Par for a Guatemala cook stove volunteer

Greg Johnson returned from a week in Guatemala yesterday and today joined his classmate Stan for a round of golf and a debriefing. Greg and his church group regularly go high into the Central America mountains to build cook stoves for impoverished Mayan families. It is hot, dirty work a mile above sea level, but after a week of this, Greg was still fresh enough to run up an impressive string of pars on the comfortable Creeksbend track.

Here's a rationale of the cook stove project from a website on the subject.

"Globally, nearly three billion people use polluting, inefficient stoves or open flames to cook their food. Exposure to cooking fire smoke kills approximately two million people worldwide every year.

Click for Photo credit

"In Guatemala, as in many other countries, breathing in the toxic fumes while preparing tortillas and frijoles puts Mayan women and children at risk for respiratory illnesses, blindness and burns on a daily basis. It is estimated that 77% of Guatemalan families use wood as their main fuel source. 2% of Guatemala’s forests are lost annually, mainly due to the need for fuel for cooking fires. Precious family resources and time are spent on gathering or purchasing wood.

"The Guatemala Stove Project helps alleviate these problems by building vented stoves that are adapted to Mayan cooking methods. These stoves are made of cement blocks on the outside and fire-bricks inside, filled with sand and pumice for insulation and held together by mortar. The design of the firebox can reduce wood consumption and pollution by about 50%. The ‘plancha’ or stove-top is made of shiny, bright steel. It is an ‘improved cooking stove’ and while most of us would find it rudimentary, Mayan women much prefer it to cooking on the floor over an open fire."

Photo by Pierre Fortier

A sweet end to Matt's lamentation

In the scheme of all things important, this may not seem to you like any big deal.
But the topic has been brought up so often during their daily walks, that it has taken on a dimension heretofore reserved for the Iran Nuclear Deal, gay marriage and the price of corn.
We're talking Sour Cream Raisin pie.
Stan's walking partner, Matt Drees, loves Sour Cream Raisin pie. As they circle the track, he regularly laments its absence from his life and from the menus of restaurants he frequents, and the fact that his wife, Anne, just doesn't bake much anymore. Matt's unending search for a slice of Sour Cream Raisin pie comes up more often than you would think.
Stan, who has never tasted a Sour Cream Raisin pie nor would ever think to try one, found it hard to empathize with his partner and sought professional help from a pie counselor at Martha's Eats and Treats in Dundas, Minnesota. Martha got out her big book and promised she would give it a try sometime soon. "Money is no object," she was told.

But Martha's busy and is only open on weekends, so it appeared Matt would have to go without for a while. That's when Stan, Googling "Sour Cream Raisin" pie, hit the Baker's Square site, where, after an unknown hiatus, the item has reappeared on its menu of the popular and arcane choices of its pie-eating demographic.
Stan ordered one immediately, Kathleen picked it up, and this morning the pie was rushed to Matt's breakfast table, where he promptly cut into it.
Matt got suspicious when Stan called yesterday to reserve a mysterious 9 a.m. appointment, so he had skipped breakfast in anticipation of a possible rich and tasty treat.
(Matt is trying to work off the eight pounds he gained during a two-week fishing trip to Canada earlier this month. This gift will not be helpful.)
When the pie arrived unboxed, Stan lied and said he had baked it, but Matt just figured it came from Dundas.
It is true that the pie wasn't homemade, wasn't made by Martha, and it wasn't made with the same ingredient mix Matt favors. It is, after all, a commercial product designed for a finicky mainstream and devoid of anything risky. This is simply a stop-gap measure. Matt will have to continue his wait for the real thing. But he wasn't at all disappointed, he was delighted with the commercial substitute, got his fix, and happily slid the remains into the fridge.
Maybe now they can talk about something else.

Prey break

Mother Wood Duck stood at her post as her ducklings took a break, blending in to the foliage on Turtle Island. The kindly painted turtle didn't seem to mind the brief visit, sharing his sanctuary with the fuzzy visitors. When the flock eventually departed, we couldn't help notice there just aren't as many ducklings as there once were. We blame ourselves, and our inability to trap the wily snapping turtle -- who has apparently been lunching on the little ones.

These ships have sailed

Still available. Matted, framed, gorgeous. Give Laurie a call, but hurry, the yachts are going fast.

Company policy says that salesmen may not solicit employees at their desks. About 20 years ago, the general manager got a call from the receptionist reporting somebody loose in the building, who was trying to sell artwork to employees at their work stations against company policy.
Stan jumped up immediately to 86 the miscreant.
As he firmly informed the unlicensed solicitor of the no-soliciting policy and urged him out the front door, the persistent huckster slowly backed away, valiantly holding up his samples, doggedly displaying the framed artwork with a broad grin and repeating that these slight irregulars were only $25 each, even less than that for Stan if he would take more than one.

