Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Random occurrences from life in the slow lane


Startled awake yesterday to a pounding on the wall. At first I got a flash of a neighbor having seen my house on fire and trying to wake me up. Not nearly so dramatic as I came more alert. My friend the woodpecker is back and just had to let me know. He worked his way around the two walls outside the bedroom making sure I was awake and aware he had returned.

On the theme of birds, eagles are back along the river. There is a teen hangout where two immatures watch the flow from an old, broken cottonwood or swoop down to water’s edge to nab whatever they are finding in the stream these days. Farther along in a huge cottonwood, two adults do the same thing, though, I am sure with a more practiced eye.

One night last week I saw a fox race across the highway and slither under the guard rail. Moose are moving down and more and more of them are showing up along the roads. Time to slow down.

And, another only in Alaska observation: Two nights ago driving home, I came up on a vehicle with hazard lights flashing, four of them. Closer observation revealed a pickup towing a snowmachine trailer, but it was moving close to 60 mph so why the hazard lights? I caught up even with the trailer and then it became clear. On it were two carefully (it looked like at 60 mph) wrapped airplane wings. It isn’t unusual to see people hauling airplane parts around Alaska, even whole fuselages, but in the middle of the night on a dark road, one has to wonder. Nothing ulterior though, guessing the fellow just wanted to protect them at all costs from some idiot running into him and ruining his winter project.

So it goes. Snow in the forecast down to 1,200 feet.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Hip deep in the East Pole mud


There's a reason I don't go the East Pole much in the summer (read, Fall, as well). The trail is so trenched if there has been any rain at all the ruts fill with water and the high sides hold it there so you can run into 100-yard long lake and because the water is so muddy you have no idea how deep they are. It is always amazing what a four-wheeler can do. I remember a time a wave in one of those lakes came right up over the front of the machine.

Most of them aren't very deep but some have no bottom. Another surprise as that when people go through them they gun it at the end of the puddle to rise up out of it. Unfortunately doing that digs the bottom deeper right at the end because they spin the tires and dig it out. It keeps getting deeper and deeper with each passing and creates also a steep rise out of it, some of them trenched enough you can high center the machine. Roaring along through water at full speed and then hit a mogul like that. It can stop the machine cold. The key is momentum... keep going no matter what and hope your momentum keeps you going when the wheels start spinning in the underwater mud. In a lot of places people have created side trails where you can go around some of the worst spots. 

 Picture seven miles of this, another puddle every few hundred feet. The worst is when you decide you can make it and then the puddle curves, you come around the corner and there is another couple of hundred feet to go through the water, no idea how deep it is or how loose the mud underneath is and then the front disappears under water. This is when your only hope is momentum and you grip the throttle and blast through it, mud flying and if you are fortunate enough you don't smack straight into one of those moguls. So in the last two days I did 14 miles of that. 

 What takes about 30 or 40 minutes in winter, takes two hours in the summer. Never stuck, rolled it on its side once and oh, yes, the mud, what a bunch of mud. I never had mud work its way INTO a cooler before. And I saw enough spruce hens for a thanksgiving feast. If I could have stopped I might have brought some home.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Jumping to conclusions

All right so fall is a time of transitions and nothing stays the same. Now the newer solitary man has disappeared again, didn't see him at all for two days, but, of course "for good" doesn't seem to apply at this time of year because yesterday there were two brilliant white swans on the pond. Still no snow on the ground at this level but, some white, and endless rain it seems. And, nope, still no one. And, things change here too, wind blew most of my garden protection away so I have to start over, and oh yeah as if this all should go in the same sentence, on Twitter now, and oh boy, an iPhone. So, I guess the need to change isn't just in Nature and weather. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Slaughter House Five, so it goes.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Rush to judgment


The newer solitary man hasn't disappeared quite yet. Maybe he had to go get gas or something. Anyway he was back yesterday but in a different place... this time in a pullout parking spot, the last one before you get on the highway, or so I thought. On the way home last night he had pulled even closer to the highway and was parked on the shoulder just before the on ramp, stove pipe smoking and at 1 in the morning obviously spending the night. It will be interesting to see where he is today or if he has finally hit the highway.

