Strange Encounter In Parking Garage

We'd been at the Getty Museum (in LA) and were in the parking garage, in the car, ready to drive home when I man came up to the passenger window.  Our passenger opened the door and the man accused him of hitting his car. 

My first reaction was that we were parked before he was, so how could we hit his car?  But he said the passenger had done it when he opened the door. 

I got out and walked around.  I looked at this car.  My passenger said the door couldn't hit his car because the mirror was in the way.  But I opened the car door and it could make it to the door despite the mirror. 

But there were no marks there.  Well there were a couple of light brown marks and the other guy flicked them with his fingernail and they fell off.  Dirt.

Me:  It doesn't look like there's any damage.  So, no problem.

Him:  I want your insurance information.

Me:  What for?

Him:  It's dark here.  In the light I may find damage.

Me:  You're kidding.

Him:  I need to take a picture. 

I got out my camera.  The first picture, without a flash, was pretty dark.  So I turned on the flash, something I rarely do.  It's not a great picture, but it only shows dirt.  No marks.   And there was clearly nothing near where the door would have reached the side of the car. 

I went back and took a picture of the two cars.  His is the one on the right at an angle.  The flash caused it to look like his lights were on.  He's standing between the cars.  He took pictures with his cell phone.  


Him:  I want your insurance.

Me:  (I'm still reasonably calm.  There's no damage.)  What for? 

Him:  You hit my car.

Me: Even if we did, there's no damage. 

Him:  I'm going to get a security guard.

Me:  Go ahead.  He won't do anything.

(In hind sight, perhaps this was his way of letting us go, though some people we talked to said this would cause him to say it was hit and run.)

We wait.  He comes back without a security guard.

There's some repetition of the previous exchange.  Then:

Me:  What do you want me to do?  There's no damage.  What do you want?

Him:  You didn't say you were sorry.

Me:  I'm terribly sorry the door hit your car.  I'm glad there was no damage.

Him:  OK

And he walks away from the car and I start to back out. 

People we've talked to have had a variety of opinions from he's a little crazy, cross-cultural misunderstanding, to it's a scam. 

I've looked on line and found a few parking lot scams.  From NBC Los Angeles:

According to a press release from the Santa Monica Police Department, the duo – sometimes working alone and other times as a pair – approach the elderly victims as they’re leaving parking lots.

They then claim the victim hit their car and demand money from them, saying that the damage is less than their insurance deductible.

 But we were in the Getty Museum parking lot.  It costs $15 to park.  (The museum itself is free.)  And he didn't demand any money.  Here's another from laist:

[She] was returning home from Ralph's on Coldwater & Ventura when she was waved over to the side of the road at Dickens and Van Noord by 2 men in a car who claimed she had hit their car at Ralph's. (They had likely followed her from Ralph's) The driver of the car exited his vehicle and approached the woman who never left her car. He pretended to call the police and told her that they would be on the scene in 45 minutes. 

Again, not the same.  It didn't occur to me it could be a scam while it was happening.  The man had an accent and I just assumed he was overly protective of his car.  And the apology request and resolution seemed to support that idea - he didn't lose face at the end.

But maybe he could do something my insurance information had I given it to him.  Some people we talked to even questioned if it was his car at all.

I thought he was getting into it as we drove off, but I didn't actually see him do that.  Another car was pulling into a space on the other side of him and I remember thinking:  Don't hit his car.  

Spanish Artist Blogger Depicts His Dinosaur Encounter In Seward

Here's the link to Unexpected Encounter at the Van Gilder Hotel.  

With permission from TS @ Walkdo Walkiria World

I first 'met' Tomás Serrano when told me about how much he enjoyed Exit Glacier in a comment in this post in 2008.  And expanded when he and his family came for breakfast before heading back to Spain.  I've been following his blog ever since (Waldo Walkiria World in the Friends blog roll on the right.)  It's a gallery of amazing art, particularly caricatures, many of them of people I'm not sure I know.  Sometimes they're European politicians I don't recognize.  He's also a great movie buff and does a lot of actors.  He even won a World Press Cartoon Award  in 2011.

