Where's Summer?

It's greening up and there are some flowers, but it's chilly and slow. What's chilly for June in Anchorage? Highs in the 50's F and low 60s (13-16C) and lows 40's and sometimes down into the 30s. (2-9C).

So after J came back from her Tai Chi, we went to get a few more plants (we got back too late from Chiang Mai to start seeds this year) and to recycle.

Innumeracy - Do People Really Pay $45,000 for a Halibut Charter?

Innumeracy.com, defines innumeracy as

A term meant to convey a person's inability to make sense of the numbers that run their lives.

The New Literacy, linked on the site, by Lynn Arthur Steen expands:

...Innumeracy hurts in other ways as well. For example, public policy issues may increasingly move beyond the intellectual grasp of citizens who lack appropriate skills in quantitative reasoning...

Listen to this excerpt from an APRN report on a lawsuit over Halibut Charter allocation cuts in Area 2C. I think it is a good case of innumeracy , not only with the person giving the numbers, but also the reporter who doesn't question the them. (Click the yellow button)

APRN Report on Halibut Charter Cuts excerpt by AKRaven

In this audio Charter Halibut Task Force spokesperson Kimberly Tebrugge says:

Eleven people filed affidavits with the lawsuit saying that they’ve had cancellations and the total for that just eleven people were half a million dollars.

My ears perked up immediately. Eleven people. Half a million dollars.

[LATER: MPB comments "I think the reporter might just be a poor writer-- do the numbers add up if the "11" refers to the collective losses of the 11 plaintiffs rather than 11 clients?" I think she got it right. Actually, this was a radio piece, I did the transcribing. But this makes more sense. There were a few more examples that I didn't add in here and so it probably adds up to half a million for those eleven. The sentence is not the greatest but I should have caught it after listening to it a couple of times and writing it out. So I apologize to Ms. Terbrugge and the reporter. And thanks MPB for catching it. I've put this comment here because it totally changes the things. I'm tempted to take the whole post down, but I guess it's a good warning to me to be more careful. And to my readers to not assume I got it right.]

Ten people would mean $50,000 each. Don't even need a calculator for that if you are numerate. Eleven people would be $45,454 each.

Bells and whistles should sound for anyone who is thinking. $45,000 to go halibut fishing for a couple of days?!



In this audio Charter Halibut Task Force spokesperson Kimberly Tebrugge says:

Eleven people filed affidavits with the lawsuit saying that they’ve had cancellations and the total for that just eleven people were half a million dollars.

My ears perked up immediately. Eleven people. Half a million dollars.

Ten people would mean $50,000 each. Don't even need a calculator for that if you are numerate. Eleven people would be $45,454 each.to go halibut fishing for a couple of days?!

A quick Google search got me to the Charter Halibut Task Force website with links to the lawsuit they filed. Here, from their very own Memorandum of Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for aTemporary Restraining Order and/or a Preliminary Injunction

The evidence of serious and ongoing harm to Area 2C charter operators is irrefutable. Larry McQuarie, an Area 2C lodge operator, states in his affidavit that 26 regular clients have already canceled existing reservations for the 2008 season because of the one-fish limit, and that 10 additional clients chose not to book with his establishment for the same reason. The 26 cancellations alone represent a loss of $98,970.00 in gross revenues. See Exhibit 1. Scot Van Valin, also an Area 2C lodge operator, has already lost even more. Mr. Van Valin has had 40 regular clients cancel their 2008 reservations because of the one-fish rule. He had refunded $147,800.00 to those clients. Thirty-two additional regular clients have also decline to book respectively.

So, if "26 cancellations alone represent a loss of $98,970.00 in gross revenues" that's more like $3,800 per person, a number that sounds a lot more reasonable than $45,000.

How could Terbrugge give such an outrageous number, especially when they had the more accurate numbers in their Memorandum of Support? Why didn't the reporter question the outrageous number? I would argue "Innumeracy," We just say and hear these numbers without thinking about what they mean.

