Look, honey......

THE INTERNET!!!!!

Good life, but busy

With apologies to my dissertation, here are some things that have actually happened in the last several weeks:

Back in early September, Beth and I headed back to Michigan for her brother's wedding. It was a lovely ceremony and reception (pretty amazing how many people I knew there) and the hotel had a water park in it! Congratulations to Ian and Frances (and Berkley, too).

While we were there I got a call from the AK Department of Natural Resources, offering me a job. So I accepted it and started work the Monday after I got back. I work in the easements section of the Division of Mining, Land and Water, adjudicating trail applications for the Mat-Su Borough. In English, this means that while there is a large network of trails on state lands throughout the borough (county) north of Anchorage.

And what else has been happening.... oh, right! Beth and I finally closed on our house the last weekend of September. Since then life has been a whirlwind of painting, packing, unpacking, fixing, buying, power tooling, firewooding and flopping lifelessly onto the couch to zone out for a bit at the end of the day while our neighbors watch our every move (curtaining is next on the list). Things are finally starting to settle down now, and although we've still got plenty to do around here its just really nice and already feels like home. I love it (so does Beth, but she's not writing this) and its just really satisfying to live in a place thats mine. It makes it worth it to put this much effort into making the place nice.

The first snowfall of the season is supposed to start any time now - which is almost the latest ever for Anchorage (Nov 15) - and we've got a toasty fire in the fireplace. Dinner's in the oven and I actually spent several hours working on my dissertation today. Beth's almost done making the bed (literally, with wood and power tools, not just putting on sheets.) and we've got a bottle of wine open. Life's pretty good!

Twos

My life since the last post can be summed up in a series of 2s: 2 hikes, 2 parents, 2 fantasy football drafts, 2 abstracts submitted for a conference, barfed 2 x 2 x 2 times in one night and now the next 2 weekends I'll be on the road for Beth's brother's wedding and some vacation time.

Crescent Lake

Headed out again last weekend to Crescent Lake, starting only about 5-10 miles from the trail we took with Brigit. This time we went with Pat and Jenny, two of Beth's coworkers, their dog Danny, and our landlords' dog Maui, who we borrowed for the weekend. The weather forecasts were pretty dire, but it ended up mostly just raining at night, so we were able to get out in a rowboat a bit, do some fishing for Arctic Grayling, play with the dogs, build fires and generally have some good old fashioned fun. As a bonus, we stopped by a stream on the way out where we could see a bunch of salmon making their way upstream to spawn. At this point in their journey, the salmon are basically inedible zombie-fish, but they look really cool with the classic red and green coloring and hooked jaws.

When it rains, the dry firewood's up in the trees.

Beth was a rowing machine!
Maui loved her time out in the woods. Good to get off the leash for a couple of days!

Jenny and Pat with some of our Grayling dinner which they caught. Delicious.

Me 'n my lady on the trail.

Some of the spawning salmon in Quartz creek.

Brigit's visit

So my little sis came out to visit a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately the weather to stop its whole "beautiful for weeks on end" act just before she got here, but it still stayed pretty dry the whole time at least. Our main activity was a backpacking trip to the south of Anchorage, where we were greeted at the trailhead by an ominous sign:

But fortunately this was the only bear that we saw.... yes, I'm talking about the tiny dot just above the middle of the picture:



The only animals we saw up close were ducks, ptarmigan, magpies (yes, Brigit, they're a real animal) and some trout. We were staying in a very pretty cabin on the shore of a lake in the mountains, which was all very scenic:





And here's just a couple shots to prove that we were there, too:

I want this!

3 blind meese

Went for a bike ride with Beth on Saturday afternoon. It was a lovely 21 miles along the coastal trail, highlighted by these 3 moose on our way back home.

All's quiet on the northern front

Things up here in Alaska are pretty quiet these days, although while the rest of the state is counting down the days until Sarah Palin leaves office, I'm counting the days until my little sister shows up (admittedly, mostly because this is easier, as I currently only have to count to 2). Unfortunately, our glorious summer weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse, but it should be a fun visit regardless of whether it clears up before the weekend. Plus, it could be a valuable chance for us to teach her the lesson about "if you're not going to go outside just because the weather's no good, you probably shouldn't be in Alaska." And sis, if you read this and get worried, give Gareth a call and ask him how his lesson in shitty Wyoming weather went. Or maybe I'll just tell you: awesome.

