An Auburn Tiger in Alaska

Summer came early

2009-05-28T23:33:00.003-08:00

...and hopefully will be staying for a while. The last month has been one gorgeous day after another. The sun is shining and it's been in the sixties almost every day of May. We finally got some rain the last couple of days, but no one grumbled about it much. It was needed- there were some fire warnings about an hour north of here and probably in other places as well. All the trees are full of leaves, the grass is almost totally greened up, and even the snow on the tops of the mountains is mostly melted. Probably will be another couple of weeks before those green up, but you can see the life slowly creeping up the mountains each week.

We haven't let the rain slow us down any though. Buck and I went herding in the 40 odd degree rain last night with Scout along for the ride. Then, we all went hiking with a friend and her dog this evening in the 45 degree weather. Just a long-sleeved shirt was all that was needed, though. We still haven't lost all our winter acclimation yet. The mosquitos were out en masse tonight and were way more annoying than the rain. No pictures of our hike because of the weather, but it was just a trail in town so not a lot to take good pictures of. Luckily didn't run into any bears.

Sunset will be at 11:15 tonight. We'll gain another half an hour in the next month. Here's a picture of the 11pm sunset on Memorial Day. It's also the view from my couch. LOL! The vertical lines are where the heat film I put up on my windows overlaps. With 10-12 hours of sunlight beating in on my living room, this film that blocks 55% of the heat from the sun really makes a difference, especially when there's no A/C and just one window in my living room that opens. Well, finally getting my blinds up has a made a huge difference, too. Heh!

War eagle dogs

Short Break-up, long Summer?

2009-05-02T21:30:00.004-08:00

It's been forever since I posted here. The late Winter blahs got to me after Fur Rondy, the Iditarod, and dog sledding. Pictures of each of those events can be found behind these links, though:

Fur Rondy
Dog Sledding
Iditarod

But we had a good Break-up (known as Spring elsewhere) with warm days and not-so-cold nights, so we when the snow melted during the day, the water on the roads didn't freeze up each night. That was very nice. We got some snow on Easter, but just a snow shower with nothing sticking. Here's a pic of that (click for the large version):

And then about a week after this, we started getting into the 50s every day. The last two weeks, we've made it into the 60s nearly every day. We've now had more days in the 60s than we did all last 'Summer'. People have been getting out and enjoying the heck out of it. I think there's some fear that this will be all the Summer we get. Heh! I actually had to get my fan out to be put in front of the living room window to pull in some cooler air. I don't think I had to do that until late June last year.

The dogs aren't at all used to the heat yet. They went from running in the snow and sprinting around for an hour before wearing out to running in the grass and only managing about twenty minutes before needing a break in the shade. They drank down 32 ounces of water this evening and that only gave them an extra twenty minutes of play time.

Scout has been enjoying it, though. She can really get a grip on the grass and run even faster than usual. The grass is also a lot easier on her feet- she would always have at least two of her feet bleeding after running on the snow the last few months this winter. She digs in with her nails when she runs and they were breaking in the icy snow. She's so fast that people have been coming over from the families barbecuing in the park to ask what kind of dog she is. A friend of mine is going to bring her whippets out next Sunday to see if Scout can keep up with them. I think it's the greyhound in her Cataloula half coming out. Buck can keep up with her for a while, especially now that there's grass, but he wears out a lot faster than she does. I just throw the ball farther for her than him and it works out. I throw a ball for her, then one for him. She gets even more exercise because after she retrieves hers, she runs over to him to try to steal his ball.

Next week, we're going to start hiking a few nights a week in town. We're starting slow and then will start going out into the Chugach once the salmon are running so that the bears have food other than my dogs. The wonderful weather is making me excited to get out and enjoy it. I'm actually hoping for a couple days of rain this week. With the heat plus a little rain, everything will get a good start at greening up. While I love all the sunshine, all the rain last year made everything nice and green. It also kept us from having to worry about any forest fires. A little bit of rain is fine with me- a balance is always best.

Here are some nice sunset pictures I took a couple days ago. Our sunset is after 10 pm already. In fact, it's 10:30 pm right now and it looks like the sun has just set. Click the pic for a larger version.

Just 1/3 of the winter left

2009-02-22T22:24:00.003-09:00

Really, just over one more month of winter left, what with April pretty much being Break-up. I still let April qualify as winter since last year we got around two feet of snow on the 25th. Heh! The fun things are about to start happening, though, and that tends to make the time fly. Fur Rondy starts this coming weekend and then the Iditarod the weekend after that. My aunt is coming up to visit for both events, and we're going dog sledding up in Denali National Park next weekend. I'll be bringing at least one of my cameras and will hopefully get some great pictures of that to post.

In the meantime, we had two beautiful, sunny days this weekend. It wasn't too cold, teens and low 20s, so that was a nice change getting sunny days without the bitter cold. The roads have dried up from some too warm days. That combined with nicer weather had everyone out at the car washes in droves to knock some of the crud off their vehicles. It took two washes to get my truck all the way clean. The sun's not setting until after 6 pm now which is the real sign that winter is on it's way out. I'm happy to have another month of winter before stupid Break-up kicks in. And Spring used to be my favorite time of the year. Well, back before it meant tons of ice, mud and disgusting dogs to clean up every time they came inside. Twice as many dogs this year, too. :( At least they're trained to potty in the yard instead of needing to walk down the wet, grimy streets to the park every time. That should help.

Speaking of the dogs, I took some pictures of them being crazy and having a good time at the park on Saturday. Click to view them larger. Click here to view them all.

Speed demon

My, what vicious teeth you have!

Hover dogs!

Buck taking a break. Scout wears him out. LOL!

Earthquake

2009-01-24T10:49:00.003-09:00

I felt my first earthquake this morning! I know there have been others when I've been up here, but never noticed them. Today there was one about 160 miles down the water near Homer that was a 6.1, so we definitely felt that here. My bed was shaking as well as my closet doors (the kind that slide and have mirrors on them). The combination of those two things woke me up. The dogs didn't act weird or doing anything but stare at the closet doors moving (which was all that I did). I'd say I felt it for about 20-25 seconds, but I guess it could have been happening before that and it just took that long for me to wake up. Heh!

Anyway, I'll be interested to see how that effects the snow on the mountains- if it was strong enough to shake loose any avalanches or if it makes the snow less sound or what.

More info from the USGS on the earthquake here:

Still cold

2009-01-06T13:16:00.003-09:00

Still rather bitterly cold up here. We've had a long cold snap the last couple of weeks. I just went out for lunch and was greeted with -23 degrees and that was after the sun was up for a couple of hours.

It looks like we'll get our typical cloudy days back this weekend, and with them, will come the warmer temps. The *positive* 20 degree weather is going to feel like a heat wave. Heh!

Our days are also gaining sun pretty fast again. The sun's up until 4pm already and it doesn't get dark until close to 5pm. Sunset will be back at 5pm by the end of the month, so it'll be easier to take the dogs to the park or on walks again by then.

I'll post some pictures of our pretty (but cold) clear day sunset tonight or tomorrow and I'll try to get out and take some other pictures Wednesday before the clouds come back. I'm pretty sure everyone will be happy to have grey days again after this reminder of how much warmer they make it here. I'm happy to have them the majority of the winter- I'd just prefer them to go away for the majority of the Summer. :)

Chilly weather

2008-12-14T14:12:00.003-09:00

It's been a might cold here the last several days. Buck and I went herding in the Valley yesterday where it was -11 degrees. We met up with some friends today to play at the park, but only stayed about 45 minutes- it was below zero and the dogs' paws were getting too cold. They'd all have one paw up in the air at a time, trying to get them warm. I took some picture of the sunrise while we were there. The sun technically rose at 10:09 here today, but the pictures were taken at 10:45 and it's still not up over the mountains:

These next ones are at 'mid-day'- around 1:30 when the sun was at it's apex:

That last one is cruddy, because I only have my old camera, but I wanted to try to show how high the sun gets in the sky. Also, most of what you see on the trees is frozen fog, not snow. We've had a lot of it lately, in fact, the first two pictures I took at noon when the fog was still out. The last two I took about an hour and a half later at the same spot in the park.

And finally, two pictures at 'sunset' yesterday at about 3:40pm. The sun has clearly already set behind the mountains. It goes behind the mountains at more like 2:50pm.

Four day weekend the second

2008-11-20T23:18:00.003-09:00

I'm in the midst of my second four day weekend. This one is going to be even more enjoyable because I know at the end of it, there's only a three day work week and then another four day weekend. Whoo!

This is the first time I've had a minute to post because not only have I been busy with work, but last Friday, Buck, Pandora and I added a new member to our family. Introducing, Scout! A red speckle Australian Cattle Dog that I got from a shelter in Iowa with the help of one of their awesome workers.

She and Buck have been getting along really well. She's real submissive, so there haven't been any arguments or even any snarkiness between them. They wrestle and play together at home and we go to a ball diamond nearby to play ball. Scout is a bit faster than Buck, but he can pull out all the stops and beat her when he really wants to. Mainly, she just likes to chase him while he goes after the ball. She had her first day at day care on Wednesday and she did real well. Finally got worn out- Buck was trying to get her to wrestle that night and she was too tired. Heh!

We haven't ventured to the dog park yet because she gets a bit overwhelmed by lots of dogs all at once. She tends to bark at strangers when she first sees them, so until she gets over those things, we'll stick to playing in smaller groups where there aren't so many people constantly coming and going. She has a little work to do on manners- she pulls on the leash on walks and forgets to listen the first time when asked to do something. But she does know how to sit, stay, come, down, etc. She's already learned to wait patiently until given an 'ok' when getting in and out of the truck, to get her feet wiped off before going upstairs and to walk slowly up the stairs so as not to be so noisy and wake the neighbors. She's super smart and I'm sure will have no trouble learning lots more. Heck, it's only been a week and she's managed all that all while settling in to a strange new place. From that alone, you can tell she's a great dog.

Here are a few more pictures:

Four day weekend!

2008-11-07T15:06:00.003-09:00

We have a special dealio happening at work the next couple of weeks, and it means that I have to work next weekend. But because of that, I get four days off this weekend (including Veteran's Day) and a four day weekend starting on the 20th. And then I get another four day break the weekend after *that* for Thanksgiving. Heh!

It also means that I'll be working nights/evenings the next couple of weeks, which is good for me. That way Buck and I can actually go outside during the week when it's light out. The sun is setting at 4:40 now and isn't up over the mountains yet when I leave for work, so this will be a nice change. We can maybe get out in the mountains for some hikes when there's no one out there to bother us. Now if we could just get some more snow in the Chugach, we could even go snowshoeing closer to home.

Anyway, now I'll have time this weekend to get my list of chores and errands done and still have time to get out and enjoy the weather. It's going to be nice Saturday and then they're calling for snow all next week. Come on, snow!!

Hatcher's Pass Snowshoeing

2008-11-02T18:54:00.002-09:00

Buck and I went up to Hatcher's Pass to find some snow for snowshoeing. We found it, but so did the many, many skiers. We're hoping that the snow starts falling in the Chugach so that we can go snowshoeing on flatter trails rather than up such steep hills.

