Dubuque Fall Leaf Paddle October 1

Dubuque County Conservation will Provide Kayaks, Paddles, and PFDs

A Fall leaf-viewing kayak paddle is planned for October first with Dubuque County Conservation.  Explore Mines of Spain state park by kayak then head out to the Mississippi River to Massey Marina. Dubuque County Conservation staff will be bringing kayaks, paddles, and personal flotation devices for everyone. No experience is necessary but you will be paddling on the Mississippi River. Supplies are limited and shuttle will be provided.

Cost is $10 per person.

For more details and registration visit: fall-leaf-paddle-mississippi-river-tickets.

On a completely separate note, have you ever padded an article to increase its word count in order to reach a specific target number? Perhaps while writing a paper in high school or college, you needed some extra words to reach the number the teacher or professor assigned. Or maybe you wanted to improve the look of a paper as it layed out on a page, so you added some extraneous words in order to make the paper look more appealing. Although I can't say with any degree of certainty, I believe padding your word count with unneccessary text would be an example of a workaround, a short-cut someone assigned a minimum word count might take in an effort to meet a requirement. Although I try to avoid padding articles simply to increase their word count, I enjoy seeing examples. If you see specific cases of this practice, please share them with me here. I'd love to see some good ones, as they always make me smile.

The author, Tim Koehler, is a native to the Dubuque area, long-time radio host, dork, father, part-time toupee model, very stable genius and horse stable shoveller, regular napper, Time Magazine Person of the Year 2006, teller of stories and bad dad jokes.