But when I looked at Unexpected Encounter, I thought, now this is really obscure, but somehow familiar.  What movie was the Van Gilder Hotel in?  Then I googled the Van Gilder Hotel.  I was a little embarrassed to see it was actually a hotel I'd visited (but not stayed at)  in a small Alaska town I love.  Very near Exit Glacier.

I can't believe Tomás never told me about the dinosaur.   I talked to him just days after it would have happened.  I guess he didn't want me to blog it until he did it first.  

Going Through The Old Liquor Cabinet - Mumms, Peter Heering, Vandermint, and Tawny Port

There were some old photo albums in the living room that I hadn't put back in the hall closet last time we were visiting my mom.  But to put them back I had to make room.  I did this by pulling out some old boxes that had alcohol in them.  Old champagne, tawny port, vermouth.  I'm not a drinker.  I drink a beer now and then and I like a good glass of wine, but I never really got into hard liquor.  Well, all the Mekhong - a common Thai whiskey - that was forced on me when I was a Peace Corps volunteer so many years ago, when I would, to be culturally open, say yes to anything, probably cured me of wanting hard liquor. 



I started googling how long champagne and the other bottles are good for.  The answers I found online suggest things are still drinkable but not in their prime.




From For The Love Of Port:

How long do I cellar Vintage and other styles of port?

Vintage Ports typically need at least 15 years to start reaching maturity. The top Vintage Ports can easily last 30-100+ years if stored properly.
Late Bottle Vintage Ports that are filtered are not meant to be aged. So there is no reason to do so. Unfiltered LBV’s generally will start showing their best at around 10+ years of age. Generally, they are not designed to be aged beyond 20 years, with a few exceptions.
Tawny Port with an Indication of Age is not meant to age in bottle. This type of Port group is usually best when consumed closer to the date of bottling.

This all led to another cabinet that was full of a wide variety of bottles.  I offered my mom a couple of sips of the Vandermint.  And she seemed to really enjoy it.  The fragrance lingered most of the night around the dining room table.  I found this description at This Next:

"Few things are as obscure and good as Vandermint: the chocolate and mint liqueur from Holland. You might not take milk glass-like bottle seriously but the contents will surpise and likely amaze. Unlike its lesser mint & chocolate counterparts this elixir is smooth, rich, creamy and alluring - all without being milky, syrupy sweet or heavy in any way. Dont be fooled, this is a serious drink with refined taste. If you want alcohol steeped candy, look elsewhere. A few sips and you'll be solving the world's problems from your sofa throne in no time at all."

After reading that, I guess I better try some before I go to bed tonight.

When I looked up the Peter Heering Liqueur, I learned this history about the Singapore Sling (which I'd known about, and I think actually have had one in my younger days.)  From Heering.com:

The Singapore Sling was created at Raffles Hotel at the turn-of-the-century by Hainanese-Chinese bartender mr Ngiam Tong Boon. Till today, in the Hotel’s museum, visitors may view the safe in which Mr Ngiam locked away his precious recipe books, as well as the Sling recipe hastily jotted down on a bar-chit in 1936 by a visitor to the Hotel who asked the waiter for it. Mr Ngiam Tong Boon concocted the very first coctail to achieve global fame by mixing 30 ml gin, 15 ml Heering Cherry Liqueur, 120 ml pineapple juice, 15 ml lime juice, 7.5 ml Cointreau, 7.5 ml Dom Benedictine, 10 ml Grenadine and a dash of Angostura Bitters. Shaken not stirred, served on ice in a cocktail glass.

Somewhere I have a slide of the Raffles Hotel from 1968 or 69, and a more recent one - it didn't look at all the same - from when I visited my son in 2008.

 One more thing.  Does anyone have any idea what this item is for.  I've photoshopped two views into this one image.  One of the excuses I've used to get my mom to allow me to go through the stuff in the closets now, is so that she can explain things.  But she didn't know what this was either. 

What If Marriage Was Only Expected To Last Until The Last Kid Turned 18?

