To Portland

My wife and son took off in the rental truck at 6:30am headed for Half Moon Bay. I waited at my daughter's house, doing some writing, til she got up for breakfast. Then, for the first time in many years, I walked my daughter to school. On the way we passed the shoe tree. I think people should have fun and not be overly serious all the time, and this tree is unique. But I also couldn't help wondering about how rich some people are, that they can simply throw good shoes up into a tree, while other people in other parts of the world can't afford shoes.






If I got this right, this is Savery Hall being rehabbed. My daughter's department has been moved out while they are working on it inside. The University of Washington campus is full of big old brick buildings and huge trees and a surprising amount of activities given school doesn't start for a while.





Then I drove south, stopping at the Olympia home of old Anchorage friends Don and Joan where I managed to be just in time for lunch. Really, Don, that wasn't planned. Their home is a beautiful spot at the end of Puget Sound and we ate overlooking the water. And the sun was out for lunch! It was nice to see Don and Joan (who came home for lunch) after maybe four years.




Now I'm at Marty's on Hayden Island, just across the bridge from Washington State. Marty is another former Alaskan and we did a lot with Marty and his wife Ellen the six months we lived in Portland five years ago. Ellen had been on dialysis for years and died just over a month ago. She was an very talented, bright, and beautiful woman whose smile lit up the room. Marty was devoted to Ellen throughout her long illness. I'm glad we're able to spend some time with Marty now and maybe distract him a little.
They had finally found a home they both really enjoyed out on Janzten Island. Marty and I had dinner out on one of the many docks.

Celtic Diva's Conventioning, I'm Moving Boxes

First meet the kids for breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe in the University district.











Then we drive to the truck rental place.













Then to where J and C have had their stuff stored for the year. It was all in these three large units.












Here's the truck still mostly empty.













The unit is finally empty!!!
















The truck is almost full, just the mattresses to buttress the end.













The view from the storage building looking at the end of the truck at the dock.












One of the workers at the storage place. Lots of tatoos.











On the way back to M's. The skies opened.







Then off to dinner at Galeria on Capitol Hill - meet a former student and her husband and a good friend of J.




Galieria's Jose Cuervo collection.










Tomorrow J and J drive the truck to San Francisco.

From Dry to Wet

We left a cloudy, but dry Anchorage about 7:30pm.



And arrived at cloudy and wet Seattle about midnight.

School Starts Tomorrow

Since it looks like I'll be here the whole Fall semester, I've decided to put some structure into my life and take a couple of classes this fall at UAA.

And I'm taking Mariano Gonzales' Digital Art and Design. I took a similar class from him years ago - I think it was just called computer art back then. I'd seen some murals he'd made with video and digital and thought I should learn. Well, it wasn't a class to touch up photos. It was an art class and on the first day when we got our assignment to take three of the tools in the program we were using (Corel Draw?) and make a picture, I quickly discovered that everyone else in class was an accomplished artist.

My simple flower pot with a daisy looked like 2nd grade compared to the detailed cowboy boots on one side of me and the portrait on the other side. But I worked hard and did reasonably well, and learned a lot.

So this will give me a chance to get my photoshop skills back up and do some more creative work with my pictures and from scratch. [Posted with permission of the artist]

Mariano is a UAA professor and wicked artist whose work is technically precise and often political as this picture of St. Ted demonstrates. You can see more of his poster work here. He's doing more sculpture now.

I'm signing up for a weight training class just so I'll get in on a regular basis. I've been reasonably good about running (or biking), but I haven't done weights for a while. Class gets me in twice a week and I get pushed more than I would push myself.

Unfortunately, we head out tonight for Seattle to see the kids and then Portland to visit friends there. I have to get word to the weight training teacher, but there's no name listed.

Read Books Not Blogs

Gary sent me this picture which he got from The Girl in the Green Dress











Good fiction is packed with far more truth than most non-fiction. And it's a great escape from the here and now. But I've been trapped in Salman Rushdie for much too long.

I started reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet on the plane to Thailand last February. It starts out in Mumbai full of Rushdie's wild prose riffs that soar, race, even explode, always challenging.

Why do we care about singers? Wherein lies the power of the songs? Maybe it derives from the sheer strangeness of there being singing in the world. The note, the scale, the chord; melodies, harmonies, arrangements; symphonies, ragas, Chinese operas, jazz, the blues: that such things should exist, that we should have discovered the magical intervals and distances that yield the poor cluster of notes, all within the span of a human hand, from which we can build our cathedrals of sound, is as alchemical a mystery as mathematics, or wine, or love. (p. 19)

Some of his books are like that non-stop. In this one the gaps got longer and longer as he wandered off into cosmic collisions that didn't work for me. The second half of the book became a burden as I had to slog through the parts between the brilliance.

