The singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound

Back when I had to do such things I always thought it was a good day when it started with a mechanical success.  Well, today, it may have taken a good part of the afternoon, but my first project turned out to be a computer success.

A couple of days ago I managed to transfer all the killer whale calls I recorded on cassettes in Prince William Sound to digital.  Since then it has been one experiment after another to somehow get those sounds published online.  After several attempts at trying to publish the raw audio, I gave up and started playing with iMovie, and voila, on only the third attempt,  connected the gallery of whale photos with one tape of the best of the sounds recorded and this is it.  I hope it is enjoyed.

And, yes, I know a lot of the photos are a little fuzzy. In my defense, first they are all taken from the moving platform of a boat and I always had to drive the boat and make sure other people got good photos and all I could do for the most part is quick shots out the wheelhouse door.

Here are links to other posts about the whales on this blog:

Whale watching: Who's watching whom?

Sorry, Sea World trainers, no sympathy

A correlation between cold and random observations?

Perhaps a boreal chickadee

Thoughts these days seem to be more random than coherent, even.  Part of that is probably due to the fact that we have had clear and cold weather  zero to ten below, and no snow for what seems like a month.  Tends to discourage outside activity.

So here's another conglomeration from a reclusive Alaska life.  First, a new bird species.  That fellow on the right, I am pretty sure, is a boreal chickadee, the first one spotted around here.  They've probably been here before but just went unnoticed or unidentified.  Lighting is pretty poor now that the sun has gone behind the mountain until sometime in February so getting the colors right is hit and miss.  Boreals have something of a reddish breast while the others are white.

Also showing up this week a hairy woodpecker.  Only got a fleeting look at him but he held on there long enough for a quick slightly fuzzy photo.  Only regulars that haven't bee around are the ruffed grouse but they have usually showed up later in winter, so there's lots of time.  That plus with only an inch of snow cover, they are probably finding enough food in their usual haunts.

Hairy woodpecker probably.

On the world front, just a couple of things:  First, remember when the 24-hour sports networks started up?  You were as likely to see a Lithuanian men's water polo game as you were to see American baseball, anything to fill the time.  That sure has changed.  Now in between games and a news update here and there all those networks have to offer as a bunch of guys shouting at each other as if whoever Jim Harbaugh picks to start at quarterback is just as important as fiscal cliffs or wars in Afghanistan. 

And given how good they are at predicting the outcomes of games, they have no more credibility than any of the rest of us. Given a choice the networks could dump those characters and show us more of that game in Afghanistan where horsemen fling a goat's head around.

On a brighter side, something cool came out of the Sandy Storm disaster.  I saw two different stories about guys who owned hybrid cars, using the stored electricity run through converters to power things like lights, microwave ovens, cell phone chargers and almost anything else they needed to use.  Mine had a 90-volt battery  and some others go up to 100.  They will recharge on less than a gallon of gas so they are pretty efficient as well.  Then there's one that has solar charging and that just might be the emergency ticket.  Come to think of it, an inverter on a regular car battery would at least charge the cell phone or iPad.  Give those guys credit for inventiveness.

Black-capped chickadee all fluffed out to keep warm.

A while back, there was a post about killer whales with a rather large photo gallery.  In it I said someday I would get my audio tapes of the whales transferred to digital.  Did that. Now trying to figure out how to post them.

And then last, that picture at the right, a regular old black-capped chickadee but taken with a new toy.  More of that to come.

Thanksgiving perfection -- man style

There are some real advantages to living alone.  On of the biggest arguments I remember in the family when I was there for a holiday meal came during a football game.  It was 1971, when the Kansas City Chiefs met the Miami Dolphins in a playoff game, one that turned out to still be the longest game in NFL history.  It lasted 82 minutes.

But the NFL meant nothing to my mother and her dinner schedule for that Christmas Day. Born of rigid German stock the schedule was hers and woe be to anyone who didn't want to go along. When dinner was ready you went to the dining room.  She called dinner a few minutes before the end of regulation.  I objected and said the game was almost over.  Even that was not going to be tolerated, but by the time everyone moved to the table and we argued a bit, the game ended.  Well, it  headed into the fith quarter.  I put up a fight,  offering to eat in front of the television.  No one was going to be allowed to do that.  All right, I'll come to the table for the prayer and back to the game. Nope, you are in my house, you will sit down at the table when I say it's time.  But this is a playoff game. 

Not too important to her, I could tell, as she crossed her arms and planted her feet glaring at me.