The sky was a really gorgeous deep blue though and it wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it'd be- just in the teens not single digits and no wind. Add to that how hard we were working to traipse around uphill in the deep snow, and we were never cold. Here are some pictures- click to view the larger view, especially on that last one.

The view back down towards the valley. Very different view than the last time we were here (in Sept.).

The sun disappearing over the mountains at around 3pm.

Panorama 1

Panorama 2

Panorama 3

Really pretty blue sky and Buck refusing to sit still long enough to pose.

Buck likes to play in the deep snow, as long as he can get out of it easily.

Still a couple spots on the rivers and streams up there that haven't frozen over completely yet. I liked the way the ice formed on this one.

Night of the Living Dead...king crab!!

2008-10-31T23:23:00.003-08:00

The Alaskan King Crabs have started coming in off the boats. My boss told me about a place in town that he buys them from live. It sounded like a cool thing to do once. I went by the place and told the guy to pick me out a little one. He lifts this huge mother out-that was a small one! Um, ok, I'll take that one. Little did I know that he gave me the evil zombie crab just in time for Halloween...

(if you are squeamish about the death of a large water spider, skip this)

First, he tried to escape his 2 ft. x 1.5 ft box:

Luckily, the plastic and cardboard combo was too much for it to get past:

I prepared the death chamber:

Then, after measuring the death chamber and the crab, I realized he wasn't going to be able to take one last swim. Time for Plan B:

I prepared to do battle:

Back-up in place? Check.

Plan B involved a 10 inch chef's knife and a softball bat to drive it home:

But the zombie crab survived!!!! Eeek!!

Attempt 2- the knife was driven all the way through his brain, but still the evil crab lived!!!!

The world must be spared this evil being spread. The zombie was then dissected...

...and eaten so that the world can live another day in safety and free from the fear of zombie crabs.

That's a regular big dinner plate, by the way. It was BIG! Easily two feet from leg to leg. It's body was the size of the 21 quart pot's lid!

I really underestimated how freaking creepy that thing would be. I had to take it outside and let it halfway freeze (which only took an hour in our weather- hee!) so that it would be unconscious when I killed it. Then, it took major psyching myself up to do it- and then it didn't work! That thing wouldn't die! Anyway, that'll be the first and last time I go with the live crab option. eh! Next time, I'll just have the guy at the store kill it and then take it home and cook it up right away. Large aquatic spiders are even more gross to kill than normal ones. *shudders*

Winterizing

2008-10-23T10:02:00.003-08:00

I'm working on getting tucked in for the winter. The studded tires are on the truck, the two windows that open in my bedroom are vacuum sealed and the steps outside my apartment that I kept slipping on last winter have those grit strips (that look like sandpaper) applied and nailed down with roofing nails. Now I just need to get the sunblocking film off the windows and my new blinds put up. They're thick enough that I think they'll block some of the cold coming in.

I've been finally moving on getting some of this done, not so much because of the snow starting to fly, but more because the temps are dropping faster. It's 22 right now and feels like 11 degrees because of the wind. We don't get wind too often in Anchorage, but when we do, it feels a lot colder. Anyway, it's feeling a bit like it did in January and it's only October, so it's spurring me on to get things ready.

We got a dusting of snow last night, but the ground keeps thawing back out about once a week, making everything mud again, but not staying thawed long enough for the ground to actually dry out. It's fairly irritating. After nearly six months of it, I'm really done with mud. Especially when one owns a white dog. Bring on the snow- at least then all he gets is wet.

Buck's Finter herding

2008-10-18T18:02:00.001-08:00

Buck did a pretty good job herding today. He's getting the gates down pat (he's to stay in a spot I put him in until released) and that's pretty much the hardest part at this next level. Since the next trial isn't until the 4th of July, we have plenty of time to practice (heh!), but he's come a long way since the last video I had taken of him, so I thought I'd share.

Finter

2008-10-09T21:46:00.001-08:00

It would seem that there's a new season that's been created here in Alaska the last few days- I'm calling it Finter. Buck is very confused about seasons just creating themselves and was hoping you folks could help him figure out what season it actually was. Here are some examples from our walk this afternoon to aid in your decision making process. He appreciates the help.

Buck says, 'These leaves are green and yellow but they have fallen on top of *snow*. (click to inspect larger images)

Buck ponders, 'Here the leaves are yellow and the grass is very green, but shouldn't the snow be on top of all of it?'

Utterly lost, Buck says, 'What the heck?! A GREEN tree, fully leaved *and* snow?'

See? Don't you all agree with me? Finter, baby. Buck just enjoys running around in the snow, sniffing every footprint, and then curling up all warm and snuggly inside. Snow = good, whatever the season.

The new widget on the right

2008-10-02T09:43:00.003-08:00

I put up a new widget on the right-hand side of my blog there. *points* The past couple years one of my favorite bloggers (who I've been reading for years) started a contest to see if her readers could scrabble together their collective pocket change and help public school kids get things they need.

The first year she said if we all raised $30,000, she'd shave her head. We did, and she did (hilarious video of that here). Last year, she wanted to see if we could do $50,000 and if we did, she'd dress up in a tomato costume (her website is named Tomato Nation) and dance in Rockefeller Center. We did, and she did (that funny video here). Actually, last year we kept right on going, all the way to $100,000. That's right, her readership (along with some rich/famous folks making some donations when we reached certain marks) raised that much for kids to get books for their libraries and uniforms for their sports teams, all kind of cool stuff.

This year she's shooting for $100,000 again even though it's a crappy economy right now. But her readership keeps growing (she's hilarious even if she is a Yankee fan) and she figured out that she's got about 10,000 people that visit her site and if they can all chip in $10, we can make it happen. And if we do, she's taking the tomato costume on the road to Washington DC and is going to dance in it in front of the White House. LOL!

I'm putting this out on my blog because maybe you have $10 that you can spare for kids who need it. You can even choose which kids or projects to give it to. Just click on that widget over on the right.

I love getting the chance to do this every October because it's so cool to see how the little bit of money I can afford to chip in can make such a big difference. Those of us that aren't rich don't typically have an outlet where we can see giving small amounts making a visible difference. When a project on DonorsChoose gets funded, the teacher that requested it writes a thank you e-mail to the people that helped. When you donate $100, you get a letters from the kids and pictures of them enjoying the gift you gave them. How cool is that?

Anyway, help if you can, follow the progress if you can't.

Another non-rainy weekend, another hike

2008-09-29T10:17:00.003-08:00

Buck and I went to herding Saturday morning, and he did spectacular! We had a mean sheep on our first run that kept charging him and finally head butted him- he was not pleased and neither was our herding instructor. I kind of failed at my job of backing Buck up and helping him, but I wasn't sure how much to get involved. After he got butted, I whacked the sheep with the stock stick a bit, but it was just being a punk- still kept charging him and did the same to another much more bitey dog. That sheep got put up (and will hopefully be lamp chops soon) and Buck had no trouble with his second run. He had a good 'stay' and got the sheep through the Y and Z gates with no trouble. Good stuff.

I was going to go hiking after herding, but I had a splitting headache. I think my eyes were unaccustomed to this sunlight business, so I took a nap and then made a bunch of food for the week.

We then met up with some of Buck's dog buddies on Sunday morning and then went hiking for a few hours with his best Chessie friend, Brownie. Didn't get tons of pictures this time, but McKinley was looking very cool with the super clear skies.

It's been pretty chilly- getting down past 30 each night for the last few days. I was going to break out the wool coat this morning, but went with the fleece for fear of looking like a wimp. When I realized it was 27 degrees out, I decided to go with the wool tomorrow. Especially when paired with a shortsleeved shirt. Heh! I need to buy a couple more long-sleeve t-shirts to replace a couple that are worn out. They are handy for layering.

Foraker, maybe Hunter, and McKinley. (click for larger size)

Anchorage Bowl and Susitna- I love how tiny the 20+ story buildings look next to the mountain.

This is why if you *think* you've seen McKinley (at Denali National Park), you haven't. This is 200 miles away and look how huge it is. It's like twice the size of the mountains around it.

Hatcher's Pass

2008-09-20T22:56:00.002-08:00

Buck and I went on a hike/berry picking expedition today up in Hatcher Pass (is it Hatcher's Pass, hence the possessive? I don't know). Hatcher Pass is about 13 miles north of Palmer and a bit further south of Willow. There's an old mine there that you can pan gold at, but it's closed this time of the year. We went up a different direction toward a gravel road that leads over a pass to Willow. There was a decent about of snow up high and just enough down low to make me slip and fall about five times or so. I had a couple quart baggies in my Camelbak from a previous hike where I thought there might be berries, so when I saw there were still some blueberries, I pulled those out and started filling them up while Buck played. He got bored playing on his own, though, so I only filled up one quart bag and then a little extra. I picked some as we hiked around.

We went up toward the top of the pass and got into some deeper snow. I wanted to see the view from the top, but it was acting like it was about to start raining (or maybe snowing-it was pretty chilly), so I called it quits. The pictures with the deeper snow are from when we were higher up. Buck enjoyed playing in the snow again, so he'll be happy when winter comes. Well, until I make him wear his booties to keep his feet from getting torn up. LOL! He was splashing through the many little creeks and he still wasn't whining about being cold or acting like it bothered him, so maybe he's toughened up to the cold already.

Anyway, you can click here to open a slide show of the pictures from our hike up to Hatcher's Pass, but here are seven of my favorites (click to make big):

This is Buck's 'hero' pose. LOL!

I like how this one yellow tree really stood out.

Quite a bit of snow.

Blueberries! I got about 8 cups.

Lotsa blueberries.

Purty Fall colors.

Decent valley shot. Lower elevation than the Pass, hence no snow.

Boring

2008-09-13T19:50:00.004-08:00

That's what I am- very boring. Haven't been up to much. Last weekend was two days of convincing sheep to go where I wanted them *without* a dog which seemed a bit counter-intuitive since we (the humans) were getting them prepped for dogs to move them around. Oh, sorry, I should mention that I was volunteering as a stock handler for a herding trial. I didn't enter Buck in this one because I wanted the break from getting all tied up in knots worrying about getting everything right. It worked out, though, because Buck ended up pulling a muscle in his left front 'wrist' on Thursday night, so it would have been money wasted. He's fine now.

When I was walking Buck before leaving Saturday morning, it was raining in Anchorage still, but the sun was coming up over the Chugach range and made for a really pretty double rainbow over the Cook Inlet. The two pictures I got are below- you can click on them for a larger size.

We're already into our Fall weather and the trees have started changing. It's right around 50 all day, but not getting much below 47 at night. Very comfortable weather other than the constant rain. I'm still hoping it dries up a bit and the sun makes an appearance for a couple weekends before the snow gets started. It was supposed to rain all day today (80% chance), but then it barely sprinkled, so I'm planning on going out hiking with Buck tomorrow. They're still calling for rain, but the percentage was less than it was supposed to be for today, so I'm holding out hope.

