Thanksgiving in Wasilla...

Ah, our classy Governor. Is there anything she can't ruin?

Best quote: "(sarcastically)...certainly we'll get criticism for even doing this!"

She truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

Loooong weekend?

It's been a little odd around here this week. Sara's been home all week sick...well, home sick Monday and Tuesday by choice, and then yesterday and today because they sent her home Wednesday because her eye looked kinda funky. She went to the clinic today, more out of a desire to get the ok to go back to work, I think, but ended up "winning the clinic game" as she called it: mild eye, sinus, and ear infections, strep throat, and a cold on top of all that. So yeah, how Ike and I have managed not to really get sick (yet...knock on wood), I don't know.

As a side effect of having Sara home today, I had a few hours to poke around and retroactively apply "labels" to all the posts on this blog, all the way back through 2006. For some reason, the labels aren't showing up on the posts themselves, but the menu on the right should work if for some reason you ever wanted to go back and narrow down to all the entries I ever wrote about Loki, or snowmachining, or posts with video or anything like that.

Now if only I could post more often, eh?

Another link (with bonus rant)

Gentle reader, I hope you don't mind that many of my posts this year have been links to articles about our lovely state. It's just that we've been in the news, not to mention the lower 48's public consciousness, lately for some reason, and let's face it...the articles by the real, actual "writers" of the liberul media elite do a much better job than I ever could.

So! In that vein, here's an article from the ADN today about our use of wind power here in Kasigluk/Nunap:

Our view: Wind at work

Quite interesting to me, in that I think it provides a little bit of a roadmap to the viability and the way renewable energy is finally going to get traction in this country, at least in my humble and unenlightened opinion. Having less to do with concern about climate change, environmentalism, and worry about our "carbon footprint" (garbage disposal here consists of hauling trash out to a designated "dump" area on the tundra and setting it ablaze on occasion), and more about simple economic self interest. If wind turbines can generate energy in a local economy dealing with $7+ per gallon heating fuel, then hell yeah, we're on it.

Not that things like this would necessarily happen without the "pork" that Alaska gets from the Federal Government...you know, like the "Bridge to Nowhere". Sorry, venting again. I'm getting a little sick of reading all the Alaska-bashing on some of the lefty political blogs I frequent. Haha, we're still counting votes because they're arriving on dogsled...haha, we're all idiots who voted for a convicted felon...haha, we all want to "drill baby drill", shoot wolves from helicopters, and think we have foreign policy experience because we're by Russia. Well guess what, we need some of that "pork" because many places in this undeveloped state still are missing basic infrastructure like roads and plumbing. And those backwards, hillbilly rural voters whose votes they're now counting, more than a week after the election because the dogsled just arrived? Yeah, they just put Begich ahead of ConvicTed Stevens, even though we know not having Uncle Ted in the Senate will probably lead to less money and slower development out here. Yeah, you're welcome.

Haha!

What is up with all this national media attention lately out here??

Wall Street Journal - Are These the Shortest Commercial Flights in the U.S.?

Note to readers...as the person re-doing the school's website (at a snail's pace, admittedly), don't count on that link to the dog sleds working for long ;-)

Unfortunately, she is my Governor, so I must keep mocking her.

Copy-pasted, because I'm the laziest blogger ever:

From the Urban Dictionary:

Palin

1. An applicant lacking even basic job skills

2. Someone supremely un-self-aware or lacking any relative sense of what he/she does or doesn't know.

HR sent me another Palin for the marketing manager job.

Palin v.

1. to abandon one's principles for short term gain

Tom, a devout vegan, palined when he consumed a happy meal solely to obtain the collectible toy it contained.

Palin n.

1. Pejorative term that refers to an incompetent, impractical, irrelevant or incapable person who has been appointed to a position of great importance.

2. A person who holds authority disproportionate to his or her requisite ethics and qualifications. Derived from John McCain's controversial 2008 Vice Presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

John was recently made principal, but everybody thinks he's a Palin who can't do the job.

My new boss is such a Palin - he took my deserved place because the CEO is
his personal friend.

This list, however, I compiled over the course of the last 2 months...some of the funnier nicknames I've spotted for our illustrious Governor (in no particular order):

Caribou Barbie

Snowbilly

Bible Spice

Nanookie of the North

The Disasta from Alaska

Mooselini

Brain to Nowhere

Iditabroad

The Wicked Witch of Wasilla

Jane Six-Pack

Jane Winebox

Sideshow Moosetits

Sarah Flailin'

The Election Day post

Okay, I'll readily admit I'm a big geek for politics (among other things, of course), so election days are pretty much like Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day and Trivia all rolled up into one. We did it up right yesterday, with a family voting adventure and a party to watch results come in until late in the evening. Plenty of comments I could make about what voting here was like, not to mention the amazing results nationally and some not-so-cool state level results, but for now lets just take a look at some scenes from the day that was:

This is a video I cut together quickly from what I shot yesterday when we went to vote...sorry if it's a little Blair-Witch-y at the beginning, I'm just no good at the walking and the shooting.



Outside our polling place...



Isaac got to celebrate the event by getting his first solid food - avocados! There's video of this somewhere, too...I may spare you that.



Sara showing off the Obama Victory Cake I made...did I mention I'm a huge nerd? But we figured if we couldn't celebrate with beer...



Yeah, we party like rock stars here in Nunap.

Stay tuned...

Busy busy election day...but stay tuned for a video and pics of Isaac's first election and the party to follow. Once I get a chance to edit and upload everything...

See what happens?

I hope when Sara thought about the ramifications of leaving Isaac home alone with her intrepid, loving, handsome husband (and his downloaded sports-talk radio) every day, she took into consideration the things he might be learning...

Action Shots

So last night Isaac wanted to play in a box. All was well, fun was being had. So much fun, in fact, that he got excited and started rocking back and forth, squealing with joy, as the next picture shows. You can guess what happened next...

Notice the far end of the box a good 4 inches off the ground. Kudos to the picture timing by mama...as appoximately .2 seconds later there was a minor thud on the carpet, and a brief moment of crying...and then immediate return to merryment :-P

Today's midmorning NWS update.

KUSKOKWIM DELTA-
INCLUDING...BETHEL...HOOPER BAY...NUNIVAK ISLAND
1030 AM AKDT WED OCT 15 2008
.NOW...

THE KUSKOKWIM DELTA INTERIOR AND THE BETHEL AREA IS REPORTING BELOW
NORMAL TEMPERATURES AND RATHER BLUSTERY WINDS WITH WIND CHILLS OF 5
TO 10 BELOW ZERO. THE FORECAST THROUGH MID AFTERNOON IS FOR SUNNY
SKIES WITH A FEW AREAS OF COASTAL CLOUDINESS THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON.
TEMPERATURES IN TEENS AND LOW 20S WARMING INTO THE 20S TO NEAR 30.
MOSTLY NORTH WIND TO 15 MILES AN HOUR EXCEPT GUSTY TO 30 MILES AN
HOUR ALONG THE COASTAL SECTIONS.

Now that's some October weather!