Anchorage--Day 3 & 4

I thought I should post a few photos from the view I had from my room. I didn't get to see much of Anchorage during the day because I was in meetings all day and the sun sets about 5-ish. However, I did manage to get a few. As it turns out, I was by a water way and I had no idea until I took these pictures.

I also had a chance to stop by an Arby's and get a fountain soda. You may think to yourself, well that's not such a big deal, but it is for me. There is no fountain soda in Dillingham. All sodas come in can or bottles.

Here are some pics from around Anchorage. There are mountains in the background. It was kinda neat. I didn't notice them until day 3. The meetings took up most of my days and I was glad to be out doing things in the evening.


I went to dinner at La Cabana Restaurant. It was ok. I had a huge margarita and I ordered the mole enchiladas. I liked the mole sauce, but I wasn't impressed with the enchiladas. I wasn't too impressed with dinner in general, but what can you do. There was little that could compete with the roasted quail and the pork roast from the previous night.



And again, I thought I would take a picture of Brian and Kim. They really were nice people. I bet they got a bit tired of me hanging around, making them go shopping with me. It was really sweet of them to show me around Anchorage. After dinner, we went shopping at Wal-Mart. I know, I know. It was sick and at one point I almost had a panic attack. There were just too many people in on place, grabbing things in front of me and kids running around screaming. It was all too much and I was glad when it was over. I ended up spending about $100 there on more personal hygine products, yarn and pyrex dishes. And that ended my night in Anchorage.
(Just a side note, I think Kim was pretty tired by this point and Brian was acting a bit zany.)

The next day, I didn't have to be at the airport until 10:30 so I was hoping to sleep in a bit. Instead, housekeeping was banging on my door at 8:15am. After that I couldn't sleep so I got up and went down to the restaurant and waited for Kim & Brian. (I was giving them a ride to the airport) That is when I found out that my camera batteries were dead.

I had planned on taking a picture of the volcano, but the cloud coverage was so thick I would not have been able to take a picture anyway. I also wanted to get a picture of the plane being de-iced before take off. That is scary to think that the plane needs something like that. But the good news is, I made it home safely.

Volcano issues

The good news is, the volcano still hasn't erupted. The bad news is, I still fly over the thing tomorrow. I have made a simulated flight path for my plane and the volcano. It's a very rough, but you get the idea.

Here's hoping.

Anchorage--Day 2 (foodie delight)

So day two started out with a $4.00 Starbucks coffee. Mmmm...sweet latte goodness. Then I went to meetings. All day meetings. It was boring. The good thing that happens is some awesome networking. I met this nice girl from Petersburg (which has better fiber optic internet and cell phones) named Kim. Her and her husband are staying here in Anchorage. She got a companion flight for cheap so he came along. His name is Brian. They are really sweet people.

They invited me out for dinner with them to Orso. This was a pretty pricey place to go, but since I didn't eat lunch or breakfast I thought I would go all out for dinner. It was worth it.
I got the house special which is a 4 course meal. The first course was a cheese tart (that I forgot to take a picture of) with an arugula salad on top of it. Think mini quiche with a salad on top of it. It was pretty good. The next course was roasted quail. It was FREAKIN' AWESOME! This is a whole roasted little bird. There was only about 4 bites of meat on the sucker, but it was so good and juicy. The cream sauce was so good I almost asked the server for a biscuit to put it on, but I decided not to. The quail came on a bed of lentils.

The next course was apple roasted pork on a bed of mashed potatoes and roasted carrots. The pork was so tender, it just fell it apart. This too was just so awesome. I'm not sure what sauce came on it, but it was great.

And then for the finale...Cherry cake stuff. I have to say, it was too hard to beat the quail and the pork so the dessert was a bit of a disappointment. And by the time the dessert came, I was full, very full. But it was pretty.
Kim had the same meal I did, only she choose to have the 4 courses of wine as well. By the dessert course, she was "not present." (Her words, not mine) She was happy the wine with this course was smaller.