All right I just won't eat dinner then.  That of course was not going to be tolerated, nor was sitting at the table where I could see the television.  I even offered to do that with the sound turned off. There was no one else in the family even vaguely interested in football so I was on my own. Today, I can't rmember how it ended, but I am pretty sure I capitulated, rather than bear the guilt of spoiling everyone's Christmas dinner. She was good at guilt.

Miami went on to win the game on a field goal halfway through the sixth quarter.  But I didn't get to see that.

So with that as background, here's the perfection.

Three games today and I worked it out this way:   During halftime of the second game, Washington Redskins vs. Dallas Cowboys, I managed to mix the stuffing, stuff the turkey and get it into the oven and only miss about two minutes of the third quarter.  I pulled off a few odds and ends during commercials.  Then, at halftime between the Patriots and Jets, the turkey, obviously a small one, was done.  It was a long halftime and that helped.  I manged a quick pot of green beans, mashed the potatoes,  mixed up the gravy, hacked a couple of pieces of meat off the turkey and dug out a couple of serving spoons full of stuffing.  Made it back in front of the TV with a plate full of Thanksgiving in time for the second half kickoff. And I did it all without any real hurry.

So, pie?  I ought to have digested just enough to make room for that by the end of the game.

All of it accomplished and I might have missed two or three plays is all;  oh, except for falling asleep during the second quarter of the first game.  And, no arguments about anything.

The NFL's longest game

Creative exercise for the paranoid

A thought after yet another detective TV show in which an almost impossible preponderance of circumstantial evidence tells you despite all of it, this is not the criminal because it is just too early in the broadcast:

OK, here is the exercise:  Quickly, ignoring random violence or something that happened in the commission of another crime (say, robbery), if you, yourself, were found murdered, who would the prime suspect be?  Don't think it through, you probably already have the answer.  Who was the first person who came to mind?

Now turn it around.  In whose murder would you be the prime suspect?

Most of us live lives much less dramatic than a television detective show, so answers might not come very easily.  I had a quick answer for one of them, but not the other and don't expect it to be revealed.  After all, neither of us might have a provable alibi in case something were ever to happen to the other and saying it here might end up being part of that circumstantial evidence.

All sitcoms tonight.

Some days it's great to be a writer, even an old one

This from Tom Walker who produced all of the marvelous images in the "Wild Critters" books.

At a book sale and signing today a handsome young woman, a smile as wide as the Susitna, ran up and asks, "Do you have any Wild Critters" left?" The answer was just one and she bought it. We had a nice conversation and then she said, "I loved that book when I was kid." Now, Timothy, author pal, in an instant I felt 100 years old...so, share the moment...

P.S. She knew one of your poems by heart! The duck one, of all things.

Some random thoughts over the course of an Alaska winter day

Not sure here whether to start or end with the lighter part of the day,  So, maybe start in the middle if that's all right with everyone.

 For some reason today seemed to be a day where the idea of alternative energy showed up in several places,  First there was the picture the other day of a high speed rail line in Europe. Built over the tracks was what looked like a miles-long cover creating something of a tunnel for the trains.  The cover consisted of solar panels and the railroad was generating much of its electricity from solar power.  Inventive, don't you think? 

Then this morning somebody posted that other picture.  That is a bridge in Italy where wind generation units had been built right into the structure.  In addition to making use of otherwise unused space, the designers created a bridge that is architecturally pleasing as well as functional. What else should we expect from the people who brought us the Sistine Chapel and the Ferrari?

Those solar panels along the roadside are actually stand
over a high-speed rail line in Europe.

Later in the day,  a story in the Huffington Post told of out-of-work miners hired to install solar panels for a a facility in West Virginia, right in the heart of coal country.  That is something so often left out of the discussions on alternative energy.  Sure those guys were installing the solar panels, but somebody had to build them, and somebody is going to have to maintain them.  Somebody drove the trucks that delivered the raw materials to the factory and somebody has to drive the trucks that deliver the panels to the installation,  There are people who have to design the installations and people who clear the sites for the panels.  Electricians have to connect it all into the national grid.  In other words, that ubiquitous campaign word JOBS.  Yes, isn't it wonderful, the alternative energy industry actually creates jobs. Who knew?

What's bothersome is supposedly the United States is the technological leader of the world.  Oh yeah?  What about the bridge with the wind turbines in Italy, or the European high speed trains in a tunnel of solar panels and that parking lot in Germany mentioned in a previous post  covered by solar panels.  Is there any example  of those in the U.S?  We see fields of wind generators or solar panels but where are we integrating them into infrastructure.  When do we start taking this seriously?   Oh, I remember now, We have a fourth branch of government called the fossil fuels industry.

