The Fog Rolled In, I Got A Flat, And We Get Picked Up By A Good Samaritan

The workers were here at 9am and finished up the ceiling.

I got a call from my friend B - he wanted to bike to Palos Verdes, starting around Redondo Beach.  It was sunny and beautiful and getting out of the house so the workers could do their thing without me around seemed like a great idea.


As we cruised around the beach cities looking for a parking spot, we entered the fog.  Low, grey clouds.
Here's a shot of it.

And it was chilly.  A very damp, low 60s. (I know, chilly is relative.) After a bit we needed to get off the beach bike path and head up hills through Torrance.   I stopped partway up the hill to watch the fog roll up from the ocean.


As we got further up, the sun was visible, sort of.







And then as we rode higher, we got above the fog.   There's Palos Verdes above us, visible.





And this, I'm pretty sure, is Malaga Bay.  You can see the wall of fog sitting there waiting over the ocean.   There were 20-30 surfers out in the waves below.

But soon we were in the fog again.  B kept checking the map on his phone to see how much further it was.  I didn't actually know what 'it' was, except "Palos Verdes."  As far as I was concerned, we were already in PV.  Should we go the rest of the way?, B asked me.  I told him I didn't know where we were going or why it would be worth the extra three miles uphill.  I was also thinking about the two foot wide bike path on the other side of the street and the cars whizzing by.  Our side had about ten feet of parking area that was also a bike lane.  Finally B said it was Terra something resort.  Then I remembered I'd just read about them hiring foreign interns and using them to replace their minimum wage workers.  Human trafficking was in the headline.  I didn't need to go there.  B suggested I might interview some of the workers for the blog.  I was thinking about when it gets dark in LA (early - about 5:30pm in late December).  We went a little further and turned around.

We'd gone about nine miles.  After about a mile my bike was getting very sluggish and making a strange noise.  When I looked down I could see my back tire was flat.  We found the nail.  B's repair kit wasn't working - no patches and his hand pump didn't work on my valve stem.   I told B to ride ahead to the car and I'd walk as far as I could and he could pick me up.  We were about eight miles from the car.  He wanted me to turn my bike upside down so people could see we were in trouble, and he'd hitch a ride in a pick up truck.  I'm not sure why I didn't want to.  I guess I was embarrassed that I didn't have stuff with me to fix the flat.

Five minutes, that's all B wanted, then we could go with my plan.

After four minutes I was ready to start walking, then a pick up stopped.  B ran and talked to the driver and soon the bikes were in the bed and we were in front with Steve Lavine who had been out for a walk.  He used to run and bike and hike, but he had various health issues now and it was even a struggle to walk.  We met a new friend who took us all the way back to the car.  He said he was headed our way anyway and it wasn't too far extra.  B was pleased to have been right and I wasn't upset I was wrong.

Oh, and Steve has a second cousin Norm LaVine who lives in Anchorage. Hasn't seen him in 25 years.   If anyone from Anchorage knows him, tell him we are trying to convince Steve to come visit him in Anchorage.

Thanks, Steve, for ending our bike ride with a spectacular show of good will.  Getting a ride back was great, but getting to know a total stranger  who'd stop and pick up two guys with bikes was even better.



I'm not that surprised, but we do get jaded by our media that tends to focus on the tiny number of people who do harm each day rather than on the 350 million other US inhabitants who are like Steve Lavine.

While Trump Cites Eastern Cold To Dispute Climate Change, I Submit California Warmth

Aside from getting stuff cleaned out in my mom's house so that we can have some repair work done, we did make it to the beach Thursday afternoon.  So did a lot of other folks.  I went by bike and the bike trail along the beach was like bike freeway traffic.  There's room - between Venice and Santa Monica for two bikes in each direction.  But there were clots of bikes, motorized scooters, skateboarders (with and without motors), Segways, and other sorts of wheeled transportation that made it necessary to pass.  There's separate pedestrian walkways for part of the distance.  At other points, there's just room for single file pedestrians on the edge of the bike trail, though tourists tend not to realize this or that they are standing in the middle of an active bike trail.

