

The weather predicted for Saturday was clear with a high in the mid-50s.  The weather for Sunday was supposed to be cold and rainy.

The car windows were covered with a light frost when I began putting the kayak atop my car at 8 AM.  There was a bite in the air that gave me brief pause to reconsider the day's adventure.  However the sky was clear and the sun promised to warm things up later in the day.  I ran a couple of errands and then shot out to the park on Vandercook Lake where I was supposed to meet Denis around 9:30.

Denis arrived, my kayak was stowed with his in the back of his pickup truck, and we were shortly joined by Jamie who had dropped his canoe at our starting point on Jefferson Road.  We then learned that Jeff and Brian were waiting for us at the starting point, so we headed off to meet them.

The cold from earlier that morning had yielded to the sun's persistent persuasions.  Our breath no longer left plumes in the air.  But it was still a long way from anything you could reasonably call 'warm'.

Boats were unloaded at our starting point and staged waiting for our trip to begin.  Even our kayaks looked just a little leery of a river still filled with the run-off from a snow laden winter.

Jamie led the way.  With but the slightest shrug of his shoulders, he lifted his canoe from its resting spot and gently placed it in the water.  It was a feat of strength and majesty that only his well muscled 6'-2 frame might have accomplished.  As he paddled down the river with sun gleaming in his hair and his blue eyes ablaze in anticipation of the feats yet to come, one could be excused for mistaking him for a Nordic prince leading his band of hardy adventurers.  Or perhaps he is Adonis reborn to travel from Persephone to Aphrodite and back again.

Oh my......I think I'm getting moist.....

[Thus ends the lesson on being careful about what you wish for.  8*)  ]

Your gracious interlocutor had recently purchase a pair of water shoes.  Why have water shoes if one isn't prepared to get them wet.  And so I promptly stepped into the river so as to mount my kayak.  I no longer had to worry about my feet being cold or feeling any other sensation.  They had gone numb and would not recover for several days.

Denis then promptly demonstrated a better method of entering the river by getting into his kayak while it was on dry land.  He then performed a few pelvic thrusts to scoot himself into the river.  It worked.  And he was dry.

Once we were all in our boats, we quickly ducked under the US127 bridge and were on our way.  In less than a few hundred yards we were faced with our first obstacle of the day; a foot bridge placed across the river by some errant landowner.  We all had to scoot down deep in our kayaks to slip under the steel frame of the bridge.  Another inch of water and we all would have had to portage around the bridge.

As it was, only Jamie and his canoe had to make a brief exit from the river.  By the end of the day, the kayaks only needed to leave the river three times for obstacles.  I am pretty sure that Jamie exited his canoe close to a dozen times to go over or around dead-falls and bridges.  By the end of the day, we were both pretty well gassed.  At least Jamie had a good reason to be exhausted.  He did twice the work that the kayakers had done.

Once past the foot bridge, we wandered through a marsh.  It turns out that Brian is quite an avid hunter.  He pointed out several spots where beavers had been at the trees along the shoreline.  He also was able to point out mallards, wood ducks, and other bits of fauna along the way. 

At one point we saw a series of what looked like golf balls sitting in the mud and covered by shallow water along the river's edge.   Eventually we figured out that the golf balls were really turtle eggs, waiting for a bit more sunshine before they hatched.

Michigan weather has largely been above freezing for most of the last few weeks.  It might dip below freezing at night for a while, but the day time high temperatures have run from 40 to 60 degrees F.

Yet as we floated through the marsh, we caught glimpses of ice hidden here and there.  Mostly it was on the river bank protected from the sun by marsh grass, trees, and bushes.  Occasionally there would be still pools of water that were covered by the slightest sheet of ice.

This first leg of our journey is known as Trip #2 by GREAT.  It is mostly open with very few obstacles between Jefferson Road and Reed Road.

One modest caution for this stretch of the trip, always remember the last bend in the river.  Water, not unlike everything else, prefers to travel along in a straight line until it is given no other choice but to turn in a different direction.  That means that the flow of the river tends to stack up along the outside edge of the turn and then stay along that same edge until the river bed bends back in the opposite direction.

So if the river is bending to the left, keep right.  And stay to the right until the river bends back to the right.  Then get left.  There were quite a few spots where the rest of the river was only a few inches deep.  Those, like your loquacious host, who failed to watch where they were going found themselves briefly grounded until they could paddle back into deeper water.

The only serious issues we had were the second foot bridge that is marked on the map, and bend in the river where a dead fall resides.  The second foot bridge was only a few inches above the water.  Denis managed to squeeze his kayak under the bride, but he was standing on the bridge while his kayak was passing below it.  The rest of us got out and went around.  It is unfortunate that people don't consider the impact of their actions when they purposefully block a public waterway like that.

The dead fall, also marked as the first place where I almost got wet, was the first serious obstacle that we faced.  There are several trees that have fallen into the river here.  While usually you can just get a bit of speed and slide right over such things, this spot is a bit tricky.  If your boat turns just a little bit right or left, then the river will twist you cross-ways.  As every experienced kayaker...and even inexperienced ones like yours truly....will tell you, that is the one condition you absolutely must avoid if you are to avoid getting dumped into the river.

My turn at the dead fall finally came.  I worked up a bit of speed hoping to slide right through.  Instead I slid atop the pile and the nose of my kayak turned to the right where it was wedged into the pile.  I tried every trick I knew but I couldn't go backwards without flipping over in front of the pile.  I couldn't go forward as I could not get the nose to swing back to the left.

I was stuck.  Had the river been any faster or deeper, I would have been quite a bit more worried.

As it was, I eventually used the dead fall to pull myself so that the nose of my kayak went deeper into the pile.  Eventually the ass end broke free, I pushed back out of the pile, and floated gracefully away downstream.

Backwards.  Lucille Ball would have been proud.

Just a couple of twists of the river before Reed Road, there is one more tricky little spot.  Someone has used an aluminum ladder to create a bridge across the river.  To the right there is plenty of room.  To the left, you had better not be very tall.  To complicate matters further, there is a noticeable change of elevation and the river runs quite swiftly.  Sending people down this stretch one at a time is preferable to getting all bunched up at the ladder.  Back-paddling is quite difficult here.

Shortly thereafter we drifted under Reed Road and began GREAT's Trip 3.  Of the four trips we completed that day, this is the shortest and probably the easiest.  The river meanders along through a couple of wooded areas, along the edge of a farm where we dared one another to reach out and touch the electric fence, and then out into another marshland.

It was the most uneventful portion of our trip.  Except for lunch.  The location for our luncheon is noted by the green marker.  We held on to one another's boats with one hand while munching on whatever we had brought along to sustain us on our journey. 

What a feast!  What great company!

Having restored a bit of energy, we paddled on and out of this easy stretch of the river.

And then the fun began.

Trip 4, as designated by GREAT, begins at US127 at a spot that is roughly 1.5 miles north of our starting point.  There is a road side picnic and parking area just south of where the river cuts under the highway.

I caution against taking this trip alone.  There are many obstacles to be circumvented or conquered.  This section of the river was just plain hard work for five us working together.  I can't imagine taking it on alone.

At least not in the current condition.

We noted that the home on the west side of US127 had a homemade zip line in their back yard.  A substantial cable and turnbuckle ran from high in a tree near the back of the house down to a tree that is much closer to the river. 

We thought that the rig looked like a recipe for broken bones.  Check the satellite view and you will see what we could not see from our boats.  I imagine that riding that zip line must be quite a bit of fun during the long hot days of summer!

The trees closed in as we left the zip line behind us.  Massive wooden pillars leaned ominously over the river begging the question of what exactly does one do if a tree should happen to fall while you are paddling beneath it.  I'm sure the you would hardly at all feel it if one of the big ones should they happen to fall.

Presently we found the river completely blocked by a series of massive trees.  We got our boats out of the river and walked through some ankle deep black mud until the river cleared.  The river was similarly blocked further downstream, but I was unable to identify the exact location.  I'm sure that you will know it when you find it.

We happened to have brought along two hand saws and a chainsaw on our expedition.  Denis is our river-master when obstacles approach.  He enjoys the challenge of finding a way through a dead-fall without having to cut it apart.  He has a knack for figuring out how to slip over, under, and through whatever is in the way.  There were several obstacles that even he had some trouble with. 

Where we could, we used the saws to remove some of the trees that had fallen across the river.  For the most part, all we needed to do was to cut them in one spot and they would sink below the water's surface leaving plenty of room for us to float on by.  In a couple of spots, we used the hand saws to remove some lesser branches that were more meddlesome and troublesome than true obstacles.

