Green Day 2016

Mountainside snow provides backdrop for the Green.

It happened overnight. Having grown weary of meth addiction, detoxing, and general young-woman angst, as I woke up this morning I searched for some other occupation for my mind at least for a while. There was this letter that needed to be mailed but it seemed difficult to justify a drive into town, 20 miles round trip to post a letter, especially since I had made the same trip just the day before.

Then the thought of driving around the countryside looking for any sandhill cranes that might have stopped in the fields on their way to nesting spots farther north. So, I threw the camera into the Jeep and took off.

It only dawned on me when I had almost made it halfway to town. Everything was green. It hadn't been like that just one day earlier; to paraphrase the Mamas and the Poppas, all the trees were brown and the sky was gray Wednesday. Everything has been earlier this year but this came as a surprise. Green Day is supposed to happen in May.

Green Day! For those who haven't seen the explanation before, there is a day in spring when seemingly overnight all the buds in the deciduous trees turn green and the forest canopy takes on a definite green hue. Farther north people call it green-up. That usually happens in May. For example, Green Day was May 17 in 2012 and May 12 in 2011. In the years I have been watching and documenting, it has never happened in April and there are still

 Fairbanks NWS Chart shows average greenup days there.

10 days left in this month. Greenup in the Fairbanks area happened five days later on the 26th.

So, after I left that vital piece of mail at the Post Office, I headed out into the farmlands in search of cranes, but also now looking for a good illustration of Green Day. The first didn't take long, the latter never happened. Sunshine covered the landscape and highlighted the green in the trees, the white on the higher mountainsides but never touched a crane in this valley as far as I could see.

There's a lot going on in this picture. Overhead
a hang glider flies by.  The white in the lower
center is the reindeer about to give birth. In the
background is the Butte itself.

I made a wide circle among the fields, many with tractors working in them, on my way home and since I had to pass the reindeer farm that's about two miles from my house, I thought maybe there would be some calves around. At the fence I pulled off the road where a few adults were grazing nearby. I made a few snapshots but nothing worth saving. Most were on their feet nibbling at the short grass, but one I noticed had laid down and was not moving much, not a very interesting photography subject at all.

I was about to pack it in when I saw a hang glider come into view off the top of the Butte itself. I followed it around through the lens and made a couple of pictures, but again, nothing worth saving. I had gone back to the car and started packing the camera equipment away for the trip home when I chanced to look across the field and saw that one reindeer stand up. As I watched a large dark object dropped out and onto the ground. Holy Crap! She just had a calf. I had to change lenses in a hurry and hustle back to the fence where I was able to watch her clean the calf, watch it take its first halting steps, falling down a couple of times and then finally standing on fairly solid legs, all in a matter of 10 minutes or so.

Who needs cranes? What a treat to watch such a rite of spring, and on Green Day of all days. I watched that cow and calf for some time, then left them after half an hour or so and headed on home, but for the first time feeling the promise of spring. As I drove away I noticed at least four more reindeer lying down in the pasture, the promise of more calves coming soon.

Shortly after the birth, the calf is able to stand fairly steadily.

 Alaska Reindeer Farm      Green Day 2012     Green Day 2011

And fire season is ON!

There's smoke from the fire in the "remote area" AT THE END MY STREET!

Here we go again. KTUU television reported a 10-acre fire burning in "a remote area near the Knik River" today. The GD river is 25 MILES LONG and I live near the Knik River. For crying out loud, where along those 25 miles is the fire?

Orange marks Leaf Lake, the general fire area. White marks
my house.

It's called the Leaf Lake fire and after a minimal search I located Leaf Lake. It's on the south side of the river, 4.9 miles from the Butte. That puts it about 2.9 miles east of my house. Easterly winds are common in this area, though it's calm today. If winds pick up it would blow this way for sure. For those familiar with the area, Jim Creek shows up on the same map. So if the wind kicks up, I (and a ton of neighbors) are in direct line with the fire.
And that's just the people. With all the lakes and wetlands in the area, it is prime habitat for nesting swans, geese, ducks and many other birds.  

Why can't news people go one step further and give an accurate location? Near a river indeed. At least tell us which side of the river. Next we'll hear of a fire near the Yukon River. 

No reason to panic, no wind and the smoke appears to be drifting to the north. Maybe time to look around the house for a safety zone and then a mental inventory of what to take if evacuation becomes necessary.

