Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JULY 29, 2025 – Today while waiting for an appointment, I was fully engaged in my principal distraction of late[1]—reading a 600-page biography of Mao Zedong, master of China from 1949 until his not-a-day-too-soon-death in 1976. When a younger person asked what I was reading, I held up the cover, which bears Mao’s portrait—and his …
JULY 28, 2025 – Late last summer, a tree along the shoreline in front of the Red Cabin got tired of standing—years after it had died. In fact, it had been dead so long that its identification might be difficult to someone unfamiliar with local arboreal species. It was a white pine. I knew this …
JULY 27, 2025 – Two days ago I skipped my daily (substantive) post. I was feeling terribly under the weather. With the aid of a single 500 mg Tylenol (equivalent) tablet each of the past two nights and a third today at noon today, I was able to hold discomfort at bay sufficiently to get …
JULY 26, 2025 – For the record, everything I know about the lurid tale of Jeffrey Epstein is derived from very cursory familiarity with reporting in mainstream media. This hardly qualifies me as an expert on the subject, but given the information I have encountered—correct, incorrect, and everything in between—I have no desire to be …
JULY 25, 2025 – Aren’t we all (“on assignment”)? Back tomorrow. Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. © 2025 by Eric Nilsson
JULY 24, 2025 – At my wife’s instigation, I went off campus today for the first time in more than a week. Since she was the one to suggest a field trip, she went too—wink, wink. She navigated; I drove. Our excursion took us from the Red Cabin on the weather-bound shores of Grindstone Lake, …
JULY 23, 2025 – This morning right up to noon, darkening clouds marched overhead to the command of Notus, Greek god of the south wind. The air was so laden with humidity, a heavy sweat covered the stepping stones along the pathway arching from our porch door around to the lake. Such conditions were the …
JULY 22, 2025 – Today I joined the kickoff meeting of the planning committee for my 50th college class reunion. When I’d volunteered a while back, I naively assumed that I’d be among 10 or 12 classmates following an inner group of half a dozen leading the charge. In fact, so many people have joined …
JULY 21, 2025 – Yesterday I watched a pair of loons while they fished in waters just off our shore. I was impressed by their familiar search for nourishment. Showing their distinctive profile, they trolled quietly and with an economy of motion. Occasionally, one or the other would dip its head into the water for …
JULY 20, 2025 – “Our lake” is unusually quiet, despite its being in the middle of lacustrine cabin country[1] in northwest Wisconsin. Wide open with dimensions described in miles, Grindstone Lake has remarkably little boat traffic, even on the Fourth of July and Labor Day. This phenomenon is especially surprising given the number of serious …
JULY 19, 2025 – Yesterday I had to make cuts at the end of the beams that will support the purlins of my Pergola-on-a-Platform. The beams are two-by-fours, I didn’t dare make the cuts with the only power saw I have available right now, a battery-operated mini-circular saw. I turned to my hand saws and …
JULY 18, 2025 – When it comes to tackling an arduous task, I find that often the best approach is to analogize it to something outrageously dramatic or otherwise ridiculously imaginary. An example of the former was a scene I adopted to get myself through a particularly grueling American Birkebeiner x-c ski race. I pretended …
JULY 17, 2025 – I’m always on the lookout for inspiration. It’s an easy proposition. All that’s required is to keep eyes and ears peeled at all times in all company. One regular source of inspiration is an offshore solo sailor named “Drew.” I don’t know a lot about him except that he’s a West …
JULY 16, 2025 – Yesterday, as I drove down our winding drive and drew closer to the lake, the stiff breeze played whirlybird with every single leaf in the dense vegetation along my way. At first the fluttering leaves looked as if they were hanging on for dear life, but then I began to see …
JULY 15, 2025 – In 2020 I constructed, painted and installed a sign marking the gateway to my “träd gård” (Swedish for tree garden) up at the lake, acreage where three years before I’d planted hundreds of two- and three-year white pine seedlings. I fashioned the five-and-a-half-foot-long sign out of treated lumber to ensure that …
JULY 14, 2025 – Back to Project Zen. Over the weekend I reverted to “Zen mode.” I had to. I mean, with everything from tariff terror to the Epstein Files crowding the hourly news cycle, one must seek refuge where one can. My sanctuary is currently “Project Zen,” to which I’ve now assigned the label, …
JULY 13, 2025 – This afternoon I received a call from Erik Ibele. I hadn’t heard from him in several years and was pleasantly surprised when he announced himself. He’d called to inform me that his father, Warren E. Ibele, had died recently. Warren would have turned 101 next month. Erik and his three siblings, …
JULY 12, 2025 – Sorry. I can’t hold back any longer. “Project Zen” must be put aside to make way for the very opposite of “Zen”; for something that has long roiled my sensibilities, moral and intellectual: the hot button of immigration. The original T-bone steak – red meat issue of the MAGA crowd has …
JULY 11, 2025 – (Cont.) I’ve always had a fondness for graph paper. It invites a disciplined approach to the transition between conceptualization and materialization of a building project. It fills gaps in mental images, drawing the possible from the improbable. In the case of Project Zen, graph paper captures with precision, proportions imposed by …
JULY 10, 2025 – (Cont.) Most building projects, whether large or small, follow a logical sequence. You start with an objective, be it a new house or a recycling box to be placed outside the new—or old—house. Next, plans are drawn up (in the case of the house) or sketched out (depicting the recycling box). …
JULY 9, 2025 – A few days ago our clothes dryer quit drying. The machine was old enough that it didn’t owe us much, but before we leaped at the chance to replace it with a costly new machine, my spouse did the sensible thing and arranged for a $99 service call to obtain a …
JULY 8, 2025 – I’ve written before about the “zen of cabin projects”—dock installation (and re-installation), for instance, and other endeavors involving a degree of design and engineering and requiring use of a variety of tools that can easily become dangerous if mishandled. Anyone who owns a cabin and likes DIY construction knows what I’m …
JULY 7, 2025 – The flash flood disaster in Texas is so horrific, it’s got to trigger a flicker of empathy in the heart of even the most extreme sociopath. I can’t imagine being a parent, grandparent or other close loved one of a camper who perished, not to mention of any of the many …
JULY 6, 2025 – My good friend Jeffrey Oppenheim. was among the small group that founded the Falmouth [MA] Jewish Congregation in that vibrant Cape Cod community. Today 300 households are among the membership of what has become a robust, dynamic organization, with an impressively educated and experienced staff, a broad palette of educational programs …
JULY 5, 2025 – (Cont.) Sunday evening we and Byron’s family enjoyed dinner al fresco at “Marker 37,” next to the Chester Marina on the Connecticut River. The restaurant name is a reference to the 37th nautical marker (starting at the mouth at Long Island Sound, about six and a half miles downstream). If you …