It was in the midst of one spot festooned with branches where I found myself once again wedged in with no place to go.  Fortunately, Brian had made it through before me.  We were able to hand the chainsaw up to him.  While we were using the hand saws to widen the path on each side, Brian was able to remove enough of the limbs to our front to permit our party's blockage....yours truly....to finally pass on by. 

A little while later we came across another tree that had fallen across the river.  There was really enough room to get through, but we thought we might help the next party of intrepid adventurers by clearing some of the smaller branches.  Denis and Jamie made short work of the water logged lumber after Brian and Jeff had gone through.  I was the first to attempt the newly cleared path.

Didn't make it.  Damned kayak twisted to the left on me and once again I was crosswise to the flow of the river.  Every time I tried to back up, I found myself getting tangled in the larger tree trunk that we had left unmolested.  Every time I went forward, the nose of my kayak would get tangled in the river bank.  When I tried to untwist myself, I could feel my kayak getting ready to dump me into the stream.

It was most embarrassing.  Eventually, I wriggled free and paddled quickly to catch up.

The woods contained a host of opportunities for mischief.  My third and final twist cross-ways to the stream came elsewhere in the woods.  I was passing along the length of a submerged tree trunk when a slight rise grabbed my kayak and held it firm while it twisted in the stream.  That was the spot where I finally got some real water in my kayak.  Not much, but enough to know that I was on a river.

At another spot, there was a tree down that was particularly hard to get over.  Jeff and I were the last two to try while Jamie waited on the other side with a bit of rope that we might use to pull ourselves the rest of the way across the dead fall.  As luck would have it, Jeff hit a spot that caused the rest of the tree to submerge just a bit.  I was able to ram up along side of him so that we both made it over, side by side.  Teamwork at its finest.

At one bend along the way there was a tree creaking noisily in spite of the lack of any wind.  Passing underneath its branches caused me to wonder exactly how lucky I thought I was.

We stopped to heed nature's call at yet another location.  One of our merry company attempted to disembark from his kayak into a thigh deep mud hole.  He managed to get out quickly enough, but he was in long enough to leave the impression that this particular mud hole might be deeper than is otherwise considered healthy.

He re-boarded his kayak a little further upstream where there was better footing.

While passing through an area with woods on one side and tall marsh grass looming on the other, we managed to rouse what sounded like a deer from his bed in a thicket.  For a few brief moments, it sounded as if he was everywhere on the right at the same time.  At any moment I fully expected to see him leap over the river and on through the woods.  He opted to follow a different course and as a result we never saw him.  Denis thinks he was at least a 40 point buck.  We will never know.

Having such a large beast moving so quickly and so close was an exciting experience.

Jamie posted something on my Facebook page that I thought was appropriate.

 I will comment 5 ordinary guys accomplished something incredible today on the Grand River. I'm vary proud to have been apart off a group that practices team work even after beating the crap out of there bodys for 7.5hrs walking through knee deep mud and climbing over dead trees and paddling countless miles into the wind. It was a great journey and fun company.

I could not agree more.  The very best parts of this trip were the parts where we were working together to find our way through or around or over or under some challenge of the river.  As we drift along under Loomis Road and on to GREAT Trip #5, I'd like to add yet another word of thanks to Denis, Jamie, Jeff, and Brian for having me along on such a fantastic adventure.

The character of the river changed once again after we passed under Loomis Road.  The dense woods gave way to open marshland and a little easier paddling.  I say a little easier as by this time both of my arms were prepared to fall off.  We had been paddling for quite a distance.

Coming into the marsh posed the additional challenge of dealing with the wind.  While the wind had been low throughout the day, it picked up a bit as the clouds that presaged the next day’s wet and dreary weather came rolling in.  The open marshland offered little protection from the wind.  We all got a little colder and we all had to fight quite a bit harder whenever the wind was in our faces.

Paddling downstream and with the wind was pleasant enough.  Who knew!  With the winding of the river, we had plenty of upwind and downwind opportunities.

This is perhaps as good a point as any to note that where you are in a kayaking party pretty well determines what you are going to see.  The first one or two paddlers will invariably see a cornucopia of wildlife.  Everyone after that point generally gets to see only those critters that fly away as the leaders approach their nests.

I believe our little group was the subject of very serious discussions of the United Brotherhood of Waterfowl and Other Winged Creatures meeting.  At least the way the ducks quacked and the geese honked, you would have thought that we would be first on the next meeting's agenda.  I hope they don't have any unpleasant surprises for us the next time we venture into the wild!

As we slid around the winding bends of the river, we had a chance to see a variety of birds.  Several sand hill cranes flew overhead.  A couple of hawks sat high up in the trees well removed from the river.  I think they were red tailed hawks, but could be wrong.  Brian spotted an owl sitting quietly at the top of one towering tree.

Brian is hooked on kayaking.  Each one of us had given him several spots where he could look for both new and used 'yaks.  The line in Vegas is that he'll have one of his own in a couple of weeks.

Eventually, the river emptied into Vandercook Lake.  We were one short paddle from dry land, dry clothes, car heaters, and not having to paddle anymore.

Until we get stuck on a mud bar.  My companions all managed to do the kayak boogie through the shallow water.  Your introspective narrator possesses a unique physique.  Round is a shape!  I ended up backing out and going around.

But eventually we managed to pull our boats at the public boat ramp.  We loaded up my kayak and Jamie's canoe and then drove everyone back to the starting point so they could pick up their trucks.

After such a long and satisfying paddle, I had something else that was long and satisfying.  A nap!

Thanks again to Denis, Jamie, Jeff, and Brian for making this expedition so memorable.  Until next time....



View Grand River 3-27-2010 in a larger map

On The Census

I read a lot of criticism aimed and folks...like me....that object to demographic questions included in every census. I'm actually pretty pleased that the Obama administration has opted to pare down the list of questions.

The logic behind that criticism runs something like this.....

The data gathered helps to determine how much money the federal government spends in your community. Responding to the census means that your community will get more federal funds.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the federal government spends too much money as it is.  I want them to spend less.  How can I use the census to make that happen?

Our census goes back today.  Completing it is a minor patriotic obligation.  I still want a way to use the census to ensure that everyone gets less federal money rather than ensuring that my "community" gets something imagined as a "fair share".

Perhaps This Wasn't The Brightest Idea

In the wake of the Enron scandal, Congress passed new regulations that required public corporations to alter their methods of accounting and reporting their financial information.  One of those regulations requires corporations to immediately estimate costs associated with new taxes and/or regulations.

Those Congressional mandated reports of the costs associated with the recent health care "reform" bill have started rolling in. 

• AT&T, $1 billion
• Deere & Co., $150 million
• Caterpillar, $100 million
• AK Steel, $31 million
• 3M, $90 million
• Valero Energy, up to $20 million

Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.

The response from Congress?  They want to haul those running these companies in for a Congressional inquiry as to why they are complying with a law passed by Congress to report that another law passed by Congress will have such a negative effect on their operations.

I suppose that in the land of the sugarplum faeries, new laws need not have any impact.  Simply wishing for things to different is enough to cause them to be different.

Here in the real world, gravity still attracts objects, and new government programs result in much thinner corporate bottom lines.

The Congressional response isn't surprising.  They don't understand why everyone doesn't think their latest bright idea isn't all that bright.

Well, this is par for the course: a complete disregard for the consequences of their own handiwork, the bullying of private enterprise, and the determination to politicize what were once economic and legal judgments. One can see in the Democrats’ fury the desperate attempt to conceal the implications of their monstrous legislation, to maintain as long as possible the fiction that ObamaCare is a great cost-saver, and boon to employers. It’s going to be hard to keep up the charade, for as the editors note, ObamaCare “was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.”

Why are we mad?

Social Security is $8 trillion short.

Medicare is $32 trillion short.

Both programs began under the gossamer thin pretext of being properly funded.  And yet today they are not.

They could have been properly funded if Congress had been willing to privatize those programs several decades ago.  But it is too late to do anything about it today.

We have less than 3 workers for every current retiree.  Soon we will be down to 2 workers per retiree.

And on top of that we have this monstrosity of a health care "reform" that claims to only add $200 billion to the annual deficit.  A claim that only makes sense if you accept the fraudulent accounting gimmicks used by Congress to get an "acceptable" score from the Congressional Budget Office.

Pouring sludge into an engine is the not the proper response to a flat tire.  Unfortunately, few currently in power have demonstrated any interest in fixing that flat tire. 

They are invested too heavily into sludge.

Getting Paid

Over at Glenn Reynold's place is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article about spiraling government employee wages.

