Friday, October 31, 2008

Perspectives

There’s an old line here that Anchorage is the closest big city to Alaska. This refers to Anchorage being more of a city and headed in a cosmopolitan direction, but still claims Alaska roots and just over the mountain there is Alaska. The divergence has grown over the years and the other day I came across a minute but telling example of how that works. A snowblower has a shear bolt that holds the snow-churning rotors to the axels. The idea is when the rotors are stopped by an obstruction, the bolt breaks rather than more expensive parts. So, I broke one. I went to the Honda dealer in Anchorage. Now this is a modern store with lots of glass, machines all over the place and lots of gear to sell. While Honda equipment is popular in Alaska because of its reliability, this new store emphasizes motorcycles and high-end four-wheelers rather than the nuts and bolts of generators, snowblowers and working heavy duty four wheelers. So, I went there to replace the shear bolt. The parts desk takes up a tiny area in a massive showroom. It is even difficult to find among the $20,000 motorcycles and mannequins clothed in the latest leathers. I told the guy what I wanted and he looked at me quizzically, Then he got out a book with a blowup picture of my model snowblower. I showed him where the bolt went. But he couldn’t find anything like it after searching through a multi drawer cabinet. We finally guessed one particular bolt was the right one, so I bought it. Of course when I got home, it was not the right one.
I put this off for a while, not really enthusiastic about returning to that store. The other day I made a trip in another direction and realizing I was going to pass the other Honda dealer around here, I planned a stop, even took another shear bolt off the machine to take with me for comparison.
Mind you this is an old building, one story, been there forever and needs a coat of paint. Much of the display inventory is outside during the day. A few of the popular sellers have special places indoors. The parts department has two entrances, two people working there and a long L-shaped display case/counter. A young man finally waited on me.. He looked maybe late teens, but was probably well into his 20s. I told him I wanted a shear bolt for my model snowblower and started to pull my sample out of my pocket. He said, “Oh I always keep a box of those right here this time of year.” He turned, reached under the counter into a battered cardboard box, in the process asking me how many I wanted. I said four and had them in my hand, all in about two minutes.
I had to smile. realizing in this place I was much closer to Alaska than I had been in that modern showroom in Anchorage.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Blow ye winds in the morning



Awesome wind storm last night. This valley is notorious for them. Gusts hit 100 mph in Anchorage, not sure what it was here but there were some that rattled the house. Two power outages totaling 5 1/2 hours. Also a loud bump in the night. And there it was this morning, a tree close to the house blew down.

Credit where credit is due

Several times in life I have been criticized for taking things personally. The thing is, if we don’t take issues personally how are we going to understand them? How do we feel strongly enough about something to act? Here is an example. This economic situation is stressing everyone. The other day I got an understanding why it has happened. I have long felt we as a society focus too much on obtaining all the goodies out there and lose touch with basic needs. In fact we resent what we pay for energy, food, shelter, clothing because it takes away from what we can spend on video games, HD television sets and more car than we need.

So, back to the point. the other day I got my credit card bill. It was for more than $1,400. that was for a trip I took, I expected it and I was ready and paid it off. That’s not the point. The point is this: For a bill that size, the minimum payment was… get this … $21. TWENTY ONE DOLLARS on a $1,400 debt. I didn’t even bother to do the math on how long it would take to pay that off at $21 a month. And that without counting interest, which might even have been more than the minimum due. What that is supposed to do is make me think, “Oh, I can handle that easily, what’s $21? So I go out and spend more on that card. Not a chance. And, on top of the ridiculous minimum payment, they sent me three checks, checks I can use to build up even more credit debt.

(An aside: Did anyone notice when the late payment fee on most cards went to $39, the time frame between when they send the bill and when it was due, was shortened? That means you lave less time to pay it and get it to them so they probably collect more late fees. That’s unless you pay on line which means putting your credit payment on another credit or debit card, or worse let them take it out of your account, not to mention the security problems.)

So, the other night a number came up that tells me our government is simply a victim of the credit system as much as the rest of us. There is a sign in Times Square that keeps up-to-the minute track of the actual amount of the national debt. This past week the operators had to remove the dollar sign from it. They had to remove it because there was no more room for numbers when the national debt went past $10 trillion, TEN TRILLION DOLLARS. When Bill Clinton left office in 2000, there was a surplus. This administration and the six years the party controlled Congress did it to us. Now the whole system, built on paper and granting and receiving poor credit is collapsing. And what did the government do so far? Go deeper into debt to give the bad lenders more money to lend. It is my retirement accounts that are losing because of it, It is my son’s college fund that is losing because of it. Why in the hell shouldn’t I take it personally? Good grief. I kind of like living where security is a good supply of firewood. I am sore tempted at this point to go back to it.

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