Started Day In Bainbridge, Ending In Anchorage

The day began on Bainbridge Island walking my granddaughter to school.  She had on a backpack and a yam (rising tone, like you're asking a question).  That's the Thai name for the shoulder bags you see on the left.  Those are from a blog post in 2008.  I told my granddaughter I'd bought the yam for her mother long ago.  

She said I sounded like I was asking a question and I responded that in Thai each word, actually each syllable has its own tone and yan is rising town.  In English the tone goes with the sentence, so that's why you think it sounds like a question.  When I was studying Thai, at the very beginning, we were just being taught how hear the different tones and then repeat them.  The teacher would say "mea" very flat tone and we would say it adding an English question to the word and changing the tone to a rising tone, which meant dog instead of to come.  

She was quiet for a while and then she said, "Grampa, if Thai words all have tones, how to they make songs?"    She's eight, going on nine.  Good question.  I wonder how much her piano lessons helped trigger that question.  

Then we got a ride to the ferry.  Actually, it was balmy, if cloudy, about 60˚ F.  We'd usually walk, but our daughter offered us a ride.  

I did walk around the deck, but it was very windy.  Here's a picture just as the ferry was leaving Bainbridge.  Downtown Seattle is in the middle, just to the right of the trees.  I thought about it.  Why do we think of the tall cluster of skyscrapers as an image of Seattle.  It's just a tiny fraction of the city.  

COVID and warnings about jammed TSA lines at SEATAC put us into a taxi instead of the train to the airport.  It's really fast that way - about 20 minutes instead of over an hour.  Because of the long lines, they've set up a system where you can make a reservation for a spot in the line.  Ours was for 11:15 (you get 15 minutes period).  Turned out there was no line whatsoever.  And we were in the terminal waiting for our flight.  

I thought this was an interesting sign.  Not sure where they store all the water.  Do they collect it from the roofs of the terminal buildings?  

Our flight was uneventful - the best kind - and were in Anchorage a little early.  We had a great Somali cab driver.  Hope to see him again.  You know, maybe people are afraid of immigrants because they know they are smarter and willing to worker harder than they are.  

And here's the back yard.  

I'll shovel tomorrow.  Nice to be back and to be greeted by much warmer temperatures that we were hearing about.  Our outdoor thermometer says 20˚F.    Didn't feel cold at all.  But we didn't spend that much time outside.  But not the shock that it sometimes can be when it's below 0.

Working On A Truncation Post, But In The Meantime A Visual Break

 When I sat in at the Redistricting Board meeting when they were doing truncation and then assigning Senate seats to the required staggered terms, I kept scratching my head and wondering, what is happening?  Lots of things didn't make sense.  So I've been listening to the video of the meeting and trying to write down exactly what was said so I'm certain about what I'm writing about it.  It's taking forever.  Especially with an eight year old granddaughter who hasn't seen her grandparents in almost two yers.  So here are some pictures - mostly ones she took yesterday.  I won't say which are which.  Today we baked a bread, played war, and were very silly, and I didn't get much done on the Board.  But priorities.

Downtown Seattle off in the distance

This one we played with together in Photoshop

Bookwriting Finally Comes To A Close

 I put together a picture/story book for my granddaughter when she turned two.  I intended to have one for my grandson when he turned two.  But life got more complicated and my original story ideas seemed lame and then the muse move out.  He's turning seven in June and I've just about finished his adventure book now.  I tried to put up the last picture on the back cover, but it wouldn't go.  I used the same online publisher (Zno) used for my granddaughter and I'm doing the same product.  But it's change a bit - square instead of rectangular, and 20 pages instead of 16.  The file goes up on the regular pages and I'm concerned that they no longer do back covers.  The email is in.  

The point of all this is:  I've spent a lot of time on the computer in the last couple of weeks as the finish line came into sight.  And various blog posts have not gotten up.  

I'd offer you a page or two from the book, but he should get it and see it before that happens.  I'm guessing it will take several weeks to get printed and out to him.  Also he's on most of the pages and there's an edict from my kids that grandkids' pics don't go on the blog.  Even with the face blurred.  

So you'll have to trust me that there are cool pics of M being caught in a spider web with a nasty looking spider, carried in the mouth of a T-Rex, riding on the back of a butterfly, and in other scary adventures.  There all based on pictures I took or in one case another family member took and a lot of Photoshop magic.  I have learned some new Photoshop tricks.  I was reminded how pretty much anything you want to know is available online.  I googled something like "How to show a candle lighting a cave" and that took me to a video tape of how to make a cave and show the glow of a candle.  

I've also learned that you can save a layer directly to another photoshop file.  And several new keyboard shortcuts.  

My granddaughter has been a consultant on this project.  She originally lent me one of her shirts when I needed an alligator (there was one on the shirt.)  And she reviewed the pages (FaceTime) and  giggled at the right places and assured me it wasn't too scary.   The other day she said the maze (for getting out of the cave) was too simple.  So I asked her to make me a harder one.  And, now that I think of it, I can show you that one.  Hers was pencil on off white paper.  

There was a lot of new learning as I had to figure out thinks like how to place the pages so that 1) the two pages side by side were compatible and one page didn't ruin the next, and 2) so that the "The End" page would end up on the right side.  

So there's one grandchild left who needs a book in the next few years.  

