Below Zero

Loving Minnesota!
by Charlie Leck

We had guests over the weekend from Luxembourg. Actually, they have homes in both Luxembourg and France. They were in awe of Minnesota. It was 10^o below zero last night. They had never experienced such cold. They wondered, almost to themselves, why people live in such places. They find it hard to believe that there will be far colder nights than this during our winter season.

I, of course, had to do my usual boasting about this place in the north. I ticked off all the positives – always beginning with the quality of the people, the level of education, the steadiness of the economy and the dependability of the labor force. I told them about the lakes and the land, the parkways and trails, the theaters and museums, the sunsets and the bigness of the harvest moon. My refrain usually plays well with folks from Des Moines or Elk Horn. It didn't resonate with the same richness to folks who live in central Europe, near Paris and Brussels and the Rhine River.

Our visitors found it difficult to visualize that some of the great cities of Canada lay quite far south of us. They were relieved. They have friends in Montreal and worried that they, too, were subjected to utter pain in such weather. Minneapolis lies at 44^o latitude and Toronto is way down there at 43^o and the Canadian city is far more temperate than Americans understand. Naturally, a lot of differences in the severity of our weather compared to Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver have to do with currents. These three Canadian cities all experience much warmer winters than we do here in central Minnesota.

The grand city of Luxembourg lays several degrees further north than Minneapolis; yet that great city never experiences the severe cold that is simply routine for us. When I told our guest this, they virtually imploded with surprise. "Mais, non! Mais, non!"

"Mais oui!" I shouted back at them.

They spent three days here. When they left – I tell you truly – they were in love with Minnesota.

NOTE
The response to my blog about leaving the Earth in such sad condition for my grandchildren was very well received. I've had more than two dozen responses. It's also going to be reprinted in the local paper. Thanks to all of you who made such spectacular and beautiful responses. I'm currently compiling them for a blog in the very near future.

From Sea to Shining Sea

To my blessed, beautiful grandchildren I leave this polluted, nearly ruined Globe!
by Charlie Leck

By my accounting, using figures out of my family history, I have a maximum of 12 years left on this planet Earth. The days go by so quickly. I have no fear, but I do have some deep regrets that require me to plead for forgiveness. I direct these pleas primarily to my grandchildren; for, I am bequeathing to them a nearly ruined, heavily polluted planet. What is my role in this sinfulness? Oh my, my sins are legion!

First off, and most sadly, I have been indifferent and incurious about this terrible injustice that has been committed before my very eyes. The Great Creator presented us with a masterful, but complex, spinning globe on which we would be able to live on-and-on if we would but take great care of the gift. Instead of caring for this planet of such beauty, we have abused it. Our abuse is motivated by our greed – our absolutely feverish desire to live lavishly in our own time even though our lifestyle would leave unimaginable complications for you, my dear grandchildren.

I could not raise my voice in protest during my life time because the problem seemed so huge and so complex and my voice so small and insignificant. I allowed greedy, foolish and hopelessly ignorant corporations and their political patsies to establish the environmental rules and standards. Their message to us seemed so marvelous: "Buy more comfort, more pleasure and more sensory satisfaction!" So, I did!

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew all this lavish pleasure and comfort was coming at a price; however, if I could just keep this information tucked way back there, I could safely ignore it. Oh, don't get me wrong, I claimed to be an environmentalist and I boasted of my love for the planet. Ten years ago I even began recycling in earnest and with fervor. I purchased cloth grocery bags and took them to market with me each time I shopped. I began using more environmentally friendly detergents. I knew I wasn't really doing enough, but these little concessions enabled me to fool myself into thinking I was protecting your world and your futures.

How could I ever have an impact on giant corporations and on the industrial nations? I was so wise that I knew such a notion was foolish! I simply sat back, fully aware that my own nation was the most significant offender of Mother Earth's environmental health. I preferred to think that a large number of babbling politicians, hoards of corporate executives, and dozens of talking heads in the media, knew more than distinguished, highly educated scientists all over the world. These extraordinary scientists were telling us very clearly that we were ruining the only place in the Universe that we might call home, our planet Earth. They said we were obliterating this protective shield that the Great Creator had put in place for us. Without this sheath of defense, they say, we are doomed. The scientists also told us that we were ruining the air we breathe and the water we drink. Corporate leaders assured us there were solutions.

