Lemme tell you what happened a couple weeks ago.
Computer operator trouble - the nut behind the wheel if you will.
I had, some time ago, done a backup of my computer, This last weekend,
I did a restore. Keep in mind, that all I wanted was to recover some
of the information I had backed up. When the program asked me if
I wanted the registry rewritten, I said, "of Course!". Needless to
say, that was the wrong answer. I'll probably spend the next six months
recovering recovered files!
Anyway, I want to tell
you about computrace! As you know from my last letter, I'm now the
proud owner of a laptop. Don't wow too much. I bought it from
Tigerdirect.com as a lease return refurbish. It doesn't do USB,
so we have to find ways around that shortcoming.
Anyway, back to computrace (That's <www.computrace.com>)
It's a computer tracing company! You can read the website as well
as I can, but they claim a 98% recovery rate. What happens is a hidden
program on your computer, every time the laptop is used on the internet,
calls computrace and says, "Psst. I'm over here! At this ISP!",
and, if you've reported it as stolen, to both the cops and Computrace,
it usually doesn't take too long to find it! $49 per year!
And frequently, along with the laptop, other items stolen at the same time
are recovered too!
Anyway, I bought it - now I can't wait to
have my laptop stolen, to see how fast I get it back!:-)
Not too much happening, lately, so I
guess I'll clue you in on what's happening at work. The shops have gone
contract, This means that our electrical jobs, plumbing, service order,
carpentry will be done by an outside contractor. What that may mean to me
is that, if the contractor is required to use his own supplies and equipment,
then there will be fewer
required hand receipt holders (people who are responsible for the necessary
equipment to get the job done). Part of my job is to keep track
of our equipment and the hand receipt holders (There are 3 of us to do
that). With less equipment and fewer hand receipt holders, someone may
figure out that we don't need 3 people to handle the job. I hear rumors
of a RIF (reduction in force) at work, so it may mean that someone's job
is on the line. Not necessarily his employment, but the description
of what he does. If there is a RIF, each person involved will bump down
to a job held by someone with less seniority or a lower grade than he is
- I've been through several RIFs and very few actually go out the gate,
because personnel holds open the jobs of people who quit, retire, or are
transferred. When the RIF happens, there's a shuffle, and people find
themselves in different jobs. I do have someone in my office with less
seniority than I do, so I figger that if a position is made obsolete, I'll
probably stay put, unless I'm bumped out of my position by someone with
more seniority (not likely). So, all in all, I'm not worried, I keep smiling,
and keep looking for another job (in computers).
Susan and I just finished another
book, this one called, "Pioneer Bush Pilot". It's a book about Noel
Wien, who was the first bush pilot, pilotting in Alaska when it was deemed
by "those who knew better" to be impossible.
What was, to me, most
impressive, was the little pieces of trivia that were strewn throughout
the book. For example, how Fairbanks was first settled. A riverboat
captain ran his boat aground, and said, "I'm not going any farther!
Everybody out!" Two years later, the reluctant settlers named their
little settlement after a US vice president.
And how "Chicken", Alaska,
got its name. Prospectors and hunters in the area owed their lives
to the eating of Ptarmigan, and they wanted to name their small town "Ptarmigan",
but they couldn't agree on how to spell it.
And the fact that Park Strip, a little green spot
downtown (Several blocks long, a couple blocks wide) was built specifically
for Noel Wien. Anchorage had heard that Wien was coming to Alaska,
assembling an airplane in Anchorage, and flying to Fairbanks, where he
had a job as a pilot. So they built a little takeoff strip "just outside
of town".
Now, I read somewhere that the early bush pilots,
flying without instruments would hang a rabbit's foot or a pair of baby
booties from the ceiling of the cockpit, in case of whiteout, (in a whiteout,
the horizon blends with the sky, and you can't tell what your attitude
is in relation to anything, it's a cause of lots of crashes, even with instruments}
If your rabbit's foot is lying on the ceiling, you know you're in trouble.
I thought I had read that in this book. It wasn't even mentioned.
Hmm. Where was that?
We also read, fairly recently, "Alaska" by Michener.
There were a couple flaws in it, but they weren't fatal to the enjoyment
of the book. one thing Mich points out is that Mount Everest, by
mountaineering standards, is a cakewalk! How does that mountain
claim so many lives? They get careless coming down the mountain.
They're not in "climbing mode" any more. They've already conquered
the mountain. Now they're going home - and fall several thousand
feet at a time.
When I say that Susan and I read a book, let me explain
how. I call it "active" and "passive" reading. I usually do
the active reading and she does the passive...That is to say that I read
aloud and she listens. It's amazing how fast a book goes like that!
When we first started to do it, we thought it would take forever to get
through a book. But, using this method, we've read the above two
books, "Snowcrash", by Neal Stephenson, the whole hobbit series,
several books by Tom Robbins, and a slew of others!
This is turning into a long letter for not having
anything to say!
I wrote the
following after visiting my brother, Brian, in Seattle. He went to
Seattle, and I went to see him for a couple days (36 hours) Kind of
crash visit for visiting someone I haven't seen in over 30 years!
I've been sitting in the Seattle airport waiting
for a late flight, mentally composing an e mail note, wondering if I'll
remember to write it this next Saturday, then going on to composing the
next section of this mental note. I finally stopped this a few minutes
ago, when I scolded myself. "You've got your laptop with you! What's
it good for if you don't use it to remember what you were thinking about
earlier? You should be putting it all on memory right now, idiot!
To which I answered, "I just didn't want to show off the existence
of my laptop in an airport to a bunch of strangers!
I closed the argument with, "Since when have you worried
about showing anything off? And when was the last time you worried
about what a bunch of strangers thought.
I laughed together and took out my laptop, (perfectly
innocently, of course):-)
Yeah one of the things I was thinking about was the fact that
I sat in the airport, without looking for a phone booth, and called Susan
on my cell, to tell her that I was on my way, here, at the airport.
