Norm Benson

Brasil: Dia Sete – Búzios

Terça-Feira, 11 Março 2008 We slept like bricks until 1:30 AM when two, maybe three, roosters crowed for while (maybe an hour) and then shut their beaks until dawn. I’ve been fighting a cold and a sore throat for a week so Mary wandered out into town in search of comidas for café de manha.Continue reading “Brasil: Dia Sete – Búzios”

Brasil: Dia Seis – Brasilia to Búzios

I’m sitting on our balcony overlooking the Atlantic listening to Maria Rita on the CD player as I write this recap. I’m fighting a head cold that has dogged me since leaving the US but otherwise, I feel great. Below is a picture of Rio de Janeiro. Segunda-Feira, 10 Março 2008 We got up beforeContinue reading “Brasil: Dia Seis – Brasilia to Búzios”

Brasil: Dia 5 – The Day after the Wedding

Domingo, 9 Março 2008 Steroid-fueled touristas. Antonio drives fast (even for a Brazilian). We visited several sites including but not limited to: the JK bridge (pictured), the Presidential Palace, and Catetinho. Catetinho is the Presidential residence for JK’s use while he was overseeing the 3-year construction project of Brasilia. It is muito rustico—just a placeContinue reading “Brasil: Dia 5 – The Day after the Wedding”

Brasil Day 4 – Day of the Wedding

Sabado 8 Março 2008 The wedding was scheduled for 7:30 p.m., so we had the day free to rest and relax, or so we thought. Sergio’s father, Antonio, insisted (the former commander of the security force to protect the embassy sector can be quite persuasive) on taking us to the same sights as the dayContinue reading “Brasil Day 4 – Day of the Wedding”

Brasil Day 3 – Brasilia

Quinta-Feira 7 Março 2008 Mary and I had the apartamento to ourselves for the first night and awoke feeling pretty darned good. We showered and went off in search of café de manha (breakfast) and a banco or a reliable ATM. We took the elevator down from the 12th floor and immediately became disoriented inContinue reading “Brasil Day 3 – Brasilia”

Brazil (part um) SFO to Brasilia

WWSWAD (What would Southwest Airlines do?) Wednesday March 4, 2008 I have grown used to how Southwest Airlines runs its operation. Conditioned like a gerbil to their needs. Needless to say, when I fly with someone else I compare the experience to SWA. I could not fly on SWA to Brazil. They don’t go there,Continue reading “Brazil (part um) SFO to Brasilia”

Two Second Drill

This last Sunday, one statement on a segment of CBS Sunday Morning titled, The Name Game caught me up short. Mostly Charles Osgood looked “at famous book titles, including the stories behind “Catch-22” with legendary editor Robert Gottlieb and “Winnie The Pooh” with British columnist Gary Dexter.” He talked about the naming of famous booksContinue reading “Two Second Drill”

The Chance of a Lifetime

It was the chance of a lifetime: going into the backcountry to search for section corners and quarter-section corners set by surveyors one-hundred and one years before. The fly-in-the-ointment was that the surveyors probably had done their work while perched on a barstool in 1882. Someone knew how to nurse a beer. In cadastral surveyingContinue reading “The Chance of a Lifetime”

Sections, Townships, and Range

A long time ago (call it 1983) in a place far, far, away (call it Mountain Home State Forest), a small band of courageous neophyte surveyors began a project that many in the California Department of Forestry hierarchy felt to be impossible. We started work on finding, and then marking, the precise boundaries of MountainContinue reading “Sections, Townships, and Range”

My Old Day Job

I worked as the assistant forest manager at Mountain Home State Forest from 1979-1986. The old joke asks, “Where do forest rangers go to ‘get away from it all?’” As if working in the forest was not, well, work. I remember days when I’d been stung by wasps, hiked cross-country through thorny buckbrush in theContinue reading “My Old Day Job”