Time we have wasted on the way...

... in front of the tube and so, so many questions

Why.....
... can't the bad guys hit anything with a machine gun while the good guys take them down with one shot?
... does every law enforcement officer have to put up with a threatening boss?
... is almost every new police department supervisor black and usually a woman?
... are all husbands doofuses in sitcoms and commercials?
... does a camera shutter sound like a cannon going off and how many pictures of one thing do they need anyway?
... is almost every police officer in trouble with internal affairs?
... do so many police guys and their families eventually become crime victims? Does this happen often in real life?
... does every new sitcom have to deal with young people sorting out love interests?
... how do women crime scene investigators and police detectives manage to walk over soggy ground in high-heeled shoes or even run after perps in them
... is every suspect called a "perp" and every victim called a "vic?" I get the idea one writer heard those words used and decided every cop in every city in the country uses the very same words. And then every writer on every cop show picked them up and now that's all they are called. "Castle" had a great episode addressing this. He used the word perp and two cops asked why do you writers all call them perps. Then every time they encountered each other for the rest of the episode, the cops offered up synonyms. It was a great running gag.



And speaking of "Castle," it is one show that has been good on the originality side. Particularly cool are the poker games with real crime writers. But, as the 2011 season approached i was a little worried. The detective precinct captain was killed in the last episode of the previous season. The first hint of things going south was when Detective Beckett was shot in that same episode. That was supposed to be a cliffhanger, but who would ever have believed they would kill off Beckett? The whole situation meant some changes in the paradigm. A few days before the first episode was scheduled to broadcast this fall, I told a friend of my fears and offered to bet on the new situation. I said I hoped the show didn't fall into cliche but I was afraid the new supervisor would try to get rid of Castle and be tough on Beckett. I said if they really went the whole way into cliche the new captain would be a woman and most likely black. I also suggested that the new black woman precinct captain would get a call from Castle's friend the mayor telling her to let him stay and that she would resent it. Honestly this was a bet I wanted to lose. Besides the show remaining strongly original, I would get to have dinner with a wonderful friend. But guess what. First of all she wouldn't take the bet, but worse, has anyone seen the first episode of "Castle" this year? Every damn one of those things happened. It was pleasant to see in the second episode the captain was already softening toward Castle. Though probably unrealistic at least it allows the writers to get out of that cliche quickly. When i used to write editorials I realized I was only criticizing and maybe I should look for alternatives at least and solutions at best. How about this? Precinct captain is older than Beckett. Suppose she took a shine to Castle and competed with Beckett for his attention, or maybe even more, she sees a writer who has a connection to the mayor as a person who can publicize her actions as a way to gain favor, publicity and and help promote her career aspirations. Either of those situations would give the writers some new avenues to explore as plot twists rather than repeat old ones of conflict between cop and supervisor. (HInt, hint: I am here and keeping an eye out for interesting work. Call me. And i didn't make a hand motion of a phone to my ear and mouth those words.)


Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve?

Lyric quotes from Crosby Stills and Nash

With apologies to Lykke Li

Like a shotgun needs an outcome
there's a lilac fence
they ain't gonnn get none

One can hope anyway... these ought to at least discourage the moose, plus if snow sticks to it, it disguises them a little. Might put some plywood over the top just for added protection. First real frost overnight and it pulped that last few tomatoes, but oh well, got half a dozen ripening on the kitchen table along with the geraniums.



Tore out the pea plants and saved the posts for next year.

Look at the huge petunias still. I know i will buy another flat of those next year.

And, that contest is still going on about what's different. And the change is very visible in one of these pictures. No, it's not the clean car. It's a real nickel. You never know, it might be worth more than five cents.

BULLETIN: We have a winner. The nickel is claimed. It's the paint on the window trim. The early photos of this garden seemed to all have some chipped fading flaking paint in them. It looked bigger in the pictures than it did in real life but it was enough for me to go buy a can of paint and take care of it. Now if someone gets the record that was set a couple of posts ago, all the contests will be satisfied and we'll have to come up with a new one.

Me and Eric

Cruising on a beautiful fall day, even carrying a camera. Lots of yellow leaves flashing back the sunlight;, a crispness in the air that tells you it is full on fall and warns about what is coming next. Vintage Clapton blaring on the Jeep radio and school kids laughing at the old guy singing and rocking out at the stop signs and lights. Old guys don't sing rock and roll. Well if Clapton and the Stones are still going so are their original fans. Deal with it. Picking up materials for the winter, mostly stout fencing for the lilac bushes to prevent moose attacks. Something to employ before the shotgun. Pretty sure the state would not allow the property defense plea for protecting lilacs. Picked up a few of those steel t=bar fenceposts too, to secure the wire fencing for the winter and then use them to build a better growing stand for next summer's peas. Petunias are still blooming and huge; the rest are beginning to show the effects of the cooler nights and lesser amounts of daylight. All in all the kind of fall day that makes you appreciate living where there are four seasons even though two of them seem to happen in an instant. On we go, still immersed in my writing project. Laaaaaaaaayyyy laaaaaaaaaa Electric and acoustic. In case you kids don't know it, Clapton is God. You can google it,

Lead on to the promised land

When Clapton was God

You just have to love her....

