It was a Jobe-Kalib kind of day

I had thought that I might go somewhere Sunday, but I felt extremely lazy and Kalib and Jobe had come to the house with their mom so I decided to stay put and hang out with them.

Here is Margie and Jobe at breakfast - breakfast being eggs, hashbrowns, spam and wheat pancakes.

I guess Jobe must have proven too irresistible to his grandma. Regular viewers will note that something is different, here, than in the past. In the past, in such a situation, Jobe would invariably have been focused upon the grandpa that he adores.

Now he is looking elsewhere. At what?

It was the movie, How to Train Your Dragon. I was in Barrow on February 12 when Jobe turned one, but the family took him to The Bear Tooth that day to see this very film on the big screen while dining on pizza. I am told that he sat transfixed all the way through it - this despite the fact that by then, Kalib had already viewed the movie 2,392 times on the TV and Jobe must have picked up on some of that.

Jobe remains transfixed by the movie, but, still, he does not altogether ignore the presence of his grandpa.

As for Kalib, he has now seen this movie 5,969 times - and he watches it again - intently, because one never knows what might happen, this time.

"Yay for the dragons!" Dragons are really good guys, you know - gentle at heart.

After the movie, Jobe turned his attention to the little vacuum cleaner.

Jobe and the vacuum cleaner.

I kept thinking that this was the day he was going to take his first step, and I kept my camera ready.

He didn't take it. Undoubtedly, he will already be walking the next time I see him and I will have missed that first step. I hope his parents get to see it.

What if it happens when he is at daycare?

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Branson, Metro Cafe's 38 pound hockey player, knows how to score and celebrate; cat and baby at the door

Not long before I headed off on one of my Arctic Slope trips last fall, I promised Carmen that I would take some pictures of Branson, her five-year old son, doing some hockey stuff. Well, you know what happens to time. His regular season ended and now he is attending a hocky camp at the Mernard Sports Center.

He had sessions schedule for Saturday and Sunday afternoons and then one more on Wednesday. I was pretty sure I would not be able to make the Sunday session, couldn't say about Wednesday and so I decided that I had better go Saturday. I arrived with a little more than one-half hour of the session left.

Here he is: Branson, the 38-pound, five-year old, hockey player.

Branson was, in fact, the smallest person on the ice. And he was competing against some older and bigger boys - six and seven year olds who have been playing for years.

But you can see - Branson was skating hard.

Branson and competitor go after puck.

Who will get it?

They are fighting hard, now.

Now they are in front of the goal, Branson on offense, his competitor on defense determined to stop him.

Branson belts the puck past the defender.

The defender knocks Branson to the ice, but it doesn't matter: the puck he slammed is shooting right between the feet of the goalie and into the net.

Branson skates away from his successful goal shot in celebration.

Pretty soon, he does it again... and then again after that. 

He raises his puck in victory, but now he is also searching the bleachers for a familiar face. Could it be Mom? Is she there? Will he find her? Did she notice?

She is there and he does find her and she did notice.

After the scrimmage ends an adult skates by. "Congratulations on your goal," he tells Branson.

Branson, the hockey player.

Branson with his friends, Colin and Caroline. They do not play hockey. They play soccer ("football" to all my relatives and friends in India and the rest of the world).

Carmen is pretty proud. 

After I returned home, I came here into my office and went to work. I had not been working long before I heard a knock on the door.

Puzzled, I got up and opened it. Who do you think I saw standing on the other side?

It was Jim, my good black cat. "C'mon on in, Jim!" I invited. He entered and soon walked across my keyboard as I was typing.

Then I heard another knock. Again I got up and opened the door.

This time it was Jobe, who had just driven his mother and older brother out from Anchorage.

Jobe came in. Jim decided it was time to leave, jumped off my keyboard and walked to the door.

And this from India:

Feral street dog at Ooty tea farm.

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Sings of early spring: cop stop, indoor cats, college studies, bike rider, water in the road - the study of the young writer that will break hearts

I decided to look around, and see if I could spot the signs of early spring in Wasilla and nearby environs. The first thing that I saw was this police car parked behind the little red car that had been driven by a driver who was undoubtedly feeling pretty uncomfortable right then.