She informed me that the flight was going to be a couple hours late as
shown on an internet web site, which I checked with the screen on the
wall in front of me, then called Brian to tell him about the recent nondevelopments.
The easy use of the cell made me feel lazy/efficient/regal/pleasant/luxurious,...I
had more adjectives a few minutes ago.
Karin, Brian's girl friend, had her suspicions
of double trouble with two Gilman brothers confirmed when the following
occurred. We were crossing a draw bridge, and there was a sign
that said "Draw Bridge" I asked if Karin had a pen to draw bridge with.
Brian said that there was also a sign that said "Stop here when flashing"
Honestly, I liked his observation better than mine.
Another one of those thoughts I had when Karin wasn't
around to make it to, was an old thought, which I still bring up from
time to time. Men are more coordinated than women. I've never
stuck myself in the eye with a masquera brush.
I brought up something with Brian and Karin
they thought was a really wonderful idea. - which I've been doing for
a several weeks now. I decide what I want to talk about in this
Saturday's note to everybody, copy it, and as I send each note, I paste
the copied information to a new note, and add the specific information
for that particular recipient. ( It may also mean adjusting some
of the pasted material with an eye to the recipient.
It was a fascinating trip. Brian and I have
retained the same unfunny (see above) sense of humor. I think,maybe,
Brian's humor is better than mine, but then again he had 4 older siblings
teaching him what was funny. On the other hand, I've been working
at it 8 years longer (Go finger!) Another possibility was that,
since I generally made the first crack, Brian felt he had to go
one better - and succeeded. Karin says I provoke her to argument.
I don't know if the word "provoke" is quite right. But she does
seem to like to argue without getting emotional about it. I like
that.
The first day, Tuesday, I arrived in Seattle
at about 4:46, and circled the airport a couple times looking for what seemed
to be the cheapest most efficient way to get to town, Finally decided
to use the Grayline, the Seattle Express. $8.50 each way, Found
out today that it is $14 round trip. If I can make a note of this,
maybe I can remember it for next trip - if there is a next trip to Seattle.
FLASH! I interrupt this dull routine stuff
to bring you what may be a relevant warning some day! While I was
typing the above, I was aware of the PA system at the next gate loading passengers
- I ignored it and kept typing. Suddenly I looked up and saw
that the people density around me had diminished dramatically. I went
and asked the attendant if I and missed something, like has the plane boarded,
and he said, they're about to close the doors!
Moral: if you're typing on a computer by yourself in an airport,
don't get wrapped up in it. Stick your nose out every couple minutes.
Luckily, I made it to the plane.
Back to Seattle!
I might omit some of the smaller details and get to touring a Russian
sub. Lots of foreign writing of some kind all over the place.
With my knowledge of Russian, I'll assume that's what it was, since it
would probably be unsafe for the Russians to hire illiterate foreigners
to man their state of the art subs. Then we went round and
round in Seattle a little bit before we finally arrived at Pike's market
Or, maybe I'll come back and fill in the detail later. After that,
we went to "Seattle Center and saw the Space needle. We met up with
Karin and had dinner at her sister's house,- salmon, baked asparagus and
corn salad. I'll hafta look up some of that stuff, or get hold of Karin's
sister.
Wednesday at 9 I was an hour late meeting them,
because I didn't want to adjust my watch for a different time zone for
a mere 36 hours. Yeah, we were sposed to meet at 8 From there,
we went to three Washington wineries. Fascinating! After about
the 1st 3 wine tastings, I developed a different tasting strategy - Taste
and dump. All three of these wineries were in a little place called
something like Woodenton. I'll look it up later. and they called
themselves chateaux. Spose. lots of work went into maintaining
the aura of "castle".
Finally some souvenir shopping of whatever sort
interested each of us. Karin wanted some kind of souvenir to wear.
I wanted refrigerator magnets and wound up with a cup for Susan.
Keith was looking for something for Jon, his son. Never did find
out what he got him. He's gotta be back in Massachusetts Friday to
take Jon to the University in Vermont. Pictures will be forthcoming
eventually. Karin had her digital, but no way to load it into her
laptop, and won't be back to her PC for a couple weeks.
I should interject in
here, right here is good, my hotel was worth what I paid for it. The
Hotel Seattle. No amenities except an attached restaurant, and since
I only had one breakfast there, it seemed ok. But it's an old hotel,
and I suspect that the electricity was put in sometime after the restaurant
was built - and before electric razors and hair dryers. There were
enough plug-ins but there was no convenient plug-in by the mirror - it was
by the bathroom door, so I had to stand by the bathroom door to shave.
Small price to pay for paying half the rent my brother was paying (I looked
it up on the internet).
The most interesting event the week before
last was been scraping both knees. I was pushing a pickup truck when
it came out from under me....If you've tried to hand push-start a car, you
know what I'm talking about.
I was helping someone pushstart a pickup truck,
putting my weight into the effort, and, of course, my center of gravity
was somewhere in front of me. When I was running about as fast as
I could, the driver popped the clutch, accelerated, and since there was
no way to move my legs to a point under my center of gravity, my
body obeyed the law of gravity, and I caught myself on my knees.
My knees were a bloody mess. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
says that the secret to flying is to throw yourself at the earth...and miss.
Well, I did, and failed. Didn't fly.
But, you know, our trip to
Valdez came up as an interesting point of discussion this morning.
See,a couple months ago, the Mensa chat corner got an e-mail from a young
man who turned out to be Jozef Kahan of Slovakia. The subject line
of the e-mail was "You are my last chance", and in the narrative, he explained
that he had a job in Cordova, Alaska, and had arranged for transportation
from Slovakia to Anchorage and from Valdez to Cordova, arriving in Anchorage
at 10 PM, but that he needed a place to stay in Anchorage for the night and
a ride to the Ferry in Valdez by 5 the next morning.
