Crank up the tacky factor

Last May my father, my brother and I took a week and biked something like 430 miles from Hayward, Wis. to Mackinac Island, Mich.
In case you're not familiar, Mackinac Island, located in Lake Michigan, is best known for its lack of motorized vehicles — everyone gets around either on bicycles or in horse-drawn wagons — and for fudge, which is available in roughly every other shop on the island. The buildings all look like they could be made of gingerbread, the businesses are staffed primarily by people who move to the island for the summer and its economy is based primarily on the sale of candy, tacky t-shirts and any number of other things nobody actually needs.
It's a tourist trap, but in a vaguely classy, oldey timey kind of way.
This year, we decided to take things to a new level.
Last Friday morning the three of us drove to Red Wing and set off by bicycle to LaCrosse, Wis. and from there to Wisconsin Dells. The trip itself was scenic and pleasant. With the exception some of the worst navigation since Columbus tried to find a new route to Asia -- what was supposed to be two 100-mile days in the saddle turned into 110 miles on Friday and 123 on Saturday -- it was uneventful. The trip's end, though was anything but.
Mackinac Island is quaint in its tourist trappiness. Wisconsin Dells, on the other hands, is about as gaudy and in-your-face as a city of 1,200 people can be. It's like the Midwest's answer to Las Vegas, only instead of gangsters it appears to have been built by harried parents looking for ways to keep their kids occupied for a week every summer. It may be the only city in the world with more mini golf holes than permanent residents.
In recent years Las Vegas has tried to lure people with the addition of high-end shopping malls. My mom remembers the Dells primarily — and fondly — because it once had a store called Chenille world.
In Las Vegas they build giant theaters for dubious stars like Celine Dion. In the Dells they built a theater for magician Rick Wilcox.
Vegas has gambling and is a prime destination for a certain kind of bachelor party. The Dells has go-karts and would probably be a sweet place to have birthday party if you were, like, 8.
It's hard to know quite what to make of the Dells. Back before I hit puberty and had the patience to wait 10 minutes in line for a two-second waterslide ride I'm sure I thought it was really cool. Now that I'm too big to fit comfortably in a go-kart (seriously, I've got a bruise on my knee now) some of the shine is gone. I still enjoyed my three go kart races and my 18 holes of "adventure golf," but I was also happy to go back and read my book. I could have wandered through the shops downtown, I suppose, but a person really only needs so many "Female Body Inspector" shirts.
I think it's great a place like Wisconsin Dells exists — people all over the Midwest need a place they can drive with their kids for a summer vacation — I'm just not sure I need to go back there anytime soon.
It's hard to know how we’ll top this with our next trip. Although people have already started talking about Vegas. I suppose it's the natural next step.

