Providence Alaska Medical and Animal Park

I went to get my stitches taken out today. (Monday I had a basal cell carcinoma removed.)  I also had to go pick up some metal siding (that will be another post about insulation as part of our energy audit recommendations) so I drove.  As I got toward the end of the parking garage I noticed a woman staring off the balcony. 

At first I only saw the two young moose in the front.  The security guard pointed out the mom on the right and suggested I go the other way around.

Some places have stuffed moose or bear in the lobby.  Providence has them unstuffed, outside.  (Sorry about the reflection.  Putting the camera up against the glass got rid of the reflection, but I didn't like them.  I did look for a light switch, but decided that wasn't a good idea either.  I'm just not dedicated enough I guess.)

So I went upstairs and the stitches were out within ten minutes of parking and moose watching - and no, I don't need a bandage any more, though the nurses remarked on people's creativity in covering the stitches with band aids.  The spot is just too long and too close to the eye for normal band aids to fit right. 

In any case, she assured me that in six months it will be hardly noticeable, something about it being along the cheek bone.  Check back April 21.  The black eye should be gone much sooner.  (You can see what it looked like Monday here.) (Since I've only seen this in the mirror, it looks like the wrong side to me, but it's on my left cheek.)

Then back outside and the moose had wandered a bit.  Here they are from the second level of the parking garage.

And then Mom modeled terrible behavior for the calves by not looking as she crossed the street.

But the babies weren't even looking at her anyway.  So I guess it doesn't matter. 

I read today that Alabama farmers can't get people to pick their crops now that Hispanics are leaving the state because of the new immigration law.  Maybe they should contact Providence about their moose gardeners who trim the landscaping.  I should have stopped earlier to get a picture of the fifty or so Canadian geese fertilizing and weeding a lawn on the Providence grounds. 

To be fair, Providence along with UAA across the street, has by far the best landscaping of any company in Anchorage.  They take this seriously and it makes for a much more pleasant experience.

How to Put a Link in Your Blogspot Comments

Over the years Blogspot has made it easier for bloggers to automatically insert links and pictures, etc. without knowing HTML.  But they haven't done that for commenters.  In the last couple of days I've had comments with long url's in them.  It's not that hard to put in the link.  (When I wanted to write this post before, I couldn't write the HTML without blogspot interpreting the code.  Now they have an option (in Post Settings, Options, Compose mode, Show HTML literally.)  So, here goes.

The basic code is:

<a href="[put url here]">[words that will be linked]</a>

So, between the "quotation marks", insert the url you want to send people to.  Between the > < put the text you want to have the link.  You might just want to have the url itself linked.

Sample Code

Check out <a href= "http://www.tomasserrano.com/index.html">Tomás' new website</a>.

When blogspot publishes your comment (and in the preview mode) it should look like this:

Check out Tomás' new website.  

(You really should check out his new website.)



[Note for the technically curious:  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to have both "Show HTML literally" and "Interpret typed HTML in the same post.  After all, if I changed the setting under options, wouldn't that change it for the whole page?  So I copied the whole post and then I went into HTML mode to do the line above and it seems to have worked.]

Iditarod Winner John Baker About to Speak at Alaska Federation of Natives Convention in Anchorage - Listen Live on KNBA

In much of the US, Native Americans are pretty much invisible unless you work hard to find them.  That's not true in Alaska, yet much of non-Native Alaska knows little or nothing about the world of Alaska Natives, the people who survived at least 10,000 years without any help from white folks.

The annual meeting of Alaska Natives is taking place now in Anchorage's Denaina Center.  Mayor Sullivan and Rep. Don Young have already welcomed them.  You can listen and at KNBA radio, 90.3 FM.   If you aren't in Alaska, you can still listen live on their webcast.

Here's the AFN Convention Site.

Signs of Wall Street Occupiers

photo from Wild Ammo

From WildAmmo -
50 of the best signs at Occupy Wall Street.  Here are two:



It seems like ADN editorial writer Paul Jenkins (ADN won't claim him as such, but he's there often enough) is using Fox talking points as his starting place lately and he's doing more in Anchorage than anyone to push folks over the edge and to support the Occupy Wall Street folks.  Here are three different letters responding to him 1    2    3   in today's paper.  We don't take him any more seriously than he takes the rest of us either 

And this Henry Ford quote...

photo from Wild Ammo

We sometimes find ourselves agreeing, however narrowly, with someone we would otherwise oppose on many social issues. I can find this citation attributed to Ford in a number of places, but not any detailed source.

It's quite possible that he said it. But he didn't mean the same thing I think this woman means by it. A quote following this at Wikiquote  says:

"The international financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the International Jew -- German Jews, French Jews, English Jews, American Jews. I believe that in all these countries except our own the Jewish financier is supreme... Here, the Jew is a threat.