Lots of FaceTime With My Granddaughter, Blog Suffers, But World's A Better Place

My oldest granddaughter is eight.  She's been FaceTiming with me fairly regularly.  Also teaching me the whole emoji alphabet and how to custom design emoticons.  And she shares her explorations with the effects options.  She also plays the piano for me. In exchange I've been providing an appreciative audience. And loving challenges.  I've been  introducing codes.  We've had a lot of exchanges where every second letter is the real one.  Slbigkne rtshwims.  And I've finally got her working with me on the newspaper Cryptoquotes.  And she dazzled me with her magic trick of making a toothpick disappear and reappear.  Her calls come whenever and I just don't think there is anything I can do that is more important than being available for her.  

But there was also a local Citizen Climate Lobby meeting yesterday.  I helped tutor reading in my granddaughter's class via zoom.  That's easier than it sounds.  I just sit there and listen to first and second graders read books they've chosen.  

And Wednesday is the zoom with my SF grandkids for a couple of hours.  And I've been keeping up with my DuoLingo Spanish (I'm taking a break from the Turkish - they started introducing too many new words and grammar patterns at once.)  

After dark - it gets later and later now - is Netflix time, though their algorithm is now sending us lots of bloody sword fight combat movies.  This seems to have started by our watching Marco Polo - which is an interesting fictionalized account of Polo's time in Mongolia with Kubla Khan.  There are some bloody hand to hand battles with swords.  Not my thing, but getting a sense of the history, even fictionalized, was interesting. The costume designers must have been in heaven.  This led to The King - about Hal and Falstaff moving up to King and his general and a lot of blood and swords as they attack France.  

That's when the algorithm seems to have gone crazy.  We got offered Age of the Samurai; Rise of Empires: Ottoman.  All take place around the 15th Century and include lots of battle scenes which include sword fighting, some rudimentary guns, catapults, and some canons to break down the walls of sieged cities.  The blood and guts has gotten too much for us. A couple episodes were enough. We passed when they offered The Lost Pirate Kingdom.  When we do watch these sorts of shows, we have to clean our our brains with something sweeter, like the Great British Baking Show.  

But there are lots of more serious things I want to blog about, but those things take more time.  There's lots that needs to be done on the Alaska Redistricting Board, like profiles of the Board members and some contextual pieces on how to evaluate how much the final maps have been gerrymandered.  I'm also trying to get information on the law firm that was chosen to advise the Board.  

So, no, I've not abandoned the blog - and I do update the Alaska COVID numbers daily (see the tabs up top.)  And thanks to the commenters on the last post.  I'm thinking about what they wrote.  

And while I'm rambling, some thoughts from reading today's obituaries:

"... is survived by his loving wife. . .; children . . . ; two snakes; a goldfish; a turtle; and a cat."

". . .  and gave hugs to family and friends to show how much he cared for them and never wanted anyone to feel left out or unloved." 

The second one, about the hugs, relates to another issue I've been thinking about - the evolution of what men are allowed to do in their relationships with women.  While many Republicans may have been distressed by Trump's admitted (on the tape) use of his star power to abuse women, they still voted for him.  Meanwhile, they're all aboard in calling for Gov. Cuomo to resign.  

This obituary raises a cultural issue about touching and hugging.  Some people grew up in families where hugging is a natural form of greeting.  (In France people kiss each other on the cheeks as a form of greeting.)  So when men come from hugging families and cultures, that kind of greeting for someone you care about, is usually pretty innocent.  But for a woman who comes from a family with little or no affectionate touching, or who has been abused, those touches can have a very different meaning.  I'm not downplaying the ways men abuse their power to make sexual overtures to women who work for them.  I even suspect a fair amount of male support of Trump is in support of their own right to rule over women.  But I am saying that in some cases it may not be about power or sex, but simply cultural differences in how people show platonic affection.    

I'd also note that in this second obituary, there are long lists of people who preceded him in death and those who survived him, including "his pride and joy" two sons.  But nowhere could I find mention of the mother of those two sons.

So, this is to let you know I'm not brain dead.  More like overloaded.      

M5.3 at 09:59 AM, 9 mi NW of Anchorage

 A good rattling jolt this morning at 10am.  But it was over quickly.  Got to the kitchen table, but it was over already.  Today would be my mom's 99th birthday so I'm figuring she was reminding us.  But Mom, I knew already.  I wouldn't forget.  Really.   Happy Birthday!

From Alaska Earthquake Center

Magnitude 5.3 - 8 miles NW of Anchorage

An aftershock of the November 2018 M7.1 Anchorage earthquake.

February 27, 2021   09:59:25 AKST
61.3286°N 149.9991°W    Depth 26.1 miles

50

 This was my bride and me 50 years ago yesterday.  We had to celebrate via internet with our kids and grandkids.  Then we had a surprise party in reverse.  Some friends decided to break the isolation with a zoom get together.  So we surprised them by announcing it was our anniversary.

The actual event didn't have many people - just our parents, my brother, and the couple that negotiated peace between me and J's parents.  

AIFF2020: The Subject Took Me By Surprise

I finally figured out the Q&A scheduling [it's tricky just seeing the times, so I've put up a schedule on the AIFF2020 page above] and Hometown Pride was going to have the Q&A Thursday at 6pm.

I watched Hometown Pride this afternoon.  This is a fun and easy to watch film about a very out and outgoing gay man who comes back to his tiny Ohio hometown to dance at their annual beauty pageant. Good, not remarkable.  We've seen other versions of this story at AIFF in past years.  

Then I went for Paper Spiders.  I'd been avoiding this one because I wasn't sure I wanted to deal with a mother's mental illness, but its Q&A was also coming up.  