This was a sure sign of spring - a driver being pulled over by a traffic cop.

True, you see cops pulling drivers over in the winter, fall and summer as well as spring, but the difference is the rotting snow in the background.

When you see a car pulled over by a cop and there is rotting snow in the background, then you can be pretty certain it is springtime.

One of these days soon, I must bite the bullet and replace this cracked windshield before I get pulled over, too.

As soon as I do replace it, the new one will be struck by a flying stone and will get cracked, too.

I hate it when new windshields get cracked.

Of course, when you spot a cat sitting inside its people's apartment looking just like this, then you know for certain it is spring.

So here is Junipurr, a cat of spring.

Wait a minute. I took these pictures one week ago today at Lisa and Bryce's apartment after I had photographed the Lady Whalers winning the state championship and the young Barrow scientists competing in the Alaska Science and Engineering Fair. I just didn't have the chance to post them until now.

Last Saturday was the 19th - one full day before spring

My bad. These are not spring shots at all.

But they sure look like spring. Here is Zed. Zed is very hard to photograph in Lisa's apartment because it is always pretty dark in there and his fur is so black. Plus, he is shy. If he figures out you are photographing him, he will hide.

But I am a determined, dedicated and resourceful photographer, so naturally I succeeded in taking his photo.

I didn't even look, either. I shot it with my eyes closed. I knew where he was, so I didn't need to open my eyes. I was too tired to open my eyes.

Here is Lisa, studying hard on spring break, and Bryce, playing video games.

Now I am back to yesterday, when I spotted this cyclist pedalling up Church Road.

I had just been to Metro Cafe, where I shot:

Through the Window Metro Study, #5,187: Carmen and two old friends who were surprised to meet each other in Metro Cafe.

This is the story:

When the young woman to the side of Carmen entered Metro Cafe yesterday, she was not thinking anything at all about the man on Carmen's other side. Same thing with him. Although they had know each other years ago and had worked together at Pedro Bay, they were not thinking of each other at all. They had not even seen each other in three to four years, so why would they be thinking about each other?

And then they saw each other, and recognized each other.

And it all happened in Metro Cafe.

I had them tell me their names and, because I have learned that I often forget names that I am certain I will remember, I pulled out my iPhone, turned on the recorder and had them speak into it and tell me their names. This way, I would not forget and because I would not forget, I had no real need to remember, because the memory was right there in my iPhone.

So, just now, I pulled my iPhone out to pull up my memory of their names.

And the whole recording was gone. I don't know what happened to it. It was just gone.

Ha! Can you deny that a pair of mated mallards strolling through a Wasilla parking lot is a sure sign of spring?

And how about young love? Hence we have:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #1: with her boyfriend, Justin - the study to break the hearts of of my young, single, male readers...

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Following The King's Speech, Jobe stands ready to walk

I did, indeed, break away from this desk, grab Margie, drive to town and go to the movie. We didn't even have to pay, because Melanie had given us a gift card to Century 21 in Anchorage for Christmas, so finally we used part of it. We saw, The Kings Speech, which I rather enjoyed.

Afterward, we headed to Jake and Lavina's. I knew that if Jobe had taken his first steps, we would have heard about. As we had heard no such thing, I hoped that he might take his first steps during our short visit.

Even though he cannot yet walk, he came out to greet us before we reached the door. Kalib observed from inside the front room.

Margie had grown almost desperate to see her grandsons again. Soon, she had Jobe on her lap, hugging and cuddling him.

Jobe noticed his grandpa.

Kalib ate jello with a spoon.

Then he stood on his dad's leg and did some cussing.

Actually, he didn't cuss. I just wanted to add a little drama to the scene.

I would have let you think so, but then I would have gotten in trouble with the female members of the family.

The males would all have been proud.

Kalib with his mom. She is cussing at him!

I JOKES! I JOKES!

I think I am in trouble now, anyway - even though I have clarified things.

Jobe spots Melanie coming and cusses at her.

Then Kalib and Melanie spot a neighbor carrying her baby to the car to go a nearby restaurant, where they will dine on raise\in and cucumber soup, with olives.

