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Fairly captures the essence of my bloated discontent with mankind:

I know of many exceptions.

Take Jeffrey for instance, one of the people I mentioned who is coming to visit us this summer, with his wife Wendy — Dr. Wendy! I first met Jefferey in Cleveland when I was going to school, as was Wendy, she to become a medical doctor. Jeff could be a bit irascible at times but the man has a good heart. Especially around issues concerning dogs he’s a complete mush. When Rufus finally surrendered nobody texted and emailed me more than Jeff did. Lately, he’s done the same inquiring about Lucy (who’s hanging in there, btw). And the back and forth we had when his and Wendy’s dog Dexter was in his final days was heart wrenching. Anyway, one day while in Cleveland at a celebration shortly after I defended my dissertation and officially became Dr. Nibbe, Jefferey overheard me debating with myself whether I should take the consulting job or sign on with the university, because, I thought, you can only perform well in one job at a time, right?

Well, Jefferey jumped on that right quick, “Are you kidding, do both. You’re a PhD now, start behaving like one.”

What he meant, I think, is not that getting a PhD invests one with a god-like power, whereas before you were a mere mortal and now you are omniscient, but rather that a heightened level of respect comes with having earned the degree, more people will be interested in your highly specialized knowledge and there’s no reason why you can’t, and shouldn’t, think in parallel rather than serially. In other words, as he said, do both jobs at the same time.

Jeff, a PhD himself, I should point out was teaching bioethics courses at Case Western while also consulting for a company in Washington D.C..

I did end up serving in two separate roles for a time, drawing two salaries, but eventually moved full-time into just one. Nevertheless, I’ve not forgotten Jeff’s wisdom. It’ll be good to see him and Wendy again.

Speaking of bumper stickers, what ya wanna bet the driver of this truck works for the Department of Environmental Conservation?

Stood in front of a door at the grocery store mall yesterday, bags in hand, for what must’ve been ten seconds waiting for it to open before I realized it wasn’t an automatic door. An awkward moment when you look left and right to see if you’ve been observed or not. You can never be too sure that someone with an over exaggerated sense of public safety won’t whip out their cell phone and call security: “I just saw him walk out the door, officer. He was standing there mumbling to himself. He’s in the parking now, moving among the cars!”

Later on during my errand run I was waiting in line at the Walgreens wearing my new hoodie when it caught the eye of a woman in front of me.

“Pathetic, right?” I said.

No no she said, I completely understand. Emphasis hers. Right then I knew she knew that I knew what she meant. I’d stopped in to buy a Paypal cash card, loaded it with $200 and paid the $3.95 fee. Odd they charge a fee to deposit money. Can you imagine your bank doing that? Still, it’s a convenient way to pay service providers monthly, Netflix for instance, and you know what they say, no convenience shall go uncharged. We’ve been watching House of Cards on Netflix. I sorta like it. Okay, sure, the Underwoods are the kind of couple who’d thrust a dagger in your back and enjoy a smoke or run together afterward, not exactly empathy begging behavior, but the show is reasonably well plotted and entertaining overall. Plus Claire is pretty hot. Happy Wife said Claire (Robin Wright) used to be married to Sean Penn. Srsly? Ick.

Earlier in the day after a few hours of productive work I ventured out for a bike ride:

BIGGER.

I’m leading a bike tour up here this summer and thought to myself, “Dude, it’s already mid-April. Better get that winter-fattened butt of yours in the saddle and get in shape.” Happy Wife and our friend Sally will be the sag drivers for this tour. Before that, in May, we have friends visiting from Oregon, then a wedding in San Fran in June, followed by the tour, then my sister, niece and great nephew are coming up for a week.

Not long after that the leaves will begin to turn and… I’ll be seen in front of that grocery store door again, mumbling to myself.