We paused Paper Spiders in the middle so we could watch the Q&A for The Last Days of Capitalism.  This was my favorite feature film and I was looking forward to the session.  It's not quite the same on Zoom as it is live at the festival.  But it was a good discussion.  

The back to Paper Spiders which was surprisingly good, but the mom is definitely delusional and paranoid.  But the story was well told and well acted.  There are lots of very good narrative features at this festival.  The title is referred to visually only briefly in one shot.  It leaves a lot to the viewers imagination.  

Then on to another one I was avoiding, because it looked like it was going to be heavy - The Subject.

This film follows a documentary film maker doing a project on Black young men mostly in Harlem.  The difficulties filming his volatile subjects seems to be the focus.  There's also some tension at home which escalates when he hires an assistant.  But then at the end everything kicks up a bunch of notches and we have an amazing confrontation between the film maker and the mother of one of his subjects who has been killed by gang members.  

I feel a little like a fickle boyfriend, but I've abandoned The Last Days of Capitalism and now my favorite feature is The Subject.  I don't want to say too much about it - I think I've told you more than you need to know already.  Just see it.  The issues - the relationship between the filmmaker and his subjects, particularly if the filmmaker is a privileged white male and the subjects are black kids living in poverty and violence - themselves are powerful.  But the final scene is amazing and where the issues are served up like fireworks.  

There's an interview with the director of The Subject Laney Zipoy here.  The AIFF interview was last Saturday and I haven't figured out how, or if we even can, watch the ones we missed.  

AiFF2020: Toprak and The Woman of the Photographs

 I can't believe there are still five narrative features I haven't seen yet.  Or that I'm writing about two obscure films instead of addressing more significant issues.  But there are plenty of people commenting on US politics and not very many commenting on these two films - one  Turkish and and Japanese.  

Toprak - 

I just looked up Toprak on google.translate.  It means Soil.  You don't have to know that watching the movie (I didn't), but it makes a lot of sense.  

Often times, watching a film based in a culture other than one's own, people need to change their sense of time, their pace.  I suspect, given the success of US films around the world, that speeding things up is easier to adapt to than slowing things down.  

This film slows things down a lot.  It takes place in rural Turkey, where this slower pace is the norm.  It focuses on the remnants of one family - a grandmother, her son, and his nephew - who eke out a living growing and selling pomegranates.  It's a theme we've seen repeatedly in AIFF films - young people leaving rural areas and small towns to pursue a more interesting, if not better, life.  And we know this saga in the US and here in Alaska all too well.  

This movie takes us into how these tensions between carrying on the family traditions and breaking the ties plays out in this (and to a much lesser extent one other) Turkish family.  

Originally, a copy of this film without subtitles was up on the AIFF site.  That was corrected yesterday (Wednesday).  Slow down and take a trip to rural Turkey. Pomegranates would make an appropriate snack for this film.

The Woman of the Photographs

We watched this one after Toprak. The topics of this film are very contemporary and the pace much faster.  It's an odd film - the main character doesn't speak a single word until the last few minutes of the film; a praying mantis has a significant supporting role - that explores the boundaries between the reality of who people are - what their actual faces and bodies look like, the manipulated photographic images on social media, or how other people perceive them.  This is a perfect film festival selection.  

I found The Woman of the Photographs a more watchable film than Toprak, I think because the issues raised in Toprak are well-known.  Toprak merely adds a case study to the stories of people leaving their small town/rural lives to larger cities.  Woman of the Photographs offers interesting material for the current concerns about how social media are changing the nature of reality, how we communicate,  and personal identity.  

AIFF2020: Dinner In America: A Movie I Shouldn't Have Liked, But I Did

 I'm falling way behind here.  I'm pretty much picking pictures based on the photo, title, and description.  Here are some I think are worth watching.

Narrative Features

I really didn't expect to like Dinner in America   It starts off in an institutional dining room.  Someone throws up on his tray of food.  I almost stopped it right there.  But I didn't and we get to follow an out of control drug dealer (no, that's just one of his personas) have family dinner in three different homes, do a lot of crazy shit (sorry, that's the best description), and win over both of us.  This is a good movie.  Filmed in Michigan.  

Small Town Wisconsin was filmed in Wisconsin.  We even get a tour of Milwaukee.  Another main character who does lots of things that don't endear him to the others characters or the audience.  A little past midpoint we discussed abandoning the film.  We didn't.  It would have been a mistake.  

Foster Boy - This is more Hollywood than film festival.  It has two well known (there may have been others) actors - Matthew Modine and Louis Gossett Jr. - and  Shaquille O’Neal is the executive producer.  This is a court room drama.  A rich, conservative corporate attorney is assigned, against his will, a pro bono case of a 19 prisoner who is suing the foster care corporation that placed him in about a dozen homes.  A compelling film with appealing heroes and appropriately nasty villains.  

Of the three, I'd say Foster Boy had a number of loose ends - where I couldn't quite believe a) the lead attorney didn't get suspicious faster about his son's cancelled trip or b) all the dirty tricks that happened over Thanksgiving weekend.  I attribute b) to squeezing events that happened over a longer period of time into a couple days to fit the condensed time line of the movie.  The film said it was a fictionalized account of a true story.

Shorts  I think are worth watching:

Masel Tov Cocktail - I've already written about this, but I'm including it again just in case you missed my earlier mention.  At this point, this is my favorite film of the festival.  This was a tricky project and it all fit together wonderfully.  It couldn't have been told as well in any other format than film.  

