Bagels

I was so excited. We new clerks had library orientation yesterday, and as at any respectable event in Fargo, we were fed first. Front and center was a basket of bagels from a nearby bagel bakery. Hooray! Salt bagels! They're hard to find sometimes even in D.C., and here were some to start my day:


It's a good thing I asked. Those aren't salt crystals you see on the tops of those bagels – they're sugar crystals. Apparently, there's no kind of baked good that can't be made more like a German dessert here in the Midwest. I sense hundreds of Jewish grandmothers spinning in their graves.

I opted instead for the jalepeño bagel (lower left), which sported cheese and a little grilled vegetables and was virtually a complete meal in itself, and only nominally a bagel. I know, I know, grandmothers would do a similar grave-spin over it. But it was quite tasty. Sacrilicious.

My second mistake...

While the fishing thing will injure my wallet, at least it could be fun.

Here's the mistake that won't cost much, but will make me suffer all winter and spring: In an extremely ill-advised fit of optimism, I issued an invitation to a bunch of people, among them members of my marathon team, The Ibuprofen Warriors, to come up here in May and run the Fargo Marathon on May 19.

The race has been well-attended by the federal clerks in the two years it has been run – Ann of crunchy blinking eyeballs fame ran it, for one. And many of the court security officers, who, enviably, have to keep in shape as part of their job, will be running the marathon or some portion of it this year. My Fargo colleague has been introducing me around the building as "the runner," though I haven't been much of one in two years (and even then wasn't much of one...).

So far, 30 or so of the 38 people I invited are on the "Yes" list. A more conservative count, listing only those who have actually said "Yes," instead of those who have not unequivocally said, "Hell, no!" puts it at 7. I think I can grow that number a little, and we should field a respectable team. But oh, man, it's going to be some long cold days on the treadmill this winter.

The race itself should be as nice as a marathon can be. They had about 1,000 finishers last year, the last rolling in at around seven hours, so I should be able to maintain my personal goal of never coming in dead last. And it appears to have been a very well-organized and well-supported race. If you're interested in being a Warrior, drop me an e-mail or a comment on this post! We have great tee shirts.

My first mistake...

OK, I'm probably going to regret this at some point. I've done reasonably well in staying away from the things in life that are enormous money pits – gambling, "fixer-upper" homes, recreational drugs, and so forth. And fishing – until now.

I called up the Minnesota parks folks this morning, and Katie and Joey and I are headed to Itasca State Park the weekend of September 15. We're going to backpack to Desoto Lake, about five miles away from the main lodge. It sounds beautiful – only two campsites are on this lake.

I googled the lake, and found a blog that said this: "We camped at the DeSoto lake, which had the clearest water I've ever seen. Chris brought his fishing rod, and caught a large-mouthed bass."

Oh, man! I could go fishing there!

I've had a few false starts on the fishing thing. It never was part of my upbringing -- my dad has some unexplained and possibly unexplainable aversion to fish in general and fishing in particular. I didn't even eat much fish until I went away to college.

I became interested in the sport about two years ago – I'm intrigued by the idea of catching my own meals when out in the wilderness. Jen's folks kindly bought me a few books and videos on how to do it right. But I haven't really been in the right place at the right time since then.

But next month, I will be! So I headed over to Scheel's, the enormous sporting-goods store in town that has absolutely amazing fishing and hunting sections. (It also has a full-sized Ferris wheel in the middle of the main part of the store – the whole enterprise will be good for another entry another day.) They would have been happy to sell me rods for hundreds of dollars, and reels that look like they've been forged with lasers. But hardly any of their rods broke down small enough to strap onto a backpack, and I was kind of intimidated by the whole setup, and I left without buying anything.

So tonight I headed over to every cheap sportman's friend, Wal-Mart, and found just what I was looking for. I had a gift card from my sister Katie in my pocket, and it ended up paying for a serious chunk of the 2-piece rod (one piece of which is pictured above), fileting knife, and fishing tackle that I bought. Thanks, Katie! (On the other hand, I suppose it's kind of like paying for someone's first rock of crack – they're thankful that day, but end up regretting the whole thing later.)

I need to check the state regulations, but I think I can eat any fish I catch when we're at Itasca. I'm certain Joey and Katie will be horrified, but we'll have plenty of macaroni and cheese for them to eat (I'd be willing to bet that I'll be eating mac & cheese that night as well...).

