It snowed yesterday. It did not accumulate and did melt once it hit the ground, but there were undeniable flakes in the air.

This is probably because I washed the cars on Saturday.

It's over, man. Here comes winter.

The rides to Eagle River are getting chillier, the leaves are giving up the ghost, and in another 4 weeks or so there will be some snow. When things begin fading away I gravitate to appropriate music and llately I cannot get The Band's "The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down" out of my head. It's a great song, and perfectly sorrowful for the death of summer.

The moose has the right of way

I still have thankfully not been charged by a moose, but this is a little too close to that distinction for my taste. Riding down the bike path pre-dusk last night (9:30 pm), I made a 90 degree turn to head back to Muldoon Road. This is a narrow stretch of the path, bounded by a ridge to the Glenn Highway and a long chain link fence. It's a corridor or a shoot of sorts.

I realized quickly that there was a large Moose 10 yards ahead in the middle of the path. It started to trot away from me once it heard my brakes chirp. However, the group of kids 20 yards ahead quickly let out a cackle and started to run away from the moose. The moose, now finding its avenue closed, promptly turned back towards me and started running again (though thankfully not with its ears pulled back). As fast as I could I picked up my bike and hiked up the highway embankment, careful to keep the bike on the moose side of my body. He passed at a distance of 6-7 feet away and kept trotting down towards the large park. All in about 2 seconds.

Man, how do you try and get your brand new bike warrantied because of a moose conflict?

Great Things

Most of life is not lived on the extremes of emotion -- neither happiness nor sadness. Most of the time things cruise along and bob slightly into good or bad sides of an emotional bell curve. Occasionally they hover at the extremes, though usually for reasons relating to human relationships (ie. births, deaths, marriages). They key is that physical objects just don't have the strength to push us into the heights. At least they ought not.

Without violating that hypothesis, I came pretty close in the past few weeks to allowing objects to send me spinning to the far right of the bell curve.

Picturing Hemingway's Michigan just feels like a perfect book written just for me. It captures a plethora of photographs and anecdotes relating to Hemingway's time in the north woods. Having visited his Horton Bay stomping grounds last year, the images and smells of that place are fresh in my mind and also send me dove tailing into memories of the north woods I have known. It's a strong piece of Hemingway scholarship without a doubt, but more importantly it captures the mood of a very important time in a great writer's life.

I bought an aluminum and carbon Orbea in 2005 and due to bad luck on my part it had to have been warrantied on 2 occasions. Though I purchased an Orbea due to the brand's lifetime warranty, I did not relish the need to have it shipped and repaired at the US offices (Arkansas). After a creak developed this June I knew the doom that lay ahead -- weeks of no road bike while the Alaskan summer sprinted toward fall. I made a strong request to have a replacement frame sent as I no longer trusted the current one. As a side note, Orbea is a good brand and I seem to have simply drawn a lemon. They complied and some 2 weeks ago I became the owner of a brand new '09 full carbon Opal frame. This is a huge (FREE) upgrade and feels like I am now pedaling on a cloud. All hail Orbea!

I won this past 10 days without a doubt. Now to ride as much as possible past these changing leaves.

I plead guilty to slacking off here, though I have been extremely busy. We went to Wyoming for a week in July, my folks came up a few days later for a week long visit, and now we have another set of visitors for a week. It's good to be busy. Add in some fishing trips here and there and July just rapidly fades away.

The weather has been less than stellar, though I've steamed ahead in defiance with whatever activity I had planned. If I want to go for a jog through the bog behind our house, I go even though I'll come back soaked. The pouring rain didn't keep us from fishing Bird Creek for 3 hours. You just have to ignore the elements and squeeze in all the summer activities you can.

I'm slowly uploading pictures to flickr from the last few months. I wish I could find a suitable tool to mass shrink the jpegs from 1.5 MB down to 500k. I tend to do it manually.

I created a list throughout the winter of summer activity goals and I have been able to cross off at least half of them, which is not too shabby. I always reach for the moon when it comes to summer plans. Considering vacations, obligations, and visitors this summer, I have found a way to get out and fish, camp, and canoe fairly often. Of course the ubiquitous cycling is in play as well. Summer is not over yet, but it appears I've used my time wisely.

I'm getting to be such a grown up and am getting excited about the silliest things. Case in point: we're refinancing the house thanks to the rock bottom rates. It's a wise decision but not one that should be too exciting. But it is, because I that is how my brain works.

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.