I walk past a dog, a raven flies by, a jet soars overhead; I wander down "Moose Alley"

I hadn't gone walking about my neighborhood for a long time - either because I had been traveling, riding my bike, or because I was so busy doing other things or maybe I was just being lazy.

Yesterday, I decided it was time to start walking again - to see what I could see - to be a street photographer in Wasilla, Alaska.

I hadn't been walking long before I spotted this dog. It was a wary dog.

It did not know that I am every dog's best friend - even if I am cat person.

This dog had nothing to fear from me.

Yet, it feared me.

I spotted a raven up ahead. It spotted me, then flew over to check me out.

"Hey!" it exclaimed as it swept by, "I recognize you from last winter."

"Yes," I agreed. "I recognize you, too. How you been? I've been meaning to ask your name?"

I never got an answer.

The raven had already flown on.

A jet passed overhead.

I wondered if there were people inside eating pretzels, consuming soft drinks and beer, looking down upon Alaska, marveling at the snow mountains.

I came to the corner of Tamar and Seldon.

I looked both ways, to see if bears might be coming.

I saw no bears.

Not grizzly, not polar, not black.

No bears of any kind

Just a truck.

I decided that it was safe to cross the road and I did.

Then I was in the marsh, which is pretty dry these days and doesn't even seem like a marsh anymore. 

I walked down "Moose Alley," peering into the bushes for moose. I did not want to find myself with a mama cow on one side of me and a calf or two on the other.

I did not see any moose all.

But, late at night, I took a walk in the dark - too dark to take a picture. Suddenly, there was a moose - a cow, about ten feet to my right. I quickly looked to my left.

I saw no calves to my left.

I couldn't be sure. It was pretty dark. The cow was placid, though, so it was okay.

This morning, during the early part of dusk, I cooked myself some oatmeal and then sat down on the couch to eat it. It was then that I looked out through the back door window and saw this moose and two others in the yard.

There wasn't much light, and I did not want my oatmeal to get cold, plus I was wearing slippers and did not want to get snow in my socks, but I picked up my camera, stepped outside and shot a few underexposed frames. They looked like nothing but black in my camera, but I was able to scrape much of the blackness away in Lightroom and Photoshop and so was left with this noisy image.

I don't care if its noisy. That was the situation. Better a noisy photo than no photo.

I then came back in and ate my oatmeal.

It was still hot.

The coffee was still hot.

My day had begun.

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Yesterday, as I exited the post office; technological failures and woes

Despite the fact that it was Sunday, I went to the post office yesterday to check the mail as my trip to Kenai had prevented me from doing so the day before. I found nothing but an empty box - no bills, no checks, no junk ads, no political fliers.

I stepped out the door and headed back to the car, but before I reached it I saw this jet passing by above. I pulled out my pocket camera and shot three frames, including this one.

I then noticed a couple who appeared to be in their 40's, standing beside their car, grinning knowingly as they looked at me.

That's what I do, though. I take pictures - of any damn thing that catches my eye. This jet caught my eye.

As for my current situation - my Canon 5 D Mark II, the cheaper of the two cameras that the rain in Kenai put out of commission - has dried out and come back to life. I don't know if greater damage has been done and if this just might be a temporary resurrection, but for the moment it appears to be functioning properly.

I hope that it continues to do so, because I need it.

My more expensive camera - the weather-sealed, storm-proof, indestructible tank known as the Canon 1Ds Mark III - is wiped out. It is going to require a trip to the Canon Factory to put it back into action.

So, equipment wise, this is my current situation:

My very favorite lens, my 16-35, got sheared in half early last spring in a silly little accident. I have not yet been able to get it repaired. The super-wide shots that you sometimes still see on this blog have all been shot with a cheap, Tamron 14 mm. lens of marginal quality that I purchased in 2002.

My Epson Stylus R2400 Inkjet printer - the only printer that I own, broke down on me in mid-summer and I have not yet been able to replace it.