I preferred to believe a pitiful talking head, who claimed to know better than the scientists. In the year 2,000, we elected a President of our nation who also believed the talking head. Our President made it clear that he thought the distinguished scientists were crying wolf. If we listened to them, he told us, we would ruin our economy and many of our great corporations would be annoyed and discomforted.

Oil was both the magic word and the seductive elixir in my life. I had to have it. My neighbors and friends and associates had big, luxurious and lavish automobiles and I needed to have one (or two) as well. Others had big homes, with many rooms and large unused spaces, that required lots of heat in the winter and lots of cooling in the summer, and I had to have one, too. When I ran the numbers that the scientists supplied, I could see that this black energy source was not inexhaustible; yet, it would have been so disruptive to me if I lived smaller and drove smaller. I wanted greener grass surrounding my home. I wanted the giant corporations with whom I had invested to make more – gloriously more – profits!

And, all the time, the seas and skies surrounding me were changing. Yet, I was assured by the talking head and the President, that the changes were really insignificant – that they were just part of a natural cycle. No one told me that, in the next millennium, most of beautiful Manhattan would be under water. Perhaps I heard someone whisper it faintly; however, I would not be alive in the next millennium. Nor will you my lovely grandchildren. Yet, in your life time you will see extraordinary declines in the health of your world. You will be subjected to great discomforts as a result of my wastefulness, greed and ignorance. When you are my age and have grandchildren of your own, if we keep living as lavishly as we do today, this planet will have become very unstable. Many people will starve. Many will be left without homes. These will be people in nations that do not have the power or wherewithal to protect their citizens. Our nation, if it continues on as it is, will be that nation most responsible for creating these complex problems for our planet.

It is so easy to look away and not see or hear the truth. I have been guilty of that great sin. How hopeful I am that your generation will become the friendliest one that Earth has ever known. How I hope you will take this gift from the Great Creator into your caring hands and nurse it tenderly back to health. It is almost too late, yet not quite. Should you be as uncaring and as ignorant as I, the planet is lost!

Take Note!
More than half the states in the U.S. have agreed to make substantial cuts in the production of greenhouse gases. Many of them have also pledged to produce as much as one-fourth of their electricity from renewable energy resources within their own state. Currently there are bills in Congress that would call for a 50 percent reduction in the use of oil in America over the next 25 years and greatly increase the fuel-efficiency of automobiles. You'll be shocked to learn that the American Petroleum Institute (API) is opposed to the legislation. More shocking yet, the President threatens to veto any such legislation. Both the President and API claim it will hurt the economy and cost Americans lots of jobs. To counter that, however, the Nanoveritas Group (based in Minnesota) says that this legislation would present "a huge opportunity, not an economic burden." While our President is opposing such important legislation, many in the oil industry (Conoco Phillips and Total SA) are admitting that they will be unable to meet global demand over the next 25 years.

Remember, our single nation consumes about one-fourth of the world's oil supply. We import two-thirds of that. Now oil demand is beginning to grow in both China and India in concert with economic growth in those two huge nations.

The economic opportunities to develop other means of supplying fuels to our automobiles and furnaces are extraordinary. The President ought to be encouraging these opportunities rather than avoiding them; but, as we know, this President has a difficult time handling simple logic.

Tell your Senators and your Congressional Representative to support the legislation to reduce greenhouse gases and the legislation that will demand our automobiles be more fuel efficient. Do it for your grandchildren.

Bumper Sticker

One finds truth in the strangest places!
by Charlie Leck

I was impatient a few days ago while I was out driving in a nasty snow storm. I needed to get a lot done and it was beginning to snow. I thought about forgetting it all and just heading home. My wife was traveling in England and I was a bachelor and no one would know I hadn't completed my errands. However, the "weather terrorists," as one local radio personality calls them, were frightening all of us about what it might be like the next day – snowed in, trapped within our homes without enough food and water to survive the storm.

I decided to hit the one or two more shops I needed to get to and then head home with a clear conscience.

