Hello All: I’m finishing up a conference in San Diego. I have about an hour before I leave for the airport, so I thought I’d do a short blog post. The conference was for deans and associate deans. I met a lot of interesting people. I’m still new in my role as associate dean so I still mostly think of myself as a history professor. People here interact with me as associate dean, and some of them seem to be under the false assumption that I have experience and know what I’m talking about. I was in a case study session Thursday where a group of us talked about difficult personnel cases. The cases were real and had been submitted by conference participants for everyone to discuss. Some of them were crazy! It was weird participating in those discussions when I have very little experience actually handling such cases. Nobody knows that though so I spoke with confidence and at least some people agreed with me. I’m not sure that confidence + ignorance is the best combination, but that’s all I had.

Yesterday, I did a training session on how to do media interviews. It was run by a panel of people who were in journalism or communications. One of the women works for iHeart Radio. That was the most interesting session I attended. They had some really good tips about how to do interviews and interact with the press. I volunteered to do a mock interview. It was a little stressful. The group was small, so that made things easier, but I only had about a minute to come up with something to talk about, develop 3 main points and a call to action. Then, they called me up on the podium to present my information, take questions from journalists, and get a critique from the team. I was not amazing and I’m not expecting any calls from public relations firms, but it was a good experience. The iHeart Radio lady told me not to wear orange and tan (which I was wearing) because it washes me out. It was an outfit I really like, so that’s unfortunate.

I didn’t get to see a lot of San Diego because the conference takes up most of the time, but we are staying in a nice hotel right on the water in a pretty area. There is a beautiful walkway by the water that takes you from the hotel to some restaurants and little shops. Tuesday night, my colleagues and I ate at a very expensive seafood restaurant on a terrace overlooking the ocean. There was a seal in the water. There’s also a naval base right here so military ships and aircraft come in all the time. We ate right beside the USS Midway, which I think is an aircraft carrier. It’s massive! I’ll post pictures below.

Last night, we ate at an expensive taco place. The tacos were okay, but the we ordered a mango cake that was delicious! It was shaped like a mango. I have a picture of that below too. Everything here is super expensive. I ordered a bag of pretzels and a lemonade Thursday night and it cost $22. Somebody has money though because the dock if full of huge yachts. It’s incredible! I don’t know who all these people are who can afford to live in California and have multimillion dollars yachts. Every time I walk outside in the beautiful weather in this lovely location, Nickelback’s song Rockstar runs through my head. Lyrics: My life hasn’t turned out quite the way I want it to be!

The hotel has a pool, which has been awesome! I didn’t have a lot of time during the day to swim, but I was able to swim every evening. The weather is cool here but the pool is heated. The water wasn’t quite as warm as I would like it to be, but it was warm enough to still be fun and some good exercise after a long day of conference presentations. The pool overlooks the harbor so I could swim and watch the sun set over the water. It was super fun!

I leave for the airport in about half an hour. I should be in Cedar Rapids around 9pm tonight with an hour drive home. It will be a long day. Bill was nice enough to watch the dogs while I was gone. They are not easy ones to take care of. He’s at work today so I have a pet sitter coming in to take care of them. Millie does not like people, so I’m not sure how that will go. At least I have a good carpet cleaner. Pictures are below!

The last day of September, Emily and I did a little traveling around Iowa and into Wisconsin. We are experiencing warm temps for late September. Around home it was 93 up by the Mississippi it was 88.

Our first stop was a quick visit to Independence and the area where I work. Nothing too special just to give her reference when I talk about work.

Next up was Elkader. We had lunch at an Algerian restaurant, Schera’s. They also serve Mediterranean and American food. Emily went with falafel a popular middle eastern street food. I had a combo platter of Algerian food. It wasn’t bad.

It was all edible, I was concerned at first about the green stuff but it turned out okay. There was a spinach wrapped in flaky dough, one with chicken and one with beef. There was a different flavor to them but not bad. I probably wouldn’t starve to death if I find myself in Algeria.

After Elkader we made our way to McGregor Iowa. We had to stop a visit the Blue Moon bookstore, they have an interesting selection of books and old fashion flair. There are also cats that you have to be careful not to let out or step on while they nap. We only seen one that was napping.

To make it seem like we did some real traveling, we crossed the big river and visited Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. No trip to Prairie is complete without a stop at Valley Fish and Cheese. There you can get faux fur hats, real turtle shells, novelty canned goods and of course fish and cheese. The have smoked carp, salmon and trout, you can get packages of turtle for soup and a variety of cheese curds. The line was long so we will have to go back for cheese curds another time.