The image on the screen of my 15-inch Macbook Pro laptop vibrates and jumps up and down at a maddening pace. I took it in to the local shop, where they determined that the computer was okay but the screen had gone bad. 

It will cost anywhere from $300 to $500 to repair it.

My harddrives are all full and I need to invest in about four terabytes of harddrives for my desktop computer and two portable terabytes for my malfunctioning lap top, just to continue on and to make certain that everything is backed up.

And now this with the 1Ds-MIII and the CF card.

Maddening.

And then there is the matter of that 16 gigabyte compact flash card that was in the Ids Mark III when the rain took it down - the camera and card on which I had recorded over 95 percent of the action pictures that I took at the final game of the Barrow Whalers football team. That card is ruined. I was able to save a number of images off of it, but lost a huge amount due to file corruptions.

Yet - despite the loss of so many action images, in human terms I have what I believe to be an excellent and strong take from that final game. This is because I kept the long lens on the big, weather-sealed camera and the short lens on the 5D. I caught so much spirit, feeling and emotion with the short lens.

Now, I just need to get some harddrives before I leave to Kaktovik via Barrow tomorrow afternoon and get it all backed up.

I don't have time to blog anything but this one picture.

I have wasted too much time by writing even this much.

I have an impossible amount to accomplish between now and when I leave.

I should not be blogging at all.

But blog I will.

Transitions - Chilly Barrow to hot Fairbanks to cool and wet Wasilla; Kalib and Jobe return to the blog

Among the things that I did on my last day in Barrow was to interview elders Wesley and Anna Aiken for Uiñiq. They grew up the old way and still express amazement that they can now wake up everyday in a warm house and with the flick of a switch turn on a light.

On April 8, they will celebrate 63 years of marriage and they have a host of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to celebrate with them. I can't say for certain, but I hope to be in Barrow at that time so that I can photograph the celebration.

This is from the night before, and you can see Wesley sitting right up front. I took this picture at what was a Slope-wide gathering to honor the bilingual teachers and others instrumental in setting up bilingual programs over the past five decades or so. The teachers gathered in every village on the North Slope and were joined together by teleconference and then all were honored with certificates and pins. Many were honored posthumously. 

Some, such as Anna Aiken, were not able to attend, but Wesley picked up her awards and brought them home with her. 

These are some of the people who have been working hard to keep the Iñupiaq language alive and vital in the face of TV, video and internet.

Van Edwardson called me on my cell phone to tell me that he had been tearing up the floorboards at his late grandfather's house to build anew when he found this seal-oil lamp beneath it. These are the instruments that people used not so long ago to both light and heat their extremely well-insulated sod iglus.

The lamp would contain seal oil and wicks.

Van notes that the house of his grandfather, Ned Nusunginya, had been there for all of his life and undoubtedly longer than that. "I'm 51," he said.

The lamp is made from soapstone, apparently from Canada and must have got to Barrow via trading and bartering. "This was used by my ancestors," he told me.

After he found the lamp, he took it to the Iñupiat Heritage Center, where it is being given museum care.

Some time ago, I can't remember precisely how long, the artist Vernon Rexford contacted me to ask for permission to use my photographs as the basis for some balleen scrimshaw etchings. I greatly appreciated the fact that he asked and told him to go ahead and just etch my name in there, somewhere. Not long after I returned this time, he was out on his four-wheeler when he spotted me, came over and invited me to come and meet him at the Heritage Center, where he has a full-length balleen hanging in the gallery, with his recreations and interpretations of my photographs from one end to the other.

It was an amazing thing for me to see, to think that what I did had inspired him and he had found a way to work my work into his own vision and create a new kind of life for it that I had never imagined.

He later took me to his work area in the Heritage Center and showed me this smaller piece, also based on my photographs, that he was still working on.

