Denali Day Two - More Bears, Some Ducks, Weather Change

We've been comparing how little snow there was this year compared to last year.  But now that I've checked last year's posts, it's clear.  Yes, last year was a heavy snow year and this year it was lighter and warmer.  But last year we were there May 3 and  May 4  and this year May 17 and 18.
You can go to the links to see the differences.

After Friday's magnificent day, Saturday gave us a contrast.  Clouds started coming in and by the time we were walking back up from the Teklanika bridge, the first drops began.  But even a rainy day in Denali is a treat.  So here are a few more pictures.

After a few caribou driving to Savage River (where the paved road ends) we (and many others) got to watch this bear fairly close to the road.

There were lots more caribou throughout the drive.  Saturday we were pretty much headed for Teklanika.  This is a campground 30 miles into the park with an overview and lots of bathrooms.  It's a stop for the tourist buses, which don't start running until tomorrow.  Well, that turns out to be not completely true.  There were tan guided tour buses that were running pretty frequently.  In any case, the Denali road is normally closed to private cars at Savage River.  But in the spring, as they clear the road of snow and repair any damage from winter, they open the road - up to Teklanika.  So it's a chance to drive in and stop where you want and watch animals, hike, bike, picnic.  Whatever.  Friday we'd hiked the short Savage River trail (one mile each way.)  It's a loose, but we only did the west side because there was a big glaciated spot that blocked the trail on the east side.  We met people who'd climbed around the ice, but we aren't that young any more.  

We did stop at a pullout about mile 25 and I rode the bike a couple of miles, until there were trees on both sides (and it's harder to spot nearby bears.  Though I don't think there's ever been a biker attacked on the road, but I'm not sure.  Very few people - under five I believe - have been killed by bears in Denali.

So after the bike ride we got to the first small pond before the Teklanika campground which had a Northern Shoveler floating around.  (I'm having trouble focusing my Canon Rebel on objects in the distance, so that's why this bird is so small.  If you enlarge it, you'll see how out of focus it is.  I need to work on this problem.  The manual is challenging and I haven't found good sites on this particular problem online yet.)

The next pond, just past the campground, had a bufflehead pair and a pintail duck.

The Teklanika overlook area was packed with cars - so much so people were parking on the road.  And lots of people had their bikes.  And on the hill not far from the bridge (about a mile away) there was a wildlife ranger (Jake) monitoring a bear sow with two cubs that was about 150 yards below the road.  Well, he said, that they try not to intervene with the wildlife, leaving them as free as possible.  Normal distance to be kept between people and bears is minimum of 300 yards, but since the bears were down below in the river bed and they'd been there for several hours, he wasn't concerned.  Though earlier there'd been about 40 people including barking dogs (they can be on the road on a leash) so he had to quiet down the people.

They were digging for roots he said.  The vast majority of their diet is vegetation in the park.

Here you can see the mom digging.

She had her head down and her claws in the earth most of the time.

Jake noted that the cubs were making noises.  Eventually they get hungrier than roots satisfy, and they wanted to nurse.  I wouldn't know that that is what they are doing in this picture if he hadn't told me.  She's lying down and they're on top of her.









As we headed back up the hill to the car, the first drops began to fall.  Here are some contrasts to yesterday's pictures.


Here's from the viewpoint where I took the pictures of Denali.   This was an idea I had 40 years ago after our first several trips to the park - a postcard of what Denali looks like to most tourists.

Here's yesterday's view from the same spot.  You can't even see the foothills.

It wasn't all just a grey mass, mostly we could see more.

And for a contrast with yesterday's ptarmigan picture, here's one whose feathers are still more in the winter than summer phase.

And here's yesterday's ptarmigan picture again.  Much more brown, less white.

Here's one from yesterday.  I didn't put it up because she was mooning me.  But so you can see the contrast I'll post it here.

We only saw one moose yesterday - while I was on the bike and didn't have my camera.  And it was so close to the road I didn't want to dawdle.  And we see moose often enough in Anchorage, even on our street and chewing on the trees in front of our house, that moose are not that big a deal.  In fact, Friday, the first animal we saw on the tip was a moose beside the Glenn Highway still in the Anchorage city limits.

Nevertheless, they're still magnificent animals, and seeing them in more natural settings like this is still a thrill.  And this rain-dulled picture is pretty much what it looked like up on the hill.  There were a couple other moose with it.

We're back home with lots to do

Damn This World Is Complicated Part II: Beach Hoppers [UPDATED]

 [UPDATE Aug 9, 2021: See this LA Times section on Recovering California Beach Dunes.]

OK, this one won't be as involved as the last one [Part I: Snowy Plovers.]   But remember, this is one of the main food sources of the threatened Western Snowy Plover, so it extends the discussion.  Our guide yesterday pointed out the beach Hoppers.  I grew up on nearby beaches and so I saw these as a kid, but I never knew their name and never looked at them carefully.  Beach Hoppers are small and much easier for me to capture in my camera so my pictures here will make up for the lack of photos of the Snowy Plover.   In fact, the digital camera makes it relatively easy to see them larger than you can with the naked eye.

So, let's get started with Beach Hoppers.

The Monterrey Aquarium website has a set of cards for kids that you can print out and learn about the beach life.  Here's their beach hopper card.

For more detailed pictures of a beach hopper labeled Orchestoidea californiana see Peter J. Bryant's website.