Well, you can't do that. In that time frame,
it's either/or, not and. It's 300 miles to Valdez from Anchorage,
and the roads are mostly far from freeway. I gotta hand it to Susan
- she didn't say, "Do we really want to do that?" We just looked at
other ways to try to get them there within the allotted parameters.
Plane, private plane, ferry. Nothing. The only possible way was
to drive like a maniac.
We got to the airport to pick
them up and had to wait an hour for a late flight,then had to wait for
their baggage, then had to spend 1/2 hour to report lost luggage, then we
hit the road....in the rain.
Before we made it to Glenallen, we hit rain, fog,
more rain, and...did I mention rain? What about the fact that Alaska
nights aren't very dark that time of year unless it's overcast.
Well, usually with rain comes overcast, and the night was as dark as a
spelunker's arm pit.
We got to Glenallen, saw that we were making pretty
good time, and decided that we might make it. The sun was coming
up, but before we got to Valdez, and while we were in Valdez, there was
fog so thick that an hour after we went through it there was a small tunnel
through the fog showing where we'd been. The "race" through Valdez
to get to the ferry was hampered more than a little than by visions of drunk
pedestrians bouncing off the front of the car or the front of the car bouncing
off a drunk moose.
We were 5 minutes late.
I had previously looked up Valdez on the intenet,
and had found a restaurant that opened at 6. We found it,
about the time it opened, and, over breakfast discussed the options that
were available to the two Josefs. They could try to catch a ride on
a tender, try a charter service, or go back to Anchorage and catch a flight
from there. We drove them around town to weight possibilities, and
they wound up working at a cannery in Valdez, doing exactly what
they were expecting to do in Cordova!
The trip back was more leisurely, and we took our
time, stopping frequently.
Susan points out that this trip was, in fact, the
most memorable thing we did all summer. Gonna hafata correct that
next summer short of the trip to Portland. But I'm writing anyway.
And you know, I had a thought
this week... one of many, of course, but this particular thought was that
if you think back to 9/10/2001, the event that happened the next day was
unthinkabled. If someone in a position of authority had said, "Tomorrow,
some suicidal terrorists are going to fly a passenger plane into the world
trade center, and another one is going to hit the pentagon, he would have
been laughed out of his job! And people keep trying to say that some
government agency was falling down on the job. Well, the occurrence
was unthinkable - before the fact - after the fact, nothing is unthinkable.
Now, watch out. This is
going to be some sort of eulogy.
Carey Curtis was a man I met the same way I have
met a few of my friends. I saw him in a local coffee shop, very quietly
drinking coffee by himself. After having noticed his presence several
times, I decided to introduce myself. I have no idea how long ago
that was. I wasn't marking the date.
What followed, over the next couple years, was a
closeness - well, you may get an idea in minute. We had many all night
sessions, getting to know each other, neither one of us asking anything
from the other, or wanting. He had previously been in the navy, been
an industrial supply salesman, and seeing that the interminable hours sitting
in a car was hurting his back, became a lumber jack. After a tree fell
on him, he moved to Anchorage, where he occasionally worked for the Teamster's
union, and occasionally felled a tree for a friend - odd jobs, in general.
He got along with people without any trouble, but felt more of an affinity
for animals, complaining frequently of animals kept in small cages, or
dogs or cats kept outside in the cold, or otherwise neglected.
After some years, he became disenchanted with the
coffee shop, citing bad lighting and less than mediocre food, and began
attending, as a watcher, bowling and softball games, offering encouragement
and advice to partipants. His attention was appreciated by many.
Sometime after I'd met him, he became a co-resident
with two cats. Both strays. Can't say he owned them, and they
didn't believe he did either, coming and going pretty much as they pleased.
Anyway, to make a long story much shorter, last
December, he shot himself.
The previous year, he had a lesion on his neck,
that kept growing and growing. He had doctors look at it and the
doctors diagnosed it as a type of staff infection, operable, and probably
the operation being followed up with cosmetic surgery. He applied
for SSI, trying to get the operation funded. The SSI application
was rejected. He put in another application, that resulted in a letter
received a week after his demise that said a hearing to review the previous
decision was scheduled for the next month.
Last December, I received an e-mail from his old
girlfriend, apparently still a friend, asking me to check on him.
The night before, he had spoken to her for two hours saying that the hole
in his neck was the size of his fist, and that he was unhappy in Alaska,
cold and lonely. I called him several times, offering to buy him dinner
at a local chinese restaurant{he had never allowed me to buy him a meal,
even when he was at his brokest), with no answer. I went buy his
trailer on the way to work on Monday morning and noticed which lights
were on. That day, I called him, leaving a message on his answering machine
that if he just didn't want to talk to anyone to turn off the kitchen light
and turn on another light. I went to his trailer that night and
the same lights were on. I called his answering machine from his front
steps, using my cell phone, and said, "If you don't come to the door right
now, I'm calling the cops." He never did and I called.
Soon, I received an e-mail from his sister, saying
she was on her way up, to take care of his effects. Another e-mail,
later, asked if there were some state agency that would clean up after a
shooting death, and that she didn't think she would be able to handle the
situation. Reluctantly, my fingers typed, "I'll do it".
After I typed it, I read the note to Susan, mentally
phrasing the obvious question. I didn't want to ask her to help.
I wanted to ask if she wanted to. Or just give moral support.
Before I had even voiced the question, she said, "I want to help."
We put the job off for a couple days, each of us
pointing out to the other that the mess was probably much more than either
one of us could imagine. When we finally braced ourselves to attack
this onerous task, we went to his trailer and found a blood soaked mattress.
We cut up some trash bags and wrapped the mattress before we loaded into
Susan's van before it went to the dump. Carey would have appreciated
the dignity of the wrapped mattress, and he would have laughed at the
two clowns that loaded the slippery, bulky, unmanageable mass into
the van.
Carey's sister, Merle, arrived with her husband,
Bob. We sorted through lots of stuff, while we entertained.
The night they left for the airport and we hugged and said our goodbyes,
I said to Susan, "I feel like Carey left with them."