Happy Wife was in Fairbanks — aka Sqaurebanks — most of the weekend. Visiting her brother (Mike), his wife, their two adorable girls, and the sled dogs. They must have a dozen or more. Most of them are hand-me-downs from professional teams that race in the Iditarod, dogs who are either too old to race or for other reasons no longer fit enough. Mike mushes them in winter. He seems to enjoy that a lot. Clears his head, especially I suppose after a maddening week as the City Engineer of Fairbanks. I only joke about it being Squares-ville. In truth there’s a lot of nice folks living there, but I’ve no idea how they cope during the long winters. While it can get very warm in Fairbanks in the brief summer, 90+ is not unknown, it also gets brutally cold during the long winter.

According to Wikipedia:

Average winter low temperatures range from −15 to −25 °F (−26 to −32 °C), but extremes can range from −60 to −75 °F (−51 to −59 °C)

Isn’t it crazy weird then that Fairbanks, Alaska’s second largest city and home to the state’s largest university and several military bases, has no natural gas service. Anywhere. Coal, heating oil, and propane. That’s it. This, in a state that has the two largest oil fields ever discovered and developed in North America, both with ginormous gas caps. Problem is, the 700+ mile trans-Alaskan pipeline was engineered to deliver oil, not gas. Plus there’s no feeder stub to Fairbanks anyway.

There’s been a lot of talk up here about building a pipeline to ship gas from the north slope, problem is the only credible bid was to ship it to Canada, where they’d use some of it domestically, and send the rest to America (lower 48). Others are clamoring for an interstate pipeline, including a feeder stub to Fairbanks, but so far the economics aren’t there. Turns out the world is awash in natural gas, so there’s no point in China, for instance, importing natural gas from Alaska when they have closer, cheaper alternatives.

Plus, for a lot of people up here the very notion of sending the gas to/thru Canada is going over like a fart in church:

Heard a piece the other day on NPR, possibly by the breathlessly sentimental Robin Young, about how wonderful it would be to have written a letter to yourself, to be opened and read by your older self. For instance, a sixteen year old writing to his fifty year old self. Which set me to thinking (praises be!), wouldn’t the reverse be more provocative? Suspend your notions of the Laws of Physics for a moment and consider what you might pen to your much younger self:

Dear Former Self,

Hi there. It’s me. You!

Scratch that. Let’s start over.

How about this: I am you. I’m writing to you (me) from the future. Better?

I know this must seem absurd. I’d feel the same way. But of course I would! You and I — we — are the same.

Take a deep breath. Right. So the first thing I need to say to you, me, is that nothing I’m about to tell you (me) can be used to change the course of your (my) life. For instance, when I tell you that I (you) will stop smoking one day, while true, it is not be possible for you (me) to avoid taking up the habit to begin with. I could not have stopped doing something you (I) never started. Crazy, right? You see, while I am able and willing to tell you things about the future, down to the most intimate thoughts you’ll experience, some of which I have (you will) share with no one, the immutable law of cause and effect remains to this day ruthlessly deterministic and applicable at all scales of matter. From the tiniest atomic particle up to and including the vector of an organized human life. Everything is subject to the Laws of Physics. Everything. Well, everything that we know of anyway. And by “we” here I don’t mean just you and I (one in the same — told you this would seem absurd), but rather the collective we of the world. And herein is an important lesson of epistemology: Whenever you reason, always leave yourself an out. Qualifying your claims with “…that we know of anyway” is a handy way to do this.

What I’m trying to say, kid, is that your (my) life will unfold precisely as it has been determined to. (Who or what is the determiner? This remains the topic of an open letter to Reality.). Oh, it will certainly seem to you along the way that you’re choosing your own path, you’ll wave your arms and shout, “See, I have free will!” No sane person will deny you’re correct. But I (you) am here to tell you that I already know, down to the most indivisible detail of your life, what you’re going to think and do. How? Because I (you) have already done it!

Do you see where we are going with this? Now, what I’m going to tell you in terms of what’s coming your (our) way will at times be exciting, and at others, terrifying. I know this must seem absurd to you, getting a letter from your future self. But surely you can take comfort in one thing: I’m here. You’re still here.

