Outside my window

I actually have a whole series of images from this perspective, but today's is the only one I have handy. (In part, this is because the previously trustworthy of our computing life, the eMachines desktop, is starting to die. It's got the dreaded "running super extremely unbelievably slow" problem, and regularly has to be hard-shutdown, and restarted. I've backed up almost everything, and am about to resort to extreme measures.)

Anyway, here is what it looks like right now:



The ridge of snow up on the rail shows two amounts of snowfall in the last 48 hours. I shoveled in the evening on Monday, and then again midday yesterday. The taller amount of snow shows what we have received since Monday night, the slightly lower amount since Tuesday afternoon. Pretty scientific, huh?

Anchorage's bore tide

A good explanation can be found here. For those considering a visit, this would be less than a half hour drive from our home.

What's So Special About the Turnagain Arm Bore Tide?

Well, it’s huge—one of the biggest in the world, actually. Also, all other bore waves run up low-lying rivers in more southerly latitudes. The Turnagain Arm bore wave is the only one that occurs in the far north and the only one bordered by mountains, making it the most unique and most geologically dramatic bore tide in the world. It’s also amazingly accessible: you can see it by road along its entire 40- to 50-mile length. And it’s a wildlife-spotting opportunity: harbor seals often ride the tide into Turnagain Arm. Beluga whales may come in a half hour or so later once the water gets deeper.

Tattoos and Chinese characters

My friend Brian has this really extraordinary tattoo that wraps most of a lower leg: "non-violence" in fourteen different languages. This got me to thinking about Chinese characters, which led me to this really excellent website explaining and discussing Chinese characters and language.

No, mom, I'm not seriously considering getting a tattoo. But if I do, I'll send a picture to you right away.

On a happier note :

Bog Monster is actively fermenting. At least in the sweet wort, the peat flavor isn't nearly as profound as I thought it would be. The whole shebang ended up with a vastly higher OG (1096!) than I intended, as it boiled for almost an extra half hour while we screwed around with proofing the Safale US-05.

Today's This I Believe on NPR

This responds to the former interrogator who NPR's Weekend Edition's Liane Hansen calls "Alex Anderson." Speaking under a made-up name to protect herself, today's This I Believe commentator just about made me physically ill with the vile propaganda she spewed. If you were lucky enough to miss it, you can read the text at that link, and also listen to it for yourself.

Her self-justifying, hateful nonsense was deeply, profoundly offensive. While I basically found almost every line disgusting, I'll give a few of the highlights:

She claims that "I don't have any torture stories to share. I think many people would be surprised at the civilized lifestyle I experienced in Guantanamo. The detainees I worked with were murderers and rapists." I'll try to put aside that these three sentences are so inherently contradictory as to make almost no sense. Worse, they indicate that she is either willfully and wantonly ignorant, in the most bizarre, dishonest, and hypocritical tradition of the Bush administration, or simply an outright liar, if she has no "torture stories to share."

"Alex" says she served a year in Iraq as a military interrogator, then returned for a year as a civilian contractor, supposedly because she didn't feel like she'd done enough to make a difference:

"First I served as a soldier for a year, and then returned as a civilian contractor because I felt I hadn't done enough to make a difference the first time."

Hmmm... are you sure that you didn't just want to get paid a hell of a lot better to abuse people and engage in "torture lite"? See, e.g., former US Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis, in his outstanding and brutally honest book Fear Up Harsh, An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq. He writes about a civilian contract interrogator he calls "Eliza" who could quite easily be the despicable woman talking on This I Believe:

"Eliza was former military intelligence. She'd left the army and then came back to Iraq with a private firm, making somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand dollars per year to do the same thing we were doing. (Actually, these contractors did a lot less; they didn't have guard duty, latrine duty, or any other of the little bullshit jobs that the army uses to put you in your place.)"

She makes the preposterous suggestion that everyone she interrogated at Guantanamo were "murderers and rapists":

"The detainees I worked with were murderers and rapists."

But as bizarre and offensive as the commentary was on the whole, the really revolting part was while she talks about how "You never forgot for a moment that, given the chance, they'd kill you to get out" she nevertheless describes her interrogation, and her "clients" conditions, as basically a highly paid (for her) or all-expenses paid (for the prisoners) pleasure cruise:

"We'd meet, play dominoes, I'd bring chocolate and we'd talk a lot."