But this post is about the warmth.  It wasn't hot yesterday (in the 70s), but it was just comfortable to lie in the sun and Z and I spent a lot of time playing in the surf.  I had on trunks, and she had on a bathing suit, but for the most part I kept my trunks dry, but I had to pick her up out of the incoming surf a few times to keep her from getting drenched above her thighs.  That's not us, but you get the idea.

And considering it was a Thursday, there were a fair number of folks enjoying the rays.

AND OF COURSE, the cold in the Midwest and the East  and the warmth in LA prove nothing about climate change.  The anecdotal temperatures are weather, not climate.

From NASA (you know those elites who send missions to the moon, Mars, Jupiter, etc. based on so called science):

"The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time."

There's a lot more at the NASA link.

As Stephen Colbert pointed out -

"Global warming isn't real because I was cold today! Also great news: World hunger is over because I just ate."

Fires Very Visible From The Air As We Fly Into LA [Updated]

It got up to 50˚F (10˚C) in Anchorage yesterday and about 60% of our yard was snow free.  Unusual for mid December in Anchorage.

Our red-eye to LA was pretty uneventful - which is a good thing - but as we flew over what was about where Santa Barbara should be, I could see the fires in the mountains.  There was one big raging conflagration and then many little ones scattered all over.  These pictures demonstrate why I need to get serious about learning how to take control of my camera.  It works pretty well under normal circumstances, but not in unusual ones, like taking night pictures of forest fires from an airplane.  The first shot was the biggest fire.

Mind you, that's way off in the distance, and we were 30 minutes out of LA, so maybe a pilot can figure out what our elevation probably was - well over 10,000 feet I would guess.

These next two pictures are more 'artistic.'  The lens was open a long time so there's some jiggle and lots of reflection in the window.  This is with a wider angle view.  It gives a better sense of there being fire in a lot of different places, not just one ridge.

And this last one shows totally different hot spots.

As we got closer to LA we headed out over the ocean, so if there were any fires closer to LA I couldn't see them from the right side of the plane.


 My computer tells me it was 48˚F at 7 am in LA.  

UPDATE 4:30pm:  We got the bus to my mom's house, slept until 2pm, then I biked to the beach and up along the coast.  Felt great.  The only sign of the fires was smoke along the mountains to the north.
You can see that as you get closer, things clear up a bit.

From Santa Monica pier looking north.

A couple miles closer and you can see where the mountains meet the ocean.

Another mile closer and you can distinguish three different points meeting the ocean.

48˚ F (9˚C) In Anchorage, December 11, 2017

It's warm outside.  It gets colder than this in LA.

I've lived in Anchorage 40 years now and a brief warm spell in winter (no, we don't wait until the solstice to declare winter) is not unprecedented.  Warm Chinook winds are known to get the temperature up to 50˚F for a day or two.  But that's usually when there are several feet of snow on the ground and it doesn't happen often or even at all in any given year.

But our temps have been playing red rover with the freezing mark since it first snowed this year - and the last few years.  Winter has been starting later and ending earlier in the last decade or more.  This is not a normal abnormality.

I've kept the driveway as snow free as possible, so it is not a sheet of ice, like our street.  I'm hoping the strong winds will evaporate as much of the wet that's melting on the ice.

Seattle Day With Family and Friends, A little Wyeth Time, A Movie, and More Food

We took the 8:45 am ferry from Bainbridge Island into Seattle Wednesday.  The sun was sneaking past the clouds, it felt much warmer than it's been.  (A sign at one point said 66˚F.)

The day held promise.  My son and family were headed into Seattle to see an old friend and our other granddaughter was with us all too.  We were headed to see other friends.

The sky was mostly cloudy, but another ferry headed back to Bainbridge was sunlit.

We walked from the terminal.  Caught a bus.  Then took the monorail.  M is a big vehicle fan at 3 years old and hadn't been on a monorail.

Then another bus and a walk through the park to the Elliot Bay bookstore where we were meeting.  A lot of political stuff on the new books counter.

Our friends got us at the bookstore, the kids were at a story hour and we said good bye.

First to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Andrew Wyeth exhibit.

At first I was conflicted - I wanted to just talk to our friends, but I also wanted to absorb the Wyeth exhibit.  I must admit, I haven't been that big a fan of Wyeth.  The stuff was nice, but didn't really talk to me.  But I saw a lot of different styles and was much more impressed.  For instance, this early water color lobster is NOT something I would have identified as a Wyeth.

