Thursday, March 28, 2013

Oh yeah? What's good about it?



The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning  Center which is just up the road from here, released this animation of the 1964 tsunami for Good Friday this year.

Every year when Good Friday comes around, the apprehension level rises a bit.  While Christians go to church, others of us check our emergency stashes to make sure we're ready for some sort of disaster.  Of course it's a bit of exaggeration, but that apprehension has its roots in reality.

You see, the two biggest disasters in the history of Alaska occurred on Good Fridays.  Those would be the largest earthquake ever measured in North America and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, now only the second largest U.S. oil spill after BP outdid us in the Gulf of Mexico a couple of years ago.

Just for background: That earthquake measured 9.2 on the scale and destroyed parts or all of several communities along the southcentral coast of Alaska.  The quake and tsunami killed 115 people, some of them as far south as Crescent City, California.  A lot has been written about it and there isn't much value in repeating all that here as is the case with Exxon Valdez as well.

But the coincidence of Good Friday disasters may be something to acknowledge.

Now, on another, lighter note, there is the word "tsunami."  Years ago I used the term "tidal wave" in a short news item in Alaska magazine.  A scientist friend wrote a friendly letter pointing out that seismic sea waves have nothing to do with tides and the proper term is "tsunami."  I wrote back (not for publication) that my job as a writer was to translate scientific language to common English to better allow the general public to understand.  But, at the same time I did not wish to be deliberately wrong, so in the future I would refer to those waves as "goddam big waves."  But the story didn't end there.  A few years later I met a woman who spoke fluent Japanese, enough so that she taught English in Japan for a time.  I asked her if there was a literal translation for "tsunami."  She had to do a bit of research, but in time came up with this answer: "literally translated from the Japanese, tsunami means tidal wave."  Oh well.

Anyway, Happy Easter. Let's hope we get there again.

It seems Alaska isn't the only place that has suffered Good Friday disasters. After a couple of comments on my facebook page, I did a search and found several more

1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on Good Friday.
1979 Though it happened March 28, Three-Mile Island nuclear plant meltdown was still considered a potential disaster on Good Friday April 13.
1788 Massive fire destroyed 850 buildings in Spanish colonial New Orleans
1968  Interisland New Zealand ferry Wahine hits reef and sinks, killing 53 people
2011 Tornado leaves 22-mile path of destruction through St. Louis area.
2010 Powerful winter storm hits several North Dakota counties, knocking out 10,000 power poles and hundreds of miles of electrical lines.


Tuesday, March 26, 2013

And winter drives on into spring

View from the East Pole March 23, 2013
This is just a teaser because nothing has been posted in a while.  To rearrange a cliche: "Words at 11."

Monday, March 18, 2013

Those who criticize old age, are condemned to live it


I've tried to keep this blog, if not positive, at least humorous.  But one lingering thought has overridden that goal, so it is shared here and then we move on.

Several years ago, a woman whom I once loved, and incidentally prided herself on her frankness, told me I was old and unattractive.

She turned 50 today. 

How does it feel, Beyotch?


Thursday, March 14, 2013

The long way home


It's been way too long and, well, too nice out, so here's something interesting anyway.

There's a story floating around today about a dog that escaped an Iditarod musher about 300 miles into the race and eventually made it most of that distance almost to home.  An old friend who used to live in Nome posted it on facebook and I took advantage to point out this was not the first time an escaped dog had made the journey back home.  As a matter of fact the leader of the first team to win the Iditarod, way back in 1973, escaped almost immediately after crossing the finish line.

There is one error in the news story in the clipping. It is a lot farther than 107 miles from Nome to Red Devil. Here is what I wrote from this and other sources:

"(Dick)Wilmarth’s lead dog, Hotfoot, didn’t hear all the speeches and hoopla at the finish. Somehow in the milieu of the arrival and being unhitched from the sled and team, the dog took off that same day. A frantic search of Nome failed to locate him and his owner eventually had to go home without his most famous dog. Thirty-one days later, Hotfoot trotted into Red Devil, lean and hungry but other than that, in fairly good shape. It’s 344 air miles from Nome to Red Devil and that probably only begins to measure the circuitous route a dog might take. In the process, he had to cross the Yukon and the Kuskokwim rivers, though most likely both were still frozen in April. None of the accounts mention whether he still wore that collar of bells when he reached Red Devil." -- From the upcoming book tentatively entitled Iditarod -- The First 10 Years.

The collar of bells refers to something that happened in Nome.  A law dating back to gold rush days requires mushers driving dog teams in town to hang a bell on their lead dogs to warn people they are approaching.  When Dick Wilmarth pulled up onto Front Street to win the first Iditarod, a woman walked out, blocked his way, and put a collar of bells on his lead dog.  Welcome to NomeAlaska.  (That's not a typo.  People there say "NomeAlaska" as if it were all one word.

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel