Looks aren’t everything - but they are something

I was recently asked to read a draft version of a book written by a former student of mine. The book was very good, but I found reading it as an unformatted pdf document was a bit challenging. The experience reminded me of how the design of documents can either help or hinder our understanding of their content.

Which spurred me to re-read (possibly for the third or fourth time) Robin Williams' wonderful Non-Designer’s Design Book, now in its 4th edition. 

The first book of William’s I read was her The Mac is Not a Typewriter, way back in 1989. As the proud owner of a b&w Mac “classic”, I felt obligated to use my new typography powers wisely. Williams taught me when to use serif or san serif, how many spaces to leave between sentences, and why italics are better than underlining for titles. All advice I use to this day.

The Non-Designer book tackles layouts primarily. In short chapters filled with simple instructions and a lot of examples, she lays out the principles of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity (he admits this makes a bad acronym) in ways even this English major could understand and apply. I tried to think of her advice not just in my printed materials, but when I designed my presentation slides as well. I hope it helped.

I encourage anyone who communicates in print to read William’s books. They will change the way you look at both your communications and the communications of others.

Oh, Squarespace, the hosting site on which this blog is published has rather limited formatting options. So it may not seem that I practice what I preach.

Biking through history in Idaho

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Our group on the Hiawatha Trail just outside a 1.6 mile tunnel.

 
Idaho was one of the three states I had never visited. (I still need to go to West Virginia and Delaware.) So when I saw a Road Scholar biking trip in the panhandle of that state I was intrigued - but also concerned. I pictured Idaho as being nothing but mountains and I was not anxious to ride through mountains on a bicycle.

One of many statues in Cody, Wyoming. The statue is on the left.

However, a participant in one of my group hikes had done this biking trip. She said “Don’t worry about hills. They put you in a hotel in a small town and each morning shuttle you to the top of a mountain and you ride back down to the hotel.” Hmmm, sounded like my kind of bike tour.

Bike rides were flat with a lot of breaks.

So Heidi and I signed up and did our fall road trip to Idaho over the last couple weeks. It’s about a 20 hour drive from Minneapolis to Wallace, Idaho where the tour started, so we broke the trip up with stops at the Badlands, Yellowstone, and Theodore Roosevelt National Parks on the way there and back. 

Lamar Valley at dawn

We had done quite a bit of reading about Yellowstone before the trip, carefully planning the two days we would be there. Our visit there started very early one morning as we drove in the dark two hours from our hotel in Cody to the NE entrance to the park so we could experience the Lamar Valley at dawn. And we were rewarded for the early start, viewing moose, bison, and deer within an hour of entering the park. We stayed at the Yellowstone Inn two nights (not recommended) and hit the highlights of the place - the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Old Faithful and various geological wonders, and finished by hiking around Mammoth Falls. While busy, the crowds were not overwhelming.

Grand Prismatic in Yellowstone.

Our five days of biking in Idaho’s panhandle were based at the Wallace Inn in Wallace, a very interesting and quite charming town. Our group of 24 “older” adults shared most of our meals together, many in a conference room at the hotel where we also heard lectures and were informed of the day’s schedule. It was a congenial group from all over the US with no troublemakers as is often the case in group outings.

Picnic lunches were provided each day of the ride. Breakfasts were at the hotel, served buffet style. Food was simple but I managed to put on on four pounds!

Great views of the Sawtooth Mountains

But bike we did. The first morning we were fitted with bikes at a shop in Kellogg (regular bikes, no ebikes allowed) and helmets. People were loaded in rather cramped vans and the bike loaded into trailers behind them. Over the course of five days we biked the entirety of the 72 mile Trail Coeur ‘d Alene, a section of the North Idaho Centennial Trail in and around the town of Coeur ‘d Alene, and the Route of the Hiawatha bike trail.

Biking trail map of the region.

One of two vans and trailers.

Testing out the rented bike

1.6 mile tunnel on Hiawatha trail - dark, cold, and wet

The Hiawatha bike trail was a fascinating experience. Our 15 mile route took us down an old railway bed through 10 tunnels (the first 1.6 miles long) and over seven trestles. Thankfully, we were able to shuttle back and only ride through the long tunnel again to our pickup point. Great views and a bit of a thrill going through the tunnels and over the trestles.

Section of the Trail Coeur ‘d Alene

One of many old train trestles on the Hiawatha trail.

Being a Road Scholar trip, there were, of course, educational components. We learned through lectures and tours about mining, flora and fauna (we saw seven moose next to the trail one day), and the indigenous peoples. We toured the oldest building in Idaho, the Cataldo Mission, the downtowns of Wallace and Coeur ‘d Alene, and the Oasis Brothel Museum.

One of several moose, including two calves, near the trail.

The brothel, one of many in Wallace serving the miners, did not close until 1988. Many original possessions of the workers were in the museum.

On the drive home, we stopped at one of our favorite parks, Theodore Roosevelt in North Dakota. Once again, the bison were making the road their own and prairie dogs objected as the hiking trail ran among their burrows.

 Bison in Theodore Roosevelt

Great colors in North Dakota. Trail took us through prairie dog turf.

I am happy to know that although I am entering my mid-70s I can still plan, drive, bike, and hike - and even happier that I still have the interest to do so. This was a good trip, not just for the experiences, but for the reassurance that perhaps I can have a few more of these in my future.

We were encouraged to “put our nose in a crack” to smell the butterscotch sent of the Douglas fir tree.

All photos from this trip can be found here https://dougj.smugmug.com/Travel/2025/Idaho-biking

Too much of a good thing?

I taught history at Miami University for over 30 years, and in the last decade nearly every student brought a computer to class. My classes of 30 to 40 were interactive, a question-and-answer format in which the students had to reflect on the readings that they had done for the day. Many were not taking notes or focusing on the task at hand. Instead, they had their heads buried in their computers searching the assigned reading to find an answer (it was too late) or had up some other completely unrelated website. It was not only distracting for them but for the students sitting behind. (Letter to the editor, Star Tribune, Sept 1, 2025

Technology has empowered me. It has shaped, and perhaps even is responsible for, my career success. 

Around 1980, the West Branch school board decided that the junior high building in which I was the librarian needed “a computer” and used the funds that were allocated for new books to pay for it. So instead of cataloging and processing new materials, I spent the pre-school workshop days grudgingly learning to use AppleWriter on the Apple II computer connected to a dot matrix printer that was to be housed in my library.

What I quickly found was that word processing made my writing faster, more correctable, editable, and saveable. My natural writing talent was amplified by the computer. I have not written anything to speak of by hand now for 45 years. Later, online social systems such as mailing lists like LM_Net and blogging allowed me to share my voice with others (in addition to publishing in print books and journals.) I shared the empowerment given me by technology with a lot of students, teachers, and librarians.

So when I hear teachers banning technology from their classrooms, it makes me a bit sad. Yes, I know technology like tablets and smartphones can be a distraction. I know they (along with AI) can be used to produce work that should be done by student brains. I know that a large part of technology literacy is learning not just how to use the software and hardware and apps, but when to use it. There really is “too much of a good thing.”

I hope today’s educators take a very thoughtful, nuanced approach to the use of technology in their classrooms. It might just be giving many students the tools they need to be their best selves - as a rocket, not an anchor.