Waterbiking

Regulars here know that there will be a bit more than just Waterbiking. 

Our kids gathered on Bainbridge Island last week for a family celebration.  We had a good time in pleasant weather, all the nicer knowing we were missing a week of rain in Anchorage.  The views from my window seat weren't spectacular on the way back yesterday.  As we got to Prince William Sound, we were already told to prep for landing early - trays up, electronics unplugged, etc.  Then the next 20 minutes or so were variations of gray clouds with one brief opening where I could see land below.  That darker stretch is Fire Island, but even parts of it are clouded over.  We did have a smooth landing.  

So I'd been wondering whether I would have decent biking weather to get to my dermatologist appointment today.  The weather app wasn't hopeful last night, but this morning when I opened the shades, there was even sunshine!  My doctor has moved since my last appointment.  He was in the Providence medical high rises.  Now he's in midtown - the modern glassy building on C St. between Northern Lights and Benson.  I noticed the sign in the elevator - Self Cleaning Buttons.  Never noticed a sign like that before.

So here, from Elevator Consultants Solutions:

"Key Highlights

• In today's world, nanoseptic self-cleaning buttons are changing the game for places lots of people touch.
• These innovative buttons clean themselves using nanoseptic technology, so there's no need to use regular cleaners on them.
• The magic behind their cleaning power is a powerful oxidation reaction from mineral crystals that get energy from light you can see.
• This process breaks down nasty stuff like organic contaminants into harmless things such as CO2, making everything safer and cleaner.
• Not only do they work well, but these buttons also last a long time. They're a solid choice for keeping germs at bay.
• With nanoseptic button covers, upgrading those high-touch spots becomes easy and does wonders for public health."

The office takes up the whole 8th floor.  My exam room was on the northeast corner.  I've reserved the room for all future visits.  

And then I was done, with the sun still shining.  So I headed off along C Street to Dowling to pick up the Campbell Creek south trail. 

The water was muddy and  high as it passed under C Street.  I was concerned about what the Arctic underpass would look like. With good reason. A biker and his dog came the other way.  Okay, let's do it.  

I came out the other side with wet feet - I'm guessing it was six or seven inches deep at the deepest point.   So, how is the Minnesota underpass going to be?  

Not as bad as Arctic, but it does go on a bit further on the other side.  

So where the trail ends I decided to go back on Dimond and get back to the trail at C Street. Dimond's
not the nicest biking environment, so I went exploring on Vernye Place, which quickly becomes Della and that connects with Runamuck Place.  

It's only a short block long and Wakefield is a dead end, between Dimond and Campbell Creek.

So back up to Dimond.  The sidewalk deadened near the Minnesota overpass, but a path went down to the bike trail on the other side of the bridge (so I didn't have to go through the puddles again.)  

At Arctic, to avoid the deep water, I went back up to Dimond where I saw this assortment of political signs:

This is why a lot of folks were upset when Matt Shultz pulled out of the US House race.  Here's Independent Bill Hill's sign up with a Sullivan (the Senator, I assume, not Daniel J.)  The Bronson and Church (for Governor) and McGuire and Rasmussen (for Governor}.  All the others are Republicans.  What is he telling Republicans that he's not telling Democrats?  Or does this mean the Republicans really don't like Rep. Nick Begich?

Because I also see Bill Hill signs next to Mary Peltola signs.  If he pulls it off, there will be some upset voters when he picks a side to caucus with.

At C Street, back down to the bike trail and home.  Well one more detour.  I'm sure the underpass at Old Seward Highway will be flooded, so I get off at the new bridge over Campbell Creek - which is 50th and cross Old Seward and get back on the trail on the other side of the bridge.  Sure enough, it's also got lots of water.  Plus it has lots of bumps.  

This is across the creek from the Arctic Road Runner.  

July has only gotten about three inches of rain so far.  While that's three times the normal rainfall, it's not t really a lot of rain over three weeks, though much of it probably came this last week.  And I suspect there was more rain in the mountains where the creek originates.  

But I hope these flood zones are on the Municipalities fix list.  

It's dark and cloudy again as I finish this post at 3pm.  

Deicing and Enchanting Clouds On Flight South

Our early morning flight was on a plane that had a couple of inches of snow on the wings, not to mention snow on the windows.  

