Mackey Wins Iditarod

 Here's Mackey  after crossing the finish line in Nome on 

the big screen in the staff/public lounge in the Capitol.

Black Dog White Snow

 

 

I'm a Broken Record - Juneau is Beautiful!

Third day of nothing but blue sky and sunshine.  It's comfortably warm in the sun, chilly in the shade.  And as we got higher up the trail, we got into snow.  But even though we're still exploring the same trail - Basin Road and Perseverance Trail, I'm seeing new sights and it's simply spectacular. 

 

Remember you can double click on any picture to enlarge it. 

And yes I know you've seen this sign before, but it's bigger here.

  

A man paused while I was taking this picture and asked if 

I was a  geologist. He was and he said he didn't see many people 

taking pictures of rock formations.  

 

  

  

Note the two rocks covered with a thin clear coating of ice.

 

The snow at this point was covered with hoar frost.

  

  

  

This is a frosted nut.

  

 

 
 

This is Silver Bow Basin.

Polaris Students Lobby to Make Malamute State Dog

I met a group of students from Anchorage's Polaris K-12 School at the Capitol who were in town lobbying to get the Alaskan Malamute named the Alaska State Dog.  This campaign has been going for three years and and CS (Committee Substitute) for HB 14 passed the house last April.  Now it is wending its way through Senate committees. 




Here's the bill itself, short and simple.

Dog Watch

Dog Cabins For Sale

Passed this place on my run yesterday.
(for those of you outside of Anchorage, add area code 907.)

Dogs, Therapist, and Autustic Kids

I think the last post was called "Catching Up." It's not going to happen. I'm back from Seward, J1 should be in LA by now, meaning she felt J was going to survive without her around. I know that various nearby friends of his, of ours, of his sister have volunteered to help out.

So I'll break these down into discrete posts. I called the therapist Thursday to see if I could get my exercises before the long weekend. She squeezed me in and it's a short walk from home. So I have a page of exercises and the splint is gone. Just this minimal way to keep the two finger buddy system working, and I can slip it off for washing, typing, etc.

Therapist has two dogs in the office. They checked to see if I was ok with them - after I was sniffed. I am ok with them. I asked something about dogs and therapy and sensing the injuries of the patients. What I got in response was stories about how the dogs work wonders with autistic kids in for physical therapy. The dogs know immediately that these kids are different and instead of playing with them as they do with other kids, they just lie down and get real calm, often with a head in the kid's lap.

And the kids who normally are off the wall suddenly calm down too. Seems there is some research to do here. The news had stuff about dogs demonstrating moral thinking last week, so when will this come out?

Of course I can't ask that question without going to google. Here's the first thing I found at Pet Palace: (Pet Palace is also paying for at least part of the study)

Program Uses Dogs to Help Autistic Kids

By: Susan Rubinowitz

Dr. Francois Martin sought parents who wanted to place their autistic children in a program of therapy sessions with a counselor and a dog. Martin is a doctor of ethology (someone who specializes in studying behavior) who also studied human psychology. He wanted to see if a close rapport with an animal and a therapist would help the children learn to express their feelings and interact spontaneously with another being – socialization traits that are lacking in children stricken by the devastating neurological disorder.

The article goes on to describe the research that is in progress with 12 kids. You can get to it at any of the the links above.

And North Star Foundation has service dogs for autistic children.

Creating a service dog placement for a child with autism differs from creating placements between service dogs and physically challenged adults. From puppy hood on, the philosophy of training the dog and the timetable for placement has to be tailored to the unique needs of the child and move in tandem with the dog's natural development. [more at the link]

Marty and Jake

Part of My Daily Life Here

Beginning of my bike ride to work in the morning. Passing here part of Wat Pa Daeng where we went to Macha Bucha ceremony. The steps up to that part are just a short ways ahead.

I'm sure this is the source of much of the crowing before sunrise and much of the day. At lunch the other day we went through the ways we say animal sounds in Thai and English to much laughter. Cockle Doodle Doo had them rolling.

My boss and the T shirt he hates.

A small fish pond in the work compound. One of the people cleans it and feeds the fish regularly.

One of the offices in the compound. I went down here to work on an English editing project today. It was in Word and I thought it made sense to do track changes in word. I think it would have worked just as well and been easier had I done it on my Mac. But it was an interesting report - about training village youth how to be local reporters of what is happening since their local stories don't normally get covered. Then the stories go up on a website and others make it to mainstream media. This would be a neat idea for Alaska too. The way they finished the concrete in this building is quite attractive just as it is.

There are a lot of nice houses between home and work. I posted pictures of former Prime Minister Thaksin's brother's house the other day. Thaksin returned to Thailand today after the new government allowed his return. The BBC spent a lot more time Gee Whizzing about the new terminal at Beijing's airport than they did reporting Thaksin's return. This house is one of my favorites. It preserves traditional style and isn't as ostentatious as many of the places, though this garden surely takes a lot of work to keep up.

Dogs do like sleeping in the road.

And drivers do avoid them. Remember, they drive on the left side in Thailand.

My boss had these worms on his jacket at lunch yesterday.

Walking back through Wat Ramphoeng from lunch. There's enough in there for me to take a picture a day.

Meetup.com Anchorage Beach Hike

I haven't been on a meetup.com hike since spring - too busy, too lazy, wrong time, wrong hike, lots of excuses. The concept is great - a website where people who want to meetup for some activity. But walking along the beach near Kincaid sounded just right and the time was fine.











We did ok coming down the steep embankment from the Jodphur parking lot. This big piece of driftwood was at the bottom, on the beach.








































We were eight people and eight dogs, all of whom will sleep well tonight.


















The strong tides in Cook Inlet tend to jumble the sea ice and leave a lot on the shore.

















Doug Van Etten, the mastermind behind the meetup.com adventurer group.






















The clouds were heavy, but there was a break on the western horizon all afternoon giving us a peak of the Alaska Range. I think this is Mt. Redoubt.

Lazy Sunday - and shameless pandering pet pics

There was a phone message Saturday evening from our birder friend that we should check out the long-tailed duck at Lake Spenard/Lake Hood. As it turned out we'd been invited to brunch at a friend's near Lake Spenard for Sunday. We pulled into the parking lot by the little park, took out the binoculars, and confidently walked up to the water. A brief scan spotted a white looking bird, and there it was in the middle of the lake. Clear and beautiful in my binoculars, but nothing in my camera. But we couldn't even find long tailed duck in our Alaska bird book. Then we went to brunch. We were greated by Bracha who was so excited we offered to take her for a walk to work off some of that energy.

Janet's house was really comfortable. She'd set the table so nicely, it all looked so inviting. And the healthy quiche was delicious, not to mention all the fruit. And we talked for several hours. The cat - well there were two - eventually appeared on my lap while we were eating and talking. Joel, your mother says hello

After we went back to the lake to show Janet the duck. And on our way home we went back to see if it would get close enough to get it in my camera. It got close enough, unfortunately, I didn't get close enough. But this float plane lake is supposed to be one of the busiest in the world. Well, Lake Hood, to which it is connected is.




Later, I looked up long tail dog on the internet and found out it used to be called old squaw. That was in my book. If you want to see one, you can go here. This one looks just like the one we saw.