This picture of Siri is more familiar.  I couldn't help thinking about the current debates on sexual assault and also on child porn when I saw the nudes of Siri.  From a 1981 Time magazine article on Wyeth:

". . . teenage Siri Erickson, another Cushing resident, from 1967 to 1972. The paintings of her were also withheld, until she turned 21, and their release in 1975 caused a little of the same stir that the Helgas have. Siri, now 32 and the mother of two girls, recalls no embarrassment or awe about posing nude for Wyeth when she was 13. 'He would get totally involved in his work. It was as if you were a tree,' she says. 'He's a normal, everyday person. He does paint good, but he's just Andy.'"

By some standards, a picture of a nude 13 year old would be considered child porn.  By other standards it's great art.  I think we need to be much more discerning than we are at the moment about what we are seeing and how we classify it.  This CBC article talks about the fine line between sexting and child porn.  And this discussion of Wyeth's nudes is on the Catholic online forum Suscipe Domine.


Here are two folks regarding another Wyeth painting.

The exhibit was well laid out - with introductory posters discussing different groups of pictures.  My initial feelings of being overwhelmed lessened and I could wanter and view.  Sometimes looking at the descriptions of individual paintings, other times not.  While we ought to be able to appreciate a painting just by looking at, in theory, the background information helps me get a deeper sense of the each piece

But after two hours or so we were hungry.  And while I wished I could wonder around and look at other parts - like this modern section with this Andy Warhol "Double Elvis" . . . I too was interested in eating.






Someone wants to go to Boka to eat.  When we got there, we found out it is now All Water, in the lobby of Hotel 1000.  I was curious about the name All Water, when P pointed out this explanation on the menu.


Since the picture isn't that clear (but it is if you click on it), I'll help you out.

"In the 1880s the all water route would take prospectors from Seattle across the northern Pacific to the Alaskan coast.  In  the gold rush era this route created the trade in salmon and halibut industries. . . " 

It was a little after 2pm and we were told lunch was until 2pm and Happy Hour began at 3.  When I said, "So this is the unhappy hour?" we were told, "I'm sure we can get the kitchen to still do lunch."
It's only been open a few weeks.  We were all happy with our choices.





Then the group agreed to go see The Florida Project.  By this time, we'd had clouds, sunshine, drizzle, rain, more clouds, and more sunshine.  As we walked to the SIFF theater the sun was out and it was raining.  And a vibrant rainbow cleaned up the drab buildings.






 There was a lot I liked about The Florida Project, particularly the visual richness and the way the young kids had adventures.  I wandered my neighborhood like that with friends and wee also got into all sorts of mischief.  But the brashness of the mom, which got her out of some jams, made other ones worse, was painful to watch. Willem Dafoe's character Bobby was wonderful.  Justin Chang at the LA Times liked it a lot more than I did.

And finally we wandered down to "a Czech German beerhall."

Through these doors we walked into another world - a big warehouse like space with rows of communal wooden tables, a live band that was playing jazz (not polkas) when we walked in, and lots of beer.

Down the table from us the guys had 2 litre boots of beer.  (The two refers to the number of liters not the number of boots.)   Queen Ann Beer Hall is the official name, but doesn't really capture the mood for me.



Later J and I got in a good walk back to the ferry after rescuing our grandson's jacket from a restaurant where he'd left it.

A fun and busy day with family and good friends.

It Snowed Overnight

What snow we'd had was pretty much gone.  All that I saw left were shady spots along Campbell Creek.  But it's a bright new world today.  I say that because having snow on the ground makes everything brighter including night.

Finding stats on first snows, and more importantly first lasting snows, isn't as easy as I expected.  I did find one site with charts of average first snow for around the country.  Here's the West table down to Anchorage.

