Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Short progress report


A whole weekend of building, first blush, taking a break now to let the heater cool so I can lift it out and put flooring under it.

Oh, and I saw the first moose of the season on the road last night. Time to get ready and maybe slow down.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Here we go again

Several nights last week the overnight low went to 20 below. This morning the temperature is above 40 and what little snow we have is melting away. So, again in just a few days we have had a 60-degree temperature change. To tell the truth it is not all that disappointing. Putting down flooring this weekend and I want to put the saw out on the porch to keep the dust out of the house, so it ought to work out fine. And maybe warmer temperatures will bring the birds around. I was a little late filling feeders this year and didn't do it until the big chill last week. So far not one has showed up as far as I can see. So, for the time being the 25 pounds of sunflower seeds I bought is in the back of the Honda hybrid helping keep it on the road.

So far the car is doing all right with the winter. It started right up at 20 below after a couple of hours plugged in, and at work it started easily a couple of nights at 10 below without the plug-in. The electronic displays are a little sluggish at low temperatures, but the heating system warms it up nicely. I didn't put snow tires on it, but it seems to hold the road well, and using the paddle shifters, I have good control. The one thing that's still a concern is bottoming out in deep snow. I have already seen where it pushes through the snow in the driveway. The engine doesn't particularly like the cold, though. Mileage has dropped off from above 50 mpg to the mid to low 40s. Part of this is due to letting it warm up at an idle and part general driving conditions. Still, 43 mpg is a whole lot better than I have ever gotten with anything I have driven before. All in all still happy with it.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

There's something about swans

No idea why I find them so fascinating but here is another part of it. I only learned this second hand but it is a good story. Late last summer someone on the Kenai Peninsula south of here shot a swan with an arrow. The swan was spotted swimming around a lake with the arrow sticking out of it. A team from the Alaska Sealife Center managed to capture the swan and take it to their facility.

 They named her Marshmallow which would not have been my choice but will have to do. There they removed the arrow, treated the wound and nursed her back to health. When it seemed she had recovered fully they returned her to the lake where they had found her, and in time, before the southward migration had begun. There she was greeted by what was assumed to be her mate; they, like geese, mate for life.

 Everything seemed to be fine until the migration started and the swans flew south. Someone checked the lake and Marshmallow was still there. Her wing had not healed well enough or strong enough for her to make the trip and it looked like the other swans had left her behind. The crew from the Sealife Center captured her again and then managed to find a way to send her south for the winter. She flew down in a pet carrier on an airplane.

 People in Washington released her onto a lake where she immediately flew into a tizzy and chased two other swans away. So the injured swan at least ended up somewhere south for the winter, has enough moxie to be feisty and perhaps will gain enough strength to make it back next summer. A happy ending, except perhaps for losing her mate. Well, winter came down on us fast and that lake froze. A few days after she made her safe trip south, someone ventured over to the lake again.

There, walking around on the ice was another swan, alone in the winter apparently displaced, perhaps lost, perhaps looking for Marshamallow, his mate everyone assumed had been left behind by the others. Now he was the one left behind. One can only hope there is more of this story yet to be written.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Time has come, the walrus said

If you click that little Alaska flag to the right under the "What's going on here" headline you get the Weather Underground weather conditions for the area around the East Pole. I delved a little deeper into the site today and found weather warnings. On a map of Alaska it shows high wind warnings. Southeastern has them, but for the rest of the state there is only one little spot of blue indicating high winds. Guess where? Rat cheer. And, boy is it howling out. Tools hanging from a rack on the side of the house are banging, trees are swaying, pretty good storm all in all. On a brighter note, heavy snow predicted for the East Pole, 10 to 20 inches in the next 24 hours. That might not be so much fun while it's happening or until the cleanup is complete, but in the long view it means snow on the trail and time is close for snowmachine trips to the cabin. Woo hoo. I have two more weekends of remodeling and then watch out.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Too much smoke


Not long after I moved to Alaska I started having a recurrent dream. In it, I had traveled Outside and for one reason or another could not get back to Alaska. In time I learned that several other people had the same dream. In discussing it with one person or another we decided it was simply that this is where we wanted to be and had some kind of unconscious fear of losing it. Well, that dream faded after a while and I haven’t had one in years.