ONe of the (many) nice things about this cooler weather is that it's good soup weather. It's also pretty conducive weather for baking a pork roast for four or five hours in order to make some pulled pork, so that's what I'm doing right now. It smells great and the aroma has been taunting me all evening, especially since all I got for supper was a sandwich since the over was occupied.

Anyway, just thought I'd check in. With any luck, I'll have some nice pictures of my hike to put up tomorrow night to make this space a little more interesting.

Busy August

2008-09-01T12:49:00.003-08:00

Only one post in August? Man, am I a slacker! Didn't do a whole lot other than hanging out at the dog park, and normal chores on the weekends. I did go hiking this weekend with a friend of ours and her eight month old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Brownie. It was a nice sunny day and in the 60s even. I'm super glad we got out and had a long hike since it turned out to be the nicest day this weekend. It's cloudy and 55 degrees right now (at noon), and I had soup for supper last night since it was definitely soup weather. Seems like Mother Nature decided that since it was Labor Day weekend, it really *was* the end of summer for us. Heh! Here's hoping Fall brings some sunny days, even if they are chilly. With a little luck, I'll be able to post a bunch of hiking pictures of the Fall colors up here in full sunlight.

Here are some pics from the hike. Click on them for nicer sized versions.

Buck and Brownie

Here's Buck amongst some flowers

This is the big bull moose that was ten feet from us munching on the undergrowth. Buck and I walked quickly by and Buck didn't notice him, happily

Pretty little creek and meadow- the one thing about all the rain, our mountains are very green.

Scenery looks better when the sun is shining.

Stages

2008-08-09T12:19:00.011-08:00

I had a great visit with some of my family who were nice enough to tough it out through the 12-ish hour flight to come see me (and Alaska) and they were well rewarded with some very nice weather. It even warmed up for them a couple of the days- that's saying something this 'Summer'. I want to try to get my niece to do a write up for their trip to post on here as a guest writer. :) I think her point of view would be interesting. Barring that, maybe I can convince my sister (or both- that'd be uber-cool).

Anyway, I'll leave that write-up to them. I was thinking today what it really means to be an Alaskan. I've heard a lot of different ideas on the matter- one is that you have to be here twenty years to be, another is a bit too crude to repeat but two of the three things it takes to be an Alaskan are peeing in the Yukon River and killing a bear- I'll skip the third. When you talk to people about stuff going on in the State, they'll often preface their opinion with 'I was born and raised here' or 'I've lived here 15 years' or something of that nature. As if being in one place for whatever chunk of time inherently gives them more knowledge- like it's gained by osmosis through the snow or from breathing in the clean air for long enough. I know from personal experience that just being somewhere for the majority of your life doesn't mean you necessarily know much about that place. You *could* if you were really interested and got hip deep into some real research, but I lived in rural Illinois for the first 18 years of my life on a farm and I still could not tell you when corn, soybeans, or even the vegetables for the garden are planted. Most of the time it depends on how muddy the fields are and a whole lot of other conditions that are less than ideal, but still, I don't really know even though I lived through it.

So, I don't think that just existing by chance or by choice in one place for a certain span of years makes you a part of it. I think it happens in stages. Some of those stages can happen around you just because you're there and others you have to go out and actively walk through them. Well, more like hike through them around here. Here's the list I've come up with so far. I'll add to it as I learn more of them. Just FYI- I'm somewhere between Stage 1 and 2 since I haven't been through a whole winter.

Stage 1: Rookie - A rookie is someone who hasn't lived through a winter- that's it, the long and the short. If you come up here every summer, working the tourist season, for 40 years, you are still a Rookie. You've got to be able to shrug at driving in the 12, 14, 18 inches of snow that fell last night to go to work, because work and school aren't canceled here for that little snow. You have to warm up the car every morning for 20 minutes because 10 degrees isn't really cold enough to mess with getting a block heater. You have to learn how to fall by the experience of eating it on the snow and ice at least once a week. You have to understand that if you wear heels to work anytime other than the Summer you are a moron and people will look at you funny (you can carry them with you and wear them once you're inside, but people will still look at you funny). After you get through all that and more, you can hit Year 1.

Stage 2: Year 1 - A Year 1 Alaskan is full of wonder. It's an amazing place even if you hate it, you can't deny how gorgeous it can be. You are freaked out on your first, second, third and fourth hikes and then just very, very alert for the next twenty or so. You learn how to drive in all the different conditions, but after Break-up (which you learn not to bother calling Spring), you actually would rather it be Winter because it'd be less annoying. You get S.A.D. and think that you're just kind of tired and sick of the cold. You are nice and helpful to the tourists because everyone is nice up here, but you still mutter 'tourists' behind their back. It's hard not to since they're the reason you have to have a reservation at a restaurant you got a table at in five minutes a month ago. You listen to everyone tell stories (and boy, do they) because you realize you've got a steep learning curve and want know how to hit a moose without it coming through the windshield and how not get mauled by a bear *before* you find yourself in those situations. You clue in to the fact that things really are different up here, even though it sounds really, really condescending when the lifers say that.

Stage 3: Year 2 - By now you know how to fish, you know all the different kinds of salmon and maybe even have a favorite. You can dip net and are getting the PFD. You sweat when it's hits 60 and turn all the fans on in the house because it really does feel that hot after you get used to it being that cold. You know when SAD is hitting and you have one of those lights or hit the tanning beds (there are a million tanning places in Alaska and no tan Alaskans). You don't bother with anything more than a coat unless it's below 20 degrees. You only bother with ski pants and hats and gloves if it's below zero and you're going to be out for a while. You know what gaiters and grippers are. If you go to the Lower 48 in the summer, what you used to think was nice weather is now God-awful hot makes you just want to be back in Alaska.

Stage 6: Veteran - You've been through enough Winters and Break-ups that you can compare them and make judgement and worry about how the salmon will run. You have a chest freezer, a four-wheel drive and either a 4-wheeler, a snow machine or an RV. You go to nothing but chain restaurants when you go down to the Lower 48 then come back and gloat to everyone else. You never go down to the Lower 48 in the summer and always take empty suitcases for shopping at the stores we still don't have and to pick up stuff that's still cheaper down there. You compare this year's PFDs to PFDs in the past and already know what you're going to be paying off with it. You have a bank account set up for each of your kids' PFD/college tuition. You've got a ton of stories and tell them to the rookies and year 1 folks, but in a nice, non-condescending way because you remember how hard that was and how annoying the lifers were to you. You think about leaving, but aren't sure if anywhere else will compare. And anyway, how would you survive a summer anywhere else now? Surely you'd melt in more than a week at those temperatures.

Stage 10: Lifer - You have an RV, 4-wheelers and 4-wheel drives for every family member, snow machines, skis, snowshoes, and a garage just for all your gear- not including vehicles. You don't live in a ritzy house, because all that other stuff costs a large chunk of change and who wants to be cooped up inside anyway. You have a cabin for fishing or hunting or snow-machining and you have a buddy that has one for each of the things you don't. You have halibut honey-holes and know the best stretch of river for each kind of salmon. You have a buddy that will take you out on his boat when he doesn't have a charter, or who will give you a discount when you have family up from Outside. You get annoyed with the new people still coming in even though it means more stores and cheaper prices. Because more stores and cheaper prices mean *more* new people will come from Outside and that just means more people fishing, hunting and hiking. More people that don't know that Things Are Different Here. You talk in a lot of Capital Letters and if you are a jerk, you start off opinions with 'I've lived here thirty years...'

Second Denali trip

2008-07-23T14:10:00.007-08:00

My friend Ang came in from Chicago last Wednesday for a visit. She tooled around town a bit, seeing the wonder that is Anchorage (Heh! That's fairly sarcastic) and driving down to the Portage glacier on her own. Then on Friday we drove up to see Denali. We stayed at a B&B in Healy Friday night so that we could catch an early bus into the depths of Denali. I reserved a campground at Wonder Lake which is as far into Denali as you can go- about 60 miles on a dirt road that winds around a lot of mountains. It takes about five hours on the camper bus (that doesn't stop often) to get there.

We set up camp at about 1pm and went off on a hike. We went up a ridge and looked down on the valley and Wonder Lake. Then, we went down to the lake along an animal trail that wasn't really much of a trail at all- lol! The mosquitos were ridiculous but they enjoyed feasting on her blood way more than mine. Heh! Wonder Lake is super deep- up to 220 feet! That's like a 22 story building down. Crazy. There's not much that lives in there- some lake trout and loons and a couple other things. Not sure if it's because it's so cold or what. I'll have to look that up.

We hiked around for about five hours or so and it only started raining as we were heading back to the camp grounds. A ranger gave a talk about Denali that was very interesting. The park only has 39 mammals species living there- a low number compared to other national parks, especially considering how much bigger Denali is than most parks (6 MILLION acres), but they also have all 39 of the original species. You know, until global warming kills them all.

On the bus trip in, we had a brown bear (no one calls them grizzlies up here- no clue why) walk right past our bus! That was really cool. We also saw eagles (golden and bald- the bald on the way up), caribou, ground squirrels, artic hares, ptarmagans, and we heard some loons. No moose in the park, but we saw a couple on the road driving to the park from Healy.

Most importantly, we got to see Mt McKinley. He was hiding from us most of the time- it was pretty cloudy during the trip, but he's visible near sunrise and sunset, so we got to see him at about 11pm on Saturday night. The pictures don't do him justice- that is one HUGE mountain! And he was pretty far away from us- probably twenty miles or so. He was only out for about five minutes and then hid in the clouds again. You can click on the picture for the larger version:

Here's Wonder Lake from the ridge we hiked up when it was still sunny:

And here it is when we got down to it (about a half hour later):

Here's the brown bear we saw on the way in:

Polychrome Valley during this trip:

Polychrome Valley during Memorial Day weekend- clearly spring doesn't start until June in Denali:

We left early because I underestimated the ground hardness, mosquito badness and the weather disgustingness. After about two hours of sleep Saturday night, we woke up at about 5 am Sunday to the tent's rain fly leaking after being poured on all night (and evening). Since we'd seen McKinley and could hike in the Chugach after sleeping in a nice warm bed, we caught the first bus back out. It was full, so we weren't the only wimps. Next time, I'm bringing air mattresses or something. It got down into the 40s and that wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been raining and mosquito ridden, too. You'd think the mosquitos would beat it when it was raining. Not so much.

Anyway, we hiked on Monday (again, in the rain, but at least we'd had a hot shower and a soft bed) in the Chugach and saw a couple of bull moose. They were close enough for it to be neat and far enough away to not be too scary. Here's a couple pics of that- the first to show how far away they were and the second with my camera zoomed:

More pictures of the Denali trip here.

More pictures of the Chugach hike here.

Whoo! Denali this weekend!

2008-07-14T13:24:00.004-08:00

I was going to go hiking this past weekend in Chugach, and Buck and I were nearly out there on Saturday when I realized that I forgot the bear bells. That, combined with us getting a late start, made me re-think things. I was hoping that we'd be able to go Sunday, but it was overcast all day and looked like it was about to start raining the whole day. But it meant that I got nearly all the cleaning done for my friend Ang's visit.

She gets here Wednesday afternoon and then we head up for our Denali trek on Friday afternoon. We'll stay at a B&B in Healy Friday night so that we can catch the first bus into the campground Saturday morning. It'll make it easier to spot animals, too- then we'll know where not to go hiking. Hee! We'll have a map, compass, a survival kit, first aid kit, bear spray, bear bells, and a satellite phone (regular cell phones don't work out there, so don't be surprised when my phone goes straight to voicemail). LOL! I think we're fully prepared. :) And we're just day hiking- no camping out in the backwoods for us. Wonder Lake has sites for tent camping, so there'll be other people there. Hopefully any bears will eat them instead of us. I'll make sure to coat someone else's tent with honey to be sure. Heh! Kidding!

Anyway, awesome pictures will be posted sometime next Tuesday, possibly next Monday night depending on how early we get back. I figure two full days and one half day will be enough hiking for us. And if not, Ang can go hike the Chugach while I'm recovering on Tuesday. :)

Cool site

2008-07-11T13:54:00.003-08:00

Our newspaper up here (Anchorage Daily News) has a site with a bear tracker on it. The Parks folks have put tracking devices on some of the bears in the area so you can see where they hang out. Click here for that page, but understand that just because you don't see dots, doesn't mean there aren't non-tracked bears there. Heh! It's interesting to see how much they congregate to the streams- not at all surprising, but it's good to know that as long as I'm hiking higher up and where there aren't berries, my chances of running into one is a lot slimmer.

Round 2: Buck 2 - Sheep 0

2008-07-07T14:47:00.005-08:00

Well, we passed our second round of qualifications and Buck now has his AKC Herding Tested title. He shall henceforth be known as Sir Buck of Anchorage. All hail, Sir Buck!

He did a pretty good job on Sunday, except he kept splitting the sheep, which means that instead of going on the outside to push them to me when they were acting up, he'd zoom in between them and scatter one away from me. Not sure what was up with that- he's never done that in practice. So, it was either my nerves bleeding onto him and making him nutty or a new bad habit we'll need to break. That tends to happen though. As the dog gains experience, it also picks up bad habits that you have to get them to knock off. I've watched this with many of the other dogs in practices and just wondered when it'd be our turn for that nonsense. Heh!

One of my friends from my dog group came to watch us Sunday with his wife and made a video for me. Here's that:

Oh, and to give some background on what the Herding Test is, here's what you are supposed to do: 1. Put your dog in a stay (with the sheep in the ring) 2. Have your dog gather them to you showing some level of control. Because it's the beginner level, you can help your dog by going toward the sheep so they don't have to work as hard. Most dogs confidence at this level isn't great, so you don't want them to fail and then get discouraged or worry the sheep because they get frustrated. 3. Walk in a controlled manner with the sheep next to the handler and change direction three times. This involves getting the sheep as close to cones on either end of the field as possible. How close depends on the judge, but the rules say you just have to change direction. 4. Put your dog in a stay and then have it come to you.

We had some trouble with that on Sunday because the first time I tried to get him to come, the sheep were still really close and he also learned from Friday's run that once he came to me, he wouldn't get to herd anymore. That's not much of a reason to want to come. Heh! When we would work on our 'come's at practice, he'd always get the reward of getting to herd the sheep more after he came to me. Otherwise they learn that if they come, the fun is over. Obviously, they learn that fast. :D

Anyway, that's our first step done. We've got a herding clinic with one of the judges tomorrow, so we'll learn some new stuff and have a new set of eyes instructing us. Then, it's back to practising to see if we'll be good enough for the next trial in September. I'll post some vids of a Samoyed, a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler herding this week.

Round one- Buck 1 - Sheep 0

2008-07-04T19:01:00.004-08:00

Buck qualified for the first leg of his AKC Herding Tested title. He was a little nutty, pushing the sheep into running more than he's ever done, but he still did really well, kept good control of them and had a perfect 'come' to me away from them. Our run wasn't very long, so the video is pretty short - about three minutes or so (short is good). That can be found here:

I was telling my loser brother Eric that Buck just has to do good on Sunday to get his title and Eric (and my non-loser Aunt Sue) both said, 'so is he a Duke or an Earl then?' Heh! No, it just means that the AKC thinks he's awesome and if he was some fancy dog with papers and such, he'd have letters at the end of his name.

The judge also said that he was an 'excellent, excellent dog' and that he was one of the best dogs out there today (in our HT class). Good stuff! We'll let you know on Sunday if the dog below will be known as Sir Buck of Anchorage. I think he looks pretty regal.

Also, this is a link to the video I made of one of my herding buddies, Doug, and his cattle dog, Tucker, doing their PT (Pre-Trial) Test. That's the step above us and it's what we'll be trying for this Fall if everything goes well. Tucker did real well at it- they started training last summer and got their HT last Fall.

Herding trials this weekend

2008-07-01T13:10:00.002-08:00

I had to take a minute to brag about my dog. Hee! Last night we went to our final herding practice before our trials coming up on Friday and Sunday. Buck's been doing well, but it's tough for me to describe what he does and why he looks better at it than some of the other dogs out there. My instructor, who breeds cattle dogs very well- she even has a grandkid who is a Cruft's Best of Breed- mentioned last night that she wishes she had a dog in her kennel that could wear stock like Buck does. Wearing is when you are walking with the sheep next to you and the dog is keeping them there by walking behind them.

It sounds pretty easy, but a lot of the dogs will get too jumpy and scare the sheep, or be too close and 'push' the sheep which makes them move too fast, or they get bored with it and don't focus well enough and the sheep get away from you. Buck is really serious about it- he has his tail down (when a cattle dog is playful and excited their tail is up) and his head down and just walks along behind them, or comes slowly up beside them if they are getting too far left or right, then he goes back behind.

Anyway, it's cool that this lady, who has seen so many herding dogs, thinks Buck is good. She thinks that we'll have no problems getting our next title at all (that would be the PT- we're going for his HT, or Herding Test, this weekend).

Oh, and he's also getting good at force barking. That's what a dog will do when a sheep challenges him instead of nipping. You don't want a dog barking constantly, but if they can get the sheep to do what they want with a few sharp barks, that's a good thing. Buck hasn't been confident enough until recently to get up in a sheep's face and make it do what he wants, so that was an awesome breakthrough.

Busy summer

2008-06-17T12:03:00.007-08:00

Man, I can't believe it's been a month since I posted last. Yikes! My schedule has been pretty packed and when it hasn't, some vital lying about has been necessary. Heh! I still need to post some scenery pictures from my Memorial Day trip and talk about that, but since I don't have those handy, I'll just update about everything that's been going on since then.

Buck and I have been stepping up his herding practice. We are entered into a competition on the 4th and 6th of July and that's coming up fast. We will be trying for his Herding Test title which is step one of the AKC trials. Here's the basics of what you and the dog have to do: sit and stay before going into the ring- put the dog in a stay once in the ring- walk close to the sheep and then release the dog and have them bring the sheep to you (called a gather)- walk in a figure 8 around two cones about 80 ft apart three times in a row without the sheep going on the inside of the cones- then you have to stop the sheep, walk away from them and call your dog to you.

We do great on everything but that last one. At first Buck wouldn't even look at me, he'd just stare at the sheep even though he was in a down-stay. Now, he'll glance at me, but when I say 'come' but then the sheep move, he runs to go get them. We've been working on pretty much nothing but that for the last two practice sessions and he's doing better, but he just comes close to me and then wants to take off to the sheep again. Sort of like, 'ok, see, I came like you told me to. Now can I go get my sheep?'

This weekend I have my fishing trip down to Homer. I'll be loading up on Dramamine and taking a cooler of energy drinks to try to kill off the drowsiness. We get to the dock at 3pm Saturday, fish til we catch our limit or it hits midnight, and then we start again and fish until we get our limit or it hits 6 am which is when we stop to go back to shore. We should get to the dock by 9am or so, get our fish cleaned and packaged, and then head home. I may be taking a nap in the truck before attempting the four hour drive back home- we'll see how much sleep I get on the boat. We're fishing for rockfish, halibut and some fish I've never heard of before.

It's to the point now that it's light out all night long. It started out being like a dark dusk- when you can see just a bit of the sun left on the horizon. But now it's like the sun has just gone past the horizon-like light enough to still play ball. Speaking of which, none of the ball diamonds here have lights. There's just no need because by April (which still isn't warm enough to play yet), it's light until 9pm.

You'd think that after a while the sunlight would stop amazing me, but that hasn't happened yet. Luckily, my bedroom is shaded and south facing, so it gets the least amount of light(since the sun travels from W-SW to West to North to East-you can watch it move along the horizon). That also keeps it cooler than the living room which has a whole wall of west facing windows. I put up this film that blocks 50% of the heat out, but it's still massively hot in there. Well, really it's probably only about 70 degrees, but when it's in the high 50s outside and that feels good and you walk inside where it's 15 degrees hotter, it feels hot. My main problem is not having any screens to put on the windows so that I can have them open. Plus, only one of the windows in the living room opens.

I bought kits to make the screens, but the hacksaw I bought to cut the frames just bent the heck out of the first one I tried to cut. So, I need to mark a couple and take them to Lowes and see if their folks can cut them better with their machines. Once I have the screens in and fans placed in front of four of my five windows, it'll stay a lot cooler in my house. I need to get that accomplished Saturday morning. I may attempt to get at least two made this week, but I've got something going on each night, so I'm not sure I'll be able to manage it.

Ok, hopefully there will be pictures of scenery and Buck herding this week and pictures of all the halibut I caught up by Sunday night.

Spring at last

2008-05-18T23:26:00.005-08:00

Break-up has been over with for a while now and it finally feels like Spring is here. Now, granted I think most people are on their way into Summer, but I think we're a few weeks away from that. Maybe by mid-June.

It was nice after the heat of California to get back to the nice, cool weather up here. But my class was good and I got to visit with my Aunt Janice, Uncle Bud and cousin Mark while I was in CA. Was great to see them- I think it's been about ten years since I saw them last.

I got back home at 2 a.m. Saturday morning and saw a moose chomping on some grass as the cab drove by. Then I saw another one swimming in Westchester Lagoon later in the morning when I went to pick Buck up. Oh, and I saw a Dahl sheep on the way home from my hike Saturday evening. So, the animals are definitely out enjoying the weather.

Buck and I went hiking up Bird Ridge down by the Turnagain Arm (about 25 miles south of Anchorage on the Seward Hwy). We mainly went to test out my knee to see if it can handle a steep hike since we're headed to Denali next weekend for hiking and such. I went to the doctor and got an MRI and it turns out that my meniscus is just strained, not torn. So, great news because now I don't have to let it slow me down. He also basically told me that my knees aren't in good shape (not surprising considering all the sports and running and hiking I've done in the last 32 years) and that eventually I'll probably tear the meniscus or my cartilage will crap out on me or something. I pretty much stopped listening after, 'it's not a tear'.