A car in front of me was having trouble on a small incline. A fellow got out from behind the steering wheel and an attractive young girl slid behind it. He tried giving the car a push up the little hillock. No luck! I got out and gave him a hand. We got the car rolling and then it suddenly took off and the girl was out of her depth. The car was shooting forward and she hit the brake and it slid sideways and down a little bank. It sank hopelessly into the snow and I knew the youngsters had a problem on their hands.

I slid down the bank with the young man, to make sure his girlfriend was okay. She was. We gave one hopeless effort to push the car up the bank. No way! It was solidly lodged in the slushy snow. Just as I was giving up and walking away from the little car, I noticed the bumper sticker.

"God is too big for any one religion!"

Jesus, I liked that. I'm not being profane, Lord. I'm talking to you. How about it, Jesus? I think you'd like it too. It blasts out the truth at us. It says what so many of us need to hear. God really is too big for any one religion. God is too big for a dozen religions! God is too big for us to comprehend. God is too big for our little minds.

My favorite hymn when I was growing up was "How Great Thou Art!" As I looked down at the bumper sticker, I could hear Mahalia Jackson singing the lyrics to the incredible hymn.

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

Let me tell you this: God is too big for any one religion!

He Died Outdoors with his Eye on the Trail Ahead

America's Most Important Contemporary Writer
by Charlie Leck

I going to say something outlandish: Garrison Keillor is the finest writer in America today! He says more things of importance in his writing than any other person in the nation. He says it with humor. He says it with bite.

Here's the great thing about Keillor. He deals with truly prophetic and vital issues; yet, he's got a broad, wonderful sense of humor. Keillor is our generation's Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Updike and Vonnegut.

If you don't regularly read Keillor's weekly columns, you're missing out on a treasure. If you don't read his books, you're missing a treat. This is from his column distributed by Tribune Media Services (unfortunately, it doesn't appear anywhere on the Internet).

"I am descended from a man named David Powell who was restless all through the 19^th century and though a farmer, he moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio, then Indiana, then Illinois, then Iowa, then Missouri, and in one last thrust forward, he rode into Oklahoma in the great land rush and got 20 miles, felt ill, got off his horse, sat down under a tree, and died outdoors with his eye on the trail ahead. A good death."

Keillor is a very good entertainer. His radio shows and his stage appearances are really very good. His writing is excellent – beautifully done and insightful. Read Garrison Keillor.

A Lucky Man

Being loved completely is an unbelievable gift!
by Charlie Leck

I'm preparing a review of Richard Russo's wonderful and surprising book, Bridge of Sighs, and have this wonderful quotation in my notes that comes back to mind regularly. It seems as if Russo wrote the words for me.

"When someone knows your deepest self and still loves you, are you not a lucky man? Having spent much of the last month or so dwelling on the past, I'm particularly pleased to consider that there's someone who knows me so well and yet doesn't regret a lifetime spent in my company…"

I am indeed a lucky man; for my wife loves me without reservation, even though she knows the inner, secret and not so pretty me. I wonder if I ever tell her how grateful I am for that love. I don't think I do. I express my love for her often. Sometimes I do it romantically. However, I don't think I have ever just simply thanked her for loving me so completely.

If you are embarrassed at this point, stop reading; for it will get even more personal as I go on!

A number of years ago, as an anniversary gift, I combined a couple of photos from our honeymoon with a poem I wrote for her. She keeps it hanging in a private place where she can read it regularly but not where others might be embarrassed by it. It doesn't embarrass me, so I'm proud to reproduce it for you here.

I love you more now than then
When fire and adventure lured us from a lulling
And the heat and dangers of it
Are what we built upon.
Now you are more beautiful to touch and watch
In the grayness of a dull morning than then
When we woke with the blue seas of gods and goddesses
Beneath our very window.
I love you more now than then
When I thought I could not love you more.
Now I love you for what you are
And not what I thought you might be.

That was written approximately ten years ago. In fact, I love her even more today.

Sometimes, soundly sleeping in bed at night, she'll stretch a leg over and touch my calf with her toes. No big deal, right? Wrong! A sense of peacefulness such as I cannot describe comes over me and every worry and trouble that I might have burdening my mind simply slides away.

She is in London as I write this. I talked to her just moments ago and her voice, even through the cell phone and from thousands of miles away, reminded me of just how awfully fortunate I am to be her life's partner. I am indeed a lucky man; for she knows my deepest self and still loves me. It is something of a troubling time for her and I wish I could be with her, to hold her.