Yes, really: that's a copied and pasted quote. I couldn't make that up if I tried.

Her basic theme is the "redemption" she received through torturing, oops, interrogating people:

People say, "Hate the sin, not the sinner." That is easier said than done, but I learned that there is true freedom in accepting others unconditionally.

Uhhh, yeah: it's easy to accept someone unconditionally when they are imprisoned, and sitting across from you shackled while you interrogate them.

She tells one of her PRISONERS (I summarily reject her glibly describing her dominoes and chocolate party partners "clients") that her God expects her to "...love my neighbor as myself. That means you." Loving your neighbor as yourself means interrogating them while they are imprisoned and held incommunicado, without contact with their families, or legal representation, or basic civil and human rights, halfway across the world from their homes?

Nearing her conclusion, she writes that "My clients may never know this, but my year with them helped me to finally heal. My nightmares stopped." Well, "Alex Anderson", it sure is nice for you that playing dominos and eating chocolate with involuntary guests at your little Gitmo tea parties helped you heal. But how do you think this quality time felt for the prisoners?

I've listened to a lot of these "This I Believe" segments on NPR. They've been touching, poignant, banal, fascinating, and funny in turn. But this offensive, loathsome, hypocritical, dishonest propaganda makes me sick.

I'm quite sure that "Alex" doesn't care what I have to say (though she's certainly welcome to contact me through this blog, and I'd be happy to chat.) But while she might "believe we help to redeem each other through the power of acceptance" I should assure her that I won't be helping her with redemption by accepting her evil acts or her bizarre, dishonest story about them. She is going to need to look to her God that tells to her love her prisoners as herself for that redemption.

Some thoughts from my e-mail with E

(a.k.a. my favoritest and bestest sister)

First, a Utah Phillips qoute:

But if it's true the only real life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?"

Next, a couple of the things I told her I need to go do: tunnel a hole in the door frame of the man door between our garage and the side driveway, so we can more easily plug in the engine block heater of the car. Welcome to Alaska.

Finally, tomorrow's homebrew:

Bog Monster

Roughly:

8# Crisp Maris Otter
1# organic white wheat
1# 10L crystal
1.75# peated malt

mash 149*F for 60 min, mash out 170*F, batch sparge

60 min: .25oz Columbus 13.7% pellet
40 min: .25oz Columbus 13.7% pellet
20 min: .25oz Columbus 13.7% pellet

Safale US-05 rehydrated

Should only take about a year in bottles to be drinkable. Yum!

Use a cloth bag!

Speaking of shitty carbon footprints...

Here are my 2007 flights, so far:

Alaska, and elsewhere

I know that some of you occasionally see vestiges of my e-mails to you show up in this blog. For better or worse, it's when writing generalities about ANC, and what I'm doing, that I realize I should probably blog it. So I guess you could be happy that what I was writing to you seemed interesting enough to me to share it with eveyrone, right? The next couple paragraphs are (somewhat edited) versions of an e-mail I just sent.

Life in Anchorage remains fine. It's in the low 20s, crisp and clear. The snowy mountains across the way look like they have movie lighting on them, with a low sun shining under a layer of haze. We're waiting for Alyeska to re-open, after last weeks unseasonably warm temps (mid to high 40s was standard) melted all the snow. In our front yard, the ice and snow that covered the gravel is all gone, and only remains over the "grass."

Outside my window, the birds are doing acrobatics. I guess I'm thinking they might do better by migrating south, but they do make for entertaining diversions when I see them out of the corner of my eye. I'm mostly working on asylum and political protest stuff, and home improvement and homebrewing.

Last week I flew to Georgia for the annual SOA Watch vigil. Just before that I was in Sacramento, and in the weeks before that Atlanta, DC, and Boston. On Saturday night I'm flying to Arizona. My carbon footprint is really sucking, but life is definitely not boring.

Homebrewing:
recently bottled and kegged: Belgian pumpkin ale; imperial porter
recently racked to secondary: rye DIPA
planning: Bog Monster (two pounds of peated malt in a ~14 pound grain bill!)

Okay, I need to finish catching up on e-mail, and then make sure my folding bicycle fits in its suitcase, and see if I can fashion a relatively solid set of towing wheels to tow the suitcase with the bike.

