This blog is now featured in a blogger “spot” on the Northfield.org sidebar, under “N.org sponsors.” You’ll only see it occasionally there as it rotates through a number of different spots. Thanks to Adam Gurno for including me in this. See the Northfield.org blog and feed aggregator for a complete list of the Northfield blogosphere.

About the picture: yes, the bike helmet never comes off. You can never be too safe.

Another major Northfield web site, Locally Grown Northfield, run by Griff Wigley, alerted me to the Northfield.org update. Thanks, Griff.

This development has prompted me to add to my short list of blogs on the left sidebar. Thanks to those who have done the same for me!

I used to think I might write humor in the manner of heroes of mine such as Evelyn Waugh, Woody Allen, or Garrison Keillor. Well, somewhere along the way I read too many op-ed pieces and too much journalism and got way too serious.

However, Brendon Etter - a Northfield playwright and blogger - hasn’t forgotten how to be funny. See his blog post, If Suburbs Were Named Based on Reality.” My favorite: Dontwalkfield.

See a post I did on Northfield.org for a description of a visit to Northfield by Steve Rusk, chair of the Bike Edina Task Force and founder of Bike Edina. Steve is remarkably dedicated to the cause of cycling, particularly safe cycling. And he also had pointers for me - such as the observation that I sometimes ride too far to the right, including too close to parked cars, creating the possibility of getting doored.

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy. My many activities have included work as president of our small homeowners association, a position I held for a little over a year. Last night at our annual meeting I stepped down as president and, following the tradition of the association, took the role of vice president.

It was a hectic year for the association, and I was ready to pass the presidency to someone else. While we have only nine units, on August 24 of last year we had a nasty storm that rained down baseball-sized hail. (Some parts of Northfield had softball-sized hail.) You can see the proof in the pictures above.

The result was over $80,000 dollars worth of damage. As president I was responsible for managing the repairs. All roofs and gutters were replaced, and there was much repair work done on windows, siding, trim, doors, and more. We were fortunate that we had the able help of American Building Contractors, Inc., a Burnsville, Minnesota, company that specializes in storm damage repair. Their representative, Josh Moe, did a great job handling our claims and interacting with the insurance company.

It was bad luck to get stuck with this situation as president, but I got feedback that I did a good job managing the repairs. There are two accomplishments as president that I’m most proud of: 1.) improvements to gutters and drainage, which has helped solve some water problems in our courtyards, and 2.) improvements in attic insulation and ventilation. We discovered the need for the latter during our roof repairs; the result should be energy savings and reduced carbon emissions for a long time into the future.

You can see that I have a practical side. It’s something that the men in my family share, this appreciation of maintenance and upkeep. And it’s no wonder that I was tapped to be president.

I can only imagine what it must be like to be president of a large association. No, I wouldn’t want that job, thank you very much.

Sen. Tom Neuville, who represents my district in the Minnesota Senate, has posted a number of blog entries indicating that he does not believe that global warming is caused by human activity. These posts mainly contain information from sources that support that view.

A letter to the Northfield News on May 26 by Bob Ewing criticized the views of Sen. Neuville on this issue. It captured my own sentiments regarding the senator’s position quite well: Read the rest of this entry »

This past year our family has been blessed to get to know a visiting scholar at St. Olaf College’s Kierkegaard Library, Prof. Gabriel Merigala of Madras Christian College, as well as his family. (In India he is known as Merigala Gabriel, or simply Gabriel; Indian naming conventions differ from Western ones.) We quickly felt a kinship with Gabriel, his wife Nirmala, and their children Susan and Samuel. That was due in part to my wife’s connections to India (her father was born there), their family’s participation in our church congregation at the United Methodist Church of Northfield, and the fact that we lived near each other.

Gabriel was one of a handful of scholars who reside here each year to study in the Kierkegaard Library, which houses a world-renowned collection of works by and about the Danish theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. (The library is officially known as the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library. The Hongs both taught at St. Olaf and translated Kierkegaard’s works into English.)

During his visit, Gabriel was in demand as a speaker, and I was fortunate to hear him speak forcefully and eloquently on Kierkegaard and Gandhi. I also enjoyed getting to learn more about his scholarship when I edited the book that he is working on, Subjectivity and Religious Truth in the Philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard, which has been accepted for publication by Mercer University Press.

