The week so far in catch up: girl sled boats in meltwater; school bus adventures; Oscar's bike ride; Jobe is ill; Studies of dogs eating biscuits

Thanks to my three part series covering Jobe's first steps stepping out party Sunday evening, I have neglected to post anything about the week since as it has unfolded so far. Truth is, while it has been a week of furious and relentless activity inside my head and flowing through my fingers into the keyboard and then my computer, visually it has not been a week that has given me many images to post.

I have basically spent it right here, at my computer, day and night, typing and mousing, picking cats up off my keyboard and putting them on the floor only to have to them ump right back up so we can do it all over again.

Still, I have a few images to post. I will start with today, a day that has begun very lazily for me for the simple fact that this morning at 3:00 AM I finally finished up the task that I had hoped to complete by last Saturday night, but which proved much more time-consuming than I had reckoned.

As all my tasks seem to do.

I then went to bed exhausted, yet wired up and so lay awake for about two hours, after which I slept sporadically and then got up about 9:00 AM, determined to take this day off and relax.

I found that it was snowing, and the wind was blowing.

Pretty normal for this time of year.

It is also not unusual this time of year to have the image of spring appear before you, to have people say, "this is really it, this is spring," even though everybody knows that this a very foolish thing to say because, even though for Alaska our climate is fairly temperate here, spring still means something different in Wasilla than it does in most of the more populated world.

So late Monday afternoon, when I pedaled my bike back home from Metro Cafe and saw this girl, using ski poles to propel herself through a huge puddle of melt water, it certainly looked like winter had given up altogether.

Yesterday afternoon, I pedaled by there again. The puddle had refrozen. The yard behind was again blanketed in snow. I thought about taking a picture to prove it, but I did not want to stop and so I just pedaled on.

When Margie stays in town to babysit, I tend to eat breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. So that is what I did Tuesday morning. As I drove home, I saw these students, waiting for their school bus.

A bit further down the road, I witnessed what might have been their bus, turning onto Church Road. It was a damned exciting sight to see.

Then up ahead on Church, I saw another bus, stopped, stopping the pickup behind it, stopping me, so that these three students could board and head for class.

And in the afternoon, post-Metrol Cafe, I came upon this four-wheeler.

Wasilla forever teems with exciting activities.

In the evening, I went to Anchorage to pick Margie up and bring her home, but first I stopped at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art to take in an ASMP slide show titled Nomadic Photographer presented by Oscar Avellanda.

Oscar's roots are in Columbia, so in January of 2010, he got on his bike and with his sister and a friend pedaled his bike from Anchorage to Whittier. There, they boarded the ferry and traveled to Bellingham, Washington and then he and his sister continued on and pedaled all the way down through the West Coast, through Mexico, El Salvadore and into Columbia.

As you would expect, he took pictures all along the way, although not nearly as many as he had anticipated, as the work of pedaling a bike often took precedence over photography. The picture that stands out strongest in my mind is a black and white of his little tiny bike parked near the oceanside in southern Mexico, with a gigantic cruise ship looming large above it in the background.

This what the online ASMP announcement had to say about Oscar:

"Along the way, Oscar was attacked by a dog, underwent treatment for rabies, became engaged, discovered his roots, and redefined his conceptions of material necessities. Mr. Avellaneda’s artistic photographic images and stories have redefined his role as a photographer while challenging the social norms of his industry."

It is a much more complex story than that, of course, but I think for now, I will that suffice. In time, I suspect, Oscar will produce something that tells the story in depth.

I then went over to Jake and Lavina's to pick Margie up, but Jobe had taken a turn for the worse. He had vomited. He was running a fever. Margie decided to stay, probably until Sunday, when Jacob, Lavina and family depart for a workshop in New Mexico and then a vacation in Arizona. She will help them out until they go.

Yesterday, for my one break in a very long day, I again pedaled my bike to Metro Cafe at coffee time. There, I shot this series of three Metro studies:

Through the Metro Window from inside, Study #410: Carmen offers a dog biscuit to Loki. Loki sniffs the biscuit, but does not take it.

Through the Metro Window from inside, Study #63: Jim, the dog's pet human, takes the biscuit. Loki then takes the biscuit from his pet.

Through the Metro Window from inside, Study #7,895: Jim takes a second biscuit from Carmen and the dog, Coda, takes it from Jim.

And so goes the world.