While the rest of the world was all abuzz about Sarah Palin quitting as governor, I spent the fourth of July hiking just to the east of Denali National Park. The weather was great, and although it was too hazy for good views the last two days, the first day was spectacular, and up here you just can't complain about 76 degrees and sunshine.

You can complain about bugs, though. This may have been the buggiest trip that I've ever been on, and I took this picture at a moment when I thought the bugs weren't that bad. There were times when stopping was unthinkable.

Here's the view over my tent with Ermine lake in the midground and the foothills of the Alaska Range in the background. This one goes down as one of my all-time favorite campsites.

Here's what the terrain looked like for much of the hike. We were up on a high (~2500 feet) broad ridge, with a few scattered trees, but mostly just wide open.

I think I said something about views, right? They were awesome.

I wish this picture were better. Hopefully if you click on it it will enlarge.

This is from our hike up to the top of the ridge. It was really steep, but the rest breaks came with nice views.

gift fish

I went upstairs to give the rent to the landlords and Jim was like "want a fish?" Clearly, I answered in the affirmative.

Fun fact: Jim placed 12th in the World Beard and Moustache Championships in May.

Turning of the tides

I stole these pictures from Beth. They're from our kayaking trip in Prince William Sound this past weekend. We paddled out from Whittier to Decision Point - about 8 miles - and set up camp at a nice peaceful little cove. Beth lit a campfire (no matches - just flint!) about 12 feet above the water on a pretty pebble beach, and this is what happened.

Fortunately, it was almost 11pm when the tide put our fire out, which is a nicer way of nature telling you its bedtime than, say, pouring rain.

Oregon Adventure 1

Over Memorial Day weekend I went rafting on the Deschutes River with Dave Towers and some of his friends from Portland/college. We spent 3 days and 2 nights on the river, with sunny skies and warm temperatures. I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, because I was worried about my camera getting wet, but I got a couple.

Oregon Adventures 2

My last weekend in Oregon was spent road-tripping out to La Grande, OR with Dave Towers to see our old Jackson Hole roommates Garry Sanders and Carly Auten. Despite the fact that they were in the process of moving into their new house, they were great hosts and picked an awesome hike to do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. With the last snow melting rapidly from the surrounding peaks, the rivers were raging, and generally stole the show from the rest of the scenery.

Prince William Sound cruise

Had a great day on Saturday, cruising Prince William Sound with Beth and her parents in beautiful weather and checking out the scenery and the wildlife.

Mears glacier is at the head of this fjord. We got to watch it calving, which was pretty spectacular.

Just a side valley of Mears fjord. Ho-hum....

A seal haul-out on a large island in the sound. This is just a spot where juvenile seals and a few "unsuccessful" males rest in the sun.

Here's a humpback whale surfacing and eating. I got the feeling that this was the backup whale for the cruise line, in case we didn't see any full-grown adults up close, because they knew just where to find it and we stopped to watch it twice. Still, it was pretty cool.

My mom hates everything about sea otters, except turning them into coats! I actually took this by holding the camera up to a pair of binoculars.

Because I can...

...I grew a moustache.
























Then I shaved it off....

Coming soon: Oregon update and photos

Don't worry, I'll have pictures and stories from my time here in Oregon up soon enough. But first I have to go and have a couple more adventures before Monday, when I finally get to go HOME!

Caution! !!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I opened the tupperware container that had my sandwich in it yesterday at lunch, I noticed a warning printed in 5 languages on the lid: "CAUTION: CONTAINER MAY BE HOT." I thought this was really strange, since I bought this as a shrink-wrapped package of 5 empty containers from a (non-heated) shelf at the grocery store, and at that time it seemed like a pretty safe bet that the container wasn't hot. So are they just warning people that if they put something hot in the container, that hot thing will not instantly become cool to the touch?

And if thats the case, shouldn't they warn about all of the other things people could decide to store in the tupperware?

CAUTION: CONTAINER MAY BE FULL OF VIPERS!!!

PANDEMIC!!!!!

Not just a cause for panic, its an addictive flash game, too. Give it a try!

Pandemic 2

at http://www.addictinggames.com/pandemic2.html

So much to do!

I am definitely feeling stressed out by this whole "so much to do, so little time" scenario. I'm running out of lab supplies and trying to get more ordered (end of next week?!?!) grinding sediments, decarbonating, removing organics with heat and with chemicals, sieving, centrifuging and soon dispersing, settling, separating, spiking, X-raying, fluxing and ESing. Oh crap, I forgot I gotta do some soaking, too.

Some NZ Pictures