March 29, 2006
We had a great Seward’s Day on Monday. We got to celebrate with a day off. Seward’s Day is the anniversary of the purchase of Alaska from Russia. I think we are celebrating the fact that we are not Russian. OK, it isn’t much of a celebration. Only us state employees get the day off which was particularly nice. The ski resort was empty.
The meltdown continues. We can actually see our street now. The ice is almost gone. The sun has been brutal. We get more than 5 minutes of extra daylight every day and the days are quickly getting very long. The sun seems to hover just above the horizon for far too much of the day, frequently blinding me while driving. The building Kris works in is very reflective. The other morning it was reflecting the sun directly into my eyes as I drove down 36th. The glare is multiplied by dirt on the car windows. The roads are covered with fine crushed stone and sand that is put down for traction throughout the winter. The big chunks kick up and break windshields. The small stuff sprays all over the vehicle with every puddle. The back of my truck is completely brown. Every time I fill up with gas, I have to clean the lights so that the cars behind me can see my signals. A few times I have had to clean my headlights between fill ups because I could barely see anymore. I don’t think anyone can tell my license plate number anymore. It is a dirty time of year.
The weekend skiing was spring conditions. The only problem is that the clear skies have provided cold nights. The snow refreezes and doesn’t soften up until the afternoon. Being the savvy skiers that we are, well, being the lazy people that we are, we took our time on Saturday to allow the slopes to soften up. We decided to do the half day ticket at Alpenglow. They offer an after 2:30 ticket and we figured that would be plenty. As we got our lift tickets, they announced that the chairlift had just opened. It didn’t really matter since there was hardly anyone there. The sun was shining on the lightly tracked slope. I was expecting hard pack with a soft surface but we got deep soft heavy snow. It was really fun conditions. Kris didn’t enjoy it as much after she fell face first on the second run. The conditions require precision. If both skis aren’t pointed the same direction, they quickly head their own ways. In heavy snow, I don’t have the strength to twist a ski to straighten out its direction. I think that is what happened to Kris. It took her a few minutes to shake all the snow out of her coat, gloves, and gear. The heavy snow quickly wore us out. We only skied for about an hour and a half, probably one of our shortest days of skiing ever. It was still a great day. Fun is not measured in hours.
We skipped skiing on Sunday. Instead, we bought a queen sized bed for the guest room. We got a package special that included mattress, foundation, frame, and sheets for $399. They had a $299 queen package but it seemed like a crappy mattress. The $399 set is actually the same mattress set that we have in our bedroom so we know it is an acceptable set. So our guest room is furnished, or it will be when I get around to picking up the set. I will be bringing it home ‘Alaska style’, strapped to the roof of my dirty truck.
Then came Seward’s Day. We took our time getting to Alyeska to give it some time to soften. It was still a little crunchy when we started skiing at 1:00 PM. Frozen slush is not good skiing conditions. It softened quickly, especially on the south facing slopes. We found one steep slope that was scraped smooth, but still was soft and slushy. It felt like skiing on a Pina Colada. It was creamy smooth. We made several laps on that wonderful slope and still sampled many others. On one of those laps, I waited at the bottom of the steep part while Kris descended. I remembered that I had a slope gauge in my pocket so I took it out to measure the slope. I had to measure it twice, reversing the gauge because I couldn’t believe the reading I got. It was an average of 40 degrees for a good stretch, which is pretty steep skiing. What I couldn’t believe was how the soft snow made it feel much less steep than that.
We skied almost until the lifts closed at 5:30. I fell once, flipping forward on a steep mogul run. I landed in that awkward skis above my head position and started sliding. I just didn’t feel like rolling over and I figured a mogul would stop me. I slid a long ways before I got motivated enough to roll over and arrest my slide. I am sure the people on the chairlift who were directly above me thought I was a beginner sliding along like that
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I ordered a new camera. My old camera has been limping along since last summer, but I just couldn’t figure out what to buy. I wasn’t thrilled anymore with some of the negatives of my camera, but upgrading to the next level seemed rather expensive. I have been researching the issue for at least 7 months and couldn’t reach a conclusion on value. With summer just around the corner, I finally decided to buy up. I got a Canon Digital Rebel XT. The camera isn’t that expensive compared to cameras that are comparable to my old camera, but to get the most out of a camera like that depends on the lenses. I spent more on lenses than I did on the camera and that was buying the bargain lenses. I didn’t buy the cheap lenses, I bought the ones that were inexpensive for what they provided. I like the telephoto end of things more than wide angle so I bought a professional grade telephoto lens. I bought a very inexpensive normal lens that has a reputation for provided great image quality. I still need to finalize my choice for a wide angle lens. My lens selections will force me to be more thoughtful on my pictures, but I take so many pictures that are not very interesting or very good. Hopefully I will see a higher percentage of good pictures.
Work is still going well. I can’t seem to write about it and really capture the realities. Part of the reason is that I prefer not to think about work after work. This is actually a positive thing for me. I was really concerned that I would get caught up in the job and make it the center of my life. To some extent, I did that in the past. Not as much as some of the workaholics I know, but I did find a good portion of my identity in my job. So far I am resisting the temptation to get caught up in it all. It really is just a job.
I also haven’t been writing about it because I don’t want to air my opinions of my co-workers, good or bad. It is an odd situation as it has been a great opportunity for me to study workplace interactions from a different perspective. It is closing many loops for me, being able to return to the worker perspective while still understanding the manager perspective.
I also have to be somewhat careful on expressing my opinions of the business activities in Alaska. The job requires sticking to the facts. The facts are a little cold and boring. I have some opinions that I’d better just keep to myself.
So work is going well, but I can’t really talk about some of it. The good part of it is that it can be a real puzzle solving environment. It is fun to wade through the regulations and compare the requirements with reality and gain understanding. Sometimes it is tedious. Sometimes I am not feeling very efficient. On average, it is going well.