Icewind's Ramblings

Or Neighborhood Hazard: Why the Cops Won’t Patrol Brice Street I do not have time to write today as it was a busy night and day here in The Last Frontier. My daughter spent about 10 hours in the hospital last night getting enough medication to basically knock her out and anti-nausea meds to keep her from throwing up all night. She slept a couple of hours and we returned to the hospital this morning where after another 5 hours in the ER she was admitted. Hopefully this stretch will be quicker to resolve than our six months last year in and out of the hospital and a Medivac flight to Seattle where our mystery seemingly was solved. More tests and time will tell this go round. I needed a laugh today and this story over the years always brings about a smile and sometimes the much needed belly laugh. I first read this several years ago before I started blogging and reading some of his ‘road stories’ has been interesting as well as the adventures in his travels. ...

Breakup during the middle of winter . . . Just sux! But a 50 degree day in the middle of January is pretty nice . . . Except when it is raining hard and the wind is gusting at times over 100 mph. It makes the rain feel like darts hitting you. Melting snow, some flooding in places around town, and still an ice pack on the secondary street is making it dangerous to drive for some people. I was knocked off my feet on the ice as I tried to go from my mailbox across the driveway to soak me good before going into the house. I came home tonight to discover the damage at my house. Lost the fence on one side of the hot tub, parts of the covered side deck lost a few panels and I can’t tell how the shingles fared until daylight tomorrow but as the 16 inches of snow has melted in two days there are probably a few missing now that there is no ‘snow insulation’ on the roof. I had to take several wind chimes down as they were like missiles bou...

I have been following this story in the news as it has all of the ingredients of a good crime drama or even a modern day ‘western’. It has a bad guy, greed, the trophy wife, a horse (the airplane & motorcycle), the good guys (Marshals), and a moral to the story. There are so many funny little things that come to mind and how this could easily be on television. Let’s see, bailout, golden parachute, ‘Financial Crisis: The Movie’, trophy wife for an affair, flashy “red” motorcycle, and most of all . . . poor planning. The financial crisis has led to same very interesting stories that seem ready made for television movies. There is the Madoff mess that continues to bring things to light as each day passes and now for example the case of Marcus Schrenker, an Indianapolis financial manager, who appears to have tried to fake his own death by crashing his Piper PA-46 into a Florida swamp. I’m sure the idea was for the plane to go down into the Gulf of Mexico ...

When everything's coming your way, You're in the wrong lane. Or so it seemed this morning as once again the weather here is in a state of great change. Last week we were well below zero and that system has now moved southeast affecting the mid western states. Meanwhile our temperatures have risen about 45 degrees warming up enough for it to snow again. That lasted for a day and as it continued to warm around freezing a shift in the winds brought with it freezing rain this morning. Everything turned into a sheet of black ice making things extremely dangerous for drivers. It took me about an hour to make the seven mile drive to work. There were over 75 vehicles in the ditches between the valley and town and I counted 18 in my drive to work. People in to big a hurry even at reduced speeds with not enough time to stop so they put it in the ditches. I stopped by the Burger King by the Dimond Mall this afternoon for a quick bite to eat and...

Is it just me? When did Microwaves become so needy? It’s been cold here lately (Alaska, Winter . . . who’d thunk it?) and at times you make enough food so you can just have a second meal of leftovers with no hassle or time involved. Or it used to be that way but with all of the technology it is becoming more complicated than ever. Apparently you can't just press a button anymore & have your food heated. When I put a bowl of spaghetti into the microwave, it asked me the time. OK . . . I put that in. Now it asks for the day. Alright, I don't want to have a conversation or small talk with the thing, I just want a bowl of spaghetti heated up. Remember the good old days when you could put something in a microwave, hit one maybe two buttons and in a minute you would have something hot? Not anymore. All appliances lately seem to need a relationship with you before they do your bidding. Why isn't anything simple anymore? ...

When my wife’s alarm went off a few days ago I realized a curious thing . . . the sound that heavy machinery makes to warn you that it's backing up is the same sound her alarm makes. That's when it hit me; all those years I woke up feeling like my life was going backward wasn't me . . . it was the alarm. I guess I’m thankful that I wake up earlier these last few years and seem to be moving forward. Ice

I decided to buy myself another pair of blue jeans recently and discovered a couple of things since my last foray into the world of fashion. I guess the first thing is there really is no ‘fashion’ living in Alaska as there are so many different looks, styles, and clothing to adapt to the sometimes harsh conditions we have here. Buying a pair of jeans should be a simple thing but as it turns out that sometimes brings with it a mixture of things to ponder or deal with. I had thought I had given it the proper amount of thought in that I had found myself wearing the same pair each week, washing them over and over because the several other pair didn’t quite feel comfortable during my long workdays. I’ve gone through different periods of my life where it seems I am either “dressing nice” by someone else’s standard in a suit with a tie during my corporate pilot years and my brief stint in motivational sales speeches but most of my ‘older’ life has been spent in jeans or ...