After dinner, we went to Michael's, Bed Bath & Beyond, & Target in my rental car. Yeah, I broke down and got a rental, mostly because it would cost more in taxi's than to rent a car. When I went to put things in the trunk, this is what a tag hanging in the back looked like...
I'm guessing this means that if you pull the tag, a man jumps out of your trunk, running. Are people really that scared of getting locked in their trunk or abducted and put into a trunk? Or is a selling point of a Ford Focus the fact that a body can fit in to the trunk? I'm not sure about this one. At least the tag glows in the dark.

After shopping, we rolled through a Taco Bell. I bought a bean burrito & one of those cheesy bacon double stacks. I planned on eating for breakfast since breakfast in the hotel is stupid expensive. I was excited about Taco Bell. Really excited.
It almost has normal prices. I miss that. I paid $4.10 for a 10 pack of Irish Springs soap. I had not been so happy to see those kinds of prices in my life. In Dillingham, I usually pay about $4.00 for 2 bars of soap. I am so excited. I also bought some shampoo for $2.00, this is $4.00 cheaper than Dillingham prices. Who knew I would get so excited about personal care products.

An Adventure in Anchorage Alaska--Day 1

I had to leave today from work to catch a plane to the large metropolis known as Anchorage. I sat next to a nice man that works at Bristol Bay Native Association. He was taking the red eye to Orlando, Florida. Poor guy. I was glad to be off the small-ish, cold plane in Anchorage. The guy pointed out the volcano that they are calling for an eruption within the next few days. If you look past the plane engine--the high mountain on the horizon...Yep, that's a volcano. I wasn't impressed either. But if it erupts, it might cause a few flight delays.
When we landed, it was dark. I recognized the familiar orange glow of city life. The plane ride only took about 1 hour and 20 minutes. And because the plane is so small, it just stops on around the terminal area. We have to walk on the ice and packed snow to the door. It was a bit slippery.


I made it to the hotel and I was starving. So I went shopping. I picked up a pair of cute peep toe shoes for $6 at payless and bought some earrings at Hot topic. As I was walking back to the hotel, I started looking for places to eat. I almost ate at some steak house when I saw the signs for the Glacier Brewhouse. I ordered a mediocure margarita made with the blonde ale. I'm sure the ale was fine, but there wasn't enough salty lime goodness to make it a good margarita. The highlight of the meal was the seared Ahi tuna. OMG! It was nice & pretty.
I am looking forward to another day of shopping tomorrow and I am hoping I can find an outback steakhouse and a taco bell. That would really make the trip complete. In the mean time, I will have to go to a grantee meeting.

Anchorage Bound

Samara and I arrived in Dillingham at the end of August 2008. Besides Dillingham, we spent about an hour in the Anchorage airport. That's all we've seen of Alaska.

But, as of 5:30 today, Samara was on a flight to the big city, Anchorage, Alaska. She's there for a couple of days for a grantee meeting (it's a work thing) and hopefully she'll get a chance to do a little shopping and see some moose roaming the streets.

I'll be spending that time playing video games pretty much non-stop, except for when I'm working.

So expect some pictures of Anchorage when she returns.

Announcement

Folks, there's news. We've already let our families know, but here's the official blog post.

We're going to stay in Dillingham for a second year. Samara is enjoying her job, and Aaron got permission from the judge to stay for a second year. The money is pretty good, so we think it's worth it.

I'm sure some of you will be disappointed, but rest assured that we'll be back to Lexington after the second year. We'll also come visit sometime after the first year.

Sorry if anyone is disappointed, but look at it this way: it's more time to save up money and visit us in rural Alaska!

Mail shout outs

We have heard that a few different people were sending us stuff and after the planes not flying last week and the holiday on Monday, we finally received a few packages. We received a couple boxes from Dallas with Rx items from Wal-Greens and dollar items from Target. (I miss Target.) She also threw in some nice soaps and lotions. YAY! No more stinking. Aaron's mom sent Aaron a pair of boots and a fleece blanket with moose and bears on it. It's pretty cute. And she sent me some batteries for my camera which is great because my camera refuses to use anything but those titanium ones and I can't seem to find them here. And then there was a small package from Dennis. Thank you everyone that sends us care packages. We love and appreciate it. We miss everyone too, just thought you all should know.

