Icewind's Ramblings

Bill Cosby was describing his children’s love of their grandparents whom sometimes seem to do no wrong in the kid’s eyes. His children love their grandmother and think she is the greatest thing.  He tells them maybe you just cannot see it but Bill said to his children . . . “My mother is NOT the same woman who raised me as a child . . . she’s old and trying to get to Heaven.” Thanks Bill! Ice

It has been a mixed week here in the far north as work has accelerated getting ready for the upcoming construction season.  Many meetings trying to sort through which projects will have funding and for those that do quickly moving through the winter time preconstruction activities. Part of this process is making material lists of every part and piece to be built.  Literally it is figuring out exactly how many nuts and bolts will be needed.  All of the equipment that will be installed is ordered and shipped to make the limited barge season schedule.  For many of these villages there may only be two barges that dock bringing with it 98% of things the village will need for the next year.  This could be food, clothing, heating fuel, construction materials, snow machines (most villages have no real roads so not many ‘vehicle’s’ are there other than construction ones), and anything else that you could think of.  It is a different world and if something misses...

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

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...

Friday evening’s long awaited start of the 2010 Winter Olympics had that just right feeling after Beijing ’s spectacle with a “less is more” format.  It worked well and had some pretty interesting things going on showcasing Canada ’s vast and varied lands and people. Paying homage to the First Nation’s people and culture gave a great sense of place and heritage.  The dancers continued to perform during the athletes walk of Nations which lasted over an hour and a half.  They should have won some kind of medal for their endurance. I tend to like the winter Olympics more than the summer games as it is a smaller contingent of athletes and they make their walk on entrance at the beginning of the program so they can watch everything that happens.  The summer game athletes miss the program standing around in a parking lot somewhere while the show goes on.  A little less of the Olympic experience I guess so winter to me is much better. For those watching on televi...

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

I suffered tonight while eating dinner as I sat watching television.  I had been watching the local news which as I did that manly thing of channel surfing I stumbled upon either “Show Biz Tonight” or “Entertainment Tonight”.  They both look the same to me as I never watch these programs but the ‘teaser’ during the commercial gave reference to a pre-Olympic story on skier Lindsey Vonn which I wanted to see. While I waited for the story I was bombarded by a story about John Meyer’s raunchy talk about his former love Jessica Simpson.  Who cares was my first thought, and then I went into wondering who the hell John Mayer is?  Turns out he is somewhat of a singer and had the song from The Bucket List, “Say”.  Yeah that was annoying long before I ever saw the movie with its repeating the line “Say what you need to say” 41 times in just over 3 minutes and 44 seconds.  It was not the neat little ditty like some songs that stick in your brain to help you bright...

Dog Farts . . . or how my eyes were burning as I woke up this morning. Sometimes dog farts tend to be nastier than some of our best human counterparts.  My wife’s dog Gus lets go of some absolute beauties . . . and he knows it too.  I have been known to pinch my nose and give my traditional cry of "Awwwwww Gussssssss!", as he never moves off the bed just looking up at me with innocent eyes in the dimness of the bedroom as if to say "What?"  But I know that he knows, because of the way he looks away again just a little too quickly hoping he will be left alone and not thrown or kicked off the end of the bed.  The other night he was in fine form after sneaking the remnants in a bowl of chili . . . his own pungent smell woke him up . . . and he indignantly got up . . . jumped off the bed and left the room!  Of course leaving behind the toxic cloud in his wake, luckily it wasn’t mine and no one else woke up so I did not get blamed for polluting the room. Of cou...

What is a brain fart?  From what I understand, just as one can’t really hold on to their fart that is about to escape through clenched cheeks, brain farts are those thoughts that randomly escape out of your brain through your mouth and into the air, polluting it for a few seconds.  Depending on the person of course, some stench may linger and some don’t. Sometimes our minds work well and the creative juices flow and ideas to write about come quickly and make my “topics” list or “story list”.  I can think of something and later easily recall enough of the idea to jot down something to jog my memory later when I can spend time working on and developing the writing. Don't you love it when you are excited about something . . . and then when it comes time to do/say whatever it is you wanted to say/do . . . you have a brain fart and have NO idea what it was you were so excited about in the first place?  Well, if that has never happened to you . . . GREAT!  H...

I was a late comer to start watching the television series Lost but once I started it has been a nonstop joy ride.  The show has a huge cast that is driven with multilayered characters and storylines.  It has been entertaining and fascinating watching the different aspects come into play and focus. The pilot episode introduced us to the main group and in later episodes through flashbacks their stories and dramas unfold before us.  It seems every one of the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 is indeed “Lost” in their lives.  Over the seasons we watch as each face their particular problem and the metamorphosis that transpires. Terry O’Quinn is one of the main forces on Lost and over the years he has appeared in some of my favorite shows, NCIS, JAG, The West Wing, Alias, Star Trek TNG as well as many movies.  He is always a joy to watch as his characters have varied widely.  On NCIS in the episode called “Enigma” he played a Marine Colonel suf...