Travelin'

In the Alaska Board Room in Seattle now, at the tail end of a long trip (ANC-BOS-DCA-ATL-ANC.) Confidential to the guy in the blue fleece with "UCI" on the back of the collar, sitting at a work desk on the ground floor, screaming into your bluetooth headset: we don't need to hear it, and at least a few of us had a good laugh at your expense when it became clear that it's your mother you're screaming at.

Anchorage, for now

I just looked out the window at what I thought was a bird, then realized it was a leaf, falling from a tree, but fluttering at length. It really reminded me of the plastic bag dancing scene in American Beauty.

Back from a lovely wedding celebration in Maryland a couple of weekends ago, I'm off to Boston tomorrow. Then DC. Then Atlanta. Then back to Anchorage.

We got our first real snow night before last, and by real, I mean just an inch or two, but enough to stick to the ground. The mountains I look out the window at as I sit at the computer, in the Chugach range, are now pretty much covered with snow.

D.C., D.C., oh how you annoy me

I had an excellent time and J and C's wedding ceremony. It was truly beautiful, and had loads of great people, in a gorgeous setting. I was up until 1:45am looking at stars, and since I didn't want to interrupt people sleeping in the barn, just laid out in the passenger space of the ridiculous SUV I was given at Alamo. It was just about the comfiest sleeping I've ever done in a car, though.

Lots of good conversation and good people. I was the bartender for much of the night, and helped people imbibe with the extensive good booze to be had, including lots of outstanding merlot from Trader Joes, and a couple of organic wines. The potluck was excellent, too: lots of vegan goodies. It was designed as a way of contributing and sharing with our community, and it was wildly successful.

Had a great time this morning helping clean up, including moving straw bales on J's bike with the fantastic work trailer attached. At one point, we moved five bales with it, and it wasn't particularly difficult.

At DCA now, awaiting my first flight DCA-SEA, and then on to ANC with mom. See you in Seattle, mom!

At SeaTac, and why [some] Horizon ramp agents suck

After flying in last night and spending the night in a priceline hotel, I'm back at the airport to continue the journey to DC for the wedding of two friends. I ended up getting lucky with my flights: I was booked on AS 162, didn't get on standby on AS 96, got rolled over to AS 148, but then AS 96 went mechanical and they had to swap equipment, and AS 162 was delayed, so of the three ANC-SEA flights, I got lucky with Door #2.

The bus from SeaTac to downtown Seattle, #174, was damn near intolerable. Since the #194 "express" (a very relative term) doesn't run after about 9:15pm, I had to take #174, the milk run. In was a nasty slog, with about half the bus yammering loudly into their cell phones (many of them ramp/handlers for QX, i.e., Horizon Airlines) and then yammering excitedly to one another about what they'd just yammered about on their cell phones. One of the worst offenders moved to jam in next to me, in a sideways facing seat that is already somewhat cramped due to the metal poles, and remained there until he disembarked, despite there being at least half a dozen available seats immediately nearby.

Two of the QX ramp agents actively tried to cut in line getting on the bus (for no apparent reason, since the bus was not full, and there were only about a dozen of us unlucky enough to be standing there and waiting for it.) A moderate bit of stinkeye and asserting myself prevented both, at least from cutting me off, though they actively cut several other people.

Confidential to Horizon Airlines (and/or Menzies, if QX ramp work is also subcontracted to Menzies, as AS is): you might want to ask your employees to take off their company clothing before acting like complete asshats for 45 minutes in public.

In other news, I spent about 45 minutes at the Alaska MVP/First Class ticket counter with an extremely pleasant employee, while we sorted out my fouled up reservation. Because a multi-city itinerary (totally legal, and booked through alaskaair.com) included two ANC-SEA and SEA-ANC trips over a week, when I boarded the first of these legs the computer decided to 'use' both of my roundtrip sets of flight coupons. Like I said to the agent, if you can have one cookie, why not have two?

In the Board Room now, enjoying the free wifi, free Alaskan Amber, free chips, and awaiting the free veggie chili. Gotta fill up before the 5.5 hour SEA-DCA flight!

Travel

Lots of it coming up soon. Happily, a couple of complimentary MVP upgrades just cleared on Alaska. I had exit row seats, so I would have been reasonably comfortable leg-length-wise, but it's nice to also have the seat width and not have encroachment from my next-door-seatmates.

