Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to a determinedly rainy Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac by way of Roseau. Today is September 26th. It's not often I get my butt beyond my geographic comfort zone on a Saturday morning to explore other hamlets of Wannaskaland, but a text last night, letting me know I'd forgotten my exercise bands in a friend's bag (she lives in Roseau), spurred me to make the trek. The morning kicked off with stepping on the scale. After a week of super healthy eating, yoga, a sauna, nature walks, and other meditative practices layered in between intense sessions devoted to deep dives in creating a business plan in one week, I was certain that all that effort would result in at least a couple pounds dropped. No such luck. Said friend with my exercise bands reported a similar result when she stepped on her scale. This was followed by feeding the cats. Even though they have food aplenty in the "shack in the back" aka the Cat House (the renovated shed meant t...

     Large Language Models (LLM) are a type of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that has been trained to write sentences, paragraphs and essays. To be able to do such an amazing thing, LLMs study trillions of words in all kinds of books, magazines, encyclopedias,... everything it can get its hands on, to understand how language works.    The value of AI is that I can ask it anything and it will give me an answer. It never says "I don't know." I wondered if LLMs had watched TV shows during its LLM training, so I asked it to summarize the famous "Soup Nazi" episode on the old Seinfeld show. AI gave me a short summary of the episode then referred me to Wikipedia for the complete plot. So the LLM had trained on Wikipedia but did not watch the show itself. The LLM probably didn't have time to waste on TV.    The premise of  Seinfeld is that it's about nothing, which is not really true. On the other hand the book Finnegans Wake  by James Joyce is a...

   Back in early July, I was driving my old pickup west on Roseau County Highway 11 toward Roseau when I met an oncoming commercial vehicle in the eastbound lane and caught a rock with my windshield, creating a small one-inch diameter chip on the passenger side.      It wasn't like the windshield was pristine. I figured it was the original one that had been in the 33-year old pickup forever. There already was a short crescent-shaped crack along its right side when I bought it. It didn't affect my line of sight. My wife saw it and insisted I order a new one before it cracked more.    But, as with most things that don't seem as important to me as it does to her, I didn't act immediately; my way of thinking was that I don't drive the truck often enough to warrant the expense. We didn't have glass coverage on it anyway -- or any of our vehicles; sharing the idea more or less, that if we definitely needed a windshield, why of course we'd buy one -- and this...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 23, 2026, the thirty-eighth Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of fall, the fourth Wednesday of September, and the two-hundred sixty-sixth day of the year, with ninety-nine days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for September 23, 2026 apples! /AP-(ə)l/ n., a round, edible fruit with firm white flesh and red, yellow, or green skin, grown on trees of the rose family, Malus . The word apple is derived from Old English æppel , meaning "fruit", not specifically the apple. That in turn is descended from the Proto-Germanic noun aplaz , descended in turn from Proto-Indo-European h₂é-bōl . As late as the 17th century, the word also functioned as a generic term for all fruit including nuts; one example is the pineapple, the swollen accessory fruit outside of the cashew nut known as the "cashew apple", another is a 14th-century Middle English expression appel of paradis , meaning a banana. The Anni...

According to Fordes magazine, none of these events can be proven or unproven.  They can only be enjoyed.   1783 — The Continental Congress briefly considers adopting the turkey as the national bird. A noble idea, truly — nothing says “global superpower” like a bird that drowns in the rain because it looks up too long. 1841 — The first public library west of the Mississippi opens in a one‑room schoolhouse. This immediately becomes the quietest place in town because nobody wants to admit they can’t read. Sign was taken down due to locals thinking it was voodoo 1889 — A Kansas railway introduces the “luxury caboose,” complete with velvet seats and a tiny chandelier. Because nothing screams elegance like dangling glassware in a vehicle famous for violently shaking. 1912 — A French artist unveils the world’s first glow‑in‑the‑dark painting. Critics call it “revolutionary,” mostly because they can finally complain about art even after the lights go out. 1937 — A radio station i...

  I love the fact that before the invention of matches in the mid 19th century, among pilgrims there was a practice called fire keeping. In the morning, they would collect hot coals, place the live embers into a metal container or fire pot, pack them with ash for safe keeping, and carry them to kindle their evening flame. The Franciscan, Richard Rohr, knew something of this when he wrote that we open most to our truest selves by letting loving people rub off on us.  Before I opened my eyes this morning, the smell of lavender wafted up from my pillow. My sister grows it for fun, keeps a tray of sachets handy, and sent me off with two of them the other day on my way out her door.  When my sister-in-law came over the other night for dinner, before I could say hello, I was taken by the bouquet of pink, frilly edged flowers she held up to her chin then gave me along with her smile. A few days later, she led me into her yummy smelling kitchen and lifted a teatowel from two warm...