It looks like Lake DeSoto has panfish (a term, I learned today, that refers to a bunch of types of small fish that tend to be caught by guys with rods and reels, and the fish can be cooked up in a frying pan); if any Fargoing readers know anything at all about fishing for such beasts and would like to share a little of what they know, please feel free to leave a comment.

[And for the record, the title of this post doesn't refer to "my first mistake" ever – it's my first of two big ones this weekend. It's also a small play on a cool Lyle Lovett song title, "Her First Mistake." A report on mistake number two is coming up...]

Take me out...

We had a very nice time at the ballpark tonight, catching the next-to-last regular season home game of the beloved Fargo-Moorhead Red Hawks. Newman Outdoor Field is just south of the airport, on the North Dakota State University campus, and adjacent to the Fargodome where, sadly, the Dixie Chicks did not play tonight.

I'd been hoping to make a Red Hawks game ever since we received their schedule tucked into the welcome packet of information the courthouse library sent to all new clerks just before we moved to town.

We were given a ride from the parking lot by a kindly usher in his GEM electric car (right). GEM is a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler, and it turns out they build their vehicles right here in Fargo.

The game was sold out, with standing-room-only seats available for $3.00. We actually ended up sitting on a very comfortable and immaculate stretch of concrete on the concourse down the first-base line, with a terrific view and a good, if unrealized, possibility of catching a foul ball.

One of the cool features of the park is its hand-operated scoreboard, complete with hand-updated scores from other games. The Miller Lite scoreboard girl introduced herself to the crowd while I was buying hot dogs, and then took up her perch in left field:


Meanwhile, I was having a very good time buying dinner. I was very pleased to see how inexpensive the hot dogs were ($1.50) until I noticed the price of the full kids' meal – dog, chips, and small drink ($2.00). Two dollars! Two footlong dogs for Jen and me were $2.50 (plain) and $3.50 (with chili and cheese). Giant beers were $4.50 apiece. Not a lot has been cheap in Fargo, but this evening was.

Jen was aghast later that I brought her what she ordered – a hot dog – instead of knowing instinctively that she would want the Wisconsin cheese soup ($3.00) they also had on the menu.


Newman Outdoor Field is about 10 years old, and looks like it opened yesterday, a feat of maintenance I'm beginning to take for granted around here. Though it felt a lot smaller than our hometown Frederick Keys' Harry Grove Stadium, Newman's capacity, at 4,500, is only 900 less (and actually scored a better grade than Frederick from BallParkReviews.com...).

Oh, yes, we dropped the game 4-3 to the hated Edmonton Cracker-Cats, a team we whipped soundly as recently as last night (5-0). We'll get 'em tomorrow.

Potato Days!

Barnesville, Minn., estimated population of 2,295, lies about 30 miles east of Fargo along I-94. Their annual big festival is Potato Days, and it's today and tomorrow. Jen's been looking forward to this for quite some time. When she and I married sixteen years ago, I was given a variety of potato mashers by various members of her family, with the instruction that mashed potatoes were pretty much all she needed to be a happy woman.

We went this afternoon, because two top events were being held tonight – the french-fry giveaway and, more importantly, mashed potato wrestling (right). Some show called "Odd America" was taping at the beginning, and they sent two of their guys into the ring to wrestle some Minnesota guys. The general tone was closer to pro wrestling than Olympic wrestling. For some odd reason, most of the matchups were husband vs. wife, or boyfriend vs. girlfriend (though the two pictured are local high-school female softball players...).

The web site of the festival takes pains to point out that it's not real mashed potatoes: "Actually, it is the floor sweepings from a plant, which are not edible, or outdated flakes that are no longer saleable. No food is being wasted, as the leftover potato mixture is fed to local cattle." I'm actually kind of glad they told us that – Jen mentioned it as we were driving there, and I, having not seen it before, was relieved – it seemed out of character for farmers to just toss that much food in a ring.

We also took a relaxing hayride on a tour of historic Barnesville. We saw many of Barnesville's oldest homes, churches converted into homes, and Blue Eagle Lake, constructed during the Depression by WPA workers and so named after the blue eagle in the National Recovery Administration logo (right). Kind of touching, really – I have difficulty imagining a place in America nowadays that would choose to name something like that after a federal agency.

The free "French Fry Feed" was also good, though just before they started handing them out, a cloud of flying ants descended on downtown Barnesville. And you know how much the kids love bugs. As we stood in line, the five of us swatted bugs off each other and shared a delicious potato sausage wrapped in lefse, as if it were a burrito. We left pretty soon after that. Did I mention that the kids hate bugs?