 Cake Day - A good story told economically and movingly.  

Woman Under the Tree  - Maybe a bit longer than necessary, but it's a well told tale of a homeless woman.  

The Marker - Like Cake Day, a good story told well.  

Happy (Short) Films -  I've added this category because this festival is heavy with issue films.  Here are two shorts, particularly Pathfinder, that present the beauty and wonder of the natural world.  

 Pathfinder - A small group of adventurers put up a slack line high up among snow peaks in Norway with Northern Lights in the background.  Pure joy.

Sky Aelans - Also up in the mountains, the people of the Solomon Islands are protecting the mountain environment.  The camera shares some of the wonders up there worth their care.  

I still have lots of movies to see.  There appears to be a lot worth watching.  More later.  

AIFF2020: Sapelo And A Strong Recommendation For The Last Days Of Capitalism And For Grab My Hand: A Letter To My Dad

Usually Saturday is really busy during the festival with films starting as early as 9 am some years.  But we've somehow gotten into a routine with Netflix that we never watch before it's dark.  (Well, in the summer, before 8 or 9 pm anyway.)  So it didn't seem right to start til late afternoon.  We saw one documentary feature - Sapelo - one shorts program - The Best Ships Are Friendships - and one narrative feature - The Last Days of Capitalism.  

Sapelo is a documentary about. . . well, that's a bit of a problem.  It starts out, it seemed, to be about the Black people who have been living on the island, a ferry ride from mainland Georgia,  for 200 years.  There are lots of pauses to just look at beautiful vistas of the island.  But it meanders into a story about two brothers, their grandmother.  How old are the boys?  Don't remember being told.  I do remember that an older brother was 14, so I'm guessing these two were maybe between 9 and 11.  The grandmother adopted the mother too.  Some of it feels like a reality show.  Some of it feels like an invasion of the kids' privacy, particularly as we watch one of the boys having anger management problems and there's talk of his medication.  He's wearing an ankle bracelet for a while and in the end he's been sent to a detention center.  By the end I felt like these boys were being exploited.  They weren't capable of giving consent.  Was it the grandmother who gave consent?  What was she told they would be filming?  

On the other hand, a unique way of life was being captured.  Well, the end of a unique way of life.  The boys may well treasure this intimate portrait of them when they are older.  But making it public doesn't feel right to me.  

What was the relationship between the Swiss filmmakers and the people on the island.  We never see from or hear about the film makers except near the beginning when one of the boys looks up at the camera and apologizes for his language

The Last Days of Capitalism -  Wow.  Just picked this from the website knowing nothing about it and we were totally absorbed by two actors - Sarah Rose Harper and Mike Faiola.  We had no idea where it was headed.  This was not your ordinary movie fare.  This is what I love about film festivals.  Will I wake up in the morning and wonder what I was thinking?  Not sure.  I just know that we were hooked til the very end.  Recommended.  (Not saying much about the content.  Just know that it is two people probing each other.  Drugs and alcohol and a fair amount of money are involved.)  My hat is off to writer/director Adam Mervis.  

All of the shorts were worth watching.  Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad was the one that stands out as visually striking and clever and beautiful and it was the right length for the story.  Nothing unnecessary.  I just don't know why they didn't call it Gatecheck.  Be sure to watch this one.  Camrus Johnson, thanks for this film.  Latchkeys was sweet - I mean that in the best way.

The Guitar Center And New Sagaya - Two Very Different COVID-19 Strategies

First, we've taken COVID seriously.  Shopping has only been by online ordering with home delivery or (mostly)  curbside pickup.  Until we went to Denali in early September and had to go into the campground store to pickup our reservation, I hadn't been inside anywhere except our house and car since March. 

The Guitar Center Gets An A

So it was with great reluctance that I agreed to go the Guitar Center to pick up an electronic keyboard for my wife for her birthday.  It's something she's wanted since watching our granddaughter learning piano and  learning a bit with her.  The Guitar Center said they only allow five customers in at a time, one per section of the shop.  Masks were required.  I had tried to order it online and get curbside pickup - but they charged about $70 for that.  They had what I wanted in stock and if I came in to pick it up there was no charge.  

Lots of friends have been shopping with masks and they haven't contracted the virus.  I've been reading that wearing masks greatly reduces the spread.  It sounded like the conditions were ideal.  I parked in the lot.  There's a sign outside where people are to line up.  (No one was in line.)  The door was locked.  Someone let me in.  They had my stuff at the counter.  I paid.  Someone carried the keyboard out to the car.  It's a large store with lots of room.  One other customer came while I was there.  They unlocked the door and let him in.  

New Sagaya Gets an D-

On my wife's actual birthday, I was getting curbside pickup at Carr's.  But I hadn't ordered any kind of birthday cake and they said they couldn't add to the order.  So, given my good experience at the Guitar Center, I decided to go to New Sagaya and pick up something tasty at the bakery.  You just walk in.  The bakery was ok, the employees were masked, and he put on gloves to get the pastries and put them in a box.  Since I was already in the store, I figured I could pick up a few things we haven't had for a long time - like sushi, and a veggie wrap.  There were a lot of people in the store.  You could not pass through and maintain any kind of distance.  I only saw one customer without a mask covering his face.  

But then I got to the checkout.  There are four, but only two on one end were open.  They're close together.  At best, in my row (not the one on the end) I would be back to back with the cashier in the end row probably less than two feet separation.  But there was a second employee standing next to that other cashier talking to my cashier (casually, not about business) with her mask below her chin.  