If she had said each charter cost $45,000, people would have perked up and said, "That can't be right." But when eleven people are lumped together to get $500,000, people don't do the simple division that would result in the $45,000 figure and don't say "That can't be right." Innumeracy. Think how much we miss when it takes more than one mathematical operation.
For example. Do you know how many acres Potter Marsh is*? People talk about acres all the time. A wild fire burns 30,000 acres. ANWR is 19,049,236 acres. How many people have a clue how big that is? But we just let it pass by without even thinking. And so people can use totally ridiculous numbers and we have no idea. Innumeracy.

The second part of the audio gets into the economic impact to the Southeast and other parts of Alaska. Terbrugge talks about all the other businesses that will be affected and the story's implication is that all this money will be lost to Alaska. But wait a minute. If you read their legal documents, you find out that the fishers aren't canceling their trips altogether, but rather they are moving from Area 2C to Area 3A.

The experiences of these Area 2C charter operators are corroborated by the affidavits of their colleagues and competitors in Area 3A, who have received booksings from clients lost by Area 2C operators. Rex Murphy states that he has booked three clients for this year who have told him that they moved from Mr. McQuarrie’s Area 2C Sportsman’s Cove Lodge because of the one-fish rule. See Exhibit 8. Finally, Donna Bondioli has had three groups of fishermen book with her in Area 3A buisness for the first time. These new clients stated that they had moved from Area 2C to Area 3A because of the one halibut limit.

So, where are Areas 2C and 3A? Another Google search finds an old UAA Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) report with a map of the Halibut Management Areas.




Assuming the areas haven't been changed since this report came out in the 1990s, it looks to me like they are moving from one part of Alaska to another, so Alaska isn't really losing all that money. Though the businesses in Southeast are.

So, when you hear numbers being thrown around and words like acres, don't just space it. Ask yourself, "Do I know what this means?" If not, write it down. And then figure out how big it really is. What the numbers really mean. Ask if it makes sense. Before long it will become a habit. Get numerate!

*Potter Marsh is 450 acres.

Political Reporting Issues: The Press Does Ray Metcalfe

Bloggers overlap with various other more traditional categories - diarist, gossip, and journalist seem to be among the more common. When we morph into a journalist form enough, people start sending us press releases. I don't get too many. APU's Engaging Muslims series started sending them after I posted on the first evening of the series. The Alaska Report has sent out links to some stories. And I've been getting Wednesday sneak previews of the Anchorage Press. I've always wondered how, say, NPR gets their stories. How many come from their reporters actually going out and finding a story and how many are based on press releases? Of course, the email I mentioned yesterday offering to exchange links falls in a related category of self promotion.

I write all this because as someone new to much of this, I don't take these things for granted, and I want to comment on them before I do. Most of us probably don't know why certain stories become news and others don't. And part of me wants to work on stories that others aren't working on, and not be a promotion site. Or work the stories in ways others aren't working them.

So this story from the tomorrow's Press (well, by the time I'm done it will be today's Press) is about something I've been thinking about. And I have mentioned that Brendan Joel Kelley, who wrote the story and emailed it out to various reporters (the list isn't visible) and I had lunch a couple of weeks ago. He ended up paying for mine because mine was only $5 and I had a $20 and a $1. I contributed the $1. I mention this because I think politicians who have their lunches paid for by people lobbying them on various issues should tell us who they talked to and if they got a free lunch out of it. And I'm willing to disclose that even though I don't have to.

Anyway, I'm not ready to do this story, but I think there are a couple of angles here to be explored that Brendan doesn't explore.

The story is basically about whether Ray Metcalfe is a serious candidate for the Senate. According to the story, Metcalfe says he is.

The issues this story stirred up for me - still unresolved but I can raise them here and say that I may actually follow up on them or not - are about:

1. How journalists cover politicians
2. Ray Metcalfe's political personas

The media issue is ultimately the more important long term issue and Metcalfe is more a case study to help us think about the first.

Brendan Joel Kelley writes:

Metcalfe points out that Palin exposed the Republican Party chair, Randy Ruedrich, for ethical violations, and says that he’s exposed a hundred times as much corruption as that. “Look what the public did for her. It’s not the good ol’ boys that are going to put you in office, and it’s not the guys with the thousand dollar campaign checks. It’s the guys with the five dollar campaign checks and the yard signs and the elbow grease.”