There was a time.....a long time ago.....when government jobs were not the best paying jobs around, but you had pretty good benefits and generally had pretty good working conditions.  If you wanted to make really good money, you went into the private sector.

Not so today.  A variety of factors [unionization trends, absence of any motive to slow wage and benefit growth, etc.] have combined over the last 40 years to reverse that situation.

And the problem just keeps getting worse.

Perspective

Go look.

'Nuff said.

Two Photos, Two Narratives, One Moment In Time

Neo-neocon is a self professed New England liberal.  Or at least she used to be.  Apparently, Neo still lives in that part of the country, but now she is a conservative.

I ran across her site via another story, but ended up finding her tale about two iconic photos from the Vietnam War.  Pretty much anyone over the age of 40 should be able to guess which two photos she is talking about.

Her story of discovery is part of her larger story of changing from "liberal" to "conservative".  I think it is interesting enough to ask my 70.8 readers to take a look.

Yet Another Kerfuffle

Perhaps you have noticed the minor dust-up between director James Cameron and Fox's Glenn Beck.  I caught James Cameron's end of things several times yesterday.

I only heard Glenn Beck's perspective once.

I still do not do sarcasm well.  I can't tell if he is being sincere or if he is putting us all on.  In any case, I thought the other half of the disagreement could use a little airing. For what it is worth....

The Old Days In Music

OK....upfront...."old days" is a relative term.

That being said, one of my favorite groups from the 70's and 80's was Toto.  The "our song" for Beloved Bride and I is "Rosanna" from their IV album.  We went to the concert when they played Pine Knob*.  It was a great time.

Toto was founded in part by the brothers Porcaro.  Jeff Porcaro was the drummer.  Why is that important?

Back then a lot of artists would play music with a lot of other artists.  At least, there seemed to be a few more guest spots on the albums back then.  So again, why is that important?

I just discovered that Jeff Porcaro played drums for Jackson Browne.  I found that out by reading the liner notes for this album that I bought tonight.

He was the drummer for "The Pretender", Track 13, Disc 1.

A quick review....I was more familiar with the songs from Disc 2.  So I enjoyed that one a bit more.  Even though I wasn't familiar with every song, Jackson Browne is an outstanding musician and song writer and as a result I did enjoy both discs.  "The Load-Out" and "Stay" at the end of Disc 1 were great as always.  [Oh won't you staaaaaaaaaaaay....just a little bit longer!] I will look forward to listening to this album on a regular basis.

Full disclosure, I have decided to participate in Amazon's Associate's program. Commissions are involved.  With any luck, I'll make enough to buy a book or four!

*Screw Detroit Energy....it still is Pine Knob to me.

The Elusive Third Verse

One of the most elusive pieces of music is the third verse to "Crystal Ball" by Styx.  I have only heard it once on the local radio station when Tommy Shaw visited back in the 1990s.  I still haven't found video or audio of it, but at least now I know where to find the words.

Ahem....here.

What White People Gave The World

Courtesy of Megan McArdle, I now read Ta-Nehisi Coates on a regular basis.  In a recent blog, Ta-Nehisi indicated that he "studied white people".  After all, no one wants to be some sort of bigoted fool that doesn't know anything about other people.

Number One on his list???

1.) Dragonlance, Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman--This book was one of my earliest introductions to fantasy and thus to the limits (or lack of limits) of the imagination. I read Dragonlance before I read Tolkien, and was just amazed by the bigness of the world. All I wanted for my tenth birthday was to swing my sword like Caramon, and get a Tika on my side. Talk about the original ride-or-die chick. She is single-handedly responsible for the early onset of puberty amongst untold legions of geeks.

I was always a bit more of a Sturm Brightblade man myself.  But yeah, Tika is so hot that she could launch a thousand wet dreams just by walking into your average North Dakota prom.

8 Predictions

Megan McArdle has offered 8 predictions about the future of health care outcomes in the United States under the just passed "reforms".  She then offers a defense of those predictions that is based not on "who is the better pundit", but instead "if things don't change, then why are we spending $2,000 per household on it"?

If you don't think that any of the effects of this bill will be large enough to measure and hopefully, large enough to justify the price tag of this bill, then I have to ask two questions:

1)  Why the hell are we spending $200 billion a year, plus the mandated spending by individuals and employers on premiums, plus the new money the states will have to spend on Medicaid?

2)  Why on earth did you bring up all these apparently irrelevant statistics?

 Not unlike Megan, perhaps I am wrong about these "reforms".  But if I am going to be wrong, it better be based on some objective standard and not on some "but I feel like we should just all have health care" nonsense.  If I am not wrong, then the solution will not to be to throw more government money at the problem.  The solution will be throw less government money at it.

A....lot....less....

Gaming The System

This op-ed in the NYTimes about the health care bill that just passed the House points out the many ways that the Democrats have gamed the system.  Essentially, they lied to the CBO just to get an "acceptable" budget score for the bill.

We were talking about a bill that would cost $1 trillion per year and now they have put in enough gimmicks to make it look like $1 trillion for 10 years.  Anyone care to bet on how many of those gimmicks will still be around in a decade?

Yet Another Reason To Oppose Health Care "Reform"

Because some animals are apparently more equal than others.

Although I do have to offer some kudos to Congress for apparently placing themselves at the mercy of this mess.  I say "apparently" as it wouldn't take much of a legislative bit of chicanery for Congress to carve out something better for themselves.  It isn't like their track record is exactly clean on such issues.

Now THIS Is Spending Like A Drunken Democrat

I do not know where to start.  All of the money lines are so obvious and so easy.

Our good friends at Judicial Watch [ignore the name, it helps] have managed to obtain the Air Force travel records for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Apparently, she has spent over $2.2 million traveling on 103 Air Force flights.  Of those 103 flights, 31 included members of Mrs. Pelosi's family.  I have read elsewhere that many of those 31 flights were only for her family and Mrs. Pelosi was not even on board.

Money line number one comes from the Blogfather; Glenn Reynolds: "Like I say, I don’t want to hear one word about my carbon footprint."

The story documents profligate spending to equip those flights for their "esteemed" passengers.  Quite a bit of money was spent on....care to guess.....alcohol.  One international Congressional Delegation that was passing through Israel on the way to Iraq was stocked with Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J Brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark Whiskey, Courvoisier Cognac, Bacardi Light Rum, Jim Beam Bourbon, Beefeater Gin, Dewars Scotch, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Jack Daniels Whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of imported wine.  Of course, while our Congresscritters were in Israel, they could only bring kosher liquor to their rooms.  So the Air Force bought that on the local Israeli market.

Then there was the flight to Louisiana to view the continuing relief for Hurricane Katrina.  The budget for the trip was $60,000.00.  They actually spent $65,505.46.

If they were spending their own money on this high living, I wouldn't really care all that much.  But they are spending my money on such things.  I didn't even get invited up for a drink.

All I got was the bill and the hangover.

Now this is spending like a drunken Democrat.

And people thought that the GOP spent a lot of money....

Solving Sustainability Now

From Megan McArdle comes the following about the pending health care bill, our many other social programs, and sustainability.

But there is one thing of which I am nearly perfectly certain: If we pass this thing, no American politician, left or right, is going to cut any of these programs, or raise the broad-based taxes necessary to pay for them, without any compensating goodies to offer the public . . . until the crisis is almost upon us. I can think of no situation, other than impending crisis, in which such a thing has been done--and usually, as with Social Security, they have done just little enough to kick the problem down the road.  The idea that you pass a program of dubious sustainability because you can always make it sustainable later, seems borderline insane.  I can't think of a single major entitlement that has become more sustainable over time.  Why is this one supposed to be different?

[emphasis mine]

Social Security is crashing.  Now.

Medicare has been crashing.  For years.

Entitlement spending has been driving deficits.  For decades.

The current health care "reforms" are arranged so that the taxes kick in early while the benefits kick in late.....if ever.

It is long past the time when we should have had a serious national conversation about exactly how much government spending we can live with.  It is long past the time when we should have had a serious conversation about spending priorities, and selecting which federal programs were going to be ended so that the ones we truly need can survive.

"None of the above" makes a lousy basis for a government budget.  Based on the current bunch of elected Congresscritters, that is the only option left after decades of "All of the above" legislation.

Who Cares....

From Megan McArdle comes this pointed and accurate summation regarding the proposed health care reforms:

I think this is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen.  But no one on the other side cares, so I'm not sure how much point there is in saying that any more.

Everything that leads up to her conclusion is also worth reading......if you care about whether or not the proposed "reforms" have any chance of achieving what proponents claim will be achieved.