I was surprised.  I would have to be less than a foot from her if I passed through.  I was next in line, but about three feet back.  I asked her to put on her mask.  She turned and faced the other way.  I quickly got my stuff and left.  

I called the store and asked to speak to the manager.  I told him my tale.  He said he knew who I was talking about and would take care of it.  

But it's more than the one employee.  They have four registers.  Only two were being used.  They really should only use every other checkout line.  They shouldn't have so many people in the store that you have to pass within a foot or two of other customers.  They should monitor the doors and limit how many people are in the store.  

And an employee who is that close to customers without a mask should be fired.  Sorry.  They have less control of customers and masks, but for employees, this should be unacceptable behavior.  

We did enjoy the pastries, one with a candle in it.  I don't know what it's like inside other stores, but that was my experience.  And I only went in because it was my wife's birthday.  

We have to decide if we're going inside for flu shots.  We went to the Alaska Regional Hospital drive through flu shot event last week.  We called first to see if they had the stronger version for seniors.  The lady said they did.  She also said it was really crowded (at 6pm - they opened at 5:30) and we should come closer to 8 (when they close).  We got there at 7:10 and the line wasn't too bad.  There were actually several lines.  But they had run out of forms to fill out.  When we got to people holding needles, they gave us a form.  We said we wanted the stronger version.  They didn't have any left.  If we took this one could we get a stronger one later?  No, you shouldn't get the other one if you get this one.  So we left.  

We'll try again this evening.  We'll go earlier.  If it doesn't work, we'll probably go to Walgreen.  Not something I want to do.  [UPDATED October 6, 2020 10pm:  There was a very long line when the drive thru flu shots opened up at Regional, but they had five open lines and things went much faster than I expected:  maybe 40 minutes.  Arm's not too sore either.]

But I did hit 600 kilometers on my bike this week, and that's only from when I got the odometer working, early June I think.  

Hope you're all staying well.  We're being a little extreme, waiting as doctors and researchers learn more about the habits of this virus.  And there's no guarantee that it won't mutate and learn different behaviors.  

More Denali Pictures and Thoughts

You can drive into the park 12 miles to Savage River.  From there on you need to take the bus or get a special permit to drive.  At Savage River there's a wonderful 2 mile loop trail which I've posted about in the past.  While people stopped in the parking lot, relatively few went on the trail.  And only we had masks ready to pull up if people were nearby.  The first view is from the bridge looking southeast.

There are lots of rocky outcroppings along the trail.  

And lots of lichens.  

The trail comes along Savage River on one side for a mile.  Then you cross a bridge and come back the other side.  You can see the sun on the water despite the mostly cloudy day.  

The Alpine Trail starts near the Savage River campground, and if you take the whole trail, gets you to the Savage River Trail parking lot where the pictures above are from.  We started on the Alpine Trail once and got a ways in, but turned back.  Then we went to where it ends and watched a mother bear and several cubs go up the trail we would have been arriving on had we continued the hike.  

The Alpine Trail is  lovely with totally different terrain and vegetation from the nearby Savage River trail.  Here's a tiny waterfall in the creek you go by.  

And this is from the road driving back to Riley Creek Campground.  This is an example of why you may easily miss the wildlife around you.  There is a herd of caribou in this picture.  No, don't even try.  I could barely spot them in the original higher resolution version of this picture and I knew where to look.  We found them the most common way to see wildlife - see other people looking through binoculars out into the distance.  It took a while with my binoculars until I saw them.  They were the only large animals we saw.  And a ground squirrel and a bunch of tree squirrels.  There was also a golden eagle flying around at this spot.  

Despite the forecast of rain, we had a rainless Wednesday and the sun was making its location known through the clouds enough that we could see our shadows most of the time.  It was a fine day and the campfire at the end led to a delicious meal.  

I look at this picture and it's hard to believe we've had this van since 1998.  It replaced the one we'd originally bought in 1971 after we got married and honeymooned on a road trip from LA to the Great Slave Lake in the Canadian New Territories.  Followed by a summer trip to Mexico, British Honduras, and Guatemala the next summer.  Then we had kids  and didn't take a long trip until we drove up to Alaska.  I remember when we finally sold the first one after 24 years (and my mechanic telling me the holes in the floor couldn't really be repaired), that my son told me that he and his sister got worried.  After all, we'd had the car longer than we'd had them and they were concerned we might get rid of them next.  We finally got new sleeping bags last year, but we still have some stools and a hatchet that were in the original van.  (As I write that I realize they're in the picture.)

And I'd also like to compliment the folks who designed the Riley Creek campgrounds.  The spots of the cars and tents had absolutely no mud even though it had rained a lot before we got there.  And you're a very good COVID distance from the other sites.  Though you have to go into the Mercantile (a small grocery there) to claim your reserved campsite.  But the visitor center is closed.  There are two masked rangers behind plexiglas barriers giving information to tourists, many of whom were not wearing masks.  This was really the most contact with others since early March and only our second outing.  And we only did this to let the carpet guy install our carpet that came last fall, but they held up installing until the kitchen floor was put in.  But the bamboo flooring didn't come til really late.  It got in, but there wasn't time to put in the carpet.  So our life has been on hold to a certain extent since last fall when we started putting as much stuff as we could downstairs so we could clear the upstairs.  Then the virus hit and I didn't want anyone spending a couple of days in the house.  

