Icewind's Ramblings

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Soren Kierkegaard My emotional baggage is in storage most of the time. I'm not afraid of it, but I don't think it helps me to be dragging it out and laboring over it all the time. It's a part of who I am but it doesn't define me. I do the defining. Working towards being the person I want to be when I finally get things right is what I focus on . . . not the baggage that might have gotten me off track. I look ahead, not back. I travel light. Ice

Ideal Marriage if there is such a thing could have been the first one. Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage . . .   He didn't have to hear about all the men she could have married. And she didn't have to hear about the way his mother cooked. Ice

My best friend went through a divorce just over a year ago and at the time there is that feeling of trying to get it right with how you respond to the news. The traditional way upon hearing that word, “Divorce” is the response, “I’m so sorry” . . . But sometimes depending on the people’s circumstances divorce might just be a happy occasion . . . after all, no one hears of a happy marriage ending in divorce.  Leading up to it might have been bad for a time but it’s over now so is it a happy occasion?  Different people probably look at it from many vantage points. Here it is a year later and I am going through it after many years together and it comes with many strange and sometimes challenging expectations. I’m older now so the prospect of getting into the ‘dating’ mode comes with mixed feelings.  The mind plays strange things with one’s self . . . you see that pretty lady and the ‘ego mind’ quickly jumps on your shoulder and whispers (or shouts) in your ear . . . You...

Is it just me or has this happened to any of you? This have been a really busy period for me over the last few weeks with working everyday and then working on the bathroom installing the tile on the walls and ceiling of the shower.  There has not been a lot of time for rest even though I have tried to get to bed earlier. One of the weird things that have also has been happening is my wife’s schedule is changing.  She has been out of work over the last few months when she was on call to travel to Seattle with my daughter for her medical appointments.  Now that is behind them and she has been trying to get back on staff part time with one of the dental offices in Anchorage .  She has been able to pick and choose since dental assistances are in demand here so she has tried several of them before deciding to get back into the routine. During this time off she has not had any schedule staying up late watching HGTV or late night episodes of the old Twilight Zone ser...

I need to come clean since I pretended to be asleep last night after “The Incident”. I would like to give you a little back story before I confess.  This past weekend was one of those times where there were multiple things going on and everyone is required to give way from the normal routines and go into that feeding frenzy mode that comes during these times. We had the start of the Olympics with the athletic competition getting underway on Saturday.  Then add to that the happenings in Daytona with auto racing which included Danica Patrick’s debut in the Nationwide Series 300 and the running of the 52 nd annual Daytona 500 NASCAR race and you have the makings of a stomach disaster. To properly watch any of these events you have to prepare for them.  The Super Bowl has its ‘must haves’ to do it up just right.  There is always chili, hot dogs or hamburgers, nachos, and the chips & dip that set the mood for the afternoon.  Mine was no different where you...

Happy Halloween everyone! As most of you know I have been working on a couple of projects here at the house leaving me little time to write so I wanted to post a couple of pictures of the first bathroom makeover.  I just finished for another night at 10:30 pm so I sat down with a glass of Beringer’s, a couple of Advil and that good tired feeling of accomplishment after progress today working on the master bathroom. But today I wanted to share some of the pictures from the previous work over two weekends.  This bathroom is the main full bath for the upstairs part of the house and is the one everyone uses all the time.  There was nothing about this room that really stood out but was painted when we moved in several years ago and my wife did a great job of decorating it, but it always seemed to lack something.  Here is a before picture which almost shows the bland flooring of linoleum which I hated.  The walls are a very pale yellow color and the light bar...

These past couple of weeks has had me tearing out bathrooms, with the remodeling ongoing leaving me little time to write or have any thoughts to put on paper. I can report the first bathroom is finished except for a towel bar so it went smoothly with the demolition of the flooring, cabinet, sink, and closet being redone.  The hardest part of the demo was getting the several layers of flooring out and the prep for the tile. Once everything was taken out the first thing was a fresh coat of paint, Lowe’s Baguette color.  It is a nice color that in the low night light conditions gives off a nice easy tone.  In full light it blends nicely with the tile shades.  What started this makeover was my wife looking on Craig’s list and finding Italian marble tile for a low price.  She found 18”x18” squares (40) of beautiful tile for fifty bucks.  It was enough for the bathroom and closet floor.  The cabinet was painted and new base trim was installed. We ...

I have been thinking lately . . . I know that may not be a good thing but it happens sometime. I wanted a glass of Beringer’s as I was writing this but none could be found so I will just have to do without for awhile. Back to my thoughts . . . recently it came to me as probably most people who share time with other people that there are those things that happen in the normal course of everyday living. The thing that struck me was what might seem normal for me might not be ‘normal’ or acceptable to others. They might be those annoying things that either totally gross out the other person but they may never say anything and let things go on possibly for years and years. You probably know where this is going by now as it gets down to those basic things of living in close proximity with other people. Do you “let it rip” in front of your spouse or mate? Then it gets into the whole ‘fluffing the covers’ issues whether that is foreplay to some while total...

Here is another one from my ‘working folder’. To pass the time here in The Last Frontier many people play board games or cards to make the day or night go by a little quicker. Winter time this is especially true as the many hours of darkness and the extreme cold can seem like time stands still or crawls along at a snails pace. Here is a little ditty from one of our recent games . . . Wife: There! I just added four letters to your word and covered the triple-word score. Thirty-three points! Ice: Ummm, dear . . . do you know what that word means? Wife: Don't worry, it's a word . . . I looked it up in the Scrabble dictionary. Ice: I wasn't questioning whether it's a word. I was just curious if you knew its meaning. Wife: It's one of those Italian ice creams, or something . . . right? Ice: No, that would be GELATO. FELLATIO is more like a Popsicle. Life from a ‘Northern Exposure’ . . . we always find a little l...

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 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

In the continuing saga of a cool family living in the wilds of Alaska where the Alaskan Pipeline parallels the haul road as it makes its way from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez , Alaska in a little village called Livengood. Many families living in a rural area face many challenges and ours is no different from those found in our area. We live a subsistence lifestyle living mainly off the land seeking out berries, fruit, and the abundant fish around. Taking time out of our day for play time and the occasional trip into Fairbanks to stock up on food we enjoy time spent together with family. I spend some much needed quiet time with the baby . . . While the children do their work home schooling . . . While Icy washes the car . . . And there is always laundry to do . . . ...

Happy New Year everyone and to start off with something slightly different I present a family living in the far northern reaches of Alaska, out in the middle of nowhere and a figment of my imagination upon seeing some pictures in the Anchorage Daily News . My mind kept thinking of these pictures all night awaiting the approaching New Year. About 2 am under a clear sky and cold night I remembered a small spot on the road on my drive to the Arctic Circle a few years ago to see the Arctic Ocean . I drove from Anchorage to Deadhorse where the oil companies have their camps for the ‘slopers’ who work in the oil industry. As you can see I have too much time on my hands during my one day off to celebrate the New Year. Enjoy. Welcome to Livengood Alaska , population 26 in the summer and the 6 of us in the wintertime. It’s a quiet place where you can let your kids play with no worries unless the abundant moose and the occasional bear wander too close to the house. ...