Monday, September 7, 2026

Th early Years Part II Late 1996 to 2004

 

Tuesday November 26, 1996

We came in for Thanksgiving. We brought in a new chair for kids that folds into a bed. On the way in his mom's sled broke. We got to the Earth station around 3 pm. Bob Rosenberg was there and said he had seen bear tracks in the trail. Everything went smoothly. We could still see where I broke through the ice at Whisky Slough a couple of weeks earlier. We ate too much soup. No bears,

Wednesday, November 27, 1996

About +10 F at wakeup. We could see the mountain for part of the day. It started snowing in the evening. I went out and got the rest of our stuff. Did a big 3-D puzzle. Justin won at Trivial Pursuit. Built a big Lego house and got ourselves orcanized.

Thursday November 28, 1996

Snowed lightly all day. temp +20˚F. Rollie, Mary, Melissa and Megan Ostermick came out for Thanksgiving. The two girls (in their teens) skijored all the way in. Then with Justin they played all afternoon including making a big trail down our sledding hill. The adults talked all afternoon while we prepared dinner and drank cranberry slush with a little vodka mixed in it. Went out around 9 p.m. to. get the Ostermicks home and I didn't get back until 11. The trail was good and fast. I noticed what looked like several moose bed indentations in the snow near the trail up to the cabin

Friday November 29, 1996

Snowed lightly in the morning, 10-20˚, The mountain came out for a little while. Temp turned colder in the evening.

Justin had a long nap. Then he and his mother did a lot of playing in the snow, sledding and even made a sled jump. I tried to make a trail up to the lake but didn't get the whole way. I fixed the other snowmachine. Ridlings are in across the trail. They said they saw a big bull moose in   the swamp area. I won at trivia.

Saturday November 30, 1996

5˚ at wakeup.

Justin took his snowboard in deep snow to the lake. He even passed me on the snowmachine where I was stuck on the way. Then he and I went over to the Ridling's where he played with the kids while John told me about that moose. It was a big bull ran and right at them. they took off and it followed them for a minute or two.

In the afternoon all the kids came over to our place and everybody took to our sled hill. After that almost worn out, most of the kids went back to their cabin, all but Josh who stayed to play with Justin indoors for a while. We all worked on a puzzle. Outside the clouds faded a little but the mountain never came out. Snow started toward evening. Justin' mom skied for a while until she learned about that moose. I made Justin's desk ready to take back to Valdez. He drove the machine almost all the way home. About 10˚ in the evening. We go out tomorrow.

Saturday December 21, 1996

Clear and 18˚ Mountain was out all day. I was already there; Justin and his mother came over from Valdez today. They arrived at the trailhead around 2:30 p.m. Had been using her snowmachine because mine was in the shop having quit from the dunking it got in Whiskey Slough about a month earlier. I moved to the four-wheeler (OK as long as the trail remained clear and hard packed). Justin rode with his mom. The cabin was. warm and everything was in its place. I had brought most of our supplies when I came out earlier. Reasonably calm for a first day, but tired we all went to bed early.

Sunday December 22, 1996

Clear and 10 to 20˚ Mountain was out all day. Got the Christmas tree, best one yet. Set it up in the northwest corner. Justin won the Garfield game. We took it easy all day;

Monday December 23, 1996.

The day before the day before Christmas

Clear and sunny for one of the shortest days of the year, 10-20˚ Mountain was out. We woke up early enough to see a spectacular moonset over the mountain.

I cut a dead spruce down for firewood but the chainsaw wasn't working very well and I had to stop before bucking it up into stove lengths. Justin and his mom made a fort in the branches. Then then they went for a walk around Squirrel Hill. Later she went across the big hill, coming down the big slope behind the house.

Tuesday December 24, 1996. Christmas Eve

10˚ at wakeup and a bright full moon moving through a few clouds, and we saw another spectacular moonset.  

The pile of presents under the tree looked bigger. Justin and I went out the trail all the way to Talkeetna for some ice cream. He ate two fudgesicles. We saw four moose including a big bull still sporting antlers. I wondered if it was the one that chased John Ridling at Thanksgiving and we kept our distance. When we returned, the pile of presents looked bigger. Justn and his mother went sledding for a while and worked on their fort in the fallen tree at the bottom of the hill. They uncovered a pile of moose nuggets. (In winter moose nibble on twigs for sustenance and as a result leave droppings consisting mostly of digested wood in the form of nuggets.) When they came back the pile of presents looked even bigger. I read Justin some of "The Hobbit" and he fell asleep. So did his mom. When they woke up they said the presents pile looked bigger. Outside we heard Boone's trail howl as he chased squirrels.