But we've had time to learn more about how the virus spreads and other friends have had workers in to do things with no bad consequences.  So we decided on the Denali trip to be out of the house while the carpet went in.  But the carpet installer had a longer estimate for the work than the salesman.  So only the living room and the hall were done, not the upstairs bedrooms.  But I'm delighted that this got us up to Denali.  And the carpet looks great and we're going to be very careful about what comes back upstairs and what gets given away or tossed.  

Random Thoughts On COVID-19 Impacts Now And Later

 Impact On Kids 

There's lots of talk about the debilitating impacts on the mental health and development of kids with schools out of session.  But I haven't seen anything (I did look, though not exhaustively) on all those kids for whom school is torture because they are shunned, picked on, bullied, beat up, or otherwise made to feel miserable at school.  For them, distance learning is probably an improvement.  

Medical Waste

I've been appalled for a long time about medical waste.  I think it started when I accompanied someone to the ER for a twisted ankle that was swelling.  It was winter here in Anchorage with lots of snow.  We got into the ER and they pulled out some sort of chemical ice pack, they twisted it and put it on her ankle.  I don't recall the price of the item - over $50 at least.  All the free snow and ice you could want, perfect for molding in a plastic bag on an ankle, was just outside the door.  

When you get a shot, the syringe and needle is tossed.  My mom was a lab technician and I remember the autoclave (there's a word that's been sitting idle in my brain for decades just waiting for this post, I even forgot it was there) where they sterilized the glass syringes and the needles.  Now things get tossed. 

When my mom caught MRSA in the hospital - new doctors kept coming in and each put on a whole set of protective clothing before entering.  (They all wanted to do new tests which required drawing more blood from my poor mom.)  They saw her for less than five minutes, then tossed all the protective gear when they left.  

While I don't know how much this kind of waste adds to the total medical costs, I do know it contributes to the landfill problems, including plastics and ocean plastic gyres.  

But when PPP were in short supply at the beginning of the pandemic, medical personnel began wearing masks all day instead of throwing them away after each patient.  Hospitals found ways to sterilize PPP. 

I hope there are people rethinking our throwaway hospital practices.  How can they reduce what they add to landfills, reduce the use of the raw materials, reduce costs?  All the medical supply companies will be fighting them all the way.  It would be interesting to see the role of medical supply company lobbyists play in the developing the rules hospitals must follow in these practices. 

Food

The whole way my household gets food has changed radically.  We use an app and then go pick it up 'curbside' in the parking lot.  (There really isn't a curb involved.)  I'm getting better finding what I'm looking for with the app.  I buy less spur of the moment things because I don't see them.  And I realize that we have at least one new staple in our fridge - cottage cheese.  It's an easy to 'prepare' snack that's probably healthier - and less expensive - than the Talenti gelatos in the freezer.  Also, without going out to eat, our food bill has gone way down.  

Will we go back to in-store grocery shopping when this is over?  I  suspect so, but I don't know, but when we're pressed for time I'm sure we'll use the apps.  And I know there will be a huge demand for restaurants.  And there will be plenty of people ready to open restaurants to meet that demand.  

Laws of Nature versus The Rules of Men*

The notion of social construction - things that are created by humans - is becoming clearer during the pandemic.  Often these are institutions that people just assume are 'natural', fixed, the way things are.  Like slavery once.  Like women not voting.  Like until death do us part heterosexual marriages.  (And the * in the heading is to emphasize that until very recently in the US, nearly all laws were made by men.) 

We're seeing now how the economy can collapse.  How school can be cancelled.  How our customary forms of greetings can be put aside.  How covered faces can be seen as the fashion of bandits, the assumed oppression of some Muslim women, to now a badge of political political persuasion or concern for health.  

But while we keep being enlightened about the 'made up' quality of the rules of people, the laws of nature keep steady - the sun comes up each morning, the weather does its thing, viruses do theirs.  

Science is the study of the laws of nature.  Science doesn't always correctly describe how nature works, but it's surely proving that science does a lot better than religion or politicians who want to ignore it for their own personal gain.  

I'm hoping that when this is over, a lot of the rules of men that oppress other people, that keep people poor, that destroy the natural world, that allocate wealth, will be seen as just made up rules that can be changed to create a more equitable and positive place for people to live.  

Video Conferencing

As I'm writing this post in Anchorage, I'm also on jitsi watching my grandkids in San Francisco playing with various Lego and other building materials.  We're just hanging out together doing our own things, but we can look and see each other as we do it.  It's VERY cool that we can be together like this.  I think back to my childhood when even a call to outside the local area in Los Angeles cost so many cents per minute, and international calls were dollars per minute.  This video conferencing is as amazing a change as anything I can think of.  (As I was proofing this my granddaughter pulled  apart her big brother's lego creation and he got so mad he hit her.  And she cried and told him to go away.  And now they've made up with the guidance of their dad.  

Everyone enjoy your weekend.  Time for me to get away from this screen.  

Robots, Internet, Long Distance Babysitting

Part of my electronic babysitting duties includes helping my grandson construct robots.  The book has dozens of robots with all the parts ready to be punched out of the templates and then constructed with a little help from glue.   I read the directions and he does the work.

If you can't read the description, the EVV is a professional stunt-bot and dare devil, 3 feet tall.  It's abilities include extreme agility and strength; complete lack of fear.

Here's the completed robot - the EVV.