... for linking to these kids

A new mystery

I have always thought I had a good handle on geography. If somebody gave a place name I at the very least knew where on the map to look. That was true until just about every nation east of the Prime Meridian decided to change its name. The area i have chosen to call the "stans" comes to mind. You know, all those places in southcentral Asia that changed their names after the fall of the Soviet Union, and that all end in "stan." Still I can find most places. But, today there was a hit on this blog from a place where I didn't even know there was a place. The notation on the revolving map didn't even give a region or a place name, just a red dot in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa. I had to enlarge the Google map almost to its extreme before anything showed up, but there were three islands named in that gulf and a few other smaller ones. There are lots of random hits so it's not certain that connection came from anyone I know, but it is kind of cool to log a hit from that part of the world.

I wondered what the connection might be. Then while looking along the shoreline of the continent, there it was, the mouth of the Niger River. And, believe it or not, that geographic feature has a strong connection with Alaska, someone I know could actually be there. To begin with the Niger River area and the Gulf of Guinea may be one of the biggest oil exploration areas in the world no one ever heard of. In my days working in oil spill response I met boat captains who operated work boats, rig tenders, crew boats, anchoring boats and mud boats in that area supporting oil industry work. They had wonderful stories to tell and several nights in wheelhouses I enjoyed those stories.

One that stuck with me was the description of a visit one night in which a couple of men in a small boat approached them and were welcomed aboard. No, they were not pirates, at least not in the traditional sense though in time they may turn out to be. These guys were employees of Royal Dutch Shell which has a large presence in the area. Over coffee and small talk the Shell people asked the boat crew if they had any company logo hats or jackets they would be willing to trade. It turned out Shell was not very popular with the locals there. Hated, even. And the natives had even shot at them on occasion as they worked along the river. Later i did a little reading about it and it came up that Shell may have been responsible in one way or another for moving and maybe destroying whole villages with some violence involved. Of course this may be easier to say than to prove, but one thing stands out -- that most often when an oil installation or a pipeline there has been attacked by locals, it is owned by Shell. These guys on the boat just wanted to disguise themselves so they could do their work without being shot at. Later I learned Shell employees had also approached Chevron people for the same reason.

The Alaska connection? That same company is now preparing to explore in the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea northwest and north of Alaska --- THE ARCTIC OCEAN. Their assurances to everyone are that it is perfectly safe and they've made comparisons to the Gulf of Mexico spill last summer saying the Alaska drilling is much safer largely because the wells will be shallower and at lower pressures. I wonder if they are also safer because Arctic Ocean pack ice will protect them. They have also employed a small fleet of boats for oil spill response. As I recall two larger mud boat types and half a dozen smaller boats. The next closest response equipment is a small cache at Prudhoe Bay from a coop I don't think they belong to, and after that it's more than a thousand miles to any other spill response equipment. A response in winter would be near impossible, especially if ice in the area hinders the work. Given their history in Africa, they probably think they can handle the folks who live along Alaska's Arctic coast as well.

You have to wonder how long it will be before Shell employes begin approaching Crowley tow boats bringing supplies to villages in northwest Alaska, seeking hats and jackets to camouflage themselves so they can hide from angry Eskimo whalers.

Oh, and speaking of mysteries: This post marks another record. A nickel to anyone who figures it out.

It's not what you think

When I go walking in the woods.
I never see a thing.
I never see an animal
on hoof or paw or wing,

There are some big ones out there:
that I know for fact.
So how can something big as deer,
even hide its rack?

I guess I'll just keep walking,
ever on my guard.
Someday I hope I'll see
some kind of critter in my yard.

From "More Wild Critters" by Tim Jones and Tom Walker



So I finally see a critter in my yard and go rushing out with a camera only to find out it's a horse. What a disappointment. Although as far as exotic critters in the yard, I have seen several moose but this was the first horse, so maybe it's time for a different perspective on exotic wildlife. Unfortunately I also noticed all the snow coming down the mountain. I think I will bring in the last tomatoes and the geranium today.