We got to LA late last night and my mom had saved us the Sunday Times.  This quote caught my attention in an article called "Middle-raged woman."

"I think there are some people for whom long-term marriages really work;  it's a wonderful thing to see.  But biologically speaking, probably one in every four couples can do that with some level of comfort.
There are other cases where a long-term marriage may not be the best choice for two people. . .

I feel like I married the right person.  I made the right choice then, had a 20-year relationship, and I'm so grateful for the time that we had together, the children that we made and how we continue to take care of those children."

Basically the article is a book review interview for Sandra Tsing Loh's The Madwoman in the Volvo:  My Year of Raging Hormones.

She also mentions in the interview that therapists sort of do and don't work.

". . . some midlife advice you need to hear is:  I guess you need to divorce your husband, or have an affair, or date a younger man, or go on a cruise, or move to Africa.  You might actually need to do something extreme to change your life and a therapist really can't give you advice that's not healthy or sensible."

First she says this is what one needs to be told, but then, that it's not healthy or sensible.  Is she saying you only need to be told, but not act on it?  I think not.  She seems to be saying you should do 'something extreme to change your life.'   But is it just that her well conditioned societal norms take over to suggest this isn't healthy or reasonable?  If it's what you need, why isn't it healthy or reasonable?  Maybe she's implying different short term and long term consequences.

That got me thinking.  What if marriage was more like a job?  It could be for a lifetime or at least for one's working career.  Or it might not last and you get another one.  What if marriage was for ten years, or, if there are kids, until the last kid turns 18?


What we actually have now is much worse than that.  We have divorce and lots of folks take advantage of that while their kids are still young.  And I don't disagree with those who think the best child-rearing setting is with the natural parents, but with the caveat that they are reasonably happy together and know how to solve problems without violence (verbal or physical).  Having grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins nearby can certainly help.  But there are lots of different alternatives to this ideal that also work reasonably well if the people taking care of the kids are 'good parents' [maybe defining  that's for another dozen posts] no matter who they are. 

BUT, divorce is, seen as a failure. A broken marriage.  What if it were seen as normal?  What if marriages that were renewed past the due date were also seen as normal?  Kids would know that their parents had a good chance of splitting up eventually, so that when it did happen, it wouldn't been seen as a terrible thing.  And maybe more importantly, the marriage partners would know that things would end and they would have new choices and opportunities.  They would do better financial planning for that day.  Both partners would have a stake at both parenting and having a career - or would work out an agreement so that the working partner's income would be seen as something that would be potentially split.  Pre-nuptial agreements would probably become a lot more common.  Affairs, especially as the marriage came closer to its due date, would become more acceptable, and possibly even feel normal and not a threat.

When asked what marriage advice she gives her daughters, Tsing Low says she hasn't thought about it, but goes on:

In the end, for a family core to rely on the notion of a man and a woman feeling romantically in love with each other for 10, 20 or 30 years - it's the most unstable thing to rely on.  Biologically, romantic feelings wane after four years, then you have to work on it.   

Without a doubt, the excitement of a new relationship doesn't last unless you work on it.  But a different kind of relationship also grows, one that can be stronger.  But as someone who's been married over 40 years, I can attest that you need to work at it.  Be imaginative, be honest, talk.  More than talk.  Communicate.

Would such an environment be perfect?  Perfection may be achievable in endeavors such as moon landings, but it's an impossible standard for social projects.  The real standard for change is whether the proposed program is likely to work better than the existing one and any other options proposed.  The poster below from Daily Infographic offers some standards for the status quo.  But like all internet info, take it with a grain of salt until you double check all their stats.  And remember that divorces (and when there are kids involved, how the parents handle their parental responsibilities post divorce) come in many different shapes and forms and if they identified five main types of divorce, I suspect the worst impacts on kids would be mostly found in the worst two or three types of divorce.

From Daily Infographic

Note: It says that 41% of first marriages end in divorce. That means, of course, that 59% do NOT end in divorce. A few may end in murder of one spouse by the other, but it's still the vast majority last.

