We live in a land of ice and snow...

Ice and snow are big in Anchorage news this week - here is the rundown!

To answer for everyone the question we have gotten from a lot of our friends and family members in the lower 48...No, we have not been to see Snowzilla. We did not want to add the the apparently terrible traffic snarls it is causing. ;) Also - and this is the important thing to remember - it is just a really big snowman. If we happen to be in that area, we will probably drive past, but we did not really want to go out of our way for it. If we do go past though, we'll post a picture here.

The follow up for that story possibly did not get to the national news is that the next day a group of snowman picketers showed up outside City Hall with little picket signs protesting the city's oppression of their big snowman brother! http://www.adn.com/snowzilla/ for the many chapters of the saga.

The background, and of course there had to be one, is that the builder of Snowzilla has been in a tangle with his neighbors and the city about a bunch of junk he has in his yard, so this is just another chapter in that story. Crazy town!

This afternoon we went downtown to the same town square where the Christmas tree lighting (of earlier post fame) took place. Today our object was an ice sculpture competition! The carvers have been at work since Friday, and the judging takes place roughly a half an hour from now, so we got to see things when they were pretty well along. There were 6 or 7 competitors, and all were doing some really beautiful things.

This is a bunch of fish sort of emanating from a wave that the artist says is to emphasize the importance of fish to Alaska.

Somewhat predictably, there are a few bear-based art works. (Incidentally, a bear attack Discovery channel special that was filmed near here is total malarky. Again, see http://www.adn.com/ for the full details)

This one is a city scape that I read is a street scene from the 1964 earthquake. Yes, that is an iron on top of the middle building. Eventually there will be cars falling into a crack in the street! (This is in the statue.)

Then to warm up, we went and had lunch at Humpy's ( yes, more culture!) where another amazing thing happened. We saw a football game that was actually interesting!

Let me provide a little backstory. I hate football. It is extremely boring to me, and consequently I have never watched a football game for longer than it took me to run through the room where it was playing on TV. Now, I have no problem with other people liking football - many of my loved ones are really into the sport, and it seems to give many other people great joy - it just isn't for me. The only exception is that I vote (yes, I know that is not the term) for the Ravens. This is purely because I like Poe. I have never seen a Ravens game, have no idea who's on the team or what their win-loss ratio is. I just like the idea of a literarily inspired football team. A friend and former coworker and I liked the idea of the Ravens so much that we came up with a whole marketing campaign for their team. Here is our concept. The mascot should be an Edgar Allen Poe with a great big bobbly head, the cheerleaders should be Victorian-y goth girls, and fans should be given fake ravens on sticks to wave around instead of big foam #1 fingers. We even came up with a cheer. Ready? Here is is..."When shall our opponents score? Quoth the Ravens 'Never More'!" I would actually watch a game if they did things like that.
Anyway. One sector of Humpy's has an array of big screen TVs playing what looked to me like a bunch of different games. We did not want to sit there, but there weren't any seats in the other part. The game we wound up watching was the Eagles vs. the Cowboys. Those of you who follow football will probably know the game I am referring to. Neither Art nor I know much about football, and even we could tell the Cowboys were sucking out loud - they were so bad it was comical. By the second time the Eagles got possession of the ball from the Cowboys and ran right down the field, we were screaming and laughing along with the rest of the crowd. I was actually sorry when we had finished lunch and needed to relinquish our seats. The experience will probably not make me a football fan, but I was encouraged to see an interesting moment happening right there while I was watching.

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Art festivals + Coldness = Good times!