	Avg 1st Snow	Earliest Snow	Avg Annual Snow
Fairbanks	Sep. 27	Aug. 29, 1922	64.2 inches
Great Falls	Oct. 2	Aug. 22, 1992	61.6 inches
Cheyenne	Oct. 2	Sep. 8, 1929	60 inches
Crested Butte	Oct. 5	Sep. 3, 1961	206.7 inches
Billings	Oct. 12	Sep. 7, 1962	55.6 inches
Anchorage	Oct. 15	Sep. 20, 1947	74.6 inches

Our first snow this year was October 21.  Not too late.  But there's another statistic that I'm looking for:  first sticking snow.  By that I mean, snow that doesn't disappear in a couple of days, but sticks around all winter.  Our first snow this year was followed by wind and high 40s temperatures.  

November 5 seems to be late for sticking, or permanent snow.  It has been cooler this last week, so maybe this will stick.  Our backyard thermometer says 33˚F, just above freezing.  

Surrogate Gramping

I got to play grandpa today with an 17 month old today.  Her mom had a conference and her dad works on call.  So, essentially the guys got to hang out with the youngster, who after an initial shyness, loosened up and was no trouble at all.  We had about an hour or so alone while dad went in to do some prep stuff.

It's still warm for November, but fog has been playing hide and seek in Anchorage for the past week.
Leaving morning (and afternoon) frost on everything.

We read books, took things out and put things back.  That's a major activity for that age.  We cut the old raspberry canes and went to the playground.  Even frost swing seats.













We walked on wooden edges, read more books, juggled a bit, ate snacks, ate lunch.  The walk had its desired effect and D had a good long nap.

Then out for another walk, this time with the stroller.  That's when we saw the geese flying.  They too have been procrastinating starting south, but the chill now is probably going to get them going.

As I drove home, I could see the fog gathered to the east up against the mountains.  I'm guessing it will flow back into town during the night.  I had to wait till I was stopped at a light, and then the traffic lights hid the mountains above the fog.

Anchorage Heats Up And I Get Myself To The Rock Climbing Gym

We had a bit of snow that seemed to have waited to fall until after we got back in town.  Our street stayed white and sidewalks did too.  It looked like it was going to stick.  I biked to the University library to see how my mountain bike would do.  No problems.

But today it was 47˚F when I checked this morning, with lots of wind.  Sidewalks looking better, our street looking better (from a cyclist's perspective.)  So off to my meeting by bike.

You can see how blustery it was.  The flags waved north, west, and south at different times.





At the meeting I realized that my route home could easily take me by the year old rock climbing gym that I'd never been in, but had decided, watching climbers on El Capitan last week, to check out when I got back.  So here's a look at the Anchorage Rock Climbing Gym.



 


It started with Aaron who told me about their intro class that meets M,W,F 7-9pm and S 1-3.  For $20 you get rental equipment and two hours of introduction to how to use things at the gym.  He suggested bringing a partner, and there was another guy at my meeting who just been at Yosemite too and was interested.





Here's the big room.  Not exactly El Cap, but still very impressive.  I asked Aaron how this gym ranked nationally.  He said it's not in the top 10, but probably in the top 20.  I also asked about nearby places to climb.  I know people climb ice along the Seward Highway in the winter, but he said that's a very different activity.  Rocks face near Anchorage tend to break a lot.

Still in the big room.














Then I went up stairs where they have smaller walls.

And there were lots of kids climbing here.











And there is lots of equipment to rent.

Here's a close up of part of the wall and some of the climbing holds.  Skyaboveus identifies a number of these ways to stay up on a wall.  They list:

• Jugs
• Mini-jugs and incuts
• Slopers
• Pockets
• Pinches
• Crimps and Chips
• Edges
• Side Pulls, underclings, and gascons

You can get specific descriptions of each at the Skyaboveus link.

A nearby eating and drinking establishment even has a sign directed at people walking out of the climbing gym.   If you can't read it, you can click on the picture to enlarge and focus.  

And later today I saw it was 50˚F on our backyard thermometer.  The record high for October 25 is 50˚F in 2002.  So I looked on line to see if our backyard was just a hotspot.  But there it was.  We'll see tomorrow if that's the official high.

British Virgin Islands After Irma

There's not much to add:

Vietnam, Alabama, Puerto Rico, NFL And Rape - We're With Alice In Wonderland

Just some running thoughts.

Ken Burns' Vietnam series is sponsored by David Koch and Bank of America among others.

