I stepped out of the house twice today and these are the people that I saw

Determined to get myself on a schedule that is more in sync with the world around me, at 3:30 in the morning I set my iPhone alarm for 10:00 AM, right about sunrise. I had not engaged in my favorite morning activity for quite some time - going out for breakfast. I told Margie that if I made it up before 11:00, I would go to breakfast at Abby's and invited her to come with me.

I didn't sleep very good and I don't think I will until these shingles leave me. I believe they are on the retreat, the scabs are gone and the color is fading, but even so they are pretty damn tenacious. When the alarm went off, I could hardly move. So I tapped "snooze." Pretty soon it went off again, so I tapped "snooze" again.

I did this about three times and then finally got up at about 10:20.

Margie had already eaten, so I went to Abby's Home Cooking by myself.

Tim Mahoney was there, drinking his coffee from a cowboy cup. That's bowhead balleen from Barrow on the wall, brought back by another Mahoney brother who had been working on a construction project.

This is baby Luke. Just like baby Lynx, he was born small - five pounds, eight ounces. He went down to five pounds before he started gaining weight but now he is growing and looks fit and happy.

The eggs, ham, hashbrowns, homemade wheat bread toast cut thick and topped with butter and raspberry jam were excellent.

Abby said she had been worried about me and Margie because she had not seen us for a long time. She looked at this blog to reassure herself but still was worried. So she wouldn't let me pay for breakfast, because she was that relieved to see me.

I left a big tip.

A little after 4:00 PM, I headed out into the dark and ventured off to Metro Cafe. I have not shot any Young Writer studies for quite awhile, but here is one:

Shoshana the Young Writer, Study #2228: Shoshana about to prepare my Americano.

And one more:

Shoshana the Young Writer, Study #4: Shoshana stirs cream and raw sugar into my Americano.

And that pretty much sums up the people I saw during my two adventures outside the house today.

Sub-zero walk at dusk

I read that cats sleep up to 16 hours a day - a little piece here, a big piece there, a chunk here. I fear that in some ways I have become kind of like a cat lately - except that I know for a fact that when cats sleep, they sleep good, even though they are ready to wake up and spring into action in a fraction of a second.

Today, I got up a little after 2:00 PM - just in time for me to cook and eat my oatmeal, catch just a bit of news and web updates, put on some thermal underway, two pairs of socks, three sweatshirts, a light but good jacket, an ear band and a baseball cap and then head out onto my walk, only to discover that the sun had already set.

Judging both by the degree that my nostrils stuck together when I enhaled and the amount of frost that built up in my mustache and beard when I exhaled, I estimated the temperature to be close to -10 F (-23 C).

I was dressed plenty warm enough for such weather, but, as I have noted before, these shingles which I no longer want to write about seem to have greatly cut down my resistance to cold. So I walked and froze, stopping every now and then to snap a frame and when I stopped, I froze even more.

Some might think that under the circumstance, I would be justified in foregoing the walk. No. I must walk. And pretty soon I am going to get some studded tires for my bicycle and then I will start biking again, too.

I wanted to get the studded tires today, but I got up too late.

And pretty soon, I am also going force myself back into a better sleep pattern. As it stands, I have been going to bed about 2:00 AM and then getting up at anywhere from 10 or 11, or, today, after 2:00 PM. 

I do a few things and then pretty soon lie down upon the couch, the woodstove burning hot just beyond my feet and doze in and out of the kind of dream world I have described before. Always, I am joined by at least two cats and sometimes three. They want to snuggle up right on my shingles, but I do not let them, so they wind up on my legs or lower tummy, where they add their own warmth to that of the fire. While the dreams can get bizarre and the pain never goes away, these couch naps are in some ways the and most pleasant part of my day.

In this picture, I have just completed my walk and am back at the house. This is the smoke coming from the woodstove that makes my naps so toasty and nice.

I justify these long hours of sleep and rest by telling myself that I need them and that is why my body is forcing me to do it. But I have lots to do and I must get back to it.

After I finished my walk, I did not want to bring my frozen camera into the house, so I put it in the car, started the car, went inside while the car warmed up then came back out and drove off for coffee. The temperature out here was, indeed, - 10.

Metro Cafe was still closed for the holiday weekend, but some kind of group must have rented it for a party of somekind. I snapped this shot from the car as I drove past. I continued on to Kaladi bros, where the temperature was a warm - 2 F, bought a 12 oz Americano black, then brought it home, gave half of it to Margie and used the other half to wash down a left-over piece of the pumpkin chiffon pie she had made for Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin chiffon must have been invented by the angels. It was a heavenly experience, shingles be damned!