In other news, I have started knitting again. Knitted cat toys seem to be what I like making, but I have also completed a head band-thingy. I might even get around to taking a picture of it since I now have batteries for my camera.
----Update-----
Ignore the mistakes and the holes.
These things are addicting. My cats are going to have 50 of these by the time I'm finished.

Snake Lake, Part Deux

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Tomorrow we get a black president. It's pretty exciting.

Today, though, I got up early and dropped Samara off for work. She doesn't get MLK Day off. Then I watched a crappy movie on TV. At 10am, I called Erin and Anthony. I met them out at the place where they're housesitting.

We packed up their Highlander with the three of us, the two dogs they're watching, and headed off to Snake Lake Mountain. Of course, the first time we drove by, we missed it completely. We got almost to Aleknagik before we realized and turned around. We found it the second time we passed it.

Unlike last time, Anthony was able to drive to the top of the first hill and park in the turnaround. We all put on our snowshoes, and walked a little ways before we figured out that we really didn't need them. I clipped mine to my backpack and Anthony carried the other two pair over his shoulders. We let the dogs run loose, and they seemed to really enjoy themselves.

It didn't take long at all to reach the first look-out point.

Here are Erin and Anthony taking a break.

After that break, we kept going. (This is the point where Anthony and I turned around last time, so this was all new views for me. It was easier to walk today, since the snow was much more packed.) The air was really clear today, which made for better pictures.

Here are Erin and Anthony, hoofing it up the mountain.

Here you can see Snake Lake off in the distance, provided you know what you're looking for.

It's kind of hard to tell the difference between snow on the flats and a lake, especially when the light makes the whole picture bluish. Snake Lake is the slightly darker blue that you can see a sliver of just beneath the mountains in the back of this picture.

Here's another good mountain vista. The mountains here aren't very big, and are pretty close.

The dogs had a lot of energy for the whole hike. Anthony had almost as much energy. Here he is, playing with one of the dogs.

After a bit more hiking, we took another break.

Here's a slightly closer view of Snake Lake. No, not the white area to the left of the picture. That's just snowy flats. It's the silvery blue strip just below the mountains in the center-right of the picture.

On the way back down the trail, Anthony decided to climb the mountain up to a higher trail. Can you spot him from a distance?

How about a closer view?

And then, a long view as he summits.

Erin and I took the opportunity to relax as he climbed. My ankle was already a bit sore. I guess my right ankle is just my weak spot. It doesn't hurt as bad as my last hike, though.

On the way back down, we made another stop at the first look-out point.

We sat down, drank some water, and threw rocks down onto the snow for the dogs to fetch.

Even though the dogs aren't really very good at playing fetch, the view was nice.

That's it for pictures. We made it back to the car, and headed back down the road to the place where Erin and Anthony are housesitting. For lunch, they made tomato soup and grilled cheese. Since we hiked from about 11am to about 3pm, we were all hungry. After lunch, Erin took a nap, and Anthony and I took a steam.

Steaming is an Alaskan tradition. Yep, everyone likes going for a steam in the steam. What does that mean? Well, it's a wet sauna. You start by heading out into the little wooden shed, which has an antechamber and a steam room. You start a log fire in the cast-iron stove in the steam room, and let it get nice and hot. Once it is hot, you pour water over the stove and the lava rocks piled on top, and it creates steam.

What's weird, though, is that people actually bathe in these steams. Neither Anthony nor I had ever used a steam before, but once we got it figured out, we enjoyed ourselves. We even soaped up and scrubbed off, using little basins of cold water. Let me tell you, once you're hot and steamy, washing off with cold water is REALLY cold.

Now, you probably figure that once you're done in the 100+ degree steam, it would feel freezing outside, where it's 20 degrees. Once you're dried off, though, it doesn't feel that cold outside. Both Anthony and I were surprised that it seemed more like a 60 degree day outside. It was a strange sensation.

I picked Samara back up at 5pm. I felt bad because she had to work all day, dealing with various silly little crisises, while I had a relaxing day. Well, a tiring day, really, but it was fun. We had some dinner and watched some TV, and we're both looking forward to another day of work tomorrow.

