It was 49 degrees this morning. When will it ever warm up? Probably not until we head south again. Then it will be too Hot! It is so much harder than I thought it would be to be Goldilocks. So, what do the tough do when the going gets tough? They go out to eat! Early Sunday morning breakfast at Frank’s Place on Portage. Afterwards we toured the locks and saw the student drivers of the State of Michigan locking through. Such care was taken with this training vessel. All of the other boats that we have seen in the locks, have scraped hulls. Not this boat. I wonder what grade the first scratch earns that unlucky cadet?

Anne likes to play the license plate game when we travel. The other day, we were walking into Meijer’s across their parking lot. Always, a target rich environment. We were discussing her current situation. She had just recently gotten Hawaii, always a hard one, but seldom the last one. With a premonitory feeling, I asked if she had Alaska too. No? Wait for it. Because around the next pickup there it was, like magic. A few steps more towards the door and I asked, “Who provides for ya babe?” She thought that I was referencing our recent financial consultation, but I had to correct her, “No, Alaska!” It is good to know that on occasion I can still practice the old magic. She asked me then to summon Wyoming, but I was out of spell points.

The Practice Effect is a David Brin Sci-fi novel about physicist Dennis Nuel, who travels to an alternate universe where the laws of physics are different, allowing for “practical magic” where tools improve with use that practice makes perfect. Hailed as a wizard, Nuel must fight a warlord, all while trying to understand this world where the more you use something, the better it becomes.

I cast Magic Missile! On what? You don’t see anything. I cast Magic Missile on the darkness.