The first e-mail I received from Merle was signed,
"Merle, Bob, and Carey." When I expressed my surprise and told Merle
about my comment to Susan, Merle said, "I know, I could see it in your face,
and I feel like he did come with us."
Later, she e-mailed me again, and said, "You know,
going through Carey's papers, every time I see your name written, your name
is followed, "my best friend".
I don't know what day he died, and I don't much
care. I wasn't marking the date.
Now that I have that out of the way, time for a mood chane and a couple
funnies.
One of my coworkers sent this note around. In order to understand
this joke, go ahead and click on the applebee's link in the signature block!
Maybe the humor loses in the translation, but I thought it was funny,
and I let my coworker know it!
My name is Bill Palmer, founder of Applebees. In an attempt to get
our
name out to more people in the rural communities where we are not
currently located, we are offering a $50 gift certificate to anyone
who
forwards this email to 9 of their friends. Just send this email to
them
and you will receive an email back with a confirmation number to claim
your gift certificate.
Sincerely
Bill Palmer
Founder of Applebees Visit us at: www.applebees.com
Hey guys,
DONT DELETE THIS EMAIL
It really works, I tried it and got my Gift certificate confirmation
number in 3 minutes.
The other one is a real "groaner". If you don't know what a groaner
is, listen to yourself after you read it!
THE GIRL ON THE BEACH
A couple lived near the ocean and used to walk the beach a lot. One
summer they noticed a girl who was at the beach pretty much every day. She
wasn't unusual, nor was the travel bag she carried, except for one thing;
she would approach people who were sitting on the beach, glance around
furtively, then speak to them.
Generally the people would respond negatively and she would wander
off, but occasionally someone would nod and there would be a quick exchange
of money and something she carried in her bag. The couple assumed she was
selling drugs, and debated calling the cops, but since they didn't know
for sure they just continued to watch her.
After a couple of weeks the wife said, "Honey, have you ever noticed
that she only goes up to people with boom boxes and other electronic devices?"
He hadn't and said so. Then she said, "Tomorrow I want you to get a towel
and our big radio and go lie out on the beach. Then we can find out what
she's really doing."
Well, the plan went off without a hitch and the wife was almost hopping
up and down with anticipation when she saw the girl talk to her husband
and then leave.
The man walked up the beach and met his wife at the road. "Well, Is
she selling drugs?" she asked excitedly.
"No, she's not," he said, enjoying this probably more than he should
have.
"Well, what is it, then? What does she do?" his wife fairly shrieked.
The man grinned and said, "she's a battery salesperson."
"Batteries?" cried the wife.
"Yes," he replied. "She sells C cells down by the sea shore!"
A few months ago, Susan and
I ate the most delicious piece of meat we've ever tasted! Prime rib!
Cooked at 210 for about 9 hours in restaurant grade rock salt. I
went to work, Susan salted the meat and put it in the oven. After
work, I picked up a meat thermometer, stuck it in the meat, read 185, and
pronounced it done! Tender and Deeeelicious!
Now the exciting thing that happened! Watch
out, cameraphobes! If you see me paying an inordinate amount of
attention to my watch, I'm taking a picture. If you want to know
what I'm taking a picture of, draw an imaginary line at a right angle
from my watch. Yeah, you got it. It's a camera/watch produced
by Casio. I'll be getting a digital camera next week for taking
planned pictures, but this wrist camera is kinda battery intensive,
so I'll want to use it for unplanned shots (Awww. why didn't I bring my
camera?) I did play with it a little yesterday, and got some nice
pictures of some wonderful subject matter. With Susan's permission,
I'll send one along with this note. I'm pretty impressed with it.
Only does B/W, though, as you can see in the attached pic.
It'll do in a pinch, sometime when I don't have my real camera.
Why did I get that one? Well, Susan has an
older version of the same camera, so we already have some of the accessories
for it, such as the memory stick reader that allows me to load from the
memory stick right into my laptop, since my laptop doesn't have a USB
connection. The prices on the websites I referred you to above don't
reflect the price I actually had to pay.
As you can see, I've played a while with my toy,
but I haven't really had time to take pictures with my real camera yet.
I just got the drivers loaded yesterday - and now my modem doesn't work!
Apparently a conflict between the drivers I loaded yesterday and the modem
driver. I guess that gets my attention next.
Remember, heretofore, I've been cutting and pasting
the main part of all my letters, and adding personalizations after the
cut and paste. Well, now I'm using my mail assistant to do the major
part of that. I've set it up so that when I send an e-mail to myself
and my mail assistant sees "Whoomp" in the subject line, it forwards the
mail to its intended recipients. wherby "Whoomp".
Of course, though, if I have something special to
add to a recipient, I have to unclick the recipient and resort to the
old way! Wanna hear about the hard times?
Susan talked me into buying a "standby car battery".
It's a little 12 volt battery that you plug into your cigarette lighter
to charge, then when you need a jump, because you stupidly left the lights
on (again), you push a button, wait 10 minutes and start your car!
Well, it's charged, and I don't know how it works. Don't really want
to find out!
Susan got a "SAD light". SAD stands for "seasonal
affective disorder". No, she hasn't been diagnosed as having it,
but if it works, and she gets more sleep at night, and all that stuff,
who am I to say "pshaw"? For the first two days of use, it seems
to have made an enormous difference!
"Geeks in Paradise" is still in
its infancy, but in its whole existence, every computer(2) it's had to
repair has been damaged by the same problem! When the power goes
out while your computer is running, the head of the hard drive comes down
hard on the disc, possibly ruining any data resident on the part of the
disk that it lands on. Both computers would not boot up! And
there was no way to reload the operating system without replacing the hard
disk! The solution to this is a UPS (uninterruptible power supply)
Being a battery,it will give you time to shut down your computer and, being
programmable, it will close your computer for you! Look at the arithmetic!
