Icewind's Ramblings

It snowed in May in Anchorage Alaska yesterday and many people felt like it was the last days had arrived as everyone wants the snow to be gone for the season and warmer weather to finally arrive.  With the crazy weather it brought about mixed emotions and moods for many people so in the spirit of trying to motivate everyone to be positive and move forward to a great day.   "You polish your turd, I'll polish my turd, Then everyone can have shiny shit!" Happy Cinco de Mayo by the way! Ice

Here we are going into the last week of March and many of us in the Anchorage , Alaska area are finding that it has once again been lightly snowing for the last couple days with forecast for temperatures to warm up a bit by Monday with wet snow falling and melting on the way.  I am sure everyone is ready for “break up”, the yearly ritual of melting snow, muddy water splashed on vehicles leaving them filthy.  Everyone waits until the snow melts and things dry up a bit before finally cleaning up all the cars and rigs on the highways making Alaskan vehicles in springtime probably the dirtiest in the country. With the snowfall yesterday and today it seems like most people enjoy watching it fall out the windows, I know I do.  I kept hearing something like someone knocking on my door only to look and find no one there.  I looked out my back deck door and saw what was making the knocking sounds.  It seems that spring has sprung and the birds are returning to Ala...

Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers In its April, 2012 issue Defenders Magazine announced that Dr. Aprile Rooz, a noted wildlife biologist, had found a fascinating new Arctic species: the hotheaded naked ice borer.   These bizarre creatures were each about half a foot long, very light, and had a bony plate attached to their head that could become burning hot, allowing them to bore tunnels through ice at high speeds.   They used this ability to hunt penguins.   Packs of them would melt the ice beneath a penguin causing it to sink into the slush, at which point the borers would surround the hapless creature and consume it. Dr. Rooz discovered the borers by chance as a result of their predatory nature.   While studying a group of penguins on Arctic sea ice, she noticed one frightened member of the group rapidly sinking into the ice.   When she pulled the hapless creature out of the fast-growing slush pool that surrounded it, she found a host of small creatures attac...

Waking up this morning after a weekend of constant snowfall it was piled high as one would expect but overnight it was crystal clear with stars shining and an awesome full moon hanging above the horizon.   The moon large on the western sky as I drove to work with temperatures dropping from 14 degrees last evening to about minus seven this morning. My rig struggled to get warm by the time I made my short drive to work.   I had used my auto-start about 10 minutes before leaving home but with the cold temps it takes it a few miles to feel warm inside my auto.   Work was a typical Monday with meetings, working through the logistical problems with getting material shipped to remote villages.   As the day wore on I needed to go to our shipping yard to look at a conex (big metal shipping container) that I was preparing to ship to my project in Larsen Bay.   Today was clear, calm, and cold staying about minus 4 by mid afternoon. This was the calm before the next ...

This morning before the late time of sunrise cast its bit of light across the city in the darkness all that was seen were the snowflakes coming down reflected in either the vehicle headlights or the street light glow of an eerie orange tint on the landscape. It was pretty quite outside with no one wandering around as I drove for coffee.   The slow steady drive to meet friends saw only several vehicles out and about on this Sunday morning. The city’s squads of snowplows were out in force along with the many private companies clearing out parking lots and driveways along my way.   The snow had been falling all night long in small flakes but had accumulated over 8 inches with it continuing to bring about 2” an hour. When I lived in Park City Utah on days like this you could feel the excitement in the air; we woke up to fresh snow on the ground and avalanche bombs shaking the house.   The ski patrol shot off mortar shells onto the side of the mountains to bring the ex...

