Salmon Ass

It was a marathon weekend and that was the way I approached it. I broke down each set of hours in front of me and decided on enjoying and completing those hours. Take bites not gulps and it will all get done with a smile, yet also maintain the tenacity of a cockroach.

We were up at 5 am on Saturday in Seward and found ourselves waiting for the Halibut charter at 6 am. The shuttle wasn't on time so we found ourselves waiting around and expecting the shuttle to arrive any minute, only to watch it finally pull up at 7 am. Standing next to the building where the breakfast buffet wafted outside made this really tough. If you know you have that time buffer, you'd jump on the buffet. Eh. We were on the boat around 7:15 and the diesel engine was roaring away by 7:20 -- 3 hours out to Montague Island.

After the first hour we poked out beyond Resurrection Bay and hit some nasty seas. The boat bounced up and down and waves crashed over the rear deck. It was nasty and I was glad I had taken Dramamine. The cabin had heat and was soon cooking at 70+ degrees, which really will start your stomach in the wrong direction. I walked out onto the deck and sat down, soon finding myself wet, yet cool and calm. Being wet is better than being sick. I understand that the other boat that left before us had almost all of their passengers puking inside the cabin, so since our boat only ended up with a few wet and tired people, we won that one. Also, our boat limited out on Halibut much quicker. Becky caught the bigger fish and I snagged a small rockfish.

Our fish was filleted and packaged by 6 pm and we were off for Anchorage. By 9pm we were scrubbed down and relaxing. However, I was preparing for round 2, which began at 3 am on Sunday. Becky wisely slept in, but I was up and waiting for my 3:30 am pickup.

Off we were for the Kasilof River, where we ended up in the water at 7:15. Our boat had a goal of 145 red salmon on Sunday and come 4 pm we hit it. It's a slog of blood, slime, and brutality. And so worth it. I occupied the rear of the boat and used a flat surface near the motor to cut the gills on each sockeye before dumping them in the coolers (can't have the blood spoiling the meat). Within a few hours there was a growing pile of coagulating, darkening, and slippery blood. It's the price of filling the freezer. Around 2 pm I slipped on the floor and sat perfectly in the blood with some authority, giving me a wet salmon blood ass. There is no way to describe it another way. So I sat on a tarp for the 3 hour ride home and dumped a stain stick all over those beasts when I got home.

After about 7 hours of filleting, sealing, and cleaning 105 salmon on Monday my freezer is full, the pants are clean, and there is no shortage of fish awaiting our next visitor from the lower 48.

Black Coach

I've been noodling with this model and base for a long while, perhaps a bit too long. I'd pick at it a bit, adjust a few highlights, and then scratch my head with more basing ideas. It was time to call it done and move on.

I am very pleased with a great deal of it, and satisfied with the rest. I had ideas for a more elaborate base, but decided to stay within the dimensions that would be legal on the playing table. If I had to do it all again, I'm sure I'd do a much better job, which is fine. I'll take that knowledge and confidence into my next model.

Alaskan Commuting

Once the snow melts, I am quickly back on commuting by bike here in Anchorage (winter commuting is a little tough as the trails are constantly groomed for Nordic skiing). It takes me about 25-30 minutes to cover the 6 miles, though I like to leave a fair amount of buffer time these days. I have a daily meeting with my east coast team scheduled for 7 am, so being late is really not an option. I leave at 6 am, arrive at 6:30, and find myself dressed and ready by 6:45. Easy. I allot buffer time in there for fixing flats, and also keep the phone numbers for my meeting on hand so if need be I can have my conference call on the bike trail. Adapt and overcome they say.

I have a healthy fear of the untimely, commuting flat. When I picture Archer Ave. in Chicago, aside from the wondrous litany of late night burrito joints, I see the littered line of locations where I sat in the early morning or late night fixing flats on a curb as people speaking English, Polish or Spanish drifted by me.

... 35th Street, California, Damen, Austin, Narraganset, Ashland, Throop, Lock ...