Watching planes and helicopters fly into makeshift landing zones in the Vietnam series made me scratch my head when NPR reported that planes couldn't land in Puerto Rico because there was no electricity or navigation.  People have forgotten that navigation is nice, but not necessary in emergency situations.

But then Puerto Rico's 3+ million American citizens can't vote for president and their congress member doesn't have a real vote.  And you thought voter suppression was bad in Texas.  Maybe they should establish residency in Alabama, so they can vote  for Doug Jones for US Senate against the new Republican Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore.  You know, the guy who's been kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court because of his insistence on putting up a Ten Commandments sculpture in the Supreme Court.  Go to the link, this guy got support from Bannon and Palin for a reason.  He's way out there.

Blacks make up 25% of the Alabama population.  But restrictions on voting are a serious obstacle.  If you've been convicted of a crime, and blacks are much more likely to be in Alabama than whites, it's hard to recover your vote.  A Mother Jones article says a new law loosens that, but convicted felons are still barred forever.  The article says about 15% of black voters are affected by these laws.  So with an influx of Puerto Rican voters, maybe Doug Jones could win.  The election's in December so there isn't much time for Puerto Ricans to get their residency.

Then there's football.  People kneel when they pray to God, but if they kneel when the national anthem is played that's bad.  Because they are equating the flag and anthem with God?  That doesn't seem to be the logic.  But, in his Jabberwocky way, Trump is trying to change the debate from killing of blacks to honoring the flag.  Distinguishing between symbols of a false reality of America's justice for all and the harsh reality of rampant white supremacy is hard for most Americans.

Just as the Vietnam series is showing us how killing innocent civilians was  seen as ok to get better body counts,  to show we were winning when we weren't, Americans still believe that killing innocent black American citizens is ok, because - well I guess, you can't tell the good ones from the bad, like with the Vietnamese.

Betsy Devos is showing us the real values, by changing Title IX so that innocent men don't get besmirched by wrongful accusations of rape or sexual harassment.  Yes, that's not good, but it's not as bad as being raped. ["Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes."] and it's very difficult to get justice.  But we protecting men from being falsely accused of such crimes is more important.  As I say, Alice in Wonderland, we're there.  Just like it's better to be outraged that black men don't stand up for the anthem, than be outraged over innocent blacks being killed by police.

One Story of Irma Refugees: Friend And Her Family Flee Sarasota

I just talked to my friend Lynne.  She moved to Sarasota to be with her then 90 year old dad last year. Lynne has been my guide into the world of blindness and it was with mixed feelings that she decided to leave Alaska.

Sarasota is on the west coast of Florida.  It's low lying, near the water.  And in the path of Irma.  She told me they were looking to get to higher ground - probably a nearby hotel. [UPDATED:  They were in a mandatory evacuation area and had been told to get out.]   But her son called from Seattle and told her to get out of Florida.  She has a cousin in Tennessee.  Her dad, who's pushing 92 now and her older brother weren't sure about the 760 mile drive to Tennessee, but finally agreed.

The three of them, plus Lynne's guide dog, got in the car at 7:30 pm Friday night and drove 20 hours to Franklin, Tennessee.  Dad drove.  Oh year.  The cousins are there.  There on vacation in Hawaii, but they told them they could stay in the house.  They arrived yesterday (Saturday) afternoon about 2:30 Central time.  So now they are adjusting to the new situation.  For a blind person, that's a lot more difficult than for sighted people.  She has to figure out the paths she can take around the house without bumping into things.  And she can't just look into cabinets and closets, she has to feel for things.  And cans of food don't usually have Braille labels.  There are apparently lots of stairs which are harder on her dad than on her.  She just needs to know where they are.  He can see them, but has trouble getting up and down them.  She's still trying to figure out how to connect to the wifi.

But they're out of the storm (for now anyway).  They don't know how long they'll be there or how it will work out when the family gets back.  Their condo is on the ground floor and they're worried about what will be ok when it's over and they get back.

But for now they are safe and adjusting.

[UPDATE Monday Sept 11:  Lynne got word that there's no flooding but the evacuation is still in place and roads are impassable - lots of trees down and still falling.  They're also waiting for the electricity to go back on.  Maybe they'll spend the night somewhere on the road so they don't have such a long drive.]