It started snowing heavily today giving us a fresh coating of beautiful white snow for the Holidays making sure we will have the story book “White Christmas”.   It seems like it is nearly waist high and is continues to fall all afternoon and probably all night long. The temperature continues to drop and could be below zero tonight and the north wind is howling once again blowing snow all over the place and drifting in those nooks and crannies. My ex-wife has done nothing but look through the living room window most of the day . . .   if it gets much worse, I may have to let her in. Ice

Traveling around Alaska with my job I have the pleasure/pain of flying all over the state in various aircraft.   Most days I have an early morning departure from the main Anchorage airport, Ted Stevens International Airport flying Alaska Airlines from my base in Anchorage to one of several ‘hub’ airports.   It has been from the southern end of the Alaska in Ketchikan, Sitka, or Juneau to the “island”; Kodiak or out to the delta area of western Alaska to Bethel or Dillingham.   For my trips farther north it has been to Fairbanks, Barrow or Kotzebue in the arctic regions of the state. Once I arrive in a hub airport I go over to one of several smaller carriers which are the typical “bush” plane operations which may use both float planes and more conventional small aircraft.   Some carriers use turbine engine planes which carry more passengers or more cargo depending on the pilot’s mission for that particular flight.   Most days the pilot will make multiple flig...

I saw in today’s paper that there were over 50 vehicles in the ditches around Anchorage yesterday.   It doesn’t surprise me as it seems people making the drive out to the valley do crazy things while making that commute back and forth every day.   It snowed about 3 inches yesterday and again last night.   It lingered into the evening hours but late last night things were getting back to normal when temps started falling again and yes, it finally HAPPENED!!!!. I was shocked to see things had gone crazy here. While out running errands on my day off for Veterans Day this dick in a truck pulled out in front of me on the way home as it has been snowing all day and everything was slick and people were upside down in the ditches.   I was able to avoid and miss this nut but couldn't quite catch up to him to get a license plate number.   Luckily I do keep a camera with me for job pictures so I was able to get a quick picture to help me find him again.   If anyo...

End of October The sleepy brown woods seem to Nod their heads to the winter. Yellows and grays . . . Paint the sad skies today. Woke up one morning The wind through the window Reminded me that Winter Was just ‘round the bend. Somehow I just didn’t see It was coming . . . It took me by surprise again. Lyrics by Dan Fogelberg These last couple of weeks before the snow fell this is pretty much what it felt like here in Anchorage. Ice

There is a funny scene in the Tom Cruise movie, “RiskyBusiness”  where Tom Cruise has his father’s Porsche 928 out for a drive with his “girlfriend” and sinks it in Lake Michigan.   I had an incident Thursday where I felt much the same way as I realized I was not where I thought I was and ended up falling through the ice on an ATV with a passenger, with me.   Well sort of the same way as T.C. minus the girlfriend and the Porsche. It’s quite funny now writing about it but in the darkness, cold, and blizzard conditions it was not.   I would not rank it in the ‘deadly serious’ category as no one was in real danger (or seemed to be) but gives me another reminder that the arctic can be deadly if not prepared or ready for anything. Here’s what happened starting the night before the early morning incident. It was nighttime in Kipnuk Alaska, the coffee pot was almost empty and the conversation between several of us was pretty well finished.   I had arrived earlier...

The days are getting shorter now and winters on the way, there’s whispering on the winds telling us it’s that time to pray.   Pray for a quick winter and a return to our beloved summers. We are almost at that time when the frost is on the windshields of vehicles not tucked away in a garage and the time to return to using the auto-start on your rig to warm it up before you get in for that drive to work.   I originally came from the South and I have been surprised that no one there has started selling vehicle auto-starters for the use in summer to cool their vehicle before getting into them in the near 100 degree heat.   Could do well there I bet with a little promotion.   Not I mind you as I could not take the heat full time unless I was on one of the tropical islands somewhere with a drink in hand.   Jeff Foxworthy made famous the “You might be a Redneck” jokes and along those same lines we have our share of Alaskan humor that is a little different than the...

It has been hard to find time to post lately as many things are happening right now so finding time to sit and let the writing flow has been hard for me.   Not writers block by any means but I just haven’t felt like putting words to paper or in the digital age we live in type or text to some machine. I traveled to a couple of villages last week and seeing them in an unfrozen state with children playing and jumping off the bridges into the water (freezing cold to many of us) and swimming in the river enjoying life in a much simpler way than many in the modern cities. I enjoy my time in the villages and talking with the people and children who always seem to come out to see me when I am there.   I do not know if it is because a ‘stranger’ is in town or they are curious to this dude with Hawaiian shirts and baseball cap riding around on a 4 wheeler.   They come out and want to ride or see if I have anything for them, like kids all over the world have done in my travels. ...