UPDATE AT 6:30 PM: Here's an update on the Leaf Lake Fire outside of Palmer:

Smoke jumpers called in. BLM photo.

The fire has not grown substantially and is still estimated at 10 acres. A helicopter has been dropping water on the fire most of the afternoon and that work has been effective in slowing growth of the fire, with the exception of occasional uphill runs on the slope it is burning on. Winds have been fairly light at 5-7 mph with gusts to 8 mph and temperatures in the low 60s. Relative humidity has been in the high 20s.

There are nine people on scene - 7 smokejumpers and 2 State Forestry personnel - and three more DOF firefighters should be arriving shortly via helicopter. A second helicopter will join the fray tonight for transport and bucket work, also.Fortunately there is a lake at the base of the slope the fire is burning on so it makes for quick turnaround time.

The forecast is calling for windier conditions tomorrow afternoon, which could provide a test for firefighters.

ANOTHER: A lot less smoke over that way at 8:30 p.m.

UPDATE: 4/18:  Bit of an update Monday: No smoke visible from the house today. Drove the four-wheeler down to the river where there's a less obstructed view of the area and couldn't spot any smoke from there either. Size was updated to 25 acres due to better mapping, not spread. Cause has been listed as "human," but no more detail than that. Guessing that it's under control, Wind blowing upriver away from the house. Several reports today say fire is still being fought, generating lots of smoke, but no flame visible at least from the air. KTUU still locates it "near the Knik River."

UPDATE 4/19: Wildfire east of Butte making headway on its containment.

Alaska DNR- Division of Forestry (DOF)

3 hrs · 

The 25-acre Leaf Lake Fire near the Knik River outside Palmer (4.9 miles due east of the Butte) is now 80 percent contained and fire managers are projecting 100 percent containment by the end of the operational shift today if the winds don't get too strong. The 13 personnel working on the fire have mopped up 20-30 feet in around the fire and are concentrating on the lower end of the fire.

4/19 3 p.m.: This post from earlier in the day says it will be contained if the winds don't get too strong. Unfortunately at 3 p.m. winds have picked up considerably. River basin is full of a dust cloud (hope that's not smoke) and no report yet of how this has affected the fire. Oh yeah, it is blowing from the east directly toward this area.

4/20 A.M.: LEAF LAKE FIRE ALMOST OUT: Fire personnel continued to work the interior where fire activity was observed as smoldering and creeping in the unburned fuels. Winds picked up around 1400 with gusts of up to 20 mph, however, personnel were still able to achieve their goals. The fire was called contained at 1626, and plans for today consist of demobing the seven smokejumpers, while still planning for a complete demob of the fire by Thursday.

UPDATE 4/21: Fire personnel continued their mop-up operations throughout the day. 7 smokejumpers and 2 additional firefighters were demobed off the fire, and complete demob is scheduled for today, 4/21. Total cost to date: $105,643.

Alaska wildfire information

The Alaska Tuxedo

          Here's a photo of Alaska's former U.S. Rep Don Young
            decked out in genuine Filson threads that make up
           the Alaska Tuxedo. Notice the bag and the logo on
             the wall.

There are a lot of stories going around and a lot of opinions on just what an Alaska tuxedo amounts to. These days people claim any Carhartts suit will do, or any plaid shirt. But the folks who reallly know, say it's the Filson Company pants and jackets that make up the true tuxedo. How do I know, I met the guy who was there when they were invented. Here's his story. – TJ

THE ALASKA TUXEDO

AUGUSTUS BIRCH-ALDER

Some time ago a magazine lady come to a friend of mine askin' about the Alaska tuxedo.  Now my friend's got some knowledge about Alaska and such, but he don't know everything.  He let her know about me and eventually she come to ask me the same question.  Now as you kin probbly tell I ain't much for writin' things down and if'n you think my language ain't so great, you oughta see what my chicken scratchin's is like.  Well, I come to know about the question and when I got the chance to be near one of these typewriter machines, I let her know what I know about the Alaska tuxedo.  See, I was there when they invented it.  Real funny how it happened.  Most of those boys is long gone now.  I guess I'm about the only one left who was there that night. So I get to write the history.