A 1964 Ecology article by Darl E. Bowers discusses two species of Orchestoidea - O. californiana and O. corniculata.  I'm guessing mine are californiana, but I'm not sure.  Bowers writes, in part:

"Competition for burrows between hoppers of the same species is commonly observed. In the early morning hours, large males may be seen fighting for possession of holes left open the night before. Fighting is presumably less energy-consuming than digging a burrow, but since most pugnacity is shown by mature males, possession of a burrow already occupied by a female is also of prime importance. Skirmishes for food items are likewise to be seen. Beach hoppers are eaten by an array of avian predators, mostly diurnal birds, and there is evidence that raccoons, moles, humans, beetles, and other animals take a toll of the hopper populations."

See?  As I said in the previous post, the more we know, the more we realize how much we don't know.  I was only vaguely aware of these critters before yesterday's beach walk and now I know quite a bit.

And it's a helpful reminder that we ought to dig a little deeper into all the important issues of the day.  They are more complex than we think, but a little research on the internet, finding a good book that gives an overview of the issues can help us quite a bit. 

Check the guys peeking from below

Marinebio.net has great pictures of beach hoppers and other animals living on the beach including kelp flies that will be in the next post.


There we learn:

Beach hoppers burrow under seaweed to escape the dryness and heat of the day. They prefer the damp sand under the piles of rotting seaweed. This picture shows what you might see if you pulled up a pile of rotting seaweed ... the beach hoppers will jump (hop) this way and that. It is very easy to identify a beach hopper because it is the only species on the beach that will hop. At night many of the beach hoppers are out of the sand and hopping around the beaches in search of food.

Hopping and digging in the sand require specialized legs as seen in these views [You have to go to marinebio.net to see their great shots] of the beach hopper's segmented body. The hoppers dig head first, inserting their antennae in the sand (left). As they dig their abdomen is the last part seen (right) before the hopper plugs up its hole. Beach hoppers are in the crustacean group whose members are called amphipods. The beach hoppers found on the sandy beaches of Santa Barbara belong to the genus Orchestia or Orchestoidea. Beach hoppers are sometimes called 'sand fleas' but they are not fleas (nor are they even insects) and are not able to bite humans.

Hey, don't get squeamish here.  These are like tiny, shell-less shrimp.  And without the kelp washing up on the beach for these critters to hide and feed in, the snowy plover would have to change how it eats. 

Beach Hoppers is also the name of a musical group, a bicycle, and a boat.

[Update:   Part III:  Kelp Flies]
[Update June 5, 2017:  This post about a study of micro plastics in the environment. The researchers fed beach hoppers micro plastics to see how they affected the food chain.  I found out about this because someone got to this post from a link there.]

Enstar Digs Up Newly Paved Street A Month After Anchorage Paves It

There's an alley across the street.  The alley became a street a couple of years ago and even got a name.  Apparently because a house was remodeled and has an entrance and street number facing what was an alley.   It's been unpaved since.

This summer, the street got paved for the first time.  I guess that's good.  Less dust and mud, but pavement has environmental problems too, and this alley never got much traffic.  The other alleys in the neighborhood remain unpaved.

Today, Enstar was digging a big hole right in the new pavement.

When I went over to find out why they were digging up the newly paved street, Arthur told me they were replacing the old copper pipe and connectors for ones that had fewer connections and thus fewer opportunities to leak.  Below is one of he old ones.

But don't the Municipality and Enstar communicate on things like this?  He said he thought they did, but not this time.  They came out at the beginning of the summer to see what they were going to do and there was a dirt alley way.  And now they show up today and it's paved.  

I left a message with the Municipality Street Maintenance people.  I'll update when (I'm pretty sure it's when, not if) I hear back.  My basic concern is to be sure they have a system and this just was an odd situation that fell through the cracks.  If not, they need a way not to do double the work.  It was just paved, maybe a month ago.  Today Enstar had to dig through that paving and then patch it up.  Well, it's flat and even with the paved part, but it's not repaved yet.  And they've got another cut out a little further down that I guess they'll dig up tomorrow.  

Digging A Hole To Save Energy

Here it is on a sunny day as the dust slowly settled.

It began with  this job listed on our energy audit:

78.0 points

4 Stars

Increase:
2.5 pts, 1 step
Install R-25 rigid foam board to interior or exterior side of wall. Does not include cost of coverings.

Location - Below- (part or all) Grade Wall: Garage masonry, West + North

[I'm reading this laughing because there were several different recommendations about the garage masonry and I see this says R-25, but the others say R-30 and that's what I ended up doing.]


We had the audit at the end of last December.  You have 18 months to complete as much as you can to get a rebate from the state on the work done.  The limit is $10,000, but in our case, since we are starting from an initial rating of 3 Stars plus, our maximum rebate is $7,500.  We didn't feel much pressure.  We went to an Alaska Housing workshop, which we thought was going to tell us how to read the audit chart.  We should have read the notice better.  It was about heating.  It was well done and we learned a lot, but heating was not on our recommendation list.  But they got us to the right place - the Research Information Center at Boniface and Tudor - for the workshop on how to read the audit report.  (All the workshops are free and held frequently, see the links.)

So, I decided to do the garage walls, lower part, which are uninsulated cinderblock.  The choice was interior or exterior.  We went to the insulation workshop.  It wasn't nearly as good as the heating workshop and while it pointed out issues for me, it didn't answer the questions.  But I did decide that since R30 means 6 inches of board, that would take up a lot of space inside, I would do the exterior for the west wall.  We don't go to that side of the house much and there was a long neglected flower bed and a cement path.  (The path is so covered by old leaves and soil you can only see parts of it.)