More boring weather posts

Reading about the weather can't be that exciting. Sometimes, though, it seems like that's what we have a lot of here in Alaska.

It was miserably cold for a while, and then it got warm and rained. A lot of the snow is gone, now, as evidenced by the view from our window.

The rain is gone now, too, and everything has turned back to ice, with only a light dusting of snow over it. I really hope it snows like crazy soon, because we need more snow.

Let's see... what's more entertaining? I spent some time with Anthony yesterday, working. He and Erin are housesitting for some folks out on Aleknagik Rd. The guy is a doctor, and the house is huge. I went out there yesterday and helped Anthony cut firewood. He did most of the cutting, and I stacked it into an aluminum sled. Then we hauled it up to the house by pulling the sled with a snowmachine. It was a chore, and yet it was really satisfying work. Alaska is a beautiful place where life seems to move a little slower, and what would otherwise be dull activities seem to be more enjoyable.

Today, we're having turkey day again. Samara is roasting a bird. I've made light rolls. A few people are coming by, and we're going to enjoy a big dinner.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I have off, but Samara doesn't. I'm thinking about doing some hiking, presuming that the weather isn't too horrible.

Rain, rain, go away...

It's officially colder in Lexington, Kentucky than it is in Dillingham, Alaska. We've been enjoying balmy temperatures in the mid-30s now for a couple of days.

Along with that comes rain. Rain is really bad here in the winter. Anchorage has closed their schools for two days in a row because of it. It melts the ice, but not completely. Our roads are all sheets of ice with puddles of water on top. Walking anywhere requires careful steps or cleats.

It may be hard to believe, but we're all praying for freezing temperatures and more snow. I can handle 20 degrees and snowing. I can't handle 38 degrees and raining, especially when there's already a foot of hard-packed snow all around.

It's like Alaska wants us to experience all the possible weather it can throw at us. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of driving on ice so slippery that it was nearly impossible to stop, drive through snow deep enough that I'd worry about getting stuck, and through water so deep that I was worried it might come into the car.

Ah, variety. It's the spice of life.

I'd like my weather a little more bland, please.

Mittens!

Many months ago, Samara and I were in the L&M Hardware store, and realized that they sold pelts. Among the various animal pelts you could buy from local trappers were beaver pelts. We told Ann about it, and joked that it would be funny to make something out of beaver fur.

As Christmas neared, we realized that one of the primary native crafts was the making of mittens out of beaver fur. When we went to the craft bazaar at the school in early December, they had hats and mittens made from beaver fur, as well as seal, wolf, fox and all sorts of other animals that the local native people hunt. The local native craftspeople spend a lot of time working on their crafts, and it shows in the prices. We had thought about simply buying some beaver mittens for Ann for Christmas. The prices, however, started at $150 and went up from there. Nice seal and wolf hats were $600. Not within our price range.

The result is that Ann only just received her Christmas present in the mail. I handcrafted a pair of beaver mittens for her, and it cost much less to do it, even with authentic materials.

I bought a beaver pelt at the L&M store for $79.


Then I bought a small scrap of moose hide as well.


I found a pattern on the internet for a style of mittens called "chopper" mittens. I printed the pattern, and cut out the moose hide for the palms and finger. It is very difficult to sew leather.


You have to use a special needle, called a glover's needle, that has sharp, three-sided point that punches through the leather. It took a long time to sew together the pieces using the reinforced polyester thread.


True authentic mittens would be made with sinew, but I don't think even the natives use it anymore.


The beaver hide was thinner leather, but it was still difficult to sew the palms and backs together with the entire mitten inside-out.


Once they were all finished, I knew they needed a liner.


I bought a fleece pullover at the local thrift store for $1, and used it to make essentially another pair of mittens out of fleece. Then I sewed them in as the liners and sewed the bottom all the around as a cuff. They turned out pretty neat.