Fall is edging much closer to winter these days and there have been strange doings. For one, the large group of swans stayed only one day. In past years they have lingered for as long as a week. The nesting pair that stays showed up a few days later again but they too have now gone on. They have stayed until freezeup in previous years. Leaves have lingered longer on the trees and there are still fully yellow trees around the house. Yesterday I got the garden ready for winter. A friend told me and another confirmed it works to put down newspaper and then cover it with mulch so I did. Supposedly no weeds show up in the spring. I raked up all the leaves nearby and covered the newspaper with them. Today there are that many leaves and more right where I raked yesterday. No more raking until the trees are bare. Might as well do it just once. So, anyway, the garden is ready, the swans are gone, leaves are falling, the newer solitary man is inching closer to the highway winter equipment is in both cars, temperatures now in the 30s at night and the stove is cleaned and ready for cold. Oh, and get this: Snuggies are on sale at Walmart. Still to be learned is how an Insight functions in cold and snow.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

On another note

It looks like the newer solitary man has disappeared. I never really accepted him as truly solitary because he was always so visible, at least his homevan was. I noticed one day he had moved from his most recent parking place down the road a way toward the highway to a much narrower area. That didn't look too permanent and sure enough a few days later he was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile a friend thinks she might have spotted the original right in the same area where I first noticed him.

OK try this

Southcentral Alaska is clinging to the fall colors still, just too pretty to let go quite yet before accepting the white shroud of winter.

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

Commenting on an athlete with hearing impairment he said the player didn’t show any “uncomfortability.” “He's not doing things he can't do."

"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

"He's got to have the lead if he's going to win this race." "

"Kansas has always had the ability to score with the basketball."

"NFL to put computer chips in balls." Oh, that's gotta hurt.

"Now that you're in the finals you have to run the race that's going to get you on the podium."

"It's very important for both sides that they stay on their feet."

This is why you get to hate sportscasters. Kansas beats Texas for the first time since 1938. So the pundits open their segment with the question "let's talk about what went wrong." Wrong? Kansas WON a football game! That's what went RIGHT!

"I brought out the thermostat to show you how cold it is here." Points to a thermometer reading zero in Minneapolis.

"It's tough to win on the road when you turn the ball over." Oh, really? Like you can do all right if you turn the ball over playing at home?

Cliches so embedded in sportscasters' minds they can't help themselves: "Minnesota fell from the ranks of the undefeated today." What ranks? They were the only undefeated team left.

A good one: A 5'10" player went up and caught a pass off a defensive back over six feet tall. The quote? "He's got some hops."

Best homonym of the day so far: "It's all tied. Alabama 34, Kentucky 3." Oh, Tide.

"Steve Hooker commentates on his Olympic pole vault gold medal." When "comments" just won't do.

"He's certainly capable of the top ten, maybe even higher than that."

"Atlanta is capable of doing what they're doing."

"Biyombo, one of seven kids from the Republic of Congo." In the NBA? In America? In his whole country?

"You can't come out and be aggressive but you can't come out and be unaggressive."

"They're gonna be in every game they play!"

"First you have to get two strikes on the hitter before you get the strikeout."

"The game ended in the final seconds." You have to wonder when the others ended or are they still going on?

How is a team down by one touchdown before the half "totally demoralized?"

"If they score runs they will win."

"I think the matchup is what it is"

After a play a Houston defender was on his knees, his head on the ground and his hand underneath him appeared to clutch a very sensitive part of the male anatomy. He rolled onto his back and quickly removed his hand. (Remember the old Cosby routine "you cannot touch certain parts of your body?") Finally they helped the guy to the sideline and then the replay was shown. In it the guy clearly took a hard knee between his thighs. As this was being shown, one of the announcers says, "It looks like he hurt his shoulder." The other agrees and then they both talk about how serious a shoulder injury can be. Were we watching the same game?

"Somebody is going to be the quarterback or we're going to see a new quarterback."

"That was a playmaker making a play.”