Anyway, the knee fared well and is still not bothering me today, so it looks like I'm good to go.

The hike was a challenge- half of it was moderate, but the second half was up a goat trail and the footing wasn't stellar. The mosquitos are also out already even though we have yet to see 60 degrees. Since they only swarmed when you stood still, they definitely helped me keep moving. Heh! Here's a picture of Chugach's interior and a link to the rest of the pictures. I took two sets of panorama style, so you have to scroll through them in order to get the full effect.

Plans!

2008-05-06T13:39:00.005-08:00

I've suddenly realized that the summer is fast approaching and that I need to get off my duff on making some plans for/with my friends that are coming up to visit. Chris (my sister) spoiled me by requiring no assistance other than checking out a couple B&Bs in town, so when people were like, 'so, what's cool to do?' I'm pretty much coming up blank. LOL! I've been up here three and a half months, but it's been all about unpacking and settling in and getting used to a new job, etc. Plus, the kind of things you can do in the winter are a bit different than what you can do in the summer.

After getting recommendations from the folks that have lived up here for forever, the consensus tends to be that Denali and Seward are two things that you have to do when you come up. There are many other cool things that you *can* do, but I'm also keeping in mind that my friends are budget oriented since they are young and most are still paying off school/new houses/the plane ticket up here, etc. So, yeah, knowing that, Seward and Denali are still good choices with a little Chugach hiking thrown in the mix.

Since I'm going along to do things with each of them, I've been trying to help map out a bit of their trip without being overbearing and making decisions for everyone. LOL! When my friend Jen comes up for Memorial Day, we're going to Denali on Friday and Saturday and then probably Seward on Monday. My friend Ang did Seward research for me on tours there. She's going to hit up a day trip on her own and then we're going to go hike and tour Denali for three days, including camping here:

That's McKinley on the right in case you were wondering. LOL! It's tough to miss. I got that all booked plus the night before booked at the Dome Home up in Healy. We're going to drive up of an evening and sleep over in Healy so that we can get an early start and hopefully get an awesome camp site the next morning.

I sent my buddy Tim a bunch of links, but I think I should have been shooting them to him a lot earlier since they are coming up in July which tends to be the busiest month according to all the B&Bs I was calling, trying to find a room for them. Mental note to let folks know to book crazy mad early- like five months out. It's kinda nuts, but when there are minimal places to stay, only a three month season, and lots of people coming up, you have to book way earlier than you would for anything else.

My fishing trip is still on for June, so my freezer will hopefully be stocked when most of the folks come up and I'll have had a chance to try a couple different ways of cooking the rockfish and halibut. I've nearly finished the paint job on my guest room and the bathroom is next. That'll happen next weekend when I get back from Anaheim and the woodwork and doors to both rooms will have to get painted that weekend, too. Lots to do, lots to do!

At least all the chores will keep me from hiking on my bum knee on the weekends. The brace that the doc gave me helps, but I need to get an MRI scheduled to see how bad it is. Here's hoping for a sprain so that the surgery doesn't screw up my summer. Ugh. I have plans, darn it! I don't have time to be hurt. Stupid surfing. I blame Hawaii for this.

This is awesome!

2008-05-03T09:56:00.004-08:00

Ok, this has nothing to do with me or Alaska, but I had to pass it along. Even if you hate sports, this will warm the cockles of your heart. *This* is one of the important lessons I learned from being a jock all my life- sportsmanship (I also learned teamwork and how to be a good winner and a good loser). These are some classy broads, right here. I mean, wow!

'Unbelievable' softball play

And, yeah, they may have lost that playoff, but that won't be what everyone on that field remembers in twenty years. They'll just remember that they witnessed a perfect, golden moment. They may not have won the game, bu they definitely won something much more important.

Lots of light

2008-04-30T23:31:00.006-08:00

I think all summer I'm going to be remarking on the amount of light we have up here. It's 11:30 and I can still see the light on the horizon out my window. Buck and I went on an eight mile or so walk yesterday and then had herding today. We both did well in herding class, but he definitely did a better job than I did. I might have a bit of video with the both of us later this week.

I got into a class I need for work at the last minute, so I'll be going to California from May 11th-16th, specifically Anaheim not far from Disneyland. I registered for the class, and booked the hotel, plane ticket and boarding for Buck all this afternoon before taking off for herding class. I'm glad I got into the class though. It's good timing to do it now since I'll need it for work I'll be doing this summer and the only other time it's offered is in July. It'd be in between people coming to visit, but just barely, and I need that week to get things ready and work a few extra hours so that I can skip out early a couple days. Being in Las Vegas would not be helpful.

Anyway, since I'm always talking about the sun being up for forever here, I thought I could offer some photographic explanation. Namely that the sun arcs so much that it doesn't really 'go down' as much as go across the sky. Heh! Here's proof using Mount Susitna as a reference point:

This is probably around 8 pm or so.

This is around 9:15-9:30 pm

Just before 10 pm

It's also super apparent if you are sitting on my couch and the sun is not in your eyes, then in your eyes, then goes from the far left of the wall of windows to the far right before setting. Heh!

The rest of the pictures from the walk are here. If you look for the Slideshow button at the upper right of that page, you can view them all in a larger window in original size. It even scrolls through for you.

Birthday fame

2008-04-26T22:02:00.003-08:00

Buck and I went for a walk in the snow and met up with a dude that had a camera. I was taking pictures so it didn't seem too weird when he was taking pictures of us- Buck is pretty cute. He was doing it from a distance-not being creepy or intrusive. I went over to say 'hi' (because people do that here) and it turned out to be a video camera and he was from the Anchorage Daily News. He asked if I minded if he asked me some questions and filmed me. Not being much of a wall flower, I said, 'Sure, why not.'

Anyway, it's up on the Daily News' web site- the Spring Snowstorm video- I'm on in the last twenty seconds, so you won't have to suffer long. Snow pants and puffy, huge coat were being worn, so no judging! LOL!

Oh, and here's the full set of the snow pictures.

A few more snow pictures

2008-04-26T16:35:00.002-08:00

Just because it's fun to be able to toss up pictures of a foot and a half of snow when everyone else is looking at flowers and mowing grass. :)

Action shot- the Incredible Bouncing Buck

Uh, can I just say that I'm really happy with my carport today?

Buck likes to dig under the snow to see what he can find.

I liked how weighted down the trees were.

I had to scrape some snow off this bench so Buck could sit on it.

April blizzards bring June flowers?

2008-04-25T23:16:00.004-08:00

I'm guessing it's going to be something like that. LOL! It's 11pm and Buck and I just made our trip out before bed. It's still snowing, though not as hard as it has been. But it's already 18 inches deep in most places, so we'll see how much more we get by tomorrow morning. The snowplows haven't been around that I can tell, so the roads are officially a mess. Hopefully they are just waiting for it to stop and then they will be out. I may walk up to the grocery store near by to get a few things. I have enough food to last the weekend, but I'd like to make some strawberry shortcake and I don't have all the ingredients for the shortcake part.

We're at 18 inches and it's still coming down.

I took this one while level with Buck to try to show how high it was on him. It's nearly to his chin even when he's sitting. LOL! I carved him out a little spot and he helped me dig (he loves digging in the snow).

If April showers bring May flowers...

2008-04-25T17:27:00.007-08:00

...what do April blizzards bring? 'Cause May is only five days away and we're up to ten inches. And it's still falling. Hard. They say it's going to keep coming until morning. They've also bumped up the projected amount to fifteen inches.

The snow is already up to Buck's armpit. LOL!

Edited to add- we're now under a *heavy* snow advisory and they are talking 18-25 inches by tomorrow morning. And then maybe more all weekend long. HAHAHAHA!

Here's a couple pictures I took- the view from my windows.

Spring was when again?

2008-04-25T14:26:00.002-08:00

March 21st, right? First day of Spring? Yeah, not so much:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ANCHORAGE HAS ISSUED A SNOW ADVISORY... WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 AM ADT SATURDAY.

A COLD FRONT HAS STALLED OVER SOUTH CENTRAL ALASKA AND IS PRODUCING THE NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL OVER THE ANCHORAGE AREA. BETWEEN 3 AND 4 INCHES OF SNOW HAS FALLEN OVER THE ANCHORAGE AREA SINCE THIS MORNING AND SNOWFALL IS EXPECTED TO PERSIST INTO SATURDAY MORNING. TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ARE EXPECTED TO RANGE FROM 5 TO 8 INCHES IN TOWN TO 8 TO 12 INCHES AT HIGHER ELEVATIONS.

*sigh* I'd love to see what that groundhog would do if he lived up here. Did I mention that I took the snow tires off my truck already? It's the law to take them off by April 30th. That's not working out well for a lot of people this year. Hopefully, they'll realize that most folks have taken them off and the roads will be kept pretty clear. Oh, well. At least Buck won't need to get the mud hosed off him every time we go outside this weekend.

Now, next week when it gets warm and it all melts again- that's another story.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't ask for snow for my birthday, so I'm not real sure what's going on. Heh!

License plate winner

2008-04-21T15:47:00.004-08:00

And the winner was (between this blog's poll and my other geeks-only blog's poll)....

The blue mountains plate!

It'll look like this:

Apparently there are at least two other Auburn Tiger fans in Alaska because both 'AUTIGR' and 'AUT1GR' were taken.

In other news, I think I pushed myself too hard after having pneumonia and a cold and now the cold has come back in full force. Or who knows, maybe it's a new cold. Regardless, I hate it and wish it to die soon. Ugh.

Buck and I went out to the dog park on mini-hikes both days this weekend. The snow is melting quickly with our temps in the 40s and 50s and everything is a mix of slush and sludge, heavy on the sludge. Which means Buck got a bath two days in a row and will probably get another half bath (where I just wash the underside of him- though he hates it just as much) on Wednesday after herding class. Poor guy. He smells really nice though. Heh! I do use an oatmeal shampoo so that his skin doesn't get dried out. I may have to start using conditioner too if the ground doesn't dry up soon.

The sun sets at 9:30pm already and everything is melting enough that it creates a haze over everything. I haven't been able to see the mountains across the Inlet in about a week. Here's hoping break-up finishes up by May and we get some nice Spring weather.

Herding and hiking

2008-04-17T23:55:00.005-08:00

Buck and I have had a busy week already. We drove out to Wasilla to his herding class on Wednesday. It went real well- the instructor worked with him the first time with him on a lead walking next to her. Then, the next time she let him in the ring, she let him move around on his own and showed him what she wanted. He's still getting used to it, but his instincts are good. Here are four real short clips (about 30 seconds each). My video camera wouldn't charge fast enough so I was stuck with my regular camera. I couldn't get too close to the fence because it distracts him from paying attention to what she's getting him to do.