Profit Is Still A Good Thing

A continual source of personal frustration in the health care debate is the repeated suggestion that health insurance companies are making bucket-loads of money.  That is the suggestion in this Ann Telnaes animation.  It was the suggestion on a recent edition of Fresh Air with Terry Gross when Ms. Gross questioned whether mandated mental health screenings for post partum depression would do nothing more than give health insurance companies another way to make more money. Yes, I screamed. [loudly, like a little girl -ed.]

The fact is that the health insurance industry profit margin is currently 4.4 percent.  They come in at number 86 in a list of industries ranked by profit margin.

A truly single payer or nationalized health care system will not realize much, if any, savings in comparison with health insurance companies.  The history of single payer systems has not been reduced costs but instead reduced access to care.

Health insurance companies....their many faults being duly acknowledged by your dashing and insightful interlocutor....are not the source of waste.  They are not siphoning off riches that will cover the 30 million or so uninsured that the current government proposals claim to cover [eventually].

Profit drives innovation.  Profit identifies and eliminates waste.  And 4.4% profit is small potatoes. 

The money to "extend coverage" is going to have to come from taxpayers.  And we are covering quite a bit at the moment.  If the proposed reforms are so important, then perhaps there are a few government agencies that we might close [or shrink] to cover the bill?  DEA? NEA? Ag? Education? ??

Hell, even DoD could stand to lose a few pounds!

Almost As Good As Gold

I found this new Chex Mix flavor the other day.  Mmmm, mmmmm, good!

Another Piece Of Invaluable Information

Terry Gross of Fresh Air interviewed author Michael Lewis yesterday.  Mr. Lewis has written a book about the people that made millions, perhaps billions, from the recent stock market collapse.  He started his book, "Big Short", in an attempt to understand why these people has such a different perception of the market than was the case for the rest of Wall Street.

The interview is quite interesting.  One facet of the story that I thought was fascinating was that all of the people Mr. Lewis studied had attempted to warn Wall Street in one way or another.  They were ignored and the rest is history.

I continue to find these kinds of stories interesting.  There is no single cause for the 2008 collapse.  As we continue to learn more about what really happened and why it happened, we continue to find a variety of causes the confluence of which resulted in our current economic difficulties.

A cautionary note, I don't endorse Ms. Gross or her program "Fresh Air".  I spend a great deal of time screaming at my radio whenever I am listening to her show because of her lack of curiosity regarding some subjects and her outright bias regarding others. 

She occasionally has a gem of a program.  This is one of those occasions.

Another Run On The Water – Raisin Upstream Of Norvell

It was on the 60's today.  The sun was shining.  The birds were singing.

And my kayak was begging to get wet.  What is a guy to do?

I packed up my kayak and gear after work and headed out.  Donald and I had been scoping out river locations on the way back from Cabela's last weekend.  We went through Norvell and saw that the Raisin River was flowing nicely.

As luck would have it, all of my usual partners in river mischief were otherwise occupied, so I really needed a spot where I could go out and back rather than running a river and needing to be picked up or dropped off.  Norvell is only about 10 miles from home as the crow flies.   So off I went.

As a side note, I passed by Little Wolf Lake.  It still is about 70% covered with ice.  There is a nice park there that will make a great starting point, or perhaps a start/end point.

Calling the entries to the Raisin on Austin Road "landings" is really being complimentary.  Both the north and south side have shallow, sandy areas that stay open only because people use them enough that the grass won't grow there.  Parking is fine on the north side of the road.  The traffic moves pretty quickly, so be careful when humping your 'yak to the south landing.

Being alone, I figured that it would be easier if I were to go upstream first.  In theory, that would make the return trip a bit easier than the outbound run.  So I dropped in on the south side of the road and began paddling.  Even with all of the snow melt currently running off, the current really wasn't all that bad. 

I knew that one half of the marsh went nowhere.  The other half leads upstream.  Care to guess which way I went first?  Good guess.

The water in most of the marsh is barely 2 to 3 deep.  In most of the places to the east, it was only 18 inches deep.  There are many reeds, cattails, and other flora in the middle to keep you guessing.  The reeds are home to Canadian geese, several species of ducks, red-winged blackbirds, muskrats, and who knows what else.  The geese and the ducks got mad at me and left pretty quickly.  I think I may have interrupted a couple of geese that were 'getting busy', if you know what I mean.  They were honking at me for half an hour after I passed their nesting area.  100+ yards from their nesting area.  You would have thought that I had pulled up right next to them.

The muskrats were a lot of fun to watch.  One got caught in the middle of a wide open area when I came along.  As luck would have it, he started to head back the other way as I went around him to catch up on the other side of the open water.  He dove and stayed down for a long time.  Eventually, I saw that he had popped up 15 yards away and much closer to the cover of the reeds.

Having explored the east half of the marsh, I decided to see if I could find where the river really was.  A swan came out of the reeds on the way back out.  He paddled off well ahead of me.  I had no idea that we had so many swans in the area.

Big tip here.....when in the marsh, pay attention to where the water is moving and which direction it is flowing.  Ripples started appearing in the water as I left the east portion of the marsh.  I shot through an opening and sure enough the river was moving here.

From here on out I had only two thoughts in mind.  First, paddle.  Don't stop.  Don't rest.  Paddle slower if there is no other choice, but paddle.  And second, watch for moving water.

There are a few locations where you might lose your way, but if you keep an eye on the ripples, then there shouldn't be any problems.  The stream wanders back and forth quite a bit.  After a while, the sun started to drop and my arms were asking for a break.

The run back down stream was quite a bit easier.  I was paddling most of the way, but I was doing a lot less work.

You can follow my meanderings on the map the follows.  If Google is to be believed, then my trip was about 3.5 miles long.  I was about 1.5 hours on the water.  That works out to 2.33 miles per hour.  Not a bad run!

A brief word on equipment.  Special thanks to Donald and Josh for my early birthday present, a floatation vest from Cabela's.  There is no padding on the sides, so paddling is pretty easy.

Also, I'm still very impressed with the stability of the Future Beach kayak hull.  Getting in, paddling around, and getting out were a breeze.

A brief word on safety.  The water at this point of the Raisin is currently pretty high.  Usually you would be able to float under the roadway and get squirted out the other side without any problems.  There is barely enough for an empty kayak to make it under that bridge.  Give that area a lot of clearance.

Happy paddling!

View Raisen from Austin in a larger map

The Biggest Hurdle

I got into an online discussion the other day.....yeah, I know....with yet another individual that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding regarding our Constitutionally limited form of government. He thinks the phrase "General Welfare" is not simply a loop hole, but instead is a sixteen lane wide legislative highway for Congress to use to pass just about any old law.

That discussion motivated me to look up the following, for the next time I need it.

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one ...With respect to the two words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." -James Madison

Kayak Trip Report - 3/12/2010

It took less than a week, but the new kayak has been introduced to the water.  You can follow along on our trip using the map below.








View Trip 3-12-2010 in a larger map

This trip included your esteemed interlocutor, my friend Denis, his friend Jeff, and a young friend of his.

We began this trip at the same point where the trip last July ended; at Ella Sharp Park.  Apparently no one took my advice to spruce up the boat ramp as it was in the same condition.

This is "Trip #7" according to the G.R.E.A.T. website. Although we didn't quite make it that far.

Yours truly almost started this expedition smartly be slipping on some stones and falling into the river.  It was a close thing, but after much waving of the arms, I managed to stay dry.  Back on land, we double checked our gear and got into our kayaks.

During the trip last summer, I had used the old "flop technique" to get into the kayak.  You straddle the kayak and "flop" into the seat.  That technique works well in shallow water, but it doesn't do anything for you in terms of getting out later on.

This time, I decided to use the "sit on your paddle" technique.  You can see it being demonstrated if you watch the video that opens at the Quiet World home page.  Essentially, you put one end of your paddle across the back of the kayak and the other end on dry land...or perhaps in shallow water.  You then sit on the paddle just behind the cockpit.  This lets you get your feet into position inside the cockpit.  Then you lift up and slide the rest of your body into position.  You have to be careful to keep your hands on your paddle to maintain that support and stability.  Once your butt is in the seat, retrieve your paddle and get on with the trip.

It worked.  Yay, me!

At this point, the Grand River isn't very deep.  It is quite wide.  And it was running lazily at this point.  The depth gauge downstream had the river at 11'+ deep.  There wasn't much difference at the boat dock from last July, so perhaps that measurement does not mean as much on this part of the river.

Also, the water is cold.  I know...Michigan....early March....who would have thought.  There you are.

We headed off to the north until we found the break where the river runs to the east.  The river picks up a little speed here as the stream bed narrows.