It seems at least most candidates think you can't get elected in this country unless you say the magic word "jobs."  Well, here are a bunch of jobs just waiting to be created.  But then there are more traditional jobs also, building a pipeline to transport the dirtiest oil possible all the way across the United States from somewhere in Canada almost to the Mexican border.

And, speaking of jobs, did anyone catch all the humor floating around today on the news of Hostess going bankrupt?  Twinkies and their shelf life?  American icons?  Hoarding? My favorite was this one tweeted by that old friend, the Bronx Zoo Cobra: 

"@BronxZoosCobra

You shouldn't be eating Twinkies anyway. They have only 2% of your recommended daily amount of rodent."

And a few people blamed it on unions.  The union movement could be a long discussion to be avoided here, but there is plenty of evidence that paying people a living wage does not necessarily mean a company has to go bankrupt.  Want to see what really did Hostess in?  Who killed Hostess Brands and Twinkies?  Sounds a little bit like Bain, doesn't it?

By accident I happened to see the  other side of the closing today.  I had to go to the Teamsters Building in Anchorage to pick up a credential I need for a job I am trying to obtain.  As I was leaving  a guy stood up to take his turn at this employment counter.  He said he had been laid off by Hostess this morning. All of a sudden the jokes didn't seem so funny anymore. Somewhere I had read 14,000 people were going to lose their jobs. I bet some of them are electricians.  Welcome to the 47 percent.

Two male pine grosbeaks came to the feeders today, the first
of the winter that I have seen.

So, now for the lighter fare.  There seem to be more birds every day, including more chickadees than I have seen before, also juncos and nuthatches and a few female Pine grosbeaks.  This morning two males showed up.

Then, later in the day a hairy woodpecker started pecking around the dead tree out front but he got away before I could grab the camera.  Glad to see him back.  So, that has all the regulars back except the grouse.  I did see another bird that I couldn't identify.  It was probably just smaller  than a robin and all gray that I could see, but the light was coming from the other side of it.  Maybe it will show up again when the sun is shining a little brighter.  Meanwhile they are eating through the sunflower seed as fast as I can get out to the feeders.

Cancer takes a dear friend

As an editor at Alaska Magazine in the late 1970s, part of my job was to talk to people who brought stories in for our consideration.  It's the kind of job that in time you almost dread seeing someone come through the doorway looking anxiously, their precious manuscripts gripped tightly in their hands.  But it had its joys also.  Among the stories about "me and the old lady drove the Alaska highway and thought you would like a story about it;" "I saw the northern lights last night and just had to write a poem about it;" and the literature proposed by young collegiate writers, once in awhile a gem showed up:  a real sourdough's tale of life in the wild, often written in longhand on unlined paper; and even less frequently a beautifully written piece by a competent writer about a subject that Alaska magazine actually wanted.

During that tenure Patricia Monaghan walked into the office.  She was probably in her late 20s or early 30s at the time and working as a journalist in Fairbanks.  I wish I could remember the subject of the manuscript she brought now, but it has escaped me.  What I do remember is recognizing immediately that this was not one of our ordinary contributors.  Beautifully written and expressive the story whatever it was, I recall almost jumped off the page at me as I scanned it.  She was offering the story and also wanting to make contact to send us more as time went on.  One of the unfortunate parts of that job was knowing the magazine would never pay enough to keep the really good writers contributing for very long.  I knew immediately she was one of those.  We would get maybe three or four stories and then she would outgrow us, as so many others had.  But for that short period of time the magazine would benefit.  I doubt I said it that first time, but I am sure I did at some point in our relationship, that she was too good for Alaska Magazine.

Over the next few years we became close friends, often getting together when she came to Anchorage or when I went to Fairbanks.  No matter what we were doing the conversations always turned to writing.  I have never joined writers groups or much wanted to discuss it.  To my mind writing is not a team sport; it is done alone, isolated and best kept in isolation.  Pat was more of a group person, but she also understood.  Talking about writing with her was different. We weren't discussing and criticizing each other's work.  We discussed craft and word usage and at times even read a little of each other's work when asked and offered suggestions.

The work she hadn't shown anyone else yet was what impressed me most.  At that time she was just beginning to explore what would become her life's work.  I realized that of all the authors I knew or know personally, she was the one whose talent and intelligence left me in awe, the one person I ever knew who I accepted was a much  better writer than I am.  When someone I thought that much of, told me she liked something I wrote, it held great meaning for me.  She was never overly effusive, she wasn't like that  so I was pretty sure she wouldn't lie to me just to be nice.  She was very selective in what she complimented and never criticized, and I could tell by what she didn't mention what she didn't like and those parts I would work on.  I did the same with her. 