Random Thoughts on a Snowy Day

This is why we live in Minnesota
by Charlie Leck

There is a heavy snow falling here in central Minnesota. It is a glorious, peaceful and quiet day. I am sitting in my cozy, loft study. It looks out and over acres and acres of thick trees of every sort. There is a very private walk-out, outdoor deck to the east of my study and another, larger one to the west. We call one of them the morning deck and the other the afternoon deck. I can sit here at my desk and watch the snow accumulating on them. I will need to do some heavy-duty shoveling in a little while. I know about the warnings given folks my age about shoveling snow. I'll be cautious and take plenty of rest periods.

We love this kind of day. This is why we live in Minnesota. We gave only fleeting thought to finding a winter place in the south. We examined several parts of Florida, the Carolinas and Arizona. It is fortunate that my wife and I feel so remarkably the same way on this question. We simply don't like the south. After a few days in any of these states I mentioned and we begin to feel separated from our roots. We love snowy days like this. My dear wife is in England right now and she is missing this wondrous sight. She would be out in it if she were here. She knows how to dress for our kind of weather and she bundles up and gets out to enjoy Minnesota's winters. She loves the cleanness and crispness of the air.

I find my enjoyment here in my study. I build a fire and have some good books at hand. I'll spend the day reading and writing and take a break only to do some shoveling before darkness settles over the snow. The farmer who works for us has the big tractor all rigged up with the giant snowblower and he'll do the long driveway to the house before the daylight departs. When nighttime has settled over this lovely part of Mother Earth, I'll allow a little scotch to spill over a glassful of ice and I'll sit and sip before the fire with my book, and wait for hunger to make me rise.

Alone tonight, I'll dine before the TV and watch the Missouri – Oklahoma football game. Life doesn't get much better than this.

The morning light will reveal just how severe the storm has been. I imagine there will be more shoveling and plowing. Again, I'll build some fires and enjoy every moment of being snowed-in here in this peaceful, quiet place. I'll have quiet hours to read through those parts of the Sunday New York Times that I enjoy so much.

The whole world should know such peacefulness and such stillness of heart.

The Confusing World of Digital Photography

Getting better snapshots!
by Charlie Leck

Today's blog is about digital photography
in answer to questions from my readers.
If you're not interested in the subject,
come back on Monday for my next blog
about true political conservatism. On
Wednesday, the 5^th, I'll post a blog reviewing
Richard Russo's novel, The Bridge of Sighs.

Several comments came in about my blog on 7 November – 4 tips for digital photographers. Several of you asked questions that show you're still confused about how to process your own photographs. Most of the problems appear to revolve around proper sizing and cropping. It's true that most camera manuals don't give adequate information about this subject. However, you should be able to find tips and instructions in your image processing software (PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements or the software included by your camera manufacturer). Nevertheless, let me give you a few bits of information and a few quick tips on digital image size.

I'm a member of the National Association of PhotoShop Users. Though I've given you a link to the association's web site here, it is a membership organization and it is difficult to find answers to specific questions without being a member. Naturally, however, you can shop on their web site! If you want to hone your skills with your camera, the founder of this association has a marvelous book on the market that can be very helpful: The Digital Photograph Book by Scott Kelby. It will take you through everything you need to know, in simple steps and simple language, about improving your digital photography. However, it is not going to explain a lot of the gobbly-gook a lot of you get confused about. For that, Photo.Net has an excellent beginner's guide to digital photography. It's sitting there on the web and it's totally free. I recommend it. They take you through all the basics about pixel sizes and pixel counts. They cover a lot more, too: colors, file naming, memory and processing.

To get you started, however, and to answer the questions sent by a few reads, I'll outline some basics for you right here.