So I started to dig.  But I still had questions.  Which foam boards should I use?  What adhesive did I need to glue them together?  Against the house?  How deep did I need to go?

I looked on line but couldn't find my specific answers.  I called the Alaska Housing Authority, but they just recommended more websites.  The sites may have had the answers, but I couldn't find them.  I went to Lowe's to see my options.


This board is R-3.9 per inch, so it would need 7 or 8 inches (and boards) to get to R-30.  There was a blue board that was R-5 per inch. I asked about adhesive and the stockman pointed to this foam, but said this wasn't his expertise.

I had an email in to the energy audit rater and called a friend who'd done the same project a couple years back.  He said no glue - the dirt will hold the foam against the house.  And to get a metal cover.  He sent me to Combs Sheet Metal.  But I was going to hold off on that until I knew exactly what the measurements would be.


I took things easy.  No more than an hour a day so as to not mess up my back.  Actually, the digging was like going to the gym and it felt good.  But it took some time at that pace, but it also let me get more information.  The energy rater called me and added some foam on the bottom horizontally.  He said 2 feet, but I didn't have that kind of room, so we settled for 18".  And he suggested 6mil plastic for vapor barrier.  I'd thought some sort of plastic cover between the boards and the dirt was a good idea already.

I decided to check out Home Depot and the prices were about the same as Lowe's and so I got my foam there.  This was R-5 per inch in 2" boards.  The trusty van had room for it all. 





You can see time passing - now there are leaves on the ground.  But the hole is getting deeper.   In the third picture, the horizontal foam is on the bottom - with some dirt on top - and the vertical foam against the wall.  I was starting to have trouble on one end with cave-ins as I dug.  But the foam was down and it was time to work on the 6" foam against the walls.  Lots of measuring and cutting.

The 10/21 shot has the metal cover on it.  That was amazingly easy to arrange.  They just needed to know the dimensions and the color and it was ready the next day.  I have no idea what it should cost, but at $160 didn't seem that much.  But what do I know about sheet metal prices?  Nothing.

In this picture you can see the first panel.  I got the 2 feet X 8 feet X 2 inch panels.  But the hole was 35 inches deep after the horizontal panel went on the bottom.  So I wrapped up three panels here and then I had to cut the others to go on top to fit to the edge of the siding.

Here I've got all the panels - two 8 foot packages of 3 and one 7 footer.  Then on top of those the same thing but only 12 inches instead of 24.  And this picture has one of the pieces of metal to cover it.  There's a lip that goes under the siding.  They come in 10 foot sheets, so I had two of those and this smaller one for the middle.

Now all that is left is to fill in the dirt.  And it hasn't snowed yet.  I got a fair amount in yesterday.  I think I'll just fill it up to where the metal goes and then in the spring I will add some compost and manure.  The sun's just come out so I'll go out and finish this off.  I'll add the pictures to here later.

So now I've got to do other things on the energy rater's list. This was the west wall of the garage, and I still have the north or back wall of the garage. I'll do that on the interior side because it's much harder to dig in that   part of the yard.  And now that I've read more carefully, I only needed 25R, so it won't take up as much room - 5, not 6 inches. And the front is two small panels that I might just do inside as well. They'll be relatively easy. And then there are other things to get us up to the next level.

It's nice to do something you've never done before and get past the obstacles of ignorance.  The only hangups were knowing what I needed to do and what stuff I needed to buy.  And this should save us a little on heating costs and certainly pay for the materials in a couple of years.  And I have a much better understanding of how all this works now.  And I'm pumped to do other projects around the house I have no idea how to do.

UPDATE 9:40pm:  Here's what it looked like when I finished today.  I might leave it like this until spring when I'll put in some compost and manure or maybe I'll even do that now if there's enough time before it snows.

"when this conscience business starts, ain't no telling where it'll stop": Willie Stark Shakes Down Judge Irwin

When I left off in the first post about William Penn Warren's All The King's Men, the Boss, Willie Stark, used Jack, for whom Judge Irwin had been like a second father, to get into the judge's house.
The newspaper just announced that Irwin had endorsed the opponent of one of Stark's candidates.  Jack had gotten the judge to open the front door, late at night.

This is how I imagine Trump and his henchmen leaning on Republican Senators.  Though they probably are not as skilled as Willie Stark.  And the Senators appear far much less able to stand up to Trump the way the Judge does.   But the same sort of dynamics.



Once the Judge sees it's Jack at his door, the judge asks Jack how he is and what he can do for him.  Jack asks if the judge  could talk to ---

'"He turned to shut the door, and if his ticker hadn't been in good shape for all his near three score and ten he'd have dropped dead.  For the Boss was standing there in the door.  He hadn't made a sound."

The Boss forces his way in and the judge asks if he has anything to say, and the Boss says:

"'Not at the moment.'
'Well,' the Judge said, 'in that case --'
'Oh, something might develop,' the Boss broke in.  'You never can tell.  If we get the weight off our arches.'
'In that case,' the Judge returned, and it was an old needle and an old record and it was scraping ike a file on cold tin and nothing human, "I may say that I was about to retire.'
'Oh, it's early yet,' the Boss said, and took his time giving Judge Irwin the once-over from head to toe.  The Judge was wearing an old-fashioned velvet smoking jacket and tuxedo pants and a boiled shirt, but he had taken off his collar and tie, and the gold collar button was shining just under the big old red Adam's apple.  'Yea,' the boss went on after he'd finished his once-over, 'and you'll sleep better if you wait before going to bed and give that fine dinner you had a chance to digest.' (p 64)

'This verbal duel continues for couple of pages with the screws tightening slowly.  The Boss sits down as the narrator describes the room in detail.  The Boss tells Jack to get him a drink and pour one for himself.