In the 80s we lost track of each other for a while.  She left Alaska for Chicago and I went off on my adventure.  The next I heard from her was shortly after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  I had taken her out in Prince William Sound on my boat and she remembered that.

She sent me this poem she wrote about the spill:

There Is No Way Back

By Patricia Monaghan

On the radio, an old friend's voice

chokes with anger and grief.

At the Stony Island intersection

I am stuck, gridlocked in place.

Stalled in traffic uselessly

weeping I listen to the news.

The light turns yellow, red

again; a sudden cry of horns.

Salmon in the tide pool, whales

beside the boat: memories flood me.

The traffic surges forward,

each car spuming its exhaust.

Now the announcer decries

the otters' oil-soaked coats.

I speed home along the freeway

surrounded by the names of animals.

I have fished the Sound, watching

slow fog fall on the blue shore.

--Someone passes me, too fast.

I brake as I approach the exit.

Anchored over the crab pots

I have watched the day moon rise.

A red sun sets now over

the Halsted Street bridge.

I want this to be easier. I want

to forget that oil fueled our boat.

I want to hate the vivid city

as a kind of expiation.

But I've burned trees as fuel.

I have boiled crabs alive.

My trapper friends kill for luxury.

Gardeners rub their hands with Vaseline.

There is no way now to be innocent,

no way for it not to be night and

each of us unprepared to pilot

through these rocky narrows.

And there is no way back.  There is no

part of the world that is not part

of the world.  There is not one of us

who was not on the bridge that night.

It may have been the first, but it was not the last time she brought a tear to my eye.

From then on we corresponded occasionally, the old way with letters actually written on paper, so it was not often.  I recall sending her a copy of  Keep the Round Side Down when it came out and hearing back from her typically finding what she liked "the author long-known as something of a male chauvinist pig, actually wrote a woman character who is interesting, complex, intelligent and strong."

Then the Internet came along and we embraced it.  Our correspondence picked up, first through email and then through social media.  She had a web page, I had a blog, we were both on facebook and we discovered the joy of instant messaging.  With almost instant access we worked through our writing sometimes together at least until we discovered that what we were really doing was encouraging each other's attempt at the greatest of all writing obstacles --  procrastination.  Our conversations fed our procrastinations and in realizing that, we laughed.

Some of those conversations found their way onto this blog.  These are the links:

Conversations with Patricia: Day before the (2010) election

Why are we writers again?

Conversations with Patricia: Part deux

Then late last year she was diagnosed with cancer.  Soon that often became the subject of our conversations even though we tried to steer clear of it.  She suffered through several unsuccessful therapies and we discussed them.  I have never been through this with anyone before and was not sure how to act, what to say, what to do.  I had all the sympathy in the world for her and at times her pain and her frustration were mine as well, though I know mine could not have been nearly as severe as hers.  I thought about it quite a bit and decided a lot of sympathetic words were not going to help, nor was phony encouragement.  In her posts on Caringbridge and to friends she said this was going to be fatal but none of us wanted to believe her.

I finally decided that if I could, I would do things to make her life more bearable, perhaps even giving her some joy.  I started telling her stupid jokes.  It thrilled me when she would write back that one of them had made her laugh.  But that wasn't enough.  When I was laid off last February and people asked me what I was going to do, I only half jokingly had said, "go to the Lady Gaga concert."  So I asked Patricia if I could take her.  She jumped at the idea.  I even sent her links to videos of my favorite Gaga songs.  I bought the tickets.  And several times over the ensuing few months she would mention looking forward to the concert.

When she listed all the things she packed to take to her chemotherapy sessions, I realized many of those could be replaced with an iPad.  As I had just bought a new one; I sent her the one I was replacing.

When I went fishing in September I sent her a bunch of fresh salmon.  One of the last meals she wrote about when she still could actually eat, she had that salmon with a small group of friends.

Since then I noticed a difference in activity.  I seldom received an email.  Her husband Michael McDermott, who endured every minute of the suffering with her, started writing the Caringbridge posts.  I noticed she was seldom on facebook any more and I began to fear the worst.  A couple times I saw a Caringbridge notice in my email and was very hesitant to open the link, not wanting to read what was becoming inevitable.

