Dummies in and on machines - the problems they cause (and why I continue to ignore the Palin controversies - and Kohring, too - in my Wasilla blog)

Why the hell do I bother? Damned if I know. Bother to keep a blog, I mean. It takes time that I do not have. Even so, I think I will continue to keep it. Maybe if I keep it long enough, some rich person or philanthropic organization will come to me and say, "Quit wasting your time doing other stuff! Here is $64 million dollars and 39 cents, tax free. Go and blog."

In the meantime, you will recall that yesterday I had rounded up a tiny handful of my pre-blog photos and I posted a few here. The above, taken in October of '05, is also from that group, and although I do not really want to think about the marsh being frozen right now, it leads directly to the new images that follow, so here it is.

I was glad that day when I walked into the marsh and saw that this truck had got stuck. Glad, because it never should have been there. My friend, the property owner, had his signs posted. He did not want machines tearing up the marsh, which he describes as a meadow.

"Walkers always welcome," his sign said - but it forbade the trespass of all machines.

The driver of this vehicle saw the signs but drove on in, smashing and crushing all before him as he charged forward. He (possibly a she, I suppose) was a DIM - "Dummy In Machine." We have many of them around here, and DOMs too - "Dummies On Machines." DAMs also - "Dummies Abandoning Machines." They do this kind of thing all the time and they will even drive right through your yard, if it suits them.

So I was glad this one got stuck. He would be stuck for awhile.

And this is what he and his dummy peers have wrought. That fence now extends far out into the marsh and this is a very recent development. This was the first time I saw it that way. And do you see the clause that says, "walkers always welcome?" No. It is gone. It would seem that my neighbor is just getting exasperated and so is building barriers that he hopes will keep everybody out. Thanks to the DIMs and such.

I believe that I am still welcome, because the owner and I have known each other almost since the day he moved in with his wife and dogs and we get along well and sometimes we talk about earthquakes. That's what he does. He assesses property for its proximity to fault lines and its potential to wreak havoc upon structures by earthquake. I take some comfort that he is my neighbor.

So we talk about earthquakes. And late last summer, we wound up at the same bar to watch Obama make his acceptance speech and it was so good, we wondered what McCain was thinking - how could he possibly answer such a speech?

And of course, his answer to the articulate and well thought-out words of Obama came right from our own little town and Wasilla and the United States of America have never been the same since.

Now, especially after a week such as this, some may come to my blog and wonder why I ignore all the nonsense that is being wrought out there as a result.

I could probably triple or quadruple or even quintuple my blog readership if I jumped on the blog band-wagon - and it is a mighty big bandwagon - and started ranting about all this. 

But there are enough bloggers doing that. I don't need to. The instant I start, I will polarize this blog and that will be that. 

Except for the part where I photograph things as I drive, walk, and bike about Wasilla and in this way create a somewhat impressionistic image of this little town, I have yet to find the resource and time to meet my larger goal and dig into the soul of this place.

Even though I lean left, I have always been able to get along with people of different viewpoints. When I am able to make this blog what I want it to be, I will need to communicate with the left and right, the middle and the fringe. If I can't, they will not communicate with me - except maybe with one finger.

So I cannot polarize this blog - not too much, anyway.

Plus, on these matters, I have nothing of substance to add.

If I could sit down with our governor, her supporters, her enemies, talk to and listen to them and then find a way to thrash it all out in words and photos, that would be one thing. But that day has yet to come and right now the only thing that I could accomplish would be to blow off steam. That would accomplish nothing.

Plenty of bloggers are doing that already. And each morning, those who go to bed loving Sarah Palin get up loving Sarah Palin and those who fall asleep despising her wake up feeling just the same.

And this goes for Vic Kohring as well. I did get into a big argument with him once, but I was not blogging then. It had to do with Alaska Native hunting and fishing rights. On this, we disagree sharply - as do the governor and I. 

Well, I ramble, to no good end. Maybe I've polarized myself a bit here. Like say, with those DIMs, DOMs and DAMs, Oh, well. I am quite tired. I should not be writing at all. I will stop now.