"Judge Irwin didn't answer him.  He turned to me, and said, 'I didn't realize, Jack, that your duties included those of a body servant, but, of course, if I am mistaken -'
I could have slapped his face.  I could have slapped that God-damned handsome, eagle-beaked, strong-boned, rubiginous-hided old face, in which the eyes weren't old but were hard and bright without any depth to them and were an insult to look into.  And the Boss laughed, and I could have slapped his God-damned face.  I could have walked right out and left the two of them there, alone in that cheese-smelling room together  till hell froze over, and just kept walking.  But I didn't, and perhaps it was just as well, for maybe you cannot ever really walk out from the things you want most to walk away from."  (p. 66)

Do you think Michael Cohen began to feel like Jack?

The Boss gets up and pours Jack a drink and hands it to him.

'. . . the Boss look[s] up at Judge Irwin and say[s], 'Sometimes Jack pours me a drink, and sometimes I put him a drink and  - -' he stepped toward the desk again - - 'sometimes I pour myself a drink.'
He poured the drink, added water, and looked again at the Judge, leering with a kind of comic cunning.  "Whether I'm asked or not,' he said.  And added, 'There's lots of thing you never get, Judge, if you wait till you are asked.  And I am an impatient man.  I am a very impatient man, Judge.   That is why I am not a gentleman, Judge.' (p. 66)

The Boss offers the Judge a drink of his own liquor, but the judge refuses.

'The Boss looked up at him from the chair and said, 'Judge, you happen to have an evening paper round here?'
The paper was lying over on another chair by the fireplace, with the judge's collar and tie on top of it, and his white jacket hung on the back of the chair  I saw the Judge's eyes snap over there to it, and then back at the Boss.
'Yes,' the Judge said, 'as a matter of fact, I have'
'I haven't had a chance to see one, rushing round the country today.  Mind if I take a look?'
"Not in the slightest,' Judge Irwin said, and the sound was the file scraping on that cold tin again, ' but perhaps I can relieve your curiosity on one point.  The paper publishes my endorsement of Callahan for the Senate nomination.  If that is of interest to you.'
'Just wanted to hear you say it, Judge.  Somebody told me, but you know how rumor hath a thousand tongues, and how the newspaper boys tend to exaggeration, and the truth ain't in 'em.'
'There was no exaggeration in this case,' the Judge said.
'Just wanted to hear you say it.  With your own silver tongue.'
'Well, you've heard it,' the judge said, standing straight in the middle of the floor, 'and in that case, at your leisure --' the Judge's face was the color of calf's liver again, even if the words did come out cold and spaced - -'if you have finished your drink.'
'Why thanks, Judge,' the boss said, sweet as chess pie, 'I reckon I will take another spot.'  (pp. 67-68)

The Boss gets another drink, sits down, and asks the Judge if he's checked his decision with the Lord.

"'I have settled the matter in my own mind,' the Judge said.
'Well, if I recollect right --' the Boss ruminatively turned the glass in his hands --'back in town, when we had our little talk, you sort of felt my boy Masters was all right."
'I made no commitment,' the Judge said sharply, 'I didn't make any commitment except to my conscience.'
'You been messing in politics for a long time, Judge,' the Boss said, easy, 'and --' he took a drag from the glass --'so has your conscience.'
'I beg your pardon,' the Judge snapped.
'Nuts,' the boss said, and grinned, ' but what got you off Master?!'
'Certain features of his career came to my attention.'
'Somebody dug up some dirt for you, huh?'
'If you choose to call it that,' the Judge said.
'Dirt's a funny thing,' the Boss said.  'Come to think of it, there ain't a thing but dirt on this green God's globe except what's under water, and that's dirt too.  It's dirt makes the grass grow.  A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot.  And God-a-Might picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension.  It all depends on what you do with the dirt.  That right?'
'It doesn't alter the fact,' the Judge said from way up there where his head was, above the rays of the desk lamp, 'that Masters doesn't strike me as a responsible man.'
'He better be responsible,' the Boss said, 'or I'll break his God-damned neck!'
'That's the trouble.  Masters would be responsible to you.'
'It's a fact,' the Boss admitted ruefully, lifting his face under the light, and shaking his head in fatalist sadness. 'Masters'd be responsible to me.  I can't help it.  But Callahan -- now take Callahan -- it sort of seems to me he's gonna be responsible to you and Alta Power and God knows who else before he's through.  And what's the difference? Huh?'
'Well --'
'Well, hell!'  The Boss popped straight up in the chair with that inner explosions he had when, all of a sudden, he would snatch a fly out of the air or whip his head at you and his eyes would snap open.  He popped up and his heels dug into the red carpet.  Some of the liquor sloshed out of his glass onto his Palm Beach pants.  'Well, I'll tell you the difference, Judge!  I can deliver Masters and you can't deliver Callahan.  And that's a big difference.'
'I'll have to take my chance,' the Judge said from way up there.
'Chance?' And the Boss laughed.  'Judge,' he said, and quit laughing, ' you haven't got but one chance.  You been guessing right in this state going on forty years.  You been sitting back here in this room and n*** boys been single-footing in here bringing you toddies and you been guessing right.  You been sitting  back here and grinning to yourself while the rest of 'em were out sweating on the stump and snapping their suspenders, and when you wanted anything you just reached out and took it.  Oh, if you had a little time off from duck hunting and corporation law you might do a hitch as Attorney General.  So you did.  Or play at being a judge.  You been a judge a long time.  How would it feel not to be a judge anymore?'
'No man,' Judge Irwin said, and stood up there straight in the middle of the floor, 'has ever been able to intimate me.'
'Well, I never tried,' the Boss said, 'yet.  And I'm not trying now.  I'm going to give you a chance.  You said somebody gave you some dirt on Masters?  Well, suppose I gave you some dirt on Callahan? --Oh, don't interrupt!  Keep your shirt on!'  --and he held up his hand.  'I haven't been doing any digging, but I might, and if I went out in the barn lot and stuck my shovel in and  brought you some of the sweetest-smelling and put it under the nose of your conscience, then do you know what your conscience would tell you to do?  It would tell you to withdraw your endorsement of Callahan.  And the newspaper boys would be over here thicker'n bluebottle flies on a dead dog, and you could tell 'em all about you and your conscience.  You wouldn't even have to back Masters.  You and your conscience could just go off arm in arm and have a fine time telling each other how much you think of each other."  (pp. 67-70)

