Wednesday, January 14, 2009

79 and counting

Speaking of every inclemency of the weather, it just keeps getting better and better. By the time I got home this morning the temperature had reached 42....that’s an increase of 79 degrees in a little more than two days. Everything is melting. And it is raining. On top of that, there is a howling windstorm ripping through the trees, enough of a wind that I left the car farther down the driveway away from the bigger trees in case the storm makes me more firewood. The wind is so wild between moving branches and blowing chunks of snow off them, it keeps both outside motion-detector lights on constantly. I have needed to get back to the East Pole to retrieve something I forgot the weekend after Christmas and haven’t been able to do it because it has been minus 30 and 40. Hoping to go this weekend but might not be able to because the temperature is plus 40 and the creeks might not be crossable.

Oh, and there has been a sighting. I am pretty sure I saw the Solitary Man last night. Driving to work, I spotted him across four lanes of traffic in the dark so I can’t be sure, but the silhouette was right, the wide brimmed hat, backpack, slightly hunched posture. He was heading down the hill away from the town toward where I think he lives. On the way home I looked at the area when I could. Freezing rain made that a little difficult since I was driving on what was essentially a skating rink-- 35 mph the whole way on a four lane 65 mph road. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a trail in the snow, but there were three sets of tracks up the hill. Could have been a moose, but it could have been him, too. Difficult to believe he lived out there through the cold time of the past couple of weeks, but you never know how tough a guy can be. Those buffalo hunters and mountain men did it. One reason I may not have seen him for a while is I finish my job earlier these days so go by his area much earlier than I used to and he isn’t moving yet that early. At any rate it was kind of reassuring to see him still among the quick instead of the dead.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Amazing

Just checked the temperature outside. It is 30 degrees above zero. That means in the space of a little more than two days, the temperature here has risen 67 degrees. 67 degrees Like flying from Alaska to San Diego.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Time to take the bull by the tail and face the situation

There is a lament every Alaskan has heard. You meet someone, a new acquaintance, a long-lost relative, a friend of a friend. That person looks at you with faraway eyes and upon learning you live in Alaska, says something like, “Oh, I have always wanted to go to Alaska.” or “I always wanted to take one of those cruises” or “I have a niece who lives there I always wanted to visit” or, my personal favorite: “If I were younger....” Another is the assumption because you live in Alaska you are by definition an outdoors person. I met a woman at a party in the Big Outside once who upon learning i was from Alaska offered "Oh, i love camping." I walked away. And get this, at minus 50 degrees F, no one is an outdoorsman unless he really has to be. The most you do outdoors is reach out and grab another stick of wood for the fire and slam the door quickly. It is not nearly that cold during the summer tourist season.

Sometimes the comments sound like all that insincere bulldust you hear among people at a cocktail party, “hello, dear, you look wonderful” or ‘how nice to see you” or “how are you doing.” The real meaning of those being “I have to say something civil.” In the case of Alaska, it more means “Gawd, how could you live in a place like that?” Or, “what kind of ruffian are you?” or “I can’t catch anything from you, can I?”

Well, this year we are calling your bluff. No more, “I always wanted to go there, but I could never afford it.” It is time to separate the filet mignon from the bull. As the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining and in this case the cloud is the recession.

So, get this, no more excuses. Either admit you have no intention of ever visiting Alaska or buy a ticket. Cruise lines and other tourism businesses are already feeling a decline in the early sales of tour packages and as a result are offering huge discounts, some as much as 40 percent. I saw one fare for an Alaska cruise that normally goes for around $800 offered for $425. Even local businesses that cater to tourists are feeling the pinch and offering deals.

So, assuming you are not also receding, now is the time. After this no more excuses, no more idle chat. Anything like that will be met with derision and disbelief or the simple bulldust cocktail chat line “You had your chance.”

(Oh, just one little aside: I already have a couple of family members threatening to visit and that is about all I can handle in one summer.)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Severe clear



The missing bark from that tree was dislodged by a three-toed woodpecker. I watched him work at it for a while one day. I had never seen anything like it before. Some of it shattered and fell off as he pecked, but he got his bill behind some to pry it off.

The cold probably helped, making the bark brittle for him. It has been THAT cold. According to the paper this morning we are in the longest sub zero cold spell since 1917. When i got home this morning it was 37 below zero. Apparently I live in a "cold hole."

 Leaving Anchorage last night the temperature was minus 12, but when i dropped off the low hills into the river bottom of the Knik and Matanuska Rivers, it dropped very quickly to minus 30. (It fell from minus 15 to minus 30 in three miles.) About 13 miles later at home it was 37 below. So far nothing in the house has frozen, but i have to keep water running all the time, and the car has held up but i leave it plugged in all day.

For those of you who don't now, most vehicles in Alaska have engine heaters. You plug them in to house current and they keep your car at about starting temperature so you aren't fighting cold lubricants and metal when you first start up. Tires get hard and flatten on the bottom so when you first start going, you bump down the road until they warm a little and go round again. Farther north it has gone to 50 below. On the Arctic Coast in the oil fields they sometimes leave vehicles running all winter. They do that with some road clearing equipment too. All part of living in the wonderful Northland. Of course, when it is this cold it is also beautiful if you can open your eyes wide enough to see it. Hoar frost adheres to tree branches.

 The sun, what little there is of daylight, is bright,though you feel no warmth from it. Sunlight in this kind of weather creates a phenomenon called sundogs. The light reflecting off frozen crystals in the air creates what look like little balls of rainbow on either side of the sun and at the same height. i looks almost like one sun with a smaller one on each side of it. We are pushing toward a full moon and reflected off the snow, the light makes the night very bright, so bright, in fact, it is difficult to see stars. There is a bright star in the southern sky in the evenings, which i am guessing is a planet, but I need to look that one up.

 Along the way on that two-lane road I photographed last summer, two moose have been hanging out in about a three-mile stretch. Twice they have been in the road and I had to stop and i see them almost every night. Makes the driving just a little more exciting. I have seen tracks, too, where moose have wandered through the yard. Two years ago i chased one up the driveway when I came home and he stood there just inside the tree line (about 30 feet from the door) and watched me just as warily as I did him as i went into the house.

The birds really go through seed at these temperatures. i just emptied my second 25-pound bag of black sunflower seeds this winter today, and the fifth 3-5 pound bag of sunflower chips. Those little bags cost almost as much as the big ones. I am feeding a bunch of chickadees and nuthatches, plus juncoes and now some redpolls are showing up. They may be just the vanguard; last year it seemed like hundreds in the yard. There have also been a few pine grosbeaks around and, that darned woodpecker.

Well, this is the first post of the new year and already we have quite an auspicious beginning. Lots of questioning about global warming considering how cold it is and how long it has lasted. Cycles within cycles is probably all it is. Watching weather today and guess what. All this cold is heading south by the weekend, at least according to the forecasters. Should put at least the northern states into a deep freeze. Good riddance, and you all have fun with 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