$45 plus freight vs $100 for the hard drive plus the cost/headache of installation
not to mention the unrecoverable data you lost. Make sure to let
computer owning friends know that there is a "proactive" solution to impending
disaster!
I noticed yesterday a quote from CNN. "All
the sniper victims -- 10 dead, three wounded since October 2 -- were hit
by a single .223-caliber bullet."
Did the sniper use the same bullet over and over
again? Or was it a very, very slow bullet?
No, don't take offense. The sniper episode
wasn't funny. I'm laughing at some reporter's reporting of it.
I'm glad the sniper was caught before the sniper had a chance to find another
victim. However, I would have been almost as happy (not quite) if
the sniper, at one point, had said, "I can't do this anymore", quit, and
spent the rest of his life watching what he said and looking over his shoulder.
But that wouldn't have helped the injured families at all! And nothing
is going to bring back the lost lives!
I was noticing this past week
that I spend a lot of time being awed! Here's a list of some of the
things that make me aweful!
Computers I remember Mr. Sullivan, my eighth grade teacher, saying
that we would all have computers more powerful than Univac in every home.
We laughed!
The internet The library in Alexandria was reputed to be the
biggest library ever! When I was in high school, I was amazed at
the amount of information in the Boston Public Library, much of it on
microfiche! The internet puts it all at your fingertips in your
PC! And you can find out what those plastic things at the end of
your shoelaces are called or find a history of the oldest American settlement!
A plant Gets almost all its ingredients out of black earth, and
becomes anything, of any size, from moss to a flower to a tree!
A seed Has the blueprint of the plant it is to become, and the size
has nothing to do with the size of the plant. A pea is much bigger
than an apple seed! But both generate more of itself!
dirt Both ends of the food chain! And home to thousands
of visible an microscopic creatures!
Stars The sizes, numbers and distances involved when people start talking
about stars are phenomenal!
A finger So simple, so useful!
A hand a collection of fingers that adds to the utility of the collection!
Legs The oldest, cheapest, most reliable form of transportation!
Sex How can something so simple, so innocuous, so brief, have such
life changing qualities.
People who don't share my "awe"! How can people so glibly search
the internet, send an e-mail, eat a nut, or look at the sky without some
of these thoughts? But I know I'm not alone, I'm not the first,
and I, hopefully, won't be the last!
This is just a few of the things that make me "awed"! I'm sure
I can come up with more, like the internal combustion engine and the design
of a fish, but you get the idea!
When I first met Susan, she was the PERFECT woman!
She was perfect because she couldn't remember a joke! I'd tell a
joke, then, two weeks later, tell it to someone else in her presence, and
it was like she had never heard it before. She's not so perfect anymore.
Now, she remembers jokes long after I've forgotten them, and frequently
corrects my personalization of jokes I do remember.
One thing about her delivery of jokes, though.
I've noticed that about half way through there is a hesitation.
Sometimes I think it's a little personal quirk.
Sometimes I think it's getting the timing right
so the joke will be funnier.
Sometimes I think she's letting the first half of
the joke sink in, so the listener will understand the second half.
Sometimes I think she's trying to remember the rest
of the joke, or wondering if she even remembers the punch line.
Sometimes I think she's just taking a nap.
Hey, she has a right! She's over 50! If she needs a nap before
she can finish a joke, who am I to.....?
Now where was I? Oh, yes! I was
trying to explain Alaskan Tourist Attractions!
Here, in Anchorage, two
of the oldest bars, the Scandanavian Club and the Montana Club were torn
down to make room for a Parking Garage. Wanna see a genuine Alaskan
parking garage? Outside of Town was the Bird House that tourists
liked to visit before it burned down. It was an interesting little
bar with underwear hanging from the ceilings and silver dollars molded into
the bar counter, and business cards from anyone who came through and wanted
to leave a business card, all hanging on the walls. I understand a
replica of the Bird House is built on Spenard Road.
But I imagine most tourists come to Alaska to see
wildlife. And Mt. Denali (the locally preferred name for McKinley).
If you never leave Anchorage, you may see Moose
or Bear passing through. Ravens and sea gulls are ever present, but
not together. Sea gulls in the summer, ravens in the winter.
Both frequent open dumpsters. A road near the airport is a part of
town where you're almost guaranteed to see a moose.
You know, we have the largest moose in the
world! Our black and brown bears eat airplanes, our ravens eat windsshield
wiper blades (before that was discovered, it was blamed on teenaged vandals),
and our polar bears eat people, one of the few animals that actually like
the taste of human meat. Sorry, no polar bears around here, except
in the Alaska Zoo.
The Alaska Zoo is another one of those things a
guest may want to visit. They do have a couple polar bears,
black and brown bears, eagles, moose, an "arctic" elephant, and a few other
critters. I gotta say, thought that the zoo denizens that are native
to Alaska aren't trapped, or otherwise coerced into living there.
Actually, most of them are rescued. Eagles with broken wings, bears
without mothers and too young to fend for themselves, and, of course, being
raised in captivity, their survival still questionable. I won't try
to answer questions about the elephant, though. I'll hafta ask those
myself.
Don't get too close to the polar bears, though!
Remember, they are humanivores, and they will use any chance they can
find to supplement their diet. A few years ago, we had a different
polar bear named "Binky". An australian woman climbed over the guadrail
to try to get a picture of Binky without the bars being in the picture.
Binky thought "Dinner!" Binky attacked throught the bars, some other
zoo visitors fought him off with nearby sticks, and she woke up
in the hospital, amazed at her stupidity! The picture of Binky with
her sneaker in his mouth gained fame worldwide! A couple months later
a couple drunk teenagers thought they would go for a swim in Binky's pool.
I don't know how they escaped, but I have heard that one of them will sing
soprano everytime he gets in the shower!
Without leaving Anchorage, on a clear day, Denali
is visible from the top of the Captain Cook Hotel - and there's a spot
on Muldoon Road where you can see it, but no place to pull over to take
a snapshot.