Here, Brendan has interviewed Metcalfe and is reporting what Metcalfe says. This is an important part of journalism, as reporters on behalf of the rest of us, talk to the candidates. We need to know two things about candidates:

• Content - where do they stand on the issues?; and
• Credibility - do we feel comfortable with them and can we trust them?

Television has the advantage of showing us the interview so we can judge for ourselves (though we don't know what they cut out or how different camera angles subliminally affect how we perceive the candidates.) We get the feel and intonation of the candidate that help us judge credility, but this can distract us from the content.

The written report has the advantage that it can be more in depth than most television news stories - Charlie Rose's interviews being an exception - and they can focus on the content and analyze in more depth as Richard Mauer's infrequent, long, and informative investigative reports do.

This Press piece is more like a tv interview, telling us what the candidate said and and not doing much research to find out whether it's true or not.

In the above quote, Metcalfe is trying to grab some of Sarah Palin's glow as a stalwart who refused to go along with corruption. But Palin's just isn't going to stick for Metcalfe. While Metcalfe has standing up against corruption in common with Sarah Palin, how they stood up aginst corruption and their whole demeanor are totally different.

Palin was put in a position where she had to go along with corruption or stand up and say, publicly, these guys are cheating and I can't work with them. But that's just one part of what makes her attractive to Alaskan voters and national Republican strategists. She's also a good looking woman with a warm personality who makes people (except Republican party leaders) feel comfortable.

Metcalfe, in his own words says he’s "exposed a hundred times as much corruption." Metcalfe probably thinks that makes him a hundred times more deserving of the public's gratitude. The Greeks talked about doing all things in moderation. And for many people, I suspect, it raises questions about why he seems so obsessed with exposing other people's wrong doings. And he doesn't have Palin's smiling personality which goes a long way in the trust department. And becoming a hero by turning on your former friends (Metcalfe is a former Republican) was never a sure path.

Whistle blower is the most positive word we have for such people, and some even use whistle blower pejoratively. Other words for what Metcalfe has done include tattletale, snitch, and turncoat. Don't get me wrong. I think that Metcalfe has performed an invaluable service and we need more people to follow his example, but our society is ambivalent about this kind of work. I suspect because it seems to conflict with our value of loyalty.

Spousal immunity is a principle that reflects this conflict between loyalty and turning in a criminal. In court it helps protect the necessary bond between a husband and wife that

... was thought to require a testimonial privilege, one that would both reflect and foster the loyalty that married people should feel toward each other.

For Palin, calling out Ruedrich and Murkowski was an important act, but it was one of many things she did and stood for. For Metcalfe, in most people's minds (those who even think about these things at all), it is his purpose to go after corrupt politicians. In the public's view, this isn't balanced out by other aspects of his life. It's not balanced. Brendan writes:

It’s worth asking what Ray Metcalfe is running for, as opposed to whom he’s running against.

(The article does also then give a list of things he's for.)

Brendan also raises the question whether the US Senate is the right job for someone who appears to excel in criminal investigations, asking

. . .if he wouldn’t be better suited for a job other than Senator from Alaska. Like working for the Department of Justice. Or becoming a private investigator.

Another identity issue for Metcalfe is whether he is becoming the Hillary Clinton of the Alaskan US Senate race.

His allegations against Begich are complex and involve real estate deals with local developer Jon Rubini, of JL Properties, who’s also connected to Ted Stevens through property deals. Metcalfe’s compiled his paper trails and accusations in documents that are on his website, www.metcalfe4senate.com

While he says he is serious about this campaign, the money and polls suggest that Begich is the likely Democratic candidate, with a far more significant lead over Metcalfe than Obama ever had over Clinton. If he has no chance of winning, does he have a good chance of causing the Democrats to lose?