But those were my UIC days when there existed flexibility in being 10 minutes late for work. I'm in the real world now, and showing up on time for work and meetings is a given. So I have 20 minutes of fixing a flat time budgeted in to the ride.

But this is Alaska, and glass and other road debris is not as common as it is in Chicago. However, the large moose in the middle of the trail this morning is common. It wouldn't move even though several people less than 10 yards away were heckling it. It just stood there and chewed leaves as moose only have 2 gears: park and full speed ahead. This cow was in park, probably for 30 minutes at least. So I doubled backed, jumped onto a busy street, and hustled down a more congested alternate route. I made it here at 6:45 am, taking advantage of the moose detour time budgeted in.

There was a recent bear attack at the park closest to my place. I usually commute to work by bike at 6 am, though not through that specific park. I do travel along a stream that will have salmon in it fairly soon. Carpe Diem.

***

I really still cannot believe the Blackhawks have won the cup. Perhaps if I still lived in Chicago I could be more thoroughly convinced. I just never thought this day would come. I attended so many games over the last 10 years and watched a weak team plod around against much better teams (often the Pronger captained Blues) and always thought that after Bill Wirtz eventually passed on we would still have a generation of slog until a winner could emerge. I never expected it to happen so soon, in a such a dominating fashion, and with such an inspiring sense of team unity. The whole team is just a joy to observe.

I don't put too much stock in mystical sports rituals like wearing a certain type of sock on game day or putting a specific leg in your baseball pants first, though I know many pros do care about such things. I believe Michael Jordan always had to have North Carolina shorts under his Bulls uniform. But I'm watching at home, so who cares if I have that extra ounce of confidence when the game starts. However, once your team is in the finals, out comes the chanting and shaking of chicken bones.

While the White Sox were getting torn up by the Orioles in 1983 , I sat nervously in our bungalow's front room and rooted along. My father told me I should wear my White Sox cap since we were watching the game. The whole family and city were nuts for the Winning Ugly Sox. For whatever reason, I couldn't stand having that cap tight on my head for the duration of the game so I fidgeted with it and removed it. I remember distinctly watching Julio Cruz get moved over to third base with no outs, only to be stranded. I swear this happened twice. Each time my father told me to keep my cap on, only to have to keep reminding me to put it back on as I fidgeted it off as the inning dragged on. They never were able to just get Julio home. Frustrating. Each time the inning ended my father burned another brand upon my brain, "You should have kept your cap on. Julio would have scored." We joked about it, but here I am blogging about it 27 years later.

I have a Blackhawks sweater with Probert on the back above the towering "24". I wear it when skating around in the winter, largely because it's incredibly comfortable and fits perfectly with hockey gloves. I also dug him as a player, so I skate around like a nerd with his jersey. You would think I would have been wearing that sucker all over Anchorage for the last 2 months. Incorrect. I wore it the day of the first game against Vancouver, only to watch the Hawks get torn up like a minor league team. Was this the end of the cup run? Is it my fault? I'm not taking any chances. In Chicago most potential sporting victories are snatched away cruelly and forever -- Cubs 1984, Sox 1983, Bears 1984, Bears post 1985, etc. (I'm sure Cub fans could sing a dirge about all the pain they've dealt with, and to that I say good for them. ) So I sat and watched nervously as the Hawks slowly thundered to the finals, yet I still only murmured that they might win the cup while keenly hiding away my jersey. They won on Wednesday, and out came the jersey on Thursday night. I can exhale now and plan on wearing it often.

It is just so wonderful to watch Pronger lose and get rocked into the boards after witnessing his Blues teams tear up the Hawks all those years.

Sorry, Julio. At least I learned from my 27 year old mistake.

I never thought this day would come

Thank you, Captain Serious!

What a difference 30 days makes!

One thing I often wrestle with is how much the biography of an artist matters when it comes to appreciating their work. In most cases it doesn't matter at all. The words on the page are what they are and nothing more. In many cases, the story behind the creation of those words is fascinating (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and very much Kerouac).

