January 23, 2010

We are getting into a new routine.  We have done something active every day, either downhill or cross country skiing.  And the rest of the day seems to fly, even though we are not feeling all that much more productive than normal.  It is amazing how quickly time passes.

We are preparing for our test, although that doesn’t take all day.  We are reading history and doing practice essays.  Part of the written test includes a half hour essay on a random topic.  We seem to be getting that exercise down, although a half hour is a short time period to create a well structured essay.  We can’t decide if it is harder to get a topic that you know something about or one that you know nothing about.  To some extent, it is easier to deal with less material.  Even with a topic for which you have tremendous knowledge and an opinion, it isn’t an easy decision to defend your own opinion.  It is often tempting to defend the opposite position simply for structure purposes. 

I am sorting through boxes that we haven’t really opened since we moved up here.  I hooked up the stereo system to make sure it still works.  I will probably try to sell that.  I sorted through all my old pictures and even began scanning a few of them.  I tossed a bunch of junk.  I am making a mess as I go, but I think I am making progress.

Skiing was awesome on Monday.  It was a holiday so the crowd was more like a light weekend day than a weekday, but the snow was still great fun.  We made lap after lap of short turns in the powdery bumps.  We kept going until our legs hurt.  We were packed and ready to go again on Tuesday when work called.  We finally got back out on Thursday afternoon and skied our biggest day of bump skiing.  We just kept going on the soft, mostly skied up snow.  We even took a pass at a new run through the trees on North Face called Northstar.  The trees were widely spaced, but the steepness was surprising.  We were relegated to survival skills in the near vertical run with a couple stretches of mandatory air.  We were passed by a couple of young kids who demonstrated the proper technique of jump turns that landed on the ledges.  I was forced to make three kick turns, the last of which resulted in a minor fall with my legs facing opposite directions.  I was humbled by this run, but found the subsequent runs on normal terrain to seem much easier.  We skied again yesterday and had fun, even though the conditions are deteriorating with no recent snow.

We have been seeing a lot of moose lately.  We hadn’t seen any this year until the first day of Kris’ unemployment.  I suggested that the moose are always there, but you need to let go of the stress to be able to see them.  One day there were three along our cross country ski route.  One of them forced us to detour a bit.

My car is gone.  I stopped at the consignment lot on the corner to see what they offer.  It cost more than I thought it would, but they are listing the car for more than I was going to ask.  Since they offer financing, I suspect that they can get a much higher price than I could.  They even offered to detail the car for me.  I know it is an easy car to sell in Alaska, but having someone handle all the hassles made sense.  I should net more than I was planning and we should come reasonably close to our original target of trading my car for a trailer and a tow vehicle, even though we spent more on the trailer than we had planned.  It was a great car, maybe the best set of compromises I have ever had in a single vehicle.  It did everything pretty well; hauling, handling, accelerating, off-roading, ride quality, and fuel economy.  I have had vehicles that were probably far better in each category, but none that were so flexible without feeling overly limited in any category.  It may seem odd to sell a car that I like so well, but I am just happy to have had a car that worked for us so well for the last two years.

Oddly, listing the car seemed like a bit of a milestone for us.  We both seemed to pause a bit in making the decision.  I don’t know why quitting our jobs seemed like less of a point of no return than selling the car, but we seemed to need to talk through our logic one last time before taking the car into to the lot.  Our logic is still sound and our financial position is better than planned so we moved forward with selling the car.  And it is nice to be back to two vehicles in our limited parking area.

We had our first unplanned expense yesterday.  I stopped to re-fuel Kris’ car on the way back from skiing and noticed that the right rear was nearly flat.  I was going to drive home and remove the wheel to take it in, but a block from the gas station was one of the tire places we have used so we stopped to get it fixed.  We had picked up a nail and the $25 repair isn’t going to hurt us.  The guy behind the counter did ask who put our tires on last and since I was assuming he was asking who mounted the tires on the wheels, I answered honestly that I didn’t remember.  Then he explained that the tires are directional and that the rears were both on backwards.  I didn’t feel the need to then correct my statement that I did that.  I never would have thought that studded tires could be directional.  I wonder if my car is sitting on a sales lot with the tires on wrong.

Work this week was only a minor interruption to our new life.  I worked a little on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  I worked a total of about ten hours.  Wednesday was a little strange since I worked until after seven.  It was only a total of about five hours that day, but it was strange to be working late even though I had quit.  The situation made the news again on Friday, this time on the front page.  It must have been a slow news day.  It is frustrating to see implications that are just plain wrong, but the picture from the outside is always different than the picture from the inside.  I suspect my involvement will continue for a long time, but I doubt that it will be a burden.