As one rebel union member who also has issues with Begich said to me, "Yes, I have problems with Begich, but I'm going to vote for him over Stevens. But I won't be out campaigning for him." Primary elections are all about politicians from the same party showing why they are the best candidate and sometimes that involves showing the weaknesses of their, same party, opponents. But while I don't think the McCain campaign will need any help from Hillary when they attack Obama, I suspect that Stevens' campaign will use Metcalfe's material against Begich, and it wouldn't have had that material without Metcalfe.

Comparing Metcalfe to Clinton works only in one aspect - being the potential spoiler who won't let go to the point where many think he/she will enable their shared opponent to win in the general election.

And this raises another journalistic issue. Brendan raises Metcalfe's allegations and then he offers a response from the Begich campaign:

For its part, the Begich campaign has a thick stack of papers rebutting one of Metcalfe’s claims—that Begich assisted Rubini by pushing to rezone of a parcel of land, boosting its value significantly. The federal government subsequently purchased it from Rubini’s company, at what Metcalfe says was an inflated price, for the National Archives building. Begich disputes all of Metcalfe’s accusations, calling the situation a shame.

“He throws these allegations around because they make good political hay and he never has to back it up,” Begich says. “Honestly, I run my campaign focused on the issues that I want to talk about; Ray would rather throw grenades and he doesn’t really care where they land."

This is the same sort of 'he said, she said" journalism we get every day, which clouds the issues in voters' minds, but doesn't dig deeper into the validity of the claims. We need some people to read through all of Metcalfe's allegations and take his tour and then go to the Begich people and sort through their responses. And then map them out. Are the allegations merely correlation without evidence of cause and effect? Are the responses credible and do they effectiely refute Metcalfe's claims? I know Metcalfe believes he's right, so do Pete Kott and Vic Kohring. I don't mean to lump Metcalfe with those folks, but merely to point out that believing you are right is not the same as being right.

One person who has a better perspective on these things than I do, says that Begich has some blindspots like everyone else. A member of his campaign just as vigorously defends Begich's actions on the waste issues. But good journalism should do some of this work for the public. And I say some people instead of someone should do this so we have various people reviewing and then interpreting the evidence.

One other thing wasn't quite clear to me. Did Brendan actually take the Metcalfe tour of Anchorage? He writes:

There’s a tour of Anchorage that Ray Metcalfe likes to give to journalists, politicians, FBI agents, and other interested parties. He calls it his “three-hour tour,” although it could probably go on longer. The tour hits everywhere from base housing at Elmendorf to parking lots in downtown Anchorage to a lot in Midtown near Loussac Library to a road in a sprawling development in South Anchorage.

This second quote (below) indirectly hints that he did, and I suspect he did, and he just didn't realize anyone would even question it, but it would be helpful if he just came out and told us directly that he took the tour.

One wonders, when you take the three-hour tour and listen to Metcalfe pontificate on his passion for independently investigating political corruption, if he wouldn’t be better suited for a job other than Senator from Alaska. Like working for the Department of Justice. Or becoming a private investigator. Or charging money to tourists for the three-hour tours.

I noticed at the trials that the Main Stream Media (MSM) and us bloggers didn't really do the work. The FBI and the prosecutors did all the work. We just had to be in court and listen and take notes.

The same thing is true about the Republican and Democratic conventions (I was out of town for the Republican convention, but the other bloggers were there) and the AGIA workshop last week. The Governor's team at the Department of Natural Resoures did all the work, we just listened to what they reported.

Metcalfe did the real work of the journalists of doggedly tracking down information and making sense out of it. And whether that makes him a good candidate for the Senate, I can't determine, but we owe him a great debt for the hours and hours of work he did so well. But I also wonder about people who spend so much time exposing other people's failings. In some cases such people appear to have some complex pyschological issues - such as evangelist Ted Haggard or New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Others appear to simply have a strong sense of justice such as Ralph Nader whose life has been thoroughly investigated with no evidence found to impugn him.

The facts allow for lots of different interpretations. Getting enough information is a long and difficult job. Right now I think too many people claim to know the answers when at best, all they can really do is guess at possible ways to interpret the data. And reporters have a real role in helping the public in this process - and bloggers can fit in that role of reporter.

