Cinnamon roll at Mocha Moose, rescue vehicle gets stuck, Kalib hurls Kleenix to the floor

I don't often go to Mocha Moose, but this afternoon I wanted a cinnamon role and they have some pretty good ones. So, at 4:00 PM, I ignored my usual places and went to Mocha Moose. Here I am, waiting in line.

The lady ahead of me gets her coffee. She did not get a cinnamon roll. I don't know why. I'm pretty certain she would have enjoyed her coffee more if she had a cinnamon roll.

Earlier in the day, about noon, when I went walking, I came upon the same van that I had found stuck Monday night and had photographed on Tuesday - the day the worried owner had told me he would come back and yank it out.

Looks like he came back all right, with help, and that help got stuck, too. You can see that they even tried to yank out the help vehicle, but had not succeeded. At least the third vehicle did not get stuck.

These kinds of exciting events take place continually right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

Muzzy gives the scene some perspective. Actually, the van had moved a fair piece from where I found it Monday. And no one had vandalized it.

Kalib discovered Kleenix, and how fun it is to remove one, throw it on the floor and remove another. When an adult tells him to stop it, he just smiles at the defenseless sould like this, removes another tissue and hurls it onto the floor.

"Stop it, Kalib! Stop it right now!"

And here is the garden center end of Wal-Mart. I brought some blooming tulips back and replanted them in the back yard.

How pretty they looked in the snow! I tried to photograph them for you, but it was beyond my meagre abilities to do justice to such beauty and I did not succeed.

Two miserable days yield to nice night - but with a headache; a damned strange headache

I was home alone on Sunday night and did not want to cook, so I went to Piccolino's. I was a little reluctant, because, although their food is excellent, they completely saturate it in garlic and even though I like garlic, I must eat a minimum of it these days.

"Very light on the garlic, please," I told the waitress.

My order came back saturated in garlic. I ate it anyway.

Sunday night, the wind started to blow and grew to fierce. It whistled and roared about the house all night long. In the morning, I knew that it had been a warm wind, because it was not at all cold in our bedroom and if it had been a cold wind, it would have been.

After I got up, I noticed that my tummy felt kind of queasy. I figured it was the garlic, but the queasiness persisted all day, so it must not be. It must be a bug.

As for the wind, it hit 70 and keep causing micro-power failures. Each time one struck, my screen would go white and my computer would restart.

It happened maybe 10 times.

Very annoying.

I felt too miserable to venture out into the wind until night, when I had to. Temperature was in the 20's, but damn, it felt cold anyway.

Why do I ramble like this? Who cares?

As to the photo above, I took it tonight with my brand new Canon 5D MII, set to 6400 ISO.

All these photos were shot at 6400 ISO. I am pretty damned impressed.

The only things is, I thought I had set the camera to shoot RAW, but I hadn't. So these are all jpegs. If I had put in the time and work, I could probably still work up a better color rendition, but I wish I had shot RAW.

Tomorrow.

Wal-Mart, ISO 1600. The wind has died down and it snows pleasantly.

Pickup truck.

Reserved parking.

100 percent detail clipped from the preceding picture. No processing. It is the second sign from the left. Yes, really - 6400 ISO. A whole new world of possibilities has just opened up.

Cyclist.

We pass him.

A man crosses the highway in front of Burger King. 

For you pocket camera fans, don't worry - the G9 and G10 are still going to be my carry around cameras, but what a great tool this 5D will be.

My tummy still doesn't feel very good. And I have an exceptionally strange headache. I would describe it, but when one has a headache, it is hard to describe anything.