Alaska Wednesday

This morning we got up a little late.  We called Alex Roesch, who is Amy's friend who flies cargo planes.  (Today he goes to Nome and somewhere else, I forget).  We met him for breakfast before he heads out. Alex flies old cargo planes, like from the 40's.  He loves it.  He's also serious about learning guitar.  And he's an artist.  We talked about flying and music and the coffee delivery business he's trying to get started.

After breakfast we walked around downtown, bought some wool (kiviat) made by a cooperative of native villages from musk ox hair. It's supposed to be 5 times as warm as other wool.  I'm taking it to Mom to see what she wants to do with it.

We went to REI to look for socks and gloves for Amy, but she didn't find what she wanted.  We came on home to check whether Gmail Chat works on Macintosh, and once we were sure it would, we went back out:   to the Mall, which is six stories tall around an ice-skating rink, and then to CompUSA to buy a computer, which we didn't buy but instead came home and ordered online.   Wheeee!!

Supper of more asparagus & noodles, then over to Jenny's house for a piano lesson. She's a really nice, comfortable person, and I would have liked to get to know her, but if we started talking there wouldn't have been any piano lesson.  While they played piano, I walked in her "back yard," a long path around a frozen lake, which I could only go about a fourth of the way around.  Then I went with Amy to choir practice at St. Patrick's church.  She works with the children's choir, which is preparing for Easter.

Home again, Amy is knitting while I write.  We might watch a movie or something.  maybe.

blog  http://randomlight.blogspot.com

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"It is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights. When you deal with human rights you are not dealing with something clearly defined in the Constitution. They are rights that are clearly defined by the mandates of a humanitarian concern."

 - Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated April 4, 1968.

Alaska Tuesday

Tuesday already!  Time flies when you're having fun!

Yesterday, after that long day on the water, we decided to skip eating out and just do the peanut-butter bagel & apples and cheese thing. We had time to sit around and talk and chill.  After dark, Amy went up and spent about an hour in the hot tub (outside, surrounded by tall fir trees and mounds of snow). She said it was really quiet.

 This morning we ate another great breakfast with Sheila and Al, played their piano and sang a little, then left before 10:00.  We checked out the Resurrection Cafe (a converted church), where Amy bought a print by Rockwell Kent.  We went to the library for a while, and while I finished downloading my flight simulator, Amy walked around.

Lunch was fresh fish sandwich and barley beef soup. 

The Seward Sea Life Center is a real jewel.  It's a research facility and museum that was set up by the money collected after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and it's a beautiful place.  It's not crowded with stuff, and the displays all make sense.  The first amazement was a tank of jellyfish that had to be just about the most beautiful creatures you could imagine, floating and swirling thru the water.  The best "displays" are the two-story tanks of seals, ducks, and sea-birds.  You could sit all day watching them swim, which you can do from below or above, indoors or out. There were very few people there, so we had the museum staff pretty much to ourselves, and the interpreters went out of their way to teach us what we were really looking at.  There were hands-on tanks of starfish and sea anemones, who didn't mind being touched ("gently, with two fingers"), and we got to watch a crab being fed to an octopus.  

The drive back to Anchorage was just great for listening to music and watching the scenery.  It doesn't get any better. Supper was noodles & asparagus & mushrooms, and then we went to Flattop to watch the sun go down.  We went after that to two places Amy likes to hang out:  hot chocolate & chai at the TapRoot Cafe, and then hung out at Open Mike at the Golden Lion.  I met Justin, Erin, Lisa, Ian, Gary, Scott and Angela.  Amy talked to everybody, and arranged a pot-luck supper at her house on Friday. It sounds like it will be a full house.

Tomorrow I get to meet Alex.

blog  http://randomlight.blogspot.com

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RESPECT RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SPIRIT AND MATTER.

Consider all aspects of human settlement, including community, dwelling, industry and trade, in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.