Fresh Halibut's In Town

$4 a Gallon Bikers

In a post the other day I used the phrase "$4 a gallon bikers" to suggest that while $3 a gallon gas didn't change driving habits, $4 a gallon does seem to be getting people to seek alternative forms of transportation.

This cartoonist in the June 5, 2005 Anchorage Daily News - I can't quite read the signature enough to confirm it on Google - seems to have the same perception. But I'm not sure whether this violates the Anchorage Daily News' or the cartoonist's copyrights. Like a photo, it is use of the whole piece, but I would argue I'm using it not simply to decorate my post, but as a reference that others also believe that somehow the $4 threshold reveals that the price of oil is indeed not inelastic, that there comes a point where consumers change their gasoline purchasing habits because of price. And that $4 is that threshold for a significant number of people. And that the phrase $4 biker has meaning to others besides myself. So, is the name ARIAZ? ARIA?

Recent Google Searches That Got People Here

Google is fantastic at helping us find things we never could have found otherwise. But it isn't perfect. The biggest problem I see is that it will grab words from unrelated posts. In the couple of lines you get, it isn't always clear that the words don't come from the same post. And as I've mentioned before, it's not totally clear how they pick which post to send people to. Some people who have googled "Vic Kohring" have gotten to one post, and other people to another post, or just to the main What Do I Know page.

Anywho, here are some recent searches that I found interesting for one reason or another:

• do any people speak english in anchorage
  From Australia. I wonder if reading my blog answered the question.
  

• being pressured to resign, what should i do?
  Sorry to hear this. It doesn't sound good. Unfortunately, this person got to a post about when corrupt politicians should resign. Close, but not quite what I suspect what the person needed.
  
  
• monks walk what do they do for swimming
  Any thoughts on what this person wanted? I'm sure the answer wasn't there.
  
  
• discovery channel no paid employees
  I got a number of these so there is obviously some sort of a story here. When I looked at some of the Google results, there didn't seem to be anything answering the question. They got to my post on the Discovery channel shelving the movie Taxi to the Dark Side
  
  
• chiang mai, thailand women resorts motels weather
  From Venice, California. (I guess I noted that because I went to Venice High) But I hope the person didn't find what he was looking for on my site. Actually, I probably should have done a post on the topic of foreign men and Thai women. It seems that there are a number of marriages that have resulted from foreigners visiting prostitutes and economically, I'm told it works out well for the women. But that doesn't balance out the damage done to girls and boys and women forced into prostitution.
  

• contact email and telephone numbers of all the mine in alaska
  This was from South Africa. Maybe someone is just looking for a job. But I bet there's an interesting story here.
  
  
• where do pigs get their energy?
  What is there to say? I have no idea how this person got to this site. [I did mention slurry pigs and I have an energy tag. And I'm sure I've used all the other words somewhere.]
  
  
• nus auditorium rental
  Here's an example of words from unrelated posts. NUS is the National University of Singapore, where my son is studying. The person (who was from Singapore) got to a post which included the rental fees for the Wendy Williamson auditorium at the University of Alaska Anchorage. They stayed a while, so maybe comparing prices was of interest.
  
  
• what do women do at conventions?
  Greely, CO. Your guess is as good as mine.
  
  
• why you may find indian hospitality uncomfortable
  Well, this person probably got what she was looking for. I did a post from India about the cross cultural mixed signals that Indian sales people give that make Americans uncomfortable
  
  
• airline oxygen mask for a fee
  Oh my. I suggested this in my list of absurd new fees airlines could create. But you'd have to be really warped to think about such a fee.
  
  
• morels of abortion
  Spelling errors can be so much fun. This person got a post on mushrooms. By the way, there are new morels in our backyard again this year.
  
  
• what was the biggest cyclone/hurricane/typhoon of all times to hit the world
  My post on the difference between cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes has been getting a fair number of hits since I posted it. But I don't have the answer to this one.
  
  
• blogspot thoughts about sex
  From Moldova - I just discussed this one in the previous post.
  

