Icewind's Ramblings

Is It Still A Mess? I grab my morning coffee on my way to work and some mornings the conversations can be quite entertaining. Woman: It's a pig sty.  I want it cleaned out! Guy: But it's my office. Woman: In our house! Guy: I'll shut the door. Woman: I'll know it's there. Guy: You'll never see it. Woman: Doesn't matter. Guy: What?  Why? Woman: Because I'll know it's there. Men . . . we can never win a conversation. I’ve wanted to post a couple pictures of work around the house over the summer.  A few I had already shown but the big project was getting a facelift to an old facade. Here is the old blue that has been on since the house was bought.  Nice, tired and just blue.   The new coat of paint has been toned down a bit with the splash of color on the front door with a red look to go with the ‘ See Rock City ’ birdhouse hanging close by. These next few weeks will bring about a solid change but this weekend there is one last fl...

Voicemails Many of you know I work as a mechanical plumbing contracting company where we have projects here in Anchorage and scattered all over the State of Alaska. Sometimes you find those little things that brighten your day when you least expect it.  It may be a call or an email you receive about getting a new project or something good has happened on a jobsite.  At times with the difficult logistics getting materials into some of the most remote locations in the world a call that it arrived at all is cause for celebration. Then there is those other calls . . . you know the ones that crack you up when you play them back on the answering machine returning from lunch.  Here is one from this afternoon. Voice Message 1: You know what you're all a disgrace to your profession. This is my 8th call to a plumbing company . . . I’m telling you our bedrooms are flooding . . . I thought we had a relationship . . . you people don't even have the decency to call back.  T...

I have talked lately about the seasonal changes that are happening now and there are more signs that it will not be long before its here.  With the limited amount of ‘summer’ and our short construction season the different road work projects are now coming to an end.  The orange cones have been everywhere and the barrels blocking lanes are slowly being removed as one by one the work nears completion for this year. The ‘Moose Crossing’ signs have been changed once again and placed randomly along the highways for the tourists seeking photo opportunities.    Moose cannot read so they tend to cross the roads and highways wherever and whenever they feel like it.  The sightings of tourist with cameras by the moose tend to make them hide creating the illusion and myth that moose are everywhere.  The sourdoughs here keep the rumor alive that we have moose on every corner but it sometimes looks like the scene from the movie ‘Funny Farm’ where Chevy Chase is...

This weekend I have been feeling under the weather so other than my Saturday breakfast meeting I have stayed around the house resting and trying to get rid of a nasty bout of sneezing, wheezing, and coughing.  They call it the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine and oddly it’s true.  Feel like crap, take some Nyquil and hopefully feel better.  It may take two days but at least it seems to work. During this down time I haven’t felt like working on a couple of upcoming bids but I did get in a few hours here and there.  I did feed the birds a bit and hung out watching movies.  Today the house has been mostly quiet as my wife and father in law headed down to Seward to go fishing.  Gus and I have enjoyed a couple of brief naps between my sneezing attacks making for some funny moments as he is trying to figure out what is going on with me and all of the noise. One of the movies seen this weekend was S...

It is a little funny to me when you hear something over and over and in the back of your mind you know it is something you have seen or heard before.  Have you ever watched an old movie and said, “I don’t remember this actor or actress being in this movie” or something to that effect?  You may have seen the movie a hundred times, but because that person wasn’t as famous yet you don’t make the connection.  Or a small line from the movie is said which your subconscious logs away but later you cannot remember where you heard it or what movie or television show if came from.  Well that happened to me this afternoon when I watched the movie “Jaws” for the first time in many years.  When that movie came out in 1975 there were no computer generated graphics like movies today so when a movie kept you on the edge of your seat and scared the crap out of you it was a great movie. The setting for this particular scene from "Jaws" is on the beach, right before the fatal...