But the deicing machines came and cleared the snow and ice off.  There's a short Smithsonian video about deicing planes at the Anchorage International Airport.  Interesting tidbit in the video is that the Anchorage Airport has never been shut down because of snow.  

And once we were up in the air, we went through a fantasy world of clouds.

The video does a reasonable job of capturing magic of flying through this cloud forest.  

In Seattle the ground was wet, but the sun was out.  We took the train to the ferry and the ferry to Bainbridge, where we still had a magical cloudscape.

1400 Cloudy Kilometers And A Very Short Pencil

Friday I passed the 1400 kilometer mark on my bike since April. According to Google that's 869.9197 miles.  That's more than I did last summer or the summer before.  And it's only early September.  200 more kilometers shouldn't be an issue.  1600 would be, well I was thinking 1000 miles, but since I had the conversion table up, I checked.  It's only 994.2 miles.  Google says I need to go 1609 km to get to 1000 miles.  But that's doable too.  

While that may seem like a lot (I hope it does), in perspective it's not that much for a whole summer.  Kristen Faulkner, of Homer, Alaska, won the Olympic road bike race. 

She rode 158 km (98 miles) in "a fraction under four hours."  That's more than a tenth of my summer production in four hours!  Even accounting for the fact that getting to and from the bike trail includes some stop signs and traffic lights, and the bike trail requires some slowing down for walkers, dogs, and occasionally moose, and that she's to a bike much more suited to going fast . . . well you get the idea.  My 1400 km is good exercise, but nothing sensational.  

I did see an obituary today for a man older than I am.  He died after an ebike accident on the Bird to Gird route.  Mine is not an ebike. 

You can watch Faulkner below.  [It seems you have to click the link and watch it on YouTube, not here.]

In recent weeks there have been lots of cloudy, even rainy, days.  But most days had times when biking was good and the sun even made appearances.  

I've mentioned in an earlier post that I'm back in the third grade - as a volunteer.  I don't want to say much about that, because the privacy of the kids is a paramount concern.  I do want to say that working with these kids is pure joy.  And given the education cuts in the State budget, the kids and their teachers need all the help they can get.  

I'd call out to any retired teachers to volunteer.  But also to people who weren't teachers, but also just people who are good with kids.  I contacted the school first and they told me to fill out a volunteer form on the Anchorage School District website.  Figure out what skills you have to offer.  Just being a caring person. who's willing to follow the lead of the classroom teacher, is all you need.  Sometimes I'm walking around and just watching kids doing their work and helping out if they have trouble.  Sometimes I've been given a group of kids and listen as they read from their reading lesson book.  Sometimes I spend more time with one kid who needs extra attention.  You can work out how much time to spend - from an hour a week on up - with your local school.  

I imagine that there are people who would cause the teacher more grief than having no one helping.  But most people can do this.  I guess my superpower here is that I remember being a kid - especially things I got in trouble for, or would have if I'd been caught.  I remember what I was thinking.  Like during nap time in pre-school when I couldn't sleep.  There was a finger-sized hole in the paint on the wall next to my cot.  This was thick greenish (in my memory anyway) that bulged a bit from the wall.  By the time nap time was over, the hole was much, much bigger and Aunty Helen (the pre-school owner) was not happy with me.  But it wasn't malicious.  It was just curiosity.  So when kids are curious, I'm much more understanding than Aunty Helen was. (Actually, she and I were generally good friends.)

So while I don't want to say too much specific, I can show you this picture of one kid's pencil.  While I'd like to say it's a sign of thrift, I think it's more about the kids' general fascination with pencil sharpeners, both manual and electric.

 

Back To Third Grade

Yesterday was one of those on again off again sunny cloudy days.  This is better than weeks with no sun.  As long as your daily routine is flexible, you can go out when it's sunny.  Riding to Grow North Farm yesterday, the clouds were doing their best to block out the sun even though there was lots of blue.  

At the garden, everyone (the subscribers) got collard greens, parsley and garlic.  Then we got to choose two from this table which included:  cauliflower, radishes, beets, bak choi, salad greens, and carrots.  (Except maybe for the carrots, the picture doesn't do them justice.)

On the way home the sun was getting closer to breaking through the clouds.

I know I promised something about 3rd grade.  Here it is.  

Today the sky was similar.  I went to the school I volunteered at last spring.  

Last year the teacher had 30 kids!  The average elementary school class size was 23 and the recommended size for 1st-3rd is 15.  