Later we had dinner and let Justin open one present. He was worried Santa wouldn't find us out here in the woods. I told him I would take care of that and I went about lighting up a runway for Santa. I had planned for this. I took a box of votive candles and a bunch of brown sandwich bags and headed down the trail. At intervals, I spread open a bag, put a candle in it, and lighted it. When I finished we had a lighted landing strip all the way out to the main trail. That satisfied Justin and he stood for several minutes looking out the picture window at the curving line of lights on the trail.

Temperature 0˚ at 7:30 pm.

Wednesday December 25, 1996. Christmas Day

10˚ to 20 ˚ and. clear with mountains all day. Justin rose very early but we held him back, only allowed opening his stocking. We ate a quick breakfast and then tackled the pile of presents. Three moose were hanging around at the bottom of the hill most of the morning. I called them "Christmoose." At one point Boone chased a moose but he gave up quickly fighting deep snow that the moose got through much easier than he did. Mom and dad were kind of grumpy all day for lack of sleep.

Thursday December 26, 1996.

10-20˚ Clear and the mountains were out. 

Morning light
 We went over to the creek for water. Justin took a walk over the new bridge. Later Johnny came over to play. We played 13 Dead End Drive. Dull day.

Friday December 27, 1996.

Clear and warmer, above 20˚ Me moping all day for some reason. Justin and his mother went sledding for a while.  I asked Sue when she called John if she would ask if he would bring me back a bar and chain for my chainsaw. We visited with the Ridlings for a while and came home late. I read Justin a little more of "The Hobbit."

Saturday December 28, 1996.

Clear, 5˚ at wakeup. Mountains out with some thin clouds overhead.

 The whole thing

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Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

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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

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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

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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

Commenting on an athlete with hearing impairment he said the player didn’t show any “uncomfortability.” “He's not doing things he can't do."

"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

"He's got to have the lead if he's going to win this race." "

"Kansas has always had the ability to score with the basketball."

"NFL to put computer chips in balls." Oh, that's gotta hurt.

"Now that you're in the finals you have to run the race that's going to get you on the podium."

"It's very important for both sides that they stay on their feet."

This is why you get to hate sportscasters. Kansas beats Texas for the first time since 1938. So the pundits open their segment with the question "let's talk about what went wrong." Wrong? Kansas WON a football game! That's what went RIGHT!

"I brought out the thermostat to show you how cold it is here." Points to a thermometer reading zero in Minneapolis.

"It's tough to win on the road when you turn the ball over." Oh, really? Like you can do all right if you turn the ball over playing at home?

Cliches so embedded in sportscasters' minds they can't help themselves: "Minnesota fell from the ranks of the undefeated today." What ranks? They were the only undefeated team left.

A good one: A 5'10" player went up and caught a pass off a defensive back over six feet tall. The quote? "He's got some hops."

Best homonym of the day so far: "It's all tied. Alabama 34, Kentucky 3." Oh, Tide.

"Steve Hooker commentates on his Olympic pole vault gold medal." When "comments" just won't do.

"He's certainly capable of the top ten, maybe even higher than that."

"Atlanta is capable of doing what they're doing."

"Biyombo, one of seven kids from the Republic of Congo." In the NBA? In America? In his whole country?

"You can't come out and be aggressive but you can't come out and be unaggressive."

"They're gonna be in every game they play!"

"First you have to get two strikes on the hitter before you get the strikeout."

"The game ended in the final seconds." You have to wonder when the others ended or are they still going on?

How is a team down by one touchdown before the half "totally demoralized?"

"If they score runs they will win."

"I think the matchup is what it is"

After a play a Houston defender was on his knees, his head on the ground and his hand underneath him appeared to clutch a very sensitive part of the male anatomy. He rolled onto his back and quickly removed his hand. (Remember the old Cosby routine "you cannot touch certain parts of your body?") Finally they helped the guy to the sideline and then the replay was shown. In it the guy clearly took a hard knee between his thighs. As this was being shown, one of the announcers says, "It looks like he hurt his shoulder." The other agrees and then they both talk about how serious a shoulder injury can be. Were we watching the same game?

"Somebody is going to be the quarterback or we're going to see a new quarterback."

"That was a playmaker making a play.”