Saint Feriole Island is a favorite stop there for me, the island was important in the fur trade of the 1800’s and there was a battle there in 1814, War of 1812 and in the late 1800’s the railroad came. There are still a number of buildings relevant to the fur trade, a couple of cabins and the Villa Louis. The old depot that is there is currently a restaurant, good for fried blue gill when the bar keep’s husband has caught them and since it is Wisconsin, fried cheese curds. Dousman Hotel is a four story building with a lot of character. It was the old railroad hotel and in the 1930’s was used by Oscar Meyers as a packing plant. It’s currently being restored and the lower level was set up for a wedding dinner.

For those interested in 1800’s they do have the Prairie Villa Rendezvous the third weekend in June. You will see a lot of canvas tents, people dressed in leather and rustic wares for sale. They also have a flea market, knife and hatchet throwing, primitive archery and other activities.

Hopefully everyone had a great summer! With luck we’ll do more day trips next summer there are number of activities and things to see along the Mississippi. We’re looking forward to our next vacation, the Caribbean side of Costa Rica!

Little update on my boat project, it is currently getting white paint turned into blue paint! It would have been a good weekend here to have it, the whole weekend is warm, I think the 93 degrees was a record for September 30th.

Be safe!

Hopefully everyone is doing okay with all this heat and here in Iowa, the humidity!!

I thought I would share my current priority project as it is getting to a point where I’m going to put the finishing touches to it lower on the priority list.

I got this boat a couple years before I met Emily and had it in the water a couple of times. It was in need of a new floor and the original motor was having problems so I switched motors and used it a couple more times. It was in need of tires when I parked it and was thinking I would replace the floor the next year. Well it took about 6.

This was the year, my schedule and money allowed the two things you need to be a boat owner, time and money.

I was assisted in removing the floor and replacing it from My friend Hannah who was my partner when we both worked in Cedar Falls. She is now on Waterloo Fire and I’m working for AMR in Independence.

The removal of the floor revealed that the styrofoam underneath the floor had been saturated with water and was the reason for the worse damage. I was able to use what was left of the floor as a template to get the new floor cut. One corner we had to guesstimate as there wasn’t much left.

New closed cell foam and marine grade plywood coated in two coats of waterproof paint, it was time to work out the seating. I started out thinking I would reuse one of the back to back seats that pull out into a bench and a captain’s seat for the driver. Captain’s seat didn’t work with this boat without some extra work. Maybe one day I will find someone who can make a mount for it or I will build one. I added a little bench to the back that I built for added seating and a little extra storage space.

Next up was the addition of a sun shade. The boat had come with a vinyl top that was short and hot, it had to go. I’mon the fence about the look but it definitely is nice to have out on the water.

I probably should have started with making sure the motor still ran, it did not. But I replaced the starter and solenoid and we were in business, until no water came out of the drain. So a new water pump became a learning experience for myself and the neighbor Jeff who was interested in what I was up to when I dropped the lower end off the motor. He just recently bought himself a boat. He ended up helping me for about 3 hours and his help was very welcome.

I did rebuild the fuel pump and replaced the spark plugs. I think it needs some tuning but I’m currently looking for a mechanic for that, I’m not good with carburetors and this has 2. It does run and has been reliable but, I want to see about a little more power and smoothness from the motor. I think it is running a little rich as well and I wouldn’t mind a little more fuel efficiency. It will use about 10 gallons running it almost wide open for about 2 1/2 hours. My friend Mike from High School and I took it out for a test.

With everything working and reliable we took it out July 26th for a bit of fun on the water. We did some tubing and swimming out at George Wyth State Park on Brinker Lake. During the day, during the week is a wonderful time to be at the lake, not much traffic since most people have Monday through Friday jobs. It did start getting busy when we were getting off the lake.

I changed up the trailer some and rattle canned some paint on it, I am not a painter! But it will help with keeping the rust to a minimum.

Tubing was fun, we did learn that we need a booster ball due to the set up for towing I have. I have one coming and I ordered a Knee board, Emily and I tried that when we went to Jamaica. I’m looking forward to getting some more days in on the lake.

All that is really left is repainting the boat itself and recovering the seats with a matching color. That may be next year…

Stay cool, be safe, drink plenty of water!