This year she has only 21 and you could see the difference on her face and attitude.  (But maybe that's also the difference between the beginning of the school year and the end.)

It looks like I'm going to focus on a kid with limited English.  He did some of the work with a lot of help and did a find-the-words puzzle with a lot less help.  I'm hoping mastering basic English will make help this kid blossom.  The school doesn't have an teacher for basic English (can't fill the position I was told.)  They have tablets with lots of educational stuff on them.  There has to be stuff for learning English.  I can also check what the library has.  And I'll just create stuff to help him build his vocabulary and speaking and listening skills.  He did tell me, in careful English at the end, the names of his brother, sister, and mother.  

Last year was very rewarding and I think I can do a better job this time round.  

Clouds! (It's Been Rainy In LA)

 I was out in the car yesterday when it started raining so hard I had the windshield wipers to the fastest speed and I still had trouble seeing through the wet on the windshield.  

Sun did make cameo appearances throughout the day.  

Today it was sunny when I got up - though there were lots of exciting clouds, ranging from white to almost black.  

This iris opened since yesterday and the sun seemed like a good opportunity to get on my bike  for a ride along the beach.  

This is the last block on Rose Ave as you get to the beach in Venice.  The border between Los Angeles (Venice is a neighborhood in LA) and Santa Monica is about a block to the north (to the right in the picture).

Parts - not many - of the bike trail had a couple of inches of water and some sand.  

Headed north, Santa Monica pier is up ahead. 

There are a few wooden walkways from the bike trail to near the water.  I wanted some pictures from near the water.  Above I'm looking north.

Below I'm looking west. 

And below I'm looking south back toward the pier.  This is NOT a black and white photo.

It was at this point, as I was picking my bike up out of the sand, that a life guard in a truck came over to me and said that NOAA reported there was a thunderstorm due in the next half hour and to clear the beach.  (There weren't that many people out anyway, only a few down by the water.)

At this point I felt the first rain drops.  The temperature was in the low to mid 60s F and felt warmer when the sun was on me.  

As I rode back, the palm trees along the palisade in downtown Santa Monica were nicely silhouetted.  

And below I'm approaching the Santa Monica pier from the north.  I hadn't seen the ferris wheel turning when I passed by the first time and it certainly wasn't moving now.  Nor did I see any action on the roller coaster.  

It never rained too hard, despite the ominous clouds.  Some blue and some hint of sun if not actual sun were always visible.  

On the way home I stopped at the 99 Cents store.  But most of the shelves were empty. The cashier said January 5 would be their last day.  They did have produce.  Two avocados, an artichoke, and some broccoli cost me $2.  

When I got near home, it wasn't raining, but there was water gushing down the hill to the flat area.  It had rained very hard while I was gone, but not where I was.  Later my granddaughter took this picture when it rained heavily again and you can see some of the rain coming down, though the picture doesn't capture how hard it was raining.  

The rain seems to have fallen here and there over short periods of time as clouds moved through.  The following list shows rainfall in inches as of 7am Thursday for the five days prior.  There's a lot of variation and this doesn't count what fell yesterday and today.  

Oxnard 6.13

Porter Ranch 4.82

Culver City 3.43

Westlake Village 3.31

Downtown LA 1.98

Bel Air 3.27

Long Beach 1.24

Van Nuys 4.30

Santa Monica 1.80

Northridge 4.54

Whittier 1.51

Pasadena 1.61

Castaic 2.53

I found different numbers when I googled Los Angeles annual rainfall. (Some variation is surely due to location.)  But the range was between 12 and 14 inches!

This is all a reminder that the earth itself is doing fine.  The changes brought on by climate change, the loss of species, are irrelevant to Nature.  The landforms and oceans will survive and evolve without us.  

The coming climate catastrophes are only catastrophes in the eyes of humans.  I'm not sure what the animal and plant species that are being threatened know or feel.  The earth has experienced many changes over its billions of years.  Our hominid ancestors only appeared around seven million years ago.  And individual human lives are like flashes of lightening (which I never did see today) in comparison.   

So go out into nature and learn.  

Panhandling, Inflation, Clouds

 Despite three different topics in the title, this isn't going to be a long post.

1.  It's ok for firefighters, but not for the hungry

Lake Otis and Tudor is one of the busiest intersections in the city.  I also have to get across it on a couple of my regular bike rides.  