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Retreat becomes full-blown hiatus - final post until September 15: puddle lakes, familiar road, study of the young writer

I shot two scenes today, both on my morning walk, and one portrait, on my coffee break. This is the first scene and I shot it because when I saw these puddles, I was reminded of how it used to be when I would be flying my airplane and would look down and see a seemingly endless spatter of lakes laid out across the tundra.

Minnesota boasts of 10,000 lakes. There are 3 million in Alaska and I used to fly over them in my little airplane. I would pay very close attention to those lakes, and match them up with the ones on my map. I always wanted to know just where I was.

Once I lost track and then all the lakes looked the same and I could not match any of them to my map. Oh, well. I just followed my compass and it took me to where I wanted to go, anyway - that being Umiat. Then GPS came along and it didn't seem to matter anymore, but still I kept track of those lakes, because I still wanted to always know where I was.

I long to fly over those lakes again.

I have photographed this stretch of road many times - with snow, school buses, people on bicycles, fall leaves, dogs running, moose crossing, a cat walking... but somehow, today, when I looked at it, it looked different to me than it had ever looked before.

So I shot it again.

Afterward, I realized - this summer retreat that I announced awhile back - this effort to keep this blog short and simple? I must make it a full hiatus and break away until mid-September.

It is not because I am tired of doing the blog. I love doing the blog. Of all the forms of publishing that I have ever engaged myself in there is only one that I like doing better than the blog - and that is the writing and making of books.

That is my favorite thing of all - to write and make books - I have done a lot of book writing and making that still needs to be brought to completion - and then this blog.

But I have some projects I must finish, and soon, including two Uiñiq magazines, the second of which will probably be the last Uiñiq I ever do. I can't say that for certain, because I thought that in 1996, yet I wound up doing some more.

If I am to finish these Uiñiqs and the two other jobs I have lined up between now and summer's end, I must put aside as many distractions as I possibly can.

And, as much as I love it, this blog is a distraction from those projects.

So I am putting it aside until September 15, when all the paying projects that I am working on should be done.

Then I truly need to figure out how to make online publishing pay, because I either figure out how to live in the world of online publishing or I go under. It is that simple.

The old ways of doing things are fading and, when I finish my current projects, I am pretty sure they will be over for me, for good, permanently.

So I have to figure it out.

I do not have the temperament to take a regular job - even a photography job - and to work for someone and get bossed around. And there aren't so many good jobs left anymore, anyway, because everybody's got a camera on their phone and everybody is on Facebook and photographs are seen more and more as cheap and common things that are to be taken for free and given away for free and it is pretty hard to compete against free and for free.

And yet, to survive online, one must somehow learn to give away his work for free and yet bring in income for doing it.

I have yet to figure it out, but I must.

If I can, I can really do something.

If not... no... it can work. I know it can work.

It must work. It will work. 

I can do it and I will do it.

I just don't know how.

Haven't a clue.

This is the portrait I shot, just before I rolled past the drive-through window at Metro Cafe. Hence:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #7,921: she appears at the Metro window with a braid in her hair.

I know that in taking such a long break, I will lose some of my current readers for good. Other things will fill the time they now devote to this blog and when I return, they will just keep going on as they are.

But I won't lose Shoshana. She will come back and she will read the blog again. I am confident that others among you will, too.

And then I have to get... I don't know... say, 100,000 or so more new readers to join in.

Maybe a million more.

Or one very rich philanthropist who wants to turn me loose.

Then I would not have to worry about making a living and I could really go nuts. I could make an online publication like no one had ever seen before.

I am not saying it would be the best online photographic publication in the world - not with great publications out there like Burn and Visura and Lens, drawing on a wide variety of the best photo talent in the world. But it would be good and it would be like nothing else anyone had seen before. This I am confident of.

Alaska would come alive, right here, in my blog, or whatever my blog becomes or merges with. ALIVE!!! Because this place called Alaska lives, and I live to be in it.

That will not happen, of course. That philanthropist does not exist. But, somehow... I just have to figure it out.

Maybe pulling back from it for awhile will help me figure it out.

Or maybe it is all a foolish dream, destined to go the way of all foolish dreams.

No... no... I cannot yield to that notion.

I will keep reading Shoshana's stories as well. When she finishes a story, she brings a copy to Metro Cafe and passes it through the window to me, along with the coffee and the pastry.

That is why I know she is a talented writer. She is a talented barista as well, but her talents go way beyond making and serving lattes.

See you in September!

PS: Even though I will not be posting, I will keep shooting, everyday, capturing smatterings of whatever I see, just as I have been.