I know these are getting to be longer and longer quotes.  But this all fits in together as the screws tighten.  It's a slow steady build up.  The Judge doesn't budge.  Jack listens to the ticks and tocks of the grandfather clock.

'The Boss quit studying Judge Irwin's face, which didn't show anything.  He let himself sink back in the chair, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted the glass up for a drink.  Then he said, 'Suit yourself, Judge.  But you know there's another way to play it.  Maybe somebody might give Callahan a little shovelful on somebody else and Callahan might grow a conscience all of a sudden and repudiate his endorser.  You know, when this conscience business starts, ain't no telling where it'll stop, and when you start the digging --'
'I'll thank you  sir --' Judge Irwin took a step toward the big chair, and his face wasn't the color of calf's liver now --it was long past that and streaked white back from the base of the jutting nose --'I'll thank you sir, to get out of that chair and get out of this house!'
The Boss didn't lift his head off the leather.  He looked up at the Judge, sweet and trusting, and then cocked his eyes over to to me.  'Jack,' he said, 'you were sure right.  The Judge don't scare easy.'
'Get out,' the Judge said, not loud this time.
'These old bones don't move fast,' the Boss murmured sadly, 'but now I have tried to do my bounden duty, let me go.'  Then he drained his glass, set it on the floor beside the chair, and rose.  He stood in front of the Judge, looking up at him, squinting again, cocking his head to one side again, like a farmer getting ready to buy a horse.  .  .
Then, as though he had decided against buying the horse, the Boss shook his head and passed around the Judge, as though the Judge weren't a man at all, or even a horse, as though he were the corner of a house or a tree, and headed for the hall door, putting his feet down slow and easy on the red carpet.  No hurry. . .
The Boss laid his hand on the doorknob, opened the door and then, with his hand still on the knob, he looked back.  'Well  Judge,' he said, more in pain than with wrath I go.  And if your conscience decides it could gag at Callahan, just let me know.  In, of course---' and he grinned --'a reasonable time.' (pp 71-72)

The Boss may not have gotten all he wanted in this visit, but this was nothing less than a political home invasion.  And the Judge had to endure the Boss' taking over his house and his liquor and had to endure his threat.

And if a Senate were trying to impeach Willie Stark for this political arm twisting, how much hard evidence of any actual crime would there be?

[I had to look up rubiginous.  It means 'rust-colored.']

Carving a Parking Space or White on White

It's hard to see much here, because the snowplows just keep pushing the snow to the sides of the street. We now have about a ten foot snow berm in front of the house. My car is in the garage because if I parked it in the street it would block the road. But my wife would much rather have hers there than have to go outside to a cold car. So my exercise these days is digging out a parking place between the mailbox and the street. The picture is from the driveway. The mailbox is to the left of the picture. The street is barely visible in all the white. I'll leave a protective wall of snow between my car and the drivers. It appears it will be a while before the city starts clearing the snow.

Slow, but sure, gets the job done. I've already made a lot of progress!

Figuring Out My Anonymous Blog Commenter

I've gotten a blizzard of posts from an anonymous blogger urging me on to keep digging about for skeletons in the Stevens' case.

With the traveling I haven't had time to go through everything carefully, but there are three key thrusts that stand out so far:

• He (I'm assuming the poster is a he) doesn't think much of Chad Joy
• He is similarly ill-disposed toward Wev Shea
• He points to the identities of the attorneys who interviewed Bill Allen "who (which, where etc) was the basis to tube the conviction(jury nullification)" as the crux to finding the 'real story' of the Stevens case.

Unlike a traditional newspaper reporter's source, this source posts all his tips are as comments on different posts related to the trial, out in the open for all to see. I've suggested he just send me an email, but it's all going up in comments. Maybe 10 or 15 posts in a couple of days. Most would never make it into the letters to the editor column. Most friends have raised their eyebrows and wondered about the writer's sobriety. The posts defy the rules of grammar and leap to conclusions with fragmentary evidence.

His last couple of posts have been much more grammatical and coherent and specific. Maybe he's getting impatient with me not being responsive enough. But I have been on airplanes a lot of the last 48 hours and still have one more (I hope that's all - I'm in Salt Lake City right now and the plane is listed as on-time about 3 hours from now, but I can only find pay wifi, and I'm not THAT addicted that I can't wait, so I can't check on volcanic activity) til we get to Anchorage.

But I have been thinking about him and here are some thoughts about ways to evaluate an anonymous poster. Here are some factors, each of which would have a continuum from a version of bad to a version of good.