Happened back in the early Twennies.  Me and Spuds McWhortle was up the Koyukuk prospectin'.  Spuds had just broke with his partner Gravy Dickens the winter before and me and him set up our stake and headed upriver after breakup to look over some creeks up that way.  We hit a little pay along the way, but nothin' like we wanted until too late in the season to do anything about it.  They's a little crick up there just past the Alatna that hit our fancy and we begun working our way up it, takin' a pan here and there until we got near this little waterfall.  In the basin under that trickle we come across dust – maybe $25 to the pan and commenced to doin' some serious diggin'.  Spuds and me worked hardern' we ever remembered, we was so concentrated we wasn't payin' attention to the signs and freezeup caught us.  We'd planned to build a raft to get down but we come out of the tent one morning and durned if that creek hadn't froze all the way down to the Koyukuk and the river was about to seize up too.

So, whut we planned was to hike out over the ice hauling a sled with as much gear as we could.  The rest of our stuff we planned to leave 'cause we was sure comin' back to that crick in the spring.  We washed out all our clothes for the trip downriver and that's when we found we wasn't the only ones surprised by freezeup.  Now I don't know how much you all know about this sort of stuff, so I'll explain a little here.

When you wash clothes in the winter time, you hang 'em outside 'til they freeze, then you bring 'em inside and stand 'em up by the stove and by the time they thaw, they're dry.  Well, Spuds left the clothes out overnight and in the morning we got one of them Alaska surprises.  We come out of the tent and the whole place had been tromped over and everything but the tent itself was ripped to shreds.  Only one thing coulda done that and we knowed instantly it was a big old bear come through our camp that night.  Spuds' clothes line was ripped down and that fool griz had ate my long johns.  They say there's nothin' meaner than a bear out in winter and I think I can now say that's true.  Can you think of anything so cold and so mean he'd be hungry enough to eat a man's long johns, specially after they been wore a whole summer doin' hard labor.  This was one mean griz. I mean there wasn't nothin' left of them long johns enough to cover a kneecap.  We got to thinkin' we might not want to be there when them longhandles started actin' up in his stomach.  He was mean enough already.  So, we packed everything that was left in a big hurry and made tracks downriver.

There we was with winter comin' on bigtime and I had to make this hike without long johns of any sort.  It was cold and there was another problem, too.  I don't suppose any of you ever wore a pair of them heavy wool trousers like we used to have.  Them things weighed a ton, took two sets of suspenders and a belt to hold them up, specially after a summer's work and I was so skinny from it all.  It took all that to hold 'em up and that was without change and dust in the pockets.  Also, they was made of the roughest kind of wool imagineable and that come to be the big rub.

I tell you we trudged for days down that crick and then down the Koyukuk to the Yukon.  We was hopin' to catch the last of the riverboats up to Fairbanks, but we was too late.  Took us two weeks to the Big Yu and surefire, time we come to it, she was froze as solid as that old grizzly's brain.  We traded some dust for grub at the post there in Koyukuk, stashed some more gear and headed upriver for Fairbanks where we planned to winter out.

By this time that other problem with them pants was becomin' a real pain, if you know what I mean.  All that walkin' with that scratchy fabric in them stovepipe trousers swishin' back and forth was havin' an effect on my pore legs.  Time come we was in quite a parade of folks headin' for the Tanana and Fairbanks.  One of the folks we run into was Gravy, Spuds' old pardner.  Didn't take long 'fore they was squabblin' about this axe handle and that stove and they almost come to blows afore I stepped atwixt them.  That little Gravy ripped my shirt in the process and I tell you, I couldn't spare the threads.  We finally picked him up and dumped him in a snowbank and we continued on, me with even more ventilation than before.  Mind you this was early winter but it got down to the 40s below some of them nights on the river.  With them extra holes in my clothes, and them pants rippin' my thighs to bloody meat, we flat hustled for town.

We finally come upon Fairbanks and what a sight that town was, growing up along that slough all fancy and modern as a little town in Alaska could be.  It had some high-falutin' ideas, too.  All the boys was there.  Champagne Ricky was up from Kantishna country.  The Slough Goose come over from the flats.  Angus McQuarts must hit it big that summer 'cause when we come down Two Street he was marchin' along, blowin' his bagpipe scarin' wimmin and their kids right off the street.  He's the one told us about a big dance party comin' up that very night.