Speaking of chest thumping right wing Christian conservative no-bid defense contractors:

Specifically, of Blackwater USA, the mass murdering American defense contractor solely run by Erik Prince, a right wing Christian conservative wingnut with strong ties to the Bush administrationS:
"No doubt about it, if you shoot everyone around you, you reduce the risk that you will be shot."
-Daniel Schorr, NPR (10/01/2007)

Settling in

I've had a break from EMT training for most of the last week due to scheduling and logistical issues of the instructor. It's been nice, and has allowed me to get more done around the house. I've worked through most of the list that filled amost an entire side of an envelope, and am now on to mostly puttering-level tasks.

Today's to-do list includes dragging our asses all over robin hood's barn, from the commissary for onions and bananas and tofu, to the BX for bookshelves, to the hardware store for a showerhead, and bed bath and beyond for non-slip strips (or a mat) to put down in the main floor tub. I also need to track down 3-way CF and dimmable bulbs, which are looking both not too common, and very expensive.

Here are a few (bad) pictures of the three moose that were wandering around at the edge of our driveway last week. A couple of days after watching these three, I saw the largest moose I've ever seen, walk through the other part of our driveway and then wander into our back yard. Unfortunately, it was dark and I didn't get any photos.

Thoughts on media, and what we've unfortunately been watching lately

1) 24 is comically stupid: it's preposterous idiocy for the post 9/11 right-wing conspiracy-theory wingnut moron crowd. It's astonishing that people think this show is good, or interesting.

2) 300 is far beyond comically stupid: it's nonsensical high-sugar junk food for the pitifully limited brains of the xbox generation.

3) 300 is stupid, 24 is stupid. Therefore, all shows and movies with numbers as the sole title are stupid.

4) Disturbia is very, very stupid. It's Scream meets American Beauty for the moron crowd, and yet another installment in the 'how difficult it is to be rich' genre.

5) Fracture is appallingly bad and unrealistic. All of the characters are embarrassing parodies.

Food for thought, since it's certainly not going to be very tasty

I'm going to be a judge of the homebrew competition at the Alaska State Fair this weekend, and while looking through the website came across the winners, for 2006 and all-time, of the largest vegetable contest.

A few interesting things show up, like how many records were set last year. Examples: 67&1/8" long gourd, 84 pound collard green, 96.95 pound kohlrabi, and the one you most often hear about: the 1019 pound pumpkin.

Then there are the records for the ages, like 4.5 pound rhubarb (1983), 39.5 pound broccoli (1994), 45.25 pound red cabbage (1994), 71.75 pound chard (1995), and 25.3 pound mushroom (1993).

See what you too could do with 18 to 23 hours a day of sun, two 1,500 watt heaters, a Visqueen tent, a forklift, and up to 120 gallons of water a day? Get busy!

One reason we're excited about the new house

(And hope it closes as planned, with any more turmoil or headaches.) I was just writing this in an e-mail to a friend:

So definitely think about coming up when you have time: we're really excited to have people visit. In a sense, we've never really had enough space to properly have guests stay with us, at least who didn't mind sleeping on the couch in the living room.

It got me to thinking about the places J and I have lived, and how we really haven't had space for people to stay, at least when everyone didn't wan tto be in every else's back pockets:

Denver: one bed, one bath
San Diego, OB: studio, one bath
San Diego, University Heights: one bed, one bath
Salt Lake City, downtown: three bed, two bath (but only for four months)
Salt Lake City: two bed, one bath

It'll be awfully nice to be in a decently sized place, three bed, two and a half bath, especially with a view like this:

Don't ask me why in the fuck I'm reading this stuff:

at 1:30am in Anchorage. And don't ask about the last several hours I just spent reviewing individual assessor and property records for the Mat-Su Borough. (And TGS, say what we will about Mat-Su, but damn they've got a nice website for reviewing other people's property records: about the nicest I've ever used.)

Then, after hours of reasonably productive web surfing, I fall into the all too common practice of fucking around for an hour or two on the web, and before I know it, it's 1:30am, and for a series of links and click-throughs that I could relate to you, Gentle Reader, but won't, I end up reading a blog about being a consultant. At least it made me laugh out loud, especially this part:

The Art of the Shnap
Shnaps are a great way to escape the pain of a local [consulting] project for 30 minutes to an hour. To take a shnap, you tell the client, “I gotta go drop a deuce, be back in an hour.” You head into the John, slip down your drawers, drop some kids off at the pool, turn off the alarm on your cellphone, put your head in your lap (don’t forget to flush before this step so you’re not huffing your own shit fumes), and sleep.

