Jobe and the Savik whaling hat, his arms and the snotty bug

Remember how yesterday I stated that should have never committed myself to my September 15 return, but should have waited until next week? It's true. I have no time. Yet, I have begun again and must keep going, but today I will keep it short, simple, and cute - shamelessly cute.

Yesterday, I read something written by a serious photographer who expressed disdain for shamelessly cute photos. They just don't dig deep enough into the harsh realities of life.

Yet, shamelessly cute is part of life too, and right now, shamelessly cute is right in front of me.

This is how it is with Jobe and me - the instant I come in sight, up come his little arms and hands. He wants me to pick him up.

I don't have time. Too busy. But you know what? I pick him up anyway, and carry him around for a bit. Sometimes, I bring him into my office and we watch the electric train go 'round the top of the room.

Kalib likes that train, too.

Yesterday, Jobe found this Savik crew whaling hat. He has insisted upon wearing it ever since. Savik is Savik Ahmaogak of Barrow.

Jobe in the Savik hat. As you can see, Jobe has picked up a bug. Zicam is very hard on my stomach, but I am scarfing it down, anyway. I am scheduled to go to New York City at the end of next week, and I want to be healthy. But I can't resist Jobe. He is in and out of my arms, all day long.

We breathe together.

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A duck swam into a moon beam - and other stunning stories from yesterday

I made a big mistake - I promised to bring this blog off hiatus on September 15, today, which is exactly what I am doing. But I should have set the date for September 20. That would have been much better for me.

But I didn't.

I set it for September 15, it is September 15, so here I am, early yesterday morning, where the lone waitress working at Denali Family Restaurant was pouring me a cup of coffee.

She did not want me to show her face, only her hand.

"I never like to have my face in a photograph," she explained.

I don't know why. She had a pretty face. She also knows how to sling two coffee pots at once.

Pretty impressive!

I would have gone to Abby's Home Cooking, which has become my favorite breakfast restaurant, but Abby's does not open until 8:00 AM and I was hungry and did not want to wait that long.

I asked for this table, just so I could sit there and look out at these mountains and watch this guy get out of his truck.

I saw myself, in shadow, sitting with an alien from another galaxy. So I shot a picture of the two of us. That alien really likes ketchup. He drank the whole bottle and then asked for more.

When I got home, I found Margie, Jobe and Kalib watching Chuggington Choo Choo. They had all been asleep when I left.

I had a huge amount of work ahead of me, but I couldn't bear to get into it without taking a walk. As I walked up Wards, a garbage truck passed me and then made a left turn.

I wondered if I would ever see that garbage truck again.

Next, a couple of young men appeared at the top of the hill, their feet on their skateboards, their skateboards on the road. It looked like they were going to roll, but then they picked up their skateboards and just stood there, looking down at me. They appeared not to know what to do next.

"Are you guys going to skate down the hill?" I shouted up to them.

"Yes," one of them shouted back.

"Good!" I shouted back. "That will make a good picture."

So they put their boards back down on the road and their feet back on the skateboards. Down they came.

And off into the distance they went.

When I reached the top of the hill, this gentleman came walking along, just as I did see the garbage truck again. It was Tony, Lola and Wolf. I can't remember which dog was Lola and which was Wolf.

Neither one of them looked a wolf to me.

They were good dogs, though, and I was proud to make their acquaintance.

When I got back to the house, I found Jobe and Kalib in the back yard, being boys.

Their new sibling could arrive any day now. The official due date is October 6, but that baby has already gotten into position, head down, ready to plunge into the world.

And the poor mother has strep throat.

That is why the boys are with us.

Kalib, the eldest of three.

A few hours later, I took my afternoon coffee break. I discovered that the dog, Booger, had been lost. Booger is the close friend of Lisa Kelly, the Ice Road Trucker. Her husband brought the poster.

I hope Booger is found.

The Ice Road Trucker needs her friend.

I then took a short drive to sip and enjoy my coffee. I drove past the Wasilla skateboard park just as a kid went almost horizontal on the ramp.

I was trying to write what will be the final story in what might be my final Uiñiq magazine, but I could not come up with the words to open it. So I took another short walk, saw this bunny rabbit, and pretty soon the lead came to me. 

After I got the lead, I came upon these three in the marsh that has dried out and become a meadow. It was Summer and her buddies, Sampson and Anonymous Dog. Summer has another name that she uses for Anonymous Dog, but I don't know what it is.