I have a buddy that lives in San Francisco who tells me that like many places in this country that the cost of health care is way out of reach for many people . . . including him.  He tells me that with some of his ‘issues’ he has to get creative to get the kind of quality health care that is readily available in his area. He tells me that on the Golden Gate Bridge there are yellow emergency mental health phones located every 200 feet or so.  These are possible suicidal jumpers who can make that last call for help if they want too.  He says he cannot afford mental health services, so every Thursday; he goes to the bridge to get some free therapy.  There is one catch, throughout the conversation he has to say he feels like jumping. "So lately, I just don't feel productive and a lot of my mother issues keep coming up." "Sir, this is only for emergencies." "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like jumping.  Now, can we get back to that dream I had last week?...

The rest of the country has Groundhog Day but as always we do things a little different here in Alaska .  During last years legislative session Senator Linda Menard’s Senate Bill 58 finally passed and tomorrow marks Alaska ’s official first Marmot Day. In the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, the character Bill Murray played, Phil Connors, wakes up each morning repeating February 2 over and over again.  Phil’s sour and sarcastic attitude carried through each day in the beginning until he finally changed his outlook on things and looked for the positive or meaningful things in life breaking the cycle. We should all look around for the positive things each day so we do not become in a ‘rut’ going through life in some meaningless existence. Celebrating Marmot Day in Alaska is not quite like Pennsylvania ’s version with Punxsutawney Phil as we did not give our marmots and weather forecasting duties ensuring no one gets blamed for the crazy weather found here.  Groundhogs are ...

Driving home each day I pass a power plant close to my house that usually has a large steam plume rising several hundred feet into the sky this time of year.  If there is no wind it goes vertically straight up over a thousand feet into the air and on days with a light breeze it angles up into the air until the steam plume evaporates.  The hot air continues to rise even without a visible plume to show you where it is going. The strange and sometimes funny thing that many of us driving by each day notice is the large flock of birds that are flying in circles upon the rising warm air.  When I used to fly hang gliders when I was young it is called thermaling and within the hot air rising you make tight turns so you can stay in and ride to the top sometimes just under the bottom of the clouds. It was a great feeling going up to the top of a thermal and then leaving that one to fly over to another rising air mass to start circling all over again.  Some flights I may...

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...

Several plane flights and a sled dog ride driven by schoolchildren helped kick off the 2010 Census in the United States .  Alaskans in rural communities not linked by roads have been the first people counted since the 1990 census. The village of Noorvik had the honor of kicking off the official count of our citizens and Clifton Jackson, a World War II veteran and the village’s oldest resident at 89 was the first person counted.  Noorvik is an Inupiat Eskimo community of six hundred fifty residents.  After gathering with village officials and elders U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves along with other census takers were greeted to a celebration and a day of festivities including a potlatch dinner.  There was a sampling of muktuk . . . strips of bowhead whale skin and blubber along with traditional dances, an Inupiat fashion show including a feast of caribou soup and baked bearded seal. It was a heat wave as the temperature hovered around zero compar...

The devastation in Haiti is a sad and unfortunate thing to happen in a country that sees natural disasters almost on a regular basis.  Every few years the seasonal hurricanes ramble through the Caribbean doing damage to anything in its path. Two days after the devastating earthquake in Haiti a story caught my eye in the newspaper.  Apparently some Haitians were so angry that the world was taking its time rushing to their aid that they were going to build roadblocks with the corpses of earthquake victims as a sign of protest.  How very intelligent of these people I thought expecting help from strangers and then possibly being ready for those who bring aid.  Not only will the stench and sight of a pile of rotting bodies make the rescuers feel really welcome but it would delay the convoy’s progress.  Clearly intelligence is not a commodity much in evidence in Haiti . What has Haiti done for itself?  Not a great deal by the look of things.  The ...

I’ve been out of town so trying to catch up so a quick little feel good post. From the movie “Summer Catch” it’s the closing credits song and just makes you feel good.  If you haven’t seen the movie it is a fun film with Jessica Biel, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Brittany Murphy, and Fred Ward. Also for one of the cast, Brittany Murphy it is a fun way to remember her since her recent passing. Have a great weekend. Ice

This week Alaska is having strong winds that usually are more into springtime but as we have had crazy weather all winter it seems the ‘big blow’ has come early.  Monday had winds over 75 mph and one house in the valley had the whole roof ripped off and as it broke up it scattered pieces over a two block area.  In Palmer several airplanes had been blown off their tie downs and tumbled over and over across the airport. For a coworker and me, we left at 0 dark thirty to catch a plane headed for Kodiak so we could catch another smaller plane to take us across the island to the village of Old Harbor to do a little recon of an upcoming project we are starting soon.  The project on paper had several areas where we have questions on how and what we will be able to do so it was decided to go there and see first hand what will be involved and to take pictures of the area where we will build a new village water storage tank and water treatment plant. The takeoff out of An...