I saw a very good movie about Joe Strummer a few years ago and one of the new facts I absorbed is that Joe was a bit of a hippy/bohemian before he ended up in the Clash. He had a tight group of friends and everyone was pretty mellow and communal. He ended up taking a very aggressive turn in personality when he got involved in punk , even somewhat shunning former close friends that were still flying that bohemian flag. It's screams scene jumper, though I'm sure a more passionate Strummer fan could explain it away as an personal evolution, a need to finally express what he always felt, or the fire of his politics burning brighter. There may be truth in those arguments, but in the end he seems clearly a scene jumper, and one that made an effort to turn his back on old friends, which is the real rub for me. I have a real hard time with people that refuse to at least acknowledge that all the things they chose and did not choose in life have aggregated to the person they are today. Everyone wants to remember the cool stuff they got into before everyone else knew it was cool, yet they are reluctant to admit that they took some boring turns into mediocrity or pop culture. It's a pet peeve for me.

I still love the Clash and Joe Strummer will always be the man. Some of the optimistic leftist politics on their records are woefully dated, but I still love those records. Adding in the Strummer biography blemishes won't change that conclusion either.

But perhaps this largely rests on how well you know the artist. Maybe if I was a long lost bohemian buddy of Joe's I'd never be able to stomach a Clash record.

I went to Brother Rice High School, a very good school without a doubt, though people beyond the south side of Chicago probably have never heard of it (unless you count John C. Reilly). It and the surrounding neighborhood are not looked at as artistic incubators, which is perfectly fine. Few places are. I honestly don't think any place in Chicago really fits the bill either. Maybe time is too much of a component (ie. Paris in the 1920's, Harlem in the 20's and 30's, New York hardcore in '88, etc.). I do know a bit about the Rice neck of the woods though, so I take any art that emerges from it seriously.

There is a bit of a hot potato writer out there these days that is a year older than me that went to Rice that is weaving a biographical tale of high school punk rock identity and all the exclusion, frustration, and angst that goes along with it. I knew who he was back then and had a class with him, though that is as deep as it went. I was into sxe hardcore, metal, and skateboarded as much as possible (swap out biking for skating and you're pretty close to where I'm at today). This is a precise cross pollination of subcultures. At that time, even one of these subcultures would place you in a minority, so much so that you always had a sense of the other dozen guys in the entire school that shared that interest. There weren't that many of us so you could always smell your own. There is nothing morally superior about these subculture cocktails, but suffice to say he was not in any of these little buckets. I'm assuming he got into punk after high school, which is great. It just drives me up a wall when he spins these stories of outlaw days in Mt Greenwood. Maybe he was a punk rocker in his walkman, but he kept it well hidden in his IOU sweaters and preppy friends. Eh, I digress. Many people find him a very good writer, so perhaps he is. I'm too close to the whole deal, so I will endlessly cry bullshit. I am well aware that the finger here really just needs to turn around to me and I need to write some good books. Fair enough.

So who is the bard of Mt. Greenwood and Brother Rice? I'd vote for John Powers. I had never read any of his books, but I recently barreled through The Last Catholic in America, Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?, and The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God. They are amazing and charming snapshots of Catholicism and Chicago in the 60's. It's not Hemingway, but it is not trying to be. They were very satisfying and poignant. The Unoriginal Sinner is the gem by far, capturing perfectly the confusion and desire of college life in a blue collar world. Powers was always referenced here and there at Rice as a local boy done good, but I never made the effort to track down the actual texts. Silly of me. I have now and am all the better for it.

Here's to artists proudly standing for their backgrounds, however boring or bland they may seem through lens of our current mind's eye.

I'm always fascinated by all of the little things that make cities and regions the specific and interesting places they are.

Bubblers, Culver's, fried Cheese Curds, shooting prairie dogs, what a hoosier is, a gaper's block, beef sandwiches, publics, etc. It all makes life unique and helps hang some decoration on memories of times and places.

...

I was at the bank the other day opening a new account which had a $50 minimum deposit.