(In the original version of this post, I actually included a link to the blog that this was in, but decided to remove it. As I read further down in the blog, there was some offensive, racist shit that I didn't like.)

Okay, now I'm really going to go brush my teeth with the electric toothbrush that, after about six years of faithful service and hundreds of falls, has finally developed a large crack. But hey, it's still working!

Price comparisons of vegan groceries in Anchorage

You know how you sometimes see those signs up at supermarkets claiming that in a direct product to product price comparison, their store came out x.x% lower than Competitors Y and Z?

While just about shitting myself over the preposterous prices at Carr's (which is essentially Safeway, same company) the other day, I decided to do just that. Except of course I did it with a distinctly hippie-ish natural foods vegan twist. For fuckssake, I'm sure not interested in comparing the price of Ragu's Ground Up Animal with Fresh Unknown Industrial Byproducts and A Half pound of Added Sugar Sauce.

I made a list of things that I regularly buy, and found myself with a shockingly logical route coming back from the dentist this morning. I then had the brain flash that should do beer price comparisons, too, but I'll report on those in another blog post.

THE ROUTE

• Carrs (Safeway) on West Dimond and Jewel Lake (hereinafter "Carrs")
  
• Fred Meyer on West Dimond just west of Minnesota ((hereinafter "Fred")
  
• Fred Meyer liquor store
  
• Gold Rush Liquors on Old Seward at East Dimond
  
• Brown Jug Warehouse store, 4140 Old Seward
  
• New Sagaya Midtown Market, Old Seward at 36th (hereinafter "Sagaya")
  
• VERY briefly spun around the astonishingly expensive Natural Pantry across the street from New Sagaya
  
• Carrs in the Sears Mall on Northern Lights, since I (mistakenly) assumed that the Carr's selection on West Dimond completely sucked due to their renovations
  
• Oaken Keg liquor store, a Carr's operation, in the Sears Mall
  
• the Commissary/PX/BX at Elmendorf AFB (hereinafter "base")
  

Now, if you're a stranger or lurker, you don't know why I have access to the Commissary at Elmendorf, and you'll have to e-mail me to find out. Suffice it to say that I'm EXTREMELY glad that I do have this access, because otherwise we might have to take out a home equity loan every time we wanted to buy Boca Burgers.

* The products and NON-SALE* prices are listed from from lowest to highest.
* I deliberately used the regular everyday price, ignoring temporary sales.
* Where a store isn't shown for a particular product, they either didn't sell it, or I just couldn't find it.

TOFU, cheapest available: Base $1.07; Sagaya $1.49; Carrs $2.19; Fred $2.39
Soy milk, 8th Continent

SOY MILK, 8th Continent (my favorite): Base $2.19; Fred Meyer $3.79; Sagaya $4.69

SOY MILK, Silk: Base $2.89; Fred Meyer $4.39; Carrs $4.69 (Silk Lite, no regular visible)

SMART BALANCE ORGANIC (vegan margarine): Base $2.59; Fred Meyer $3.29

SMART BALANCE [regular, non-vegan]: Base $1.79; Fred Meyer $2.45; Carrs 2.79

ONIONS, ORGANIC RED per pound: Base $1.11 (Earthbound Farms 3# bag); Sagaya $1.66 (IDENTICAL Earthbound Farms 3# bag)

ONIONS, conventional RED per pound: Base $1.15; Sagaya $1.49; Fred Meyer $1.99
(yes, I honestly couldn't find red onions anywhere at Carrs)

ONIONS, YELLOW per pound: Base $0.59; Fred Meyer $1.29; Sagaya $1.29; Carrs $1.39

LETTUCE, RED per head: Base $1.09; Fred Meyer $1.79; Sagaya $1.99; Carrs $1.99

LETTUCE, GREEN per head: Base $1.09; Fred Meyer $1.79; Sagaya $1.99; Carrs $1.99

SPINACH, per bunch: Base $1.29; Fred Meyer $1.79; Sagaya $1.99; Carrs $1.99

BROCCOLI, ORGANIC per pound: Base $1.58; Fred Meyer $2.29; Carrs $2.29; Sagaya $3.99

LIGHTLIFE vegan sausage tube: Base $2.34; Fred Meyer $3.99

COFFEE, ORGANIC per pound: Base: $4.38 ($2.74/10 oz.); Carrs $9.69; Fred Meyer $10.79

And my personal favorite for the most preposterous, indefensible markup in Anchorage:

BOCA VEGAN BURGERS: Base $2.00; Fred Meyer $4.19; Sagaya $5.49; Carrs $5.49

Note that despite vastly lower purchasing power/economy of scale, New Sagaya is almost always lower than Carrs / Safeway. Crazy.

