Cloudy St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday's blue skies and sunshine were gone today. But I needed a run and took off down the Glacier Highway route this time.

I saw several Bald Eagles, but this one on 

a pole was the closest I could get.

Here's the trail at Cope Park and I'm almost home.

When I got into the Capitol, the green covers on the announcements were, I assumed, a subtle nod to St. Patrick's Day.  I went to the Senate Judiciary meeting to see how they were doing with the Campaign Expenditure bill.  They only had a quorum for a short time, so I went to the House Judiciary where it seemed like the Chair Jay Ramras was acting in sharp contrast to the warm hospitality he showed to witnesses last week on the bill to add 30 days to the time that small businesses had until they had to file liens against non-payers.  Then he abruptly adjourned the committee at 2:30 pm. 

Snow Run

I was getting used to no snow.  Then Monday morning everything was white.  Tuesday it was all gone.  Then Wednesday everything was white again.  But I needed to go run and Basin Road is close.  As I ran, part of me said, "You keep going the same trail, you'll run out of things to take pictures of."  And then I realized there were billions of pictures out there. 

The snow wasn't deep.  I figured the avalanche danger wasn't great with a one inch base.

What a great place to clear my head.

Birds!! I Used to Post Birds. Surf Scoters Today.

I kept waiting for the the steady drizzle to be less visible before going out to run Sunday.  I could see it coming down, but I couldn't capture the rain on my camera.  But eventually I took off and this time in a new direction as I started out to Thane Road, which heads south of downtown.  My legs felt like I had weights on them.  I got down to the cruise ship docks and saw a flock of black birds in the water. 

For the birders, the video has them swimming in various formations, diving, and surfacing.  There's also some interaction with some gulls that I don't quite understand.  Are they all in the same place because there was food below the surface?  Did the gulls come because they saw the scoters?  Did their presence affect each other's behavior?  Did the dive because the gulls flew in?  Why did the last one stay on the surface?  Was he a lookout?  So many questions.  But I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent out there watching the birds. 

I don't have gulls in the heading.  Once I learned that they change colors almost every year until they are adults, I gave up on trying to identify anything but mature gulls.  And I'm making the (probably incorrect) assumption that if they are grey/brown like this, they are still immature. 

Plowing Snow Berms? 2 - Maybe Not

This is what my parking space looked like after the plow went by several times.  They did use the snow guard to keep most of the snow out of the space.  Not too much spilled.

It only took about five minutes to get rid of the snow and clear my space.

Using the new snow shovel. The old one was just like this one, except it had a black synthetic material as a blade. In the last big storm, it pulled out of the little screws (what are those called, they aren't really screws). All but one of the holes failed and this black strip was loose as I shoveled. Costco took it back with no question and the new version has a metal strip instead.

Our neighbor said he thought they had trucks to clear the berms in the neighborhood, so I left the car in the driveway and went for my run.  Here's the midday sun, getting a little higher on the southern horizon.

And here it is lighting up the trees and casting a very long shadow of the photographer.

While I was running - an abbreviated run (less so in time than distance) - it didn't appear that the other neighborhoods had had their berms cleared.  Here's the berm at the corner as I came back from the run.  My car is still in the driveway and the one you can see on the street is our neighbor, just past our place.  That car caught fire last week so they can't move it right now.  It was idling outside.  We weren't home when it happened otherwise you'd have seen the fire trucks here. :)

We're headed to Out North to see Santaland Diaries.

New Venice Skateboard Plaza

I did my run down to the new skateboard plaza on Venice Beach today. Wow! Everyone was having a great time. I think about back in the late 50's and early 60's when we made skateboards by nailing a roller skate to a two-by-four. Our street had a good hill and a lot of people skated down it. The next street over was too steep for most people, though I did do it a few times. I'm sure if I were that age now, I'd have taken my skateboard with me.



The plaza opened Saturday and so people are just getting the knack of it. The site is spectacular, with the ocean in the background. If I remember right, it's pretty close to where muscle beach used to be.




It was fascinating to watch these kids - well they ranged from maybe 8 or 10 to one guy probably in his 40s skating with his daughter - zoom all around. You can get a sense of it in the video.



We biked back this afternoon and it was a lot more crowded. I'll post another video of that when I get it done.

[There's a later post with more video here.]

Run down to Venice Beach

Today I ran down to Venice Beach. I ran on Half Moon Bay (south of San Francisco) beach on Saturday morning. Venice is my obligatory run whenever I visit my mom in LA. And you could even see Catalina, just barely, on the horizon. I admit it's a leap of faith based on the photo. But it was out there. I did try to play with the contrast to make it more visible in the picture.

It didn't help, but I thought wiping out the contrast offered an interesting picture of the runner.

If you double click the picture and look at your screen from the right angle, you might be able to see the outline of the island. It's only 26 miles away. Makes you appreciate being able to see Denali from Anchorage 150 miles away. You can see it better and listen to the song at this post I did last October.







Here's looking north toward the Santa Monica Mountains. As you can see the surf was decent sized today.





Here's another picture of the surf with a couple people in front to get a sense of the waves.

And as I left the beach for home I passed this sign at a pre-school. I realized that I agreed with the sign and that our country has weirded out enough that there are people who would be disturbed by this sign. Like people opposing the ordinance before the Anchorage Assembly offering equality (freedom from discrimination) to gays, lesbians, and transgendered folks.

Warm Lazy Sunday Shots

A lazy run in the warm weather today. Caught at the light, took a picture of this poster for the ordinance scheduled to be voted on Tuesday at the Assembly meeting. At least that was my assumption. I sent an email to one of my Assembly reps last week - Dan Coffey - asking how he planned to vote and whether he was still listening to constituents on it. Haven't heard anything back. My other rep is supporting it.
Then on to the bike trail.