Now you might not think two guys just hiked all the way from the Alatna to Fairbanks'd in any shape to do no dancin', but I don't expect you kids comin' to Alaska these days know what it's like out there on the creeks all summer with just another smelly old sourdough to keep you company.  We'd get dizzy just tryin' to stay upwind from each other.  And, once we come out and got a chance to mingle with other folks and maybe some of them other folks is of the other gender, well, they ain't no tired in the world gonna stop us.

So, we was fired up for Angus' dance.  I even tried to tap a few steps right there in the middle of the street but I had to stop 'cause it was then I realized how bad them pants had tore up my legs.  See, all that rough wool rubbin' against my tender thighs for all them days just about tore the hide off me.  If I was going to do any dancing I was going to need some patchin' up.  And, I was going to need some new pants.

First thing we done was head over to Mizz Marble's bathhouse to get the dust off and trim a little hair here and there.  I soaked for about four hours, but I never got no redder than my thighs already was.  Mizz Marble, she gives me some salve to put on my wounded legs and that helped some.  She was all up for that dance, too and she told us the ladies of that town wasn't goin' to put up with no poorly dressed miners and we'd best be gettin' us some formal type threads or they wouldn't even let us into that dance. We paid up and then we went over to Spickle's store to see about some dancin' clothes.  Now, a guy lives like we do ain't got room in his outfit to be packin' around nothin' like a dancin' suit and even if he did, ours probbly woulda been tore up by that bear.  And I fore sure wasn't puttin' them wool pants back on.

Time we got to Spickle's and lookin' over his wares, he'd sold out most of his fancy duds.  There was enough guys in from the cricks with dust and everybody was gettin' gussied up.  He had a couple of them banker suits left but me and Spuds couldn't see much sense in buyin' one of them just to go for one dance.  Old man Spickle, seein' we was doin' a good job of resistin' spending any of our dust says he's got an idea.  Now Spickle's got this wife, well, she don't really belong in the country.  Mrs. Spickle, now she's a story in herself, come down from Dawson where they say she did more than just clean house if you know what I mean.  She's got more city ideas than Fairbanks can accommodate, I mean she reads things like fashion magazines and such and always dresses up.  Spickle asks his wife what she thinks would be the right stuff for us and she hauls out one of them magazines.  I'm sure they was both winking at each other, too.  She reads how this one fashion place says men's clothes should be what she called functional and geographical and how the clothes should fit the man, more than just fit, if you know what I mean. So, Spickle, right on her cue, trots out these olive colored Filson pants and says to me try 'em on.  I did that and then he shows me a nice wool plaid shirt about the same as the airbag on them bagpipes Angus plays.  They all looked me up and down and then Mrs. Spickle says it's missin' something so she comes up with this fancy lookin' piece of strung and ties a bow around my neck.

I musta looked pretty silly all told cause as they started to looked me up and down, they also started to smilin', then they started gigglin, then they all broke into real laughter.  Then Spickle plops this bowler on my head and they all crack up.  Just about this time, Ricky comes in and he's been celebratin' a little and he wants to know what's all that funny.  So they tell him they're me up for the dance and they falls to gigglin' all over again.

Ricky looks me over real good and then says he don't see what's all that funny, if that ain't an Alaska tuxedo, then he don't know what is.  And if a man can't wear an Alaska tuxedo and get in anyplace he wants to go, then the place ain't worth goin' into.  He says he'd just as soon have one, too, if they've got his size and they did and by that time Spuds decides he'll have one too and when we left, Spickle himself was looking for a waist size that'd get around him.

We paid up again and headed down Two Street to the saloon where the boys was gettin' ready for the dance.  A couple of them give me a pretty good ribbin' but when they seen the women eyein' us up to dance, they was askin' where they could come across a similar suit.  We told them it's called an Alaska tuxedo and Spickle's is havin' a sale.  We done some good advertisin' for that little store, 'cause by the time come for the dance, Spickle's sold out all them pants that had probbly been layin' around that store for the past ten years or so.  By the time we come to the dance hall, there's only about one guy in the whole town ain't wearin' one of them suits, except Angus, of course, 'cause he's got to wear his kilts.  The one other guy turns out to be the man takin' tickets to get into that dance.  He takes one look at them suits we was wearin' and says something like it ain't suitable attire for his dance  Now every one of the men in that town was wearin' them twill pants and plaid shirts and them string ties.  A couple of the rougher women had 'em on, too.  While we was stopped there at the door, McKinley-hip Martha shoved her way through the crowd to confront this fancy little ticket taker.  She allows as how she wants to dance and how she wants to dance with a man, not some panty waist in a waistcoat.  She says if he wants to dance with someone like an Alaska woman, he better go get the proper suit himself, and she pitches him into the nearest snowbank.  Then we all filed into that dancehall, leavin' our dollar at the door, just like the little dude mighta still been there.