Aurora Notify Twitter Feed Lit Up Yesterday - But We Had Clouds - More Aurora For Tonight

When there's a significant event on the sun likely to cause northern lights, my Aurora Notify feed tells of the approaching light show.  First there are pictures from northern Europe - maybe Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland.  Then perhaps someone in Iceland posts a picture and then we started getting the Canadian reports.  So Alaskans have plenty of time to prepare.

So the notices Wednesday and Thursday were pretty enthusiastic.  From the National Geographic:

"According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, the sun began unleashing its fury on Wednesday at 5:10 a.m. ET, with an X2.2 flare. Just three hours later, the sun produced a second flare measuring a whopping X9.3—the most powerful on record since 2006.
The strongest solar flare measured in modern times happened in 2003, when scientists recorded a blast so powerful that it was off the charts at X28."

Except it was cloudy yesterday in Anchorage.  I went out several times to check.  I even found a USAIRnet site that has maps of current cloud cover.  Last night it showed Anchorage cloudy to Wasilla, but Palmer was showing clear.  Did I want to drive 45 miles for the chance of seeing the aurora?  If I didn't live in Alaska, probably I would have.  Today we had sun and clear skies.  Normally I'm content with clouds and rain at night and sun in the day.  But would the clear skies hold out to tonight?  It's 3:30pm now and the clouds are back.  But the cloud cover map from 2:53 shows us clear still.

At the site, the page is interactive and you can put the pointer on any of the circles and get more information.  Maybe these are just local thin clouds and a little further north it will be clear this evening.  These is supposed to be a pretty big solar storm.  (Is there any relationship between solar storms and hurricane intensity?*)


Today, as it gets dark in Europe, the Aurora Notify tweets are starting again.  Here's one from today:

Europe's turn for #aurora. Amazing show in Sweeden, Finland, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland as the sun sets. Please let everyone know! pic.twitter.com/1rD6t7Q9k3

— Northern Lights Now (@NorthLightAlert) September 8, 2017

I'll check the skies tonight and this map and the reports as the roll in and decide if I'm going for a ride to the north.

*I couldn't just leave that question hanging.  With google, no one has an excuse not to find out the facts.  NASA has a great page on solar storms FAQs.  [Really, I need to be more careful.  It's got a page full of information, but I don't know enough to evaluate how good it is. It looks good to this solar novice.]

Question 14 is:

"What are some real-world examples of space weather impacts?"

It talks about power outages, satellite communication problems, and impacts on radio waves, but not on earth weather per se.  But if the satellites went down, tracking the hurricane would probably be more difficult.

Nature has a 2008 report of a study that suggests there is a connection, but not what I expected.  They tracked hurricane activity and solar activity and found with high solar intensity, weaker hurricanes.  But there seems to be a lop of skepticism about the link.

Taku Lake, Campbell Airstrip Foxholes, Shaggy Mane,

A couple of shots from the last several days as I wander the bike trails trying to keep my blood flowing.

This was Taku Lake a couple of evenings ago as I tried to slip in a bike ride while it wasn't raining.


Going up the new bike trail again on Campbell Airstrip Road - there's good new bike trail for about .7 miles which connects to the old bike trail that ends at the Campbell Airstrip trailhead - I ran across this new sign on local foxholes.

click on image to enlarge and foc

I was thinking as I stopped to take a picture of the sign, that I should get it while it's new (it wasn't there last week) before the spray painters arrive.  It added a dimension to this part of town I'd never thought about.  I saved it as a fairly large file so you an click on it to enlarge and focus better.

Here are the foxhole pictures enlarged:

I've seen foxes in the Anchorage bowl, so I'm sure there are some in the woods around here, but for today, this is a different kind of fox hole.


Finally, I saw my first shaggy mane mushroom today.  It's a little early.  This is one of my favorite mushrooms.  They are delicious to eat and easy to identify.  I haven't seen any other mushrooms that look even remotely like these.  They do turn inky black after a while and then they're inedible.  I've written more on them with a picture of one going black here.

So while we did our weekly video conference with our grandson (and his little sister who is beginning to pay attention to us on the screen briefly) I showed him the mushroom, cut it up, got some garlic, onion, and tomato.  Cooked them up in some olive oil and then added a little white wine.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm.