Here Comes The Rain Again

You know you're an NPR junkie when you listen to Will Shortz's puzzle and the guest that calls and has to play is blowing it, and you're frustrated! WTF?

Yesterday, we volunteered at KRBD, the local public radio station. I'm hoping to spend enough time there that I get a show at some point. I'm hoping the same for Lyss. It would be good for us.

Today, we were thinking of hiking near "Wolverine Lake" or more correctly called Cornell Lake, a reservoir a few miles from town up Ward Creek. I call it Wolverine Lake because the dam and the area look like the secret area where Logan a.k.a. Wolverine got the atimantium grafted onto his bones in the X-Men comics. It's really pretty, but I think about it in this cool, carnal, manly. I really want to go there and howl like I have claws coming from the back of my hands.

But... it's raining. We'll see if it clears up. If not, only 5 more episodes of Space: Above and Beyond...

Saturday

Today looks like a busy day for me and the family. This morning, I need to round up all the trash for a trip to the dump. Then I need to volunteer for KRBD, Ketchikan's NPR station. After that, I'm going to try to get some design work done (finally) for friends outside of work. Then, I'm going to come home, put laundry away, and we'll see if I have time to get a hike in or not.

First things first, though. Malcolm needs to eat.

Catching Up...

Wow... I haven't posted anything in a very long time. And there's been so much to post! I apologize. Truth be told, I was really disheartened by the jerks who stole my original domain name, www.battlewagonchronicles.com, and used it to market stupid bullshit. It's my own fault, though. I didn't renew it in an instant, and, for better or worse, they bought it. So... I bought a shorter name, BWChronicles.com. So here I am... back in Alaska... with my family.

I got back here a few months ago. I drove up, straight from Denver to Yakima, Washington in 22 hours. I had a full little BattleWagon, Lyss's CR-V "Mabel", with no room for anything but me and Harry the cat. I slept for 8 hours at a rest stop, and then I went the rest of the way to Bellingham to catch the ferry.

From there, I took the M/V Malaspina to Ketchikan, a two night, three day adventure that plopped me down in an icy and cold Ketchikan at six in the morning on a Sunday. I started working the next day, and then picked up Lyss and Malcolm from the airport the next day.

Since then, I've been working my ginger butt off, trying to save up some money to pay back those who helped us move. The BattleWagon II is parked at my parents house, full of stuff from the HomeBase in Denver that I'll need to bring up at some point.

Beyond that, we've had some time to get out and see some stuff as a family, and I'm finding a new appreciation for doing the things with Malcolm that my parents did with me when I was a kid.

The photo here is a hero shot of Malcolm in the place I got one of my best pictures from nearly a year ago. We're happy here, and I need to spend more time doing the things I love... writing, adventuring, getting hyper and excited to be alive. I've had too many reminders lately of how quickly things can change. Co-workers gone suddenly. Friends with babies on the way. Babies learning to crawl, walk, talk, and smile on cue. Friends losing marriages. Siblings graduating from high school. Parents with an empty nest. A new state, new laws, new benefits, new draw-backs. Revitalized love for a family that I was emotionally away from. Renewed love for a family I'm geographically away from now.

Life is short, and I've erred in selling myself short. It can't carry on. It wont .

Sunrise

A few days ago, I caught this sunrise over the cove. I took this picture from the kitchen window of the new HomeBase here in Ketchikan. I'm excited for summer. It'll be great to have so much daylight to mess around with. I'm looking forward to working and home improvement and exploration and stuff.

Saturday Morning Inspirations

It's quarter to 8 in the morning, Alaska time. I've been up for almost for hours. I took advantage of the time to finish reading Robert Heinlein's "Stranger In A Strange Land". What an amazing commentary that book was on narrow-minded people, faithful followers of this faith or that one, with hearts full of hatred and awkward taboos. After reading the ending this morning, I feel compelled to consider myself and everyone, everything around me God. Thou art God. It's a very Universalist concept if you grok it rightly, that we are all God, all part of an interconnected web of life, part of the Force, and the list of religious references goes on.

I watched the sunrise this morning, wondering what was in store for this day. The sun climbed out from nerving the mountains on my Revillagigedo Island, slowly painting the narrows and the hills on Gravina Island with orange and red hues of alpenglow. The cool contast of the haze and snow-caped 3000 foot peaks offered a larger-than-life-sized analogy of the yin and yang that God and Mother Nature must have created together.

Sigh... I love Alaska.

The Rain

Winter in Ketchikan is an adventure. When the rest of the country is freezing, we have a low of 44°... and rain. Last week we had four sunny days in a row. But now, rain. I love this place.

Back At The Cabin

I found myself standing on the deck of the cabin again, the place of the relaxation of the previous summer. This time, I saw it through the unforgiving eyes of a Ketchikan winter, a beautifully powerful chill and slate gray clouds garnishing the view.

The cabin thus ceases to be a simple place of rest and relaxation and becomes a solitary refuge against the elements. The wood stove is now the heart of the cabin.

I look forward to warm food on a warm cabin.