I don't have to tell you we all had a grand time at that dance and from then on them tuxedos that Ricky named was the thing to wear if a guy wanted to get formal.  I hear they's a couple places in them cities now don't allow a fellow in if he's wearin' one.  Sure hope I never wander into one by mistake 'cause even at my age I could probbly tear up one of them citified joints.  Ain't no place in Alaska for that kind.

Owl house is a very, very fine house …

In place and ready for occupants the very next day.

With apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, look what I built. I had been thinking about it for several years and finally did something about it a couple of days ago, hit the lumber yard and built it yesterday.

I might be a little late already but I am going to give it a try. The drill motor battery didn't have enough oomph left to generate the torque necessary to make that 4-inch circular blade cut or I would be finished by now. Just have to cut the hole and paint and mount it in a tree. Then I can wait to see if it lures an owl. Might have to wait for next year.

Later that same day.

It might be a little bigger than necessary. Around here I could expect boreal or Saw whet owls which are tiny and this is designed for the next size up which would be a western screech owl. I figured the little ones could get into this nesting box, but the screech owl couldn't get into the smaller one. We'll see what happens.

I'm kind of hoping I don't get a saw whet owl. Years ago in another town, I heard this strange call from the woods, a constant beep beep beep going on for hours. With a little research I learned it was a saw whet owl, but also that their range extended only as far north as southeastern Alaska. I lived 500 miles from there and it hit me that this little guy might have been hooting the loneliest bachelor call in the world being he was so far from the nearest female. The beeping grew old in a hurry. That constant toot toot toot kept me awake at night, irritated me before I fully woke up in the morning and just kept going on and on. I thought this might be a substitute for waterboarding. I could do without one beeping in my backyard here. Just to show you what I mean, here's a clip of that sound: (In reality the calls are a lot louder than this.)



To tell the truth though I would be happy with any type of owl that chooses to reside and perhaps nest and raise young in this fancy new condo. You could call it affordable housing even. Watch this space.

These are the dimensions in case anyone is interested. The smaller one is about an inch shorter all the way around and has a 3-inch entry hole. Plan is from the 50birds.com website.

I think my all-time favorite sighting, and this has happened more than once, occurs at the East Pole. Looking down the hill at night, a full moon casting shadows across sparkling snow and among the trees a great horned owl glides on silent wings pursuing his nightly hunt.

Owl be seeing you in the polar vortex

The meme is the massage

This meme is the perfect illustration of how the rich steal from the middle class and then convince the middle class to blame the poor.

It is meant to vilify the poor hamburger flipper who supposedly is taking away from the others by demanding $15 an hour for his work, when what is really wrong here is the other three are grossly underpaid. It's interesting to note that all three are public servants, paid by government entities that across the nation have done everything they can to neutralize their labor unions.

What's sad is people keep posting this message and commenting on the posts without really questioning what it means. The poor, the hamburger flippers and the 7-11 clerks, the Walmart employees who qualify for food stamps and, yes, even those on welfare are not the bad guys here. The bad guys are the city officials who would only pay a policeman $18.27 an hour or the fireman, $16.04 an hour or the paramedic $15.59 an hour. Think about what those people do, and the risks some of them take to protect the public and then try to defend those wages. Those wages are indefensible and those people are not paid by the same people who pay hamburger flippers so the only penalty those public servants suffer is it costs them the nickel more they have to pay for a Big Mac because they can't afford a decent meal.

But the buck doesn't stop with public officials strapped for funding just to keep their city services operating. Think at least one step further. Where does the money to fund government services come from? It comes from taxpayers and when you have huge corporations taking billions in subsidies from the government and paying little or no taxes on their income, there is where the disconnect is.

But the titans of industry have managed to wage and are winning the war of the minds when somebody posts a meme like this one blaming the hamburger flipper for wanting a living wage.

