Clean That Window, Better Yet . . .

I saw this rear window before leaving Anchorage.  I wasn't sure how to post it, until I found this on a post on dirt art. There are more examples at the link.

Image from lowki.com

 

Every mess is an opportunity to be creative.

Benefits of Privatization - LA Style

From Friday's LA Times:

These days, bus riders at stops around Los Angeles may find themselves without a bench to rest on.

City officials say the company that provides and manages roughly 6,000 bus benches began removing them last week because it was not awarded a new contract.

Norman Bench Advertising, which for more than a decade has maintained the benches in exchange for advertising revenue, has recently come under fire from officials for failing to disclose how many benches it has and how much money it reaps from displaying ads on them.

Board of Public Works Commissioner Andrea Alarcon said Thursday that the company has been "a difficult partner" and that benches have been removed from stops in at least three City Council districts.

Calls to William Giamela, the owner of the Canoga Park-based company, were not returned Thursday.

It continues.

It says the company 'provides and manages' the benches, so it would be interesting to know whether the benches they provided were supposed to be owned by the city or the company.  And how many benches existed before they got the contract?  Presumably most stops had benches before the contract.  Is this sour grapes for losing the contract or is there more to this story? 

New Router Arrived and Is Working For Now

Not having easy internet access is not a bad thing. I've been doing a lot of reading and today we took my mom on a number of errands she needed to do: the doctor, lunch, smog test, bank, and the library.

The router came after 5pm. I'd given up on seeing it today. It still had quirks to work out, but eventually got it working, both on my mom's computer and me via wifi.

Got to run down to the beach this morning. Also stopped at the 99¢ store where I bought four pair of sunglasses for 99¢ each plus tax. I lose sunglasses regularly and four pair in Anchorage would cost at least $30 and probably more. And I can't tell that the more expensive ones are any better.

Voting Rights Consultant's Report Says Redistricting Board's Plan OK

The the Voting Rights Act consultant the Alaska Redistricting Board, Dr. Lisa Handley's, report, basically says the board's plan meets the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.  At their July 18 meeting the Board's attorney said they were expecting the VRA report in 7-10 days and then they would complete their plan.

Here's the summary of the report (the whole consultant report is available here):

The report basically explains why the board is in compliance with the Voting Rights Act.  It has tables and tables showing the voting trends of Native and non-Native voters in all the elections since 2001 in which a Native candidate was running and also showing the Native districts and whether the non-Native voters voted for the same candidate as the Native voters. 

All this is required by Alaska because of earlier challenges which found that there was discrimination against Native voters in previous redistricting.

I don't have time now to do this in more detail, but I did want to get this up while I have internet access here in LA. 

LA, Verizon Problems, Sazón, Etc.

We arrived in LA Tuesday morning.  There's a wedding we're going to and that was a good excuse to visit my mother.  But her internet connection has been out most of the time.  Verizon is very polite and patient on the phone and they agreed there was something wrong with the router.  But the guy who came to the house yesterday, reset the router, and with a rather smug manner, said he fixed it.  Well, it worked for 20 minutes and then stopped again.  Called Verizon and they couldn't even connect to the router and agreed that the guy who came by should have replaced the router.  So they're sending a new one.  I'm temporarily on some one else's internet and trying to get something up. 

I also had ordered more memory for my laptop and had it sent to my mom since I didn't know if it would get to Anchorage on time.  Then it turned out I needed a #0 philips head screw driver.   So, instead of running to the beach yesterday, I ran to a hardware store to get the screw driver.  There was a computer repair store on the way and they didn't have one.  Nor did the hardware store.  But I passed this bakery and bought a couple of roles.

I also checked out this hydroponics store, since I don't think we have such things in Anchorage yet. 

I stopped in an eyeglasses shop and while they have little screwdrivers, they're not for sale, but she suggested another hardware store - B&B - nearby that had them.

Finally, on the way back home I passed this 'healthy' Mexican restaurant - SAZÓN.  Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera when we went there for dinner later.  It was a beautiful little place - burnt orange walls, nice paintings, and tastefully covered tables.  She even made some chair covers.  And the food reminded me of 'real' Mexican food - not the overcheesed stuff we usually find in Mexican restaurants. [Update: But we did go a second time and I took my camera that time.]

Again, it's a shame I didn't take my camera because the place was so photogenic.  For people in LA, it's on Washington Blvd. at the corner of Centinela, in Culver City.

I'll try to do more when I get access again.  

Bicycle Houdini

I'm sure that, like with all magic tricks, there's a plausible explanation for this. 

Cordova's Million Dollar Bridge

From Wikipedia:

The Miles Glacier Bridge, also known as the Million Dollar Bridge, was built in the early 1900s fifty miles from Cordova in what is now the U.S. state of Alaska. It is a multiple-span Pennsylvania-truss bridge which completed a 196-mile (315 km) railroad line for the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, built by J. P. Morgan and the Guggenheim family to haul copper from the old mining town of Kennicott, now located within the Wrangell - St Elias National Park and Preserve, to the port of Cordova. It earned its nickname because of its $1.4 million cost, well recouped by the about $200 million worth of copper ore which was shipped as a result of its construction.

We walked through the brushy trail from the Child's Glacier .8 miles, according to the sign, loudly alerting any bears that we were just walking through. 

Forest Service signs gave us some sense of the difficulties they had building the bridge. They had to build these caissons so the men could work below the water.

The Miles Glacier was much closer then and threatened the bridge.  Ned Rozell wrote in a 2002 Alaska Science Forum:

Glaciers stuck out their tongues in defiance along the entire route, but the pull of financial gain and human ingenuity overcame them. In one case, workers laid tracks across the debris-covered ice of Allen Glacier for five-and-one-half miles, according to my two sources for this column, The Copper Spike by Lone Janson and Iron Rails to Alaskan Copper by Alfred Quinn.