That speed of the water had quite a bit to do with our first yellow marker.  The combination of the river, some low hanging trees, and some trees in the water resulted in one of our party going for a little swim.  It didn't help that his kayak naturally rides pretty low in the water.

Fortunately, the river isn't very deep here.  It was pretty easy to get  him and his kayak out of the water, restored to floating conditions, and moving downstream.  Also, we had some extra clothes along with us.  We made sure that he was as dry as we could get him before continuing on.

My advice, keep some spacing between paddlers until you get to the marshy, straight area that lies ahead.  I don't know that it would have helped in this particular occasion, but it certainly would not have resulted in a following kayak almost running down someone in the water.  Which I almost did in this case.  A little hefty back paddling solved that problem, but it was a close thing.

The obstacles diminished and we were able to paddle along quite nicely.  We got to the blue marker just before Francis Street before we found anything interesting.  There the river naturally splits.  The left split worked well for us.  There is some wood in the water that looks to be the start of a foot bridge.   Be careful later this summer if you take this trip.  The foot bridge may be finished by then.  Shortly thereafter, the river splits again due to a nearby homeowner's decision to create some sort of decorative island in the stream.

Yes, I like Kenny and Dolly.

A quick trip under the Francis Street bridge and we found ourselves back in a mess of fallen and semi-fallen trees.  For the most part there were reasonable ways to get through.  You just have to look for them.  We stayed mostly to the left and got through with few difficulties.

By this time we had learned our lesson.  Now we were hanging onto limbs near the side of the stream so that the person ahead could get through whatever obstacle lay ahead of us.  That easing of pressure seemed to help.

Although I have to confess that I was so busy at this point that I failed to notice where the stream from Sharp Lake joined ours.

In the middle of this mess, the second yellow marker, yours truly got a little wet.  I got a little close to a branch sticking out of the water and took on a gallon or two into the kayak.  My butt was wet, but the rest was still dry.  We paddled on.

At this point there is a long, straight run through the marsh.  I hesitate to use the word "boring" because it wasn't.  "Peaceful" comes to mind.  I bet it is a beautiful place to be in the summer.

We spotted a few homemade hunting stands along the way.  You never would have thought that an old office chair would retain such use perched atop a frame of steel tubing.

Eventually, we shot under Brooklyn Road.  At this point I was a little disoriented.  I had forgotten about Reynolds Brooklyn Road and thought we had passed under US127.  So I thought we were much closer to home that we really were.

On the far side of Brooklyn Road is a railroad bridge that was built in 1918.  It is in pretty poor repair.

On the far side of that bridge there is a farm with fencing that extends into the river way.  The fence may have been placed at a time when the river ran lower.  Stay away from the right side of the river in any case to avoid the fence and some brush.

The river went back to twisting this way and that.  We passed a dock and half of a what I assume was a raft.  At least, a wood deck supported by empty barrels is pretty much my definition of a raft.

The sky was starting to get pretty grey as we passed under South Meridian.  Denis later offered that we probably should have stopped there.  In retrospect, he was right, but we hadn't figured that out quite yet.

And so we went under US127 as well.  The river really started to twist back and forth here.  At one point, Denis thought he could cut across a marshy area instead of taking the wider loop of the stream.  I have to admit that it looked like there was more water than marsh in that area.  Still, if I had gotten stuck the way Denis was on the way into that mess, I think I would have backed out of it and gone the long way around.

He was smiling after he made it back to paddleable water, so it must not have been too bad.

The sun went down by the time we got to the South Street bridge.  Denis had thought to bring his flashlight.  I have one in my fishing tackle that I should have brought.  If it were not for Denis, we would have been completely screwed as the trees closed in north of South Street.

Now you may be wondering why there is a yellow marker down stream from the red marker where our trip concluded.  That yellow marker is where one of our little party took a dip in the river.  What little light that we might have imagined remaining was thoroughly gone by the time he was back in a dry boat and ready to paddle.

So we turned around and made for the nearest street light.  As it worked out, we came up behind the church located on the bend on Flansburgh Road.  It used to be a bait shop a few years back.

There is a little pond with a foot bridge back there.  That posed a little bit of a trick when it came to getting all of our kayaks over to an area where we could stage them for pick up. 

Unlike last summer, I was able to extricate myself from my kayak by simply reversing the steps I had taken to get into it in the first place.  Use the paddle as a bridge.  Push my butt out of the kayak and onto the paddle.  Swing the legs into the river.  And then stand up.

It was that last part that got pretty tricky.  After 3+ hours of sitting and paddling, my legs forgot why they were there.  Either that or the land was rolling up and down faster than they could compensate. 

In any case, we got everyone out of the river and all the boats on dry land. We then had the minor task of walking about 1.5 to 2 miles to our destination vehicle.  In the dark.

We missed a passing police car by about 15 seconds.  We saw him, but couldn't get his attention as he drove away.

We were about a few hundred yards into our trek when Denis reminded me about my dry box.  Where his keys were.  Where MY keys were.  Which I had left in my kayak.

So he jogged back to get the box, and then jogged to catch up with us.  I kept trying to flag down a car to pick him up so that he would not have to run so far.  I finally managed to get him a ride at the intersection of South Street and South Meridian.  A couple minutes after that car pulled away, Denis came walking up from the direction of our destination.

He had jogged along fast enough, and cut enough corners that he was ahead of us.  Thanks to the young ladies that were willing to give a stranger a ride.  Pity that they were the only ones willing to do so.

A couple comments on equipment.  First shoes.

I had worn a pair of rubberized shoes.  They are designed to get wet, and I didn't see any way not to get my feet wet on this trip.  But they were not designed for walking.  I now have a couple of nice sized blisters along each instep.  I'm sure they will heal, but for the moment, they are a pain.

Second, clothes.  Note to self, bring spares especially when it is cold.

Third, kayak.  My kayak is a Future Beach Trophy 126DX.  The folks at Future Beach tout their dihedral hull design as being superior for stability and tracking.  You can see a sectional view here.  Download a current kayak PDF catalog for a better view and more of what they say about their boats.

The bottom line is that they are right.  The 126DX was very stable.  Even the one time when water got in the kayak, I was able to get my weight back to being centered rather than going for an impromptu swim.  And it tracks like a dream.  The biggest problem I had was getting my hands in the right spot on the paddle so that both the right and the left stroke were even.  As long as my hands were close to being in the right spot on the paddle, the kayak ran straight and true.

If every Future Beach kayak is like this one, then I have no problem recommended recommending them.  I did a lot of reading before I bought my kayak.  I did a lot of searching as well.  The 126DX was everything that I had come to hope it would be.  And I'm looking forward to my next kayaking excursion.

Thanks again to Denis, Jeff, and Jeff's young friend for a great trip down the Grand.

Dungeon & Dragons Or Fantasy Football

Do you know the difference? None that really matter.

Just In Case Someone Forgets...

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

John Stuart Mill English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself on a worthy cause; who at the best in the end knows the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, "The Man in the Arena"

You Time Is Sucked.

You are welcome.

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Is It A Little Warm In Here

What is one way to have four independent temperature data sets support the same conclusion regarding anthropogenic global warming?  To have three of the four data sets not be independent.

If the underlying data is questionable....and I believe that it is.....then the conclusions based on the data are equally questionable.

She Is Kidding....Right?

According to a story in the New York Post, Lindsay Lohan is suing E-Trade for their recent television commercial.

You know the ads.  They have this baby on screen.  They use some software to make his mouth move as if he could speak like a grown up.  And they have someone do the voice over. 

In one ad, an older guy is in the locker room of a golf clubhouse.  The kid alleges to have issued the old guy a beat down and calls him "shankapotomis".  The ads are usually good and sometimes brilliant.

In the case of Ms. Lohan's complaint, the ad involves the young lad talking on his telephone to his girlfriend.  The girlfriend asks if "that milk-a-holic Lindsay" has been over.  The young miss who pops up to say "milk-a-what?" is worth a giggle or two.

So is the idea that E-Trade purposefully created the commercial to make fun of Ms. Lohan.

Video of the commercial in question is at the link.  Ms. Lohan's common sense and dignity are no where in sight.

I Am Just Plain Wrong

This item out of Kentucky gave me the giggles.  It seems that this young lady had a bit too much of a good time and was escorted to the county pokey to dry out.  There she was asked to change into jail clothing.

Rather than complying, the young lady peels off her shirt and bra and promptly accosts an officer....by hitting her with a stream of breast milk.  Apparently she was only good for one squirt as a second attempt came up dry.

The officer in question...well.....

As for Brown, a jail press release noted that the officer was successfully able to "clean the bio-hazard off her."