This evening we biked over to meet friends for dinner and passed the fence that surrounds Mcglaughlin Youth Center. Sounds so wholesome, but if it were that wholesome, it wouldn't have this razor wire to keep the youth inside.

Slow Cool Run

I haven't run since I got back from the LA-Portland trip. It took a while to adjust from 90˚+ to 20˚ (32˚C to -6˚C) and I found a lot of reasons why I couldn't run. But then I read Theresa's post on her -10˚ (-23˚C)run in Fairbanks and I decided that I couldn't hold out any longer. It may be 70˚ colder than it was in LA, but it's still 30˚ warmer than Fairbanks. So today I took a slow lazy run (3 3/4 miles) in the light snow dust. It feels good now that I'm back. Part of the way I thought about being close to the waves at Venice Beach and that warmed my hands a bit.

Yes, Running Can Make You High

That was a NY Times headline today.

It was just the other day I said to J. one thing I'm really looking forward to when we get back is running again. Between dogs and the heat and my schedule, I've only run once. I'm having a good time, sleep like a log every night, etc. But I do miss running.

Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

I don't run more than 35-50 minutes usually (they studied runners after a two hour run), and I certainly don't get euphoric, but I generally feel much better overall when I run regularly. Now, I do get about 20 minutes of biking - a few minutes up hill on the way home - each day, and we walk in the evening to dinner and around, but it just isn't the same.

10 Below

I was all ready to run early this morning. The sun wasn't over the mountain yet, but it was light. But I foolishly checked the thermometer. And the storm door was covered in ice crystals. Maybe if it gets up to five I might go run. After three days in a row in LA, I'm itching to be out moving again.

[The details are better if you click on the picture.]

Run to Venice Beach

Just about two miles from my mom's house is Venice Beach. So here's the halfway point of my run down Rose to the beach. It's early Friday morning so all the hustle and bustle of Venice Beach - the booths, the bikes and skaters, not yet there. The rest are pictures as I complete the return trip.






This funky old neighborhood right up against one of the world great beaches - lots of sand, good surf - is still a mix of all kinds of income groups. The buildings are still mostly old. I think this neighborhood shows the positive effects of Prop 13 which froze property taxes back in 1977. While the freeze seems to have hurt infrastructure, the University, and other public programs and caused real disparity issues between people who have lived in their homes a long time and newer buyers, here it seems to have allowed people of modest means to stay in their homes while the value of their coastal property soared. If they hadn't had the freeze, many of the people here would not have been able to afford the proerty taxes as land values so close to the beach went way up.








The values have tempted a lot of people to sell and there are lots of fixed up places and totally torn down and rebuilt places. And Main Street has become a pricy shopping spot.







But the people I pass are not wealthy people by a long shot. But they do live near the beach which is a spiritual wealth. Many beach communities have no place for the people who live here and that, I think, is a positive by product of Prop. 13. I was running and I didn't feel right taking pictures of the many colorful looking folks, so you'll just have to imagine.


This new condo sign caught my eye. I'm 90% sure this is where the Pioneer Bakery used to be. There was agreat little shop that sold wonderful bread here at reasonable prices, but it was a small part of the bakery that used baked bread for the whole Pioneer Bread Company and it always smelled good here. This should be called the Pioneer Condos and they should have a little bakery - including the aroma of fresh bread - on the grounds.

[UPDATE Feb. 2012:  Here are the condos, four years later, finally getting built.

 Not sure what happened to these photos, I'll have to see if I can find them.  If not I'll delete them.]






A lot of places have just been spiffed up like this one, but the building is still relatively modest by Southern California beach standards.



Now I'm passed Lincoln and nod to this lady caring for her garden as I did the last two days and whenever I'm visiting my mom.






This whole area was swamp when I was growing up here. Just small dirt hills, among wetlands with opportunities limited only by our imaginations. In fact, Rose didn't go through then. Now it's a public golf course - certainly much better than more houses - and relatively ordinary people play golf here.




And now I'm close to Walgrove and almost home. I love the smell of the eucalyptus trees here. I've got a little bowl of leaves at home that I can sniff whenever I need a quick trip to LA.

Lazy Run

I took my camera on my run today. The end of November is not supposed to be so snowless. Yes, there's some snow left over, but not very much.


A - I don't know that this little lake has a name. I checked Google maps - that's why there is a map at the end - and it isn't even on that map. But then I checked for the Municipality of Anchorage Trail Maps and found a map with the trails on it. And tweaked that a bit.







This is a marshy area in the summer. B on the map.











From the bike trail bridge over Northern Lights Blvd, looking west.









And east. The bridge pictures are at C on the map.















One day I'll do a whole post on Lanie. She's a wonderful human being and was one of the people who got Anchorage's great bike trails started. This is at D on the map.






These last two pictures are at E on the map, where the bike trail comes right up on Goose Lake.














This is also at the lake at A on the map. I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was, sort of scoter like. Usually only see them in summer and they have somewhat different markings. Maybe Catherine or Dianne (who's on her way back from bird watching in Bhutan - now that's a serious birder!) can identify it. I'm experimenting with different download levels from iMovie. This was CDRom quality. Not very good I'm afraid.





Map from Anchorage Municipality Trail Page I've added the A-E letters and the bright blue lake at A. The yellow dashed trail is my run - just under 4 miles. By connecting the trails through the university and then the Lanie Fleischer trail (the dark green one - covered with the yellow dashes of my route) I get about half the run in the woods.