Icewind's Ramblings

The word listen . . . contains the same letters as the word silent. Ice

I am beginning to see the promos for the new television season and there are a few that might be interesting this year. I look forward to the new season of “Heroes” to see what direction it will go this year. I really enjoyed the writing and characters last year but was somewhat disappointed in the last episode of the season. It was a somewhat unexpected ending that left open possibilities . . . but I thought it could have been so much more with the different characters gathered there and with their various abilities to offer many possible directions to go . . . but we shall see what the next season will bring. With Heroes unexpected success it is natural that what comes next is the next generation of ‘knock off’ programs. TV seems to always be based all around trends, and basically the idea of what it is working from season to season. When the TV game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” had a great deal of success we saw a plethora of game shows come to prime time telev...

Fishing tales are always a great thing and everyone has stories to tell. I got an email from a friend of mine whose family are commercial fishermen down toward Dutch Harbor on the Aleutian island chain. His grandfather was a superintendent who commercial fished in the summers as augmentation to his wallet to feed his family of 7. Most of my friend’s aunts and uncles went on to different things, but one never lost the desire to fish commercially. He still fishes for king crab in the winter months and continues to spend his summers on the water as well running their family’s boat. My friend gets random email messages from this particular uncle from time to time, telling a great story of a good fishing day, or tales of ‘the one that got away’. I received one the other day forwarded from my friend that I just had to put up for y’all. Check out his (unedited) email before scrolling down to look at the photo. “Well . . . while out fishing the other day we saw a coupl...

. . . August is history and September is here! And it was a beautiful first day of September. Sunny almost all day with a few clouds and temperatures in the mid-60s, with a slight breeze that tickled my wind chimes all day on my front and back decks. After work it gave me a chance to be outside grilling some steaks, listening and watching the birds that come for food left for them on the deck railings. It is nice to see ‘my’ squirrel gathering his peanuts and food I put out so he can stash them for the coming winter. This red tailed squirrel has fared well the last two years as he looked like death warmed over when we first started putting out food and last winter he stashed probably about 16 pounds of peanuts and corn in his various caches around the property. It will not be long before winter sets in as the days are getting noticeably shorter again but it was nice being outside . . . feeling . . . enjoying the time before I take down my screen room and store a...

Alaskans are always looking for that next thrill . . . there are the ‘bore tide’ surfers here in Anchorage who seek out this natural phenomena that occurs daily but the bigger waves happen every few weeks during the new and full moon cycles. It is best seen during the high tide of Turnagain Arm in Cook Inlet just south of Anchorage Alaska . There is a new breed of Alaskan surfer who has found another interesting way to catch a wave. Granted this was not the biggest wave ever caught . . . but you gotta give the guy some credit the water temp was around 40 F. These waves you just can't get at your local wave pool . Lol There is an element of danger and awe waiting waves caused by calving glaciers. That's right, watch Garrett McNamara and Kealii Mamala tow-in surfing little tsunami waves (up to 25 ft. in height) caused by ice falling off Child's Glacier in South-Central Alaska. Enjoy! Now is that crazy or what? Ice