--Hannover Principle #3

Alaska Sunday

On a Wonderful Day like today....!!!!!!!!!

Amy wishes I'd quit singing that song,  but it keeps coming back.  We're at the Treehouse Bed & Breakfast near Seward, Alaska.  It's a beautiful two-room suite in a house in a subdivision (kindof like our subdivision at home), but with a black-rock creek in back and steep mountains behind the creek and 5 to 10 feet of snow everywhere.  We just got back from a snowshoe walk back the creek.  The sun is shining and we were in our own Sierra Club Calendar.   In a little while we'll go into town for supper, and then maybe come back here to use the hot tub.  I hope the stars are visible.  We're pretty far from any city. Somebody saw Northern Lights night before last.

Catching up....

Amy's interview was interesting.  She thought it was for radio voiceovers, but it was probably for TV.  You'll have to get the description from her.  I piddled around most of the day. Upgraded the RAM in my Mac.  We ended up going for a walk with the dogs in a frozen bog behind a middle school.  Crooka was my lead sled dog a few times when we had to take steep hills or get thru drifts.   There' s a pathway where people have walked, and as long as you're on it, you're ok.  But if you stray just a hair to the side, down you go into the snow, and it's knee deep or more. We ended up standing on the score board at a ball field on the top of a hill overlooking Anchorage.  I think the ground is a lot lower in the summer.

When we got back, we got with Jane and went to Chili's (St. Joe's treat), since the people in Jane's favorite TV show hang out there.  It was interesting, but not great food choices if you're vegetarian, especially since they were all out of salmon, halibut or tilapia.  Which left shrimp.  I had a mushroom swiss cheese burger which was good but overwhelming.

This morning we packed our stuff and headed down the southern highway toward Seward.  The entire drive was sunshiny and stunning.  Mountains on all sides--360 degrees, with the icy water to our immediate right.   Majestic, snowy.  Think of the Tetons and then raise it a power or two.  We spent $7 ea. to go in a wildlife animal rescue area and walk around and see caribou, buffalo, elk, moose &  bears.  Kindof like the Wolf Park.  These are animals that are rescued from some kind of situation, then rehabilitated and relocated.

Driving on, the road was lined with trucks and trailers of snowmobilers.  The snowmobile tracks were interesting--looping up the mountainside as far as they dare, then back down.  Kids are pulled behind the snowmobile in a plastic boat.

 We stopped in a little store in Moose Pass for ice cream.  We plan to go to Hope on the way back.  We're looking for handmade knives and Beluga whales.

The whole drive was like being in National Geographic. It called for a little helicopter-ride-style music, but Amy's CD player and radio conked out, and my laptop speakers aren't loud enough to do the job.   I tried singing John Denver, but I don't think it had the same effect.

See y'all!   Keep warm!

maggiemom

blog  http://randomlight.blogspot.com

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SEEK CONSTANT IMPROVEMENT BY THE SHARING OF KNOWLEDGE.

Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers and users to link long-term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility and to reestablish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.

--Hannover Principle #9

Alaska Monday

I hear it's in the 80's at home.  Here, we're surrounded by chin-high snow piles wherever we go. We're having a hard time getting to internet connections, so you guys may just get all these messages all at once.  It might be a little better than getting postcards, which always arrive after we get home.

Today is Seward's Day, and we're in Seward, so we hoped there might be some special festivities going on, but there aren't. The most notable effect of Seward's Day is that the library is closed, so we can't get to the internet.

Last night we borrowed our host's snowshoes and went plowing along the top of drifted snow that covers a running creek.  We barely saw the creek, and the snow we were walking on covered the tops of small trees.  Snowshoes are easy to get tangled with each other, but they do work well as long as you think a little pigeon-toed. A gorgeous walk!