You can see that it is sitting atop a copy of one of my old Uiñiq magazines, with another one above that. The sketch is of his grandmother, the late Bertha Leavitt, and was drawn by Larry Aiken, son of Wesley and Anna, from a photograph that I took of her on the beach in July of 2006. There was a nice breeze blowing that day and it would sometimes catch and lift the hem of Bertha's parka and when it did, I would snap the shutter.

Now he was going to work off the sketch of my photo to etch the image of his grandmother, his Aaka, into his balleen.

I ate a lot of food in Barrow, so much so that when it came time to go, my jacket was feeling tight around the tummy. It hadn't felt that way when I had arrived. 

Due to the satellite problems that were putting the internet out of commission for many hours at a time, Alaska Airlines had been advising passengers to check in at least a couple of hours early because if they were offline, they would have to write tickets by hand.

So I went in two hours early, but the satellite was behaving, Alaska Airlines was online and I received my ticket in reasonable time. Now I needed something to do, so I walked the short distance to the Teriyaki House. I just wanted something light, so I ordered a bowl of soup - a huge bowl of soup, as it turned out.

You will remember Jessie Sanchez, the young Eskimo dancer and whaler who has become a Barrow Whaler football player. He is the kid who got hurt in the first Whaler game. Now the Whalers would soon board the same jet as I would to fly to Fairbanks to play their second game at Eielson Air Force Base. Jessie was feeling much better and he had gotten a Mohawk cut.

He was also getting a bite to eat at Teriyaki, along with his friend Lawrence Kaleak, who you saw dancing at Pepe's at the victory celebration.

After we ate, we all walked back toward Alaska Airlines. That's Jessie's girlfriend, who told me her name but I forgot. She would not be going to Eielson, but only to the Alaska Airlines terminal to say goodbye. For the past week straight, the weather in Barrow had been continually cold and windy, with periods of rain, mist and fog thrown into the mix.

Now, that we were all leaving, it was starting to improve.

Soon, we were all on the jet, football players, coaches and a whole bunch of other people including tourists, businessmen and women and people just heading out to visit someone or to return home.

That's Anthony Elavgak, sitting there thinking. What is it that Samuelu, Samoan, has in his hands in the row behind him? 

Why, it's a ukulele! He makes a nice sound with it. Before continuing on to Anchorage and then Wasilla, I got off the plane in Fairbanks and I did go to Eielson and photographed the game.

It was a very different game than the opener in Barrow. Whereas the temperature in Barrow had been in the 30s and the wind in the 30 mphs, it was hot in Fairbanks and Eielson - in the 80's. The game was tough and Barrow lost, big time, never got on the scoreboard.

But remember, they are a young team, with only four seniors. They never gave up. They fought to the end. And there was one young man, Adrian Panigeo, who really grabbed my heart because of the size of his heart. He was not the biggest man on the field - far from it - but pound for pound I think perhaps he was the toughest. Certainly, there was not one tougher, not on either team. Defense, offense - making tackles, carrying the ball, getting hit hard by bigger men, still to blast his way through for extra yards when it looked like he should have been stopped - that was Adrian Panigeo.

The announcer had a difficult time pronouncing his name, but he had plenty of opportunities to practice until he got it right, because Panigeo was key to so many plays.

Sadly, he was put out of the game before the first half ended and left the field in an ambulance, having taken a hard blow to the sternum and he got overheated.

Football is a new game to the Iñupiat, but to watch Panigeo play, you would think it had been in his genes forever. I haven't had time to edit and prepare my pictures of the game. Maybe I will put some in later, or maybe I will just wait and save them exclusively for Uiñiq.

We will see.

Early Sunday afternoon, I boarded the plane in Fairbanks. I didn't really want to. The high temperature in Fairbanks was forecast to be 85 degrees. I wanted to hang around, with nothing to do but whatever I wanted to do, and experience that 85 degrees. But I also wanted to see my family and I could not afford to stay in Fairbanks just to have fun, so I boarded the plane.

