iPadding it: with Jobe, Kalib, Margie, Chicago, Jim and Pistol

I have been wanting an iPad since they first came out - mostly, because I want to see the capabilities for online magazine and e-photo-book publishing, but until now I have not been able to justify the expense. I justify it now because I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I was going to have to purchase a new computer that would cost many times as much as the iPad, but now that I don't have to, then an iPad seems a good investment.

Of course, the iPad comes with a built-in camera. The resolution is low and the quality less than the iPhone, but I love any camera I can get my hands on and I worry less about technical quality than if I can use it to capture a feeling in the picture.

So, all of today's images were taken with my new iPad.

I started out with Margie and me.

Jobe and me next. He and Kalib came yesterday afternoon and will be here through today, maybe into tomorrow. I'm not sure.

Kalib, eating peanut butter and jelly.

I went to bed about midnight and, as always, when these boys overnight, Kalib slept with me and Jobe with Margie in the guest room. I spent an hour reading, Miss New India, a book that I first heard about from an Alan Cheuse review on NPR and he convinced me that I must read it. It is the first book that I will have read on an e-reader - in this case, the iPad.

It was fun, because I did not have to turn any lights on and page turning was instantaneous. At first, I thought I preferred reading a paper book, but after I had been at it for awhile I began to change my mind. I wouldn't want to read a book on an iPad while soaking in the tub, though.

In the morning, when I woke up for good sometime after 7:00 AM, I found Kalib sleeping like this, and so picked up the iPad and shot.

The light was dim in the room. This would be approximately the equivalent of shooting at ISO 10,000 or so.

Chicago had slept on the other side of my head. Here she is.

Chicago and me, in the early hours. 

My hand, before I get out of bed.

Me, still in bed. I have to wear that damn thing on my nose if I am to breathe and get any sleep at all. Looks likes its time for a haircut and beard trim again, especially since I will be heading back into the field shortly.

Jim was looking out the window.

Jim - as captured in the early morning with my iPad.

I went into the next room, which was even darker. Jobe woke up and came to greet me.

He was still tired, so he collapsed at his grandma's feet.

Soon, Jobe and I were out in the front room. Kalib slept on. Margie was coming to and would soon join us.

You did not see Pistol in the bedroom because he did not want to share the bed with Kalib, so he pouted and slept in the front room by himself.

Jobe scurries across the living room, carrying the two golf balls.

You can't see them, but this is only a second or so later, so he is still carrying the balls.

Now he is eating them.

Margie and Jobe, immediately after a diaper change.

Gramma and grandson.

Grandson and gramma.

Jobe gets down.

Jobe is ready to go. Gramma is not ready to let him go.

iPad still life: half a small cup of coffee. When Melanie and I went to India for Soundarya's wedding, Murthy gave me a set of small coffee cups. In India, they tend to keep their cups small. Drinking from a small cup helps me to not overdo it.

Plus, I like the cups.

Margie feeds Jobe some Oatmeal Squares.

iPad still life: Artificial flowers on the kitchen table, flanked by math.

But then, isn't math everywhere?

That's what my kindergarten teacher would always tell us, whenever we complained about the difficulty of the latest calculus quiz she had given us.

"Math is everywhere!" she would say. "Around and inside us - in the number of times a bird flaps its wings as it flies overhead - and how many times does your heart beat per minute... how many bites can you take out of a cookie... how many decibels in the croak of a frog...?

"It's all math, students," she would say. "Math is everywhere."

Jobe dumped the garbage on the floor, found the diaper his grandma had just taken off of him and gave it a toss. It took .9128999999999999999999 seconds for the diaper to plop onto the floor.

Sorry I can't be more precise than this. My math skills have been on the wane ever since I graduated from kindergarten and left behind the most brilliant mathematics teacher I ever had.

So ends my first experiment with iPad photography.

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Mormon missionaries ride bicycles

Two Mormon missionaries with their bicycles, spotted as I crossed through the intersection of the Palmer-Wasilla and Glenn Highways in Palmer. Other than what you see in the picture, I know nothing of them, yet I know them very well - better even than they do.

A former Mormon missionary shadow biking down Seldon Street in Wasilla. I know all about him, yet he is an enigma to me. I may never understand him at all.

Now... I must apologize. I have spent the past five or six hours dealing with one of those things that a man who is not a businessman yet is in business for himself must sometimes deal with, just like a real businessmen must - one of those things that he thinks he can do in half-an-hour and if he was a real business man could probably do in three sentences to his secretary, who would then take care of it in 15 minutes. The businessman who is is not a business man then winds up spending half a day and nearly $2000 to get done, an expense which will liklely yield him nothing and the particulars of which he does not understand at all but if he wants to stay in business he has to take the time and he has to spend the money.

So I am left with time to begin my long delayed Arctic series and it will have to start tomorrow.

Actually, the best thing to do would be to hold it for the online magazine I plan to start and not even worry about it all for now, but I promised that I would do it and there are people who have let me know they want to see it, so I will do it.

Hopefully, beginning tomorrow.

Now I must get back to work.

Except the sun is shining. It is wonderfully warm and I do not want to be inside at all.

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Brief stop at home - Jimmy goes crazy, won't leave me alone for a moment

I stepped into the house at about 1:30 this morning, looked down the hall and saw Jimmy step out of our bedroom. He saw me, and came bounding straight to me. Since then, he has refused to leave me alone, whether I be sleeping, eating, feeding fish, computering or whatever.

He is simply all over me - climbing on my lap, my shoulders, stepping onto my keyboard.

And now I must leave him again.

