Thursday, March 25, 2010

Grey, Blue, Flag Song, Racism, Custody, Nurse Overtime, Raven

Yesterday the sky was solid grey.  There were no clouds, there was just one grey mass.  Wet micro-drops flowed downward all day.  

But this morning looking up at the same view, the sky was bright blue.  But turn around and look toward town and the water and the grey had descended to street level. 






There was only one item in State Affairs this morning - approval of the second verse of the Alaska State Song.  The last time this came to the legislature, it made it through the House, but not the Senate.  This time, we were told by Sen. Menard's staffer Mike Rovito, it had made it through the Senate and is now going through the House.


This group of women - native and non-native - were there to support the bill.  Who would have thought that the issue of racism would come up in this hearing?  I need to go over my notes and video and the audio [It's not up.  I'll have to check what happened to it.]  before I write about this.  It was an interesting history lesson I'll try to share in a later post. 

In the end, because there was only half and hour and there were people there to speak, only the public testimony got heard and the fate of the bill was put off until next Tuesday.  Other posts mentioning the second verse of the flag song.



I sat in on the House floor today.    House Floor Session (ARCHIVED AUDIO)

 HB50  to Limit Overtime for Registered Nurses passed on the floor with only four no votes.  And HB334 on Military Deployment & Child Custody passed without a no vote.  Now they have to pass the Senate.  I know there is a Senate version of HB 334. 

I'd agreed to take someone to the airport today and pick them up Sunday.  In exchange I have a car for the weekend.  On the way home I stopped at Fred Meyer where I'd been told I could get some pictures developed.  I'd never been in the Juneau Fred Meyer.

It's huge!  An employee told me it was a quarter mile from one end to the other.  You can see a box of light at the far end of the aisle that is the exit.  The  photos were .19 each. 

It's hard to get pictures of ravens.  They will sit there as people walk by.  Even if you stop but look the other way.  But if you look at them, let alone pull out a camera, they're gone.  So I got the camera ready, then spun around and took the shot just before it flew off. 

I'll try to give a bit more detail on some of this later.

5 comments:

  1. I remeber being lined up the door with my husbank and chidren waiting for that store to open. What an exciting da.

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  2. If you feed them they will definitely look at you. If the food is too close to you they will feign disinterest. 1/2 inch chunks of stale bread work well.

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  3. Nice new layout.

    Pretty nice photos. In Hungary the weather is pretty good. It is sunny and around 20 Celsius.

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  4. Anon, I tend to feel we spend too much money on stuff in the US, but in a small, isolated location prices can go way up without competition. So I have mixed feelings about it.

    Harpboy - yes, I know I could feed them, but that seems like cheating. I love how smart they are and don't want them to sell out for pay. :) But maybe that's part of their cleverness.

    Ropi, you noticed. I decided to see what the new blogspot templates were all about. Your testing new looks was one of my inspirations, but I don't want to make such big changes as you've made. Thanks.

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  5. Oh, you make me seem so liberal. :D Thanks. :P Well, I am changing it from time to time, because I want to find a simple layout which fits to me and from time to time I feel that the present layout is not for me.

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