As it turned out, the temperature in Fairbanks hit 91 this day, a record both for the date and for this late in August.

The plane departed an hour-and-a-half late and there were a bunch of people on board with a tour group that was continuing on to Hawaii. They had to switch planes fast, so they asked all of us who were not going to Hawaii to stay in our seats until those who were had left the plane.

So all these folks you see standing and trying to get out were headed to Hawaii. Unless there's some cheaters in there, who were only pretending to go to Hawaii so that they could off the plane ahead of the rest of us.

After we landed, the voice on the intercom welcomed us to Ted Stevens International Airport. I had always wondered how it felt to Ted Stevens, each time he was on a plane and heard this same welcome.

Now, Alaska was preparing for his funeral. He would never hear that welcome again.

Anchorage had just set its own weather record - for the most consecutive days of rain, 29, I believe. It must be 31 now.

Margie was there to pick me up. As we exited the airport, we found ourselves traveling alongside this small tourist bus. We were in wild Alaska for certain.

Sunday night, Margie and I spent our one night in the same house together and then, early the next morning, I drove her into Anchorage so that she could spend the next four days babysitting Jobe.

Here's Jobe. My pocket camera battery died immediately after I took this picture.

The other day, I was looking at queries people use to get to this blog. One read, "Where is Kalib?!" 

Here he is, as captured in my iPhone.

An iPhone image of Margie, Muzzy, and Jobe. Muzzy recently had minor surgery that brought to an end all notions of perhaps breeding him. Now, he must not be allowed to lick himself in a certain place or to bite at stitches.

In the afternoon, I headed to Metro for the usual hot drink, then took the long way home. As I did, I was so overcome by sleepiness that I stopped at this secluded place, closed my eyes and feel alseep listening to All Things Considered.

When I sort of awoke a few minutes later, I shot this image with my iPhone.

I then drove home the even longer way and shot this image by iPhone, too. The battery was still dead in my pocket camera, that's why.

This was yesterday. I awoke this morning to the sound of more rain. Another weather record broken.

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Signs for politicians, including one who once sold an airplane that later crashed with me at the stick

I am back in Wasilla for what I expect to be a fairly brief time. I was unable to post my last couple of days in Barrow or yesterday in Fairbanks and I do need to catch up a bit and to say something of that time and I will. But I am too tired right now. I just want to go to bed and get some sleep. Yet, I need to put something up, so that readers know I am still blogging. So here you have the something - the only picture that I have taken since I arrived back in Wasilla late this afternoon. I took it when I had to stop for about 1 second for a red light at the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways, where people were campaigning for their candidates in the upcoming primary. See the blue sign? The one that says, "Gatto"? That is Carl Gatto and he is the man from whom I bought my now crashed airplane, the Running Dog, back in 1986, for $15,900. At the time, Gatto told me that he didn't really want to sell it, but his wife had had enough of him being an aircraft owner and flying around risking his life and so he was selling it. I did not yet have my pilot's license, so we agreed that I would come over to his house, where he had his own private airstrip and he would fly the plane with me in it to Palmer to the mechanic who was going to annual it for me. When I arrived, the ceiling was maybe 1500 feet, not bad at all, but Carl looked at it and said it was too low and he was not going to be able to fly me over this day. He just didn't want to part with the airplane. So I drove to Palmer where my mechanic waited for me. I told him that Carl had refused to fly because of the "low ceiling." My mechanic looked at the clouds, said that was ridiculous and so we headed back to Carl's airstrip and we stole my own airplane - right off Carl's strip. After the annual, Carl called me up. He wanted to rent the airplane from me, but I wouldn't let him. I will always be grateful to him for selling me that airplane, but that doesn't mean I would ever vote for him. I've told this story before, but what the hell. I just told it again. I'll probably repeat it again sometime in the future. As there is only one image in this post, I did not make a slide show, but if you want to see the picture bigger, just click on it. It looks better bigger.

