Well, after all that half-baked gvetching, the flights here were just fine, including the trip through the TSA abattoir. In fact, I didn't really notice that they were checking any closer. I took my normal carry-on paraphernalia (laptop, mp3 player, camera, book, a few workpapers). There had been suggestions that carry-on bags would be checked again upon boarding, but there were no gate checkers at either airport (SEA & MSP). I hope anyone else who's travelling this week has it that easy.
The weather, of course, was gorgeous on Sunday, as it often is just to taunt me as I fly out:
Click any picture to enlarge
Boats on Lake Washington near I-90 and Mercer Island skitter like waterbugs
However, it's turning out to be a paradigm of summer week here in Milwaukee, with just the first faint hints of summer's-gone angst shading the edges. I ran last night from my hotel over to Lake Michigan:
Hoping to loll a bit on the beach as night enveloped the lake, but as soon as I stopped, I was besieged by a squadron of biting flies. I snapped a picture, then ran a half mile up a pretty good hill in order to escape them. If I owned lakefront property there, I'd fire my security guards and instead devote that budget to fly husbandry.
Tonight for my exercise I walked from my hotel over to the mellifluously-monikered Kletsch Park. To get there, I crossed the Milwaukee River, where a couple of flyfishermen (if it was flies they were after, I could be a terrific guide) had their attention drawn upriver:
to a deer nonchalantly sauntering across the river:
In the other direction, the setting sun cast a false premonition of autumn on the upper boughs of the trees:
The deer's nonchalance would seem to have a pull date. Inside the park, there is an archery range where bow hunters were warming up for the biggest reason people call in sick in Wisconsin - deer season:
I haven't posted much video since I commissioned my cartoony icon from the Perils graphics department. As luck would have it, though, I happened upon a fine subject for a video practicing his craft in a glade in the park. Put your speakers on and fasten your seatbelts - this is a lot of fun!:
Video! Click to play (5.6mb)
Hoping to milk the last light out of the sky for a last picture, I hurried over to this pretty little cataract:
Enjoy it now, anglers! It'll soon look like this:
9:48:09 PM 
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