Obama stands as Grasshopper before House Republicans; Funny Face's gift certificate, elder Marine at Family, dog charges into path of oncoming cars; small view of beautiful evening
Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 4:00AM ;)
I am extremely frazzled at the moment, due to the fact that I have, once again, experienced technical difficulties with my Squarespace host tonight. Terrible technical difficulties. After preparing my photos, I first opened the program exactly one hour and 50 minutes ago and it has taken me that long just to get to this point - and I dread what might happen yet.
So I am exasperated. I just want to scream. I do not want to sit in this chair and battle Squarespace for another minute. But, I must get this blog post done. So I will proceed, although my wording might prove to be abrupt, reeking of frustration, all the way through.
Anyway - I did return to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant for breakfast today and, just as she said she would, Cindy had returned the gift certificate that Funny Face and her Mister had so generously purchased for me three days before Christmas.
I am quite amazed that the wrong Bill had this gift certificate all this time and did not take advantage of it, but grateful, too.
So today, my omelette came courtesy of Funny Face - and there was enough left over for another one, plus a bit more.
So thank you, Funny Face - Sally thanks you too.
When I started blogging, I never, ever, expected or even imagined that anyone would do something like this for me. It is quite amazing.
;)
As I sat there enjoying my omelette, this man came in wearing the jacket that told of his service in the US Marines. This set off a whole train of thought that I was going to write down here tonight, but given the frazzled state that these technical difficulties have left me in, I am just going to pass.
Suffice it to say that I wanted to know more about him, to learn his story, to find out when and where he served. In fact, I decided that after I finished my breakfast, I would introduce myself. But then when the time came, he appeared so content and thoughtful, absorbed in his own consciousness, that I could not bring myself to interrupt him.
Plus, I had many things waiting for me to do, although I never did do them all.
Still, someday, I would like to learn what I can of his story.
You will recognize this dog from yesterday. It came out again. I had more that I was going to say about it, but, AUUUGGGGH!
As Charlie Brown would say.
This black lab came with it, of course, dragging a stuffed turtle with no head. It was right about here that my iPhone rang. It was Margie, calling from Arizona to tell me that there had been an explosion at Sunrise, the ski resort owned by her White Mountain Apache Tribe, and that our nephew, Uriah, had been caught in it and had been air-medivaced out to Phoenix.
She did not yet know anymore that. I walked as we talked. This was the third time that I had met this black lab in the past week. Both times before, it turned around and went home right after greeting me.
This time it continued on with me and it brought the turtle.
"Go home, dog," I said as I walked and talked to Margie.
It did not go home.
Soon we came to Seldon Street. I could see a number of cars coming from both directions. Sometimes, you look at a dog and you immediately know that this dog does not understand that if it crosses a road in traffic that a car can hit, injure and kill it.
I could see right away that this was such a dog. And there it was, trotting happily in front of me, straight toward Seldon - toward the cars that were coming from both directions.
"Dog! Dog!" I shouted, with Margie on the other end, trying to tell me how things were down in Arizona in the face of this latest bad news. "Stop! Come back here!" The dog did not stop, but trotted happily right into the path of an oncoming car.
"DOG! DOG!" Fortunately, the driver managed to brake in time. Immediately after, a car coming from the other direction did the same. I took no pictures because I was talking on the phone and shouting at the dog.
The drivers both gave me dirty looks.
The dog made it across Seldon and kept going up Brockton. I had planned to go that direction, too, but I knew that dog was going to stick with me the entire walk. I did not want to be responsible for it. It was only a couple of hundred yards from its house, so I figured it could find its way back without me - if it didn't get hit by a car in the process.
I wondered if I should try to shepherd it back, but I knew that it was just as likely to get hit by a car if I was shepherding it as if I wasn't.
It had already proven that.
So I left it to its own few wits and turned left, down Seldon, and ditched it. I hope it survived. I suspect that it did, but I don't feel that optimistic about its future, unless something changes in its daily care. Not so long ago, there was another dog that lived 100 yards from where this one does now. Once, even as its people looked on, it came running to Jacob and I and a car had to stop so hard it left rubber in the road.
Not long after, that dog was struck and killed.
As I walked on, an airplane passed by.
;)
A raven flew overhead.
These bare trees just looked pretty to me.
Royce seems to be doing much better.
I first found Obama's appearance before the Baltimore retreat of the House Republicans online at The Mudflats. It was 66 minutes long and I did not have 66 minutes to spare, but I watched it, anyway. It was beautiful. Remember the old TV show, Kung Fu, with David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, or Grasshopper?
Remember how Grasshopper would calmly and quietly face the raging, fuming bullies, who would sneer and laugh and then charge in multiple at him with their guns, knives, axes, fists, whatever? Remember how, with his superior knowledge, skill and basic sense of humanity, Grasshopper would deflect or dodge every blow and weapon they threw at him and would turn their own rage and force backwards upon them until they fell before him?
And even then Grasshopper would be graceful, and would give them another chance - should they be willing to take it? Some did.
That was President Barack Obama, standing in front of the House Republicans.
As to the website taking up the other half of my screen, that is Burn Magazine, founded by master photojournalist David Alan Harvey of Magnum, both to encourage "emerging photographers" and to create a new venue for serious photography. Burn is a good place. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves photography that might not be commercial.
And, honest to God, I already had Burn onscreen when I found the Obama/House Republican get-together. I did not stage this very appropriate juxtaposition of web pages - this is just another one of those coincidences that I told you about yesterday.
On my coffee break, I saw this dog. I also heard from Margie again. Uriah has second degree burns on his face, along with several cuts, but no critical, life-threatening, injuries. Margie did not know how much of his face had been burned.
I continued on and the moon came up.
Pioneer Peak at dusk. I had to go down to 1/8 of a second to get this one. There was no traffic behind me, so I stopped in the road and held the pocket camera out the window. As soon as I saw a headlight in my rearview mirror, I took off again.
I did the same thing here. This is the best thing about living in Wasilla. Sometimes, you can get frustrated and forget, but then you are reminded - Alaska is always out there, surrounding you, embracing you, providing nurture to your soul.
I am a little frustrated by all this, though. I am satisfied with the size that vertical images appear in this blog, but sometimes I want the horizontals to be bigger, including these final three images.
Squarespace has a feature that allows a blogger to link a larger image to the small, column-width ones that you see here. It is a process that is tedious in its operation - compared to accomplishing the same thing in say, Blogger, where it takes less than 20 percent as long (yes, I have timed it). I have pointed this, and their other many shortcomings, out to Squarespace many times and have suggested that they improve them to perform at least as well as do the same features in Blogger, which is free, whereas you must purchase Squarespace, but, damnit, after a-year-and-a-half, I am convinced that they are simply never going to.
Still, I regularly go through this aggravating process so that anyone who wants to can click on an image and bring up a larger version.
That feature is not working properly in Squarespace tonight, so the larger image is not available. Even if you would like to look at a larger version of the final three pictures above, you can't.
Curiously, though, it worked with the omelette and the raven, but with no other image. And yes, I cleared cached, refreshed pages, closed and reopened my browser - several times - and shut down and restarted my computer. It didn't help.
Can you feel my exasperation with Squarespace? Can you? Can you feel it? I have never, ever, experienced anything else like Squarespace in the digital/computer world. In the beginning, when I first came upon these problems, I thought the situation would improve as I better learned the program and as Squarespace upgraded and improved it. I was wrong. Yet, I am so far into it, so many links lead to my Squarespace work and I have moved so far up in Google... what do I do?
Squarespace has wasted so much of my time! They claim to want suggestions and they swear they consider all of them, but they never act on them. No, not on a single one do they act!
The support staff is, almost to an individual, courteous and they do their best to help, but at its root Squarespace is fundamentally flawed and their developers seem content to leave it this way.
Can you feel my exasperation?
I have ranted - but - if you only knew what I have been through with Squarespace!
Thos, if you read this, I am about ready to use some frequent flier miles and get you on a plane to Alaska! If you can solve some of these problems for me, it would be well worth it.
Reader Comments (16)
I'm reading AZ news on an Alaskan blog. How strange is that. Prayers for Uriah.
Love that moon shot, absolutely gorgeous!
As for the dog, nothing drives me more crazy than a dog you can't stop. I hope the owners get him back in and keep him in.
