Sunday, October 30, 2011

Murder most fowl




I witnessed a murder today, personified by dark sinister beings challenging any who would cross the bridge, with more gathered on the beaches below on both sides of the river, more yet along the water's edge to the west. Easily visible against the background of new fallen snow. Black and white, evil and good, the eternal struggle.

They gathered in a place where the movie was being shot just a few days before, a movie based in the evil that stalked this place a quarter century before, an evil that left its victims in unmarked graves, many of them never found.

Was the murder recent, of course it was, but was it also founded in that time and now its victims rise on All Hallow's Eve to torment those who paid little attention to their fate because they were considered less than worthy of a proper investigation by authorities.

Like a lawman facing unbelievable odds, the eagle stared from his perch in the old cottonwood at the gang gathered below perhaps wondering too, what evil brought this murder out on this particular day. Maybe with his vision he can see the spirits of those long-dead souls drifting through the forests seeking salvation or retribution, or both.

And this is the mystery, my friends and the new challenge. Can anyone define this murder? Muwaaaa haaaaa haaaaa!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

'Frozen Ground' the Sequel: Aftermath



Having spent the better part of August 2010 sailing around in the North Pacific Ocean with a group of people trying to get a handle on the amount and possible cleanup of all the plastic trapped in a gyre out there, I've become a lot more sensitive to the amount of plastic I and everyone else use and thought a bit about the supply chain. Where does all that plastic come from and how does it get into the ocean? Granted most of what we saw could have come off boats, but it originated on land one way or another.
How some of it gets there became crystal clear during the drive to work yesterday. At the Kink River I glanced over and noticed the movie people were gone and wrote about that, but another thing I saw was a big wad of Visqueen blown into a tangle of brush on the beach. (For non Alaskans, Visqueen is plastic sheeting and we use the term genericly) The plastic in the brush bothered me on the drive and I convinced myself to go over there and clean up what I could. It also led to thoughts about its location. That Visqueen was about a hundred yards or less from the Knik River. At this point it's probably less than two miles to Knik Arm, Knik Arm empties into Cook Inlet which in turn connects to the Gulf of Alaska and the North Pacific Ocean. It doesn't take too much imagination to figure out that this Visqueen which incidentally is in a high wind area could easily end up in the river and the ocean. All so people could watch a movie about an Alaska serial killer and because a few people with the crew couldn't take the time to clean up after themselves. To be fair it's possible some of this trash was left by others before the movie people arrived, but I am sure the Visqueen wasn't there and (ugh) I opened one bag and the garbage smelled fairly fresh. I suppose I could have poked around and looked for discarded paperwork to confirm it, but then, you only get so much from volunteers.

There's a bit of an added problem boat people will appreciate, at least any of us who have tangled Visqueen in a propeller. Awful stuff and if the shaft or outdrive overheats, that crap melts to the metal and is almost possible to remove. It could get worse than that if it gets sucked into a cutlass bearing.

The trash is in a good place now and just to balance the bad with the good, when I told the nice woman at the landfill where it all came from she only charged me two dollars instead of the usual six.

THE PHOTOS: The one with the black bags is the total pile collected. The one with the smaller Visqueen is to show the proximity to the Knik River and the large piece is self explanatory.

For images from the North Pacific trip click on the Sailing with Chip gallery in the right-hand column. There are photos of some of the trash we collected out there.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Weather thwarts Knik River Valley invaders

Two nights ago a new critter popped out of the brush onto the road. Pretty sure it was a mink: the right dark color, too small to be a wolverine or an otter and too big for a weasel and too dark to be a martin. It ran with that hunch and stretch motion weasels have, so that's my guess anyway.

If omens are to be believed, there is now some indication the mink may have been one. The next day heading for work, I noticed the parking lot at Del Roi's tavern was packed full of matching Winnebagos. It seemed awfully late in the season for a tourist caravan, but what it could have been puzzled me until the next day. Again they filled the parking lot, but farther on there was a lot of activity on the wide gravel beach at the Knik River that included several large trucks, a pagoda type tent and lots of people milling about.