This morning we  had a beautiful breakfast of yogurt & sourdough pancakes with berry jelly, which was our main meal of the day.   At noon we were on a boat (the Chugach) heading out Resurrection Bay.   Steep mountains jut straight out of the water on all sides, which makes it a fjord.  We weren't even out of the harbor when we saw two humpback whales swimming together.  At one point they were right next to us.  We watched them for about 15 minutes.  We saw bald eagles nesting, a colony of sea lions, choppy waters and a snowstorm coming in from the Pacific, sea otters and glacier ice.     The glacier ice is a blue (aquamarine) jewel color, which comes from the density of the ice. It kindof  glows. People are friendly, and we're finding plenty to look at and do.  

We would have stayed in town for supper if an internet place was open, but since we couldn't find one, we came on back.  Amy's reading a journal by Rockwell Kent, an artist who spent a stretch of time in a cabin on this shore with his 9-year-old son. She knows his artwork from the museum she volunteers at.   I'm reading my aviation books, so we're happy even when we're not out in the snow or the wind. 

Supper was peanutbutter bagel, cheese, bananas, pistachios& salt-water taffy.    Tomorrow we have tickets to the SeaLife Center, then we'll head back to Anchorage.

love y'all!

Maggie Hettinger

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle, maybe worse than your own."

Alaska Friday

What a great day!

Yesterday I spent the middle of the day at Borders' Books. I ordered a chai and sat down to use the internet.  One thing following another, I started looking up "Learn to Fly"   and Pilot and such.  I clicked on a flight simulator to download it, not realizing that it was about a gigabyte of program.  While it was downloading (a couple of hours,and not finished yet), I looked in the flight section, and found a couple of really interesting books on piloting:   "Taking the Short Approach" and "FAA Airplane Flying Handbook."  I couldn't choose between them, so I got them both, and lucked into a 25% educator discount this weekend. Then I went outside in the snow, hit the button to heat up the back window of the car, realized I'd hit the flasher button instead of rear defrost.  Guess what? The flashers wouldn't turn off.  Pried and poked for a while, then called AAA for the nice young man to jimmy it out with his pocketknife (which took a while, even for him) and then disconnect the wires.  While I was waiting I sat in the parking lot and downloaded more flight simulator from there.  Sweet.

(maybe I could have done it myself if I was carrying my pocketknife, but I don't carry it on trips anymore just so I don't risk losing it at the airport.  How bizarre.   It's like the opposites I used to look for when I was doing the philosophy thing.  Opposites are the pointers to the key important points)

Drove downtown, wandered past the museums and other interesting places, but ended up looking for more of the coastal trail, and found it in a neat (and probably very expensive) neighborhood that's within 5 minutes walk of downtown and 3 minutes walk of the trail and the coast.  I walked for about an hour, turning around at a lagoon where people were ice skating.  (It's the place where Amy skates.).  

When I got back, I saw Amy's florist shop--very pretty, lots of classy arrangements and stuff, met Annie and the lady at the desk whose name I didn't catch.   We went to the computer store, then home to snack on apples & cheese with Jane's friend Jenny (?) and looked for places to stay in Seward. 

Today (Saturday), Amy has an interview at the radio station (voiceovers and such), so that's the big item for the day.  Tomorrow we hope to go to Seward and spend a couple of nights.   

Love youall!

Mom

Maggie Hettinger

CIA Veteran Michael Scheuer: "Every time we interfere in Muslim countries, they get more support. In the long run, we're not safer, because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world."

good morning! ALASKA!!!

I'm sitting at Amy's countertop. The snow is outside, and at 8:00 it's been light for a while.  Grey light, so I don't know if it's overcast or just the sun comes up slowly.

Last night we went walking on the Coastal Trail.  The snow is packed there, and lots of people were cross-country skiing. There are two continuous ruts for the Nordic skiers, and a wider path for walkers and skate-skiers. We passed lots of happy people and happy dogs.  It's a path thru birch and fir trees, just beyond the airport (under the flight path), following along the water, which is rushing by full of ice.  It seems so purposeful, all that ice, going somewhere.  The sun, on the other hand, doesn't seem like it's going anywhere. When we got there, it was low in the sky.  We walked a pretty good clip, then turned around and came back, but the sun seemed as if it was in the same place.  I think it moves sideways instead of down.  Eventually it did go down, and we had lots of time to watch the purples and greens come up in the water, and the reds and pinks hit the sky.