KEEP IT SIMPLE
If you are using just a simple digital camera and your goal is to obtain quality snapshots, keep it very simple. Shoot in the JPEG mode. Your camera will give you several choices. If you take your memory card or stick from the camera to your local drug store, the little machine sitting there will do all the processing and spit out your photos on the spot. You will probably be happy with the results; however, the machine has made a number of decisions about the photo and processed it according to its own will and not yours. For instance, if you've asked for 4x6 prints, the machine probably has to do some cropping because your photo format is really 4.5x6. Therefore it lops off a half inch and usually evenly divides that between the top and bottom of the photo or from each of its two sides. That may end up giving you something you did not want.
This is why it's best to get to know your image processing software – whichever one you received with your camera or go out and buy PhotoShop's inexpensive ELEMENTS program. When you take a photograph and then put it up on your computer, that's when the fun starts.

Here's a lovely snapshot a friend recently took on a trip to France, out at Monet's Garden in Giverny. It shows how the photo might have been process in a drugstore machine and how it should have been correctly cropped.

[BLOGGER.COM WILL NOT SHOW THE SNAPSHOTS.]

This friend had over 250 remarkable snapshots. I went through all of them in just a couple of hours and set up the proper cropping and sizing boundaries. Then printing became very automated and easy.

As taken by the camera, the photos were approximately 17 inches by 13 inches at a very low 180 pixels per inch resolution; however, when we reduced the size to 6x4 or 5x7 the resolution rose considerably into very acceptable ranges. A resolution of 300 pixels per inch is very good for printing snapshots. For more artistic and professional results you will want to get resolution up to 400 or even 500. We printed my friend's snapshots in 4x6 size and 500 resolution. The results were remarkably good.

WATCHING THE MARGINS OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPH
If you camera ends up producing images at 4.5x6 instead of 4x6, which most non-professional cameras do, you have to watch out how you shoot. Leave a little room on the long sides of your photographs so there is room for cropping. If you camera can be set for actually 4x6 or 5x7 shooting, by all means, set it that way. Most cameras cannot be set in such a manner. If you do that, then you won't have to worry about just sticking your card in the machine at the drug store because it won't be cropping away anything important.

TAKE THE TIME TO SET UP YOUR OWN PHOTOGRAPHS
It will take much less time than you think to learn how to use an image processing program. It will even turn out to be fun for you. You'll be able to quickly get your photographs to look just the way you want. You'll also be able quickly correct problems like red-eye and other little problems that sometimes pop up. PhotoShop's program for home users, ELEMENTS, is a spectacular program and you should have it on your computer if you take a large amount of digital photographs.

DIGITAL OPENS A WHOLE NEW WORLD, BUT DON'T OVER-DO IT
One of the wonderful things about digital photography is that the cards that record the photos can come in very large sizes, allowing you to take hundreds and hundreds of photographs. Therefore, you can snap many shots of a single subject in an attempt to get one really excellent one. You'll need to be disciplined, however, and willingly delete those that don't match up to what you really want. With a digital camera, you can delete as you go along. Do it! If you put the card in your computer's card reader with all those photographs still on it, you're creating an organizational work-flow nightmare for yourself.

GET OUT AND EXPERIMENT
If you have a digital camera and you're still afraid of it, get out and experiment. Take photographs of everything around your house. Get shots of the dog and the wood pile out back. Then put your card in the computer and play with your software. It certainly beats watching the blow-hard, Lou Dobbs. As a matter of fact, it beats virtually everything on TV.

SOME HELPFUL LINKS
Here are some helpful places to go on the Internet:

•Short Courses, an on-line library about digital photography, presents this on-line book about Displaying and Sharing Your Digital Photographs and another about Using Your Digital Camera. Both of these are worth reading.

•Internet Brothers also has a very brief and simple page on
Digital Photography

•How Stuff Works has a wonderful section on Digital Cameras and Photography, which explains in detail a lot of what I laid out above.

•Derrick Story presents the Top Ten Digital Photography Tips and I found these very helpful. You may want to take a look.

•Good, old Wikipedia has two thorough entries that you may find very helpful. One is on Digital Photography and the other is on the Digital Camera.

Though I use the massive Photoshop Suite (CS3) by Adobe, that company's inexpensive program, Photoshop Elements, is as powerful as almost anyone would want or need. Here's a review of Elements by MacWorld that will probably convince you to get it.

Don't be afraid of your digital camera. Get to know it better. Email me samples of your best stuff. I'd love to see what you're doing. The Short Course I recommended above (Displaying and Sharing Your Digital Photographs) will explain the most efficient way to email photos.