1. Motive - Is this something he's doing for self gain or does he see this as a public service? Is he out for revenge or for justice? Is he trying to settle a score or right a wrong? These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, revenge to right a wrong could be both for self-gain and public service.
   
   
2. Access to Information - Does he have insider information? Or is he someone who doesn't have special access to this story, but may have an ax to grind with some of the players.
   
   
3. Judgment/Wisdom - Assuming for the moment, that his motive is good and he has inside information, does he have the wisdom and judgment to interpret what he knows accurately? Or is he the type of person who sees a few bits of information which pass through his mental models and spit out nonsense? Having access to the facts is just step one. Then we have to interpret them. Is this guy good at doing that?
   

I don't know enough to determine the answers to these questions. It clearly has a greater interest in the details of this case than most people, and writes about details that the average person knows nothing about. So probably he's more insider than outsider on this case. But the other two factors I can't judge yet.

Then there is the question: Why me? Why this blog? He thinks Chad Joy has done wrong and he thinks that people on the inside have thrown the case leading to the dismissal of the conviction. I've voiced doubts about the substance of the Joy complaint and raised questions whether this case was just badly handled or whether there were people intentionally messing it up. He might see me as someone who is open to the arguments he's making. But maybe I'm not the only one getting this stuff.

At least one reader has told me that I've already been charmed by Kepner into seeing things her way. Others - non-Thais in Thailand who know little about the case - are highly cynical about everything and think this could be someone trying to use me for some unknown agenda.

As I said above, the last couple of posts have gotten more coherent and specific. Maybe I don't have to do anything except let the poster keep posting comments.

Matthew, who's hawking Delta credit cards has offered me access to his wifi so I can even post this before I go.

Walking While Black

Here's an excerpt for a beautifully written essay in Lit Hub on walking by a Jamaican connoisseur of walking. The whole essay is worth reading, but in these days police killing black males (and who knows who else that don't get headlines because nobody caught them on video), maybe this rather long excerpt will help people understand why African-Americans are angry and weary.

Garnette Cadogan first writes in this essay about learning to walk in Kingston to avoid an abusive step-father at home. Then again as a college student in New Orleans. Now he's in New York, having gone back to Kingston to visit his dying grandmother just before Katrina struck. An aunt in New York dissuades him from returning to New Orleans and to come to New York first. It helped she gave him the airline ticket. So now he's learned the rules of walking while black in New York, but he gets careless and, late to meet friends, runs to the subway station.

"After a sumptuous Italian dinner and drinks with friends, I was jogging to the subway at Columbus Circle—I was running late to meet another set of friends at a concert downtown. I heard someone shouting and I looked up to see a police officer approaching with his gun trained on me. “Against the car!” In no time, half a dozen cops were upon me, chucking me against the car and tightly handcuffing me. “Why were you running?” “Where are you going?” “Where are you coming from?” “I said, why were you running?!” Since I couldn’t answer everyone at once, I decided to respond first to the one who looked most likely to hit me. I was surrounded by a swarm and tried to focus on just one without inadvertently aggravating the others. 

It didn’t work. As I answered that one, the others got frustrated that I wasn’t answering them fast enough and barked at me. One of them, digging through my already-emptied pockets, asked if I had any weapons, the question more an accusation. Another badgered me about where I was coming from, as if on the 15th round I’d decide to tell him the truth he imagined. Though I kept saying—calmly, of course, which meant trying to manage a tone that ignored my racing heart and their spittle-filled shouts in my face—that I had just left friends two blocks down the road, who were all still there and could vouch for me, to meet other friends whose text messages on my phone could verify that, yes, sir, yes, officer, of course, officer, it made no difference. 

For a black man, to assert your dignity before the police was to risk assault. In fact, the dignity of black people meant less to them, which was why I always felt safer being stopped in front of white witnesses than black witnesses. The cops had less regard for the witness and entreaties of black onlookers, whereas the concern of white witnesses usually registered on them. A black witness asking a question or politely raising an objection could quickly become a fellow detainee. Deference to the police, then, was sine qua non for a safe encounter. 

The cops ignored my explanations and my suggestions and continued to snarl at me. All except one of them, a captain. He put his hand on my back, and said to no one in particular, “If he was running for a long time he would have been sweating.” He then instructed that the cuffs be removed. He told me that a black man had stabbed someone earlier two or three blocks away and they were searching for him. I noted that I had no blood on me and had told his fellow officers where I’d been and how to check my alibi—unaware that it was even an alibi, as no one had told me why I was being held, and of course, I hadn’t dared ask. From what I’d seen, anything beyond passivity would be interpreted as aggression. 

The police captain said I could go. None of the cops who detained me thought an apology was necessary. Like the thug who punched me in the East Village, they seemed to think it was my own fault for running. 

Humiliated, I tried not to make eye contact with the onlookers on the sidewalk, and I was reluctant to pass them to be on my way. The captain, maybe noticing my shame, offered to give me a ride to the subway station. When he dropped me off and I thanked him for his help, he said, “It’s because you were polite that we let you go. If you were acting up it would have been different.” I nodded and said nothing."

I first became aware of 'walking while black' in the summer of 1967 when I visited my Peace Corps  roommate from the summer before (on my way to the second summer of training) at the University of Missouri and he pointed out all his escape routes and the people he needed to escape from.  I wrote about that in a post about the University of Missouri football players speaking up about racism on campus last November.

I've had heard numerous examples like these over the years of how the United States looks very different to blacks than it does to whites.  Cadogan talks about these issues more elegantly than most.