The moral of the story? Always shop at the Base, then go to Fred Meyer as a more local backup, Sagaya is occasionally okay for certain items, and avoid Carrs / Safeway like avian influenza.

Of beers and vomit

So J is in Georgia, and while going to an excellent beer bar at my suggestion and urging, she happened on to an unknown brewpub. Their web site suggested decent beer and good vegetarian food options, so I urged her to go. Among other mixed reviews in a first e-mail, here is the entirety of the second e-mail she sent me:

when the ipa warms up it tastes like vomit

The identity of the brewpub will be withheld until I can do my own visit, but given that IPA is J's favorite style, the prospects look pretty dim.

It's been a long time since I laughed out loud at something on the web

Actually, probably since E (and by extension, S) got me to read Best of Craigslist. But, see, I have a relatively short attention span, and like pretty constant entertainment and/or stimuli of some kind. So with rare exceptions, like the Alaska Airlines board on Flytertalk and the homebrewing forum on BeerAdvocate, I rarely read many pages for long.

Anyway, back on topic, laughing out loud at things on the web.

Several things in this Instructable, and the pages linked from it, made me laugh out loud. Repeatedly.

Dinner!

Here's tonight's dinner, a green leaf lettuce salad with sauteed organic red onions and tofu, and toasted bread infused with garlic. The bread wasn't fresh per se, but was hot to the touch when I picked up it yesterday.

Cost breakdown:
$0.37: green leaf lettuce (1/3 of a $1.09 head, Alaska grown)
$1.07: tofu (one package)
$0.42: red onions (1/2 of one, $3.39 for 3 lbs/four onions, Earthbound Farms organic)
$0.20: Annie's Goddess dressing: (~ 1/30 of a $5.99, 1 liter bottle)
$0.25: bread (1/8 of a loaf, 2 for $4.00)

GRAND TOTAL: $2.30

Now, tell me where you can get vegan food like this at a restaurant at this cost?

TGS, watchoogot?

Cost comparisons of Anchorage groceries likely to follow.

Today's technology rant...

is more of a resigned sigh than a rant, I guess. My formerly reliable and trustworthy Dell 700m laptop has of late become a shitty little piece of shit laptop. First, the 71WH, 4800 mAH, Type C6017 extended life battery is dying. It basically only holds a little over an hour charge when fully charged with the DVD/CDROM drive running. For the last couple of years, it would regularly give me three plus hours with DVDs, a lifesaver on long flights. Researching it some, I've come to find out that almost everyone hates these batteries, which are close kin to the infamous firestarter Dell batteries which have resulted in at least three recalls in the last several years.

In addition, ont he ferry ride up here, the DVD/CDROM drive has started to malfunction, and doesn't like to correctly play DVDs for much more than an hour or two.

Mere coincidence that this all starts to go down after my 2 year extended warranty period ended in April? Truth be told, though, the extended warranty wasn't worth a shit anyway. When I had problems within a year, I spent endless and worthless hours on the phone with "technical support" who ran be through a series of stupid checklists, and ultimately I resolved the problem through some advice I found online.

Moral of the story? That Dell laptops suck, and I won't buy one again? Not really. I actually think it's a sad statement about built-in obsolescence, which manufacturers shamelessly apply to pretty much all consumer products these days. I still have a Mac Powerbook 5300c from 1996! that works fine, and offers better battery life than my Dell 700m from 2005. Okay, then, is the moral of the story that Macs are better than Dells for this purpose? Nope, not that, either: I know plenty of people with newer Max laptops that have jad just as shitty of lifespans.

No, I think the moral of the story is that computer (and consumer electronics) manufacturers have figured out that we, the purchasing public, have an endless capacity for ignorant spending and replacing and consumerism. In short: we're fools, and they know it. Pretty irritating, isn't it?

On a related note of irritation: sometime recently, Costco changed the only decent refund policy in the industry, and now only offers 60 or 90 days on electronics. I forget which, but it's not important, since it's a damn sight less than the lifetime satisfaction guarantee that they used to offer on everything they sold. That eliminates what was usually the primary reason, beyond decent (but usually not extraordinary) prices, to purchase from Costco. I used to almost always buy from them even when it wasn't precisely what I wanted. Now? Depends on where the price is right. And no, Costco, the "technical support" you offer as part of your Concierge services isn't a good substitute.

With apologies to John McPhee,

we've come in to the country. We arrived in Whittier, Alaska on the ferry on July 26th, and have been on the go since. On that first day, we:

• drove to Anchorage
  
• had breakfast at Snow City (details below)
  
• got both of our driver licenses
  
• got an expensive smog test for the car
  
• registered the car
  
• got library cards
  
• got J on the request list at the library for Harry Potter
  
• went to Elmendorf and got a base sticker for the car
  
• and got our health care switched over and PCM teams assigned
  
• and checked out the commissary
  
• 'checked in' to the B&B we're staying at for the month
  

It was a busy day.

We've now been in town a week, and J has been busy with meet and greets for her new job. In the meantime, we've gone to the home inspection for the house we're under contract for, and submitted a list of request repairs to the sellers. If all goes well, we close on the 27th.

I've been to the commissary twice, due to the VERY cheap prices, especially on the small but nice selection of organic produce, and excellent prices on fake-meat products.

Today we went out for a medical appointment for J, and checked out the "for sale" lot, and the (free to us!) recreation/fitness center. A free swimming pool! Yay!

Also over the weekend, we bought a Jeep Liberty. Ugh. It's an SUV, but getting in and out of our driveway in the winter will actually require legitimate 4WD. We are both sickened by the crappy gas mileage (18/23) but it's truly a winter vehicle only, and the bad mileage will help keep us honest honest on that.

I just called and got a dentist, and have an appointment for Monday morning. First thing Monday morning, like 6:45am, I drop off J at the airport to fly to Nome for the week, then go straight to the Jeep dealership to have the optional undercoating installed (sprayed on?) I then have a dentist appointment at 10am. Busy day ahead there, too.

And in the next hour, I need to go drop off some DVDs at the library, and then pick up the tickets we bought a month ago for tonight's sold-out Indigo Girls show at the Bear Tooth First Tap.

Sign with kayak tip at Gas Works Park


Seattle skyline from Lake Union


Seattle skyline #2 from Lake Union


Seattle skyline from Lake Union with kayak tip

Hazardous, do not launch, do not land, do not swim, do not fish, do not wade, do not breathe:

Gas Works Park in all its glory, from Lake Union:

More Gas Works Park with more tips of kayak on Lake Union:

Fremont Bridge open in the background of the George Washington/Aurora Bridge:

Images from Lake Union kayaking

Gas Works Park with the tip of the kayak in Lake Union:

My 200th post!

Eventful likely only for its number, if not its content.

The rumbling is that it's supposed to hit record high temperatures today in Seattle, at least the high 90s, possibly even 100. Naturally, I did what any reasonable person would do: I went outside, to do outdoor sports, in the sun, a little before noon.

I rented a kayak from the Moss Bay Rowing, Kayaking, and Sailing Center which is a ridiculously convenient 1.5 block walk from the hotel. I re-discovered, for the dozenth or twentieth time, that waves are a deceptive thing: you paddle as hard as you damn can against the waves, confident that on the return route, they'll be in your favor. Predictably, they were far more challenging on the way back. I paddled from the the south end of Lake Union to Gas Works Park, and back.

While hovering near the park and taking a drink and some pictures, I was able to rescue a child's plastic frisbee/hover/disc thingie (S would know what I'm talking about, since I'm pretty sure his son D has these) from the water. The child and mother were immensely grateful, though after I'd rescued it and was nearing the non-shore of Gas Works Park, the kid wanted to know "WHERE IS IT?!?" and I said "I've got it right here!" which relived him immensely. I don't know if he thought I was just toying with him, or what.

I then hustled to make it back within my rental period, to avoid paying for an extra hour, which would have been largely sitting around and drinking beer and eating snacks, since my shoulders are very much not in shape for kayaking. Of course, COnfidential to TGS, who doesn't love a little BAHHHH-LEEEE-WHIIIINE?!?