I felt like the finished mittens were missing something, though. I only had two native Alaskan animals used so far, and the mittens needed a toggle so that they could be clipped together when they weren't being worn. That's where the caribou jawbone that Olaf gave me came in handy. (If you don't recall or haven't read the whole blog, I picked up a slightly intoxicated man from in front of the AC and gave him a ride home one day a few months ago. In return, he gave me the jawbone of a caribou that was laying around his yard. It seemed a strange gift at the time.) I cut a small piece of bone from the jawbone and filed and polished it into a toggle shape. Then I put a hole through the middle and attached it to the mittens with a moose hide thong.


So that's the finished product. Fleece-lined beaver mittens with moose hide palms and a caribou-jawbone toggle. It's about an authentic a native craft as you can get, I'd say. And all the animal products are by-products of subsistence hunting and trapping. Alaska may be one of the last places in the United States where you can still get away with wearing animal furs without getting red paint thrown on you by PETA, but it seems natural when the hides are harvested by natives and not from fur-farms.


I really hope that Ann enjoys her mittens. She seemed very excited about them (as well as her other Christmas gifts). Samara wants me to make her a pair now. I have some beaver pelt left, but I'm not sure if it's enough for another pair of mittens. I'm also not sure I want to commit to that much work! Did I mention that hand-stitching leather is hard work? I guess we'll see. It does seem only fair that she gets a pair too, since she moved all the way to the frozen northlands with me.

Vroom, vroom!

What's the solution when the temperatures are in the negative and your car just won't start?

Wait for it to get warmer. Monday was 20F instead of -20F, and on lunch, Anthony helped me jumpstart the Canyonero. After a while, it sputtered to life, no thanks to the many functional and nonfunctional heating devices I've tried on it. (On another note, it's strange how quickly you adjust to winter temperatures. I walked out of the house into freezing 20 degree weather and remarked aloud, "Wow it's warm today." Anthony and Samara both agreed with me.)

Anyway, so the Canyonero started. Of course, it ran pretty crappy and what looked like gasoline was leaking from the muffler, probably from flooding the engine repeatedly in our attempts to get it to light off. As I drove it back over to work, I barely had any oil pressure, and it just didn't want to stay running. That made me pretty nervous, and I was feeling pretty blue over the entire episode.

Then I decided to make a trip to NAPA to buy oil, an oil filter and some spark plugs to do a tune-up. The Canyonero was running like its old self again. I'm relieved.

I also had a nice conversation with a gentlemen in Tennessee about the radiator hose heater that wasn't working. He's sending a new one out in the mail. Anthony's works great, so we're both confident that a functional hose heater will keep the car warm enough to start in the colder weather. So I have more car work on my plate, but I'm once again optimistic that it will all start to come together in a way that leaves me with a functioning vehicle, even when the temperatures drop again.

Oh, I also want to give a shout-out to Barbara, Ann's mom. She's been posting comments on our blog lately. It's always nice to know that people are reading, so if someone amuses you, go ahead and post a comment. We like to hear from all our friends and family.

More good news today: Samara has been booked for a training in Anchorage at the end of this month. I knew the court system wasn't going to be sending me anywhere out of Dillingham, but Samara kept holding out hope that SAFE would send her for a conference or training in Anchorage some day. Apparently that day has come. This is a big deal for us here in Dillingham. Anchorage, which is on the road system, has Lower 48-esque prices on all sorts of goods. People go there to shop and stock up on anything they need. You can get all kinds of good things in Anchorage that wouldn't be available in Dillingham. It should be a good time for Samara. I'll make her take the camera and snap photos of all the fast food restaurants, malls, and moose wandering the streets.

Fish tacos for dinner

Aaron mentioned yesterday morning that he wanted some fried fish tacos. We were given some fish by a friend after Christmas. I was very happy that the fish included both salmon and halibut, because salmon doesn't fry very well and I just don't care for it. But the halibut is pretty good and when its hot, you can't even taste the fish flavor.

So I found a recipe that I liked Baja Fried-Fish Tacos and with that I made a mango salsa, fiesta cabbage salad and cilantro lime cream sauce. Our vegetarian friends even ate the tacos. I was impressed. Not only is this the 3rd time I've ever made fish, but it is the first time I've ever deep fried it. My favorite part was the cilantro lime sauce.

I would have gotten pictures, but my camera batteries died the other day. Where in the world does one buy AA lithium batteries in the Alaskan bush? I am hoping the grocery store, but we'll see.

