Icewind's Ramblings

It’s been a busier than normal week for me here. My daughter has been back in the hospital so the time spent there with trying to grab a couple of hours sleep before heading off to work has left me somewhat a ‘grumpy old man’. The last thing anyone wants is the phone to ring around 4:30 in the morning . . . as there are usually only two things that goes through someone’s thought process at that hour. One is someone has died or the second is something bad has happened . . . last night or actually early this morning was one of those times. Without making this a rant or being really irate I’ll try to put it into a not so biting tirade. What I wish people knew about Alaska that they may not currently know. The time! I was ready to kill someone this morning . . . If only I could reach through the phone . . . If I get another middle of the night phone call (even though it is still light outside) from some East Coast telemarketer, I just might go complete

Bittersweet day here for me . . . My daughter turns 23 today . . . she lives in Florida so she has no family there to enjoy it with. She called last night saying she was having a pretty crappy day . . . I talked with her today and things were going better. She and her son were at a DQ drive through getting an ice cream . . . a nice way to beat the heat of Florida on a summer day. Some basic facts of life that I have discovered by observation: Life is unfair. Unfair has two sides . . . the sweet and the bitter. You can choose which side of unfair you want to be. Ice

It started out as any normal day . . . early. I awoke and drank a cup of coffee while I showered and headed out for work. It was just after four am and the sun was just coming over the mountains. It was a somewhat typical Alaskan summer morning . . . full light at an early hour . . . birds chirping . . . dogs barking . . . and as I made my way down the street there’s a black bear rummaging through the trash cans left on the curb about ten houses away from mine. This would only be a half day of work as I have my first chance of the season to play a round of golf. It is a business outing with Mark my salesman from United Rental where we rent all of our equipment for jobs. We get our man lifts, forklifts, and extend-a-boom lifts from him. Chris & Scott who work for UIC construction were also in our foursome. I picked Scott up at his house on the way to Moose Run Golf Course. It is a public course but is on part of Fort Richardson ’s land. There are two areas