All geared up but you can't get there from here

Is this winter in Alaska? December 30, 2014.

New Year's Eve has always been great at the East Pole. It just seems to be the best place to shed the old year and put on the new. The problem is you need a good cover of snow to get there. That's not happening this year. For an idea what this winter is like, get this: December 27 marked a year since the temperature in Anchorage dropped below zero.  That's the second longest streak on record. All the local sled dog races have been cancelled.

Gear gathered? Check.

Puddles of water and ice in the yard, snow almost gone. Conditions aren't much better around the Pole, with a reported snow cover of about 9 inches which would translate to a little more at the cabin. But with rain in the forecast and temperatures well above freezing, most likely the trail would be lakes overlaying a base of ice, creeks open and a miserable trip along the way.

Transportation ready? Check. Snow? Eh, not so much.

Here is the choice: If I had to go, I probably could make it. If the trip is just for enjoyment maybe it isn't worth it.  Am I growing up? Finally? Maybe. Why make yourself miserable if you don't have to, not that spending the holiday under gray skies and 40-degree temperatures here sounds any more appealing. There was a time when just poking your nose out to see how it looks, as in driving up there with the idea I might have to drive back, was the best choice, but it just doesn't sound like much fun any more. Perhaps this time discretion is the better part of courage.

Nevertheless I spent much of yesterday shopping and getting the winter gear out ready for the trip in hopes the weather forecast this morning would be more promising. Actually it came up looking worse, so the trip is off and it will be at least two weeks before another one can even be considered.

Maybe it's a good year to see if the Hillbilly Hangout has another great recipe for welcoming the new year.

And who cares if every economic indicator is up and Rolling Stone named him one of the most successful presidents in American history? What I'd like to know is what has President Obama done about the weather?

Hillbilly Hangout recipes for a new year.

Tasteless Christmas – 2014

It's the Monday before Christmas and all across the TV

there are ads that offend anyone who can see.

Yes, that time of year again and Madison Avenue has been hard at it, taking traditional Christmas carols and using them to sell us stuff we don't really need.

To begin with, this was the first year I can remember seeing Christmas items on display in stores during September. People complain it starts earlier every year, but September?  Almost four months early? Seriously? I love the joke that goes: "The thing I don't like about this war on Christmas is that it starts earlier every year."

Once again Kmart wins the top of the post video position with another tasteless ad. Last year it was "Jingle Balls." This year is not quite so bad, but fat guys beating their bellies like bass drums to "Jingle Bells" to sell underwear is pretty darned close.

But, back to those early ads. How about the guy pitching a spray sealant, one of those miracle sprays that fix everything, as the perfect gift for everyone on your list. Tell that to your wife. On top of that it first showed up around Oct. 3. By Oct. 8 there were promotions for future broadcasts of Christmas movies to the tune of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas." Hey guys, on October 8 it doesn't look anything like Christmas.

This one stretches the Christmas theme but it still fits the bill nicely. Somebody advertised that Black Friday begins on Wednesday this year, and sadly it probably worked. Just for the record, I have never bought anything on Black Friday – I don't even like that name, black is such a negative image and who decided that? – except maybe cigarettes back when I smoked. I also saw someone posted the Seven Days of Black Friday, but there was no way I was going to find out what they were.

One I found extremely offensive – and sadly it was for a product close to my heart, Alaska seafood – was "Angels We Have Heard on High" used to sell dead fish.

Then there was the ad that began with an image of a room and door decorated festively (is that redundant?)  with an announcer in loud voice declaring, "Fear not for we bring good tidings of great joy …" The door bursts open and professional wrestlers explode into the room while the announcer tells us World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) will broadcast marathons of wrestling matches.

And while we are on sports (if pro wrestling can be counted as a sport) some soccer organization put up an ad promoting attendance at upcoming matches with the song, "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful."

I guess we can be thankful Pampers finally gave up selling diapers to "Silent Night," and let it go at that. I TAKE THAT BACK! PAMPERS AD USING "SILENT NIGHT" seen Dec. 26.

And, just so this post doesn't end on a totally negative note, here is a song new this year from Pentatonix, the group that brought us "Little Drummer Boy" last year.

Tasteless Christmas – 2013

Tasteless Christmas – 2008

She won't be with us this Christmas

I sat with her, just the two of us in her hospital room. She and cancer had reached the end game and cancer had the upper hand. She wondered what she had done in her life, what was worthwhile, what had she accomplished. I searched my mind and told her everything I could think of and it was considerable. I couldn't tell if she was convinced or not.

We had come to Alaska together 40 years earlier.  We had not lasted together, but individually Alaska and each of us had. We had careers and adventures together, we had a daughter together, one who was about to make us grandparents, but we had gone our separate ways somewhere in that timeline though we had remained respectful and cordial through it all. Now she wondered what she had accomplished and I tried to assure her she had had her effect.

She worried, too about an obligation, a task she had performed longer than most could remember and wondered what would happen in the future. In that moment as she laid in that hospital bed, ill-fitting scarf around her head which had been ravaged by chemo, I assured her I would carry on her obligation, at least until a suitable replacement could be employed. We made something of a plan to work together on the most recent part of that project so I could learn it.