They do not cuss at her, because it is not polite to cuss at innocent neighbors.

Okay - time to get serious now. Learning to walk is serious stuff.

Next, I lay down on the floor between Jobe and the TV. I hoped Jobe might take his first steps, so that I could photograph the moment.

He stood, did not step, and then plopped down on his butt.

But he got right back up and stood again. Melanie came dashing over, excited to see where this action might lead.

Oh, boy! He is standing good! Will he walk?

He is contemplating it. I know he can do it. He's just got to decide he's going to and then he will.

"Go kid, go! Walk!" Muzzy give him some nose encouragement.

But he doesn't walk. He again plops down on his butt, crawls to his Aunt Melanie, stands up using her leg for support and turns to watch the TV, on which the movie "Up" is playing. Melanie covers his eyes. She thinks he watchs too much TV and does not approve.

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Kivgiq 2011: Six frames of Tikigaq women dancers

I hate to ask for more patience - a lot more patience - once again, but I am going to, because I now have a new plan on how to go about completing my posting of Kivgiq. I have changed the plan for two reasons. First, when I originally decided that I would post massive amounts of pictures here, I did not think that I was going to be able to dedicate a whole Uiñiq magazine to this Kivgiq. I thought that I would have just a few pages of Kivgiq in the Uiñiq that I am working on right now, so I would not be able to include many pictures at all.

I wanted people to be able to see the pictures, so I thought, "well, I'll just put them on the blog."

Now, while it is not yet absolutely certain, it looks like I will likely get to do a Kivgiq Uiñiq.

When people open that Uiñiq and look at the pictures, I want them to be seeing most of the images for the first time. But if all the pictures that wind up in the magazine appear in this blog first, there will no surprises.

So I thought, "well, I will do a serious edit and I will put the best ones aside for Uiñiq and fill this blog with second, third, fourth and fifth best and then Uiñiq can still be fresh."

But now I don't want all the best that appear here to just be second best, at best.

Plus, for me to figure out which is best and second best is more work than probably just about anyone imagines.

Right now, after having devoted several days to doing my first and second edits of Kivgiq, I have created a working pool of 2000 images to draw from.

But that's still a lot to boil down into first and seconds and thirds and when I sat down this morning with those 2000 working pool pictures in my editor to pick out 30 or 40 to post today, I thought, "how am I going to do it, without spending every minute of this day working on it?"

I have my Lightroom editor so that it shows six decent-sized thumbnail images at a time.

So, when I sat down at my computer and looked at my editor, six of the 2000 images in the working pool showed on my screen.

I suddenly decided that I would just post those six images and save the rest until I can get my Uiñiq done.

So here they are, the six images of the 2000 in the working pool that were on my screen when I sat down: women of the great Tikigaq Dance Group of Point Hope.

I did use one of them earlier, but I am keeping it as part of the six.

When I make Uiñiq magazine, there are always many, many, pictures that I want to use and that I know people would like to see, but I just can't fit them all in. So, as I work on Uiñiq, I will organize all these images into various categories. Then, after Uiñiq comes out and people get a chance to see it, I will do some more postings that will include both images from Uiñiq and the images that I could not fit in but that I know people will want to see.

Maybe by then, I can pick up some good animation techniques, so that I can do some sequences where one image flows into the next to create the effect of motion but not to look like video. Maybe I can find some good sound recordings and add a little bit of sound, too, so that people unfamiliar with the music can hear the beauty and power of it.

Then there is another factor in my decision. There is simply no way around it. I am exhausted right now. I have hit the wall, big time. I am always a hard worker, but in the past few months I have responded to certain situations by going into overdrive, by essentially working on one thing or another from the time I get up to the time I go to bed, often with only a few hours of very poor sleep separating those times.

Now, my work has become a blur to me. I can't see my own work. I look at it but it and my eyes focus on it and it is right there but it is a blur and I can't see it. I need to look away from it, for a short while, in order to see it again.

So, after I post this, I am going to drop everything, grab my wife, take her to town, go see a movie and buy something good to eat.

That is what I am going to do.

I will yet do justice to Kivgiq 2011, but just in a different manner and on a different time frame than I had originally envisioned.

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