六㆕

Today is the 19th anniversary of the Tianamen Square confrontation between the Chinese students and other Chinese citizens and the Chinese government. Just as Americans say 9-11 to signify the day of the Twin Towers attack, the Chinese say Liu Si or 6 六 - 4㆕. You can hear the two numbers in the audio.

6-4 Mandarin by AKRaven

The students I had in graduate class in 2004 mostly didn't know a lot about what happened on June 4, 1989.

OF ALL the taboos in modern China, the violent quelling of the Tiananmen Square democracy protests on June 4, 1989, remains the most sensitive.

Nineteen years later, China is now the world's fourth-largest economy, and proud host of this year's Olympic Games. But unlike other touchy subjects - Tibet, Taiwan and the Falun Gong group banned as a cult - there is no public discourse on the Tiananmen Square "incident". The real death toll is a state secret; more than a dozen protesters from that time, plus hundreds more dissidents, are in jail. (From today's Sydney Morning Herald)

I arrived in Hong Kong in 1989 about a month after June 4 and during the year I taught at Chinese University I heard a lot about what happened, including a first hand account by one of my colleagues who had been doing research in Beijing during the events. Of course, any individual's accounts are limited by where he was and what he saw.

In any case, I did want to note the day. You can see the Chinese characters for the numbers at AskAsia. This link will take you the character 一 (can you guess?) 1. There you can listen to someone say the character and then go on to the other numbers. I copied their recordings of six and four and mixed them on Jamglue for the audio. Thus it doesn't sound exactly right, but it's better than if I tried to say it. The Chinese have hand signs for the numbers and I'm sure you can figure out what the two at the top stand for. You can see the rest at Chinese-Tools.com.

More on blogrolls and my first poll

Well, I'm really glad Paul suggested yesterday (in the comments) I set up criteria for what blogs I put up on my list of blogs, because today I got an email from Thoughts About Sex suggesting we exchange blog links. Of course, I had to check it out if I would even consider linking to it. It's actually not a porn blog, the most lascivious picture is a woman eating a hot dog on a bun. And it isn't written by a native English speaker. It's not particularly special either. But the background graphic is nice.

Unfortunately, I haven't got my criteria yet. The other blogs on his links list already include:

Blogroll

* Anal butt plugs
* Anal sex toys
* Condoms
* Dildos - Sex toys
* Kamasutra Sex
* Sex toy - Masturbators
* Sex toys and adult dvd
* Sex toys - Realistic Dildos

Don't you think What Do I Know? would fit right in?

I started out thinking I would post this as a joke since I just yesterday posted about linking to other blogs and I haven't gotten an email about exchanging blog links since I first started blogging. But then I started wondering, hey, this is a chance to see how much sex makes a difference in blog hits. But won't they be disappointed when they find out I know nothing? And will it bring unwanted visitors here?

Well, what do you all think? I guess this is where I should have been paying attention to the stuff about putting a poll on my site.

Just back from checking out polls. Turns out there are lots of ways, but blogger has one built right in. So I can do my first poll to find out what you think. Oh, and I also found out how my new best friend got here. This was NOT in response to yesterday's post about exchanging blog links. He was googling for "blogspot thoughts about sex" from Moldova and got to my post on Eliot Spitzer. (It was on page 5 of only 631,000 hits. But that doesn't sound like that many hits, so maybe blogspot bloggers don't think about sex that much. The Spitzer post was, I think, so far, my only post on sex. A sad commentary I guess. But then I don't think of this post as being about sex. It's about blogging.) Then he sent me an email.

So it's now up to you. I have no idea where this poll will show up. I'm guessing not in the post itself, but on the side. Look for it.[It's in the upper right column] Vote. And if you don't like the choices, leave a comment with the choice you couldn't find.

From Bike Racks to Mt. View to More Biking - Why Blogging is so Hot and so Cool

I discovered Clark's Mt. View Forum tonight because he left a comment on my bike rack post. From what I've read on his site, I'd describe it as a local activist site that is keeping track of what's happening in Mt. View. He's got posts on the Heritage Land Bank's plans for the old Native Hospital grounds, debates over the lighting at the Bragaw and Glenn Highway intersection, pictures of the new Clark Middle School construction. This is a real service to the folks in Mt. View and perhaps a great model for other community bloggers to emulate. Great blog Clark!

