What's Keeping Me From Blogging?

So much . . .

Weekly trips to pick up our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) [It's a USDA website so go quick before the regime either takes it down because it's too 'woke' or it crashes from neglect or incompetence.]

They use salt - some Alaska salt - and mix it with things for use in cooking, eating, and making your house smell better, like in the simmer pots.  

I've highlighted soap artist (seriously, what she does is art!)  Kit before.  She showed me a prototype of a soap she's working on that will have a Rorschach test on it.  I asked if there are psychiatrist interpretations included.  Those, she assured me, would cost a lot more.  Learn more at MirthAlaska.com. 

There was a long line at the WIC table.  This market is in the lowest income area of Anchorage and the Grow North Farm here - sponsored by RAIS (Refugee Assistance and Immigration Service), a part of Catholic Social Services - is an urban farm worked by refugees.  

It was gray and threatening, but not raining all that day, but it finally came down on the ride home.  It was so light it really only got my clothes slightly damp.  And my odometer with drops.

I've gone past my 1600 km goal for the summer - one reason I guess I haven't blogged as much.  All that biking along Anchorage's green bike paths has been good for my physical and mental health during this disastrous time in US history.  

The picture below was on an earlier ride on the Campbell Creek south trail.  And I'm delaying today's ride to get this post up.

The mushroom isn't connected to anything else in this post, but of course mushrooms and fungus in general are connected to everything underground.  You can't really tell but this one was five or six inches across.  Growing right next to the compost pile.  

  
                                                                      

Again, a somewhat random picture here.  Walking down the steps after a routine doctor visit at Providence, I was greeted with the lovely sounds of live piano music.  The acoustics in the huge atrium entrance are great and the notes pulled me over to listen to the end and thank the musician.

Our power, phone/internet went out during the windstorm a week ago Friday.  This downed cottonwood was the culprit.  Chugach Electric had the power back on the next morning when we woke up.  Alaska Communications took until Tuesday or Wednesday to come out and then they didn't have the equipment to fix it right, so while the phone line and internet are back on, the wire is lying on the ground and about two feet off the ground in some places I have to walk.  In what world is that acceptable?  Alaska Communications is so terrible!  The techs I have to call now and then and those who come out to the house are generally very good.  It's just the management that has promised me fiber every summer since 2023 and not delivered that pisses me off.  And the website that has the circle of death spinning hopelessly when I try to pay online, and then they charge me a %25 late fee because I couldn't pay online.  With no grace period.  None.  Visa emails me three days before to remind me to pay my bill.  ACS emails three days after it's due to say, "We screwed you again."  I'm ready to cut that cord forever.  

Got that off my chest.  

Our neighbor did hook us up to his power with a series of extension cords to power the refrigerator since we didn't know how long it was going to take to get the power back.  We decided to go to Queen of Sheba for dinner that night.  Here's David, the owner and chef, chatting with us after our meal.  

Ethiopian food is truly special and delicious.  Anchorage folks, go eat there and keep them in business.  The prices are reasonable for this day and age.  

It's between Northern Lights and Benson - on Dawson.  

So, probably this should have been three or four blog post spread over the week.  

But I'm not done.  I've been reading several books at once, but I'll just highlight Caraval.  This was a recommendation from my 12 year old granddaughter.  When I told her I was number 25 on the waiting list at Loussac Library, she said, "I told you that you'll never get it."

But I got an email saying it was mine to pick up.  I understand why people read it.  Each chapter ends with a cliffhanger of sorts.  And I think the author has synesthesia, because every feeling is associated with a color, some vibrating.  Lots more descriptions of odors than you normally see too.  And I don't think Nancy Drew ever had chills from the touch of a young man's bare chest leaning against her. 

I'd say this teen fiction is the gateway drug to adult romance fiction.  

Moving along - I'm still overwhelmed with the barrage of outrageous statements and actions spewing from the White House.  Here are a few images that I've saved as I try to find new ways to ask my junior US Senator how long he thinks he can wade in this filth before he is sucked under completely.  He gleefully points at what he sees as 'wins' for Alaska, while the president tramples the constitution by kidnapping people off the streets, invading US cities with our military, ignoring judge's orders, bombing boaters in international waters, gerrymandering Texas to squeeze out Democratic house seats, and on and on and on.  I didn't even mention Epstein.  And Dan Sullivan turns a blind eye to all of that in exchange for some oil drilling permits.  

My previous post was on the normalization of the word normalization.  Nothing could illustrate that point better than this post by His Travesty.   

What previous president could have done something like this and not been impeached?  Some say it's just 'a humorous bit' but I did a paper on government humor once.  What I learned was that government humor that is self deprecating is fine, but government humor that punches down is NOT fine.  