Feeling lazy, I step backward in time a bit

When I started this blog, I said that I would alternate current photos of Wasilla (and elsewhere) with images that I had taken in the past. I haven't really done much of that. It is too hard to keep up with the present, let alone visit the past.

But today I went to town for a doctor visit (shoulder surgery followup - yes, after all this time, I still must do followups. The doctor, by the way, is most impressed with how I have healed. He said most people who suffered the same injury I did would not be able to raise their arm more than 90 degrees out from their body one year later and he could hardly believe it when I held mine straight up above my head. Two reasons, I figure - he did a good job on the surgery and I worked really hard to put that arm back in action. Margie got upset with me sometimes, said I was pushing it too hard, but I had to push it hard) and when I came home, I started sorting through pre-blog photographs for a project I want to do.

I worked on it until just a little bit ago and now I am lazy, so I am just going to blog a few past photos, like the train above.

I love trains, don't you know?

And then there was the time the Little Su overflowed, but I drove through and across the bridge anyways, as did these happy kids.

A couple of hitchhikers that I once picked up on Church Road, sitting in the back seat, as seen in my rear-view mirror.

A barista by the name of Melanie at Cafe Darte. Cafe Darte is up for sale. My daughter Melanie wants her Mom and I to buy it. We have no money to buy it.

Becky bounces on her trampoline as I drive by.

And how about Wasilla Main Street? I am pretty sure she rose from the ground wiser than before she fell.

This girl is not on Main Street, but on the Parks Highway, which was mistakenly identified as Wasilla Main Street on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I admire him, anyway. 

I was going to pull up an India shot, too, but I see there is only seven minutes left in this day and I have not taken a single picture. I will go take one, now. You will probably never see it, but I cannot let the day pass by totally undocumented.

Wasilla: moose drinks by the road - boy does wheelie; India - Cat family suffers mishap

This afternoon as I drove down the road looking for a burrito, I saw a moose kneeling in a four-wheeler track, drinking water. She stopped and raised her head to look at me as I drove by.

Shortly thereafter, I saw this kid doing a wheelie down the road in front of me, by the sign advertising a yard sale. I did not go to the yard sale. I probably could have paid $3.00 for a painting there that was worth $3 million. 

Once again, I have squandered the casual fortune.

So here I am, back in India. This scene of a mother cat nursing her kittens is serene, but the event was not. I don't have the energy to tell the story again right now, but you can find it right here, on Grahamn Kracker's Kracker Cat Blog.

Melanie and I take a small hike, frolic in the ash and take pictures of each other

Melanie takes my picture as I take her's. We are a bit above the old Independence Mine in the Hatcher Pass area, and a bit below Goldcord Lake. 

I had not planned to take a hike today, but this morning I found an email from Melanie. " What are you doing today? Considered going out today. Any time for a small hike?"

"Sure!" I responded. "I'll hike with you!" It would be my first hike since I broke my shoulder and got it replaced. I first went into surgery one year ago today.

So she drove out from Anchorage, transferred to the Escape and then we drove the wrong way into the most congested part of Wasilla so that I could drop off an electrical payment. We then turned around but drove less than a block before we saw these kids trying to entice us into a car wash.

I do not know what their cause was, but I am certain it is good, and the Escape was dirty, but it was raining and we had a small hike to do. We did not let them wash the car.

We were not quite certain where we would go, but decided that it would be somewhere in the Hatcher Pass area. We ruled Gold Mint trail out and then went up to Archangel Road which leads to the Reed Lake Trail but Archangel was blocked off, so we drove up to the mine, parked, and wound up on the trail to Goldcord Lake.

It is a short trail, just right for a small hike. So off we went. As we neared the "historic Lynch" sod cabin, built in 1930, Melanie stopped to examine various plants. She did not pick, but just examined.

We did step into the cabin, but it was obvious that people had been peeing in there, so we did not linger.

I decided that I never want to sleep in that cabin.

We did not see anyone as we hiked up, even though it was a Saturday, and I hoped it would remain that way once we reached Goldcord Lake, so that we could have perfect solitude.