His blog also sent me to a couple of commuter biking blogs that have thought about this sort of stuff much more thoroughly than I have.

You Just Don't Want To has some tips for experienced commuter bikers when giving advice to the new $4 a gallon bikers:

I suspect that most people wanting to give this bike commuting thing a try will more or less load up the old bike in the garage and head out instead of researching things a little. They probably don't read blogs like this until they get hooked. So I say to you, the knowledgeable, don't let your neighbor go forth to wreak havoc in the public arena alone with his inexperience. Engage him. Offer him your experience and wisdom. Avoid telling how much he needs to buy because his stuff is junk. Avoid pressuring him to ride every day, and under no circumstances make light of his fear of riding in traffic. Make sure he has the tools and knowledge to repair a flat tire. Failing that, make sure he knows where the buses go and how to use the front bicycle rack.

There's some wisdom here, but I also sense a bit of bike snobbism and no consideration at all that my neighbor might be a she. I seem to be doing ok on my ten or 15 year old piece of junk, but then I don't have too far to ride to get downtown or most places I want to go. But the patch kit advice is good, but I was able to get a bus with a bike rack home.

Discovering new (to me) Alaskan blogs raises a dilemma. I only have a few Alaska blogs listed in my links. The whole idea of exchanging links to increase your various blog ratings makes sense at one level, but then you get such a long list of blogs that it really doesn't mean anything. Maybe I could have a section that says "Blogs I check regularly" and one that says "Blog Link Exchange List". There are some Alaska blogs that are listed in almost every Alaska blog I go to. I started out by linking to blogs I read regularly and/or thought were unique and that (at least at the time) didn't get much attention. We're learning the 'rules' as we go, which is perfectly fine with me.

As a kid I despaired that I would never be able to read all the books in the library. But we accept the fact that we can't be friends with everyone in the world, or even all the people we really could spiritually connect with in the world, or even keep up with all the people we have met and do truly connect with. So, it's ok if we can't read all the blogs, or even keep up with the ones we've started reading. There's our own lives to live too. So, hi Clark, it was great to run into you tonight. And Smudgemo in Berkeley too. And Philip who went skinny dipping at Harbin Hot Springs today. Harbin is Anchorage's sister city in China, but Phil was in at a different Harbin - in Northern California.

How Many Days Does it Take to Clean a Street?

Day 1: We hear loud truck noises outside. Check the window. The street cleaner went by. I move the van out of the street and into the driveway. A little sweeper truck goes by and whirls dirt in circles. Oh well, guess we missed that one. Still lots of dirt in the street. The picture is after the last pass on Day 1. Mind you at this point I had no idea there would be a day 2, so I parked back on the street. The curb is on the left, the street on the right.







Day 2: Get home and see that the street cleaners were back. Who knew there would be a Day 2?

Day 3: What? They're back? Get out of bed, get on some pants and move the car again. No pics this time. It's cleaner than it was.


But I want to know:

1. Why three days to clean the neighborhood?
2. Why not have a system to notify people when they are going to clean? I know the maintenance drivers can't be happy when there are cars parked on the street, but how is anyone supposed to know they are coming? It's not like other cities where they clean once a week and there are signs saying "No Parking Tuesdays 9-11". But there is the internet. The city has a website. They do have a system of sorts for plowing after snow, but it has problems too. And just like the street cleaning, there's no way to figure out when they are coming to clear the berms.

Some suggestions:
1. The ASD has a way to call neighborhoods - they left us a message once about a situation in our nearby school. Why can't the public works have automated phone banks for when the snow plows or the street cleaners will be in a subdivision?
2. Or they could put it on the web - with plow and clean neighborhood list serves to email people when their street will be clean.
3. They could notify the tv and radio stations about their web sites and they could give snow plow and clean up information along with the weather.

I certainly want my car out of the way when they come to get the berms and when they come to clean the street. But I have to know when they are coming to do that. It's not that hard to do this. Please.