Buck herding 1

Buck herding 2

Buck herding 3

Buck herding 4

Today we went on a hike in Chugach for about two hours. The snow was super deep in some places. I actually went into it all the way to my hip a couple times. It was kind of packed from other hikers and skiers, but not totally. It was our first hike in real powder and man, it was a heck of a work out-like hiking uphill on sand. We are both completely beat. Buck did a great job not going too far ahead and coming back right when I told him to. It's only about his third time off-leash, too. We went with a group I joined and a bunch of the other folks brought their dogs, too, but Buck stayed close to me except for a couple quick romps. He'd even walk behind me some of the time. Other times he'd whine at me- trying to get me to hurry up I think, though he was panting pretty hard. I think he'd go as fast as he could until he collapsed. He's not too great at setting a good pace. Heh! Anyway, here are a few pictures from that and there are more on the Flickr link to the right.

(Click the words to view them large)
This gives an idea of why it's called the Anchorage bowl.

This was at about 8:30 pm. Sunset wasn't until around 9:30.

Buck didn't want to hold still for a good pose in front of the mountains, so this is about the best shot I got.

Choosing a plate

2008-04-16T15:32:00.005-08:00

So, I have Alaska plates, but I need to get a custom plate so that the 'Bama guy in town knows who to say 'Roll Tide!' to. I'm going to get AUTIGR or something along those lines (that stands for Auburn Tiger if you're a bit slow and haven't read the title of this blog). There are three styles of Alaska plates that I like (there are others that I'm not a fan of), so I leave it to others choose. Here are the pictures of them- you can vote on the poll to the right.

Blue Mountains:

Caribou:

Standard AK yellow:

Hawai'ian Tiger??

2008-04-08T17:41:00.006-08:00

My company sent me to training in Virginia and then to Hawai'i to meet with my team out there. I got in on a truly red eye flight at 5:30 am Hawai'i time. I had been awake since 7 am Eastern time, so that was a lot of time without sleep, but since I only had a couple days to enjoy the island, I thought I'd better get on it. I took a quick hour long power nap, had the best pineapple of my life and got out to the beach.

I vegged around a bit, but with my pale Alaskan skin, I wasn't planning on getting a tan, so I slathered on some more sunblock and went down the beach to get some surfing lessons. Now, as I like to put it, I can swim to save my life, but I've never been a huge fan of the water. Going surfing has always been something I wanted to try but I was pretty nervous. The guy showed us how to do things like stand up on the board and how if you are about to get run over, you go under water so that you don't get hurt. Not a real inspiring start. Heh! In case anyone wants to know how to get up on a surfboard, you do a push up (you are laying on it paddling), then you put both knees on it, then you put your front foot forward and your back foot back and flat on the board. Then, you just bend your knees and keep your balance. Piece of cake.

Actually, it was pretty easy- more so than I thought it would be. It helps that Waikiki has 'mellow waves' that stay the same speed and my instructor would tell me which ones were good and then would give me a good shove to start. My first wave I only got up to my knees because I wanted to see how hard it was. Wasn't bad at all, so I just started going after that. You had to dodge around a whole lot of other newbies, so it was tough to avoid them all and still stay up. One of the times I had to jump off because of someone else I bumped my knee and it gimped me up for Sunday and Monday. It was totally worth it though. Here's just one picture of that- you can click on the link at the bottom of this post for all the pictures.

After surfing, I went back to the hotel for a shower and a nap, then headed down to the bar for a few drinks. The Mai Tais were delicious, but after the fourth one and no supper I was done for the night and went up to my room and, uh, went to sleep (aka passed out).

Sunday I got up at 5 am (my sense of time was all messed up) and called my buddy, who had tried to call me the night before but I didn't hear it. We set up a time to meet and went over to Duke's for brunch. It was really good. Duke was the guy who got surfing well known and in the Olympics and such. I'd attempt to spell his last name but it's a whole lot of vowels and I can't remember the order of them. After that, he drove me around the island in his wife's new red convertible Porsche (she turns 40 this year so he bought it for her to cheer her up- heh!). It was great- he knew all the best places to stop to take pictures. He took me to Magnum PI's house! Other than the surfing that was definitely the highlight of my time in Hawai'i. Hee! Not everyone knows where the house is and you can only see it when you go up the beach a ways- then you can see it from the back. It's not nearly as big as it looks on TV, and it's really rundown for some reason. I think it's weird because it's on a prime piece of beach front, so you think someone would be living in it. Anyway, here's a picture of Magnum's cottage. This is mainly his balcony that you're looking at.

As we were driving back to his place, we saw a boar that someone had killed on the interior of the island. I thought that was cool, so here's a picture of that. If you look close you can see the big dog under it that must have helped take it down.

We chilled on the beach near his place until the rain came back (it rained off and on all day) and we went back to his place. We didn't see Mathew Fox (the main character from Lost) but they've seen him out there a few times with his wife and kids. He lives up the road from them.

Monday and Tuesday I worked and was all sunburnt from the car ride (the dumb clouds tricked me- and I know better!) so that's pretty much all I did. I did see them feed the penguins that were in one of the gardens in my hotel's complex. Don't worry, they're African penguins, so they like the heat. Here's a picture of them:

Here's a link to the rest of the pictures so that this doesn't get too crazy. I pared it down to only 39 pictures, not counting the surfing ones, so it's not too crazy.If you click this link and then hit 'View as slideshow' on the right, it will scroll through all the pictures in a big size.

I have to say that I thought it was really pretty, but with how much housing and a lot of things cost and not having more than one season, I'd never want to live there. I'll take the 49th state over the 50th any day of the week. :)

Hey, I don't want my apartment to be underwater...

2008-03-28T12:52:00.002-08:00

...so can you guys sign this for me?

Al Gore is doing his thing on global warming and is shooting for a million people signing this petition dealio. It only needs another 75K at this point, and my apartment is really close to the water, so if the ice melts much more, you won't be able to come visit me and stay in the guest room. So sign up! It took me forever to find this place- I'd hate to have to find another place on higher ground. :)

Wrap up to Buck's birthday weekend

2008-03-24T00:26:00.003-08:00

Buck turned a year old on Saturday, so we went to the Alaska Mill and Feed and he got to pick out a few new toys and some treats. After he made his selections, we went to a park by a lake (still frozen, of course) and hiked around a bit. It was an off leash area and there weren't any roads too close, so he got to run around. He did a good job coming when called the first time and he didn't get too far ahead of me too often. When I stopped, he knew that meant he needed to come to me without me calling. We've been working on that on our walks.

While we were out there, he cut one of his back feet open. I think he'd been having trouble with that foot before. Since it was bleeding pretty badly, we cut the hike short and came back home. He wasn't a fan of the bandage I put on and made short work of tearing his bootie and the bandage off when I wasn't looking. I gave up and just put his bootie on when we went outside so he wouldn't get the cut infected. It hasn't bled again since, so hopefully it's healing fast.

He had a good time eating his tasty dried sweet potato treats and his bully sticks. He's already managed to break the noise maker in one of his new toys, but I'm not minding that at all. I wonder if they made it poorly on purpose? He chose a fox that looks like it's just nothing but 'skin' and he loves to shake it to death. It's very funny. I named it Mulder and if you are geeky enough, you'll get that reference.

I've been working on making a video of a bunch of clips I've taken of him being goofy in the last ten months or so. It's not the best since most of the video was taken using my digital camera before I got a camcorder. I set it to The Underdog by Spoon- currently one of my favorite songs that I think fits Buck's energy level. Plus, he's a bit small, so folks tend to underestimate him. Heh! Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Busy weekend

2008-03-16T19:33:00.003-08:00

Well, I finally got some things accomplished around the apartment. I had to force myself to suck it up and stop procrastinating. It was pretty much a weekend of nothing but lots of work and not much fun, but I got nearly everything done I wanted to, so now I can veg out with less guilt. Heh!

Here are some pictures of what my nearly completed living/dining room looks like. Still have to figure out what to do with the huge mirrors, but at least they're behind me when I sit on the couch so they don't bug me too much.

Buck and I went for about a six mile walk on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail which runs in front of our place. It was pretty grey that day as it has been about half the time I've been here, but here are some pictures of that.

I got to see McKinley the other day when Buck and I walked down to the water. That's about 200 miles away as the crow (well, raven up here) flies, so that gives you some idea of how huge it is. I didn't get a picture of it- even the days it's been sunny, it always seems to cloud up on the horizon around sunset when I'm thinking about taking pictures. Those same clouds tend to stick around at night, so I haven't been able to see the Northern Lights from here yet (Hi, Ro! Click this to see the pic of me in front of the Aurora two years ago when I went up to Fairbanks). They haven't been super active which I think is going to be necessary for me to see them with all the city light pollution. Maybe we'll be able to see them when we drive an hour north and out of the city for Buck's herding classes. I'll be taking my camera for that, so maybe there'll be a night when the lights are active early in the night.

And just for fun here's a couple cute pics of Buck and one of Buck and Pandora watching the birds from the bedroom windows. We've seen ravens, bohemian waxwings, magpies and black-capped chickadees so far. I think we'll get more as the weather warms up.

Herding moose?

2008-03-12T22:02:00.003-08:00

So, I lucked into some info about a lady who raises Cattle Dogs (and breeds them, but not very often) and trains them up for herding competitions. I sent her an e-mail and Buck will be starting classes the second week of April! Yay! Maybe if he gets good, he can herd any moose we run into. I mean, cows kick, too and Cattle Dogs know how to duck under their hooves! Heh!

He'll be starting out in a group class on sheep, the big benefit being that it's super cheap. It's on a farm about an hour outside Anchorage, but Buck and I are used to having to drive that far for our classes. He loves to take a ride, especially when we stop at McDonald's and get him some fries on the way. Heh!

Whoo! More snow!

2008-03-12T10:20:00.002-08:00

I know it's practically Spring down where most of you folks are, but we just got a few inches of fresh snow last night and today. It's very pretty and a nice change after all the melting that's been going on the last couple of weeks. The snow banks on the sides of the road have been all dirty and all the places where folks let their dogs do their business and didn't clean up are showing up all over the place. So, a few more inches is like a new coat of paint. Heh! It'll only last a while, I'm sure, but it makes for a brief respite from the mess.

It was snowing last night when Buck and I went out, and wet snow for a massive change, so we got big clumpy flakes. So big that they were super loud hitting my coat and the ground and such. If you haven't done this in a while (or ever), I highly recommend standing very near a street light when the snow is coming down in big flakes. When you look up at the light, it's like 'Snow 3D!' or like standing in a snow globe or something. Very cool. The street light also made the flakes cast shadows and Buck was pouncing on the shadows trying to catch them. So funny! Then, he started snapping at and catching the flakes as they came down. I really wish I would have taken my camera out with me. I need to just start leaving it in my coat pocket.

We have it all in Alaska...

2008-03-07T16:03:00.002-09:00

...including Moby Dick!

Check out our Great White Whale, sighted near the Aleutian Islands by a research biologist from Seattle, who, if her friends have any sense of humor at all, will soon have the nickname Ahab.

Signs that you are an Alaskan

2008-03-04T14:53:00.001-09:00

I think I already mentioned that I'm pretty acclimated to the cold now. Looks like Buck is too, since he was panting at the end of our walk this morning. I mean it was like 30 degrees (wow, I can't believe that two months ago that was considered cold.-well, it still is in VA- heh!), but we weren't running or anything.