One more thing.  Did you notice this line?

"None of the cops who detained me thought an apology was necessary."

I can understand cops stopping suspects and being nervous.  But when they find out they made a mistake, why wouldn't they apologize?  Because they figure he's guilty of something else and deserves this?  Because they enjoyed getting their aggression out on him?  Because they think they don't have to?

When I did grievance work, I found that most people who were abused, simply wanted an apology, and if the offending supervisor had just said, "I'm sorry" the incident(s) never would have been elevated to a formal grievance.  I think African-Americans might be more sympathetic to cops if their encounters with them weren't so random, so demeaning, and if they were given an apology afterward.  Only the captain in this case acted with any decency at all.  After he'd been humiliated and mistreated and eventually was clearly not the person they were looking for.  The only thing he had in common with the suspect was his skin color.

And I'd strongly recommend reading the whole essay.  Walking down the street in most US cities without thinking about being stopped by the police is one of the privileges white people have that blacks don't.  This essay richly riffs on that theme.

Airport Runway Repairs Update

[Last year I reported in some detail on the repairs and widening of Anchorage Airport's north-south runway, diverting jets to take off over Anchorage last summer and this summer.  This post is something of a follow-up]

I'd been meaning to call the airport and find out where they are on the fixing and widening the north-south runway.  After all, we've had almost no rain this summer (none in August, normally a rainy month) and so it seemed they should be ahead.  I got a couple of people who passed me on to Jason Lamoreaux and I left him a message yesterday afternoon.

He called back today.

It should be completed on time.  They have to (sorry my notes are sketchy) do some coordination of flight checks before the runway is back up.

Q:  But since you're a bit ahead now because of no rain, can't we get this done early so we can stop the noisy planes flying over Anchorage?

A:  FAA folks who do the checking come from out of town so hard to coordinate.

He told me I could sign up for the update emails, but I said, since the update video was from early 2018, I wasn't sure waiting for updates was better than just calling the airport.

The rest that needs to be done is some paving and painting and electrical which are weather dependent, so we can't predict finishing early.

So, basically he said it would be done by end of September and by beginning of October planes can use the north-south runway instead of taking off to the east over Anchorage.

I did look around on the website before calling to get as much info from there as I could. I did get to the runway project page. But the "Construction Update Video" appears to be the one they put up at the beginning last year.  It's pretty pictures and PR talk.  No real details at all.  And no updates.

The FAQ link goes to a bad link.

There's two maps - last year and this year, without much detail about the work.

These maps made more sense later, but they still don't show much.  The talk last year was that they were going to widen the runway so bigger planes could use it.  There's still only going to be one runway I guess.

So after looking around the site I finally found a number related to the project that I could call.

Today I took my son-in-law to the airport.  He's got to go back (but my daughter and nieta have more time here, yeah!).  So I decided to go see if I could find out what they were doing and how far they'd gotten.

Across the road and over the fence, past the tractor but in front of the plane, is the north-south runway.  We're looking northward.  (Yes the smoke from the various forest fires north and south of Anchorage totally obscured the mountains.)  So this part is in.

And here's the runway looking north.  It looks like it's paved all the way.  Lamoreaux did say it needed painting and electrical.  But there were parts that had stripes and little things sticking out of the ground that looked like they might hold lights.

And there didn't seem to be many people working.

This tractor was digging something.  This is another track of pavement that I thought, at the time, they still had to finish to the north end.  But when I got home and looked at the maps (above) that didn't seem to be the case.  Just one runway.  This must be a road or taxi way.  This was very close to the exterior fence.  (*You can see it on the map with the green and yellow markings below.  It's on the far left side.)

And here in the middle it was shiny - wet asphalt?  water?  something else?  I don't know.
There was equipment here and there, but I didn't see any movement.

So now I had more questions.  It doesn't look like the noise over Anchorage is much of a priority.  They've got until October and they seem not to be in much of a hurry.  OK, I can't make a judgment like that from one short visit to the airport.

But when I got home I went poking around on the website again and this time I found a little bit more.

I found the document library.  There's another map there and there are three 2019 updates.  One from January, one from March, which doesn't say anything they hadn't said before:

"2019 Construction
In 2019, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities will rehabilitate and widen the remaining portion of the North/South Runway. The magnitude of this construction effort will require a full runway closure in summer 2019. Operations and noise levels will return to normal upon completion in October 2019."

And one from August 16, 2019 which says a little bit more.

"The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) North/South Runway Renewal project is progressing well through the final phase of construction. Active work on the runway started in April.  As of today, the construction work effort is about 75% complete.  All paving south of Taxiway T is complete.

Currently, the contractor is grooving the runway.  This will provide traction so that airplanes can come to a stop on the runway when it rains. Grooving the runway takes about 45 days to complete. Next up, the contractor will begin work on painting runway markings.
We recognize that construction has resulted in increased aircraft noise in different parts of Anchorage. The construction team is working hard to keep construction on schedule in order to minimize those impacts and complete the renewal work as quickly as possible.  We anticipate the runway will be open early October 2019, and the airport will return to normal aircraft operations."

Now I have a bunch more questions.  Mostly they have to do with why it takes so long.  How does it take 45 days to put grooves in the runway?  Really?  In China they build ten story buildings in three months.  I'm not sure I want to live in one of those, but putting grooves in the runway seems a lot less complicated than putting up a building.  

Besides, 45 days from August 16 gets us to the end of September.  That would mean it will NOT be the beginning of October.  (I'm hoping this is wrong.  It's not what I heard from Lamoreaux.)

