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.