Another wonderful beer garden

I love commuting to work on a bike. It’s about 6 miles between the house and work, and the possible routes are numerous:

• Humboldt Avenue: the most direct route that takes you past Colectivo Coffee’s main roasting facility, which means the aroma of coffee roasting; then you ride past Lakefront Brewery, which means the aroma of beer brewing.
• Milwaukee River Trail: takes you on some tame trails that run along the edge of the Milwaukee River, right through the heart of Milwaukee.
• Oak Leaf Trail: a dedicated bike path that begins a few blocks from the house and is only a few blocks from work.

The Oak Leaf Trail route goes by the Hubbard Park Beer Garden. It’s a temptation to stop in for a mug of brew (on the way home from work); it’s also an opportunity to look out over the river and assess the day’s events–to pause and reflect on the work life, on the domestic life, and on the necessary separation between the two.

Rent the mug and buy the beer.

Smart to have the beer garden alongside a bike path.

Solving clouds

Q: How do you have a realization of scale?

A: You stare at clouds.

It’s finally warm enough in Wisconsin to sit in the back yard in the Adirondack chair and stare up at the sky, for no other reason than pondering the slow motion of clouds.

Yes, it’s nice to have realizations of scale, but you can’t be too intentional about having them. There’s a process involved, a methodology of sorts:

1. You need a problem to solve
2. you need to research a solution to the problem, but
3. you also need clouds and an Adirondack chair.

Sit in the chair, look up at the sky, try to match the pace of the clouds floating by, and let your mind slow down enough that it can connect the pieces of the solution to your problem. Do that enough, and you soon have few problems to solve.

Milwaukee to Madison Ride Report, Part III

The bike paths between Milwaukee to Madison are a blend of pavement and crushed shale. From Milwaukee to Dousman, it’s paved—and then it switches to a softer surface, a bit too soft given the wet weather we’ve recently experienced in the upper Midwest. But with the crushed shale comes the splendor of rural Wisconsin, farmland at the cusp of spring, buds turning to leaves, wildflowers pushing their way up through the shoulder of the bike path.

A one day bike ride through this landscape—a ride that started  at my house in urban Milwaukee and ended in the state’s capital.

Near Cotton Grove, Wisconsin.

Walking Rush

As a Humanities professor who teaches at a school of engineering, I often talk to students about the need to engage in reflective thought. It’s a critical part of the learning process—to connect the information that is new (short-term memory) to information that is not so new (long-term memory). The brain is designed to make these connections, but we often interfere with the process by overstimulating ourselves. If we’re always on our digital devices, and if don’t take the opportunity once in a while to stare out the window to reflect, then “learning” doesn’t take place to the same degree.

That’s why I love having Rush in my life. Rush is a year old Australian Shephard mix we rescued last October. Our last dog, Lucy, had passed away the month before, and I missed having a dog. It’s really a lifestyle: if you have a dog, then you have to feed it, play with it, and most important, take it for long walks. Having Rush means that, two or three times a day, I need to leash up his harness and take him out into the neighborhood. It’s good exercise for us both; it’s a chance to simply go for a nice long walk. Without Rush, I doubt I’d walk that much, and going for walks, on a consistent, scheduled basis, provides ample opportunity to engage in reflective thought process.

It’s also an opportunity to get back into nature. The photos in this post were taken at Lapham Peak, a state park outside of Delafield, Wisconsin. It’s a bit of a drive to get there, but it’s worth it to watch Rush run off leash in the woods. It’s also worth it to feel my brain shift into reflective mode as we walk the paths through the woods.

I’ll encourage my students to get a dog when they graduate, just so they have the opportunity to take it outside several times a day. We need to get outside, and having a friend that needs it too is a great impetus for reflection.