Alaska
I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, pretty close to the geographic center of the largest state in the U.S. These are some of my thoughts about this amzaing part of the world.
Please pardon this slightly commercial message, but the auction is a benefit for the Second Chance League, a sleddog rescue organization here in Fairbanks, Alaska. (I’m currently president of SCL, but we have a lot of very talented and enthusiastic volunteers who work with dogs.)
Midnight Mushing has donated 2 beautiful anoraks to SCL for a fundraiser. The first one is now on eBay to be auctioned off.
This anorak is a "2nd" but only because it has a very slight stain (that we could barely make out!!) on the back. Becky of Midnight Mushing apparel is a perfectionist and her clothing is beyond wonderful. This anorak is not only functional but super nice looking. The workmanship is beautiful and these anoraks will last a lifetime of outdoor Alaska--or any cold climate--use!
All of the proceeds go to the Second Chance League in Fairbanks, Alaska, to support its mission of rescuing sleddogs and finding them good, forever homes.
Fall hasn’t just come to Fairbanks, Fall is almost over. Tonight we should get the first frost here in the hills outside town. It’s been a wet, rainy day, so the dog yard is pretty muddy. Snow level is supposed to be about 2,000 feet, still well above us.
Carol and I spent a lot of time this summer building two free-run pens on either side of our main dog yard. We’re gradually building up the number of dogs in each, with the goal that ultimately everyone will be loose, at least when we’re home. (Since I work at home, it is relatively few hours each week that we’re both gone.) I took the picture above from the newest pen, and the photo looks from it through the dog yard and beyond into the other free-run pen. You can just see Crowe’s head at the bottom, with Irish looking toward me. Misty is the white dog looking from the dog yard, along with several other indoor dogs.
It isn’t sticking yet, but the rain that has been falling since last night just turned into snow! This is always a great moment in Fairbanks. Sadly, it means the end of another great kayaking and canoeing season, but it means that soon we’ll be mushing, skijoring, and skiing.
Winter in Alaska rocks!
It was a sad occasion, but Melinda and Bill Gates were here in Fairbanks, Alaska today. I couldn’t mention it before, but they came up for the memorial service this afternoon for Susan Butcher at the Davis Concert Hall at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The Gates have been friends with Susan and David for years, ever since the Gates came up for a dog mushing trip as part of their honeymoon. I was really impressed with Melinda, who gave one of several short reflections about her friendship with Susan and David. She told some nice, warm stories, and is an excellent speaker. Melinda apparently spent a lot of time with Susan when she was being treated at a hospital in Seattle, apparently more than anyone except for Susan’s husband David.
It was an impressive memorial, with a variety of dignitaries, including Alaskan politicians, George Lucas (another friend of the family), and many from the Fairbanks and mushing communities. It is amazing how many lives Susan touched, right through her losing battle with leukemia. It’s nice that people came from so far to pay their respects.
I was a bit amazed to meet a fellow Fairbanksan, Jane Vohden, at SQL PASS in Dallas last week. (It’s rare that I encounter anyone from Alaska, much less Fairbanks.) She works for the Fairbanks North Star Borough, and we’ve started talking about forming a combined SQL Server/.NET users group. At this point we’re just talking, but it’s something we’d love to do.
All we have to do now is search out the no doubt immense hordes of SQL Server DBAs and .NET developers in Interior Alaska who might be interested in getting a group going. So if you are one or know of one, or if you want to become a member of what might end up being the furthest north such user group (maybe in the world, but almost certainly in the U.S.) give me a shout.
Geez. Once again Congress is monkeying with stupidities. They pass an Energy Bill that is bad for conservation and great for polluting energy sources, doing virtually nothing to encourage the development of clean or energy saving technologies. At least they're not opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in this bill. No, that will wait for the budget nonsense in September.
Okay, that is grating enough. But they pass a bill that encourages more energy development and usage, then includes this section (Section 111):
Amends the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to extend standard daylight time from March to November (currently from April to October). Requires the Secretary to report to Congress on the impact of this extension upon energy consumption in the United States.
Set aside for the moment that it is ridiculous for us to use Daylight Savings Time (DST) here in Alaska, where we have precious little sun in winter and nearly fulltime sun in summer. We're going to put the country through the disruption of changing the months we're in DST. They keep monkeying with this, the first time in my memory back in the 70s during the energy crisis that started it all. People didn't like it then and won't again now, and they'll change it back again in a year or two. History repeats itself.
Oh, and we'd better hope that all the major operating system vendors get their patches done in time, and that everyone installs them. Otherwise a lot of people will be on the wrong schedules for a month or so!
Bah! Congress, quit disrupting our lives just so you can claim to be doing your job. Do something real for a change!
I am the admin for a couple of non-profit groups' emailing lists hosted at the local university. We need to move the lists to another host. Does anyone know of any good ones you can recommend? I know about Yahoo Groups, which are great but have ads. That would work but not our first choice. Are there any hosts that provide lists free to non-profits? If we need to, we could pay a little.
The members of these lists are largely non-technical, so the list has to be user-friendly and have the usual features to allow moderation and spam filtering.
Thanks! (I still have comments turned off because of increasing comment spam, but you can use the Contact link on the menu on this page.)
Carol is at work today and I'm home with too much work to do. So the right thing to do was to take the dogs for a walk on a beautiful, unseasonably warm day (+18 F) to clear my head and let me process things. I had my dogs Mardy and Izzi along, as well as one of Carol's, Ivy.
We went up to what we call the Alder Trail or the Alder Chute Trail (deliberate play on words), a very nice stroll through the woods near where we live west of Fairbanks. It is an out and back trail, something like a couple of miles each way, with varying grades of up on the outbound. The trail was packed by light snow machine traffic and at least one skier, so it was soft and punchy. Perfect for getting the cobwebs out and stretch me out for the skijor races I'm doing tomorrow.
The dogs frequently went off the trail, doing a porpoise move through the rather deep, soft snow along the trail. Here Izzi returns to the packed trail:
One of many reasons I love winter in Alaska are days like this, even though today is warm:
I was originally going to take our usual route to the Chute, a rather steep part of the Equinox Marathon trail, but there had been no traffic on that part of the trail. This shot is looking up that part of the trail.
We forged straight ahead, still following the semi-packed trail, a section that I'd never been on. It soon turned south, away from the chute, and began descending steeply. So after another half mile or so, we decided to turn around.
One of the favorite walking activities of some of our dogs is to attempt to explain to lowly squirrels just why they are so lowly (Mardy's the champ at this). Here is a shot of all three dogs as they finish their lesson to the neighborhood squirrel. Ivy is on the left, mugging for the camera. Izzi is showing her butt on the right. And you can just see the triangle of Mardy's nose in the upper center as she looks skyward toward the squirrel, safely out of reach 20 feet above the ground.
I stopped to take this picture on the way home. It is looking northeast from Henderson Road to the Goldstream Valley, which lies north of Fairbanks.
Geez, I love Alaska!
I hate to do this, but until .Text and/or the 'Junkies folks do something to rein in comment spam, I've turned comments off. I love feedback from everyone and some great discussions, but dealing with spam just takes too much time.