And then his Vice Travesty defends another military operation off the coast of Venezuela:

Has anyone seen any evidence that these are cartel members (just like we haven't seen any evidence that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a member of Tren de Aragua gang)?

I copied this one for Labor Day.  We're back to the time when business owners could call on the government to bring in troops to break up labor unions.  And when I say 'break up' I mean that literally.  But they stood in solidarity until they won their rights which have benefited most of us.  (You know, 40 day weeks, paid overtime, health benefits, the right to grieve bad treatment, etc.)  We have to be as brave and persistent now to prevent what's happening today.  

I don't believe ignorance is greater now than it was.  But the propaganda forces of the fascists have powerfully taken advantage of that ignorance, and the latent fears of white America.  They've taken all the damage to the working classes done by exporting jobs and increasing the income gap and blamed it on Black people and immigrants.  

 I remember when the first polio vaccines became available and we got poked at school.  My small pox vaccine scar no longer really shows, but I was inoculated.  

Public health programs have saved more lives than medical treatment of individuals.   As I look for good links to explain the importance of public health to society, I see that some of the most important public health initiatives - clean water and sewage systems - are so taken for granted that they aren't even mentioned.  But we haven't always had clean water and sewage systems.  And parts of the world still don't have them.  

President Nixon famously had an enemies list.  But no president has ever, so blatantly used the powers of the federal government to go after his perceived enemies.  The president is publicly telling the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute people who oppose him.  And as a blogger, I found this cartoon a bit close to home.  

I tell myself I'm just a tiny voice out in the wilderness and they have much bigger targets than me.  But I also notice that Google says my recent posts have way more hits that I usually get.  Stat Counter has always shown far fewer hits than Google, but they also track individual visitors.  I can't tell if I really have more hits or whether there are more bots.  In times past when there were lots more hits, it looked like someone scraping my blog for content, and more recently for AI.  But when that happens you can see a single user going to thirty or more different pages per day.  So many hits on a single page is different.  

In any case, I want people to stay strong and be engaged in fighting this regime to preserve our democracy (not to mention our health and economy and general well being.)  Do what you can.  And take breaks to laugh, enjoy nature, good friends.   Find like minded people.  And know your rights.  

And a teaser for a post I hope to put up this week.  

From Animalspot.net

Why Is Lake Otis Blocked Off Just South Of Tudor? [UPDATED]

[UPDATES is at the bottom]

Lake Otis Parkway was closed Saturday (May 30)  at 42nd Avenue, just south of where it crosses Tudor, one of the busiest intersections in Anchorage.  It's scheduled to stay that way for about ten days.  

I've watched the changes on 42nd Avenue over the last year or so because it's on one of my regular bike routes.  

Basically, there was a row of good sized cottonwood trees along this short dead-end part of 42nd.  They were to the south of the big medical building (Lake Otis Medical Plaza at 4100 Lake Otis), which they hid quite well.  Last fall, when they cut all the trees down, I looked through my old photos to see if I had a picture of it with the trees.  I couldn't find one.  Fortunately, Google Street View is a little out of date.  The picture to the left below shows the trees.  The picture to the right was taken in May this year.  It's the same view, but with a slightly different angle.  [For anyone wondering, my airdrop magically started working again.  I have no idea why.  Maybe a software update?  In any case, as long as it's working I can easily upload photos from my phone to my laptop.]

A                                                                                 B

This picture (C) was taken last September right after they cut all the trees down.  It's looking east, while the views above (A and B) are looking west from Lake Otis.  So the brick building on the left below is on the right above and the other building is switched over as well.  

C

I took these two pictures from the back (west) driveway into the parking lot of the medical building, the one above (C) looking east and the one below (D) looking west, beyond the driveway.  The area where the white truck in the background is, used to be a big wetlands area.  They 'mitigated' the wetlands quite a few years ago, when people in the surrounding neighborhoods had flooding issues.  

D

Below is 42nd and Lake Otis, which was totally blocked off Saturday.  (This is one of those times having a bike lets you avoid these car blockades.)

E

This is a Municipal project to improve streets (pavement is really bad on 42nd east of Lake Otis) as well as pedestrian use and replacing an old water main, which, I guess, is what we're seeing on the west side of Lake Otis.  As much as I hated seeing the cutting of the trees, I know that cottonwoods have active roots.  So, is the work west of Lake Otis going to eventually include a pipe?  Here's a link to the Municipal project website.

I've emailed the folks listed at the site with some questions and I'll add their responses when they come in.  

 

[UPDATE June 2, 2025  7pm]

I got a quick response from Justin Keene, PE, Principal/Civil Engineer, CRW Engineering Group, Inc.

The most interesting part was the ditch with the open waters "is the headwaters of Fish Creek."