Amy made a great squash pie while we listened to piano music, and we ate it with Jane, then hit the hay. I slept really well, warm and comfy.

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What have I done this morning?    I had a nice breakfast in Amy's kitchen, then dropped her off at work. 

I drove around the corner and saw CompUSA, so I went in there to see if they have Macintosh stuff. They do. I bought a RAM upgrade for my computer, since I really like having lots of cool programs running all the time. At the checkout the RAM scanned at about half the price I expected, which was already a good price, so now I'm going to decide whether I can replace it myself, or if I should have them do it for $45. I'll take Amy there to shop.

I went across the street to the Salvation Army store.  Found a $5 pair of boots size 9 and a $2 pr. of long underwear and a $1.50 sipper cup.   I had  a bit of a first when I was leaving and asked someone looking at wedding dresses if she knew how to get to K. Brothers (for wireless internet).   She/he was a surprising person under all that long red hair, but nice enough. Then I had another first when I turned the corner out of the parking lot and drove in front of a really big moose picking his way around the snow heaps, deciding if he/she was going to cross the road, I think.  My only other adventure was helping some 4-year olds pull up pants and wash hands in the restroom in John Myers, or whatever.

On to the next!   I'm heading to the Coastal Trail for a long walk.

blog  http://randomlight.blogspot.com

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ELIMINATE THE CONCEPT OF WASTE.

Evaluate and optimize the full life cycle of products and processes to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.

--Hannover Principle #6

War Ethics

Funny how easily we confuse "The Military" with "the troops." As a Catholic Christian, should I support the United States Global Military Complex, that gargantuan, weapon-spewing, violence-dispensing machine that all too often negates the humanity of its enemies and its members alike?
Or should I support those Americans whose patriotism, youth, and/or economic need are being taken advantage of by violence profiteering?
Jesus gave a direct answer to his followers. When confronted with a violent situation, he healed the attacker whose ear was cut off by a disciple, even though his own existence and the existence of his fellowship was threatened by a crowd with swords and clubs. Jesus stopped the disciples from violent retribution. Jesus actually protected the "enemy" with his Word.
If Jesus says "No violence" even to protect himself (Son of God), what values should we be presumptuous enough to say are worth "protecting" by violence?
Support the troops. Bring them home.
Support God's children. Put away the sword.

CLIMATE SCIENCE: Overturning Ocean Circulation

RESEARCH ABSTRACT:
CLIMATE SCIENCE: Overturning Ocean Circulation
H. Jesse Smith
It has been suggested that Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC; the northward flow of water in the upper kilometer of the north Atlantic Ocean and southward flow below) could be affected by global warming, in turn substantially affecting the climate of the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in Europe. Observations of the strength of the circulation, taken over ~1-month periods in different seasons of each of the years 1957, 1981, 1992, 1998, and 2004, have been used to argue that the MOC has slowed by about 30% over that interval. Searl et al. have now analyzed simulations of the MOC from the HadCM3 climate model and found no significant trend in the strength of the MOC over the period in question. Furthermore, variations in the MOC as large as 30% were very unusual.

The discrepancy between the model and measurements may be due not to inherent limitations of the model, but rather to the small number of observations, short-term variability of the MOC, and measurement errors, which together inhibit accurate estimates of multidecadal trends from the data. Indeed, after taking all such factors into account, the HadCM3 results are fully consistent with the observations. To determine with confidence how the MOC may be changing on interannual and seasonal time scales in the warming world, continuous monitoring of water transport appears to be needed. -- HJS

Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L03610 (2007).