[UPDATE 4:36pm ADT:  Here are two This American Life shows that give long and thoughtful attention to this topic:
Monogamy and look at Act 1: Best Laid Plans in the Valentine show.]

Elvis Heads To Germany And Mao Takes Over China - Pathé News Footage Archive On Youtube

When I was a kid, when you went to the movies there was typically a newsreel and a cartoon before the movie.  And sometimes, I particularly remember Saturdays, there would  be a short episode of some continuing weekly serial.

A month ago (April 18) Pathé put its collection of 85,000 newsreels onto Youtube.  The ones I looked at have that typical authoritative male announcer voice with the typical music to fit the film.






Pathé's site gives this description of their newsreels:

Created at the beginning of the 20th Century by the Pathé brothers, the newsreel was the world's first televised news platform. Pioneering the technology and methods of cinema, British Pathé stayed at the forefront of filmed news for decades.
Releasing 3 newsreels a week during that period, British Pathé was the way the people of Britain experienced world events until the advent of television. Every one of those thousands of newsreels are now here and available for you to view.

Open Culture gives a little more background on this new online resource:

British Pathé was one of the leading producers of newsreels and documentaries during the 20th Century. This week, the company, now an archive, is turning over its entire collection — over 85,000 historical films – to YouTube.
The archive — which spans from 1896 to 1976 – is a goldmine of footage, containing movies of some of the most important moments of the last 100 years. It’s a treasure trove for film buffs, culture nerds and history mavens everywhere. In Pathé’s playlist “A Day That Shook the World,” which traces an Anglo-centric history of the 20th Century, you will find clips of the Wright Brothers’ first flight, the bombing of Hiroshima and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, alongside footage of Queen Victoria’s funeral and Roger Bannister’s 4-minute mile. There’s, of course, footage of the dramatic Hindenburg crash and Lindbergh’s daring cross-Atlantic flight. And then you can see King Edward VIII abdicating the throne in 1936, Hitler becoming the German Chancellor in 1933 and the eventual Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 (above).

There's a section called "A Day that Shook History" that seems to be, not from the weekly movie newsreel footage, but a brief overview of events after the fact.  For example the day the Chinese Communists took over China gives a slightly longer time line. It's not clear if these were produced to be shown in movie theaters or what.




This is how people's views of world events were shaped before television.  The newsreels themselves are a little formulaic and stuffy with a definite male and Western bias if you look at them to learn about what happened.  But for a sense of how news was packaged, it's interesting to explore.  And I expect there is a lot of interesting footage and pictures.

Here's a list from the categories pull down menu:

• Entertainment & Humour
• Fashion & Music
• Historical Figures & Celebrities
• Lifestyle & Culture
• Religion & Politics
• Science & Technology
• Sport & Leisure
• Trade & Industry
• Travel & Exploration
• War & Revolution

There's Programmes:

• 20th Century Hall Of Fame
• A Time To Remember
• A Day That Shook The World
• British Pathé Royal Collection
• British Pathé Travelogues
• Dave And Dusty
• Feminine Pictorialities
• Film Fanfare
• Jerry The Troublesome Tyke
• News In A Nutshell
• Review Of The Year
• Secrets Of Nature
• This Day
• Would You Believe It?

And there are photo archives with collections like Nerves of Steel where I got this photo:

From Pathé Photo Collection Nerves of Steel

Have fun exploring - especially in the very extensive WW I - the definitive collection

Arctic Terns Potter Marsh At Sunset

 

After a wonderful dinner with friends not far from Potter Marsh, we swung by to see what birds we could find.  Note the official time of sunset tonight in Anchorage was 10:46.  This picture was about ten minutes later.

Here's an arctic tern (as was the first one).  They fly between here and Antarctica and back each year.  They're such beautiful, sleek birds. 

This spot has terns and gulls nesting near each other.  Things were relatively calm, when all of a sudden the birds were all in the air screeching and flying this way and that.