As Stan pushed the back-peddler out the door, the graceful racing yachts caught his eye. Hmmm. Very appealing, actually. Relaxing, calming, he thought. And there was a huge blank wall in the conference room. Before long, Stan was out in the parking lot, choosing six professionally matted and framed prints from the open trunk of the never-say-die salesman's car.
Business Manager Laurie Hartmann just rolled her eyes as she cut Susceptible Stan a check to pay for them. The beautiful framed prints were first hung on the conference room wall, and years later were moved to a new location in the front desk area.
Alas, there's no place for these gorgeous classic renderings of The America's Cup competition at the new "Google-plex" office, so on moving day last week the entire fleet was left behind for disposal at the company garage sale and giveaway.
A mischievous Laurie set them all aside for Stan … who swallowed hard and passed on the opportunity to take them home.
Laurie just wasn't as convincing as the original salesman.

Goodbye to her corner office. She's got a new one, but apparently already has enough artwork for it.

Time for a boat ride. . .

Wayne writes from International Falls, where he has been rebuilding his dock:

The bumpers and cleats are installed. The Dock is officially finished. Time for a boat ride.

Wayne

Congratulations Wayne! Looks good. 

Organizational Outing today for Rough and Ready Golf League

Associate Club Secretary Hoi Tong tells Kathleen exactly where to put the beans on his plate so that the juices don't
commingle with the bratwurst and make his bun soggy.

League membership relaxing
in the clubhouse after today's round.

Creeksbend National in New Prague played host to the first meeting of the Rough and Ready Two-Man Golf League today. The golfers kept up a blistering pace on the freshly-mowed 18-hole masterpiece, both carding respectable tallies. . . considering everything.
Besides the Meaning of Life, cart topics today included an insightful discussion of mutual friends as well as Stan's Grandson Maxwell, who is also Hoi's Hamline University son, who also, incidentally, has a summer job that pays money.
Mr. Tong continues in his successful career at Seagate.
After the round, the pair called in from Hoi's Big New Lavish Ford Explorer to Katie's Klubhouse in Shakopee and ordered beer and a round of brats and beans, which were plated upon their arrival and delivered, hot and steamy, to an appreciative membership.
League goals were set for the season. The assistant club secretary will develop software and algorithms to record, average and project league scores, and make them available on-demand, on-line to the USGA.

Wary lunch crowd

Not your father's newspaper office. . .

Photos by Kathleen Rolfsrud

"Is that Homer Simpson in the lobby? Tell him we're closed."

This is not your father's newspaper office, no ink-stained wretches found here.
This week, after 32 years in that location, the former Southwest Newspapers abandoned its downtown Shakopee offices and moved to a purpose-built space in nearby Savage. . . along with its new name - Southwest NewsMedia.

A guide could have explained this space. Perhaps.

With the company's emphasis now on social media and digital enterprise, the sleek, open, splashy warehouse could be mistaken for the digs of a hopeful Silicon Valley startup. It was a sight to behold for the retiree, who once led a newspaper that had covered the Civil War and printed with technology familiar to Johann Gutenberg.

That's my Boy!
Global. Connected.

As part of the august duties of the eternal Publisher Emeritus and Guiding Light of the Shakopee Valley News, the old man took a private tour today, without guidance -- other than an occasional nod from a solitary Asian-looking technical priest, preoccupied this Sunday morning with reconnecting the firm with The Heavens -- or did he say The Clouds? We still don't get it.
The aging publisher spotted a few relics from his 35-year tenure that ended in a 2008 retirement. The occasional chair has survived, as well as some (gasp) paper-filing cabinets and the big wall-sized hand-painted map of the territory still proudly covered by six stalwart community newspapers and their affiliated publications. But everything else was new, smelled new, was new. . . and different too. Some things were very different.

It will take a while for the hundred or so employees, young and old, to adjust to their new headquarters. Change has never been easy.
But it is a Brave New World that faces Old Media and the folks at Southwest seem to be embracing it with gusto.
We wish them all the best of luck, most grateful that they are the ones doing the heavy-lifting now. 

Meanwhile, there are nails to sort out in the garage.

He didn't get the memo

A Friday night meeting of young ladies at a neighbor's house drew five white SUVs to the driveway. The lone red car is Hai's rental. He's with us for a couple of weeks to help move the newspaper office . . . and was not part of ladies night.