FIREWOOD AND REVERY

This is something I promised I would never do, and then I did it once before. I have been immersed in a writing project and have little left at the end of the day. Like they say in sports, you leave it all on the field. But I know people check so, I am posting an older short story that has never been published, just for the entertainment value, and so you won't forget me. Take three days to read it in parts. I will be back. And just for the information value, this fancy new Mac only adds to the creative process in the sense that the work looks better on a larger brighter screen. As far as more intelligent prose it is more like an enlarging mirror or a flat screen HD TV.... all the blemishes are magnified. So it goes.

And some music to listen to while you read. There's a connection.




Copyright © 2011 by Tim Jones

He swung the maul between slices of developing fantasy. "Been on this hill too long," he muttered aloud to the trees, took another cut and then let himself drift into the other world. The combination intoxicated, mellowed the anxiety that drove him to the wood pile. He picked up a new section of birch cut for the length of the stove, set it on the block and lashed at it, but the heavy maul bit only slightly and then bounced away, twisting his arms and shoulders. The birch fell off the block, then the block itself, another larger section of birch, fell over from the glancing blow. He righted the block, set the resilient victim back in place and took another, this time more vicious swing. The wood parted into two equal sized quarters, but the bark on the side away from him held, leaving a hinged clamshell of birch, an open book of firewood facing him. He picked up the book, gripped

Yooooo light up my life, you give me hope

Normally I resist the modernization of Alaska, all those improvements meant to make this place like every other place. I was willing to put up with two-week tape delays of football games because it fed the frontier spirit. Once in a while there is an improvement however that does make it better. The road i drive every night is six, then four lanes with brush close on both sides for most of the 30 miles of the drive. That means cars going 65+ and moose crossing perpendicularly. There has been very little lighting along the road and even less the farther you go north from Anchorage. For the past couple of months crews have been erecting high lights along the darker parts of the route, something a friend of mine complained about citing basically the same reasons I have for resisting. When I pointed out she drives the road maybe two or three times a month and I drive it five nights a week and the lights would make the road incredibly safer, she didn't really take it all that kindly.

As if to emphasize the point, tonight in the hour before the work shift ended, twice the police radio reported vehicle collisions with moose on the very road I would be traveling in just a few minutes. One was a motorcycle. There were injuries but they weren't detailed on the radio beyond calling paramedics.

Within an hour I was driving that same road, having been warned to watch for moose by what coworkers are left in the newsroom these days at that time of night. I wondered if the whole moose biomass wasn't on the move. Within about five miles I came upon two pickup trucks parked on the shoulder facing each other with their headlights on. I slowed and as I passed, I saw the skinned carcass of a moose and the guys apparently had started butchering. There is a list of charities police call when a moose is down and the meat is harvested to feed the hungry and homeless through one outlet or another. Hoping some of those folks have a good, hot meal tomorrow. I knew about where the other moose had been hit so I watched the road but it was the one area where you can't see across all four lanes so either I missed it or it had already happened.

All of it heightened my awareness and slowed me down a little. I had seen those new lights being tested earlier in the day but the first area I had hoped they'd be illuminating was as dark as ever. Fortunately with very little traffic the bright lights on the car were useful.

Just about the time I had to dim them, I came around a curve and, whoa. the road was lighted like a Chicago Parkway. What a difference. Right there I decided this was one improvement I could get behind, thinking ahead to the nine months of nights before next equinox. For once a modernization was welcome and will be for a long time. And some folks tomorrow who need it will be eating well. Of course those two moose were hit in areas that have been lighted all along so new lights don't mean no moose collisions, just that you can see them before you hit them.

THE PHOTO: For those who know the road that is an iPhone image of the Glenn Highway looking north from the Eklutna on-ramp, one of the areas that was darkest before the lights, and an area where I have seen several moose killed over the years.

Everybody has a story

This is mine.

September 11 is the birthday of one of my son's best friends. In 2001 he spent the night before at his friend's house, so in the morning I was spared the joy of getting him a breakfast and off to school. As was my habit in those days I was downstairs in my home office early in the morning writing when an Instant Message from my niece in Buffalo fairly jumped off the screen telling me to turn on the television. The set warmed up and showed a picture just in time for me to witness the second airliner hitting the second tower of the World Trade Center. I had no idea whether what I was watching was real or something left over from an all-night terror movie marathon, but an announcer cleared that up as soon as he quit saying oh my god about a hundred times.

I knew pretty quickly writing was over for the morning and I sat, my full attention glued to the TV as I watched the horrors slowly unfold, sorting out the rumors every announcer seemed to report and trying to figure out exactly what happened, and what was truth and what was an overanxious talking head's imagination.