As the year winds down, everyone gets less and less inclined to do much of anything at work. I guess that is not specific to Alaska, though :) As I am pretty new to my job, I don't have a lot of time to take off yet. Also, I am saving up time for Fur Rondy in late February (about which more in a later post) and a visit from my parents in Spring sometime. But almost everyone else is off, so I am kind of rattling around the place alone. It's pretty quiet, but fortunately I have some projects that I can work on better in peace.
However, Anchorage has a lot going on, some of which I hope to get to do. Going on right now is something called the FREEZE arts festival. As near as I can figure, it is basically an artistic celebration of being cold. It features things like ice sculpture installations and "beach parties" in the snow. It sounds like a HokeFest to me, so naturally I am looking forward to it a great deal. Also, I enjoy both art and being cold, so there you go - good times all around.
At the beginning of December, Anchorage has a film festival, which I and everyone at my job were all excited about. And then none of us went. It wasn't well publicized, and when I finally got a look at the movie list, it all looked pretty dire. Not dire like "dark and moody" - I am a David Lynch fan, so that doesn't bother me. I mean dire like "not very interesting". Longtime residents assured me that usually it is much better than that, and the movies are usually much better. I will be interested next year to see if they say the same thing.

Worrying Wildlife Development

Well, the wild animals to watch out for have undergone a slight, seasonal changing-of-the-guard. Moose are still wandering around, but the bears have apparently formed a WWF tag-team like alliance with coyotes. (Bears are now hibernating. I don't know where the coyotes were all summer, other than not on the headlines. Possibly at the beach.) I direct interested readers to this story http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/story/626826.html written by ADN writer James Halpin.
I will wait while you read. ... Back now? Good.
Worrying part #1 "Rambunctious coyotes growing increasingly bold at the Hilltop Ski Area, including one that snatched a pair of ski googgles from a fallen boy, have prompted the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to go after them this week with rubber slugs and cracker shells." Think about this for a minute. This is not scary in the sense you might expect. The coyote did not go after the fallen kid, which is where Wildlife Attack stories normally wind up. The coyote stole the kid's ski goggles. Why? What the hell does a coyote want with ski goggles? Is he building a coyote robot up there? Was he driven to this life of crime by a tragic unemployability and/or lack of pockets? Is he fetching supplies for a coyote-training evil genius that lives secluded in an Arctic fastness? Does the wind make the coyote's eyes water, particularly when he straps on his jet-skis to chase after a roadrunner? The more I think about this, the more it freaks me out.
( Side note to my Mom and other kind-hearted persons - they are not going to kill or hurt the animals, just try to scare them away from humans.)
Worrying part #2, a bit further on in the story:

"After sightings that began about a week and a half ago, ski patrol director Jessie Oliver, a three-year veteran at the area, saw a coyote Monday chewing on some fencing as a roughly 12-year-old boy fell on his way down, dropping his ski goggles.
"The coyote walked within 2 feet of him and he turned around and saw it and was like, 'Oh no,' " Oliver said. The boy started crawling away and, while his back was turned, the coyote crept up from behind, snatched his goggles and skirted off. Oliver, who was maybe 100 feet away when the drama unfolded, decided to pursue the thief into the Spencer Loop cross-country trail.
"It kept setting them down, so I would go to go pick them up, and then it would rush back and grab them and take them farther," she said. "It seemed to be more playing around."
The coyote, dubbed "Friendly" by employees, finally took off into the woods, goggles still in his jaws, she said.

The coyote was actually luring her into the woods. Again, why? What'd you say girl? Timmy fell into a well? Let's go save him!

Seriously, though. What does the coyote want with a ski patrol director? Is he really a ski instructor who angered a local witch, and he needs her to kiss him to turn him back again? All I can say is if he tries to lure you into a glowing portal, just say no.