When one came Sunday morning I didn't open it right away.  Somehow I knew.  I watched some pregames football show for a while, but my mind was racing and also thinking how stupid it was to watch unimportant events on TV when I needed to look at Caringbridge.

When I did, from her husband, this is what I read:  "My beloved Patricia passed away in her sleep last night."

Even expected, it was shocking and I spent most of the day alternately feeling stupid about watching football and fighting back tears.  A few days have passed and I have recovered and accepted what was after all the only outcome as she had told us.  One thing we spoke about at times was as writers we had something to leave behind for others to remember.  Patricia has left more than most, and even more with me because from now on every time I sit down to write I suspect she will be there and that's all right, but she has left a big empty space in my mind as well.

The makeup guerrilla who possesses enormous musical talent, a few years ago wrote a song about a devastating trauma in her life.  In it she described something of a Stockholm syndrome in which she became entangled in the mixed reactions of loathing and, at times, liking what was going on. In the song, as she related her feelings when the trauma finally ended, she could only ask, "what am I going to do now; what am I going to do now?"

That is exactly the feeling overwhelming me as I contemplate the future after the loss of my friend Patricia. What am I going to do now?

The evils of addiction

As my son went through the three upper grades of elementary school, it seemed the schools were intensifying their efforts to curtail smoking.  I never smoked indoors and I don't know how many times I went to open the door out onto our deck only to encounter an anti-smoking message in crayon on a brown paper shopping bag (remember those?) taped to the glass,  the message received and in the context of a 10- or 11-year-old boy sank in but I still walked past and lit up.  Then one day almost nine years ago I quit and it has lasted.

 

A couple of years ago, I picked up on an indication I had made it.  The anniversary date of the quitting came and went but I never noticed until at least three or four weeks later.  I happened to be looking at a calendar and it hit me that I had made another year without cigarettes.  The idea that the date passed without recall, to me, meant it was not that big a deal any more, nothing to think about or celebrate even.

Today I realized how insidious that addiction is.  For the first time in even more years than I have not been smoking, I went through some industrial training online.  Like most such instruction the course was divided into hour-long segments.  At the end of each segment, a time when at in-person sessions we all took a break and those of  us who smoked, hightailed it out to the smoking area to light up.

The minute I finished that first hourly segment today, I stood up and the first thing that came to mind was stepping out for a cigarette.  I could almost taste it.  I was not tempted and even if I had been it's a 20-mile round trip to buy a pack of cigarettes for, what, $9? No, no temptation, but the trigger definitely was there and stronger than should be expected.    And once it was in mind, it came up again and again after each lesson.  This is after nine years and at a time when it seldom even comes to mind unless maybe I walk into somebody's cloud in passing a smoking area near some building.

So, after all this time with the physical and mental desire all but unnoticed, the habit is still there and the triggers can bring it out.  I like to think if I had walked outdoors and seen someone smoking I would have refused.  But can anyone be sure the right set of circumstances won't arise and that first full drag which would be awesome, it wouldn't send us into that downward spiral again.

I guess my neighbor in Chicago was right.  When he quit after a scary emphysema diagnosis from his doctor, he would say when the subject came up, "I will always be a smoker, I just choose not to smoke." 

And now for the weather report

Checking the menu.

Apologies for several days of political rants.  Back, now, to Alaska.  For a couple of weeks it's been clear and pretty cold, some nights into the single digits. Monday night we had a dusting of snow, enough to cover the ground and cold enough to stick.  That meant, late Tuesday afternoon the bird feeders went out.  By midday one looked half full and this morning it had been emptied.  Fortunately yesterday I made a stop at the feed store and picked up $50 worth of black sunflower seeds and sunflower chips.  Most likely that won't last the winter.

Excuse me, dining here!

Bunches of chickadees and nuthatches have shown up at the feeders and today the first Pine grosbeak (female) arrived.  Then later a new species came in and poked around for several minutes.  I had heard some rapping on the house walls earlier and it was not as sharp or as loud as the hairy woodpeckers make.  Then a downy woodpecker perched at the feeder and I am guessing this was the one testing the T-111.  This was the first confirmed downy I have seen although I know they have been around.  Maybe it is time to start a picture window life list.   My son and I had this one years ago.

All right then. I'm outta here.

So, with the birds back and snow on the ground, be prepared for more bird updates on here and fewer political rants.  Also practicing with the new pellet rifle in case the squirrels come back or one more Republican shows up at my door and tries to get me to vote for that liar. At least after next Tuesday, no more rants for a while, or maybe not.  I do like birds better than politicians.  But birds are calming, it takes a politician to get the blood boiling.