Christian Heppinstall

I met with Christian about a week ago to talk about India, particularly our visit with Winnie Singh. Christian had emailed her that we were coming and we had a very enjoyable lunch with her and her husband and daughter and another friend of theirs at their home in New Dehli. Christian met Winnie through an AIDS prevention chat room. Christian developed an AIDS education program that used high school students to write a play about AIDS. The students then performed the play at a number of high schools in Anchorage. The play would be followed up with questions and answers about AIDS. Christian is hoping to replicate the program in India. Winnie is the director of a non-profit organization that works to prevent AIDS in India -
Maitri. Maitri means something like 'loving kindness." There are some pictures of our visit to Winnie's in one of the early posts from India.

Christian is an actor, theater director, and general activist. He has a masters degree in Theater and directed Rocky Horror Picture show and Little Shop of Horrors here in Anchorage this fall. He also lived in Budapest for a number of years where he worked on AIDS prevention. I met him when he took a couple of public administration classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). He's won a number of awards recently for his AIDS education program - from the Municipality of Anchorage, from Planned Parenthood, and from an association of volunteer organizations in town. You can get to his website by clicking the title of this post.

Gaining Light

Sitting at latitude 61, we tend to notice the soltices more than other folk. For us it means it is no longer getting darker. So, even though it is the official first day of winter, it is a day of hope - each day it starts to get lighter. And here that difference is significant.

On December 21 we lost 7 seconds of daylight (for a total of 5 hours and 27 minutes from sunrise to sunset)

On December 22 we gained 5 seconds of daylight.
On December 23 we gained 17 seconds
December 24 - 29 seconds
December 25 - 41 seconds
December 26 - 54 seconds
Today - 1 minute and 6 seconds



By the spring equinox (March 21) we'll be gaining 5 minutes 45 seconds of sun per day! That means we gain an hour of sun in 11 days. You really notice that kind of change. Right now, the rate of gain is significant as you can see in the chart at the bottom.

Diagram above from the BBC

This is all happening because of the tilt of the earth - 23.4 degrees. Now, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, so it rises to the south, stays close to the horizon all day, then dips back down in the south.

In the summer it will tilt toward the sun. So for us, the sun will rise in the northeast, circle around to the south and then head back up to the northwest to set. On June 21, 2007 - the summer solstice the sun will rise at 4:20 AM and set at 11:43 PM. That's 19hours 22minutes from sunrise to sunset. But it isn't far beyond the horizon, so we have a loooooong twilight. At the summer solstice in June, it never really gets 'dark,' though it gets to be dusk.




Date..................Sunrise....Sunset......Hours Sun Up......Loss(-) or Gain(+)
Dec 16, 2006....10:10 AM....3:40 PM ....5h 29m 34s..− 1m 08s
Dec 17, 2006 ...10:11 AM... 3:40 PM.... 5h 28m 37s.. − 0m 56s
Dec 18, 2006... 10:12 AM... 3:40 PM.... 5h 27m 53s.. − 0m 44s
Dec 19, 2006. ..10:13 AM... 3:40 PM.... 5h 27m 21s ..− 0m 32s
Dec 20, 2006... 10:14 AM... 3:41 PM.... 5h 27m 01s.. − 0m 19s
Dec 21, 2006... 10:14 AM... 3:41 PM.... 5h 26m 54s.. − 0m 07s
Dec 22, 2006... 10:15 AM... 3:42 PM.... 5h 27m 00s.. + 0m 05s
Dec 23, 2006... 10:15 AM... 3:42 PM.... 5h 27m 17s.. + 0m 17s
Dec 24, 2006....10:15 AM... 3:43 PM.... 5h 27m 47s.. + 0m 29s
Dec 25, 2006... 10:16 AM... 3:44 PM.... 5h 28m 28s.. + 0m 41s
Dec 26, 2006... 10:16 AM... 3:45 PM.... 5h 29m 23s.. + 0m 54s
Dec 27, 2006... 10:16 AM... 3:46 PM.... 5h 30m 29s.. + 1m 06s
(Source: timeanddate.com sun calculator)


Another way to envision all this is through a daylight map.
For more on all this - like the perihelion (day the sun and earth are closest which will be January 4 in 2007, and why the perihelion regresses in the year over time), Milankovitch cycles, and other astronomical phenomena that affect seasons and climate visit the US Naval Academy site or About's Geography site.

Jodie and David

Jodie was a student of mine as well as a graduate assistant in the program, and along with Linda did an incredible job helping (well I did the helping, they did the work) organize an international conference we hosted. They were spectacular in everything they did from answering calls and emails from around the world and giving advice on what to do in Anchorage, where to email copies of their presentations, and what clothes to bring. She also helped haul kayaks and canoes for the picnic, marked arrows on the ground to guide participants to the main building, raised thousands of dollars in grant money, helped convince the Native Mask makers who gave our opening presentation that we could be trusted, and more and more.

After she graduated with her Masters in Public Administration (MPA) she was getting ready for a second masters at the Northern Royal College of Music in Manchester, England (She's also a very talented clarinetist). But the funding for that fell through, so instead she flew to Colorado, then got on a bike and headed for Tierra del Fuego. A year and a half later, after biking to the southern tip of the Western Hemisphere, she flew home and got a job with Out North as their fund raiser. But she got married to David and they moved down to Seattle where he is an attorney - working on conscientious objector and other military cases. He was in the military and has been the equivalent to a public defender. Jodie is working for npower, a non-profit that helps "Puget Sound nonprofits use technology to better serve their communities." (Hey Jodie, you better tell them to add your name to the staff page on the website.)