Below are my questions (in black) and Justin's responses (in green)

1.  Water main - what all does that mean?  An existing cast iron water main is being replaced from Lake Otis Parkway to Piper Street along E. 42^nd Avenue. I'm assuming this is wastewater, given that on the west side, it is open water.  Is that correct? No, they are two separate things. The ditch on the west side of Lake Otis Parkway is the headwaters of Fish Creek. A storm drain pipe outfalls into the ditch and our project replaced the three downstream culverts and regarded the ditch to facilitate a new storm drain outfall. The water main is as described above. Have there been problems or is this routine replacement? The water main has had leaks in the past and needs replacement.  How long has the water main been in? The water main was installed in 1967.  On the west side, will the waterway remain open or ??? The ditch will remain open.

 

2.  Will the short street on the west side get new pavement?   Sidewalks? No new pavement or sidewalks are proposed on E. 42nd Avenue west of Lake Otis Parkway.

 

3.  Will the addition of sidewalks on the east side mean encroaching on people's property?  (I assume you have easements.) No, we are installing the sidewalks in the MOA right-of-way.

Do you have any drawings of what the improvements will look like? The final drawings can be downloaded from MOA Purchasing website at this link: Download

The link takes you to a 142 page document with detail drawings of everything they could think of that they will have to do on this project.  While I don't understand all the details, these drawings do show you the amount of planning that goes into a job like this.  

I've copied one page to give you a sense.  I've saved it in high resolution, but you may have to go to the link to actually be able to read it.  This is just one drawing for one block.  There are additional drawings for each block focusing on the water mains and other features.  These are pretty amazing.  They've got plans for relocating mailboxes, fire hydrants, street lighting.  If I'm interpreting correctly, they have calculated space to allow snow to be plowed without burying the sidewalk.  But maybe wishful thinking was interpreting that drawing.  And I'm sure there will be unanticipated objects and obstacles.  

 

It's Time To Catch Up Here - From No-Snow, Yes-Snow, Trees, Basketball, DEI etc.

There are lots of reasons I haven't blogged for a while.  There's so much nonsense flooding social media, I'd like to not add to it.  But there are also terrible things happening that are begging for push back.  But if I blog about them, I want to offer a different perspective than what everyone else is saying, and I haven't been very confident I could.  

But also, we've returned to Anchorage.  Aside from finding Anchorage strangely snow free in early/mid March, there was also a spruce leaning on another tree in the back yard.  (There had been strong winds while we were gone.) I did get a couple of bike rides in on snow free sidewalks/biketrails.  

We've got a tree cutting proposal, but they said the current priority is getting down Christmas lights that are still up.  I think the tree is firmly lodged into the other tree.  Someone - the phone people?  electric people? - cut off the top of the tree which must have looked threatening to the wires along the alley in back.  

But then, finally, the snow came.  

We've been sorting through mail, and just catching up.  I brought the rose bushes in from the garage.   They've already started leafing out.                                                                                      Brought the begonia basket in too.  They began to poke out of the soil in a few days.  

Our internet has been on and off, more off than on.  This morning it was off again but while I was calling Alaska Communications (ACS), I noticed there was a truck up in the alley and a guy on a cherry picker working near the pole.  The ACS tech guy on the phone said they had decided there was a short and the guy at the pole was splicing something.  It still didn't work when he left.  

I went off to school.  The particular kid I'm focused on was out for the third day this week.  He was there Tuesday and it was nice to see each other after our long break.  Our regular routine is:

Steve:  "Good morning, A... how are you today?"

He's supposed to, and generally does, answer, "I'm fine thank you.  And you?"  The daily repetition is intended to get him comfortable speaking in English and it's been working.  But Tuesday he had trouble answering.  I finally figured it out.  It wasn't that he'd forgotten while I was gone.  It was just that he wasn't 'fine, thank you' and he didn't know how to say, 'I'm not feeling well.'

And he hasn't been there since Tuesday.  But that gives me a chance to help out other kids in the class.  I discovered today that two kids couldn't tell me what 2X8 equals off the top of their heads.  Working on ways to help them learn the multiplication of basic numbers from one to ten.  

And while the Trump administration is trying to erase all pictures and mentions of non-white males in US history (see War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge)  the elementary school I'm volunteering in has very recently put up four large murals that feature men and women of note, representing various ethnicities.  

Part of me doesn't really want to bring any unwanted attention to this addition.  This had to have been arranged before Trump's White Nationalist staffers began their crusade to erase non-white, non-males from our history.  The fact that they are taking images of, and stories about, people like these down at the national level shows that the rhetoric about efficiency and cutting the budget are just smokescreen for getting rid of anything that challenges their white male image of the United States.  It costs more to find and delete these images than to leave them up.  And what kind of person feels compelled to erase images of people who aren't white or aren't male?  In my eyes it shows how scared they are to allow anything that suggests anyone else has played a role in making this nation great.  But it's clear that it is white males who are trying to destroy the greatness of the United States.  (Wow.  I'm just writing this to explain the pictures, but what a good segue into the next picture.) 

Went with a friend to GCI (the other phone/internet company in town) the other day where there was a protest against Rep. Nick Begich for speaking to a private group, closed to the public, because he won't speak to his constituents at a public meeting.  Even though the original sponsoring organizations pulled out - the reasons weren't made clear - there were still about 40 folks out with signs about various issues they'd like to discuss - from Ukraine, to fired federal workers, vets,  and the looming wipe outs at Social Security, Medicaid, and the Department of Education.  

I'd note that former US Senator Ted Stevens died in "a DeHavilland DHC-3T . . . registered to Anchorage-based General Communications Inc., a phone and Internet company" on the way to their private remote lodge near Dillingham.

We also got to watch the state high school championship game between the girls' teams from Fort Yukon and Shaktoovik last Saturday at the sports center at UAA.  (It disturbs me that the state underfunds the university and other state organizations so that they have to beg private companies to pay for such things and then plaster the name of the company on the buildings.  I realize most USians probably don't remember when stadiums were not covered with corporate advertising and companies didn't buy naming rights to buildings all over campus, but I do.  Until the 1970s or so, we weren't confronted with corporate branding everywhere we went.  They did name buildings for individual donors* back then, but not for corporate donors.  But then that gets back to issues like cutting taxes continuously for the wealthy and for corporations since the 1950s so that governments have less money and the public has to go to wealthy individuals and corporations to beg for money for public facilities.  So that's why I'm only calling the building 'sports center.')

.

Fort Yukon won in a great game.  Lots of passing and setting up shots.  Though the three point rule tempts people to shoot when they probably shouldn't.  

State Infectious Virus Reports

While my regular posts have been slow in coming lately, I have been posting updates based on the (now) weekly updates to the State's Infections Virus Snapshots.  Those don't show up here among the regular posts, but can be found at the tab up top (under the orange header) titled: Respiratory Virus Cases October 2023    Below the introduction are weekly updates (well, not quite. . . there was a period when they were updating them monthly) with new charts and the numbers for each type of virus.  The State's chart is interactive, but each new chart has updated numbers, the original numbers disappear.  So I capture the the originals and the updates so you can see if and how much the numbers changed from when first put up to a week or two later.  When they were doing it monthly, I could only compare the original and updated numbers for the last week of the month because it was the only weekly set of numbers shown twice.  This is getting way too complicated.  If you have questions leave a comment.  

The charts look like the one below and I add some commentary each week.  

You can also go to the state site to see the interactivity of this chart.  

When I got back from the school today, the internet still wasn't working, and again I called ACS, and again, as I was talking I saw an ACS truck in front of the house.  And 20 minutes after the truck left, I could get email and start writing this post.  

*Individual donors.  Even then, there were tremendous protests that UCLA named the new basketball arena after a wealthy oilman and donor, Edwin Pauley, and not for Coach Johnny Wooden who put UCLA basketball on the map with a string of undefeated seasons and national championships.  Before that, UCLA was scrambling for a court for the basketball team.  They played in the Sports Arena near the Coliseum (next door to the campus of rival USC) when they could get it.  Sometimes at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and even the Venice High School gym.  

A Satruday Hike In Alaskan Fall. Then Sunday Winter Came

I drive my van even less during the winter than the summer.  Partly because I avoid driving as much as a I can.  But also because we spend more time during winter with grandkids to the south.  We have it parked out of the street so it doesn't block the snowplows while we're gone.  And since we've been gone a while, I felt I should take advantage of the lack of snow, to go for a ride to charge up the battery.  Which is why we got to McHugh Creek.  

The sun made itself known through the clouds.

The total lack of snow or ice in the beginning of November feels weird, but no one was complaining.

Blends of yellows and oranges, with the green of the spruces.  The clouds hanging low, well below the ridge.  A little up the trail, we could see the faint outline of what I suppose is McHugh Peak through the clouds.  

Rocks have various kinds of lichen.   

.                           

And there's still green plant life showing.

"

The cottonwoods are skeletons now, the trunks are ridged, which I've always assumed is a sign they've been around a while.  The cottonwoods in our yard have much smoother trunks.  

We passed Potter Marsh on the way out and saw folks skating.  On the way back we stopped, but the skaters were gone.  These two guys were venturing out in their tennies.  

And then today we woke up to winter.  Nature pays no attention to humans turning their clocks back.  

San Francisco Shots

Went for a walk today with the SF grandkids.  Here ae some things we saw along the way.

The Easy Breezy yogurt shop was the kids' destination.  

They 

They were also checking out the hooded with Halloween decorations.  

 [I'd add that my nine year old grandson talked non-stop the whole way (about two hours) about his Minecraft creations.]