Bio-hazard.....the mind reels.

Of course, such idiocy need not occur far from home.

Showers of Gold....

....or the story of a nation that pees together and wins gold medals together.  Too good not to share.

Do Not Want

The most important amendment Republicans must propose for Obama’s Medi-Grab bill is a very easy one:

Resolved: that all federal and state employees must enroll in ObamaCare, without exception.

Any violation of this amendment will be punishable by a fine, imprisonment, and/or loss of federal or state employment. Enforcement of this provision will be overseen by a popularly elected commission, whose proceedings will be open to the public via the worldwide web.

 The problem is not that the proposed "reforms" will turn our country into some oppressive socialist state.  The problem is that they will be just another step down the road towards the day when government ceases to be the servant and instead is the master.

In retrospect, it seems obvious that reform proponents could have obtained far greater public support if their reforms had included provisions for private individuals and companies to be able to buy into the same health care "pool" as our elected officials rather than creating a "public option" that would inevitably be far less coverage than our public servants have come to expect.

Read the whole essay.  It is worth your time.

It Does Not Matter What You Were...

...or where you are from.  What matters is what you are.

I am an American.  There is no need for a hyphen.  Anything that the government might slap ahead of that label is meaningless next to who I am now; an American.

Americans come in both genders....and a few that are in between.  Americans can be found in skin tones light and dark and everything in between.  What binds us more tightly than looks or blood or skin or accent is our burning desire to be free.

Free from meddlesome neighbors.  Free from intrusive governments.  Free from tyrannies of the majority, the minority, or even of the one.  Free from people that would run our lives for us because they know "better".

We love our freedom.  Regardless of how bad some other group may want that freedom, they cannot have it.  We know that there is no price that they can offer that is worth the ability of the individual to decide how they want to live their life.

Not safety....not security....and most certainly not worthless lucre.  You cannot take it with you and they will not let you keep it anyway.

So when your U.S. Census form arrives, please make it clear that you are an American; race and heritage.  Whenever it offers you a choice, use the "other" box and fill in "American".

You will be in good company.

Bad Timing

Only a few days after buying my kayak, there is this bit of news:

Led by NOAA's Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling, but its indifference to the economic, social and biological value of the sport has been deafening.

Additionally, Lubchenco and others in the administration have close ties to environmental groups who would like nothing better than to ban recreational angling. And evidence suggests that these organizations have been the engine behind the task force since before Obama issued a memo creating it last June.

As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled "Transition Green" shortly after Obama was elected in 2008. What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper.

 Emphasis added.

They can have my fishing rod, after they pry it from my cold dead hands.

Bipartisan Lawyering

Big in the news recently were reports of Republicans....including Ken Starr....lining up to defend administration lawyers who had formerly worked as legal counsel on behalf of accused Al Qaida and other terrorist suspects.  It seems that more than a few other Republicans have forgotten President John Adams and his defense of the British soldiers accused of committing the Boston Massacre.

A group that includes leading conservative lawyers and policy experts, former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and several senior officials of the last Bush administration is denouncing as “shameful” Republican attacks on lawyers who came to the Obama Justice Department after representing suspected terrorists.


......


“We consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications,” wrote the 19 lawyers whose names were attached to the statement as of early Monday.

Those signing the statement were:

Benjamin Wittes, Robert Chesney,Matthew Waxman, David Rivkin, Lee Casey, Philip Bobbitt, Peter Keisler, Bradford Berenson, Kenneth Anderson, John Bellinger III, Philip Zelikow,Kenneth W. Starr, Larry Thompson, Charles "Cully" D. Stimso, Chuck Rosenberg, Harvey Rishikoff, Orin Kerr, Daniel Dell’Orto

Given how some on the left have gone after lawyers from the prior administration, it is good to see some bipartisanship left in the world.

My Inner Geek

This place hit every Dungeons and Dragons gene I possess right out of the ballpark.  I believe the phrase "slack jawed" was invented for moments such as this.

Rivers And Lakes Beware - - I Am Equipped!

We went out to Quiet World Sports today to pick up a slightly used kayak, pictured below.  This is a Future Beach Trophy 126 DLX kayak designed for the usual kayaking as well as for fishing.  It has two big storage areas and several places to hold fishing poles.  The cargo straps are also big enough to hold a pretty decent sized tackle box.

The folks out a Quiet World Sports run a kayak school located close to Jackson, MI.  They are supposed to be one of the larger schools in the Midwest.  They buy kayaks, use them for a year in their school, and then sell them.

In reality, my kayak looks like it never made it into the water.  Ever.  If you are reasonably close to Jackson, and are in need of a kayak, then please check out their list of slightly used boats.  They also sell top shelf paddles for a lot less than you will pay for new paddles. 

My kayak has a list price of $540.  I got the kayak and a nice graphite paddle for $360.

The ice will be gone soon.  Those fish are in trouble and they don't even know it!

A Much Delayed Trip Report

After much delay, here is my trip report from a kayaking a section of the Grand River.

Denis invited me to join him and his friend Jamie on a little kayaking excursion during the third week of July 2009.  I knew two things before we left; where we were starting and where we were finishing, theoretically.

You can follow along by viewing my Google map of our trip.  Or you can use the map below.




View Trip 6 - Vandercook Lake to Ella Sharp Park in a larger map

Also, the "bird's eye" feature from Microsoft/Bing can be quite helpful.  If you find your view of the river obscured by summertime foliage, then change the viewing angle.  At least one of the views offered will have been collected after the trees have shed their leaves.  None were collected in winter.  The two mapping tools used in combination are quite effective.  Google Earth is pointless for this particular trip due to the summer foliage.

We started off by dropping my car at the finishing location and boogying over to the public park at Vandercook Lake.  The location is marked with a blue marker on the map.  The Grand River Environmental Action Team calls this their Trip 6 on the Jackson County portions of the Grand River.  Trip 6 is one of the few examples where their labeling is accurate.  The parking was good at both the beginning and the end.  Access was great at the beginning.  Our total trip time was about 3 1/2 hours.






I would only take issue with a couple of the descriptions on their map.  Part of having good access is having a good spot to get into or out of your boat.  The exit at point at Ella Sharp Park left a bit to be desired in that regard.  More on that later.  Also, William's Lake does have a few of houses on it.  Their description of "undeveloped" is inaccurate and at least 20 years out of date.  Fortunately, it does not have wall to wall houses all around it like many of our other area lakes.

The depth of the Grand River as measured much further downstream was about 9 1/2 feet.  Another foot or so of water would have reduced the number of times that our kayaks were grinding over things in the water.  If the river were any shallower, we would have had to get out and walk at least a couple of times. 

We started our trek a little after 6 PM.  The park had a few visitors so we just dumped our kayaks in at the swimming beach and took off from there. 

Vandercook Lake is big enough to have waves if the wind picks up.  I mention that as we had thunderstorms rolling through the area that evening.  Aside from one round of rolling thunder, the only trouble the storms caused was some heavy riffling of the water's surface for about ten minutes as we paddled west towards Brown's Lake.

One of the owners of one of the lakeside houses happened to be putting away her kayaking things as we paddled by with dark clouds racing by overhead.  Her advice was pretty straightforward; get off the lake before we get toasted.  Jamie asked what the chances were of getting hit by lightning.  I said they were pretty good if you are on water as you are probably the tallest things around.  I am a great confidence builder.

But the clouds passed on by, the sun came out, and we paddled on.

There is a small waterway that connects Vandercook Lake to Brown's Lake.  That would be the first green marker on the route.  The waterway is only about ten feet wide and is partially covered by a concrete bridge where Brown's Lake Road passes overhead.  To add to the navigational issues, one of the homeowners docks a small boat in the uncovered portion of the waterway.  As luck would have it, those folks were just loading into their boat as we passed by.  It would have been a little extra embarrassing to have accidently nudged their boat with them sitting in it.

So I ran into the sea wall on the other side instead.  Better safe than sorry. 

The outflow into Brown's Lake was pretty shallow.  There are a couple of large stones there as well to add to the challenge.  It only took a couple of bumps and a long scrape before we were once again in open water.

This trip was my first time in a kayak.  I used to sail as a kid.  I have rowed a rowboat.  I have also paddled a canoe.  While this was a new experience, it wasn't totally foreign.  I used to almost live on the water as a kid.

I am in pretty good shape.  At least, I am in good shape if round is your idea of a good shape.  Pushing a desk all day does have a negative impact on one's physique.

One of the first things I noticed early on was how easy it was to paddle along.  There were a few times when I had lagged behind and had to sprint to catch up, but for the most part I was able to maintain a respectable speed without an uncomfortable amount of effort.  I could hear the water rushing by when I was digging deep to sprint to my paddle mates.