To the south, we have Beluga Point, where, if you're
lucky, you may see some whales of the type indicated by the name of the
point. And just across the street, there is a spot where brave mountain
goats come almost to the road and will pose and smile for a picture!
You can see other sheep and goats farther up, but they look very much like
the spot of snow next to them. Let me tell you how to tell the difference.
Focus on a spot of snow on a mountain, and wait. If it moves, it's
probably not snow. From that distance, though, you can't tell whether
it's a sheep or goat.
Farther south, we have Portage Glacier. The
glacier has receded a long way from the point where the observation building
was built. Still, icebergs occasionally break off from the glacier
and float up to the observation station. Souvenirs available here,
too.
South of Portage Glacier, you have Turnagain Pass,
another place where you can employ the skills you learned at Beluga point,
two paragraphs ago.
Once you leave Turnagain Pass, you come to a fork
in the road. Don't pick it up! It's a tourist attraction!:-)
If you're going to Seward, it's called the Homer cutoff. If you're
going to Homer it's called the Seward cutoff.
Seward and Homer are both fishing and tourist villages,
each with its own charm. I think Seward's main charm is it's proximity
to Anchorage, about 180 miles. Homer is about an 8 hour drive, and
its main attraction is Homer Spit which got washed away in the Tsunami
that followed the quake of 64. but has since been rebuilt and houses tourist
traps, tour boats and fishing boats. Just outside of Seward is Exit
Glacier, a ways back from the road, and, if you're suicidal, you can go
up and put your hand on it. I've seen it calf though! A huge
section of glacier breaks off and lands in front of the glacier without regard
to what or whom it's falling on!
While we're talking about Seward, you don't want
to leave Alaska without taking a Kenai Fjord Tour. There are the three
and eight hour varieties. Personally, I think 3 is enough, and you
get to see, almost for sure, water, eagles, water, glaciers, water, stellar
sea lions, water, sea otters, water, seals, water, puffins, and you may
get to see whales and porpoises or dolphins. For this trip, you'll
wish you had a camera! Oh, and did I say you're likely to see lots of water?
There's only two roads that come into Anchorage.
One, south, the other, of course, North. To the north is Fairbanks,
300 some miles. On the way up, there is another point where you
can see Denali from the road it all its glory! You can also go to
the Denali Park, but you can't see it from there. Too many clouds
and trees. Some of the clouds are herds of mosquitoes in disguise!
Three of Fairbanks' attractions are hot spring.
Chena hot springs, Manley hot springs, and another couple hundred miles
out (very close to the arctic circle) is Circle Hot Springs, located in
Circle. Speaking of Hot springs, there is the Liard hot springs, which
many pronounce Laird, but that's over in YukonTerritory (of Sgt Preston
fame), Canada. Between Fairbanks and Circle, you'll see piles of tailings
from mining - gold? Coal? I'm not sure, I do know that Usibelli
coal mine is in Usibelli, Alaska, up near Fairbanks.
Well, so much for tourist attractions for this missive!
Let's talk about weather!
Generally, for Halloween, we have dirty snow!
Which means snow has fallen somewhere around mid October and had a chance
to get dirty. This year, we have yet to see snow! I think
the rain is keeping it away!
That sounds funny, but clouds keep the heat from
escaping and temperatures are kept from dropping to snow levels.
Now, I hope it doesn't clear too much. If it gets
too cold for too long without snow, the cold gets into the ground and
freezes all kinds of things, pipes being the big problem.
Our weather is much like Massachusetts weather,
but 20 degrees cooler. Which means we rarely see temperatures above
70, and when we do, we sweat like proverbial pigs! And, you know,
proverbial pigs sweat much more than the pigs you and I know can be used
for ham and bacon! And we're most likely to see those temperatures
in June and early July. I figger the rainy season to start July 18th.
Any sunny days we get after the 18th are gifts!
And to continue on a train of thought I started
upletter, I got to thinking about my aweful frequency when I was
"watching" a room being built at work. By "watching", I mean
that every time I went by, some more progress had been made. The studs
they used were flimsy steel studs, but, obviously, once the braces were
installed and the sheetrock was put on, it was probly more sturdy than the
old two by four! What amazed me was that I had, pretty much, watched
Dad build the house we grew up in. I must have missed something, because
I spent most of my childhood awed that the dining room wall was so smooth!
Not a swirl in the plaster anywhere! I decided it had to be a skill
you acquired when you grew up!
I mentioned "hand" and "finger". I think the
hand and fingers are the simplest form of "synergy". "Synergy" is
a word you learn in business and economics classes, that means that the whole
is more than the some of it's parts. A classic example is a
football team. Eleven men can get together and call themselves a football
team but this team can't hold a candle to a professional team. And
can you imagine 5 people, each equipped with a stick, trying to skip a rock
across a lake?
Since I don't know how else to close this note,
lemme send you this link!
<http://flashface.flashmaster.ru/>
This is wild!!!
There
are 3 things I want to hit now.
1. Weather
2. Earthquakes
3. Dangers of living in South-central Alaska
Thursday, the clouds left, and, of course, the temperatures
dropped. Now, we're just waiting for the clouds to come back so
we can have some snow, for groundcover.
The epicenter of the earthquakes has been located
up near Fairbanks. The only one we even felt was the one that did
a lot of damage in Fairbanks. The same one that caused water in swimming
pools in Louisiana to "slosh" and muddy drinking water in Pennsylvania.
We just got a long, gentle rumble. Susan's son, on his bicycle didn't
feel a thing! Actually, I understand Fairbanks has been rocking
all week. I hope it's ended by now.
Now, for the dangers of south-central Alaska.
I'm not talking about Muldoon road (Kamikaze Strip), or the corner of
Lake Otis and Tudor (known for rush hour traffic jams and frequent accidents),
or non existent polar bears. I'm referring to water and mud.
There's a saying in Alaska. The reason you
need a personal flotation device in Alaska is so that search and rescue
can find your corpse. Even with the Japanese current, the ocean water
is cold...cold enough to cause hypothermia in a few minutes. The
local rivers and most of the lakes are just as cold, if not colder, being
fed by glacier water.