* 1920, Ford to a New York World reporter"

[I realize that some folks might agree with Ford so I looked for a post I thought I did some time ago looking at the Boards of Directors of the 10 or 15 largest banks in the US to see how many Jews there were.  Not many at all that were obvious. I can't find the post. Unfortunately, white supremacist and neo-nazi websites are the ones that come up first if you google Jews and Banking and the Anti-Defamation League's piece on this is not very strong.  For now, I can only tell you it's my strong belief that while there are Jews in banking, the idea that Jews control banking or use it for some nefarious purpose is baseless.  I'll either have to find the old post or write a new one.]

In any case, did anyone study (that means more than a paragraph in a history book) anything about how the US banking system works in high school?  Maybe it's time to talk to school board members and state curriculum committees to get them to develop material on this.  And even most college economics classes tend not to get into to very deeply.

Hairy (not Downy) Woodpecker Makes Brief Visit

I was surprised to see the mask that hangs on our deck bobbing so wildly in the wind.  I'd just been out front and there was no wind.  But then I saw there was a woodpecker checking it out.  I pulled out the camera quickly and took a picture.  Then a Steller Jay chased the woodpecker off and it landed on the railing, so I got another shot just before the Jay swooped once more and off it flew.

Then to the bird book. It was down to a Downy or a Hairy Woodpecker.  They look alike.  But the key difference is the Downy "has a stubby bill, obviously shorter than the head."  And this one has a long bill.  Also, the Downy is about 6 1/2 inches and the Hairy is 9".  This one was big.  And when I measured the mask after looking at the photo, it was clearly about 9 or 10 inches.  I also emailed the pictures to my bird expert, Dianne, who confirmed.  Unfortunately my other bird expert, Catherine, is no longer with us, but I'm sure from somewhere she's nodding her head that it's a Hairy.

Oh yes.  Where's the red on the woodpecker's head?   Only the mail has the dark red on the back of the head.

Checking my "Guide to the Birds of Alaska" by Robert H. Armstrong, I notice that I wrote on the Hairy page "11/23/01 or Downy backyard."  I didn't get a picture that time so wasn't able to check the key characteristics.  But today is October 19, so it seems that this is a good time for woodpeckers in our yard. 

For those who have always wondered, I did a post on why woodpeckers don't get brain damage in July this year.

Note to self:  Add wash the kitchen window to the todo list. I really wasn't trying to prevent this woodpecker's friends from knowing where he was this afternoon by blurring his face.

Red, Red Mt. Ash

This tree in front of our house has always kept its leaves longer - sometimes through the winter - than the other trees.  It's the second half of October and the temperatures were moderate - into the low 40˚ F (4.4˚C) range today - and the sky was blue after Monday's grey. 

I also noticed that this tree and the one to the left (a few reddish leaves are still near the top) don't have many berries this year.  The Bohemian waxwings will be disappointed when they show up in the winter.

Yamato Ya Moves North 2 Blocks

Yamato Ya restaurant has moved from its spot on the south end of New Sagaya on New Seward and 36th, across the street and north into the old Yen Ching restaurant building at 3501 New Seward.

Here's their new sign. 


While lots of chi chi sushi bars open up all over Anchorage, Yamato Ya, even with new owners in the last couple of years, has kept its food real and its prices reasonable (by Anchorage standards.)

Today I got to check out their new digs over lunch and it reflects the tasteful but low key fixes they did in the old spot. 

Our cards keep filling up. 

Mohs Surgery: Why You Should Use Sunscreen - Not for the Faint of Heart

I grew up two miles from Venice Beach.  I spent a lot of my school years at the beach.  We didn't have sun screen in those days.  It was called sun tan lotion.  I had a great time in the sun and surf.  But today there was some payback.

I had a basal cell carcinoma on my left cheek.  That was confirmed a couple of weeks ago and today I went in to have it cut out ("removed" is too benign sounding.)  The Mayo Clinic website says:

Basal cell carcinoma is a type of skin cancer. Basal cell carcinoma begins in the basal cells — a type of cell within the skin that produces new skin cells as old ones die off.
Basal cell carcinoma often appears as a waxy bump, though it can take other forms. Basal cell carcinoma occurs most often on areas of the skin that are often exposed to the sun, such as your face and neck.
Most basal cell carcinomas are thought to be caused by long-term exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight. Avoiding the sun and using sunscreen may help protect against basal cell carcinoma.

I decided not to put up photos the normal way today.  Two of these are pretty gross.  So I'm embedding a Slide Show that you can view or not.  But if you think, as I did, that a basal cell was a minor issue, then look, and use your sunscreen.  What you see in the slide show is:

1.  Outpatient surgery room - leave your clothes on, lie back.  In five minutes or less he'd sliced out the cancer cells using something called Mohs Micrographic Surgery.  The description is from the college where they teach doctors how to do this, so I'm guessing it's not totally unbiased.

The Mohs procedure involves surgically removing skin cancer layer by layer and examining the tissue under a microscope until healthy, cancer-free tissue around the tumor is reached (called clear margins). Because the Mohs College surgeon is specially trained as a cancer surgeon, pathologist, and reconstructive surgeon, Mohs surgery has the highest success rate of all treatments for skin cancer – up to 99%.

"Mohs surgery is unique and so effective because of the way the removed tissue is microscopically examined, evaluating 100% of the surgical margins. The pathologic interpretation of the tissue margins is done on site by the Mohs surgeon, who is specially trained in the reading of these slides and is best able to correlate any microscopic findings with the surgical site on the patient. Advantages of Mohs surgery include:

• Ensuring complete cancer removal during surgery, virtually eliminating the chance of the cancer growing back
• Minimizing the amount of healthy tissue lost
• Maximizing the functional and cosmetic outcome resulting from surgery
• Repairing the site of the cancer the same day the cancer is removed, in most cases
• Curing skin cancer when other methods have failed" [From Mohscollege]

2.    The surgeon sliced through the tissue to where he thought he got it and I was bandaged up until they could check that the tissue was cancer free.  That was about 30 minutes.This second picture was right after they took the bandage off to do the reconstructive surgery.

3.  The third picture is after they cleaned the hole.

4.  The last one is after they stitched it up.  When I saw the hole, I asked how they were going to pull the skin back together.  He said he would enlarge the hole to make it more a straight line and then he was sewing it up.  First he would sew up inside - and those stitches would dissolve on their own, and then he'd sew up the outside.  I go back Friday to remove those stitches, which you can see in the picture. It's covered by a big bandage now.

As I say, not for the squeamish.  But a good reason to use your sunscreen. 

Basal Cell Removed [UPDATE Dec. 17, 2011 - Two months later] Here's the scar now. (Compare to last picture on slide show above.

[UPDATE February 22, 2012: Here's what it looks like 4 months later:

Why Farming In Bethel Make Sense

Saturday I was able to talk a bit to Tim Meyers at the Bioneers Conference.  He's the farmer in Bethel who is showing that it's possible to farm in rural Alaska.  In fact, it's a great place place to farm.





He showed me a National Geographic world soil map. (The inset came from Geology.com)

He pointed to the area that I've highlighted in red in the upper left.  The dark green is the most fertile soil, as I understood it.  You can see in Alaska that dark green goes along the Kuskokwim River through Bethel and it's also on the Aleutian Chain.  Coincidentally, the Kuskokwim drainage is colored green in the inset of Alaska.  [Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to what issue of the National Geographic it was.  I couldn't find the map online, but I did find a soil article here from September 2008. ]


The key here, he said, is that while agriculture has been focused around the Matsu, it's Bethel that has the good soil.  In Matsu they soil's not great and they have to use a lot of fertilizer to grow crops whereas in Bethel the soil is already very rich.  [Will there be a comment on that from Matsu farmers?]

Photo of a photo

Tim also emphasized the difference between gardening and farming.  Farming is much easier than gardening because you can make good use of a tractor.  His five acres wasn't that hard to maintain. (I'd just been to a session where Matt and Saskia - I'll try to post on that soon - talked about how much work it was to keep up their urban garden where they are growing much of their food for the year.)  Tim said he hoped that Alaska's Cooperative Extension would add farming to their efforts rather than just focus on gardening advice.  Raising food in a home garden is nice, but, he said, it's not going to seriously increase the level of Alaska's food independence.

Tim had a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program where people paid in advance for a set amount and selection of vegetables.  It was too much food for most people, he said, so now he has a vegetable stand twice a week in Bethel.  People are lined up an hour before he opens and he sells out.  The prices are lower than in Bethel's super market and his food is fresh and organic. 

He pointed out that Bethel has a number of flights headed for Anchorage every day, and they go with empty cargo holds.  Setting up more farms like his could give Alaskans a steady supply of Alaskan grown vegetables, but it will take people with the skills and the determination to do all the work. 


Visit the farm's website here.


You can hear an APRN interview with Tim here.

Origami Trash to Smal Scale Poultry at Bioneers Book Table

At the Bioneer Conference at UAA in Anchorage, among the, the book table. Here is a sampling of what was for sale.

Lovins delivered a keynote via video conference Saturday afternoon.

This one is about China.

Rachel, from the UAA bookstore, always chooses carefully for this kind of special event.