Now there is a phrase that brings to mind a vision of Kevin Bacon in Animal House.

There is no such thing as easy exercise.  But there is such a thing as pleasant exercise.  That is how I would describe kayaking.

After traversing the length of Brown's Lake we found ourselves in rapidly shallowing water that feeds into a sandy bottomed stream.  We finally had our first opportunity to rest for a bit while the current carried us along.  The inlet to the stream is the second green marker on the route.

We had passed a couple of fishermen in a boat on the way out of Brown's Lake.  We asked how the fishing was on William's Lake.  Apparently the stream was so shallow that neither of the fishermen had ever been down stream to find out. 

Can you guess what I have in mind for future outings?

Eventually the gentle current dropped us into William's Lake where we were presented with our first minor obstacle of the day; a weed bloom.  The entrance into the lake was choked with weeds.  I ran my paddle deep a couple of times and found that we were in water that was at least a few feet deep as we stroked our way through the mass of stringy, water bound vegetation.  Eventually the weeds dropped away and the paddling got easier.

There are a few houses on William's Lake.  So anyone thinking of getting a little "extra" sun on a secluded lake should think twice.  But the fishing should be great!

We paddled around a little to explore the lake.  Well, to be honest, we also paddled around a bit because I was sure that the outflowing stream was in a small section to the east.  I was right about following the lake shore on the right to get to the stream.  I was wrong about how far we were going to have to follow the lakeshore to find it.

Just head north, not east, for a hasty exit from William's Lake.

We found ourselves once again cruising in a shallow, gently flowing stream that meandered through reeds, rushes, and other flora.  The depth of the river never seemed to be more than three or four feet deep.  Mostly it was only one to two feet deep.  The river ranged from 15 to 25 feet wide as it wound through a marshy area.  Eventually it narrowed down to 10 to 15 feet wide as we found ourselves floating through the back yards of some of the area's nicer houses.

Our second bridge of the trip was at Glenshire Drive.  WKHM and WIBM are both located at the end of the road.  The Glenshire bridge is all corrugated steel tubing.  It was tall enough and the river was low enough that we had plenty of clearance.  Perhaps it was just the prospect of paddling under the bridge, but there did not seem to be a very thick cross section of soil and pavement at the highest point of the bridge.

At least, I would not want to have a serious truck passing overhead as I was paddling underneath.

Our first decision of the day, after that whole deciding to paddle in a thunderstorm thing, came just north of Glenshire Drive at the yellow marker where the river splits into two branches.  This entire area is full of reeds.  The open water narrows to the point where you can barely keep your paddle out of them.  One little error and your kayak is entangled in lily pads and reeds.

We came to a point where there was somewhat open water to the left and a narrow opening to the right.  There are no signs to tell you which is the correct path.  But there is a tall steel pole about 60 feet down the right hand branch with some orange tape up high.

We took that as a sign.  And it was, too.  It just was not a sign about which way to go.  Of course, we did not have a chance to check out the left branch, so only my fevered imagination can tell you about the wide open water and easy paddling.

The right branch got very narrow very quickly.  Instead of dipping your paddle into open water, you end up using it to grab the lily pads to drag yourself along.  It was quite a bit of work.  After the lily pads cleared away, the river runs through a wooded area.  There are quite a few trees down.  At one point, we had to run our kayaks over a submerged tree trunk and under another part of the same tree that was still out of the water. 

A little teamwork, a lot of encouragement, and your's truly squished through the gap.

Shortly thereafter, the right branch and the left branch rejoined, the stream opened up and we continued on.

We then found ourselves floating along a long bend in the river that surrounded the back yard of one home.  The yard was home to three tremendous willow trees.  You could almost see them straining to suck all the water out of the river.  One of them had helpfully tossed a substantial limb in our way.  We paddled around it only to find ourselves faced with our first major obstacle; a metal deck sea wall that covered the entire width of the river.  That would be the purple marker on the map.

We backed up and made a running start at the sea wall.  Each of us ground to a halt as our kayaks ran aground with us up in the air.  A little wiggling and jiggling will get you close enough to grab the sea wall with your hands.  With one good shove, and a bit more wiggling and jiggling, you should get beyond the sea wall with relative ease.  At least, that is how Jamie and Denis did it.

My first run at the sea wall ended up with my kayak coming at it crosswise instead of bow first.  There were a couple of moments where everyone expected things to end poorly.  Eventually I got free from the sea wall, backed up, and make a second run at it.  After much wiggling and jiggling, I eventually made it over.

Although there was a second moment when my bow was buried in the river below the dam and my stern was balanced precariously on the dam when my position had the makings of yet another opportunity for things to "not end well".  You see, in that position, I had no water under me!  Kayaks are pretty stable when there is water from stem to stern.  Not so much in the position I was in.

There were a couple other spots where we ended up grinding our way over or through some minor obstacle.  There is a spot were a concrete foot bridge used to be that was a little tricky.  And there were more than a few fallen trees that required a little zigging and zagging to find a way down stream.

We got to see a great many back yards.  There were several homes adjacent to the river that had some sort of are to sit and enjoy the view.  A couple have brick walls built into the earth and brick patios along the river.  Most look pretty unused.

The only other obstacle of note was at the third green marker.  There is a small island in the river.  The right hand branch is blocked by a foot bridge that is too low to let us past.  The left branch was mostly passable until we got where the two branches rejoined.  There was a tree down there.  When we tried to go around it to the right, we ended up getting hung up on the muddy bottom.

Our tour came to a close as we passed under Probert Road and into Ella Sharp Park.  There is supposed to be a boat launch on the left.  I never saw anything formal enough to call it a "boat launch".  We managed to get out of our kayaks without falling over.  It was a close thing with your's truly, but Jamie thankfully kept me dry.  A little work on the boat access/ramp by the county would be money well spent.

Thanks very much to Denis and Jamie for a great trip and a great time.  I'm off to buy a fishing kayak tomorrow and look forward to the coming season on Jackson's lakes and rivers.

Muslim Women Standing For Freedom

Asra Q. Nomani tells the story of a recent stand-in protest at a Washington D.C. area mosque where Muslim women demonstrated for equal treatment within their faith.

What unfolded that day inside the mosque underscores a growing agitation inside the American-Muslim community by women frustrated by separate-and-unequal status. A survey by the Council on American Islamic Relations showed that two of three mosques in 2000 required women to pray in a separate area, up from one of two in 1994. In 2003, I challenged rules at my mosque in Morgantown, West Virginia, that women enter through a back door and pray in a secluded balcony. I argued that, in the 7th century, the prophet Muhammad didn’t put women behind partitions, and the barriers were just emblematic of sexist man-made rules. The men at my mosque put me on trial to be banished.

To me, the women’s space in a mosque is an indicator of whether the interpretation of Islam being practiced is puritanical and dogmatic, or open and inclusive. This one choice is a harbinger for other controversial interpretations of Islam, including domestic violence, honor killings, suicide bombings, violence and interfaith relations. Just this week, a hard-line Saudi cleric issued a fatwa on his Arabic-language Web site calling for the killing of Muslims who don’t enforce strict gender segregation.

Shaking the tree that needs shaking most.

Architect To The Stars

Mark Bennett....and his vision of the floor plans for many famous homes.  Like Fred and Wilma Flintstone's!!

The Iraqi Political Miracle

It's 2010 and they still have a democracy.  Tunku Varadarajan of the Daily Beast expresses it well.

Of those Americans who will carp about Iraq’s elections being no better than a census (with the country cleaving along sectarian/ethnic lines), and who will underscore many other imperfections, I would simply ask that they look at their own history. It took the U.S. until 1787 to adopt the Constitution, until 1870 to (very imperfectly) enfranchise black adult males, until 1920 to enfranchise adult females, and until 1964-65 to guarantee voting rights to black citizens. Democracies go through a very long process of consolidation. It will not take the Iraqis anywhere near as long as it took us, because there are examples for them to emulate, or to beware of. It takes time—sometimes a very long time—to apportion power among different groups within a nascent political system. What Iraq has achieved in five years is a political wonder, and those who would deny that are being very, very dishonest.

 Thanks, of course, due to President Obama's decision to stay the course of victory instead of fulfilling his promises of withdrawal and defeat.  Pity that Joe Biden couldn't have gotten on board before 2010.

The above reminds me of a soliloquy in John Wayne's "The Green Berets".  Well heck!  Watch it yourself.
The question and the outstanding response begin about the 2:30 mark.  Although I recommend the entire clip.