Miles Glacier from the bridge July 2011

Two of the largest obstacles on the route were Miles and Childs glaciers, both of which calve icebergs into the Copper River from opposite banks. Erastus Hawkins, the engineer in charge of the railroad project, and Michael Heney, the construction contractor, preferred to run the railroad alongside the Copper River, but the Miles and Childs glaciers sprawl over both shorelines at a pinch-point about 15 miles from the river's mouth. Not listening to other engineers who thought the problem was insurmountable, Hawkins designed a 1,550-foot steel bridge to span the Copper River at a river bend between the two glaciers.

Child's Glacier from the bridge July 2011

Geologists had found that the glaciers had fused during the past several centuries, and the leader of a U.S. Army expedition up the Copper River in 1885 reported that the nose of Miles Glacier was then about 120 yards from the site of the bridge. By 1908, both glaciers had receded to provide a gap of about three miles.

Starting in April 1909, workers scrambled to complete the Million Dollar Bridge, spurred on by a U.S. law that gave railroad developers four years to complete a designated route. After four years, the government would tax them $100 per operating mile per year. Contactors finished the bridge by midsummer of 1910.

Soon after construction of the Million Dollar Bridge (which cost $1.4 million to build), the glaciers threatened the railroad.

Workers Who Built the Bridge

In August 1910, two glaciologists from the National Geographic Society studied the sudden advances of both Miles and Childs glaciers. A northern lobe of Childs Glacier began creeping toward the bridge in June, and by August it was moving eight feet per day. On August 17th, the 200-foot face of the glacier was 1,624 feet away from the bridge.

Ralph Tarr, one of the glaciologists, speculated on what would happen if the glacier continued to advance in 1911.

"It is absolutely certain that no corps of engineers could save the bridge and railway if the glacier should advance that far," he wrote.

Childs Glacier did not engulf the bridge, but the glacier crept to within 1,475 feet in June 1911. Childs and Miles glaciers have since retreated, sparing the Million Dollar Bridge, which served the railway from 1910 until 1938, when low copper prices forced the shutdown of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway. The bridge survived nature's whims until March 27, 1964, when the Good Friday Earthquake knocked the northernmost span from its concrete piling.

 As noted in a previous post, the Child's Glacier today is advancing 500 feet a year according to the Forest Service signs.  

As you probably can see, we walked across.  But there were cars going across too and someone said the road goes another 8 miles or so. 

Wikileaks Based Story

There's a June Foreign Policy article on the Thailand based on wikileaks documents.  That's as much as I want to say here, but for anyone who wants to understand the politics of Thailand, this (actually the much more detailed "extensive article" linked in the quote below) is must read stuff.  Here's a snippet on the background:

A few months ago, through my work as a senior Reuters editor, I gained access to the "Cablegate" database of U.S. diplomatic communications believed to have been leaked by U.S. soldier Bradley Manning. The cables revolutionize the understanding of 21st-century Thailand because unlike almost all journalistic and academic coverage of the country, they do not mince words when it comes to the monarchy. As I began work on an extensive article about the cables, I realized that because it represented an epic breach of the lèse-majesté law, it could never be published by Reuters, and I would be unable to visit Thailand again for many years. I took the decision to publish the article anyway, and resigned from Reuters on June 3 to do so. That I had to leave my job and become a criminal in Thailand just to report on the cables says all that needs to be said about the lack of freedom of information that is stifling important debate on Thailand's future.

Passing Moose on the Bike Trail

Coming home last night from First Friday, after we got past the tunnel under the Seward Highway on the Chester Creek trail, people began to warn us about moose ahead.

Then we got to two bikers who were pulling back.  The moose and calf were grazing right on the edge of the trail.  And we could see them walking our way.  The light was strange - it was about 10:30, so it wasn't dark yet, but under the tree cover of the trail it was darker and the lights were on.  So the first two images have a surreal look to them.  I didn't use any telephoto here, but I did crop the pictures a bit. 

Meeting moose on the bike trail is a fairly common event and they're generally not an issue if they sense that you are just going along on your way, though when they are actually on the trail, it's a bit close.  And add a calf, well, caution is advised.

After backing up, the two other bikers pulled over to the side back from the trail.  The moose kept coming on their side of the trail.  Here the moose is almost up with them.

Here the moose has just passed the bikers.  One biker moved on down the path then turned to watch.  The other biker and the moose keep a close eye on each other.  Another reason to wear your bike helmet - in case moose stomps your head. 











Now the first two bikers are gone, but we're still there.  We've retreated onto a bridge crossing the creek and the mother moose watches us carefully.  Had she intended to cross the bridge?  We waited as they slowly moseyed along.










Now they are out of the dark tree cover and onto the edge of the field, enjoying the green grass.  And we can get off the bridge and go the rest of the way home.

No matter how often this happens, it's always a treat to be so close to these huge animals.  J wasn't quite as enthralled as I was.  Nor were three kids who were walking home with two nice fish they'd caught in the creek.

Blogroll Feed Not Working on Last Post

On blogspot  you have choices for how to show your blogroll.  You can just have links to the different blogs.  Or you can choose to have the blog with the most recent post go to the top and include the post title.  You can even have it include a picture.

My last post - Looking at Bush and Obama as Pitchers - somehow did not get picked up by the blogrolls on some of the other sites.  It also did another strange thing.  I have my blog set up to post the last ten posts.  But the last post was the only one showing.  

So, I'm doing this post so I can see if there was something about that last post, or if this is now a recurring problem that I have to figure out how to fix.