The movie! There has been a crew in Anchorage for the past several weeks filming a movie about a serial killer who operated in the 1980s and who actually released his victims in this general area and then hunted them. Nicolas Cage and John Cusack are in it and have been spotted around Anchorage.

Nature was not cooperating. Blasts of wind gusted down the valley from the glacier, actually stirring up whitecaps on the river and sending clouds of glacial silt over the camp and the road. Welcome to Alaska, I thought as I made my way across the bridge.

Coming home that night it had built into a whole lot worse storm. Along the blue highway wind rocked the car. At the sharp curve that turns on the bridge at the south end, wind tends to be strongest and dust and silt blown up from the river bed sometimes builds up across the road creating a slippery surface right on the sharpest curve along the whole road. It can also create a washboard effect that can easily send a car flying. This night I hit that curve wrong, just as a gust blew up a dust cloud so thick I actually had to stop because I couldn't even see the guardrail right next to the car. I could hear bits of beach dust hitting the car. It let down and I went across the bridge to see lights on at the movie camp and guys working tying their tent to pickup trucks so as not to lose it to the wind. Welcome to Alaska again, I thought.

The next day still blowing like snot, two helicopters had joined the equipment at the camp on the river. but there didn't look like any work was under way.

That night going home, I noticed the camp had disappeared and the parking lot at Del-Roi's only held a few local vehicles, no rolling campers or equipment trucks.

It all tells me to pay attention when another mink hops out onto the road.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Another one of those "never-do" things

NEVER get behind a cat lady in the checkout line. Holy mackerel! 120 individual cans plus several large litter boxes. PLUS coupons for every single one of them.

On the positive side: Read the whole front page of every single tabloid in the rack. Or is that a minus?

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The times they are 'changin'

After days of low overcast and long periods of rainfall, the clouds have finally lifted revealing a snow line well down the mountain from where it was the last time it could be seen only days before.

Patches of wispy snow fill the hollows at the base of the mountain on its north side, the residue from whatever fell during the night. Transparent pans of thin ice that broke away from shore float down the river. More snow clings in larger amounts to the gravel and silt along the bank where it is still in the shadow of the mountain.

Across the river two moose stand at the water's edge looking and listening nervously, being much more exposed than they are comfortable with and a long way from the safety of the forest behind them. Occasionally one or the other dips its head to take a drink from the water flowing past.

A little farther along the bald eagle glares out over the water from its perch in a huge cottonwood tree where it has returned to take up its winter residence.

Overhead a raven flaps by. On a quiet day you can actually hear their wings as they beat the air. A black bird in winter without the usual camouflage most animals require. This apparently serves two purposes. For one the dark color absorbs what warmth the sun rations out and second the story goes they taste or smell so bad to predators that they are left alone. You seldom see ravens and gulls in the same place. Crows yes, but not ravens. I used to figure they were the same bird, wearing white in summer to reflect the heat of the sun and then black in winter to absorb it. Of course like the society matron, what fashionable bird would wear white after labor day anyway?

Winter has begun to slip its silent shroud over the country.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Sixty-nine

I had a great idea for a blog post a little while ago and now I can't remember what it was. Senior moment? Save the jokes. They get tiresome and so do those instances where you are saying a sentence and all of a sudden a word totally escapes you, or you can't remember the words to a song, or the author of a favorite book slips from memory. Every time that happens there is a moment of panic: Is this it? Is this the start of it? Is this the beginning of the slow descent into that feared state of dementia?

The jokes don't help. Like this one. An old man is sitting at a table in a diner, obviously weeping. A waitress comes over and asks him if anything is wrong. He looks at her and says, "I have a beautiful young wife. We have sex, great sex, anytime I want. She is a great cook, she keeps the house great and she is intelligent and we always have something to talk about." The waitress asks him what is wrong with that, to which he replies, "I can't remember how to get home."

That aside, I had an idea about this sort of thing. Yes, they are senior moments, but not the too obvious simple loss of memory. The next time some youngster thinks it's funny having a senior moment, I am going to give him this. Look, sonny, I have lived much longer than you, and I have absorbed a whole lot more information than you have, and it just takes a little longer to sort through the database and come up with the correct piece of data. That's all it is, more stuff to look at before you find what you want.