As I read Gabriel’s book I learned a great deal about Kierkegaard, about whom I knew only a little before. I came away with a deeper understanding of Kierkegaard’s concept of the “leap of faith” and his role in the history of philosophy and theology. Faith, according to Kierkegaard, can’t be a product of reason. We can’t use reason to prove the existence of God, for example, or prove that Jesus was both human and divine. Instead we must accept these on the basis of faith alone. Faith exists in the realm of the “absurd” and the paradoxical rather than that of reason, and we must simply believe.

We give thanks for all that we have received from Gabriel and his family and we wish them the blessings and peace of Jesus Christ as they journey home and resume life in India. And we hope to one day meet with them again, whether here or abroad.

Yes, that topic again! Our local paper, the Northfield News, asked me to do a column on green transportation for their first “Living Green” page, and I focused on our newly created city Nonmotorized Transportation Task Force (which met for the first time this past Tuesday, by the way). The page features an article on local business owner Jesse Streitz, who gets all his home electricity from wind and solar. (Streitz, by the way, is a conservative who’s concerned about global warming and is taking action. I’m a customer, and his company newsletter has tips for reducing carbon emissions.)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a link to my column online (the News does not consistently put everything online), so I’m pasting it in here. It has a graphic and some references that aren’t in the published version. I’ve also added some hyperlinks.

A New Northfield Task Force Advocates a Green Approach to Getting Around

by Bill Ostrem

We’ve heard about green building design and even green chemistry, but what about green transportation? It turns out that a New York City nonprofit, Transportation Alternatives, has created a “green transportation hierarchy.” It consists of an upside-down pyramid with pedestrians at the top, bicycles below that, then public transit, and on down to single-occupancy vehicles at the very bottom.

To give you a sense of why the hierarchy is ordered as it is, consider the energy use of different transportation options. To walk one mile, a 150-pound person burns 70 to 100 calories of renewable energy, whereas biking uses 25 to 65 calories. Driving the same distance in a Toyota Prius uses 585 calories, or 2,375 in a Cadillac Escalade sport utility vehicle—both generally using nonrenewable gasoline.[1] Read the rest of this entry »

One of the best local web sites here in Northfield, Minnesota - Locally Grown Northfield, run by Northfield.org founder Griff Wigley - recently featured a long discussion about the best route through Northfield for a developing state multi-use trail, the Mill Towns State Trail. It’s more than most out-of-towners will want to read, but it shows some of the challenges of routing a trail through or near a city, even a small city like Northfield with a population of about 18,000.

See comment 47 (!) for my two cents. I should add that during this current controversy my heart goes out to the Mill Towns Trail volunteers, particularly Peggy Prowe, who have worked so hard to make this trail a reality. I have not been involved in trail route finding, and I only wish for the best possible route.

Note: I’ve been remiss in not including Locally Grown in my blog links. But I promise I’ll get around to it soon!

I’m happy to say that the City of Northfield, Minnesota, has created a nonmotorized transportation task force, which will exist for one year. The city council approved the resolution creating the task force (2007-051) on Monday, May 7, and the Park and Recreation Advisory Board approved 10 members the next evening. To see the text of the resolution, go to the city council packet for May 7, and see pages 23 and 24.

The task force members include myself, Bruce Anderson, Anne Bretts, Kirsten Cahoon, Dan Kust, Neil Lutsky, Randy Perkins, John Stull, Richard Vanasek, and Peter Waskiw. While some members identify themselves simply as interested citizens, others represent groups and organizations such as RENew Northfield, Northfield Public Schools, Northfield Rotary, the Park Board, St. Olaf College, Carleton College, and the Mill Towns State Trail. One interested citizen is an employee of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, another works for northfield.org, and one, John Stull, is a former mayor of Northfield. We do not as yet have members from neighboring communities such as Dundas and Bridgewater, though we hope that will change.

Here are the mission and goals of the task force, quoted from the resolution: Read the rest of this entry »

On March 14 I wrote about my attempt to persuade our daughter’s preschool to change its snack menu. To date, there has been no change. I will cross my fingers, remain hopeful, and hope others will suggest changes as well.