Icewind's Ramblings

Nah! It never left us this “Summer”. How does the cold climate affect the way you live in winter? What do you have to do differently than in the summer? Remember to sleep! Everyone acts like ants in the summertime. Busy . . . busy . . . busy. There are many activities going on during this time for gathering the grain (or the salmon) to help us make it through another tough winter. People can be found on the hillsides picking berries or in Mat-Su valley growing the ‘giant’ veggies that we see at the Alaska Fair each year. I sense a theme going on as we're Tougher in Alaska . See what I mean? This is how stereotypes get started. With our days growing shorter again and the onset of fall in the air there is a feeling of what happened to our summer. If we would have paid for it this year I am sure there would be many people holding on to their receipts and demanding a refund since we have not had but one day this year that officially reached 70 d...

Driving for Jesus . . . Driving for Jesus . . . Making all the lights! (song from my childhood I haven’t really thought of in a long while) On my way home from work this afternoon, I was sitting in a line of vehicles at a stoplight with nothing to do but wait for the light to turn green and I looked in my rear view mirror to watch the woman in the car behind me. She had on one of those hands free on-ear cell phone devices. You know the kind that makes you look like one of the Collective Borg with a hive mind from Star Trek. It wasn’t obvious at first but she was talking someone’s ear off, and there was nobody in the vehicle with her. The emotions were mixed with what looked like an argument at first which is what brought her to my attention in the first place. The funny thing was that she was using hand gestures . . . very actively. That got me thinking . . . what are hand gestures in communication really used for? Especially with no one there in the car to observe ...

Summer morning . . . Silence broken by the light sound . . . of rain on a tin roof. A busy few days here while waiting for summer to happen. It still has not warmed up here in Anchorage this summer. Only one day so far of reaching seventy degrees and it only lasted three hours. What a change from normal. I played golf on Friday at Settlers Bay in the Pacific Plumbing Tournament and had a nice round with a great group of people. It was nice having a chance to mingle with those you may normally be competing against bidding projects in a no hassle friendly place. It gives time to catch up with old friends, past enemies, and get a feel for where everyone thinks the current work market is headed here in Alaska . There were the usual rumors floating around . . . the news of people moving from one company to another and the planting of seeds to see how far and from whom the rumors will spread. All in all a good day and the weather cooperated with cloudy overcast...