Once, when my ex and I were camping by the Kenai
River, a rubber raft overturned, and one of the rafters, a non -swimmer,
was rescued. Karen and I talked him out of his clothes, put a blanket
around him, fed him hot coffee and toast with jelly. We knew he was
going to be all right when he was warm enough to shiver!. And that
was very mild hypothermia!
In recent years, I understand that the recovery
rate from severe hypothermia is better than it used to be. Used to
be, if a pulse wasn't detectable, the victim was dead. Now, if the
pulse isn't detectable, it's still a rush to the hospital, because, apparently
the pulse and heartbeat, in a severe case, are so slow, and so faint that
they aren't detectable under normal circumstances, and the victim might still
revived!
Now, the mud. This is killer monster mud!
The kind that grabs hold of you and kills! No, I'm not overstating
the case, but you're probably imagining some bad horror show! Some
of the mud flats around here, at low tide are made up of this type of mud.
The mud is made up of little tiny granules that interlock and don't let
go of an intruding foot- meanwhile, you're sinking! Stories are rampant
about people who died on the mud flats, one in particular is a story about
a hunter who died, using his gun barrel for a snorkel!
I should also point out that the moose can be pretty
violent, too. People's fault. Remember the Yogi Bear cartoons,
with bears stealing picnic baskets? The rule in Jellostone Park was
"Don't feed the bears". That's true of moose, too, for the same reason,and
as far as I'm concerned all wildlife, even geese.
If you feed moose and bears, they get to expect
food from people and get downright irate when a human doesn't have it.
And they don't necessarily target the offending human. A human is a human.
And when the normal food is under 4 feet of snow, they can get pretty irritable.
And for obvious reasons, you don't walk between a mama moose and her calf.
Them mamas are VERY protective.
Why do I include geese? Feeding geese, I think,
discourages them from visiting warmer climes when it's time. They'll
get hungry at 20 below, but will you be out feeding them at 20 below?
If they went south, you wouldn't hafta be.
I was talking to a shop owner last Christmas about
that last topic. She said, "Oh, we used to.
We were camping in Florida, and my husband had just
fed a loaf of bread to the alligators. The game warden came around
and asked, 'You haven't been feeding the alligators have you?'
After we profusely denied it, he said, "That's good,
because, frequently, if you do, they come up into the campsite at night
looking for more." That shopowner said that she never spent a more
sleepless night than she did that night.
So, basically, what I'm saying here, is, don't stand
next to a glacier, stay off the mud flats, and go swimming only in pools,
don't feed the animals!
If you come to Anchorage
and keep that last sentence in mind, you should be able to have fun.
Consider this your introduction to my whoomp list. My next missives
will be much shorter!
11/16 Sorry I'm late. Just got back from fixing a computer - one
of those two I mentioned before. The customer's been out of town and
I've had the parts laying around for a month. It's not done yet.
Gotta look up drivers on the internet - she seems to have lost hers.
I'd use her modem connection to look them up, but her modem driver is one
of the missing ones.
We finally got snow. Just a dusting.
Stayed around for a couple days, then melted. Shows that the ground
is cold enough to keep it if we get a decent enough amount to really call
snow.
I had a pre-retirement seminar
this week. Seems I can't afford to retire and I can't afford not to.
I'm eligible next July. Seems that in order to maintain my standard
of living, I'd have to get a job. Doesn't that sorta defeat the purpose
of retirement? To be honest, I haven't been looking forward to retirement
- just the opportunity.
I'm looking forward to seeing the
northern lights this year. I remember seeing them in Massachusetts,
something that happened way up north. The first time I saw them in
their full glory up here though, I was awe=struck (again)! They stretched
to all four horizons, probably beyond, and spots were different colors,
flashing, dancing, and just generally cavorting across the sky! When
I saw them, you would have thought I was on some hallucenagen. All
I could say was, "Wow!" over and over again!
The problems we have viewing the northern
lights are generally human in origin, besides being too cloudy. If
you're around lights, street lights, incandescence of any kind, they aren't
visible. If it's a week night, they probably won't show up until after
you go to bed. And frequently, it's just too cold to stand out there
for 1/2 an hour admiring the show!
By the way, I've started work on my website again.
I'll let you know when it's up. Of course, like last time it was up,
it stays a work in progress!
And by the way again, I was thinking
of my boys this week - I do that frequently, whether I mention it or not.
And you know, I'm proud that they are my sons! They have shown me
that they know what it takes to get along! They both have demonstrated
the acknowledgement that work is work - and that the type of work you do
has nothing to do with the amount of respect you deserve or give yourself.
Russ took a job delivering papers to, temporarily, make ends meet, and Keith
took a cleaning crewmember's job with the local railroad, soon became the
supervisor, and, now is a mechanic on that same train system! I'm
so proud of both of them that I could spit! (Another thing that awes me!)
11/23 We got snow!
Less than a quarter if an inch. It's all melted.
Dangerous out there today. Temperature's in the high thirties, and
the ground is clear and wet enough to give you a false sense of security,
with little patches of ice positioned to add a little spice to a brief walk!
Susan has invented a new winter sport. She calls
it "extreme walking". Today is one of those days in which she reluctantly
participates in her new sport. She didn't "get air", though.
("Getting air" she explained to me is when you engage in "extreme" sports
and do a couple mid air spins or somersaults.
Otherwise, not too much has happened, so I guess I'm
reduced to talking about current events.
Remember having to do "current
events" talks in grade school? No, in grade school it was, "show and
tell". Anyway, in grade school, I can remember trying to bring a sprig
of poison ivy to school for show and tell. I thought it would be educational,
and I wasn't really planning to chase girls around the school yard with it.
Of course, if the occasion arose, I guess.....Mr Herrick, the school bus
driver wouldn't let it on the bus. Spoil sport.