Melanie looks at Goldcord Lake.

We did meet another human being. This lady. She had a friend with her, who we also met. I would tell you their names, but they were a bit wary and so kept their names to themselves.

They did tell us that they were scouting about for a good place to take some geology students from Alaska Pacific University on a field trip. They looked to me to be too young to be teachers, so I asked if they were students, thinking perhaps they were teacher assistants. No, they were not students, they assured us and they gave us no more information than that.

Maybe they are teachers. Professors even. As I get older, young people look younger and younger, so someone could be a teacher and even a professor and look the part to their peers and I could still think they were so young that they must be students.

They had seen some marmots and they were pretty pleased by that.

I told them how to find this blog.

I do not know if either of you will ever bother to do so, but, if you do, "hello." I enjoyed meeting you. It's true that I had hoped Melanie and I would see no one else, but you were both pleasant, even if wary. You made the experience a little nicer and more interesting than it would have been had we not met you.

If I were you and met me up in the mountains, I would probably be wary, too - even though you needn't have been.

There was a news story in the paper last week about how unusually fast the snow is melting off the mountain trails this year and there are two reasons for that. Although today was not one of them, we have had an abnormally big number of sunny, hot, days.

And Mt. Redoubt deposited so much volcanic ash in the mountains. That ash is dark, so it absorbs heat that the snow would otherwise reflect away. The heated ash swiftly melts the snow.

Despite how it looks in the distance, this is how all the snow that is left looks up close. It is covered with ash and here the paw of a dog broke through it.

See that line? That is volcanic ash left behind after the snow that pushed it there melted. It leads to an even greater concentration of ash and Melanie is mining it.

Melanie with her haul of volcanic ash. She will take it home and give it to Charlie. 

We hike along the lake. It is very steep here and Melanie speculates as to what would happen if one of us slipped and went down into the water. I am very confident such a thing will not happen.

Melanie, a little further along.

Melanie, over the lake.

Afterward, not far beyond where the road exits the canyon that leads up to Hatcher Pass, we stopped at a little restaurant sporting signs that boast of its chowder and espresso. We were the only the customers, so I was a little worried about the owners. I always like to see little businesses like this make it.

The guy told us not to worry. He said he was going to have some music festivals here and lots of people would come.

Melanie then noted that her boyfriend is a guitarist, plays with a band and might want to come and join in. So the man asked what kind of music Charlie played.

"Mostly classic rock," Melanie responded.

"So he plays all classical music?" the man responded, looking a little worried.

"Classic Rock!" Melanie stressed. She then added that Charlie also composes music of his own.

I then told the guy how Charlie even composed a song to Melanie, where he scolds her for trying to get a cat out of a tree, when that is the job of the fire department.

He was mighty impressed by that. I have no doubt that he will now do whatever is necessary to make certain that Charlie is there to play at all of his festivals.

It's a good song. I like it a lot.

That's a brownie that Melanie holds in her hand. I ordered a piece of strawberry rhubard pie, alamode.

It was pretty good. So was Melanie's brownie. We shared, that's how I know.

PS: There's still lots more from India left to come.

Meanwhile, back in Wasilla, skateboarders roll for Jesus

I went to the bank this afternoon to transfer money from the business account to the family account so that the mortgage check would not bounce. I was kind of horrified at how little money was then left in either account. As I drove away via the city park route, I suddenly became aware that there were an unusual number of kids rolling about in the skateboard bowl. I had only a second or two to react, but lifted my G10 pocket camera and shot a blind frame through the open passenger window as I passed. As I did, a man's voice, amplified by a loudspeaker, entered the car.

"Dear Jesus," the detached voice pled, then paused, "will you be my Lord?"

That was all I heard. I drove on. The camera had failed to focus.

Oh well. Life is a blur, anyway.

Next, I drove to a nearby kiosk and ordered an Americano for $1.50, plus tip. Afterward, as I headed toward home, I saw this kid carrying his skateboard away from the park.

I wondered what his role in the revival had been, or if he had gone there to skate and that was it.

Maybe there was free food, too.