Last night our internet crashed, after business hours.  This morning we got through after about 25 minutes.  While they couldn't fix it while I was on the phone, but once she sent it to the next level it was back on.

And it seems much better.  We've been having really slow speeds.  Too slow to have one grandkid on Jitsi and another one on Zoom.  But today while I was with M, Z called to see if we could zoom, and they both worked fine.  But I passed Z off to her grandmother.  I wasn't up for both on two different platforms.

It's certainly not the same as being there, but it is like being in the same room.  Sometimes we have conversations, sometimes we just do our own thing, but we can hear each other and make comments.  The kids are good at working on things independently, but they do like someone around to show their work to.  An arrangement that works for me.  And attending to your grandkids is always a legitimate excuse to not be doing other things on your list.

Blogging During A Pandemic [Updated]

Trying to keep current on the State's COVID-19 statistics has consumed a lot of space on this blog and time.  June 1 I added a tab up top and am doing briefer updates along with updating numbers on the chart.
Also trying to get things done around the house - almost have our taxes ready to go to the accountant.  Trying to get out early - or on rainy days - so I don't pass too many people on the bike trail, and balancing that with a knee that acts up has been tricky.  Late Netflix watching makes getting up early harder.  We have managed to limit that too evening.

Zooming with my granddaughter - never know when I'm going to get a text "May I please zoom with you and Bubbie? Now?"  followed shortly after by "I'm waiting" - takes precedence over everything else.  And my son and I are working out how to play games with my SF grandson.  He really likes things like DinoTrains on PBS Kids.

Our garden brings joy.  It's green and sitting on the deck is like being out in the woods almost.

The COVID-19 updates on the tab are like a mini-post every day already.  Plus there are so many things to post about, things important enough that I need to think carefully and do some research.

Like what does "Defund The Police" mean in practical terms?  I love the idea of focusing on the reducing the long term causes of crime rather than on militarizing the police.  And it seems like when the police presence faded away in the last few days, the protests were much more positive.  And what happens to the police let go, particularly the bad apples?  In Iraq, when Saddam Hussein's army and police were disbanded, those highly trained officers became an anti-government force - the insurgency.  I don't think we need to add more folks to white supremacist groups here, so there needs to be a plan for what to do with the old police.

And how are the 2020 elections going to work?  While Republicans cry voter fraud, the real problem seems to me to be Republican election fraud and voter suppression.  Ideally, the folks out in the streets and those supporting them in isolation will all vote and crush Trump so badly that no amount of election fraud will matter.  But I don't know that we can count on that.  

Then, there's redistricting coming up next year after the census numbers are in.  I spent three years of my life reporting on Alaska's Redistricting Board ten years ago.  I didn't intend to, but no one else was covering it.  And the tab on top of this blog on Redistricting has been getting a constant flow of visitors.  It's basically the only real serious source of material on what happened.  And since the state's redistricting website has been dismantled, many of my links to maps don't work any more.  Are we going to have mapping software this year that everyday people will have free access to so that they can make their own maps?  Will there be legislation that will make the new Board's website something that won't disappear so only those who had sway with the Board can use the information on it now?  Lots to think about.

And I've got a birthday book I'm trying to create for my grandson.  I got one done for his cousin when she was two years old and hoped he would get one too for his second birthday.  Life and an errant muse got in the way.  He's going to turn six now, so I'm way behind schedule, but I do have a number of pages in draft form.  Just getting the story to match the pictures now and then get it printed.

And I picked up Philip Caputo's Hunter's Moon this weekend - Barnes and Noble brought it out to the car - and I have to read that before my next book club meeting.

Isolation really hasn't been that great a change in my life.  Just don't see our friends at all, or go out to eat, or hike or camp.  We missed our annual May trip to Denali National Park and our grandkids won't come visit this summer.  But there's plenty to keep us busy.  Another crimp in our lives is our upstairs carpet.  It was supposed to be replaced last fall.  (It's about 25 or 30 years old now and it shows.)  But we also had the kitchen linoleum replaced with a bamboo floor.  They wanted the floor in first because it makes it easier to connect the wood to the carpet that way.  But the bamboo was delayed until November and by the time they got it in we headed out for Thanksgiving, then December again with family and then again January and February Outside with family.  By the time we got back and were arranging the carpet, COVID came.  I was sick (but couldn't get tested for COVID) and since then we've been wary of someone in the house for two days.)
The crimp comes from us having started last fall to move things downstairs so they could do the carpets.  So lots of stuff is in temporary storage downstairs, things we would like to use, but are having trouble finding.

Hope everyone else is surviving reasonably well.  I hope all the demonstrators are getting COVID tests and taking appropriate actions to minimize bad health impacts of the demonstrations.

[UPDATE June 8, 2020 12:20pm:  I totally forgot to mention blog subscriber problems.  That was one of the reasons I was doing this post.  I've had two folks contact me to let me know that they are no longer getting their email notifications of new posts.  I then realized I'm not either.  I've been trying to figure out the problem.  I'm not sure if this affects all subscribers or just those using the subscription option in the upper right hand column.  I'm working on it, but it's just one more of the many leaks I'm trying to plug in my life right now.  None serious, but just irritating and time consuming.]

Alaska COVID-19 Count Sunday May 31, 2020 - 27 NEW CASES - Most Ever

When the State is an hour past their "Updates will typically occur by 12:00 PM AKDT daily" promise (often their up before 11 am) I wonder if it's just because it's Sunday or whether they don't want to tell us the bad news.  The increased number of folks back out in the world, plus the demonstrations yesterday here (and other places) suggests a likely spike in a couple of weeks by the latest.