"Are you going to just deposit the minimum, sir?"

"Yeah, that's fine. I didn't get to the cash station so take it out of my checking account."

She glazed over at 'cash station.' Ah, I forgot that is a Chicago thing.

"Just take the $50 out of my checking."

...

Lost was starting soon and dinner remained a question mark, so we opted for the quick escape hatch of grilled cheese and soup. I remarked that as a kid we always had Mrs. Grass' chicken soup with our grilled cheese meals. I can't think of another soup we ever paired with it, which might explain why I have no affection for tomato soup and sandwich combos. Becky had never heard of the soup, the company that made it, or anything. I was a bit incredulous and remarked further that my parents still eat it like clockwork today. Is this a Chicago thing? I believe so, though it is available everywhere. I'll be buying some soon.

...

In some ways, I was spoiled in West Lawn and never knew it. I mentioned to Becky that Dove's was right down the street and she asked if it was the same Dove's name that is plastered across all those lovely chocolates and ice cream bars in the stores across America? Yep, that one. And the original was 3 blocks from our house.

And we went to it about once a year. I'm guessing it was because it would always be there and so would we so we'll go again next week/month. It's the same logic that kept me from ducking my head into the Field Museum or Art Institute more often. Dove's on Pulaski is long gone and we don't live next to Springfield Ave. anymore. But the Dover bars live on.

It's kind of a bi-weekly present, but with an ebay flavor. You know what is technically coming and you know the quantities, but you don't really know what it will all look like. It's exciting.

Last week was our first delivery from Full Circle Farms in Carnation, WA. We signed up for a small box of fruits and vegetables to be delivered bi-weekly and specified the certain types of produce we wanted to permanently exclude (mushrooms of course!, beets, etc.). You get an email midweek with your list of produce and you then have 4 days to make substitutions before it gets thrown on the plane the following week where it will be stacked in the lobby of the local Powerhouse Gym.

We usually eat fairly well, but this past week we have eaten better than ever -- delicious and extremely healthy. I also like that way it is already stretching our palates. For example, it looks like next week we will be receiving purple potatoes. They will certainly be new to me.

It does reify our living in Alaska, albeit in a small, charming way. We need to arrange to have our produce flown in.

...

It may be in the 50's during the day, but at 6am on my bike commute it's usually 32-34 degrees. It's bright and clear and I'm pedaling trough the quiet trails snatching a glance at a moose most mornings, so you'll hear no complaints from me.

I've been rereading portions of the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide and it is more of a remarkable text than I had remembered. It's fascinating, rich, and well worth revisiting. This was always one of my favorite little images from it.

And, here comes some slushy snow again.

The plan is to take more pictures of Eagle River on my bike rides as it melts and document the emerging happiness. The plan is on hold.

44 degrees is plenty comfortable for a bike ride. The roads and bike paths are full of melting snow and sloppy gravel from the road, but I'm out there riding again. No complaints. I went on my standard 30 mile round trip to Eagle River, a place that needs a little more melt. We'll get there.

I should have photographed it, though I know there will be other opportunities. It was just so beautiful. The Kalua pork was shredded into a pile of tender meat and juices that looked identical to what we had seen and copiously consumed in Kauai. It looked right. And after smelling it in the crock pot for 18 hours, it smelled right. In the end, it tasted completely right. It's a cheap and delicious way to grasp the islands. We'll be making this often, very often.

...

Spring is coming.

I dreamt of fishing along a beautiful river here in Alaska with some old Chicago friends. They were catching King Salmon and I remained casting away. I then hooked into a huge Musky and successfully landed him after a long fight. I held him up for a picture before releasing him. He was completely tattered and torn up from being in the river with the aggressive, spawning salmon. There are no Musky here in Alaska, but when thoughts of summer fishing populate the near future of my life it's hard to keep the Midwestern good times from shoehorning back in.

There is still plenty of snow on the ground. I rode my bike to Stuckagain heights yesterday, which is a neighborhood up the hillside in East Anchorage. It was drizzling at our place when I left, but snowing at the top of the climb.

