Icewind's Ramblings

The last few days have been wonderful here in the beautiful summer sun of Alaska.   Had some great golf, a nice dinner last night and my usual Saturday Breakfast with friends and went to Sunday coffee before heading out to do some shopping and chores for the day. Now I am not one to complain about a lot of things but I do pride myself in observing people and commenting on the sometimes funny and crazy things that people do, especially if they do not think people are paying attention. This is a “what in the world do you think you’re doing” category rant that I observed this morning.   It totally put me off my coffee and I wanted to go out and find him to ask . . . What the hell? After about 4 cups of coffee and get up and head to the restroom and as I am walking in there is a fellow about 35 heading out the door.   I go in and there is someone standing at the urinal so my only place is the stall.   I walk into the stall and to my amazement the guy coming out did...

All the voices in your head decide to play on the same team. This is a joke we've all heard before and it's funny, it really is . . . However, with most humor, the reason it is funny . . . is because it's true. When people see me and I’m smiling . . . I just think funny things to uplift my day! Ice

I ran across this older post on my gaming board, The Amazon Basin and it gave me a chuckle on parenting and children coming of age and dating.   I thought I would post on my blog so others may gain insight into their own experiences.   This was written in 2006 and brought with it several events that have run full circle now in my family’s life. Enjoy. As my youngest daughter has grown up and started dating it has become apparent that I needed to break out the rules again for dating my daughter.   Before the holidays I had a strange thing that happened and wanted to share it with you.   On one of the weekends before the Thanksgiving holiday some little girls stopped by the house to sell some gift wrapping paper for a school project.   This happens every year and talking with the neighbors kids was nice seeing how they were doing and what was happening in their school.   One of the young girls asked me if we could get the car that parked at the edge of ...

America is all about celebrating our freedoms and differences.  I believe the American people are getting wiser.  I hope so anyway, and I'm sure that there are those that would beg to differ, and that's ok, too.  Here's the thing that you have to realize during this election process.  Any candidate for the Presidency must raise a shitload of money in order to get the job.  That's just a fact.  It has been that way for many years now and probably will not change anytime soon even with the revisions in elections laws. Another fact this is often missed by the public is that the candidate owes these people for contributing enough to get him or her elected. I would like a list of donors from each candidate before the elections are done.  I think that would actually be a better way to tell who to vote for.  It shows more of the people and special interest groups and how much they are willing to pay to have a certain side in office. Those are the...

Well, damn. I accidentally hit "enter" right after I typed the dang title to this thing and so some of you are just going to hit a blank spot until I get it done.   In the meantime, I think I've lost the thought of what I was going to say and I'm hoping that by typing it will come to me . . . nope . . . damn. Yeah, pretty much, I just don't feel like blogging tonight.   I think I will fix some dinner, kick back and play about an hour of Starcraft 2 and watch Hawaii Five-0.   Maybe it will come to me then. Ice

I had posted this in 2007 and thought it appropriate to re-post again this year and with FaceBook now in the forefront it can go around once again. In our troubling times that we live today and the uncertainties that face many peoples and nations, I am reminded of an earlier time in a place called “No Man’s Land” during World War I.   During that time an act of humanity happened that went beyond rank and reason . . . and so . . . Christmas Truce . . . * The truce began on Christmas Eve , December 24 , 1914 , when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres , Belgium , for Christmas . They began by placing candles on trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols , most notably Stille Nacht ( Silent Night ). The British troops in the trenches across from them responded by singing English carols. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were calls for visits ac...

It has been awhile since I have written and my schedule is not giving me the same time periods to sit down and write as much as I did for a long time.   We all go through changes and I guess this is my time.   It is not that I do not want to write and I see many observations on so many things each day that I log away into my brain and some to paper to be able to develop later. Work in the Alaskan summers is always busy with the limited construction season and the logistics of getting tons of equipment and materials to some of the remote locations but that is just an excuse.   I have always found the time to write something.   Lately it is not coming easy and is somewhat embarrassing that I just cannot focus on looking at the oddities of the world around me when my own world is in cross hairs of examination.   There are amazing things going on around me with the places and people I meet in these remote villages as well as in my time in Anchorage with the great...

Ever notice that the people who are late are often much jollier than the people who have to wait for them? It was a busy work week with everyone getting ready for our company's annual conference next week and added to that was a 2 day course to certify about 12 of us to do inspections on our projects for AK-DEC and EPA for our Storm and waste water pollution plans.  It was an interesting course but time away from the office was hard to handle with the construction just getting into full swing. Work progressed on my shower this week with some grouting being completed but not before a slight panic that the grout color was too dark as it was being applied but after it dried it slowly cured to the right color.  Wasted almost a whole bag of grout mix and additive but at least much of it was done. We are going back towards full light now so things are finally melting as the sunshine and temperatures are mostly above freezing except for a few overnight hours.   Ice

Have you seen this yet? Ray Stevens . . . still going strong after so many years. You Betcha! Ice

How are we doing? With health care and the struggling economy on the minds of most Americans right now I wanted to think back almost a year ago and see if you come up with the same answer I did about our first out of the box stimulus program.  Remember Cash for Clunkers ? Question? What was the most positive result of the "Cash for Clunkers" program? ANSWER: It took 95% of the Obama bumper stickers off the road. With many people still out of work it is now probably about the time that all of those vehicles are being repossessed and a second round of ‘deals’ can be had by those lucky people who get a second chance for those vehicles. Living the Life now, aren’t we? Ice