Meanwhile, while I'm waiting for the numbers, let me say once again, this is the last of these regular posts on the virus.  Instead, I'll update on a tab (what Blogger calls a Page) just below the header picture on top.


OK - the numbers were put up 15 minutes ago, now.  I guess it was the bad news that held things up.  27 NEW CASES.  That's the most we've ever had in one day.  The previous high was 22 on April 7.  This really shows the impact of hunkering down and then easing up the restrictions.  I'm hoping the governor and mayor get us back on hunkering down.  This isn't just a freak number.  This last week the numbers have been higher than the week before.

I'd note that yesterday's state chart (you can see the screenshot in yesterday's post) said there were 334 cases - so by my count that would mean we had 36 new cases to get us to 360.  But for various legitimate reasons the state adjusts numbers.  That's another reason why I'm tracking the original numbers and not adjusting daily.

CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ALASKA MARCH/APRIL/May 2020
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
new/total	hos=hospital		12th  = 0/0	13th = 1/1	14th = 0/1	15th = 0/1
16th = 0/1	17th = 2/3	18th = 3/6	19th = 3/9	20th = 3/12	21st= 2/14	22nd= 8/22
23rd=14/36	24th =6/42 1 hos 1 dead	25th = 17/59 3 hos 1 dead	26th = 10/69 3 hos 1 dead	27th =16/89 5 hos 2 dead	28th = 13/102 6 hos 2 dead	29th= 12/114 7 hos  3 dead
30th=5/119 7 hos 3 dead	31st= 14/133 9 hos 3 dead
April 2020		1st=  10/143 9 hos 3 dead	2nd=8(6)/149 13 hos 3 dead	3rd=8(11)157 15 hos 3 dead	4th=15/171 16 hos 5 dead	5th= 14/185 20 hos 6 dead
6th=6/191 23 hosp 6 dead	7th= 22/213 23 hosp 6 Dead29 recovered	8th= 13/226 27 hosp 7 dead 32 recovered	9th= 9/235 27 hosp 7 dead 49 recovered	10th=11/246 28 hosp 7 dead 55 recovered	11th=11/257 31 hosp 8 dead 63 recovered	12th= 15/272 31 hosp 8 dead 66 recovered
13th= 5/277 32 Hosp 8 dead 85 Recovered	14th = 8/285 32 Hosp 9 dead 98 Recovered	15th= 8/293 34 Hosp 9 dead 106 Recovered	16th= 7/300 35 hosp 9 dead 110 recovered	17th=  9/309 36 hosp 9 dead 128 recovered	18th =  5/315 36 hos 9 dead 147 Recovered	19th= 4/319 36 hos 9 dead 153Recovered
20th 2/321 36 hos 9 dead 161 recovered	21st 8/329 36 hos 9 dead 168 recovered	22nd  6/335 36 hos  9 dead 196recovered	23nd  2/337 36 hos  9 dead 209recovered	24th  2/339 36 hos  9 dead 208recovered (-1 from 4/23)	25th  0/339 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered	26th  2/341 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered
27th  4/345 37 hos  9 dead 218recovered	28th  6/351 37 hos  9 dead 228 recovered	29th  4/355 36 hos  9 dead 240recovered	30th  0/355 36 hos  9 dead 252recovered
May 2020				1st  9/364 36 hos  9 dead 254recovered	2nd  1/365 36 hos  9 dead 261recovered	3rd  3/368 36 hos  9 dead 262recovered
4th  2/370 37 hos  9 dead 263recovered	5th  1/371 38 hos  9 dead 277 recovered	6th  1/372 38 hos 10 dead 284recovered	7th  2/374 38 hos 10 dead 291recovered	8th  3/377 38 hos 10 dead 305recovered	9th  1/378 38 hos 10 dead 318recovered	10th  1/379 38 hos 10 dead 324recovered
11th  1/381 38 hos 10 dead 328recovered	12th  2/383 38 hos 10 dead 334 recovered	13th  0/383 38 hos 10 dead 335recovered	14th  4/387 39 hos 10 dead 339recovered	15th  1/388 41 hos 10 dead 343recovered	16th  4/392 43 hos 10 dead 344recovered	17th  4/396 43 hos 10 dead 344recovered
18th  3/399 43 hos 10 dead 345recovered	19th  0/399 43 hos 10 dead 348 recovered	20th  3/402 44 hos 10 dead 352recovered	21st  0/402 44 hos 10 dead 356recovered	22st  2/404 44 hos 10 dead 356recovered	23rd4/408 45 hos 10 dead 358recovered	24th 0/408 45 hos 10 dead 358recovered
25th1/409 45 hos 10 dead 361recovered	26th 2/411 45 hos 10 dead 362 recovered	27th 2/411 46 hos 10 dead 362recovered	28th13/425 46 hos 10 dead 366recovered	29th5/430 47 hos 10 dead 367recovered	30th4/434 47 hos 10 dead 368recovered	31st 27/460 47 hos 10 dead 368recovered

State Charts

The screen shot above is high resolution so you can click on it to enlarge and focus. Click here if you want to use the chart interactively.


My Day-By-Day Chart

Alaska Covid-19 Data NewFor... by Steve on Scribd

It's going to get a lot bumpier from here on unless things get shut down again fast. This shows there have been a lot of untested folks out there and with the demonstrations in support of George Floyd yesterday, a lot more people were probably infected.