Lake Byllesby Campground

Lake Byllesby Campground
7650 Echo Point Road
Cannon Falls, MN 55009
507-263-4447

Lots #118 + 119 are the best, with 119 being the better of the two. Could easily accommodate 2-4 or even more tents; no need to get more. Hot showers at the checkin station. Bring a wheel-barrow or sled of some sort, as all gear must be carried 150 yards or so from nearest parking lot.

Rained tremendous amount last night: sounded like tent was about to collapse, but it held strong. Also lots of wind. First night was very cold.

Guests cooked new potatoes by slicing (carrots + onions optional) into double-lined foil, w/ good bit of butter, salt, pepper, Lawrey's seasoned salt. Put on grill as it warms, let sit there for 1/2 hour to 45 min while drink beer, then take off when ready to put meat on. Delicious. Add a bit more seasoned salt to the potatoes when opened up.

Lake is larger than expected, but choked with algae. Saw lots of carp. Would be a good lake to explore further, and would be good for recreating, like skiing. Mouth of river might have better luck. Lake is dammed.

Have dozens of very clean picnic sites, with grill stations. Would only need a bit of charcoal and could have 90% of the fun of camping, without the 3 hours of packing/setting up, then tearing down, unpacking... Lot of work to do everything to get ready. Takes 45 min to get there down 61, to 20, to 52, north to 86, west then follow signs on frontage road.

Camping List (8/22/2004)

Clothing
- T-shirts
- Sweatshirt
- Waterproof lite jacket
- Socks/underwear
- Toiletries
- Rain gear if it is expected to rain
- Jeans
- Shorts
- Swim suit
- Sun glasses

Mess
- Disposable cups
- Disposable plates
- Disposable utensils
- Beer, coke, Pepsi One, and Captain Morgan (will satisfy 99% of people)
- Condiments for meat
- Napkins
- Coffee or hot chocolate
- Cups for hot beverage
- Cast iron skillet
- Other frying surface pan
- Spatula
- Knives
- tongs
- Scouring pad
- Dish soap
- Few dish towels
- Roll of paper towels
- Don't forget condiments for meat
- Lawrey's Seasoned Salt makes everything taste better
- Couple gallons of water

Camping
- Tent
- Chairs
- Wood (costs lots to buy there)
- Matches of lighting instruments
- Paper for fire
- Sleeping bags
- At least one flashlight
- Gas-powered lantern
- inflatable mattress
- Pump for mattress
- Water jug full of potable water
- Maybe: toilet paper
- Bug spray
- Sun block

Other
- Fishing stuff
- Bikes
- Water stuff
- Frisbee
- Lawn bowling equipment
- Football
- Camera
- Board games
- Cards

Banjo Paterson - Australia

From National Geographic, August 2004, "Banjo", an excellent article on the poet of Australia.

When he finished school at 16, he joined a law firm as a lowly clerk and began a life of higher paying drugery in the desk-bound world of the city. H worked his way up the office ladder and qualified as a solicitor when he was 22.
By the time he landed the brief to dune the elusive Clancy, he had been behind a desk for nine years, fidgeting under the weight of his own expectations. Poetry became his escape, Clancy his muse.
"It's a question of what you're willing to give up. He had a pretty lucrative career going. Living a footloose drover's life wasn't something he really wanted to do, so much as something he would love to have done. He'd have liked to have had a romantic past like that to look back upon."
And so he created one. ...

Clancy of the Overflow:
Banjo was a lawyer in Sydney. He had a client come in who needed a debt collected from one Clancy. His threatening letter to Clancy came back undelivered, marked on the back: "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving and we don't know where he are." From the poem:
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he face the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow
p. 21:
Australia saw itself: a nation of quite, determined underdogs who would one day surprise the doubters and do great things, and a people who could rise fearlessly to any occasion and never give in, no matter how tough the going. The others might rein up at the mountaintop, terrified of the ground that lay ahead, but...

p. 29:
"Our 'ruined rhymes' are not likely to last long," he wrote in one of his last published essays, a couple of years before his death in 1941. "But if there is any hope at all of survival it comes from the fact that [we]had the advatage of writing in a new country. In all the museums throughout the world one may see plaster casts of the footprints of weird animals, footprints preserved for posterity, not because the animals were particularly good of their sort, but because they had the luck to walk on the lava while it was cooling. There is just a faint hope that something of the sort may happen to us."

Brand in the Land of Bureaucracy

Big, public companies usually suck at brand management. Why? Building brand is the art of saying no -- saying no to near term opportunity. In particular, it is the Faustian choice between volume and brand. Brand is the art of turning down opportunities. It is discretion. The only time this works is when the highest levels of management, to the board of directors, understands this, and understands the sell-out that can occur if near-term opportunities are put before the discipline of brand management.

The case-in-point is selling to Wal-Mart. To marketing types this is nothing new. Public companies, who must perform quarterly, will have top-level management holding direct reports accountable for meeting numbers that satisfy wall street. The issue occurs when there is a shortfall. The group with the shortfall will inevitably look for short-term ways to increase revenue. Sure, they will look pick the one that least damages the brand in the name of volume, but that is a slippery slope for sure.

Big companies should confront this reality and focus on acquisition of brands. Following the pharmaceutical model would be advantageous. Small start-ups build brand equity over the course of several years, then sell-out to the big guys. This happens somewhat, but not with the focus nor to the extent that it should. Smaller players don't have the layers of bureaucracy, any one of which could spoil the delicate discipline necessary for brand positioning over time. Another problem w/ larger companies is the turnover at key areas, which make poor follow-through. I dare say at many companies creating big brands is 1/2 luck.

question: And this I truly don't know the answer to: When launching an upscale brand, it is surely advantageous to launch the upscale merchandise first, position the brand as upscale, then extend ever so cautiously downward. But are there examples of the opposite occurring? Where somebody has launch low, and then gone high? The only way I can think of it is by accident: the brand get so outcast, it becomes cool. Example: Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Maybe not exactly an initially high-high end beer, but certainly one that competed on a national stage with such notables as Coors, Miller, and Bud... Here's an article about them:
http://www.insightmag.com/news/2003/08/05/National/Brew-City.Heritage.Coming.To.A.Head-447813.shtmlg