The reason the news never makes sense is because, perhaps, we really are surrounded by idiots, and the intelligent people are outnumbered. That would also explain why voices of reason are so damn hard to come by. Ice

The last several days since I came back to town it has been somewhat trying to sit down and write my blog as several weeks before I left I started watching the television show “Lost”. I missed the first season and decided I would not worry about another program to keep up with so I did not get into all the rage about how good a show this was at the time.  Since then I have been using HULU to watch programs on my computer or my Netflix to keep up with other shows I might have missed.  Lost was one of them that are much better than I had imagined. I am just starting the 3 rd season and hope to get all the way through season 5 by the time the premier of the final season starts on February 2.  It has been like reading a good Steven King novel that you cannot put down.  There are many characters with intricate storylines being developed and it seems plot twists at every turn giving that great unexpected surprise.  Some may be good and a few that we have not l...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, as I hope it is a great day for you! Times have been a little depressing lately for many people in the country so I thought it would be great to give you a couple of laughs today.  It will only take a few minutes of your time . . . about the time it takes to have a cup of coffee so take a break and give yourself a little smile and for me every time I hear or see this it gives me a good belly laugh. There aren't as many classic Thanksgiving episodes of TV shows as there are classic Christmas episodes.  But there are several we remember fondly, including this one. It's the "Turkeys Away" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati that originally aired on October 30, 1978.  Station Manager Carlson tries to come up with a special promotion for the station and, well, you'll see what happens. WKRP in Cincinnati was a sitcom by Hugh Wilson who was a disc jockey for WQXI radio in Atlanta , Georgia in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  I think a l...

As we approach the holiday season and prepare for the small gathering tomorrow of family and maybe a few friends it is nice to think back on summers end.  It started snowing this afternoon giving us a fresh blanket of the white stuff.  Anchorage is known as the “City of Lights ” during the winter months so I, like many people put up lights for the winter which remain on until the last musher of the Iditarod arrives in Nome completing the race in mid March. With a little extra time on my hands I can think back on summers past where I close my eyes as the memories come back like a wild river, colorful like Northern Lights in the clear cold night, which I saw for the first time this season a few nights ago.  THE reason I came to Alaska , THE thing I wanted to see since I was a little boy in Atlanta .  There they were, dancing above the hillside, misty green, slick and wavy.  Nothing could screw this day anymore as I watched in amazement at the night sky. ...

Last Saturday I made a quick stop at one of the Anchorage Walmart stores close to my hair cutting shop.  Every time I go there I cannot help but looking at the different people who wander the aisles in search for some particular item or another. As you walk in the door there is the ‘Greeter’ who gives you a good morning and helps you take a cart to put your stuff in.  Today was no different as I approached the door there was a woman and her two kids going inside just in front of me.  She was yelling loudly at them so it was no problem hearing the exchange as I made my way around them and inside the store.  She was a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman yelling obscenities at the two kids all the way through the entrance. The greeter was there and trying to calm the situation said pleasantly, “Good morning and welcome to Wal-Mart.  Nice children you have there.  Are they twins?”  The ugly woman stopped yelling long enough to say, “Hell no,...

Why didn’t God get tenure? He only had one publication. It is one of those Sundays that I really did not want to sit down and write too much as I was busy enjoying a beautiful day. O ^__^ O (oo)_______ (__) )\/\ ||----w | || || Yes, I am easily amused. Ice

I have spent several years now posting on Blogger.com with not many changes to the original layout or sidebar content. At times I look into going for a revised look or possibly a new host and even created a Wordpress blog of the same name to see if I liked the format better but at the time I did not carry on after the first couple of posts. The idea was to learn code better so I could expand what I had wanted to do but lack of time kept me from pursuing that endeavor. I have now visited hundreds of other blogs in blogger.com land using the next blog icon on the navigation bar while leaving a few comments here and there. It has been an interesting journey and I thought I'd share a few observations. It doesn't take long to notice that the original templates are radically altered on some blogs by masterful manipulation of the HTML code. This is often associated with a very artistic looking blog, and some fine art work. Unfortunately some of these blogs are ...

Or does it? It’s funny how the old saying “Time stops for no one” is said over and over and if you don’t stop to think about it that might be true. If you slow your thought processes down from the hectic speed most of us go during work or other daily activities we may in the stillness of those brief moments find that we can stop time or slow it down enough to get back to those moments that bring about a smile . . . that warm feeling . . . or that thought from the past. I have been thinking about this week and oddly again it was music that brought it back to me. I jumped into the car this morning to head for breakfast and a song come on the radio that captured my thought perfectly. “All Those Yesterdays” by Jennifer Hanson I looked on YouTube but found no video for that song to share with you. It is our past that makes us who we are and the people around us. The times spent together live long in our memory when the hectic day tries to stea...

I seem to get my best/most interesting ideas when I am busy doing something else. If I sit down at the computer needing to come up with a great idea, I can’t do it. But get me busy doing something completely different, and I just might come up with something. So the best question for what I’m getting at here is not “Where do you get your ideas?”, because we all get them from the same place: life. I think the more precise way to ask the question is “When do you get your ideas?” What are you doing when most of your ideas come to you? It seems like (for me at least) the mind wants to censor itself. It puts too much pressure on itself for ideas to be “great,” so it avoids opening itself up and becoming vulnerable. So the more engrossed I am in something, and the more my conscious mind is completely occupied in flow, the easier it is for my subconscious mind to slide something in under the radar. I can’t be trying too hard - in fact I can’t be trying at all. It’s as ...