Rod's Alter Ego

Seen while cycling the Bird-to-Gird trail the other day: Sun (!), Eagles, Bears, Tourists, Taco’ed Wheel, and…

… a Happy Wife

Eagle sightings were abundant. The picture I took was of one that appeared to be an adult Golden perched high atop a tree. A minute earlier it was standing on the mud flats of Turnagain Arm, the tide going out, I’m guessing hunting for small fish, possibly hooligans. The picture didn’t turn out very good, looked more like a gay hock vulture. The bears? A black sow with (at least) two cubs. Here’s the picture — I maxed out the zoom on my Android.

As Happy Wife correctly pointed out to me, false positive sightings of black bears occur all the time. Someone will scan a broad mountain slope and say, “Look, see that black spot, I think that’s a bear.” But when you see a real black bear, you understand what it means to be black. There is no mistaking it. So if you’re not sure it’s a bear, it likely isn’t. Grizzlies? They’re (usually) brown, that’s different. And up here they’re a helluva lot bigger than a black bear. Adults anyway.

We saw other less notable wildlife too. In total it was enough that we both paused and remarked, “Look where we live.” And when we returned home and took a gander at a heat index map of America, redder than a bad sunburn, we felt like gloating a bit.

Oh, and that taco’ed wheel. Two chicks were riding abreast going into a tunnel as I was coming out (opposite direction). I avoided a collision and said something to the effect of Hey, single file please. Seconds later I heard “Ugh…oomph…crap…!” Crash. Thought one of them had plowed into Happy Wife who was behind me a few clicks at the time. But it was one of the chicks who crashed, and pretty badly judging from the condition of her bike, which was clearly unrideable. I asked if she was hurt, she said I don’t think so.

Why I do I press on here? Hearing Lileks question himself made me do the same. He has commenters, evidence of readership, a following. At the very least he’d be letting people down if he stopped blogging. People like me. I’ve been following Lileks on and off for years because…well, lots of reasons, not the least of which is he is maybe the only blogger who has ever caused my morning coffee to come suddenly shooting out of my nose. And the entertainment is free. His blog is always just a click away. No logging in. No pesky passwords. No repeated links to the PayPal donate button (if he even has one). But the biggest reason is the content. I admit to a fondness for a crafty story wrapped around the most quotidian things, the otherwise banal day-to-day things found in the backwash of our lives. But Lileks pays attention. For Lileks, it’s not just a box of cereal on the grocery store shelf; inside his prose the box and its colorful advert becomes a kind of cultural signpost. He doesn’t merely let his dog out in the back yard. There’s something important in the yard; something otherwise disregarded as mundane or pointless becomes worthy of our focus, occasionally via the dog’s point of view. Cataracts and all. It usually takes pages of good fiction to trigger my empathy; Lileks can pull it off in a single post.

Not everything he writes do I find entertaining or even interesting, but that’s not the height of my bar. Consistently good is good enough. The perfect can go pound salt.

Which brings me back to why I blog. For family and friends mostly. Living in Alaska we don’t get down to America too often and the blog is a way to stay in touch. And meager though it may be, I do have some readers. Not judging from the number of comments, but according to my site meter I do have visitors, some days a dozen or more, other days less, a few days many more. Could be web spiders or bots I suppose, can’t rule that out. Anyway, blogging is great way to think out loud, a way to link to things I find entertaining, scholarly, or neither. And it keeps me writing. So there’s something in it for me too.

Keep on trucking Mr. Lileks.

Grant writing time. Which you’ll understand accounts for the present paucity of posts here. This is a time for dense, persuasive prose, and considerable chest thumping, in order to get our research aims… well, paid for. Aka, begging for money.

Elsewhere, heard on the boob tube:

The POTUS said (I’m paraphrasing), “It’s no different than forcing people to buy car insurance.”

I have a couple problems with that line of reasoning.

1) While lots of people drive, it’s not a law that you do. So in that sense, no, Mr. POTUS, it’s not the same thing, because just being a citizen of the US will subject you to being forced (coerced if you like) to buy health insurance. Practically, there’s no opting out of being a US citizen, like you can opt out of driving. Apples and oranges, sir.

2) Even if you do choose to drive, while auto insurance is mandatory in most states, plenty of people nevertheless drive without it. You need a key (or secret code) to start car, not an insurance policy. In fact, this is why insurance companies offer uninsured motorist coverage; in case you collide with an uninsured motorist the cost to repair your car and/or yourself is covered.

3) Even conceding the auto insurance analogy, arguing that forcing people to do Z is unobjectionable because we already force them to do A, B, C, whatever, is (or should be) some kind of political fallacy.

4) Any government coercion reduces personal liberty.

You know you’re cycling in Anchorage when …

Seconds before I snapped this he (she?) was peeing on those pansies. Ha!

The reluctance to do something well only because you’re unable to make it excellent = Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I want to remind people of this when the topic turns to government spending. Lately, I hear certain pundits dismiss the importance of limiting government spending as a step toward fixing the financial crisis in Washington. I hear things like, “Well, sure, they (the government) could cut programs X, Y, and Z, but really, that spending amounts to a trifle of the government’s budget.”

It was one of those days. Emphasis on one. Cloudless. Bluesky. Seventies. Windless.

I threw Otis on top of Roo and Happy Wife drove us to the start line of this year’s colorectal cancer charity ride. It’s nominally a two day ride, the first from Anchorage to Summit Lake (75 miles), and the second to Seward (45 miles). This year they offered a one day option to Summit Lake, which is what I opted for, having arranged with Happy Wife to pick me up at ~2 pm. I hadn’t done any fund raising this year or registered in advance, so I registered on the spot and wrote them a check for the minimum fund raising requirement. A good cause. And a great day. I’ve participated in this event three or more times over the years, and a day like this is one to remember. Much pleasanter than fifty degrees and sideways rain, I think you’ll agree.

Photos: 1) Second water/food stop at base of Turnagain Pass, a gnarly 6 mile climb (~1000′); 2) two riders summit Turnagain Pass; 3) Otis takes a breather at the Hope cutoff, the last water/food stop before the climb to Summit Lake, ~12 miles.

1

2

3

Glad I opted for the one day option. Today it’s raining with other related foulness.

Captured from the mosh pit tonight: Michael Franti performs at Moose’s Tooth summer solstice party.

Sound quality here not so good, but live it was rockin’ good. Thanks to the Happy Wife for scoring us the tickets. A fitting end to the longest day of the year. What fun we had together, listening, jumping, signing, laughing, and enjoying the intermittent waft of MTF.

Mr. Baldwin, may I suggest a Quaalude or two? Temper temper.

Godspeed to these four.

Elsewhere, I was talking to my table mates at Jack Sprat this past Saturday, mentioning with a dubious sense of pride that I’d received my first rejection on a short story I’d sent in, when one of them said, “Oh, you want to be a writer now?” I thought, no, what I really want is readers. And I was hoping the editor at the lit journal where I submitted the story would bring them to me, by way of publishing my story. No such luck. But this is the way it goes I’m told, you twice paper your office walls with rejection letters before your first hit. I mailed the story to another lit journal late last week. Today, to Lowes, for wallpaper paste.

Today, Father’s Day, along the coastal trail.

Bigger.