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Cat on screen, cat on desk - big day for blog leaves me discouraged but not defeated; four studies of the tiny hockey player

In terms of numbers of visitors, yesterday was a pretty good day for this blog - and that kind of discouraged me a bit - it kind of made me feel like this whole blogging effort touches on futility. I must assure you that this is in no way a signal that I am going to retreat or quit blogging. No - I aim to go bull-headedly forward just as I have been. But still, yesterday was a mighty discouraging day for me as a blogger.

Saturdays tend to be my lowest visitor days of the week. Typically, on Saturdays, my readership drops off by more than 30 percent. But yesterday, Saturday, my readership soared to about three times the weekday average - somewhere between four and five times the usual Saturday average.

How could this be discouraging?

It happened because of one thing - these three words in my headline: "Sarah Palin's buick."

Actually, the word, "buick" was but a small part of it. It could have read, "Sarah Palin's dog... Sarah Palin's frog... Sarah Palin's duck... Sarah Palin's mop... Sarah Palin's oatmeal... ... etc. etc." The result would have been the same.

Oh well. Life is what it is, I am what I am, and will continue on as I have been until I find the time and means to do as I want and then I will all but ignore Sarah Palin, except as a teaser now and then to see if her name will still draw hordes of extra readers into my blog.

One good thing about this life is cats. Yesterday, I entered my office to find that my slideshow screen saver had been activated. Melanie's Diamond was on the screen and Pistol-Yero sat by the keyboard. When he visits, Kalib loves to watch all these grand cats scroll across my screen when I step away from my computer.

Also, please note the little contraptions sitting on my desk to the left. What you see is docks and harddrives. I can move harddrives in and out of those docks at will. I have more harddrives in the computer, and more harddrives stuck in old-fashioned enclosures lying here and there.

The three you see here are eacg two terabyte harddrives. There are several more 2 TB's sitting in a drawer beneath my computer.

A while back, I had an extremely bad hard drive nightmare and one of my good-hearted readers suggested that I pick up one of those little plastic-encased harddrives that can hold a terabyte and thus solve my information management problem.

I got a good chuckle out of that one - although I definitely appreciated the thought and concern.

I have a number of those little plastic hard drives. They are what I take into the field.

I shoot a lot, you see, and I shoot high resolution files RAW. I don't throw any images away, not even the blurry ones. It would take too much time. Plus, I have discovered that I can pick up a take a year or 20 after I first shot it and find that some of the images that I rejected are actually better than the ones I used.

I go through harddrive space like you would not believe. Tomorrow, I plan to buy two more two terabyte harddrives, but I really need to buy four or five more, if I could only afford to.

Yesterday, when I pulled into the Metro Cafe drive-through, it was Branson, the tiny hockey player, who came to greet me. He wanted to pose for a study. So here it is:

Study of the tiny hockey player, #242: Branson wears his Metro baseball cap as the young writer, Shoshana, prepares coffee in the background.

Then Branson decided that he wanted to do a study without his cap, so he took it off. His mom hurried right over to touch up his hair for the picture. So here it is:

Study of the tiny hockey player, #237: Carmen makes Brandon's hair look nice.

Study of the tiny hockey player, #239: Carmen admires the hair of her tiny hockey player.

Study of the tiny hockey player, #241: His hair looking good, Branson poses for Study #1.

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Two studies of the young writer, Shoshana; dog in the post office; six scenic views taken through the window or a red Ford Escape in the vicinity of the Little Susistna River and the Manvil H. Olson Bridge; breakfast

Metro Cafe study of the young writer, Shoshana, #1,313,467,982.3333: The young writer removes the cap from the half-and-half.

Metro Cafe study of the young writer, Shoshana, #7: The young writer readies a lid before snapping it on a cup of steaming Americano.

In mid December, a photographer friend who lives in Greece and who I met at the online magazine, burn, air-mailed his book, Nicosia in Dark and White, to my street address. Months passed, and that book did not show up. So, maybe less than two weeks ago, he mailed me another copy, this time to my P.O. Box.

The very next day, the book that he had sent three months earlier did arrive at my house.

And now the one that he sent to my P.O. Box arrived, but since it does not fit into my box, I had to stand in line to pick it up.

As I waited, I saw this dog, a helper dog. When he lady and the dog left, I wanted to call out to her, to stop her and have her tell me something of this dog's story and what it does for her.

But I did not want to lose my place in line. I did not want to annoy the people in line behind me.

So I did not call out.

The two walked out the door and I have seen neither since.

Someday, maybe.

Scenic view in the vicinity of the Little Susistna River and the Manvil H. Olson Bridge as seen through the window of a red Ford Escape, # 1: the river itself.