In more news, the car still isn't starting. Aaron added another heating device to the car. One of these days our car will get started, but it doesn't seem like today is the day. But the good news is we are having a heatwave. Google weather says it's currently 16 degrees with a high of 21.

Deliveries

Our Canyonero is not starting still. But the folks of Dillingham are nice people. Someone Samara met at the knitting group she went to turned out to live next door to us. She picked us up and took us to work Thursday and Friday. It was a nice thing to do, considering the wind chill temperatures have been averaging 15 to 20F below.

On lunch today, I went to the post office. I only found one yellow card in our PO box indicating that we'd gotten a package, so I hoped that it was the radiator hose heater. When the lady brought my packages from the back, it turned out to be two boxes from Sierra Trading Company and the heater. It was good thing that the boxes from Sierra Trading weren't heavy, because I had to walk all the way back to the apartment with them.

So now I have a radiator hose heater that's the right size for my radiator hose. I was very excited about that. I tried to install it after work tonight, but I ran out of light and the hose clamp at the radiator outlet is extremely hard to get to. Tomorrow, I'll get it installed and hopefully get the Canyonero started.

The Sierra Trading boxes were even more exciting. My new snowshoes are awesome. I tried them out right away in our backyard, and they were really effective. I can do some real winter hiking now. I might have to order another pair for Samara, since they were so cheap. I also got my Asolo hiking boots. They're comfortable, warm, and have great ankle support. Samara got some snowpants--women's XL. When she tried them on, they didn't fit at all. That was really frustrating, but when she tried on the ones I have from REI, those fit her. They're a men's large. So I tried on hers, and they just barely fit me--they're comfortable, but tight around my waist. I have no idea what they were thinking if I'm supposed to be the size of an extra large woman. These snowpants are clearly not sized right. But the upside is that Samara has a pair that fit, and so do I. They're just opposite of the pairs we ordered for ourselves. Samara also got some winter hiking boots, and gloves. And we both got balaclavas. We'll be plenty warm when we go out.

We stayed in tonight to relax, and at some point, there was a lot of noise that sounded like a kid crying or something. Samara got up to check it out and I didn't pay much attention. She came back inside to get her boots and said that our neighbor Tiffany had fallen and hurt herself. So I threw on some shoes and came outside as well. It turned out that Tiffany had fallen on our front steps, and when she put her hand out to catch herself, she broke her wrist. She was still on the ground, having trouble standing back up. Samara, Mara and I helped her up, and we put her in Mara's boyfriend's truck. They took her to the hospital. A few hours later, Tiffany knocked on our door to thank us for helping. She had a nurse with her. Tiffany said she'd broken her wrist completely and the bone was offset. She had it in a sling and said they'd given her a shot of demerol. The nurse is staying with her tonight and then she's flying to Anchorage tomorrow. A life flight out of here to Anchorage costs like $14,000 from what I've heard, so if you can wait until morning, it's much cheaper to buy the $300 fare to Anchorage on one of the three daily flights. I just can't imagine the pain she must be in. I've broken far more than my share of bones, and the only time I've had a fracture that went completely through the bone and was offset was when I broke my femur. That's the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. I guess the femur is probably worse because the muscles of the thigh contract and the femur is the only bone holding them extended. At least with the wrist, you have a second bone to keep the muscles from pulling your bone too far over itself. But still, that's got to be excruciating. It's no wonder that Tiffany seemed to be going into shock already when we helped her off the ground.

I'm vowing right now to do everything I can to keep from having a traumatic injury in Dillingham. No fractures for me, thanks.

On a more pleasant note, Anthony returned from Anchorage today. I sent him with an order for 7.62x54R, since the local hardware store is almost out of ammo for my rifle. I had called around, and boxes of ammo in Anchorage were priced like the lower 48--$15 for a box of 20 rounds instead of $27. I figured now was the time to stock up. Well, Anthony really came through. He found a shop that had Russian surplus ammo for $5 per 20. So he bought me 200 rounds for $50, which means he still has $40 left over from the $90 I sent him with to buy ammo. I had only expected to get 120 rounds for my money.