Newbie mistake #3

Long-time Alaskans, known to one another as sourdoughs, have a loosely-defined list of newbie (or cheechako) mistakes. When you tell a sourdough, especially older coworkers, about some goofy thing you just did, they just shake their heads, call you a cheechako, and if they are in a kindly mood then make sure you haven't sustained permanent damage.
The first cheechako mistake I made involved a surprise swim in a glacial river (of earlier post fame), and the second was the far less colorful wearing of garments of inappropriate weight for the weather. The third, again a colorful one, took place late last week. Early in the morning, we heard a really loud clatter. Arising to see what was the matter, we grabbed home defense items that we had to hand. For me, this was a heavy book (I know! but it was really early and my thinking was not extremely clear at this point) and for Art it was a can of bear repellent(powerful pepper spray).
As we made our way into the spare room, I heard a tiny little hiss, lasting maybe half a second. I had time to say "No, was that..." and then the wave of pain washed over us. Coughing, sneezing, weeping, we staggered into the most distant part of our little apartment. After a few moments, we realized things weren't going to improve unless we let the bad air out and some good air in. We staggered back through the apartment, opening the two openable windows and turning on the kitchen and bathroom fans while swabbing tears and mucus from our faces. Since it was one of those well-below freezing mornings, we soon added shivering to our spasmodic performance. To make a long story a little shorter, we took turns venturing into the Ground Zero room to see if it was tolerable, as we still had to get dressed for work, and our clothes are stored in there. Eventually the air exchanged to the point where we could get dressed and go about our days. However, there are still things in this room that make our skin burn.
I was kind of determined to keep this particular adventure to myself, but as I showed up to work looking all weepy and bereft, I wound up having to explain. After they got done laughing, my coworkers kindly made sure I hadn't sustained any permanent damage. Then they told me similar tales - apparently people have mishaps with their bear spray pretty often. Usually they freeze in cars and crack, rendering them undrivable, so I guess it could have been worse. They also told me a few of the other dumb rookie mistakes I will probably make before I graduate to sourdough. So that's something to look forward to!
As an upside, as soon as the misery dies down a little, pepper spray smells absolutely delicious - sort of a very piquant paprika scent. But I don't recommend garnishing your house with it.

Havin' a cold wave

Not a lot of really exciting stuff to report on right now. Work is very crazy for me right now - a big project was culminating, and tomorrow I get to see if all is well and calms down, or if it gets super-crazy. Super-crazy would be a bad thing. Should be interesting. Art's work is getting very busy too, which we sure aren't complaining about!
Other than that, the big news is that it's very cold. I know! Who would have imagined? Cold in Alaska? Will wonders never cease! But seriously, it's been hovering around the zero mark for a few days now. We have started keeping the car plugged in overnight now - you can get block heaters installed in your car, and most parking places have electrical outlets on them. So you just plug your car in and it stays warmish and that prevents problems. Well, cold related ones, anyway.
Another thing people do up here is you can get remote start devices installed in your car - according to my coworkers, this is a popular thing for spouses to give each other ! This allows you to start your car from inside the house, which on 0 degree days is a very good thing. It's kind of freaky if you out in the parking lot, scraping off your car (which believe me - you are) and suddenly cars are roaring to life all around you. You start thinking to yourself "I'm pretty sure there was that one Stephen King story that started this way... If I hear Highway to Hell, I'm running." It's kind of disconcerting, is all I'm saying.

Not much doing...

As the title implies, nothing much exciting doing. So here are some brief updates on common topics for this blog:

• Daylight - fading fast! The sun rose this morning at 10 am and set at 3:44. We are getting close to the shortest day of the year (December 21, for those of you playing along at home).
• A few distant moose sightings, but no bear as they are mostly hibernating.
• Having a heat wave! It got slightly above the freezing mark several days in the past week or so!
• Seasonal shift in Anchorage Daily News common headlines (Of earlier post fame - News of the New!). Alaska Politician in Trouble is still quite popular. However, Animal Atrocity has switched to Avalanch Disaster, and Man Catches Big Fish has changed to Heartwarming Tale of Adversity Overcome. I look forward to the coming of warmer weather to see if they change back again. I bet they will.
• Christmas is coming. Our cards, of earlier post fame, are all sent out. Our gifts are all bought, and with a few exceptions, shipped out. What decorating we're doing (not much) is done. So it's all over except the panicky last minute gifts that will need to be bought after people with whom I have previously agreed not to exchange gifts suddenly show up with something, saying "Oh, I saw it and it's just you! I had to!" At that point, there's nothing you can do except try to keep the horror off your face and say something like "Oh, I left yours at home!" Damn you, agreement breaking gift givers, damn you!

Other than that, I am buried in geekery. I just bought a recipe management program (I know! But I have a lot of recipes. A lot. And they need more management than I can bring them manually.) About which, more in a later post. Also, just ordered a digital scrapbooking program that I am eager to start using. Of course it will need to show up first, but I am pretty excited at the possibilities. So there will be exciting news about that later, too.

I know. I can't wait either!