They were over for breakfast Saturday during their Christmas trip home to Anchorage.

Why I Live Here

The snow has stopped falling. There was even some blue in the sky and glimpses of sunshine. Off to Campbell Airstrip ski trails. Then into the winter wonderland.

Just watching the snow fall

Wednesday



.....................Thursday

just spending time watching the slow progress of snowflakes piling on snowflakes





Saturday

......................Sunday

Naked Conversations

Before we left for India, I posted about going to the Alaska Apple Users Group (AAUG) and starting to read and review the book Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. I finished the review in that hectic week before we left and never got to post the review. Actually, I just give you a little synopsis here and there's a link to the full review below.

Basically the authors are arguing that large companies need to get into the blogosphere for two reasons:
1. People are blogging about you. You need to subscribe to service (such as Technorati.com) that emails you when your company is blogged about. Then you can jump into the conversation - get good feedback, answer questions, clarify misconceptions, etc.
2. Companies should let employees blog about the company as a way of engaging all your stakeholders - customers, suppliers, employees, etc.


They also give tips for small businesses (and this could apply to non-profits). Basic advice is not to 'sell' on your blog, but to show your expertise by talking about your business, giving information that would be interesting to people.

All this advice is based on the notion that old style marketing is out, that nobody trusts the hype that comes out of big business. Rather, the essense of the market, they say (citing the Cluetrain Manifesto that I've had up as a link since I first mentioned this book review) is conversation between buyers and sellers. Blogs give this opportunity to have such direct conversation between the customers and businesses.

I think this is something marketing folks and CEOs ought to read. They give lots of examples of how organizations have blogged successfully and not so successfully. It isn't a technical how-to book as much as a 'why you should' book. For the whole review, click here.

Helsinki Complaints Choir

There's something about the contrast between what the music sounds like and what the words mean, that captured me here. Also, the universality of modern problems. Listen a little bit without reading the subtitles. Then start reading.

For more info on the choir itself, and others like it, go here.

Blind colors - What food is like blue?

We went to dinner and the opera last night with our friend Lynn and her seeing eye dog Mary. We got into a discussion of colors and what they mean to Lynn. She knows all the names but doesn't really have a sense of them - contrasts, bright and dark colors, the emotional impact of colors on others, etc. So we tried to find a way to share that. We came up with two different tracks by comparing colors to things she knows:
1. Trying to think of tastes, or foods that would have the same effect as a particular color, or foods that might have the same relationship to each other as different colors
2. Doing the same thing with sound.



So, what do you think? Red seemed to be the easiest - clearly it was hot peppers, not because they are red (the hottest seem to be green) but because when you taste them you really notice them. They stand out. But the various blues, greens, and even white were more difficult. She wanted to know if purple was like red? How was lavender different from purple?

Sounds weren't so easy. A loud, brassy trumpet seemed to be like red, but we weren't real happy with that.

So, my challege to any readers out there is this:

Make a list of colors and the foods/tastes that would help a blind person
a) understand the individual color and
b) understand the relationships between colors

The other approach is to use sounds to do the same thing.

Or if you have a suggestion for a totally different way of getting colors across to a blind person, send it in.


By the way, Lynn is an incredible person. She grew up in New York and says from early on she was not going to sit around and be blind. She insisted on exploring the streets of New York. Her son turns 32 today - Happy Birthday Dimas. She has an undergraduate in Psychology from Cal State Northridge and a Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California. She came to Alaska on Dec. 27, 1991. She had gotten a job as peer counselor coordinator and older blind Alaskan coordinator for Southeast Alaska Independent Living (SAIL). She came to Anchorage in 1993 after getting colitis. In Anchorage she got a job with Alaska Information Radio Reading Education Service (AIRRES), where she was program coordinator. She was president of Alaska Independent Blind 1997-2003 and she's been a participant in Leadership Anchorage 2003-2004. She has traveled frequently to conferences and to visit relatives and friends. She has a incisive intelligence and a strong sense of rights and standing up for the rights of those who are different from the norm.

Maytag fixed - thanks automaticwasher.org

I have to give another thank you to automaticwasher.org for a) convincing me that our 32 year old Maytag was worth repairing and b) walking me through the repairs. I was able to get a new 'water injector kit' - Part No. 204660 - here in Anchorage ($60 at Harold's Appliances) and we leak no more. The insides of the washing machine are also very clean now. You can compare this picture with the ones on my earlier post.



As some people (like the author of "Bowling Alone") lament the loss of community groups and organizations, this experiencs reinforces for me that we still have community, it's just shifted to the internet. I had people all over the US helping me fix my washer and giving me encouragement when I was about to quit and call the repair man. If you want to see how the process worked go to the link (click on the title of this post) then go to "Imperial" and my thread is #9522 (first post 12/18/06).

May 31, 2007 update
This story has, unfortunately, been updated several times. Later posts are

May 22, 2007 and May 30, 2007

Snow

The backyard this morning.







The front yard.












Since then it has continued to snow all day.