And then I heard the unmistakeable croaking sound of a sandhill crane which flew over me, and I'm guessing disturbed the gulls and terns.  They're huge birds - wing span about 6 feet, probably a little less than bald eagles (though the web shows a variety of wingspans for bald eagles.)

[UPDATE May 18, 2014 noon:  Edgywytch comments below that sandhills eat tern and gull eggs.  The Crane Foundation website linked below says:

"All cranes are omnivorous. Sandhill Cranes are generalists and feed on a wide variety of plant tubers, grains, small vertebrates (e.g. mice and snakes), and invertebrates such as insects or worms. Sandhills find these foods in uplands and in shallow wetlands. Like most cranes, flightless chicks forage primarily on a diet of insects and other protein filled foods during their early stages of rapid growth. The Sandhill's tendency to feed on plant tubers creates conflicts with farming. Sandhill Cranes are adept at probing in the ground and finding planted agricultural seeds such as corn. When large flocks of cranes feed on planted fields, the damage they cause to an unprotected crop can be severe enough to force the farmer to replant the entire field. "]

Sandhill cranes are another great bird we get to see in Alaska.  You can read a lot more about them at the International Crane Foundation website.   I had my telephoto on and finding the bird in my camera and focusing in the fading light was beyond my ability and I'm a little embarrassed by how fuzzy the bird is in the next picture, but it gives you and idea of how big it is.  It's the white horizontal line in the picture.  I'm guessing it's approach is what upset the gulls and terns.  Since its wingspan is close to that of eagles, perhaps they originally thought it might be an eagle.  But that's merely a wild guess  - you'd think they should have learned to distinguish between the two.

It was pretty far away by the time I got this picture - about 11:05 pm. 

War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

I've spent a lot of time critiquing student papers.  It uses up the same energy and brain cells that good blogging uses.  So I'll just pass on this excerpt from a  review of Chris Hedges'  2002 book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning from Quaker Libertarians.

As the title suggests, Hedges pushes us all to think about what psychological benefits we may gain from war when we blind ourselves to its reality. “The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living” (3).

This is especially true in the age of declining religious participation. As Hedges observes, “because we in modern society have walked away from institutions that stand outside the state to find moral guidance and spiritual direction, we turn to the state in times of war. The state and the institutions of the state become, for many, the center of worship in wartime” (146-147).

The seductive lure of violence is one he frankly acknowledges out of his own experience, but he presents it as more a product of human nature than individual failing. Sadly, like a drug that can never offer true satisfaction, “War never creates the security or the harmony we desire, especially the harmony we briefly attain during wartime” (22).

 Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times  before he quit after he was reprimanded by the paper for comments he made in a Rockford College graduation speech (see Wikipedia) in 2003.  I find him one of the most insightful writers today.  His years of experience as a foreign correspondent seem to give him insight in how the world works, that most Americans simply don't have.   In the graduation speech he said,

"We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security."

Eleven years later, thinking about all the lives lost, the soldiers who have come home broken in body and spirit - not to mention those that didn't come home - and our slipping status in the world, and our failing infrastructure from roads to education that got deferred in part because of the costs of war, and our Congressional gridlock, I don't think he was wrong.  But in 2003 in America's heartland, no one wanted to hear what he was saying.  

What's The Difference Between An Undeclared And A Nonpartisan Voter?

I became a voter registrar today and part of the training included the distinction between these two categories here in Alaska.

Undeclared means someone doesn't want to say what party they are registered with.  They could be Democratic, Republican, or one of the other two official parties and three political groups.

Nonpartisan means they have no party affiliation.

The person doing the training said most people don't know the difference between the two.  What is significant is that undeclared and nonpartisan voters are the only groups - along with declared Republicans - who can vote in the Republican primary.

You have to be registered 30 days before the election.  If a registrar - like I became today - takes your application and checks that you are who you say you are and watches you sign the application and signs the form - then your registration counts that day you got registered.  If the registrar doesn't sign your form, or you do it all by yourself and send it in, then it counts when the Division of Elections gets it.

The two state elections coming up are

• the primary election - August 19, 2014.
• the general election - November 4, 2014

There's also REAA election listed which will be October 7, 2014.

