Picnicking is unlawful! No picnicking!

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I’m not sure if this has been asked here before (I did a search and didn’t find anything).

The now-closed Central High School atop the hill is some prime real estate; what would be the best use for the site? Housing, retail, a park, giant water slide into the bay?

What are some not-so-good uses?

What/who defines appropriate and inappropriate use?

What would benefit the city and it’s citizens the most in the near- and long-term?

I found this rock on the beach on Park Point about a year ago. I’ve never seen another like it. It’s about 2 inches long and an inch wide (at the widest part). At the thickest part, it’s about a quarter inch thick.

It’s difficult to tell by the photos, but the “top” and “side” edges are serrated, as if it were purposefully chipped that way. The back side is smooth, accept for the strange less-smooth notch which, oddly, is right where your thumb would go if the rock was being used to cut.

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Has anyone been in the lake yet? Specifically, off of Park Point.

When I moved here in 2005, the lake was very warm that year; totally swimmable all summer. It hasn’t been that way since. So I’m wondering: when I take the inevitable plunge will I lose my breath? Or will I experience a surprising and pleasant, “ahhhhhhh”?

I have a foggy memory of visiting the North Shore as a child. I remember the smell – a sweet and earthy aroma. Many years later as a young adult, I’d drive up from Minneapolis in the late spring or early summer, and pitch a tent in some random ditch, and I’d smell the same enticing thing – something like sweet maple combined with loamy pine and a hint of deer and/or skunk.

It’s that aroma that drew me to take up residence here (that, and the The Lake, of course). In the past three days, that same aroma has been drifting down from the forest to the north and northeast, into Duluth. What is that smell? What makes it so sweet?

Yesterday, my job brought me flying above Ely at 7000 feet just below some billowing and building clouds. The blooming trees below were fluorescent green, the forest was splattered with sun and cloud-shadow, the air was unbelievably clear, the lakes seemed so clear and clean.

My thoughts were, “My God, this place is so beautiful. I am so lucky to live here. If heaven is real, it would look like this.”

This feeling will last until September 29th, at which time I will curse this place as a wintery and gray hell-zone habitable only for wolves and ravens, who shall feed on the corpses of silly humans such a me.

People of Earth (and Duluth, too),

I know where you can find a supply of cleanish used restaurant grease to brew up some Earth-friendly biofuel. Contact Paige at Pizza Luce: 727-7400. She needs to get it out of her garage before Exxon shows up and pours it in Chester Creek.

I’m trying to find a poem (or short essay) that I remember reading by either Louis Jenkins or Barton Sutter (I think) about living in Duluth and the power that Lake Superior holds over our everyday lives, literally and figuratively. I can’t seem to locate it. Any help?

…we salute you.  This Vehicle Of Awesomeness has been parked at the base of Cascade Park all day. The best part is how its owner and his friends (presumably) have been hanging out in it, lounging around and smoking cigs.

If I had a convertible van, I’d probably use it as my living room, too.