April 19, 2008

It was light out yesterday when I woke up at 6:15. Spring is almost here. The weather is starting to change. This weekend looks like it will be a warm one with temperatures reaching toward 50. There is still some snow on the ground and the lakes are still frozen, but this should change quickly in the next couple weeks.

Last weekend was some fun skiing. We skied Saturday at Alyeska and ran into our friends who are moving to Fairbanks. We enjoyed the sunny day in spite of the crowded conditions. We took a couple runs down Christmas Chute. It was unbelievably smooth. The chute is so steep that the snow slides down the chute and forms a soft smooth surface instead of forming bumps. Later in the day the group started looking for jumps. It was funny to see us all scrubbing speed approaching the jumps and then barely popping up into the air. It is amazing how age produces fear. The little kids fly over these. We were all feeling pretty silly, but it was fun. We had dinner in Girdwood before heading back to town.

Kris and I skied at Alpenglow on Sunday. It was the last day of the season there and it was a free day for members. The snow was pretty difficult, but we found some terrain that still held deep soft untracked snow. On the wrong faces, it was heavy, crusted, and weird. We had enough fun to justify the price of the lift ticket.

I flew to Kenai a couple times this week. I spent one day wandering around an onshore facility tucked deep into a wildlife refuge. It was a 20 mile drive up a dirt road with no signs of civilization until arriving at a gate marking the entrance to the facility. An additional 10 miles of road or so exist within the facility, tying together the numerous gas and oil wells, and the scattered bits of associated equipment. The central facility is a large industrial complex housing huge reciprocating engines running gas compressors, supplying natural gas to Southcentral Alaska. It was a nice day and by the time we were leaving, the sun was rapidly melting the snow. This turned the dirt road into mud. As I negotiated the mud and ruts, I noticed fresh bear prints in the road. The bears are waking up.

My second trip was just for a meeting at one of our office facilities down there. The return flight was somewhat bizarre. It is only a 15 minute flight between Kenai and Anchorage. The only reason we fly is because the road loops so far out of the way that to arrive at a location that is only about 50 miles from home takes almost 200 miles of driving. It was snowing and a little foggy that afternoon and they delayed our take off about 10 minutes. It is a small plane so I watched the instruments over the pilots shoulder. We leveled at 3000 feet and began to circle. 45 minutes into my 15 minute flight I looked down and noticed the facility I had visited earlier in the week. This is not really on the way to Anchorage. Then we climbed to 5000 feet. This is not progress. We continued circling for another half hour before getting a spot in line to land in Anchorage. I’ve circled in Cleveland for an hour before, but somehow it just seems silly for a 15 minute flight.

Last night we attended a going away party. The director of my old department has coincidentally accepted a job with my new company. It was fun to visit with my old coworkers. It was an odd party. There were 7 people there who either have just left or have announced that they are leaving. I know several more people who may be leaving as well. I have never seen so many people leaving a department. It isn’t that it was a bad place to work. Many of us left because we could make a lot more money. Several are departing for retirement. It is the biggest wave of voluntary departures I have ever seen.

I bought another camera lens. I had been contemplating getting a wider lens. There are some extremely wide lenses available, but they are of such limited use. After looking at prices and value, I decided to buy a lens that provides a slightly wider view than I currently have, but also zooms in enough to make it a good general purpose lens. It practically obsoletes one of my current lenses, but it just seemed like the practical choice as it would reduce the need to carry extra lenses and reduce the number of times I need to swap lenses. In fact, this lens came out just a couple months after I bought my camera and I knew I would have bought it if had been available at the time. It has already proven valuable, allowing me to use it for work without having to carry any additional lenses.