As we talked I saw at moments where the mind slipped, when she almost fell asleep and when she finally excused herself, simply too tired to carry the conversation any further.

Trying to be understanding, I stood up, smiled at her, touched her hand and said goodbye, Sally.

As I passed through the doorway with my back to her on the way out, I very suddenly realized that really was goodbye.  It was the last time I ever saw her.

I held it together until I got my car out of the parking lot and onto the road home before the tears started.

A most remarkable woman

Where's this White Christmas we hear so much about?

A couple of years ago around Christmas time I posted a video made by elementary school students in  Quinhagak, Alaska. Using signs to show the words, they acted out the Hallelujah Chorus.


Well, they are back again this year only this one is funny. You see, in many parts of Alaska we are having a very strange winter with a decided lack of snow. The Quinhagak kids lament the missing snow in this video based on the song "A White Christmas."


Enjoy it.


Merry Christmas from Quinhagak, Alaska

Sea World Tweet storm

WE DID IT! Trending for 10 
hours, more than 120,000 tweets.

If anybody looks, you might wonder about the strange posts in the Twitter feed on this page. It is all part of what is called a tweet storm aimed at Sea World.  16,000 tweets in the first 35 minutes.

Details here

This has been a long time coming

Strange things are done when there's no midnight sun

It's shaping up to be a very strange winter, indeed. Here it is December 15 and it's raining with a temperature of 42 F – ABOVE! The yard has very little snow, what there is clings to shadows. Ice covers much of the area where it has been packed a little and in the low spots, open water.

I had planned to go out for Christmas and/or New Year's but there is no snow at the East Pole either and given the rain, the trail would be a total mess, not to mention the possibility of getting in there with a four-wheeler and having a huge snow dump, trapping man and machine there at least until some people ran over the trial and I could hike out.

These are the dark days anyway, made worse by mostly overcast gray skies that allow little sunlight to sneak through. All of it does little to enhance any joy in life.

And, in all this, some strange behaviors. Among other things, there are bright red tomatoes on the plant standing in the window next to the kitchen table.

First of all there hasn't been a single redpoll visit this winter so far. Outside feeding birds today they showed some different behavior. I have often had chickadees land on a feeder I was filling and once one even landed on my shoulder. But the grosbeaks being the spookiest of the bunch usually disappear at any sign of anything unusual and possibly threatening. Today, though, while I was filling one feeder a grosbeak landed on the one right next to it. And when I looked down two of them were grazing through the spilled seed on the ground at my feet. Very unusual. But the biggest surprise was yet to come.

As I was picking my way carefully across a patch of ice I happened to look at the lilac bush, protected from moose for the winter by a circle of wire fencing. I had to look twice and then go in closer, but sure enough, there were several green leaf buds on the branches, in December, in Alaska. What?

In search for a simple blue ball

You can buy a car that parks itself. You can buy a telephone that has more computing power than the early space shuttles. There are apps that can control any part of your life you want them to, but can you find one simple ball?

This isn't the blue ball i am seeking.

I have been looking for Christmas presents for my grandson who will be all of three months old not too long before the day comes. There aren't many toys kids that age will play with, most of the ones I see are more for parents so they can entertain themselves with them thinking they are playing with the kid. It came up not long ago that the boy's sports education is going to fall to me and his uncle, his father never having been involved with them much. (I have been informed, quite cryptically that my son in law played hockey throughout his high school career. It was the insertion a ball that made the difference.) It's a responsibility I gladly accept.  Hope I can still dunk when I am 80.

The earliest toy I can remember having was a simple ball; it was hard plastic about the size of a baseball and blue. Oddly it was not a present from anyone or just a toy my parents bought me. I found it in a cabin my family rented on the Canadian side of the Niagara River one summer. I don't recall what I did with it but I remember the blue hard ball and I suspect is was the beginning of my lifelong interest and moderate success in sports involving balls. So, I have been looking for a simple hard plastic (read lightweight)  ball for this new boy in our family to give him a good start in the right direction, or at least the one I think he should go (that may be up for some discussion). I see it as something he can push around in his crib or wherever he plays and eventually I can start rolling it to him which might lead him to roll it back and then we are off on a grand journey. I would have better luck finding him a pint-sized AR-15.

Every time I get near a toy department I look through the aisles for such a thing. Oh, there are balls for sure, huge  balls, musical balls, knobby balls, balls with wings, balls that change color as they roll; you can even buy balls in lots of 100 to fill a home version of a ball pit. After several stores, I tried Amazon. No, Amazon says it has 400 pages when you search toys/balls. Four hundred pages and not one simple smooth plastic ball the size of a baseball.  There are non toxic, safe balls, Nerf balls a kid can take a good bite out of; kid sized soccer balls (soccer? this is an American kid).  But a simple ball that all it does is roll, nope. Some places have bags of 100, but what do you do with 99 plastic balls?

I have an idea. I have to see how much they weigh, but you know those wood balls they put on banister posts?  I can see that happening with a nice coat of paint.  It will matter how heavy they are.

If that doesn't work, those MacDonald's with the ball pits better be guarding their inventory because one of those balls is liable to be missing some time before Christmas.