Skeeters

Something we've apparently missed out on this Fargo summer is the swarm of giant mosquitoes that usually descends on the region. The spring was so dry that the eggs just didn't get laid, and we're reaping a tiny harvest of them now, which makes going outside these days just about perfect. The Forum runs a little box every day on page 2 (right), the "Skeeter Meter," which has limped along at one skeeter all summer long. I'm not sure how high the Meter gets, but we seem to be in no danger of topping out this year.

Nothing comes without a price, however. What's bad for mosquitoes is good for wasps. The northern part of town is infested with them. Woodpeckers drill holes into wood, and then the wasps move in. Since all we have here on the south end of town is drought-stunted corn, instead of trees, we seem to be immune to these pests.

The only bug really on our minds these days is crickets. They seem to like our garage, and like sneaking into the house whenever the kids leave a door open. Jen has a surprisingly tender heart toward them when summoned for removal duty. She shoos them onto a baking sheet now dedicated to the purpose, and carries them out the front door. I whap 'em good with the sheet.

The kids absolutely detest the crickets. They seem to only live in the lower level, where the kids' rooms are. Ellie crawled into our bed at 6:30 this morning, crying that one was in her room – she can spot them from across the house. Sadly, though Indy was game to eat spiders on command back in Rockville, we can't get her to eat the crickets. I don't understand it – Wired reports that if you "sauté them with a little olive oil and some spices[,] they are surprisingly edible, with a nice crunch and a subtle nut flavor."

End of Summer: Aug. 19.

We headed to the city's downtown pool today – it's the last weekend it's open. The pool was surprisingly empty; you'da thought a lot more people would see out the outdoor swimming season; you'da been wrong.

Katie and Joey each took a jump off the high dive, a brand-new experience! Katie went first, which really surprised me; it's not really her thing. Joey's following her didn't surprise me one bit – if Katie jumped off a cliff, Joey would be next up just to show he could do it also. They were both very brave.

Ellie decided to dry off on the only spot she could find that was sufficiently warm – Jen:

Happy Man Dept.

Hotdish for dinner on Wednesday, hotdish for lunch on Thursday, and hotdish again for lunch today. Yum.

The vial of red liquid you see there is extra-spicy buffalo wing sauce, which makes it even tastier.

You Learn Something Every Day Dept...

OK, here's the first of the year's legal tidbits: The patron saint of drug traffickers is "Jesus Malverde" (right, in the form of a piggybank). I had no idea.

Weekend at Fort Ransom...

Joey and I had the nicest time camping this weekend, about 90 miles southwest of Fargo at Fort Ransom State Park. The park features hiking/biking/horse trails (snowmobiling in the winter), and a demonstration farm.

The Sheyenne River runs through the park. It's not the same as the Cheyenne River, which I'd heard of before – I checked.

The park is the kind of facility you don't see on the East Coast. It was immaculately maintained, with a half-dozen short trails. Some sections of the trails wander through light forest, and other parts literally cut through grassland – they're just mowed across the fields. Some of them are nature trails, with wooden markers every once in a while marked "A," "B," and so forth. We didn't have a key to what the markers were supposed to be referring to, but Joey enjoyed biking the alphabet.

What's amazing is that the park is lightly enough trafficked that we didn't see a soul most of our time out; indeed, it looked like the trails had been cut just for us:

Anything like this out East would be positively crawling with people. Joey and I biked all over the place. Joe wiped out a few times on the gravel roads, but found his footing by the end of the weekend. We had much better luck on the grass trails – it was like biking on a golf course.

We were treated to a tour of the demonstration farm Saturday morning by a park ranger, which was pretty impressive. The parkland was donated by the family of the farmer who first farmed it beginning in the late 1800s. A local group called the Fort Ransom Sodbusters Association has assembled a mighty army of vintage farming implements on the farm, and shows them off a few times a year at the park. They've built some massive barns on site to hold all their equipment. The next Sodbuster Days is Sept. 9 & 10, and we may have to make it back out there.

After the tour of the farm site, Joey and I strolled through the fields, and checked out the corn plants. We startled a few deer, which bolted out of the stand of corn.

Just outside the park is "Pyramid Hill," which has apparently astonished nearby folks for centuries. Locals insist such a perfectly formed pyramid must have been shaped by human hands; geologists disagree.

A state-sponsored scenic marker pokes a finger in the eye of townspeople by not only siding with the geologists, but also by superimposing Pyramid Hill atop a photo of a real pyramid, in Egypt, which is much, much bigger. Even if industrious prehistoric Ransom County people built themselves a pyramid, the marker clearly seems to suggest, they built themselves a puny one.