I think it helped that I finally bought some 'grippers'. They are these things you strap to the bottom of your shoes so that you don't fall down on the ice all the time. Like studded tires for your feet. I hadn't gotten any, but since everything has become a solid sheet of ice already (here comes break-up), I went to REI Sunday and picked some up. They are really great. You still slip a bit sometimes on the really smooth ice, but hardly ever. Made for a much quicker, more enjoyable walk, that's for sure.

It really warmed up today- 40 degrees when I went out earlier! Man, I'm glad I wore a short-sleeved shirt today.

Got my plane tickets for my Virginia/Hawaii trip. I even managed to get the flight from here to VA and from Hawaii back here on Alaska Airlines, so that'll be about 5K more miles for me. Another couple trips and I'll have enough for a free upgrade at least. I also managed to get a direct flight from Honolulu to Anchorage. There aren't many of them and it's an overnight flight, but it's only 6 hours in the air and no changing planes. With a little luck, I'll actually be able to sleep on the flight. I'd better be able to because I get in at like 6 am and I have to be at work at around 8 am. That's going to hurt.

While I'm in Hawaii I'm going to get meet up with one of my old Captains from Auburn AFROTC days. Well, he was a Captain then, now he's a Lt. Col. Very excited to get to meet back up with he and his wife and their son, Brandon. The last time I saw Brandon he was a toddler, and I think he's like 11, maybe 12 now. Makes we feel so old. No clue what I'm going to do on my weekend in Hawaii yet. I think I'm too pale for laying on the beach, so I'll have to see if there are any tours I can take or something. I'd love to learn how to surf, but I'm so out of shape I think I'd end up hurting myself. LOL! I'm looking forward to Hawaii, but not as much as I think some folks would. I'm going to be sure to get up early enough to catch the sunrises, but I'm just not much of a beach bum, so I need to see what else there is to do there. I'm sure there's plenty- you just don't hear much about it.

After Hawaii, I'll only have about twelve states left to visit. I'm going to get Washington State pretty soon I hope. I have an old college buddy down in Seattle that I need to hang out with before he moves to the east coast in a couple months. I'll have gotten to all 50 states by the time I'm 40, but at this rate, I might make them all by 35! Hmmm, that would mean voluntarily going to New Mexico though. Maybe not. Too bad I didn't manage to get up to Connecticut and Vermont and New Hampshire while I was living on the east coast. Could have had those all knocked out at once. Oh, well, I bet I'll have been to 40 out of 50 before I hit 35. That's still pretty impressive. It almost makes up for never having been outside the country except to Canada once. Heh! Well, hey, I'm pretty close to Russia and Japan, now- maybe I'll have to check them out. :) They are both closer than the east coast.

Iditarod 2008

2008-03-02T09:01:00.000-09:00

Yesterday I got up bright and early to head down to the unofficial start (ie, the tourist and media start) of this year's Iditarod. A little background for those that don't know already. The Iditarod commemorates the trip taken by mushers in 1925 who drove a 674-mile diphtheria serum run from Nenana (up near Fairbanks and where I went dog sledding) to Nome to save hundreds of lives.

So, the snow that had been imported for Fur Rondy last week was added to a bit and the side streets were blocked off to leave room for all the teams and their kennels to have their own area to get set up. The media folks went around and did interviews and regular folks could talk to the mushers and get their autographs. The dogs were pretty quiet until they got hooked up to their sleds- then they wanted to go, go, go! And the other dogs that weren't racing were baying from their kennels, letting it be known that they wanted to go, too, dang it! That's what the guy in the picture above was saying.

After getting a few shots of the prep work, I headed down to the start and managed to score a pretty good view. They stagger the starts, though since it's the unofficial start, I'm pretty sure they don't actually use the times, but they were timing it for some reason. Maybe just to keep things moving. The dogs were loaded down with three people and two sleds, so I'd hope they wouldn't use that time for anything. Each musher takes a rider (no clue how they pick the riders-they seemed pretty random) and then there's a sled attached behind the regular sled with someone really laying on the brake to keep the dogs moving slow. Probably so all the media outlets and tourists and such can get good shots. Not really a bad idea to have a fake start if it keeps all the nonsense to a minimum at the official start. I mean, there were camera guys all up in the dog's faces and in the way as they were counting down from five seconds. Seemed a bit intrusive.

I uploaded the video of it to YouTube- here's part one and here's part two. It shows what the kennels look like (and sound like) and then the cutting of the ribbon and several of the first folks starting (I couldn't work the camera in gloves and it was too cold to have bare skin for all the first fifteen). There were nearly 100 mushers, so I didn't stick around for all of them (it was a bit chilly and windy yesterday- God had to make sure if felt like Alaska for the tourists- in the teens with a wind chill that easily made it feel like zero at best), but I was there for the first fifteen mushers, including last year's winner, Lance MacKey; four time winner, Jeff King; and Martin Buser, who has run the Iditarod *24 times* (I think this year is #25), holds the record for the fastest run at 8 days, 22 hours and change, and has also won four times. Frankly, I find it way more impressive that he's run it 24 times, once just days after he had a woodworking accident and lost part of a finger! Yeah, you have to control the sled and hang on *with your hands*. And in the cold? I can't even fathom how much that hurt. Man. I liked that he went to each of his dogs just before they started and loved on them and talked to them. He's won the award for best treatment of his team many times.

The last musher I saw start was from Evanston, IL. I thought that was rather cool. His name is Hugh Neff, and he went to the U of I. He moved up here in 1995, so I think they would consider him an Alaskan now since he's put in ten years. Heh!

After he started, I walked back home, braving the four inch sheet of ice that are our roads and sidewalks right now. I need to go get some 'grippers' today. These are like cleats that you strap to the bottom of your shoes so that you can get some traction on the ice. Sort of like studded tires for your feet. With break-up coming, I'm going to need them for sure. Walking Buck has become a bit of a production because of the hill we have to scale to get to the park. Hill + ice = no fun at all.

Ok, Buck and I are going to see if there's anyone at the park to play with. The weather seems to have improved- it's back in the twenties where we like it (it got warmer hence all the ice everywhere when it re-froze), and hopefully the wind went away, too. It sounds odd, but it's not windy very often here. Anchorage is in a bowl, and the Chugach Mountains to the east block a lot of the wind.

My first moose

2008-02-26T20:38:00.001-09:00

Hey, look what Buck and I just found in our front yard! It's Bullwinkle! More properly, his name is Bullwinkle the First since he is the first of I'm sure many moosey friends that we will be meeting.

He's still out munching on the bush across the street and hopefully he won't go across the other road while someone is coming around the corner. If he does, he's going to be supper for some homeless shelters.

Anywho, just wanted to record our first up close and personal viewing. I tried for a closer viewing after putting Buck back inside (he thankfully was sleepy and didn't notice Bullwinkle I otherwise I'm sure much barking would have commenced), but as the camera flashed, he started coming toward me with intent and I decided the view from my front window was better. Hence the picture not being great, but me being here untrampled to tell you all about it.

Here's hoping he finishes off the bushes before Buck really needs to go out.

Busy weekend

2008-02-25T20:23:00.000-09:00

Well, this weekend more than made up for all my lazy weekends that I've been having.

Saturday I didn't get as early of a start as I wanted, so I missed the pancakes and the parade at Fur Rondy, but I got there in plenty of time to get a good spot for the end of the sprint dog races. It was just day 2 of the three day race, so I'm not sure who ended up winning. You could see them still going all out, though- the mushers would just have one leg on the sled and use the other one to kick off and help 'push'/take some weight off. I was surprised at how large some of the teams were- not sure if there is a limit and some folks just go under it or what. Most of the dogs were pretty darn small- maybe only six or so inches taller than Buck at the shoulder and maybe about 10-15 pounds heavier than him. Hey, maybe when he gets done filling out, he could be a sled dog. Heh! I think it'd be cool to get another bigger dog when I buy my own place and have the two of them pull me on a sled or on skis. Judging from how much Buck pulls on the leash now, he'd love it. :D

After the dog races, I wandered over to watch he fur auction for a bit. They had beaver, fox (grey, red and arctic), otter, wolverine, wolf, and coyote that I saw. They might have had bear earlier on. Some of the furs they sold were trapped by some of the Native kids from up north. Not too many options for jobs up there, I wouldn't think. I took a picture of the huge wolf fur that they sold for $300. It was at least 6-7 foot long.

I went over to the carnival, but it was pretty much for younger kids- about half the rides were for little ones and the rest for teenagers- just standard fair rides and not too many of them. Only had two stands for food- funnel cakes and caramel apples were about the only thing I saw that looked tasty, but the lines were just crazy, so I saved myself from those calories.

Headed back to 4th Ave for the Outhouse races and that was worth braving the huge crowds for. Just hilarious. Different organizations build 'outhouses' with plywood and skis and then one person sits in it while the others push them down the snow covered street between pylons. I think they intentionally set the pylons close together to see how many times the racers would crash into them. That part was amusing, too.

Had a reindeer sausage with sauerkraut (talk about worlds colliding) and wandered around a bit more. They had the 'trapper fur hats' on sale- coyote, fox, etc, but since they were around $225 each, I passed. I got my first Fur Rondy pin- they are something of a collectors item, but I figure they'll be a good way of keeping track of how long I end up staying up here. If there's a badge you should get for each winter you make it up here, this should be it. Heh! I'm kind of cheating since I didn't put in a full winter, but whatever. The last half is always colder than the first half anyway. LOL!

They had sled dog rides around a block of the Park Strip. Mainly it was for kids, though adults could ride. I skipped it since it'd be a bit of a let down to go around the block sitting in the sled after getting to drive a team myself for hours. Heh!

Ended Saturday with fireworks. Buck and I walked down to the park just a block north of us and watched them. He thought they were pretty cool and was only put off by the noise for the first couple. Skipped out on the dances and drinking part of the festivities, which I'm told is a big part. Oh, well, maybe for the Iditarod. The bars apparently open at about 10am since the race starts just before that. So, after everyone watches the start of the race, they go start drinking. LOL! Here's hoping they have Bloody Mary's or something.

Sunday, Buck and I started off by joining a group that goes out to a ball diamond nearby and lets their dogs play. He had a great time with a Samoyed (who is a dog show winner) and the guy who organizes things brought his camera and got a few great shots of them playing. We came home and I changed boots and went to watch the running of the reindeer. It was the first year for this and they weren't really sure what was going to happen. It's in the same vein of the running of the bulls, just with snow and reindeer. I think they picked out some smaller ones to make sure no one got too hurt. I think someone got a bit stepped on in the men's heat, but no major injuries. There were also some brave souls who went skijoring (you wear skis and have an animal pull you, usually a dog) behind the reindeer. I think the reindeer were more freaked out than the folks trying to get them to pull. Heh!

I still need to go find the snow sculptures tomorrow and take some pictures. I got shots of everything over here on my Fur Rondy set. And the new pics of Buck are here on the front page of my Flickr account.