Later that year, it was cold out, and I tried to take
a hornet's nest to school. It hadn't occurred to me that it would get
too warm in the bus, and, later in the classroom! Relax! Mr.
Herrick wouldn't let that on the bus either. It would have been exciting!
Guess I should have snuck in in a grocery bag!
Have you seen the news about
genetic research lately? They've even been able to identify a fat gene!
In a few years, in a world of "perfect" bodies, the justification for overeating
will be.. I have to, so that if I have overweight descendents, they have
someone to point to, to explain their fat gene. They (I never did find
out who "they" is. Sometimes, "they" is pretty smart) 've been able
to find the genetic roots of all kinds of maladies. We seem to be Pandora's
boxes of diseases!
Now would be a good place to interject something about
the Bush-Hussein debacle. I'm not gonna. Suffice it to say, I
hope Bush has what he wants, cause, although Hussein is a real mean
"nasty" and doesn't deserve to be honored by anyone, and I think the time
is coming when we do have to "take him down", I don't think now is the time.
Let's stick with terrorists.
Back again after another exciting uneventful week!
11/30 Thanksgiving was a slight disappointment, but
I'll bet our Thanksgiving was still better than yours! Susan, Danny
(her son), and I volunteer every Thanksgiving and Christmas to serve dinner
at Bean's cafe, one of the local soup kitchens. This time, they
overbooked their volunteers, so, we hung around for about an hour, helping
out when we could, but mostly just waiting for someone to tell us to do something.
After a while, we decided to make the supreme sacrifice and let the other
extra volunteers have a little more to do - by not being there. So,
we went home, threw together a quick Thanksgiving dinner, and ate around
9.
We'll be back at Bean's at Christmas, but we're toying
the idea of doing something throughout the year, when our efforts will be
needed more.
I tell people that on Thanksgiving and Christmas,
you couldn't find a restaurant in town that can match the quality that they
serve at Bean's. But you wouldn't want to find a restaurant that matches
what they have to serve the rest of the year!
Did I tell you about my amazing
pumpkin pie? It's really simple, if you can follow the directions
on the can of pumpkin. But cut the amount of evaporated milk in half!
Cutting the amount of milk enhances the taste of the pumpkin, and strengthens
the taste of the spices!
Now, let's talk about something really exciting!
Dental hygiene!
I've never bought an electric canopener. From
my contacts with other peoples canopeners, it seemed that the blade always
wore out before the motor. So it seemed like a waste of money to buy
a canopener with a motor that wouldn't last any longer than the one I bought
for less than half the price.
Same thing with electric toothbrushes, but my dentist
has been after me to get one for years! Supposedly does a better job
than a toothbrush. The problem I had with the idea was the price.
But I was in Fred Meyer's yesterday, getting dental accessories, and discovered
electric toothbrushes for $5.99! Disposable, of course, and you can
replace the batteries. If I can get used to it, maybe I'll switch!
Weather, we don't have any. If you want to see
what the weather's like right now, click here. Been like this all week!
Only snowflakes falling at these temperatures are suicidal snowflakes!
Well, that's about it for now! It's getting pretty
bad when all I have to talk about is dental hygiene! I'll try to do
something this week worthy of discussion. No telling what!
12/08 We've been getting reports from all over the country,
as far south a Colorado and New Mexico, complaining that it's colder there
than it is in Alaska! Good news! Probably the same situation today,
but at least if you want to know how the Anchorage weather is doing, all
you have to do is check my website! After
I get it completely reloaded, I'll finish updating it. Bookmark it!
I'm doing something to it every day! Some of the results, though, are
invisible!
Now, for the real point.
About seven years ago, Blue Cross
came out with a dental plan they called "Dental Blue". For $350 you
could get $1,000 dollars worth of dental benefits. I saw the plan and
though, "This is only going to last a year! They're gonna lose money,
because the only ones who will sign up for it are people expecting to use
it!" And I needed it and I know it. So that year, I got $1000
dollars worth of work done and only paid 350 for it. Sure enough, the
next year, they didn't offer it, but the dentist had told me I needed 4 to
6 thousand dollars worth of work.
What to do? I set up an "Erzatz" insurance policy,
paying the dentist $83.33 per month, and having the dentist do work as the
money accrued. As I got pay raises, the dentist got pay raises, basically,
prepaying my dentist. Next year I expect to be paying about $100 per
month. Today, 7 years later, what teeth I have left are in good shape,
and I'm in the process of considering partials and bridges.
I was well into doing it this way, when, 4 or 5 years
later, the dentist found out I was doing it. It didn't involve him.
It was set up between me and the bookkeepper/nurse/receptionist.
I keep recommending that others do this, and they keep
saying, "Naw, I don't need to do it that way", and their dental work keeps
not getting done!
What else? As you've probably guessed, I really
haven't done too much to write about, so I'm really scraping here.
Susan's cat, Alex, has been to the vet twice in the last
week. Her leg was hurt. She got her toenail caught in the cloth
couch, and was basically hanging from one claw - I saw her hanging, but before
I had a chance to rescue her, she got loose. But forever after that,
for the next couple days she had a bad limp! Monday, I took her to the
vet to get her nails clipped. I don't like the idea of cutting to the
quick, or just plain hurting the cat when $10 will prevent it. Susan
feels the same way. After I had her nails clipped, I made an appointment
for Friday, when Susan could take her in. The vet agreed that it was
probably a sprained muscle, caused by something like the incident I described,
gave her a cortisone shot, and told Susan the cat's in great health for an
18 year old cat (a chart outside the vet's office says that that's 88 in
people years) but her teeth need work. I guess that's next!
Gonna hafta keep in mind that she is an 28 year old cat, though.
Susan and I went to the first Christmas party of the
year last night, put on by her boss, at the Hilton. The only complaint
I had was the left handed toilets( the flush handle was on the right side),
and I complemented the great crackers! The rest of the food was good
too!
Daniel Gilman Hey! Write soon!