Two weeks ago it was crawling with firefighters raising money for charity.  Though collecting money in Firefighters' boots seems a little gross.  They didn't look like new, unused boots.  

That's an admirable activity.  But they were doing it standing in the intersection.  Some in the middle, others between the right turn lanes and the through traffic lanes.  

Photo by ADN photographer Marc Lester

Eighteen months ago, signs like this caused a stir in Anchorage.  

The ADN article tells us:

"The municipality spent more than $8,000 to post anti-panhandling signs at dozens of Anchorage’s busiest intersections in December — but the city law cited on the sign was found unconstitutional by a state court years ago."

"Corey Young, a spokesman for Mayor Dave Bronson, said the signs are meant to 'keep pedestrians away from dangerous situations in the roadway.'” 

It appears from the article that this was done by the mayor's office without consulting affected  departments like the Police Department.  I don't think anyone disputes the idea that there's an element of danger involved in walking the lines of cars at busy intersections, but the courts had said it couldn't be prohibited. 

If the mayor's office thinks this is dangerous, why are they letting the Fire Department do this?  Did the mayor's office even know the Fire Department was doing this?  

Or maybe we should ask if the original signs were an attempt to make those experiencing homelessness less visible to the general public, and danger wasn't the real issue.  

2.  Who's responsible for inflation

I like seaweed.  I don't eat it everyday, but I do now and then.  Last week I went to the Korean grocery story on Fireweed and Eagle to get some more seaweed.  Here's last year's empty package.

And the new one I got last week.  

The weight and number of servings are both the same.  It's at least a year since I bought the first package of seaweed there.  But the price of both is still the same!  

While national chain groceries have been rapidly raising their prices, this local Korean grocery is charging the same amount as they did a year ago - $9.99.  A similar product at Carr's, for instance, is advertised:

This is a total of .92 ounces for $8.99.   The Korean store seaweed is 65 servings at .07 ounces per serving, or 4.55 ounces!  One is $9.77 per ounce  and the other is $2.20 per ounce.

But my point isn't that you can get seaweed much cheaper at the local Korean grocery than at the chain store.  

It's really about inflation.  We know prices have gone up rapidly in the chain store groceries.  But on this item, the Korean grocery has kept the price the same for over a year.  No blaming inflation to raise the price, and adding further to inflation.  [But it's true that I don't know how much the Gimme packages were selling for a year ago.  It's possible that no one increased the price of seaweed.]

3.  Clouds

Anchorage has been having weather this month.  By that I mean wind and rain and sun all fighting it out.  I put up some cloud pictures two weeks ago.  Here are from one this week's bike rides.

Same corner as top pic but with little traffic and no fire department panhandlers. 

Taku Lake

4.  Biking.  And since I've mentioned bike rides, I reached my 1000 km goal for the summer (since April) and then got to 1100.  Getting most of my rides done on the local bike trails and getting regular views of places like Taku Lake make the riding a pleasure.  For lots of folks 600 miles is not that much, but it's kept me out exercising regularly all summer.  

The Wind And Clouds Fight It Out In And Over Anchorage

 

Anchorage doesn't have a lot of what I'd call 'weather.'  By that I mean that generally things a relatively calm.  It rains, but not too hard.  Snow falls quietly.  In the Anchorage bowl the wind generally is a light breeze at most.  We almost never have thunderstorms.  No tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards.  

But this week we are a weather battleground.  The first several pictures are from my Tuesday bike ride.  It wasn't particularly windy on the ground, but clouds were moving furiously, seemingly trying to cover up the blue and block the sun.  Was I going to get my bike ride down before it started raining?  (I did.)

It rained Thursday morning and I assumed that I'd be driving to Grow North Farm for the weekly vegetable pickup, but the sun came out about 2pm.  So did the wind.  Here are the trees in the backyard in the wind.

But the sky looked blue enough, the clouds not too threatening, that I biked to get the veggies.  It wasn't bad most of the time.  Lots of tree debris on the trails, but basically little stuff.  

On the way back, as I was about to cross the Glenn Highway, it looked like there was rain coming down to the west (I didn't quite catch gray curtain in the photo),

 but to the east, the sun was dappling the Chugach range.  

This morning it's both cloudy and quite windy again.  It rained a bit, but not now.  But I want to get this up before the power goes out.