Local news, now with less local

We live in a world where every job currently done by an American worker can be outsourced to someone in another country willing to do it for less money.
I didn't used to believe that. I mean, I always knew there were a lot of jobs that could be shipped overseas in the name of saving a couple of bucks. Some guy in Bangalore, India can help me troubleshoot my computer or activate my credit card just as easily as Carl in San Jose. It might be a bad deal for American tech workers, but at least they have more time now to play World of Warcraft.
So, yes. I knew there were plenty of jobs being farmed out to foreigners. But all jobs? That seemed unlikely. My job? No way, Jose. No way some guy telecommuting from another continent can provide the kind of local coverage readers of small-town newspapers want. No way someone sitting at a computer in the Far East can know as much about what's going on in Rosemount as someone who sits in the meetings and walks on the streets and talks face to face with the people who live here.
I mean, right?
Apparent ly not. And a web site in Pasadena is proving it.
Accord-ing to the Los Angeles Times, a web site called Pasadena now.com recently hired two beat reporters to cover Pasadena city government. Both will work from home, which for them is in India. They'll watch live webcasts of city council meetings and conduct interviews via e-mail. And the best part for the web site? Together the two reporters, one of whom reportedly has a degree from the University of California at Berkley, will be paid about $21,000.
The web site's publisher, James Macpherson, told the Times the new reporters would be, "a significant way to increase the quality of journalism on the local level without the expense that is a major problem for local publications."
I suppose when you consider most of Pasadenanow's previous city government coverage until came from press releases he might be right. But I imagine the thing he's most concerned with increasing is the size of his bank account. And when there's money to be saved who cares if the guy writing the stories has ever met the subject of his interview face to face? What's the big deal if he's never been to Leprechaun Days or sifted through the letters written about downtown redevelopment or had people call and tell him he doesn't know what he's doing? With a 13 1/2-hour time difference from India to Pasadena — not to mention the long distance charges involved — that seems unlikely.
What are a few culture-based misunderstandings when you're saving big bucks?
Then again, maybe I'm just being defensive. I bet the guys at the Visa call center never thought a bunch of foreigners could do their jobs, either. And when you think about it, with the growing popularity of satellite TV why couldn't some guy in Shanghai make just as many lame jokes as I do about stupid shows on TV?
So, there you go. Newspapers aren't just going out of style. They're going overseas. And if someone can cover a city without ever setting foot inside its borders why should we believe any job is safe from outsourcing? I'm sure this is just the beginning.
Why do we need so many local police officers, for example? Can't we just install a bunch of security cameras and have some kids from a Chinese sweatshop watch for trouble on their breaks? Maybe we can have a couple of local cops on duty in case of emergencies, but if we could rig squad cars up to remote control systems it would be just like playing video games for the kids.
Lawyers? I'm not convinced they actually serve a purpose as it is, but if you really need one why not just hook up a video conferencing system and patch in some guy from Hong Kong. He doesn't get paid until you get paid, and even then it's like 75 cents.
Why spend big money on famous actors for our movies and television shows? I bet there are all kinds of talented Croatians who are willing to do the same work for a fraction of the price. And do you really think the quality of a movie like Delta Farce would suffer?

I wasn't using my gums, anyway

A couple of large, padded envelopes showed up on my desk one day last week. That's not unusual. Operating two newspapers out of the same office, we often get press releases and other materials in duplicate. What was in the envelopes? Well, that's where things get interesting.
As I write this column, I have sitting on the desk in front of me two packages of something the manufacturer has decided to describe as "dissolvable tobacco" — wintergreen flavor! — and two packages of something called hard snuff — "Spit Free," the box announces in red letters.
That's right. Mr. Postman brought me a veritable jackpot of addictive, cancer-causing substances. Outside of the thin mints the Girl Scouts send each year to announce the start of cookie sales it's the most potentially habit-forming press release I've ever been sent.
I realize the tobacco industry doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to the methods it uses to get people hooked on its products. Still, sending out samples through the mail seems sketchy even for people who chose pitch their products with a phallus-faced cartoon camel.
I don't know quite what to make of these particular products. According to the press release that accompanied my gum disease-causing gift, smokeless tobacco like Ariva and Stonewall — the names of these particular products — is "between 10 and 1,000 times less hazardous than smoking depending on the product." That's nice, I guess. But isn't that a little like saying my chances of ever getting a date with Charlize Theron are between 1,000 and 1,000,000 to one, depending on how much she's had to drink? Star Scientific, the company behind what I've decided to identify as suckable tobacco, recently added 40 new distribution centers, which the release claims are "capable of making the products available to approximately 50,000 retail outlets." Just like I'm "capable" of treating Charlize to a lovely dinner. You know, assuming she doesn't mind ordering from the dollar menu.
The packaging for both Ariva and Stonewall looks like a hybrid of a cigarette pack, a box of cold medicine and a package of chiclets. The individual pieces of Ariva, which come 20 to a pack, are sealed in plastic blisters like Sudafed. The football-shaped Ariva pieces are about the size of a pea. The similarly shaped Stonewall is roughly twice as big. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to use them to ease a nicotine craving or clear up sinus pressure.
I'd like to tell you what these things taste like, but I've never used a tobacco product in my life. And as dedicated as I am to my readers I'm not going to start with something that looks vaguely like it should be sold on a street corner somewhere.
The back of each package has instructions, which seems like a bad sign when the only major step is putting something in your mouth. Still, the box strongly recommends against chewing the piece or swallowing it whole. Nothing ominous about that. Or about the warning on the bottom of the box that either product might cause gum disease and tooth loss. Or the warning that oral tobacco products can cause dizziness, heartburn, hiccups or nausea. No wonder they're giving this stuff away.
I imagine products like Ariva and Stonewall will become more popular as legislators continue to ferret out every last place a Minnesotan might try to light up a cigarette. This might explain Star Scientific's new marketing campaign for the products: "Better than Cigarettes® — Find out Why." Granted, when you're sucking on a lozenge of tobacco there's no secondhand smoke to worry about. And we've already covered the spitting issue. All we'll really have to worry about is a bunch of dizzy, queasy tobacco-suckers with no teeth and rotting gums.
Apparently, the convenience store industry is sold, though. An article in the April 2007 issue of Convenience Store Decisions calls Ariva and Stonewall "the future of tobacco use in the 21st century." I'm not sure how many other options there are for our future tobacco use, but I imagine people wadding tobacco leaves up and sticking them in their ears.
Me? I'm waiting until cookie time rolls around again.