But it is undisputed that the statue of the Viking sitting atop Pyramid Hill is manmade, erected by the heavily Norwegian community to show some pride. The state marker notes the statue's origins, and also notes that it was almost toppled over by winds a few years back and shows a decided backwards tilt now. (It's not a very nice thing to immortalize on a state sign.)

Midday on Saturday, Joey and I left the park to go into the town of Fort Ransom (population 102) to look around and get some ice for the cooler. We stopped in Hartley's Cupcakes Cafe and Gift Shop...

...where Joey had a big ice-cream cone, and I had a Dr. Pepper from the fountain. Total: a whopping $2.30. (Note the Viking on the left – they're all over around here.) We bought a bag of ice from the bar across the street (a reasonable $1.50), and as we left, the folks in the bar were delighted to see a group of about 30 motorcycles and their fairly tough-looking riders arriving for refreshments.

The weather was completely cooperative. It was perfect bicycling weather during the days. It drizzled Friday overnight, just enough to be comforting, and sprinkled on us a little late Saturday evening as we listened to a lecture on Union Gen. Ransom (for whom the county, a decommissioned fort, the town, and the park are named). Everything dried off by the time we had to pack up Sunday morning, and it then rained cats and dogs on us all the way back. Couldn't have been better timing.

Pie Day!

I'd heard about this for months, and today I got to go see it for myself with a bunch of my colleagues: Pie Day at The Sons of Norway, right next door to the courthouse. The Sons of Norway say they are "the largest Norwegian-American organization in the world," and I believe them.

The Sons host a lunch cafeteria line every weekday, but pies are the specialty on Thursdays.

It was a pretty tasty spread: About a dozen types of sandwiches (I had the BLT: $3.75), four types of soup (I had a cup of the corn chowder: $2.00), salad (skipped) and, well, not very many types of pie if you have the temerity to go there as late as noon. But they had plenty of blueberry pie left ($2.00 or so).

All of this is served in a large room with a heavy Nordic theme. I thought it would be kind of rude to take pictures inside, so I didn't. You'll have to take my word for it, or meet me for lunch on a Thursday.

(For the record, I'm not actually this fat – yet. It's the shirt.)

Beautiful.

Bring in the Shat!

Who says it's quiet here? According to today's Forum:William Shatner, who portrayed the captain of the Enterprise on the original “Star Trek” television show, has been booked to appear at the Red River Science Fiction and Fantasy Club’s 32nd ValleyCon convention Oct. 13-15 at the Doublewood Inn in Fargo.I had the uh, privilege of seeing Mr. Shatner at a Star Trek convention I took my brother Dan to in the early 90's -- long before Shatner's Internet-fueled resurgence. He took questions from the audience from onstage, including one from a quite young girl: "Are you a good kisser?" Everyone laughed, and then Shatner said, "Well, why don't you come on up here and find out?" She did, and even managed not to faint. ugh.

For God's Sake Turn Around

Jen and I have decided to start working out while the weather is still beautiful. 25th Street South, which is one of the major north-south arteries in town, peters out to a gravel road just as it crosses our street (right). It's like a personal, unlimited-mileage out-and-back track for us; when I was out this morning, just one car passed me.

Jen has it all worked out. "If you go to 76th Avenue and back, it's 3 miles," she says. "If you go past the house that's a ways out, it's 4 miles. If you go to where it branches off to the right, 5 miles." And so on.

I'm beginning to believe in the urban legend about your iPod helping you out on long workouts. The other day, Jen was running along this road when Lucinda Williams' "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road" started playing. Perfect, she thought.

Wrong. This morning, my iPod, knowing I haven't run a step in almost two years, decided on Matchbox 20's "Bright Lights" about a mile and a half into my run. It features the lyrics: "You should turn yourself around / And come on home... For God's sake turn around."

Sigh.

My eight-and-a-half year summer vacation is, officially, as of today, over. It's off to the courthouse for me this morning to start the new career.

Windy City...

Hmmm.... yeah, it was windy last night. Our friendly landlord has been notified.

Small-town echoes...

When we first considered moving to Fargo – after I'd gotten the call to come up for the interview, but before I'd arrived in town – I envisioned what showing up in a little town would be like. We'd step off the train downtown, and there'd be a big banner strung across the light poles, saying, "Welcome Moores!" And the mayor would be on hand to give us a big hello.