What is equally sad is there are so many people willing to believe this without question. Want to find a culprit again? It would be easy to blame the education system. We are not teaching our kids to think and question so when something like this on the surface appears to confirm the fears and insecurities that come up from every angle, they believe it without the slightest hesitation.

And who controls the purse strings for education? Follow the same path to the same institutions. In a way by squeezing education (and blaming underpaid teachers in the process) the outcome is a dumbing down of the general population which in turn makes it easier to manipulate and the whole corrupting influence goes deeper into the fabric or our supposedly democratic society.

This part of the process is particularly dismaying. I know the young fellow who posted that meme on his facebook page. That is how I came to see it this time. He is a contemporary of my son's and a young man over whom I had some bit of influence. I think now if I had only had the foresight to at least encourage him to question and challenge things, maybe he wouldn't be believing and passing on this sort of propaganda.

And that's all it really is, propaganda, an effort published through innocents to gain even more control over the economy and fill the vaults in foreign countries with American money produced by underpaid American labor and often from profits made by selling to Americans, to satisfy the unmitigated greed of the one percenters.

During the Vietnam War and civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s a particular message kept showing up on demonstrators' signs. It read: "Question everything." Perhaps it's time to wave that sign again.

The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan

Back in 1970 the thing was no comma at the end of a series

Everyone who writes or edits has some absolutes they just won't put up with. I come loaded with them, but when I went back to editing in my 60s, I found the new generations had new ones but were just as insistent about them. One of mine was the use of "on" with a day or date as in "on Tuesday" or on "Jan. 15." A journalism professor had insisted on leaving it out, saying, "you can't stand on a day," and over 35 years of editing I have been dutifully removing them. One night in that most recent stint, I took several "ons" out of a story. Later I saw a page proof that had been gone over by a kid fresh out of college with a whole new set of that type of irritant. He had dutifully put all the "ons" back into the story. As I had the last look, I didn't let them go back in.  One of the worst new ones I saw was some guy on line who went apoplectic every time he saw two spaces after a sentence instead of one. That guy was headed for a heart attack before he was 40.

Where do these come from? Many of them are drilled into us as students. Others we pick up on the way. A new one I would edit out every time I see it is lately writers and newscasters cannot help saying "back in" as in "back in 1998." You see and hear it everywhere and it is totally unnecessary. "In 1998" is fine and if print media are trying to save space they can save two words every time a date comes up. Think of the miles of newsprint and gallons of ink saved if editors everywhere removed those two words every time they see them.

What's kind of silly about an editor's foibles is most of these tiny ones don't matter at all. Does the substance change if there are two spaces after a sentence instead of one? Does it make any difference to the story whether a guy does it Wednesday or on Wednesday? Does the time frame change if something happened in 1998 rather than back in 1998? Nope. These things seem to go in cycles anyway. Take the oxford comma. I was taught you leave that last comma out of a series because the commas only indicate the missing "and" between other items in that series. You leave it out when the series ends with "and something." And I can remember the horror on the face of the teacher when I told a class of fourth grade writing students you didn't put that comma in. But whether the comma is there or not doesn't matter to the meaning either. Maybe age has mellowed me but I just let that stuff go any more. There is enough to do without splitting hairs over a comma or a space.

So what brought this on? I am editing a story and part of the story is about editing, so it is double indemnity. I had written this: "I have this fancy new weather thing …." I had a high school English teacher who insisted "thing" should never be used.  There is always a more detailed substitute. Never write "thing." So when I saw it the alarm went off. The context and other constraints didn't allow a detailed description of the instrument which has an outdoor sensor that broadcasts the reading to a bedside monitor. So I changed "thing" to "device." Then what hit me was what more does that tell a reader? If you think about it, "device" really means "thing." It is no more specific. And, for that matter so does "instrument," though both seem to sound and look better but neither tells the reader any more except perhaps by inference. Unable to come up with anything better, I stuck with device.

That teacher also instilled another trigger in me. She said every time you see a version of the verb "to be" change it. That is simply a state of being, says only something is standing there doing nothing. Her advice was every time you write "is" or "was" look for an active verb. That advice has served me well over the years and a couple of reviewers have pointed out my use of verbs as something positive in my writing. Often finding an active verb takes very little time.

Well I was going to go on about editors' rules but it is time to get back to work. Or, I intended to go on about editors' rules but more important obligations call me back to work.