A Walk Around Town

 I took a little walk around Batavia's Riverwalk today. I brought my camera too. 



Batavia's Depot Museum


This guy was keeping an eye on me, but didn't fly away as I got closer for this picture.

The Depot Pond, with the Fox River in the distance beyond the gazebo. 

The Batavia dam, which will be removed soon. As you can see the river is low. We're about 7" or so below normal in rainfall this summer. 

A little bee on a flower. My camera does not have a zoom, so I had to get quite close for this one, which probably made it a better picture.









Popular posts from this blog

Think the Government is Ready for the Next Pandemic?

Image
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis My rating: 4 of 5 stars I thought this book was very well written. Like any good story, I found it difficult to put down. It was very frustrating to see yet another venerable institution, the CDC, laid bare. If you a fan of big government (though some elements of the private for-profit sector do not fare well in this story either) you're going to be saddened to see how dysfunctional so many layers of government, not just federal, can be. "Political cover" is often more important than public health. Political appointees are selected for reason other than competence, and these appointees cannot be made to look bad, even though they are useless and not contributing to the solution. The sheer cowardice of our political class is depressing. Fortunately, there are some very smart people in the world who can get the right things done View all my reviews
Read more

Book Review: The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson

Image
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this book. We tend to glorify the big names: Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg -- but this book includes the people that worked with them and that sometimes provided more value! I liked the parts stressing how the computer should augment human abilities rather than replace humans. I joined the bandwagon in the early 80s and thought the computer would unleash a creative storm, and ultimately make us smarter. I was only partly right. The book was written in 2014, so it's a bit dated in one respect. He thought social media would connect people, create community. He was right to an extent of course, but I think he didn't foresee how much our data would be used to market to us, to manipulate us, and in a political / cultural sense -- separate us. I find it unfortunate that the original idea of computing and the internet (discussed nicely in ...
Read more

Book Review: The Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee

Image
The Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee My rating: 4 of 5 stars A friend recommended I read this book. At first I was apprehensive. I'm into boats, but really big ones - not canoes! I previously read McPhee's Looking for a Ship and really liked it. So, of course, I would give this book a chance. I'm glad I did. McPhee tells us about Henri Vaillancourt, builder of birch bark canoes, who lives near where I lived for a short time in New Hampshire (wish I had known he was so close when I lived there!). McPhee describes a vision of craftsmanship that is so appealing in today's time. Vaillancourt uses no power tools, uses traditional materials (no nails, no rivets) and takes the time to do it right. In today's high speed world, that is quite refreshing. As in the previous McPhee book I read, McPhee excels at describing a journey. He takes a canoe trip in northern Maine with Vaillancourt and others and it's a great story all by itself! Thanks to R.G. Ziemer (...
Read more