Scenic view in the vicinity of the Little Susistna River and the Manvil H. Olson Bridge as seen through the window of a red Ford Escape, # 2: trees above the bank of the river.

Scenic view in the vicinity of the Little Susistna River and the Manvil H. Olson Bridge as seen through the window of a red Ford Escape, # 3: the bullet-pocked sign put up in honor of Manvil H. Olson, for whom the bridge is named.

Scenic view in the vicinity of the Little Susistna River and the Manvil H. Olson Bridge as seen through the window of a red Ford Escape, # 4: a tree on the river's bank is reflected off the dirty window of a school bus.

Scenic view in the vicinity of the Little Susistna River and the Manvil H. Olson Bridge as seen through the window of a red Ford Escape, # 5: queue of mailboxes just across the bridge.

Scenic view in the vicinity of the Little Susistna River and the Manvil H. Olson Bridge as seen through the window of a red Ford Escape, # 6: the river itself, as seen while crossing back over the bridge.

I had another one of those nights that I could not sleep and so, at too early of an hour, gave up and went and had breakfast alone at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. 

Readers will note that in the recent past, it was very dark outside during these breakfasts - and that was true even if I went late.

Now it is light.

Yep. The season of darkness is over for this winter.

By the way - Jobe and Kalib are here. Reader friends can visit them tomorrow.

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One study of the young writer, Shoshana, involving chicken soup; three buses and a really tight squeeze

Taking my one break away from the computer from just after I got up to just before I went to bed, at 4:00 PM I headed to Metro cafe to get my Americano. There, Shoshana greeted me with a bowl of chicken soup.

Shoshana's mother, Tobi, had made the soup and knowing that Margie was sick, Shoshana thought a bowl might do her some good.

Hence we have:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #21,324: Shoshana brings chicken soup for my ill wife.

Shoshana was a little surprised when I raised my camera to photograph her with the soup. I am not certain why, since I photograph just about everything, but I am pleased that she was, as her reaction gave the picture an added touch.

Bus # 1: spotted driving into a sunbeam as I was driving the soup home to Margie.

Margie was surprised and touched when I presented the soup to her.

In the evening, Margie heated up the soup. She took her first spoonful even before she could sit down. She pronounced it excellent. She shared a small bowl with me. It was delicious - seasoned just right, with an elegant touch of broccoli.

Thank you, Shoshana.

Thank you, Tobi.

And this from India: the really tight squeeze

Buses #2 and #3:

On Monday, I included a picture of two trucks passing by each other while traveling in opposite directions. One reader, Mrs Gunka, commented that it was "a tight squeeze."

So I decided it was time to show this, a really tight squeeze.

Furthermore, notice that there is a surprisingly large gap between our taxi and the bus ahead. No matter how tight, in India, no such gap can be left unfilled for but a fraction of a moment.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the Indian highway abhors a gap in traffic.

 A guy on a motor scooter shoots the gap as the buses slip by each other.

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I take an eight-dog walk

Dogs numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5: I came upon them at the Rocket House - Tequila and four others, who I think may be her pups, but I don't know. As regular readers know, Tequila always tries to act tough, even though I know otherwise.

On this walk, however, she was nothing but friendly.

"Hey Bill!" she shouted out in a welcoming bark. "Want to come in and have some coffee?"

"Who made it?" I shouted back.

"I did!" she barked proudly.

"No thanks," I answered.

I have never met a dog yet who could brew a decent cup of coffee.

I walked on, leaving Tequila and her kids to whine and pout.

Dogs numbers 6, 7 and 8: I saw them coming up Tamar as I was going down. The situation looked worrisome. I was reminded of the lone, western hero, his six-shooter Colt hanging from his belt as he walk down the street toward a quartet of sneering gunslingers, his six-shooter hanging low off his belt.

Except my Colt was a Canon camera and it doesn't shoot anything but pictures.

Oh, my goodness! I can see that I am in trouble! It is Button, Duke and Sugar, with their sidekick Robert - feared in every corner of Alaska! I know that I am about to get mauled to death.

Sure enough, they ripped me to pieces.

And then, leaving my torn remains lying on the icy road, they went about their business, looking for another walker to maul.

Somehow, I pulled my shredded self back together, got up and walked on - a one-armed shadow of my former self.

Through the Window Metro Study, # 4186: At the usual time in the afternoon, I drove to Metro for my coffee and found the friendly and wry smiles of Elizabeth, Greg and Carmen. It was good - great. Unlike the dog, Tequila, they know how to brew a cup of coffee at Metro.

So I drove away, drinking and savoring, putting myself back together after having been ripped apart by friendly dogs.

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