A fictional rock impresario explains why he bought the pirate radio ships blasting rock and roll into England in the 60's when the government stations on land only played the music of the past:

I understood then that the limit on the needle time was the enemy, the censor. The limit was General Waste-More-Land's broadcasting ally, General Haig's whore. Enough with big bands and men in white tuxes with bow ties pretending nothing was going on. I mean come on. A nation at war deserves to hear the music that's going mano a mano with the war machine, that's sticking flowers down its gun barrels and baring its breasts to the missiles. The soldiers are singing these songs as they die. But this is not the way soldiers used to sing, marching into battle bellowing hymns, kidding themselves they had god on their side; these aren't patriotic-bullshit, get-yourself-up-for-it songs These kids are using singing instead, as an affirmation of what's natural and true, singing against the unnatural lie of the war. Using song as a banner of their doomed youth. Not morituri te salutant, but morituri say up yours, Jack, those about to die give you the fucking finger. That's why I got the ships. (p. 267)

...and whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end. (p. 509)

I kept putting it down, picking it up, putting it down again. Mostly I was caught up with work in Thailand, studying Thai, and just being in Thailand. And I've read some non-fiction - mostly trying to figure out how to use this computer better, but also Maimonides. I probably should have permanently set Rushdie aside a couple hundred pages ago. But like a gambler at a slot machine, I'd get another small prose jackpot which kept me plugging along until now I'm at page 518, only 57 to go. I'll be out from under the tyranny of this book soon, free to enjoy fiction again.

Books should be hard to put down. This one is hard to pick up. And today I picked up a totally different book. It's only 180 pages. It's by Angolan, José Eduardo Agualusa, and is translated from the Portuguese. Totally engaging. The Book of the Chameleons is narrated by a gecko on the walls of the house of Félix Ventura.

"But do tell me, my dear man - who are your clients?"
Félix Ventura gave in. There was a whole class, he explained a whole new bourgeoisie, who sought him out. They were businessmen, ministers, landowners, diamond smugglers, generals - people, in other words, whose futures are secure. But what these people lack is a good past, a distinguished ancestry, diplomas. In sum, a name that resonates with nobility and culture. He sells them a brand new past. He draws up their family tree. He provides them with photographs of their grandparents and great-grandparents, gentlemen of elegant bearing and old-fashioned ladies...He sells them this simple dream.

Touched by Fall

Birch leaves, most still green
One already touched by fall
Clings no tree, a wall.

Bike Trail Confusion

As I was near the end of my third mile today, near Lake Otis and Chester Creek, probably the corridor used by the bear hit on Gambell yesterday morning, (Wow, as I searched for the link to that article, I found out that everybody is carrying that story. It was an AP story even in the Anchorage Daily News), I saw a couple with bikes, stopped and looking at a map.

Well, they wanted to do the Loop - Chester Creek to Campbell Creek to Coastal Trail back to downtown. It's a great ride, but there are these gaping holes in it as well as unmarked turns. The visitor trying to patch together these three great trails really faces a challenge. They even said they tried it from the other way, but eventually gave up.

And I feel bad. I tried to explain to them how to





1) make sure they turned right so they could cross the Northern Lights bridge,









2) then turn the right way to get around Goose Lake, (the sign is all backward)













3) past the construction at UAA




and find the 4) connection after the Tudor Bridge, then 5) find the Campbell trail from there, and 6) refind it after it stops at Lake Otis, then












7) get under the Seward Highway (which I have posted here),










then 8) turn the right way on the dirt trail to get to Arctic Road Runner where they'd be home free.



Except, after they left, I realized that, of course, they weren't home free, because that trail doesn't have an obvious connection to the Coastal Trail and they would be lost at the same break they were lost at coming the other way.

Maybe someone will tell them how to get to Kincaid from there. They have till 9 tonight to catch their plane. Sorry, I left out the end. But by Arctic Road Runner I already figured they'd have to be pretty smart and pretty lucky just to get there.

We need:

1. A bike trail map that gets people through the gaps
2. Signs on the trail to help people do the Loop
3. To have the gaps filled in

It's a great ride, but finding it is a much bigger challenge than riding it.


I'll try to post some instructions with pictures when we get back from our trip.

Alaskan Abroad Adds to the Corrections Discussion

Dillon at Alaskan Abroad has added to the discussion on making corrections to online versions of the newspaper (and blogs.)

I really think these type of changes call for an editor's note at the top of the story pointing out exactly what was altered.

The whole post is at the link above.

Biden

Be careful when you vote on Prop. 2

[NOTE:  This post was about PROP 2 2008.  I will do [have done] one on the 2010 PROP 2 before too long.]

[UPDATE 2012:  Here's the post on the 2012 Prop 2 to reestablish an Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program.]

I voted today because we're headed out of town on Sunday night. Before you go to vote, be sure you know how you want to vote on Prop. 2 - aerial hunting of wolves. I found the wording confusing.

This bill amends current law banning same-day airborne shooting to include grizzly bears. The bill permits the Board of Game to allow a predator program for wolves and grizzly bears if the Commissioner of Fish and Game finds an emergency, where wolves or grizzly bears in an area are causing a decline in prey. Only employees of the Department of Fish and Game could take part in the program. Only the minimum number of wolves or grizzly bears needed to stop the emergency could be removed.