What I thought was I wanted to be with my son. At that time in life I taught a writing session once a week in his class for two hours. I thought about the kids and when it seemed a good time, I called his teacher to ask if I could help in some way, if only to be in the classroom with the kids and try to answer any questions they had and maybe just be a solid presence.
She said all right, so I did that. Knowing little more than they did, but helping them sort out what was fact and what was rumor and reassuring them that I was fairly sure nothing in Alaska was worth a terrorist's firepower. Of course we were three miles away from the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal at the time. My thought was terror meant affecting as many people as possible and there weren't that many in our little corner of the world.

When regular classes started I left hoping I had helped in some way.

Later in the week I think I might have. I was always looking for writing projects for the kids. I thought they would learn more writing than listening to me spout off so they spent most of their time in that class writing. But finding ideas for them was sometimes taxing.

No problem this week. I found a timeline of events on a web site and copied it, changed the times to Alaska time and then printed it out, later making enough copies at school. In class that morning I started by telling them that just about every generation has some kind of defining moment, something that happened where you never forget where you were when you heard it. I said my parents' was probably Pearl Harbor Day, My own was probably the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And, then I told them that 9/11 just might be theirs. So, I assigned them to write down everything they could remember from that morning. From how they learned about what happened, to what they had for breakfast; what did they wear to school, were they afraid; what did their friends think, any detail no matter how small, so that they could remember the day accurately. I gave them each a copy of the timeline to help out, so maybe they could compare events in their lives with those in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania.

This was a two hour class of fifth or sixth graders, but they were quiet for a long time, most of the first hour. I always started the class with an in-their-seats yoga exercise and when they got antsy later on, we would all stand up and do a sun salute. We did that, they sat and worked a little longer and when most had finished we talked more about the events until the end of the hour.

During their computer class that week they went to the computer lab and typed their stories into the machine and we printed them all out. Then I bought a bunch of nice folders and the teacher and I made a folder for each kid with their story and the timeline in it. I can't remember now but I think we might have put all the kids' stories in each folder but I am not sure. Anyway we gave those to the kids to save.

On the tenth anniversary, they were all in their early 20s and now in their 30s and I would like to think at least some of them still have their folders and maybe can pull them out and read a little of what they thought about it all those years ago. 

At the 10th anniversary I encountered a strange coincidence that just that morning I came across a blog written by one of them and it was written beautifully. Another one of those kids was a Marine in Afghanistan at that time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

25 KT

Record numbers

Two today. 4,000 and 59.3. The second number is miles per gallon over the 41 miles to work today, and that was without even trying, barely paying attention. I know I can get 60. I lost 0.3 between the Bragaw stoplight and the parking lot. I DID. Honest!

Bear

I realized last night it has been a long time since reporting the last wildlife sighting. A bear running across the road near the salmon hatchery reminded me of that. Now I am wondering why I haven’t seen a lot of critters during the drive. Maybe I’m not watching as well as I used to, or maybe there aren’t as many. Maybe there is more traffic so they stay away from the roads. At any rate it was great to see the little bear burst out of the brush, hustle his way across the road and into the brush on the other side.

Garden of surprises

When I started this garden a couple of years ago, I put in a sort of koi pond made out of the lid from a discarded Rubbermaid garbage can. It was mostly to catch rain off the roof where it would have puddled and turned things to mud. Nothing much ever happens with it except the occasional bird that bathes in it. I noticed a couple of days ago its shape had changed and it was bent. It has more water in it than ever before so I figured it was just the added weight and I hadn't seated it well. Messing around out there today, I noticed this. What the hell is that (are those) things? I suppose I could look them up but the mystery is more fun, at least until it tries to eat the house.

Alaska extreme fighting Redux

A couple of years ago there was a post on here about a guy running into a grizzly late at night and instead of playing dead like everyone tells you, he fought back and punched the bear, eventually sending it scurrying into the woods. Well, it happened again only this time it was a woman. She lives in Juneau and had let her two little dogs out into the yard. She heard one barking frantically and went out to see what it was and found a bear holding the dog down and biting it. Instead of screaming and going all nutsy, she ran out and punched the bear in the nose. It dropped the dog and ran off. You just have to love Alaska women even if you couldn't beat them in a fair fight. Here's the original story. Oh, did I mention she's beautiful, too. Have to wonder if she can handle a chainsaw. My guess is yes.

Does it get any better than this?

Pork chop on a stick. Dribble dots so cold they stick to your tongue when you put them in your mouth. A 1,723 pound pumpkin. Only thing wrong? Well two. First I miss doing this with kids, although I got to spend a whole lot more time in the livestock barn and even spent a few minutes talking with a mother and her daughter about the hog they had entered. I always feel somewhat reassured when I see kids farming and raising livestock. And the other: I always get cold at the fair, always. So, today I dressed for it. Guess what? Blazing hot sun. Now I need another shower. All in all a little sunburn, a good day and assured there will be a new supply of meat for pork chops on a stick next year.