Were we having fun yet?

Last weekend I spent a healthy chunk of an otherwise lovely Sunday causing myself considerable discomfort.
I wasn't alone. By one estimate something like 5,000 people were out there with me, forsaking yard work and family time and other more productive activities like, I don't know, watching the NFL draft or cleaning the lint trap in their driers, to pedal their bicycles in big circles.
These people and I participated in the Ironman bike ride, which started and ended at Lakeville North High School. At least, it ended at LHS for people who didn't collapse somewhere along the way and require professional assistance just to relieve pressure from their super-stretchy shorts. I imagine there were more than a few of those.
Most of these people will tell you they enjoyed their ride Sunday. And they won't be lying. At least not entirely. So far as I can tell, there are three truly enjoyable periods in any long bike ride. The first is on the way to the ride, as you eat a banana and talk confidently about how fast you're going to go. The second is any stretch of road when you've got a strong wind at your back. There's something immensely enjoyable about speeding along at 25 miles an hour with hardly any effort. The third and most important period is long after the ride is done, as you convince yourself, you actually did have fun doing the activity to which you just dedicated five-plus hours.
This last period is vital, because it serves to convince people they should A) try the ride again next year and B) talk their friends into trying it with them. This is how rides like the Ironman, which more often than not takes place on cold, windy and otherwise miserable days, continue to grow year after year.
What I'm saying is a good distance bike ride is kind of like a really efficient virus. It causes discomfort in its host/rider but it never does enough damage that it can't sustain itself. And don't let anyone tell you riders in the Ironman don't suffer. Last year I rode 100 miles in 40-degree rain. A long bike ride doesn't typically cause as much coughing or vomiting as a nasty flu bug, but after 90 miles sitting on a seat roughly the size of that banana you ate earlier in the day, well, let's just say you're ready for a nice, cushy chair.
And no matter how much fun those with-the-wind segments are, you can never forget you're riding in a big circle. Eventually you'll have to turn around and go the other way. In the Ironman, this typically means around mile 85, as you hit Northfield and turn north up Cedar Avenue, you prepare yourself to spend the last 15 miles or so biking uphill and into a wind I estimate is typically just short of gale force. The next time someone tells you this is a good time I encourage you to laugh in that person's face. Or possibly to give them a solid smack.
Still, there's a lot to love about a ride like the Ironman. It gives a person a glimpse at just how diverse the bike community is. As I rode Sunday I saw bikes that probably cost as much as my car and bikes that probably cost as much as my shoes. One year I swear I saw a guy riding the 100-mile route on a bike he appeared to have built himself.
I saw riders Sunday who looked like they were fit and ready for any endurance test and others who made me start humming that High Hopes song about the ant and the rubber tree plant. These were riders who put the sag in sag wagon and, unfortunately, the big fat rear end in tight spandex shorts.
There were riders in full Lance Armstrong costume, with Discovery Channel jerseys and Trek bikes, and there was one guy whose outfit included way-too-short biking shorts, clip-in bike shoes and a Hawaiian shirt over a big gut.
Bikers are an eclectic group alright.
Sure the Ironman is a struggle. That last hill up to the high school is a killer every year. But there's also a whole lot to love about it. I suppose I'll go back next April.
Wanna come?