REAA stands for Regional Educational Attendance Area (REAA)   The Division of Elections website explains:

A Regional Educational Attendance Area (REAA) is an educational area that is established in an unorganized borough of the state under AS 14.08.031(a). The REAA elections are held annually on the first Tuesday in October and are administered by the Division of Elections. For more information about REAA boards or school districts in general, visit the Department of Education's web site.

Also, where 5% of the population speaks a language other than English, ballots should be available in those languages.  Here are the languages the Division of Elections lists:

Filipino (Tagalog)
Spanish (Español)
Central Yup'ik
Siberian Yupik
Inupiaq
Koyukon Athabascan
Gwich’in Athabascan

(Sorry, it appears this went up before it was finished.  I've deleted that post and replaced it with this one.)

Bugs In The Night

Windows tend to be left open as summer comes on here in Anchorage, and as it gets sort of dark outside, we get really interesting critters flying in.

Last night this bizarre looking moth visited while I was brushing my teeth.

No, it wasn't like a bi-plane, it was resting on the mirror.  The closest I could find in Dominique M. Collet's Insects of south-central Alaska was a Leaf Blotch Miner, Family Gracilariidae.  The Bug Guide website shows lots of examples, but I couldn't find one with its wings spread out.  Most of them look like dead specimens.  So, I'm not quite sure.

Note the hind legs have little 'branches' on them.

Here's a closer view of the left wing.

The wings were an inch, maybe an inch and a half long.  Collet says,

"The larvae of the leaf blotch miners tunnel between the two outer layers of aspen leaves.  The flat caterpillar pupates at the end of the tunnel."

 The cottonwood (in the aspen family) plus the aspen leaves just came out in the last week, so this guy didn't have a lot of time tunnel and pupate.  

For those wondering - pupate means to become a pupa which the free dictionary defines as:

The nonfeeding stage between the larva and adult in the metamorphosis of holometabolous insects, during which the larva typically undergoes complete transformation within a protective cocoon or hardened case.

Maybe someone out there knows for sure what this critter is.  

[UPDATE May 18, 2014:  I emailed Dominique Collet with a link to this post and asked if he might double check my identification.  He modestly said his book was hardly comprehensive and thought it was a Pterophoridae or plume moth. He also suggested someone else if I needed more details.  The link shows there are lots of species of this kind of moth, but pictures do show the same kind of branching on the legs.]

Monday's Becoming Cop Day, LIO Remodel, Fog, Green Bike Trail, Moose

It's May in Anchorage.  We're greened up a little bit early and yesterday (Monday) was a little cooler than it had been.  People were biking in short sleeves and in jackets.

I ran into police action as I left home.  That's two weeks in a row now.    There was a car that clearly was involved.   It appeared that the red truck on the far right was also somehow involved.  It was easier to get by this time because I was on my bike.

I'm not sure why it took 3 police cars and fire truck to handle this.  You'd think Anchorage had no crime and the cops had nothing to do but wait for a call.  Maybe the insurance companies should be paying the police if they require these lengthy police reports before they pay claims.


I had to support a friend in the State Court building yesterday and the building offered a great view of the Legislative Information Office remodel.  I suspect that this fiasco will be forever linked to Rep. Mike Hawker.  The only winner here is developer Mark Pfeffer.

In the ten years from 1996-2006 he make $1.36 million in political contributions  alone, mostly related to building a private prison.   So one might understand why the Legislative Council didn't pay close attention when Hawker worked out this deal.  Sounds like a lot, and it surely gets the legislators' attention.  But it's not much when you keep getting multi-million dollar contracts from the state.

Then down to the Captain Cook statue as he watches the fog forming  in Cook Inlet.  It was all over town this morning, but burned away fast. 

 

Here's a view of the fog from the mudflat level next to the bike trail from downtown to Westchester Lagoon. 

                      There was even a moose munching the new green along the bike trail.

And this south facing hill was full of blooming dandelions.

Isn't this a much better way to travel than by car on the roads?  Especially when summer comes so early?