That's it for this weekend. Next weekend (and all this week) Fur Rondy continues and then the Iditarod starts on Sunday. I'll just be going to the fake Anchorage start downtown. The real start is all the way up in Willow since there just isn't good enough snow in Wasilla anymore and Willow is a bit too much of a hike for me. Maybe next year.

Oh, and I had my first moose tonight in the form of a tasty stew! My neighbor was nice enough to share some of his batch with me and man, was it tasty! Real lean and the flavor and texture wasn't that far off from beef. It was like a more tender, tangy beef. Good stuff! I've now had a caribou burger, moose stew and reindeer sausage. I think once I've had some bear, I'll have eaten most of the four legged animals that are up here. Heh! You have to have goals.

Just a quick post

2008-02-22T12:20:00.000-09:00

Dewey Donation System
This is an awesome way to give back to libraries. It started with a couple people who run sites that I read and has grown and grown. I've donated a couple of books each year they've had it just to give back to some of the awesome libraries that have enriched my life so much. So, give a kid a book- don't you remember what Whitney Houston said about kids being our future? Come on, teach them well and let them lead the way. :D

Pros and cons of Alaska

2008-02-18T17:47:00.001-09:00

So, I've officially been here in Alaska for a month and I feel like I can write up a list of pros and cons. Personally, I don't count the weather as one in either direction just because that's something you know about going into it and if you can't hack the cold, it's not somewhere you want to be.

That said, some things I knew were issues are actually hitting home a bit more than expected.

Cons first:

1. Lack of good chain restaurants. I'm not much for eating in chain restaurants when dining in if I can help it, but getting take out is a big distinction. Things like Potbelly, Chipotle, Red, Hot and Blue, Panera, etc are favorites of mine since I'd rather eat something like that than McDonalds. Sadly, none of those are up here and it's making me very, very sad. There are other places that aren't here like Krispy Kreme and Olive Garden, but I didn't frequently those as often, so they can be hit up when I travel back down to the lower 48. But no good burritos or sandwiches for six months at a time? That just plain sucks.

2. Lack of chain stores. This is more like 1b. but there's a lack of stores that I knew about, but didn't really consider the consequences of before I came up. Like there's no Target. There are two Wal-marts, but if they don't have what you are looking for, you're screwed. Same deal on pet stores- there's a Pet Co. but no PetSmart, so if Pet Co. doesn't carry what I need, it's tough luck.

3. No shipping. Which leads to number 3- no one wants to ship to Alaska. And if they do, it's outrageously expensive. Which strikes me as ridiculous because the post office does *not* charge any extra for shipping up here. So, why can't more stores use USPS rather than FedEx and UPS which apparently love to charge ridiculous amounts for things? Sears and Ikea are just two examples of places that don't ship up here at all. And then even places like Amazon charge a fortune for shipping. For instance, if I wanted to buy a Scooba (like a Roomba but for floors) from Amazon, it was going to cost me $100 in shipping! But if I still lived in Virginia, it'd only be $20. Are you kidding me? There's no way it costs them that much. And if it does, why can't they use the USPS as their carrier for Alaska? I know stores that use them for shipping to PO Boxes since you can't use Fed Ex and UPS for those. It's just irritating.

4. Time zone. I'm just ridiculously behind everyone. After about 6 pm my time, making calls to family and friends isn't really an option. And who has time to make calls before six? I try to make calls on the way home from work, but since my commute time is so much shorter, I don't have much time to talk and when the roads are not clear (the majority of the time), I need to not be on the phone. It's an issue.

5. Food/goods costing more. I also knew this when I came up here, but it strikes me as odd because it's so hit or miss. Like milk actually costs less than in VA, but things like my 4 pack of Monster energy drink are $2 more. And my contact solution is nearly $2 more as well. Yet soda is the same and cheese and a number of other products. It's just weird. If everything was higher because of what it costs to ship it up here, I'd understand, but it's so random.

Pros

1. It's just gorgeous. It's pretty much a scenic portrait no matter where you look. Water, mountains, etc- it's just pretty. Tons of parks inside the city help with that, too.

2. People are really nice. I don't know how many times I've had people stop to talk to me in the grocery store or randomly compliment my hair or my dog, etc. After being in the DC area for so long, it's a very nice change. Store clerks talk to you while they are ringing you up, when I call for delivery, the guy taking orders starts asking me how long I've been up here and if I like it, the delivery guy didn't have the kind of pop I asked for, so he carried 4 two liters of what they had available up my stairs, so I'd have a choice on what I wanted. Just a bunch of nice folks. There are still some jerks- it seems like it's changed from me watching out for jerks in BMWs to watching out for all the jerks that drive Ford F-150s (I swear every F-150 driver is a total ass), but other than that, the people on the road are nice, too. When you let someone in traffic, they wave a 'thanks' and you rarely ever have to wait for someone to let you into traffic when coming out of a parking lot. Just lots of nice people for a city of 250,000.

3. The dark. I like the dark. I've always been a night owl and I like going to work before the sun comes up. Since the mountains are to the east of us, it really doesn't get bright until after 8am, even now in February. I like being able to drive to work without the sun in my eyes, so I like the mountains where they are. I have only needed my sunglasses a couple times for the drive home and I used to have to put them on as soon as I got in the car. So, that's a nice change.

4. Fresh fish. I honestly haven't taken advantage of this yet, but I just found a local fish market right near my house, so I will be soon. Crabs were about the only thing i could count on really being fresh in DC, but here there are a lot more options and even more will be available as it warms up.

5. The light. Ok, it sounds weird, but since it's cloudy a lot at night (or at least has been the last month), and with all the snow on the ground all the time, it's very bright out at night from the street lights bouncing off the clouds and snow. I can walk Buck anytime and we don't ever need a flashlight. Makes taking walks at night a lot safer. Here's a link to a picture that shows what I'm talking about.

OK, that's about it for now. I'm sure as the weather gets nicer and I find a place that has good sandwiches, the pros will start outweighing the cons, but for now they're pretty even. Since it's always tough getting used to a new place, I think the fact that the lists are even is a good thing. Now, back to unpacking boxes. Ugh.

Good week- warm weather and stuff received

2008-02-15T09:46:00.000-09:00

You know you're on your way to becoming an Alaskan when you think 20 degrees is warm. Thirty feels outright balmy and the folks around here actually don't want it to get that warm since it melts the snow that's on the ground and the roads, just enough to turn it into icy slush. Since the snow stays dry and powdery when it's colder, everyone here would prefer it to just stay in the twenties or so rather than getting one or two nicer days that lead to the roads being crappy for a week. Plus, you end up getting 'wintry mix' instead of the usual extra inch of snow when there's precipitation. A little more snow (like the four inches we got last night) only slows your commute down by about ten minutes- ice, not so much. But it looks like next week is going to be that way. I'd have prefered it just stay super cold.

But before it warms up, Saturday is going to be in the twenties with some light snow, so I'm planning on going out to the mountains for the first time. Buck and I will be sticking to a large, well-populated trail. With the weather warming, there are risks of avalanches in the back country, not that we'd be venturing out there, but it still makes me nervous. If it's not the moose, it's the avalanches; if it's not avalanches is bad weather, etc. It's just a big change- the worst thing I had to worry about hiking out east was busting an ankle.

In other news, next week is the start of Fur Rendezvous (Fur Rondy, for short)! It's basically a huge winter event that lasts from the 22nd to March 2nd. It was originally the time that the fur trappers and buyers would meet up and buy and sell furs. That still happens, but it's become a big party for everyone else. It seems like a way for folks to get out towards the end of a long winter and enjoy themselves. Events include; sprint dog races (sprint being 25 miles), snocross (like motorcross but with snow machines- yes, snow *machines*, not mobiles- I don't know why), sled dog weight pull, snow sculptures (they truck in big cubes of snow from up North), a bonspiel (of *course* there's curling!), ice bowling, outdoor hockey championships, snowshoe softball (they also wear constumes), a parade, rides, a tribal gathering, and a blanket toss.

And that's just the normal stuff. Then, there's the crab and reindeer races. I'm not sure if it's 'winning' if you're going to get eaten no matter what the outcome. Heh! I'm guessing this year's reindeer live, but it could be last year's losers that are a part of the reindeer sausage eating contest. And then there's the fireworks which start at 6:45. One of the benefits of doing this in the winter months- if you tried waiting around for it to get dark enough for fireworks on the 4th, you'd be up well past midnight. LOL!

So, yeah, I'm really excited to get to take part in my first Fur Rondy and then my first Iditarod next month. Then, in April, I get to head back east to Virginia for about five days while I take part in some training for my company. On the way back up from that, I'm going to Hawaii for four days (a weekend and two work days). Since our branch up here isn't big enough, we're a part of the Hawaii branch. The obvious benefit of that is getting to go to Hawaii a couple times a year on the company's dime. Awesome. And I'll be going when it's still cold here. What would be the point of going when the weather is nice here? I'll have to hit my gym's tanning beds for a about a month before going, though. Otherwise I'll end up a very crispy critter.

Turns out it's cold in Alaska

2008-02-07T17:17:00.000-09:00

As I was leaving the Metro D.C. area to move to Anchorage, everyone kept asking, 'isn't it really cold up there?' In my head I was thinking, 'yeah, if you're a total wuss' and what I said out loud was that the average lows in the winter in Anchorage were only about ten degrees colder than in Boston and Chicago. Factor in the fact that there's hardly ever even a breeze in Anchorage compared to the Windy City (yes, I know it was called that because of the politicians, not the wind), and the temps are probably about the same.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure God heard me mocking those people and this weather is my punishment. When the temps started dipping below the positive numbers, I thought I'd better just keep my mouth shut, lest I be more easily identified as being someone from the lower 48. But after more than a week of the highs not making it to the double digits, I started understanding from the complaints around me that this wasn't normal. I haven't mentioned to anyone that they're caught in the middle of my divine comeuppance, though.

The upside is that I'm getting a crash course in acclimation. When the weather turns this weekend and makes it up into the 20s next week, it's going to feel like a heat wave.

Once all my worldly possessions actually make it off the boat, I'll have my camera cable and can download a bunch of pictures I've taken. Still haven't caught any of the moose I've seen on 'film', but I've only seen them from the car and when that's when you are seeing them, you're more worried about them going kamakazzi and destroying your vehicle than anything else. Suckers are HUGE. Oh, and mean, as it turns out. My boss is still paying for his dog's vet bills after one kicked his dog this summer. Their hooves are 25lbs each on average and the only reason his dog lived was because it was only a glancing blow to the dog's side. So, yeah, there probably won't be any moose pictures anytime soon. I like my dog alive and unharmed.

Until I get some pics uploader here are a few links to pictures recently taken of Anchorage by people with way better cameras than me.

The awe inspiring Anchorage skyline. I can almost see my apartment in this picture.

Pretty much the view from my place each afternoon as the sun sets and the mountains across the mostly frozen Cook Inlet go from red to purple.

Frozen fog- a new concept to me, and it's weird the way it creeps in from the mountains and back out some days, but it makes everything pretty with being too dangerous.