Well, what about the idea that short term memory is what goes first. Got an answer for that too. That is new stuff that hasn't been filed yet, so your brain doesn't know exactly where to look for it. Instead it searches the huge mass of filed older information before it looks in the piles on the desk waiting to be organized and put in the proper places. If it takes too long, well, just give up and look later.

So, the real problem is not loss of memory but data management. What we need is a way to clear the disk cache and another to defrag the hard drive. Find those processes and there goes memory loss in a heartbeat.

Oh, and the great idea I had for a blog post, but forgot? This was it all along. I didn't forget anything. If the title fooled you, that is your dirty mind, not mine. It does have significance but figuring out what is up to you youngsters. Let's see what you come up with.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Things to like about Alaska today

That first breath of crisp, cold, clean air when you step outdoors.

Clean white snow on the mountaintops so bright against the cobalt blue sky it almost hurts your eyes.

That first little skid of winter on some ice you didn’t expect..

Driving home under northern lights green across the sky with spires reaching higher into the stratosphere, obscured some by a bright full hunter's moon.

But, most of all, the humor. The Alaska humor with such a sense of place.



This photo was posted on Facebook today by someone named Diane McEachern who is a friend of a friend. It cracks me up every time I look at it. By the end of the day it had 3,664 "likes" and 1,952 "shares."

Sunday, October 2, 2011

‘Got out of town on a boat for the southern islands....



“...sailing a reach for a following sea.
“She was making for the trades on the outside
“on a downhill run to Papeete.
“Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.
“She’s got 80 feet on the waterline,
“nice for making way.
“From a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you ...”


Still waiting for that phone call, the kind that should come on a breezy blustery fall day. Late August, early September when Lord Hinchinbrook beckons you to the entry into and exit from Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Set a course due south through the entrance and once the islands disappear behind you, the next land you’ll see is Hawaii. You go as long before the Equinox as you can to avoid the Gulf of Alaska’s violent storms and make for those trades on the outside.

Usually, though, we go down the inside, ducking past Cape Spencer into the Inside Passage ever southward through Southeastern Alaska and British Columbia to Puget Sound.

On one such trip we reached Elfin Cove in the morning, having made an uneventful Gulf crossing, ate breakfast at the inn there and fueled up before heading generally eastward through Icy Strait past the mouth of Glacier Bay with its humpback whales feeding near us. Night fell and in darkness we motored along through a still, clear night with a bit of a moon reflecting on water so smooth it didn’t even distort the moonbeam, the calm sort of night when sound carries over long distances. Even motoring, a sailboat is fairly quiet and the calm of the night let this lone sailor slip into reverie, barely conscious of the detail of the world around me but watching nevertheless.

In that tranquility was when I learned humpback whales have a sense of humor. As we made the turn south into Chatham Strait. alone in the cockpit and lost in reverie an explosion burst so close to me, I must have jumped clear out of my seat; at the very least I jumped clear out of my reverie in time to watch the whale slip back below the surface of the water right next to the boat, not in a dive, but simply sinking out of sight, barely making a riffle. Then came the realization. In case you haven’t heard a whale breathe, that sound can be heard over long distances. Up close it is loud and sharp as the animal rises and exhales; that was the explosion I heard, and then the whale disappeared without a sound never to be seen again.

It struck me that whale did it on purpose. Humpback whales have that curve to their mouths that looks like a smirk and that night I realized why. I imagined the whale swimming just below the surface close to the boat and seeing that lonely sailor lost in his thoughts up there so relaxed. The whale thinks, “watch this,” rises and exhales right next to him, scaring him totally out of his wits, then sinks into the depths laughing a bubbly whale laugh while the startled sailor tries to figure out what happened, his reverie shattered for the rest of that watch.

“... thinking ‘bout how many times I have fallen;
spirits are using me, larger voices calling...”


--“Southern Cross” Crosby, Stills and Nash

THE PHOTO: A humpback waves off the coast of California near San Francisco Bay. Or is it a whale version of the bird?

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