To be continued…

Eye candy first.

A stranded starfish:

BIGGER.

Happy Wife returned this still alive star to the ocean. Or should I have said sea? When does a sea become an ocean? At the same time a boat becomes a ship? In either case, instead of what I expected would be a coddling re-introduction to shallow water this star was flung, as one might fling a Frisbee, into deeper water where it landed upside down with splat! I shot her a look; half surprise, half dismay.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like that!” she said, a dreadful look on her face.

There there dear, I’m sure it’ll be alright. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close.

A few more reassuring steps down the beach and viola!

BIGGER.

The washed up egg case (or “purse”) of a Sea Skate. (Note to self: Not Ocean Skate, Sea Skate.)

Supposedly, baby skates may remain in the purse for up to three years as they develop. Unless the purse washes ashore. I’m thinking there’s a very limited amount of time out of the water before it’s lights out for good inside the purse. Probably less time than it takes the next high tide to re-float it back to the nursery. Nature’s gamble.

Our friend Tom died suddenly this week. Heart attack. He’d recently opened his own wine store here in Anchorage after years of working for others. No matter where Tom worked that’s where we preferred to shop. His knowledge of wine was broad and his taste preference matched mine. That’s as important as it is rare. Whenever Tom recommended a wine I’d try it without hesitation. Can’t recall a time when I thought, “Nope, not my style, Tom, you missed on this one.” Not once. Tom was polite, witty, always eager to extend us a “good guy” discount, and I’d come to learn he was pretty well read too. Lately, when I’d stop by his store we’d talk about the latest book his book club was reading, or the merits of this or that author’s short story collection. Frequently, his dog Bolly was in the store at rest on a soft blanket Tom had placed near the cash register.

You’re never prepared for the suddenness of sadness. We will miss Tom. A lot.

…

Happy Wife crust skiing on Portage Lake last weekend. Pardon the low quality. This is a screen capture of a photograph she sent me as an attachment to a text message. Think Xerox of a re-sized Xerox.

See those people back there, near the base of Portage glacier? Moments earlier they’d been touching the columns of ice, posing, I suppose, for a “cool” selfie. Foolish if you ask me. Just one week earlier this video was taken. Recognize the place?

Note near the end the videographer’s recognition of the pressure wave, if I recall correctly from my days as a geophysicist, also known as a standing P-wave.

Fifty years ago today, fourth avenue in our quirky town, Anchorage. Note the creep factor provided by the overhead banner advertising for a showing of Our Town. More pictures of devastation here.

Just to the left of that powder blue Oldsmobile (?) is one of our favorite present-day date night hangouts.

Agreed snow writer, agreed:

Was pleased to see this wasn’t rendered in “Yellow.”

And of course, yes, we are Epic. Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the great Alaska earthquake. The most powerful earthquake in North American history. Local experts on the radio caution that present day Alaskans are woefully unprepared for the next big earthquake, and I suppose they are right. Happy Wife established us a survival kit in the garage — a few cans of tuna, some dog food, five gallons of water, some cash and possibly some fuel to get a fire going. I don’t know for sure,  I haven’t looked in the bin lately. My preparation involved placing two wine glasses and a corkscrew in the crawl space, which functions as our wine cellar. Must be >75 bottles down there. I figure by the time rescuers find us we’ll smell like tuna and be totally snockered.

Went for a quiet lunch yesterday at Juno, a hotel restaurant. I don’t ordinarily eat much lunch, a smear or two of peanut butter on toast with a pickle (Clausen!) & chips ordinarily sustains me. And I don’t usually think of going to a hotel restaurant unless I’m staying at the hotel, and evidently others don’t either because there was nobody at the bar save one guy. He’d just finished his lunch when I heard him let rip a real stool burner. Or so I thought. Shot him a sideways glance to witness his embarrassment. Turns out it was his ringtone, which I think was supposed to be a duck call, but ringing inside his pants pocket it sounded more like a whoopee cushion.