It didn't work out that way. Fargo's not a tiny town – not a town at all, really. It is a city with its own Krispy Kreme, nicer grocery stores than Washington, D.C., and about 150,000 people in the metro area. We drove in on the interstate, and showed up at the house without seeing a soul.

Still, there are some things that remind me of the four years Jen and I spent living in a small North Carolina town in college. For one thing, everywhere I go, people make a point of welcoming us to town – often several times in the same conversation.

The first week we were here, I took the kids to the school playground to tumble around. I started talking to a mom there who had her kids in tow. It turns out that one of her absolute best friends is the Fargo schools gifted specialist who has been helping us figure out where to place Joey next year.

I toured the local YMCA with the kids the other day. It's a very nice facility, and we may sign up with them. The next day, I took the kids to the Fargo Children's Museum (right), to which Jen's colleagues have very kindly given us a family membership for the year. While the kids were enjoying the exhibits there, a woman turned to me and said, "Have you just moved here?" I said we had, and she said, "I saw you at the YMCA last night." OK, so we are marked as being new in town.

Forgoing Fargo...

It was too good to be true.

Months ago, when the Dixie Chicks, Katie's favorite band, announced their tour, we were disappointed to see that they were playing the D.C. area after we moved away. But! Amazingly! They were actually coming to Fargo to play the Fargodome at the end of August. We bought terrific tickets online and marked the calendar.

This morning, the front page of the Forum (well, below the fold) reads, "Dixie Chicks Forgo Fargo Show." Dang.

I also received an e-mail from Ticketmaster informing me that they'd refund what we paid for the tickets, and some – but not all – of their fees. Bastards.

The Chicks are still feeling the fallout from a crack their lead singer made onstage in 2003 in London about how she wasn't real pleased with our President. They suffered a huge backlash at the time, and are still feeling it on this tour -- they've had to reschedule or cancel a lot of dates in red states. A news release attributed the Fargo cancellation to their need to promote a documentary coming out this fall (not the truth) and to attempts to "accommodate demand" (that's more like it).

I had a feeling this was coming -- were were able to score something like third-row tickets when we first ordered them, and then, when we went back to check on something a few days later, we could still reserve fifth-row tickets.

Katie is in Atlanta for almost two weeks with her grandparents, and I don't have the heart to tell her just yet. Maybe when she gets back.

Tale of Triumph

The story of how I spent roughly three days studying for the bar exam between packing the house, driving across the country, unpacking the house, meeting the Judge's past clerks, attending the wedding in Austin and then getting my tail back to Maryland will be a much better story if I actually pass the exam. I'm hoping to be "a tale of triumph against overwhelming odds," instead of my usual "cautionary tale." We don't find out until November.

Dan and A.J.'s wedding was quite gracious, and A.J. was a lovely bride. The day after the wedding, Joey and I flew back to Maryland, so he could visit his dear pal Caelin for the week and I could take the bar. I decided that the bar was going to go just fine when I arrived at Martin's Crosswinds in Prince George's County, and found this:



It's a freestanding facility for large events -- if you grew up nearby, you had your prom there. Sadly and ironically, the bar was closed for the duration of the "bar exam," but the giant cocktail cheered me every time I saw it.

I'd missed getting a picture of this sign on the first trip out to Fargo, and was on the lookout this time around. We stopped, but it turns out that such promising signage was attached to a liquor store that also had cheese, and kinda tired cheese at that.

So we skipped it and instead went to Carr Valley Cheese a few miles up I-94, which makes up for in giant rodentage what it lacks in stark black and white highway signs. We picked up a 10-year-old cheddar, some string cheese (smoked and regular), cheese curds (of course), summer sausage, a goat cheddar, and a double Gloucester. We haven't cracked most of them open yet.

Joey was a great traveller, and spent his time either reading (he plowed through an entire box set of "Captain Underpants" books), playing with the iPod (I never before realized the hold that Queen's discography has on six-year-old boys), or sleeping.

We left Maryland around 1 p.m. on Friday, and drove until about 11 p.m. We got off to a leisurely start on Saturday, around 8:30, and arrived at 1 a.m. Sunday morning (2 a.m. Eastern time), just in time to help Ellie celebrate her 4th birthday on Sunday. So about 27.5 hours total -- not horribly grueling. Interestingly, it turns out that according to Google Maps, Atlanta is only about 100 miles further from here than Rockville is (1,435 miles versus 1,328). Perhaps we can make it back East more often than we had thought.