However, it has been replaced by another, I had one last night. It involves the East Pole. In it, I am making my way along the trial toward the cabin. I run into people along the trail, some I know some I don’t, it changes with the dreams. It is almost always in summer with four-wheelers and difficulties along the trail change also, however it always seems there are more people than usual. Sometimes they are headed for the town, or we can see the town or it involves getting something from the town, but that is not the most disturbing part, When I finally arrive at the cabin I find I can see others around it. but even that is not the worst.

The worst is that just over the hill behind the cabin there is some kind of a development, Sometimes it is a mall or shopping center and sometimes it is a cluster of townhouses but always an encroachment of development with paved streets, stores and traffic. Sometimes I wrestle with that or sometimes I wake up but that seems to be where the dream ends, when I realize that the sprawl of development has caught up and I either need to join and accept it or start over farther away.

Just some side notes on this: After 20 years someone has finally built a cabin I can see from the East Pole and I find that disconcerting. In summer when the trees are all leafed out i can't see it, but I know it's there. In winter it is very visible from the front deck. It is like the solitude is shattered. But the dreams began long before that. I think the new cabin just fulfills the apprehension from the dreams about people moving too close. It is like when you expect people to be around you can deal with it, but when you don’t it can be disturbing,

And I am not without fault. While I was building the cabin I made friends with a man who had lived in that area in a small cabin for the previous 12 years, from long before the land had been sold as a subdivision. One day he was helping me put up the ridge board (a story in itself) and I was telling him how this had been a lifelong dream. He said it had been one of his as well. At that point a startling realization came over me. Shocked, I looked at him and said rather sheepishly, "I am part of your problem, aren't I." He politely nodded affirmatively and we let it go at that, but that realization has always tempered my reaction to others who came out later. One man's dream is another's nightmare.

One of those trivial facts I remember from early history lessons or that I read somewhere is that Daniel Boone had said he always felt the urge to move when he could see the smoke from a neighbor’s chimney. He eventually died in Missouri. I have always wondered if expansion caught up with him there and he just gave up and didn’t move again or if he had reached the end of his trail before another neighbor's smoke pushed him farther west.
At any rate, it seems these days there is just too much smoke to get away from it all.

ADDENDUM: Lately I have discovered an awful number of young people have very little knowledge of American (or any) history so here's a little about Daniel Boone. As if to make my point a question on one of the sites asked "Wasn't he the one who died at the Alamo?" The article even pointed out he died in 1820, 16 years before that battle.

Monday, November 9, 2009

He Lives!


Driving to work on a dismal gray day, snow in the forecast and obviously threatening... memory music playing, the kind that gives you that warm, sad feeling. It had been kind of a low weekend anyway and it all seemed to fit. And then I saw a figure walking the bike path across the four-lane. It took a moment to register. Then in the fleeting of passage at 62 mph, I recognized the wide-brimmed hat, the blue denim jacket, the long gray beard -- the Solitary Man. He was walking away from the town toward where he would cross two lanes of the highway to his island. That lifted my spirits. So great to see him, know he’s alive and still trudging that trail and still wondering what goes on in that solitary life. Immediately I felt a smile, a happy song came up and it just made the day a whole lot better. By night and time to go home, it had snowed about three inches and still falling. This was the first time in snow with the Honda. There was enough snow falling to be blinding especially when another car passed and blew up a bunch of it. Went home slowly then messed around a little after I got off the main highway and it seemed to handle the snow just fine. Paddle shifters help. With seven gears there is a lot of control so the car might be all right. Now if the huge battery doesn't freeze at 30 below everything will be just fine.

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