Icewind's Ramblings

These last few weeks we have really been soaking up the daylight as we anticipate the arrival of our Alaskan summer.   We broke our annual snowfall record in April and once things pushed past that it has been mostly nice as spring has taken hold of Anchorage and most of Alaska.   Bright sunny days . . . shorter nights is always something to celebrate in the northland.   Things make the transition from the ever present white through the browns, muddy water, dampness, to the greening up and colors again. This has led me to contemplate the differences between our winters and our summers. The contrasts are as extreme as the landscape found within this state.   Moose roam the streets.   Dogs are on leashes or locked up in yards or houses. Winters of cold and constant darkness while the summers of never ending light.   It seems like everyone carries a gun . . . but me (seen enough of them for one lifetime). There are not a lot of people here . . . compar...

On my short drive home today I pulled up behind the car in front of me to wait for the light to turn green.  I’m sitting there thinking of all the unfinished things I left at work this week and I glanced up to see this on the back trunk panel as if it were screaming to me . . . “Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.” A smile came across my face . . . my jaw relaxed and I realized all of the work will be there when I return.  I did get a ton of work accomplished this week including a trip out of town so all in all we won this week. Hopefully I’ll have exact change. Ice

I enjoyed a nice lunch on Thursday with several friends at The Peppermill restaurant.  Several of us used to work with one another and one is my new sales guy for an equipment rental company.  It was nice meeting him as my former salesman is working out of a different location so it was one of those quickly planned lunches that are usually made within the hour of everyone meeting. This day the morning started off with snow coming down on top of the semi breakup melting that happened the day before.  The water runoff had refroze overnight as the temperatures dropped and once the snow hit this morning it turned all of the roads into a slick mess.  There was a couple inches on the ground by the time I left the house and the short drive to my office found several vehicles in the ditch or others involved in a crash with someone else or into an object. By lunchtime another three inches or so had fallen and with the compaction of the vehicles the roads were in sad shap...

I saw this story which I found interesting.   The world is in a huge “going green” movement right now making efforts to use recycled materials or designing new building and structures with energy efficient fixtures or systems.  Many seek a LEED certification giving the owners a tax break or other incentives to invest in our future.   One of the changes in an everyday product is finding unexpected results.  Was it a lack of testing in appropriate conditions or possibly a rush to get the product in the marketplace. What I’m talking about is the traffic signal light that you see everyday.  The electrical versions have been around since the 1920’s with the first gas type lights being used in Britain in 1868. With the changing times and everyone talking about energy there have been changes with traffic lights going to a more energy efficient LED light bulb.  It may use less energy which is a good thing but with the new type bulb it also produ...

And so did the ditch divers who cannot drive worth a crap. The front came through and with it a nice steady snowfall covering the frost on everything the last two weeks and as those who make their way to work in the darkness forgot some of the tenants of safe driving.  The main on is slow down lest you end up in the ditch or overturned with that unique view upside down sliding to a scary stop hoping someone else doesn’t hit you.  Another is turn of cruise control on icy roads as they can make you veer off the highway when the tires hit uneven ice on the road making the false sense of slowing down when it just spins those tires until you hit the brake spinning you out of control. After the front stalled over Anchorage it produced some nice fluffy large snowflakes which was pretty to watch once the light of day came but caused major traffic tie ups along the Glenn Highway which was closed for several hours due to out of control vehicles.  It was a long commute ...

On Aug. 15 to 17, 1969, (and into the 18 th ) hundreds of thousands of people, me among them, gathered in a lovely natural amphitheater in Bethel (not Woodstock ), New York . It was the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in upstate New York officially billed as “Aquarian Exposition” in White Lake , NY . New York was foreign to me at the time, worlds away from a typical southern boy’s existence growing up in Atlanta during the 60’s civil rights movement and all of the national chaos going on around the country during those times. I was just a funny kid with places to see and things to do in what I now, years later have jokingly called the series of my travels, “Looking for America ”. Gasoline was cheap back then at fifty cents a gallon so three boyhood friends were going to make the trek from Atlanta , Georgia to a farm in New York State . Steve Nash, Stuart Morris and I planned to leave three days before the concert started s...

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. ...

If you love what you do You’ll never work another day in your life. I don’t know it this is an “only in Alaska ” phenomenon but it was pretty neat and somewhat strange at the same time. On my drive to work this morning I made my turn south onto Gambell Street from 5 th Avenue about 6:30 am. The temperature was 26 degrees and you have to understand that we are only a couple of days away from Winter Solstice so it does not start to have first light until around ten o’clock in the morning. As I approached 7 th Avenue there is a man standing on the corner playing a guitar and singing Christmas Carols to the people driving by or who were stopping for the red light ahead. This person was having a great time, enjoying his music, and so ‘out of place’ for this area of town. It was great! The cold nor light fog did not seem to bother him as he rocked on to his music. I was semi disappointed that traffic started moving again and I would ...

Today dawned clear as first light broke around 10 am. Once the sun rose over the mountains we endured what is called “Horizon Sun” until it set around 3:15 pm. With only about five and a half hours of daylight this time of year the sun barely clears the mountaintops and hangs just above the peaks until it drops below again for another long, cold, dark night. It looks something like this . . . Driving towards the east and south is at times difficult due to the sun peeking in between the visor and the hood of your vehicle. There is no good way to block it so with the glare from the ice it makes things difficult to see. Solstice is approaching in ten days and we will start making our way back towards the light and the warmth it brings. I love winter but on the cold mornings when you arrive to work and four hours later the first light of day is creeping in your window as you take another sip of coffee that feeling of a warm tropical locale seems nic...

Today has been a mixed bag of things going on here in the northland. Anchorage finally dropped the price of gasoline to below $ 3.50 a gallon today while word on the news is saying the Lower 48 is seeing gas prices about a dollar a gallon less than here and a few areas that the price has dropped lower than $ 2.00. That’s great for those areas and hopefully we will see something around two fifty before long. There was the rumor of traffic here today as the traffic engineers were working on the traffic lights by the Dimond Mall. They turned them off at 9 AM this morning for maintenance and other work and should have them operational around midnight. It did not make for a fun day for anyone who had to drive around the area as there were vehicles backed up in all directions while the flaggers directed traffic in the below freezing temperatures. It was only 9 degrees this morning and rose only to about 25 when I left the office at 6 PM tonight. I could see th...