Frozen Tundra of Lake Erie

It's about 8:00 and I am sitting in Linda and Rich's family room, looking out at the  frozen lake, so different looking from Chautauqua, with no shore line, just the distant horizon and the lake has huge mounds of ice, a rough surface every where I look, almost like frozen waves.  The shore line can have ice mounds up to six or seven feet and I remember walking on and around them when I was a kid, seeing how far I could get without falling.  The sky out to the north is a soft blue with a hint of pink on the horizon so it looks like it could be a nice day.  The lake itself is various shades of gray, white, with pink mixed in where there seems to be pockets of water, though they are no doubt frozen ice, just no snow on them.  They look like mini skating rinks.

We all watched The Social Network last night and none of us liked it very much.  Part of the problem was that the soundtrack was so loud that it made it difficult for us to hear what was being said.  And the characters spoke so fast, we all had trouble..  Maybe it was to hip and modern for us oldsters but I don't think I would have loved it even if I could have heard it.  So many of scenes had loud music going as the characters talked, I assume for realism and tone but it drowned out many of the words.  I did like the kid who played Zuckerman and the way they moved  back and forth between what seemed to be the narrative of the making of Facebook with the lawsuits that were filed against him later in the process, though it took awhile for us to pick that up.  Like most people, I had mixed feelings about Zuckerberg; he certainly had no loyalty to anyone but himself, willing sold out anyone if necessary and his treatment of Eduardo was particularly disloyal.  He showed though they he could get taken when he lets the founder of Napster, the Justin Timberlake character, use him, get 7% of the company, for doing practically nothing but smoozing him.  One of the characters said it best: ""You are not and asshole but you are doing a pretty good job of trying to be one."  I also thought it ended abruptly, as if they did not know where to go so they just stopped.  Clearly, Zuckerman was the genius behind Facebook, with the vision and the computer no how to make it work but he left lots of dead bodies along the way and one wonders if this is a typical success story or he could have been just as successful if he had done it with more of a sense of loyalty and friendship to his peers.  The question I am left with is what motivated him: clearly, he screwed lots of people out of pieces of the company, as if money mattered.  But then his whole lifestyle contradicts that, as he dresses like a college kid, doesn't surround himself with any of the toys of the super wealthy, and supposedly lives in a modest bungalow now with his girl friend, nothing ostentatious.  Maybe he just wanted to win, to be successful, to have total control, and any one who stood in his way was history.  I wonder if their are skeletons like this in Bill Gates or Steve Jobs closets? Probably.

Almost breakfast and the lake is a brilliant white, the sky a soft blue and the sun is out, a glorious but cold day.  The lake, as mentioned is really crusty, with pods of slick ice visible, which, I assume, you might be able to skate on, if brave or stupid.  We head back to the lake this morning, which sounds good, but Linda and Rich's hospitality is unmatched.  We will miss being with them and relaxing, something we rarely do as we are usually always surrounded by their children and grandchildren or ours.

We got back to the lake around 2:00, to lots of snow and cold, about 7 degrees.  Our house was fine, however, warmed up quickly, and it felt good to be home.  Lots of action on the lake because it was a sunny day though it looked like snow mobiles were having a tough time on the lake because the snow was so deep.  They seemed to move quite slowly and a couple stalled in the front of our house.  Eventually they moved on but could not gain much speed....they seem to need groomed snow and are not very good if it's deep.  We have spent most of the day relaxing, watching the football games and I am about footballed out after two games.  Time to finish my Jack Reacher novel.