I then went into my house, wrote the lead and got to work on the story.

That final story would be very short, but it was taking me a long time to write it. At one point, I realized that I would never finish it if I did not eat a chocolate covered ice cream cone. So I climbed into the car and drove off to get one, but I got to day dreaming and passed right by Dairy Queen. I turned around by Wasilla Lake and noticed the moon. I stopped and took this picture.

Then I saw this duck swim into a moon beam.

"Hey Bill!" the duck quacked. "Is that you?"

"Yes, Fernanda," I quacked back. "It is me! It's been a long time!"

"It has... 1021 years."

It was true. Fernanda and I had not seen each other for over 1000 years.

"How's your report coming?" she asked.

I knew it. She had been sent to check up on me.

"I'm struggling with it," I answered. "But don't worry. You can tell the other ducks that I'll get it done."

I will, too, but in the meantime, I have a Uiñiq magazine to finish.

That final story is now written, but there is still a significant amount of work that must be completed before I go to press Monday.

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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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Cowboy ahead - I am not on the road to Fairbanks

Here I am in severe retreat mode. No time to blog. Two weeks ago, I had made up my mind that by today Margie and I would either be in Fairbanks or on the road to Fairbanks, to take in the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics 50th anniversary games.

But it is impossible. I can't go. If I do, I will not finish what I must finish by the time it must be finished.

So here I am, driving down Sunrise, behind a cowboy.

Go, Olympians! I will be with you in spirit, and there will be many photographers present. Your accomplishments this week will be well documented.

The train rolls again

All my regular readers know that I love trains - big trains and little trains, too. When I was boy, my family had an electric Lionel steam locomotive with a coal car, several freight cars and a caboose. Most of the time, it stayed in boxes, but every now and then my dad would let me get it out, splice the tracks together and then I would run that train late into the night, headlight shining, little puffs of smoke belching from the smokestack, until my parents forced me to shut it down and go to bed.

To make it more interesting, I would sometimes put marbles and toy soldiers, tanks, planes, jets, horses, knights in armor and such on the track. That heavy chunk of steel locomotive would blast its way through it all - and if it did sometimes derail, it was a tough thing and the crash would cause it no harm.

For Christmas of 2000, I bought myself a little HO train. I set it up briefly on my office floor and let it run in circles as my original good black cat, Little Guy, watched, chased, and sometimes batted at it.

Less than two months later, Little Guy vanished and I was left devastated. I do not exaggerate. Devastated. Truly, truly, devastated. No less so than if he had been one of the closest humans to me. Among the things I did to cope was to build a railroad in my office, about eight feet up on the wall above the floor.

Either when Kalib was a baby or before he was born, my locamotive derailed and fell into one of my fish tanks and got ruined. Since that time, my railroad has sat inactive.

But I wanted the boys to see the train go, so a few weeks ago I bought a new locamotive, broke it in a crash before they could see it, got it repaired and now the train is running again.

This weekend, the boys saw it roll for the first time.

They were fascinated. Especially Kalib. "Choo! Choo!" he shouted. "Chugga, chugga, chugga, Chugginton!" 

As you can see, especially in a larger view, the tabby cat, Pistol-Yero, was fascinated, too.

I also have pictures of Jim and Jobe being fascinated, but I will let this one do it by itself.

Come mid-afternoon, I found myself hungry for a hot dog, but there were none. So I got into the car to go get one. Along the way, I passed these firemen and this firetruck.

Can anyone tell me what year this Chevy pickup truck is?

If Scot of Metro Cafe sees this, he will know.

Later, I took a long bike ride, down past the shot-up sign alongside the Little Su, and then way beyond that. It started to rain right after I left the house, and then rained on me until I got home. It was a cold rain and it was windy and I had no jacket but only a t-shirt, but I didn't care.

If I had cared, I would have turned around and went home.

If you view this in large view, you can see actual raindrops that have fallen from the sky and are about to strike the ground.

I returned home the long way, so that I could pedal a little further. These two passed me up, but just barely. Not so long ago, I announced that I was taking this blog into retreat mode for the remainder of the summer, as the work burden on me is too great to spend more than a minimal amount of time per day on this blog.

Due to events like the Fourth of July, my birthday, visits of the boys and such, I have somewhat retreated from that retreat, but the time gun is really pointed at my head now, so I am going back into retreat. Again, I will still try to post every day, but not much.

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