To recap: new snow gear, lots of ammo, a soon-to-be-running car, and a vow never to break a bone in rural Alaska. That's the news, folks.

Another Day of Walking in the Cold

I'm sure many of you have felt cold wind that makes your eyes tear up.

But how many of you have had your tears freeze to your face?

Weather dot com tells me that it's only -11F this morning, but that it feels like -30F. I believe you, weather dot com. I believe you.

Even with snow pants, hooded sweatshirt, parka, warm hat and nomex face mask, I got cold on the walk to work this morning. The car wouldn't start at lunch yesterday, when the temperatures had gotten a bit above zero. But I have good news! The radiator hose heater I ordered is on its way. And the forecast for next week is highs near 15 to 25F. That's much warmer.

Hell, in Alaska, that's practically sweater weather.

Bitter Cold

Oh, weather dot com, you cad!

You know it's going to be a good day when your forecast reads thus: "Bitterly cold. Plentiful sunshine. High around 0F."

Over the weekend, Anthony and I had a very successful work day in Saramay's heated garage. We both installed battery blankets. He installed a radiator hose heater, and I installed a silicone hot pad on the bottom of my oil pan. All these things plug in overnight so that your car will start in the morning.

My car wouldn't start this morning. Of course, it was like -19F, according to Google. It's warmed up to about -8F right now, so on lunch, I'll probably go home and try to start it again.

I thought I'd be all set when I bought a nice recirculating tank-style coolant heater for the Canyonero. The problem is that there's no way to get access to the right hoses to install the damn thing. Silly man, just get a freeze plug block heater, you say? Well, there's no access to my freeze plugs. I can just barely see the side of the block around the engine mounts, alternator, exhaust manifolds and all the four-wheel drive crap. It's just too crowded to get at the side of the block.

So, that leaves the radiator hose-style heater. It'd probably work great, but I didn't want to do it if I didn't have to. Anthony bought the one that they had at NAPA, so I'll try to order one soon.

Oh, I also had a little magnetic stick-on block heater thing, but the cord cracked in the "bitter" cold and now the wires are exposed.

Samara was definitely not happy this morning when we both had to walk to work in the negative temperatures. That long underwear sure is coming in handy now.

I guess if I'm looking for a silver lining, it's that we haven't had the temperatures they've had in Anchorage. -35F? No thanks. That's 67 degrees below freezing, you know.

Update:

I went home on lunch, and according to various sources, the temperature is now between 0F and 12F. (I don't know where the 12F came from--it sure doesn't feel like 12F.) Anyway, the car started fine. I'm ordering a radiator hose heater as I type this.

New Year Post

It's a new year. You might be wondering how we celebrated the new year here in Alaska. It involves fondue and sparkling white zinfandel. Erin and Anthony came over and helped us celebrate by playing video games and watching the ball drop.

First, some fondue pictures.

This is Erin trying to find the crusty cheese at the bottom of the fondue pot.

And this is Aaron and Anthony posing with fondue.

Erin then did some Wii bowling.

Aaron is frightened by Anthony's dominating Wii bowling technique.

Anthony was a real bowler once, you know. Had his own shoes and everything. That doesn't always translate into video game bowling skills, unfortunately.

At midnight, Alaska time, we all had ourselves a toast of sparkling wine.

We stayed up until about 2 or 3 in the morning watching the movie Serenity. Well, Anthony fell asleep a little, but they were still here until late.

On Sunday, I woke up at the crack of noon. Then Samara made a good breakfast of fried potatoes and onions. We called Erin and Anthony, and Erin and Samara went grocery shopping, while Anthony sat on our floor and worked on his homemade snowshoes.

I'm hopeful that they'll work, since they look pretty cool. Me? I went the lazy route and ordered some discount snowshoes from Sierra Trading. I also ordered some hiking boots that were on sale, and Samara has boots, snowpants, and gloves on the way. We should all be ready for a winter hike soon.

We've heard from a number of folks around the new year, and it sounds like everyone is doing well. You can't ask for more than pleasant news from all your loved ones around the new year.

So, again, Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy New Year

Happy 2009, everyone!