Anyway, lunch was excellent and the Chardonnay pour generous:

My mom e-mailed me to praise a picture I’d sent her, and mentioned in passing how looooooong their winter has been. They live in the heart of Wisconsin. And I thought, you know, seeking sympathy from an Alaskan for how long and cold your winter has been is a bit like a prom queen seeking the same from a pole dancer because her date was pawing her all night long. Eeeew! What, you don’t care for that analogy? Whatever, you get my drift. Snow drift — get it! Haha.

Happy Wife’s birthday Saturday. Don’t tell her but my gift to her this year involves spoilage, i.e. I’m going to spoil her. Weird how spoilage — something that happens to food entombed in the back of the refrigerator — has come to be associated with the bestowing of extravagance. She knows something’s up, as I’ve already told her to free up her Saturday afternoon calendar, and that it will involve some shuttling from one place of spoilage to the next. She dislikes being the center of attention, and I know this, but you know what, tough. She’s getting spoiled, dammit, and that’s all there is to it.

Was at our Nest in Seward the past two nights. Happy Wife stayed home to succor Lucy, who’s been a mast cell cancer survivor for a whole year now this March, and she’s still trucking, albeit more slowly lately. She’s a tough one our girl is.

Me making Mt. Alice look surmountable.

BIGGER.

Perspective is everything. In truth, even after most of the snow is gone Mt. Alice is difficult to summit according to our friend Meldyne, herself a former mountaineer. It’s a doable day hike to get to the base of the steepest part of the ascent, one Happy Wife and I would like to do on a long summer day, but beyond that reaching the true summit requires technical expertise.

My hoodie came. Captures the theme of my depravity shortcoming growth area quite well I thought. Harry appears to approve.

Ordered a hoodie online. Two weeks ago. Hasn’t arrived yet. Didn’t realize I’d checked the shipping option: “Dog Sled”. Amusingly, this morning I get a cheery e-mail inviting me to complete a survey about the product, and the company I ordered from. “$5 if you do!” the email teased.

Okay, this should be fun. First survey question asked me to rate the product on five separate features. Snicker. Checked N/A for all five and clicked “Next.” This must’ve puzzled the survey bot because the next screen entreated me to call customer service — anytime of day we’re here for you! — if by chance there was something wrong with my order.

Ring, ring… “Hi, this is Darcy (?), how may I help you today?”

I explained to Darcy I wasn’t able to complete the survey to evaluate the product because I hadn’t received it yet. Click click click I heard her type, and then suddenly she stops and says, trepidatiously: “Ohhh, you live in Alaska.” As if Alaska was equivalent to the moon. She went on to explain that when their company ships to Alaska it’s equivalent to international, whereby the package starts with FedEx, is eventually transferred to the post office and must go through customs along the way. “Customs?” I said, “it’s a hoodie.”

Over the course of the next few minutes she repeatedly begged my forgiveness so often I wondered if she was paid by the apology. She refunded the shipping charge and said I should expect to see the refund in 5-6 business days. “In other words before the hoodie arrives,” I quipped. If Darcy thought this remark was witty there was no indication. More penance ensued, until eventually I got sucked into the pity party and started feeling sorry for her. This, in spite of my irritation arising from her over- and mis-use of the adverb: “actually.” My latest pet peeve. That deserves a post all its own.

Latest shipping track says the hoodie is in Kent, WA, where it arrived a week ago and has been languishing since, evidently now in the hands of the U.S. post office. By the time I get it it’ll be too warm to wear hoodies. If it doesn’t fit or for any reason I am dissatisfied with the hoodie I was assured I may return it for a full refund. Ha ha ha, that’s the ticket, yeah, if I do I’ll return it via bike messenger, call Darcy and tell her to expect it in 6-8 business months, actually. Cue satisfying laughter….