It is off to Tok I go, where Ahtna Matriarch Katie John, also known as Alaska's Rosa Parks for her long fight to take back her traditional fishing rights after the state tried to take them away, will be honored. On Sunday, she will receive her honorary PhD from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

And congratulations to Saggan crew in Barrow for landing a whale this morning.

I wish it had come while I was still there with you on the ice, but the important thing is that it came and the people of Barrow now have that much more to sustain them.

I know - the picture is a blur. I don't care. Seems appropriate to me. Life's a blur.

iPhone shadow portrait of Margie and I approaching the movie theatre; Kalib and cousin Gracie, cooking eggs down in the Navajo Nation

Sometimes, no matter what one is working on, the soul begins to feel overwhelmed and kind of dead from hours and hours and days and days and weeks and weeks and months and months and years and years of time spent sitting where I sit right now, peering into a computer screen.

It happened last night. My soul became overwhelmed to the point that I simply could do it no longer.

The only thing that I could think of was to go to a movie. But I did not want to drive to Anchorage, the new theatre they are building in Wasilla looks complete but is not yet open, the older theatre here is tiny and sticky and awful and one can get proselyted there and it is no place to go for an enjoyable evening of relaxation.

I checked online to see what was playing in Eagle River, but the indication was that the Eagle River threatre was closed for some reason.

So I did not know what to do. I just did not want to drive all the way to Anchorage, where we still have another free movie coming at Century 16 - thanks to Melanie.

But then Margie argued that we could just drive to the very edge of Anchorage - the close edge - where stands the new Tikahtnu Stadium 16 theatres and pay for the movie ourselves. We would not really have to drive into Anchorage at all. It is not that hard of a trip just to drive to the edge of Anchorage if you do not then venture in to the wild and wooly city.

So that is what we did. Without even checking to see what was playing and at what time, we just got in the car and drove. We left Wasilla about 7:20 PM and arrived at the theatre about 8:00 PM - right between the main showing times.

So we bought tickets for the 9:15 pm showing of Lincoln Lawyer, and then went walking into the nearby new mall, which neither of us had explored, found a place called PHO Saigon, and went in. We ordered an appetizer of 3 spring rolls and one noodle plate, which we shared between us.

I didn't take any pictures, because I had left my camera hidden in the car, but the food...

I'm going back!

Really good.

Then, a few minutes before nine, as we walked back to the theatre and on the wall I saw us, just like this.

And me, without my camera! Then I remembered that my iPhone has a perfectly decent little camera and so I did the self-portrait.

We enjoyed the movie, too. We ate too much popcorn - especially after PHO Saigon.

This morning, I was awakened to the sound of text messages coming into my iPhone. Lavina was sending me pictures and a movie from Shonto, Arizona, in the Navajo Nation of Kalib teaching cousin Gracie how to break and cook eggs.

So here they are, and I am pretty sure that is Elias looking on.

I then got out of bed and came into the kitchen wanting eggs, but Margie already had steel-cut oatmeal cooking and it was just about done.

So I ate it and it was good.

I still have a hankering for eggs. Maybe for lunch.

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I drive to town through a beautiful part of America to pick Margie up; Kalib and Jobe; the wind blows; moose die in front of cars

It was time to go pick Margie up from her latest stint at Jacob and Lavina's to help care for Kalib and Jobe. When I took off about mid-afternoon, A Prairie Home Companion was on the radio. Soon, the song, America, the Beautiful was performed. As I happened to be driving in a particularly beautiful part of America, I lifted my camera and shot a frame through the windshield, just as they sang about "spacious skys" and "amber waves of grain."

Around the next bend, I came upon this car, sporting a decal of a grenade on the rear window. That grenade is a little hard to see at this size, but, depending on the size of your monitor, it stands out in slide show view.

In town, gas was a bit cheaper than out here. I wonder what the price will be next week? 

On my way to Jacob and Lavina's house.

I unlocked the door and entered the house. It was very quiet, as if no one was there. I was pretty sure someone was, so I headed up the stairs. At the top, I came upon Martigny.

Margie was resting in the living room. 

Jobe was taking a nap on Kalib's bed. As for Kalib and his parents, they had gone downtown to see some of the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous stuff, like the snow sculptures. As for me, I had no time for Fur Rendez on this day. I just wanted to pick up Margie and head back to Wasilla as quickly as possible.

But we could not head back with Jobe asleep and his parents and brother away.

After a bit, Jobe began to wake up. He had a cold, was not feeling well, and was a bit groggy.

Jobe's little feet.

I do a self-portrait of Jobe and I. I see I should have washed my hair that day.

Oh well.

About half-an-hour after I arrived, the rest of the family came home. Lavina reported that it had been very cold downtown, that the wind had been blowing, picking up the snow and hurling it through the air. The flying snow had stung everybody's faces.

But I know from experience that if I could have gone downtown I would have saw many people frolicking, riding the carnival rides and just having fun.

Lavina was not feeling well, either. Kalib needed a nap. Margie picked him up and carried him to his room. He was not pleased by this and vocally expressed his displeasure, but, once down, Kalib soon fell asleep.

I had been holding Jobe, but I gave him to his mom and then went and sat back down.

Jobe wanted me back. How could I refuse?

Finally, we just had to go. Jobe was not pleased.

Out on the road, we came upon Jacob, who had been walking Muzzy.

The wind buffeted and rocked the car as we drove home. If you were to view this in slide-show mode, you would see that those two signs have pictures of moose on them, as a warning to drivers. Another caution sign, just when you enter the valley, states that 198 moose have been killed by moose-car collisions in the valley so far this winter.

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