Spring is coming slowly.

The roads have been dry and dusty and it appeared that we were in a full scale melt of the remaining snow. This is probably still true, but not for the first half of today. I woke up to 33 degree temps and about 2 inches of wet snow everywhere. That snow will probably be gone by the end of the day, but it stands as an extended palm to Anchorage's burgeoning spring excitement. There is still 4-5 weeks left of high snow probability.

...


Driving down the Seward highway toward the bike shop on Saturday, I felt a piece of gravel ping off my shield. That is an Alaskan winter tradition to be sure. I had a few small chips in my windshield already, but no cracks. I chalked this up largely to avoiding the Glenn Highway on my daily commutes. Well, on my drive to work Monday morning my defroster found the little Saturday gravel ping and spawned a 10 inch crack across the bottom of my windshield.

I'm getting more Alaskan by the minute.

I really want to see this, though I have a feeling even the Bear Tooth theater may not get it. That's what dvd is for.

Alaska is a pretty clean place. The air is almost always excellent here in south central Alaska(though Fairbanks has large amounts of particulates in winter -- though not for the reasons most people would guess) and when you head off to fish, ride, hike, or camp you will mostly likely find beautiful, clean wilderness. Sadly, there is sometimes a random piece of litter to let you know that humanity made it to this little piece of heaven before you did. It stinks, but that's life. In general, Alaska is very clean. A great deal cleaner than Chicago, and a fair amount cleaner than Wisconsin (and Wisconsin is a pretty clean place). I'm beginning to split hairs here, but suffice to say -- Alaska is just about as clean and beautiful as you would expect.

However, as the snow melts each April we are confronted with our annual, dirty task -- cleaning up the trash. All along the roads a brutal amount of trash collects, waiting for volunteers to attack it within a few weeks in preparation for summer and the visitors it brings. It's kind of nasty to glance at, but it does make a cruel bit of sense. Think about it. All winter long random pieces of little trash find their way onto the roads, only to be plowed into the snow back . Our winter has no freeze/thaw cycles -- it only all melts once, and that is after about 5-6 months of snow. So you find a plethora of junk neatly assembled on the sides of the road, all ready for picking. It's kind of like getting the majority of the city's annual litter in a 2 week window.

Everyone is now starting to get in good mood as the snow melts a little more each day. The parking lots everywhere are turning into gravel and the trash is preening itself for the light of day. Soon trucks will come around and pick up all of the gravel and we'll get that litter taken care of. It's the annual eyesore before life explodes into green and seemingly endless daylight and we are all reminded yet again of why we all live here. Just a few more weeks...

This is the kind of thing that made the girls fawn in high school.

Great game.

The Warhammer Fantasy Battle tournament on Sunday was a blast. Honestly, as long as the sportsmanship is good, any game is fun. I missed the first game but played the last two, which is plenty. 2250 point WHFB games take a few hours just to get going.

I played the empire first and our artillery just pounded each other as we ever so slowly inched towards close combat. I got lucky as his cannon misfired and the crew was killed in the first round. In the end I won by a few hundred points and ended up with a draw. If we had another hour to play I suspect the game would have broke much stronger in a given direction -- a direction I am unsure of.

The second game was my umpteenth match against Andrew. Always fun and always good gameplay. His wood elves zipped left and right across the board and were always out of line of sight of my dwarfs and out of a flank shot from my bolt thrower. I made a few tactical mistakes early, but my Hammerers caused some Glade Guard to panic and I found some breathing room. After 2.5 hours he had taken 1800 points off my side of the table, but our differential was only 500 points, giving him a Marginal Victory. That's a lot of spilled blood just to get a MV.

So much fun.

...

After visiting Pearl Harbor I really want to build a USS Arizona plastic model kit. Revell makes one for around 20 bucks. I've built plenty of model cars and planes (and am building a Revell Fighting Falcon right now), but never a ship. Sign me up.

...