It says (as of August 16 when the memo is dated) they are 75% done.  Counting just this summer, they had used up 75% of their allotted time.  But what about work?  Are they really only 75% done?  

What does completed mean here?  That the green part is all paved?  Because from what I saw today, the yellow part is paved too.  Does it mean the green is paved and grooved?  Surely it can't take 45 days to grove the yellow part.   Does it really need to take 45 more days to paint the lines and put in the electrical?

The website is treating us like children.  It's not giving us much information at all.  Lamoreaux didn't even mention grooving.  He just talked about painting and electrical.  The amount of time has more to do with scheduling.  There's work the FAA needs to do and their contractor will apparently only come as scheduled originally, not early if, because of the good weather, they ready for them ahead of schedule.  And the same is true with the FAA inspectors.

My sense is there's no need to rush - from the airport administration's perspective.  They really don't seem concerned about relieving us from the noise of jets taking off over our houses and whatever jet fuel exhaust is added to our air.  They've set what appears to be a fairly comfortable schedule and they're expecting to be able to say it was done on time and - we'll see, or not- within the budget.

*As I look at the map with the green and yellow, the tractor that was actually working today when I was there, seems to be at the end of the pavement on the left of the green/yellow markings.  So that stretch of pavement doesn't seem like it's going any further.

I expect that asking all these questions, at this point, probably won't make any difference.  They're scheduled to open the north-south runway at the beginning of October and until then we (depending on how close you live to the pathways of the jets) will continue to endure 24 hours a day of jets taking off over us.

But maybe we can find out when the runway needs to be repaired again, so we can start earlier to  get more consideration of noise in their planning process.

COVID Is Still Here And Where To Check The New Expiration Date Of Your Home COVID Tests

With vaccinations people are feeling more secure that COVID won't kill them.  I see fewer masks indoors these days.  

The State went from daily reporting to weekday reporting to Monday, Wednesday, Friday, reporting to once a week reporting.  

But people are still dying of COVID, right here in Alaska.  28 new deaths were reported this week. (Although there's a new report each week, deaths seem to get accumulated over a period of time and then are reported in bulk.  These were the first deaths reported since August 24, 2022)

I'm still reporting these every week, but not in the main part of the blog.  They're reported in the Alaska Daily COVID-19 Count 3 tab just below the blog header.

Here's my latest report from that page:

Wednesday, September 14, 2022 - I'm getting this up on Thursday.  People are treating COVID as though it were gone.  To the extent that I even forgot to update this yesterday.  But the numbers are a reminder that this isn't over.  And that people are still dying of COVID, even here in Alaska.  

25 new deaths were reported this week.  These are the first deaths reported in three weeks because, I'm assuming, it takes a while to gather these numbers.  It would be truly shocking if these were all in the last week. It would be useful to know what the vaccination status of those dying was.  They may report that somewhere, but I'm not digging deeper than the main dashboards now.

21 more people were hospitalized in the last week.  Actual number of COVID patients in the hospital reported as 66, up four from last week.  Number of vents is down two to zero.

Number of ICU beds available statewide is 21 (down from 34 last week) and one in Anchorage (down from two.)  I believe this is not a COVID specific number, but includes all ICU beds in the state regardless of illness.  

Even new resident cases are up - 980/950 compared to last week's 879/902.  Ditto for non-resident new cases:  544 new cases, up from 519 last week.  A regular warning on these last numbers - many, if not most, tests are self tests which tend not to be reported, so the reported numbers don't tell the whole story.  

 

COVID Home Test Expiration Extension

Are your at home COVID tests expired?  The FDA has extended expiration dates. My June - Aug 2022 expired home tests are now good to Dec 2022 to February 2023.  Check yours here: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/home-otc-covid-19-diagnostic-tests#list

A little ways down it has a list of many different products for home testing. Each has a link to see the updated expiration dates.  That's where you'll find the details.  

Spring - A Sneak Preview

Wow, the sun was streaming in the windows this morning. The plows had been pushing all the snow into the middle of the road and were finally loading them into trucks to haul away. The sky was blue. It seemed like it had been a long time. A column in today's paper confirmed it. It has snowed in Anchorage 22 of the last 25 days! So that's why I've given up running for shoveling snow. And why the snow kept getting plowed, but never cleared.






I finally started digging out a parking space because I couldn't park in the street any more without blocking the street. You can see Jan 10, then Jan 12 almost ready. Wednesday a city pickup was blocking our driveway. The lady said, "They're going to plow the street on the 26th, so you have to move the car. But since it's a VW van - and I have one too - I was going to knock on your door instead of leaving a yellow notice on your car." She was very nice and friendly, but that doesn't seem like a very efficient way to notify people.

If my car hadn't been parked there when she came by, I wouldn't have know they were coming today. But since she told me, I parked it in the driveway yesterday, and well before that sun was up and streaming, we heard snow removal equipment. They started at about 7am in the neighborhood, and they were still at it at 3pm.

Here's the street all blocked up since early January. And today after it was all cleared.




But, we have our street back. It really is nice to have a parking place I don't have to carefully squeeze into because of the snow all around. On the other hand, it was starting to get cozy on the street. Now it looks so wide and bare. Not complaining. Especially since it was 42 F (yes, above, it doesn't get that cold here) which means some melting and certainly that will turn to ice when it freezes again. At least up to now, it's stayed below freezing and the worst we had was hard packed snow, not ice. But they've cleared the streets, so that will minimize the mess.