As I work to finish up my Greenland posts, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe invite us to Jalepeno's; Kalib walks past the wreckage of my past life; Margie and Jobe on the couch

Yesterday, I stated that I was about to buckle down and finally finish up my Greenland posts. I had, in fact, set out to do this very thing when Lavina called Margie and asked for us to meet her, Kalib and Jobe at Jalepeno's, where she would buy us lunch.

Lavina had come out to the valley to teach a class on diabetes, which is why Margie had not already gone into Anchorage to begin her week-long babysitting shift. On this day, she would babysit at the house.

We did join the three at Jalepeno's.

The waitress found herself helplessly charmed by Jobe.

Lavina fed Kalib and Jobe scrutinized the world outside the window.

Lavina kissed Jobe. 

Astute observers will note a bad flare in the mid to left portion of this and the above frames. I am afraid that the lens to my pocket camera has been afflicted with a permanent mar that no amount of cleaning can remove. This happened in New York City in April, but in the time since has only gotten worse. Now, this happens whenever I shoot against the main light source, sometimes manifesting itself like this, sometimes as two rainbow-colored streaks coming down the frame; sometimes both flaws appear in the same frame.

I don't like it, but my first objective in taking a photograph is to capture some kind of feeling and if I succeed, then I don't get that uptight about the technical flaws.

I still notice them, though.

I have thought about sending the camera back to Canon for repair, but I will probably just hang on to it until the next generation of the s90 comes out, or something just as tiny but better, and then purchase that.

The ability to carry a camera around in my pocket has simply spoiled me; caused me to learn to hate my big, bread and butter cameras.

I can't stand to carry them anymore.

All of a sudden, Jobe started to scream and cry, terrified.

He looked at his grandpa and calmed down.

When we arrived at the house, Kalib did not go in but set out to the backyard. I cut through the house so that I could get there ahead of him. I caught him in this photo, walking past the wreckage of my destroyed airplane, the Running Dog - walking past the wreckage of the dream that I once strived so hard to live.

Whatever anyone thinks of my lifestyle and how I get around and what I do, it just has not been at all the same since I crashed this plane. I lost something precious that day, September 22, 2001. I always thought that I would get it back. I still think so, but am beginning to doubt.

My entire identity and concept of who and what I am has been hit hard, damaged severely. Life does not feel the same to me as it did before, when The Running Dog was airworthy and I would sit in the cockpit, my right hand upon the stick, Alaska beneath my wings.

Kalib, who does not yet know that his grandpa used to fly this airplane all about Alaska. I wish that I could have strapped him into the back seat and have taken him for a ride on this very day.

Margie and Jobe, in the house. I think she had just changed his diaper. I had just come in from my office, where I had been going through my Greenland pictures.

Margie and Jobe, again.

I can't get enough of these two, together. And now both are gone from me for awhile, as Lavina took them and Kalib back to Anchorage with her this morning.

It's possible that I will not spend another night with Margie this trip home. Saturday morning, I leave for Fort Yukon, for the Gwich'in Gathering. Maybe someone will bring Margie home Friday night so that she can get up in the morning and go back to town with me Saturday when I catch my plane.

I don't know yet.

Late last night, I did finally complete my first pass giving at least a glance to every photo that I took in Greenland.

It had been my intent to do nothing but blog Greenland today, to put up two, three, four or however many posts necessary to bring this project to some kind of conclusion before I go to bed tonight.

But now that I have put this post up, I think that I had better leave it at the top for 24 hours, because Kalib and Jobe have many friends and relatives out there who come to this blog only to see them. Some of my readers don't care about anything else that I post here - they only want to see Kalib and Jobe. Some of them might miss this post if I put something else on top of it. 

So the Greenland conclusion will just have to wait for one more day.

I hope I get it done before I leave for Fort Yukon.

I have many other things to do between now and then as well - a couple of which must be done today. I need to be three people, each one of whom is me.

Four, maybe.

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