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Time for catching up

Forgive me readers. It's been 12 days since my last blog.

Last week, I spent Wednesday and Thursday in beautiful Duluth, Minn. to visit the Duluth News Tribune for some job-related business. The News Tribune and the Belleville News-Democrat are Knight Ridder papers, and I spent time talking with editors and observing the News Tribune's operations. The News Tribune is a good newspaper, and it is seeking ways to become a better paper.

Duluth is a pretty city along the shore of Lake Superior. The leaves were starting to turn, and the temperatures were just right, at least as far as I'm concerned. It seems pretty vibrant for a city of about 83,000 people, and undoubtedly it is because of its importance as a port and tourist city. And, it is hilly!

The big news in Minnesota last week was Northwest Airlines filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That indirectly affected me because Northwest is the only airline serving Duluth.

The flight to Duluth was relatively uneventful except for a pleasant surprise shortly after checking in at St. Louis-Lambert International Airport. I arrived at the gate half-asleep when I heard someone call my name. I looked around, and I saw Laura Buss, who works in the News-Democrat's pre-press department and is married to News-Democrat business writer Will Buss. It turned out Laura, her father and her sister were on the same flight to Minneapolis. While I would be catching a connecting flight to Duluth, they were on their way to Vancouver, British Columbia, for a cruise along the Canadian and Alaskan coasts. Lucky them!

The flight back were more eventful because the impact of Northwest's bankruptcy were starting to kick in. They had to merge two flights into one from Duluth to Minneapolis, which meant I left Duluth earlier than scheduled. The bad news was that I had to wait more than two-and-a-half hours in Minneapolis until the scheduled time for my connecting flight to St. Louis. To top that off, that flight took off 40 minutes late because we had to wait for a another late flight that had passengers heading for St. Louis.

There was no rest for the weary. On Friday and Saturday, I had to plot and map the route for the Belleville Area Bicycling and Eating Society's Ravissant Winery Ride. I found a program that saves me time -- and gas money -- in plotting the route. The Google Map Pedometer is designed for people plotting walking and running routes, but it works well for cycling routes as well. I found the numbers to be pretty accurate, and it really helps when you're developing cue sheets for the ride. My knowledge of QuarkXpress and Photoshop also help, and you can see the results on this PDF file.

Yesterday, I got on my bicycle for the first time since Sept. 11. I rode the Schoolhouse Trail up to Glen Carbon. It's not officially open because an overpass at Illinois Route 162 between Troy and Maryville isn't finished and the trail to lead people through the busy roads near Cottonwood Mall isn't finished. Instead, I turned off the Glen Carbon Heritage Trail and took it all the way to Silver Creek. It will be great when the trail is finished to Marine, and it will be even better when the trail is paved with asphalt. Right now, it is an oil-and-chip surface. Oil-and-chip surfaces can be OK for road bikes if there is enough vehicle traffic to pack it down, but oil-and-chip is not appropriate for bicycle trails because there isn't enough traffic to pack down the rock, making for some hazardous cycling.

I promise to blog more often. For my penance, I will read Emily Priddy's 26.2 for 66 blog and Kristen Foht's Kommentary by Kritter blog.

Roger 0 comments 9:53 AM