I guess I thought that since the proponents of Prop 2 have been talking about how airborne hunting of wolves was such a terrible thing that they were proposing a law to ban that. I didn't realize we had a law that already bans it. That's what threw me off. We do. But there are exceptions for situations when the predators need to be culled so that the moose and caribou populations will be higher so that humans can hunt them, and, if there is disease. .

What this amendment appears to do is to more stringently define when the State could authorize airborne hunting and then when it does authorized it, only State Fish and Game employees can do the hunting. Also wolverines are also mentioned in the statutes.

You can go to the election page to get the wording of the ballots and to another page to read the voter pamphlet.

The ballot information, I'm afraid, is not particularly helpful. You'd think it would tell you the number of the current statute that will be replaced or amended by the proposition. And you'd be wrong. Or at least I couldn't find it. I had to go to the Alaska Statues and find it myself.

Here's the existing language that would be replaced - at least that's how I understand it.

Sec. 16.05.783. Same day airborne hunting.

(a) A person may not shoot or assist in shooting a free-ranging wolf or wolverine the same day that a person has been airborne. However, the Board of Game may authorize a predator control program as part of a game management plan that involves airborne or same day airborne shooting if the board has determined based on information provided by the department

(1) in regard to an identified big game prey population under AS 16.05.255(g) that objectives set by the board for the population have not been achieved and that predation is an important cause for the failure to achieve the objectives set by the board, and that a reduction of predation can reasonably be expected to aid in the achievement of the objectives; or

(2) that a disease or parasite of a predator population

(A) is threatening the normal biological condition of the predator population; or

(B) if left untreated, would spread to other populations.

(b) This section does not apply to

(1) a person who was airborne the same day if that person was airborne only on a regularly scheduled commercial flight; or

(2) an employee of the department who, as part of a game management program, is authorized to shoot or to assist in shooting wolf, wolverine, fox, or lynx on the same day that the employee has been airborne.

(c) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction is punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both. In addition, the court may order the aircraft and equipment used in or in aid of a violation of this section to be forfeited to the state.

(d) When the Board of Game authorizes a predator control program that includes airborne or same day airborne shooting, the board shall have the prerogative to establish predator reduction objectives and limits, methods and means to be employed, who is authorized to participate in the program, and the conditions for participation of individuals in the program.

(e) The use of state employees or state owned or chartered equipment, including helicopters, in a predator control program is prohibited without the approval of the commissioner.

(f) In this section,

(1) "free-ranging" means that the animal is wild and not caught in a trap or snare; and

(2) "game management program" means a program authorized by the Board of Game or the commissioner to achieve identified game management objectives in a designated geographic area.

Here's the language of the initiative:

FULL TEXT OF PROPOSED LAW
An Act Prohibiting the Shooting of Wolves & Grizzly Bears with the Use of Aircraft Be it enacted by the People of the State of Alaska that Section 1. A.S. 16.05.783 is amended to read: Section 16.05.783. (a) A person may not shoot or assist in shooting a free-ranging wolf, wolverine or grizzly bear the same day that the person has been airborne. However, the Board of Game may authorize a predator program involving the shooting of wolves or grizzly bears
Ballot Measure 2
Bill Amending Same Day Airborne Shooting from the air or on the same day that a person has been airborne if
(1) the Commissioner of Fish and Game makes written findings based on adequate data demonstrating that a biological emer- gency exists and that there is no feasible solution other than airborne control to eliminate the bioogical emergency;
(2) any shooting is conducted by Department of Fish and Game personnel only, and not by any permittee or agent;
(3) the program is limited to the specific geographical area where the biological emergency exists; and
(4) the program removes only the minimum number of wolves or grizzly bears necessary to eliminate the biological emergency.
(b) This section does not apply to a person who was airborne the same day if that person was airborne only on a regularly scheduled commercial flight.
(c) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction is punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both. In addition, the court may order the aircraft
and equipment used in or in aid of a violation of this section to be forfeited to the State.
(d) In this section,
(1) “free-ranging” means that the animal is wild and not caught in a trap or snare; and
(2) “biological emergency” means a condition where a wolf or grizzly bear population in a specific geographic area is depleting a prey population to a point that if not corrected will cause an irreversible decline in the prey population such that it is not likely to recover without implementing wolf or grizzly bear control.

By the way, while I was in the Statues, I came across this law of elephant permits. Just in case you were thinking of bringing back an elephant from your next trip:

Sec. 16.40.060. Elephant permit.

The commissioner may issue a permit, subject to reasonable conditions established by the commissioner, to possess, import, or export an elephant. A permit may be issued only to a person who proves to the satisfaction of the commissioner that the person

(1) intends to exhibit the animal commercially;

(2) possesses facilities to maintain the animal under positive control and humane conditions; and

(3) maintains personal injury and property damage insurance in an amount established by the commissioner.