Now that movie obviously contains more than a little propaganda.  Movies about the war in Vietnam often do.  It also contains more than a little bit of truth as well.  Including the fact that it takes time....months....years...and sometimes more for a civilized democracy to fully develop.  

A high price was paid to achieve this fledgling Iraqi democracy.  A price measured in Iraqi and American blood.  Now the Iraqi's have was what few other Arabs have but that most want; an equal voice in how their country is run.  We should not rush to dismiss how important that achievement really is.

You Know We Are On The Wrong Path When.....

...the police are asking that replicas of the Venus de Milo be covered so as to prevent offense.  What a crappy thing to ask a police officer to "enforce".

At A Sarah Palin Photo Op.....

Mrs. Palin was in Hollywood and was invited to the Oscar gift lounge [who knew? -ed.] for a photo op.  She was given a number of nice baubles that she promptly donated back....along with $1,700 out of her pocket for the Red Cross.

Perhaps the best summary of the reaction to the story comes from the comments:

Mention Sarah Palin, and the frothing liberal heads pop up like carnival moles….

Although I dislike the gratuitous use of the word "liberal".   Otherwise, as Glenn Reynolds would say.....heh.

Assimilation

Assimilation.

The cornerstone to incorporating successive waves of immigrants.  It is only through assimilation that new arrivals can learn the culture of their new country and discover how they can become a vital part of it.

Yet assimilation is not a one directional phenomenon.  Food would be the easiest area to identify where various waves of immigrants have altered the culinary landscape by bringing the flavors of their native lands to America.  Language, cultural festivities, and music are other areas that demonstrate where assimilation is an exchange as well as a process of education and unification.

So why bring this up?

It appears that the University Arkansas ZTA sorority has won the 2010 Sprite Step Off competition.....sort of.

The long story goes that UofA AKA sorority decided to take the ZTA girls under their wing when ZTA decided to form a step group.  If you haven't heard, stepping is a sort of dance/rhythm performance that is popular among predominantly black sororities and fraternities.  It is particularly popular on the campuses of institutions of higher learning that have almost entirely black student bodies.

After years of practice, the ZTA girls won the 2010 competition sponsored by Sprite/Coca-Cola.

Some memorable quotes from the story.

Lawrence Ross, author of "The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities, said the increased interest in stepping is a natural evolution, much like other urban staples such as rap music that went from an underground phenomenon to mainstream.

"Others are always going to be attracted to what you're doing and are going to want to participate," said Ross, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically black fraternity.

He said the nation is integrating more than ever and blacks who embrace President Barack Obama making inroads into previously all-white bastions can't have a double standard.

"If (black Olympian) Shani Davis was prevented from speed skating simply because traditionally, no African-Americans were in the field, we African-Americans would be up in arms," he said.

....

"What has happened is black youth culture, what people would call hip hop, sort of made black culture accessible and appealing to all kinds of people," said Walter Kimbrough, president of historically black Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., and an expert on black Greek life. "It really now has become an American experience."

Video link here.  The crowd's reaction was interesting.  They largely accepted and appreciated this performance by such an unlikely group.

Now the victory by a bunch of white girlsat what is perceived...by some...as an all-black competition was not without some modest controversy.  But consider how far we have come.  

Fifty years ago the Arkansas National Guard had to be called up to protect black high school students seeking an education.  Such was the condition of the times that people actively fought to prevent the successful assimilation of blacks into mainstream America.

And today, we have a bunch of white college students [from Arkansas - Ed.] that have absorbed so well the addition to our culture brought by black Americans that they won a national competition.

We still have a long way to go when it comes to race relations and cultural assimilation.  We ought to enjoy those rare moments when we discover a sign that we are headed in the right direction.

Goodbye MANzine

I have pulled MANzine from my blogroll.  It was an interesting concept; a site unabashedly devoted to the perspectives of men.  I thought it had potential.

But too many stories lacked a firm conclusion.  And as you could tell until recently, the site had not been updated for over two months. 

Someone lost interest.  I guess that makes two of us.

Rumour Control

Apparently New York representative and tax scofflaw Charles Rangel is going to step down.......from being the chair of the Ways and Means committee in Congress.  He's not actually leaving Congress.  That would be far too much accountability for a person of his ...ahem..... stature.

Of course, he still hasn't been subjected to the full force of the IRS like any normal taxpayer that skipped out on over a million dollars in taxes by filing fraudulent tax returns.  If it was good enough for Leona Helmsley.....

Update:  It appears that half a maggot-infested loaf is better than none.  Mr. Rangel has temporarily stepped down as chair of Ways and Means while the Ethics Committee does their work.

Sadly, there is not much hope that the Democrats will hold Mr. Rangel accountable for his serious breach of the public trust.  They very rarely ever demonstrate the capacity to eat their own.  Not that the GOP has a stellar record on such things, but it is somewhat better.

Grow Your Gas

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are working on a process to turn bio-mass into gasoline for our cars....and jet fuel for our...um...jets.  I don't think that they are quite to the point of being economically viable, but we are getting closer to the day when we can be free from foreign oil without sacrificing our standard of living.

Medical Advances

Via the Blogfather comes this story about a Harvard professor that is developing a medical lab on a piece of paper.  [A longer story was presented by CNN.]  No really.  You put one drop of blood on the paper and a series of chemically treated layers along with comic book inks react to tell you....or your doctor....if you have any of a half a dozen medical problems.

Professor George Whitesides believes this simple deployment of complex technologies can be done for as little as $0.01 per test.  Such a cheap test method would not only benefit the developed world.....consider how easy liver function tests might be if all you had to do was prick your finger, drop the blood on the test strip, take a photo of the results with your cell phone, and mail it to your doctor.....it would be a definite boon to the developing world where electricity and doctors to operate more complex laboratories are in short supply.

As Glenn Reynolds says when uncovering these miracles...."Faster, please."

[CynicMan!]

Then the lawyers will get involved.  And the FDA will demand 15 years worth of testing.  And there will be packaging requirements that will cost $15 per test strip.  And there will be malpractice insurance.

The damned thing will cost $50 a piece and we won't be able to use it for 20 years.

Sigh.

[/CM]

No Up-Butt-O-Scope For Mr. Obama

Glenn Reynolds noted yesterday that Mr. Obama underwent an inspection of his colon that did not include the up-butt-o-scope.  Instead, Mr. Obama's physicians used a new procedure known as "CT colonography".  The nut of his post was to observe that while he can access this new technology, people on Medicare cannot.

Apparently....I have not looked.....the website of the government agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid states that “evidence is inadequate to conclude that CT colonography is an appropriate colorectal cancer screening test” to be covered for Medicare beneficiaries.”

There is a lack of evidence that CT colonography is an appropraite colorectal cancer screening test for Medicare patients, but it is good enough for the President of the United States??!!!???  Am I the only one that finds that a bit....nuts?

Keep in mind, I'm not criticizing Mr. Obama.  I'm glad he has a healthy colon.

I am criticizing an approval process that delays the deployment of lifesaving medical technology based on perceived costs.  I am also criticizing a system that is evolving into one where your access to medical technology is based on politics rather than costs.

How many Senators and Congresscritters would have been on the "public option" if that abomination had passed?  None.  Care to guess who would be getting better health care?  Our elected officials, our civil servants, or the rest of us saps that just pay the bill?

"Cost containment" is only a concern when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid.  When it comes to the health care for our government employees [elected or otherwise], there is no such thing as "too good".

The best laugh of the day came from the secondary consideration that the old-school colonoscopy requires the use of sedatives that would put Vice President and leading Gaff-a-matic Joe Biden in the big chair.

There is one reason and one reason alone why we should give Obama a pass on the virtual colonoscopy: President Joe Biden. Colonoscopies require general anesthesia, which would require a temporary transfer of power to Biden. Who knows which country Biden would trisect during the procedure. I for one applaud this judicious use of money.

 As do I.

The Round World

One of the educational benefits of following Miss Watson and Miss Sunderland [links are to the right] on their globe trotting adventures is the opportunity to learn just a little more geography.  For example, there are thousands of islands scattered around the southern hemisphere.  Some of them I had heard of.  Others I had not.

Today's lesson in geography comes via Miss Watson.  Her interactive map of her voyage includes a feature that uses the Google Earth plug-in to render way points [certainly not weight points] of her trip.  I flipped the globe so that I was looking at Antarctica.  My objective was to see as much of her trip at one time as possible.

Instead I learned a thing or two about the relative location of Australia, South America, and Africa.  I had thought that Australia and South America were closer together.  I also used to think that Africa and Australia were a bit further apart.

Needless to say, I don't believe those things any more. [then why'd you say it? -ed]