Hope Uriah heals quickly.
I watched "Grasshopper" live yesterday and knew it was something historic we were watching. I don't believe we will see such a moment again. I like Obama, but I respect him even more after having seen that. He made those people look petty and small. without even raising his voice. And he showed he has the intellect that he could have argued their points better than him if he had wanted! I think we're lucky to have him.
Royce even looks better in pictures Bill. He's a lucky boy to have you. And please know,even though you feel frustration, your efforts are really appreciated! Thanks.
Oops, I meant "better than them"
best damn breakfast i ever did see, bill! love the term grasshopper for our president facing the congressional bullies who would rather see our country fail than change their policies protecting corporations, wall street and rich people. did you read paul krugman's fine editorial in the times? the photo of the skinny black dog reminds me of 'spanky,' my boyfriend's dog who we put to sleep a couple yrs ago. i call my boyfriend 'spank' for short. and - oh! - i knvelled (jewish term for admired) - over the very same moon which you shot. it was so lovely, bill, i watched it thru my kitchen window and out on the cold front lawn.
I am so glad you continued on through your frustration -- I used to be a programmer in another life, and I can still feel that same frustration with something that just WOULD NOT work right. My poor husband used to go to another room and hide until things were going better.
And our President was wonderfully marvelous, wasn't he? He keeps on giving them another chance.
Prayers being said for Uriah.
I like your line about the dog "so I left it to it's own few wits".
Hope your nephew is OK.
My thoughts are going out to Uriah.
sending good thoughts to Uriah. Sorry about all your troubles posting, maybe you could consider Blogger or wordpress if it gets to frustrating. I find Blogger very easy to use.
I love all the pictures today, especially the trees. When i walk my dogs and come across an old gnarly tree i sometimes wonder what stories it could tell if it could talk
Praying for Uriah!
And Praying for you !
Oh, that poor half witted dog. You have to give him credit for his generosity. He was willing to share his prized headless turtle with you. I have a philosophy about things like this. The dog cannot be expected to have more wits than his owners. They are plainly stupid people. I hope that they read your blog and are ashamed. Probably not though.
Computers vex me as well. Do you suppose that Thomas could come here and help me figure out why my computer is not communicating with my printer? Really, I've no idea what even started the argument.
why does it look like someone whited-out the last name on the gift certificate and wrote in your last name? like Phony Bill took the gift certificate, put his name there, then when he got busted, put your name back!!!
maybe you can put a note in a mailbox where dog is coming out? is there a box on the road? just to tell them dog is following you and almost got killed
wish i was in alaska
That is a good looking breakfast. Can't believe how it took all the stars to align in order for you to finally receive it. Enjoy!!!! You are definitely watched over.
BTW .. ' Bill Hess' and 'Sally who works at Arby's' is how I asked PJ to fill out certificates. Even though PJ told me on Jan. 9 that you had gotten yours, we were doubtful. Mike (Mister) strongly believed it had been given to someone else and we were in the process of figuring out how to address it with you.....felt somewhat awkward. Well, I bet now the staff knows your name....'did you hear about.................'.
Mike used to watch Kung Fu and loved how you made the Pres. Obama connection. Brilliant... Admires the way your mind works and how every blog entry contains subtle gems! Should he ever have a layover in Anchorage he would be honored to meet and treat you and Margie personally to a meal.
Melanie must be relieved Royce is doing better....I am.
That sure is scary news about your nephew Uriah, glad injuries don't seem to be life threatening.
Hope Uriah is going to be ok.. An explosion? That's scary?
So glad that Royce is getting better..
I hope you meet that ex- serviceman (is that the right term? That's what we say in India) soon.. I'm sure he'll have some interesting stories to tell..
The ? after scary was supposed to be a . Sorry..
The Veteran spent his breakfast reading the obits?? =(
Thoughts for Uriah!
That man was a former Marine. As the parent of a current Marine, I can tell you that there are no "ex-Marines!" Once a Marine, always a Marine. :-)
My kids had a similar encounter with a pug on a very busy street near my youngest son's new home. What are people thinking? Don't answer that... I know, they're not.
And huzzah for Grasshopper! Someone should forward a copy of this post to the White House! :-)