Though I play mostly table top wargames, I have a soft spot for old Dungeons and Dragons. I've played plenty of it throughout my life and have a pretty sizeable collection of the stuff. Lately I've had the bug to reread some of the older modules and rulebooks and have been having a lot of fun with Hackmaster stuff. I've been noodling through the Ghost of Lion Castle lately and then found myself standing in a games store in Honolulu, looking down on pile of Hackmaster stuff at 40% off. Done deal. I just get so much enjoyment out of reading older styled modules. It's such a cultural touchstone for me.

...

Facebook is nothing if not a grade school reunion generator, and good for that. While I have connected with a fair amount of St Nick's '89 Tigers over the last year or so, the reunion has only been mentioned as a good idea someday. It looks like an '88 reunion happened in Mt. Greenwood the other day. I recognized a lot of the people in those pictures. An '89 reunion would be a blast, and I mean that beyond the initial bald/fat checklist it would secretly be. I'd win the travel distance award for sure.

...

I took my cross bike into the shop for a new handbuilt rear wheel and a tune up. It needs some love after being shoved into a dirty corner soon after Cyclocross racing season ended. Spring is just around the corner!

Random Kauai

We had a condo, so our first day was a trip to Costco to load up for a handful of breakfasts and lunches cooked in our condo. It's a good approach to save money and time. We stocked up on snacks as well -- plenty of macadamian nuts, a locally grown pineapple, and oranges. I like oranges a lot and the warm, tropical atmosphere had me in the mood to eat a pile of them. So I quickly grabbed the 10 lb box, slid it in the cart, and watched Becky blink and smile, "That's all you. I don't really like them."

"No problem. I love them."

Well, it turns out 10lbs is a lot of oranges. We lost one to mold, and Becky ate a few. Otherwise, I at many oranges each day. Many.

At the airport we were told that any produce whatsoever cannot head back to lower 48, so there I sat slamming down 3 oranges before heading to our gate. There was nothing else was in my stomach.

Do the math. Even in the 30 minutes before boarding you can't go to the bathroom enough to diffuse those oranges. I inconvenienced the guy seated next to me more than a few times during the first half of that flight.

I will be hard pressed to not think of oranges when I think of Kauai. I still love oranges and need to buy some soon.

...

There are chickens everywhere on Kauai. I cannot overstate this. They have no predators and along with the wild pigs number around 300,000. There are 60,000 people on the island and as you can imagine these chickens start screaming every morning around 5 am. After a few days it became kind of charming in the way a unique quirk about a foreign place is to the visitor. I suspect the moose have this effect on Alaskan visitors.

...

Kalua Pork is ridiculously delicious. I think I ate it at least 4 times. We purchased some of the red Hawaiin sea salt and will be trying to make it at home very soon. It seems easy enough.

...

I don't remember exactly what my expectations were regarding the perceived high points of the trip, but after leaving I cannot forget the Na Pali coast. It was beautiful and unique almost beyond words. Our dinner cruise brought us close to the shoreline and it was magnificent. I still think cruising down Turnagain arm is prettier, but this was stellar.

...

Hawaiian prices are pretty close to Alaskan prices, so we missed out on the sticker shock most people feel when they visit the islands. You do get hit with sales tax though, which is always an annoyance to us tax free Alaskans.

...

The USS Arizona memorial is extremely impressive. While waiting for our time to shuttle over to the memorial itself we watched the 15 minute film setting the stage for December 7th. Halfway through that flick I was ready to bomb Japan again, today. Within a few minutes the context and history of things crept back in and I was fine, but for a 20 second window I was ready to go.

...

It is now light to almost 9 pm here! It's time to get my bike to the shop for a tune up and get ready for the snow to melt next month. With any luck we won't get an early May snow dump.

And the trip to Kauai ends in the Anchorage parking lot on Monday night. I'll have more to chat about later, but for now I am left to readjust to snow and mountains. It is nice to be home, but maybe a little nicer to still be in Hawaii.

Loads of pictures here.