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UK coffee treat; a shadow, biking through the shadows

When I pulled up to the drive through window at Metro Cafe yesterday afternoon and went to pull my wallet out, Elizabeth told me to put it back. Carmen had received a letter with a purchase order for a Metro punch card from Martin Garrod of the UK.

Carmen came out and read the letter. It was a very nice letter. She said she will make me a copy of it.

Here is Elizabeth, bringing me my coffee as Carmen talks with Martin on the phone... I jokes! I do not know who Carmen was talking to.

Thank you, Martin! It was a big and welcome surprise and the coffee was excellent.

Martin sometimes leaves a comment after a post.

I feel rather bad about comments right now, as it has always been my intent to keep up a daily dialogue with those who leave comments, but my days are so packed and I am always so far behind schedule that most days I just let the comments stand for themselves, without responding to them.

I hope that sometime in the future I can do better.

Be assured, I appreciate all comments that are left here.

If everything had gone according to my plan, I would be hanging out at Era Aviation in Deadhorse right now, waiting for the airplane that I had expected to take me to Kaktovik where I was scheduled to land at 3:45 this afternoon.

However, an order for pictures that must be delivered before I can leave came in yesterday and it involves some searching and lot of sorting, editing, and processing. I thought I could get it all done by 1:00 AM and then get a little bit of sleep and make my 9:30 AM flight out of Anchorage, but I couldn't. So I postponed my trip to Kaktovik by one more day - except that tomorrow I leave on the 6:30 AM flight, which means I must get up about 4:00 and that is going to be tough - but my scheduled arrival is 10:30 AM and that will give me most of the day to get a little work done.

Late at night, I got on bike and went shadow biking.

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I walk to breakfast at Abby's and see bunny rabbits hopping

This is not part of my walk to breakfast. This from my bicycle ride last night as I was returning home, pedaling down the Seldon bike trail somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 PM.

There was a little bit of magic going on in the sky.

This morning, I decided that I would take advantage of the fact that there is now a restaurant with a good breakfast in easy walking distance and so set out to walk to Abby's Home Cooking. It is a mile-and-a-half away and so I told Margie that if she decided she wanted to join me she could drive over in 15 to 20 minutes.

I had barely begun to walk, when I saw two bunny rabbits hopping through the grass. This is one of them. I have been seeing these bunny rabbits all over this end of the neighborhood ever since breakup. Two, sometimes three. Bunny rabbits being bunny rabbits, there might be more than that.

Given the number of loose dogs around here (two of which reside at this very house) I am kind of shocked that these bunny rabbits have made it this long.

I have asked a couple of neighbors whose lawns the bunny rabbits frequent if they are theirs, but none of them have had any idea where they come from.

Me, I've got an idea where they come from. It would be right in keeping with so much that has poured out from a certain place. But I do not know for certain. There could be other explanations, so I will keep my theory to myself, for now.

On the Seldon bike trail, I met Sugar - a good and friendly dog. She had been having digestive problems the past couple of days, but, as of this walk, everything seems to have come out okay and she is feeling better.

Here I am at Abby's. I hope one day to come in and see butts sitting on all these stools and all the tables full, except for one, where I will sit down, hopefully with Margie - Kalib and Jobe will be welcome, too, of course, and all other members of the family who might help us manage them. That's Jeremy she's talking to and he came in to order an egg sandwich. Jeremy works in the convenience store next door and did a lot to help Abby get started.

Today, Abby was working alone - cooking, waitressing, bussing - the whole works.

She received a couple of take-out orders while I was there, but I was the only sit down customer.

Here she is, having just served me my order. And I have to tell you - and I mean no offense to either of the family restaurants, Mat-Su Valley or Denali, or to IHOP, but this was simply the best eggs and potatoes breakfast that I have had anywhere in Wasilla - and I have never had better hashbrowns than what I was served today.

Monday's hashbrowns were good, but today's - oh, my goodness! She started out with a whole, uncut, Yukon Gold potato that she did not take a shredder to until after I ordered.

Boy, was it good! Margie never did show up. After I walked back home, showed her this picture and told her how good it was, she wished that she had come.

I don't know what she ate. Oatmeal Squares, I would bet - from the box that Charlie gave us.

Abby's brother, Tim Mahoney, father of the Joe Mahoney who made the stools, came in and got his mug filled. If you missed the picture of Tim working in his field, click right here. 

As I was walking out the door, her son Justin came in with his beautiful girlfriend, Stephanie, and gave his mom a hug. I should have got a picture of Stephanie, too. I don't know why I didn't. I guess I'm still a little bit shy.

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