It was a fine time, overall. Tonight I head to West Seattle to see an Irish singersongwriter at B's neighborhood bar that he's really fond of. B and A came over last night for drinks, which was fun, and nice that it saved me the drive or bike ride to and fro West Seattle.

A few pictures of Lake Union on a hot, clear, beautiful day, in the next post.

Off to Anchorage...

for more househunting. In the meantime, here's a picture of the fridge in the hotel room where we are staying in Seattle. Not bad, eh? Visitors are invited!

Yet more Australia images!

A colorful salad: salad greens, spinach, yellow bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes:

A close-up of oven roasted tomatoes, also shown in another post:


The above-mentioned colorful salad; penne pasta with sauteed mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and carmelized onions; and mashed potatoes with carmelized onions and fresh sage:


The silly bicycle setup I used to bring some food donations back to the ship. Note the cardboard box with the sling, which I wore like a messenger bag, and the box tied to the handlebars with rope:


ONIONS! being prepped for the above dishes, or dishes like them. I used lots of onions. I love onions.

More Australia images!

Sauteeing mushrooms:


Cantaloupe and grapefruit for fresh juice:


From top right, sauteed broccoli and cauliflower; rice; tomatoes; green beans; tofu (soon to be deep-fried); and garlic. Seems like I made a lot of stir-fry, doesn't it? Well, I did make a lot, but it also made for pretty pictures.


Oven-roasted tomatoes; and the broccoli from the above image:


A big bowl with apples, onions, and potatoes about to meet their respective fates:

Some Australia images

Mostly food, since, as my loyal readers know, is mostly what I did there...

Preparing guacamole for 26...


Guacamole for 26!


Stir fry for nine


Stir fry for nine, take two


My first cabin. The bunkbed is the wood at the far right of the image.

On the road again...

After that harrowing trip back to SLC, we finished packing up the house, and got most of the important renovation work finished. As for the remainder, well, too bad: if people want to buy a 100% turn-key move-in ready custom house, they won't be looking at our house anyway. We worked with N to get it listed, and are both listing it for sale and rental simultaneously. I'm of mixed minds on it: as great an investment as real estate is, and as much work as we put into that house, I'm sick as hell of it in a lot of ways.

We drove out of SLC on the 2nd, spent a night in Boise, ID, and then last night in Yakima, WA (where I'm writing from the hotel room while J sleeps.) Today we drive the last little bit to Seattle. Sure is nice the feds only require that you drive 350 miles per day.

Today will be interesting for food: judging from the signs in the windows, this little slice of small town central Washington is closed tight for the fourth of July holiday. I might have to suffer the overpriced breakfast buffet downstairs, since the in-room coffee I'm drinking tastes like diesel exhaust with a side of latex paint. Here, at the allegedly nicest hotel in Yakima (the Hilton Garden Inn) the last guest's coffee was still in the filter basket in the coffee maker. Classy!

I'm going to try to toss up a few Australia pictures here, so I'll sign this off now.

Why I hate United Airlines, Part IV in a series

I forgot to mention that on the four and a half hour flight from ANC to SFO, my headphones and the audio system once again didn't work correctly. Fortunately, the movie being shown was Wild Hogs, so only having audio in one ear wasn't really that sad a thing, except for the regular and horrendous audio volume leveling in the movie.

Why I hate United, Part III in a series

While I don't have any proof for this, it doesn't seem outside of the realm of possibility that the fact that the wifi just went down in the Alaska Airlines Board Room is somehow United's fault. Good thing that Alaska has ethernet cables and free connections, to provide for United's deviousness and malevolence.

Why I hate United, Part II in a series

Because their online and telephone flight status tools are both liars, and even when the information is vaguely current (I'm used to a margin of error of one hour) it doesn't provide any useful information about *why* a flight is delayed.

Why I hate United Airlines: Part I in a series

I'm nearing hour 43 of my return trip from Anchorage to Salt Lake City, via San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'm writing from the Alaska Airlines Board Room at LAX. For those of you following this saga, you might be aware that no, I wasn't supposed to set foot in LA. See, it goes something like this. I was scheduled on UA 700, departing ANC at 2330 on June 26 for DEN, connecting to UA 141, departing DEN at 0825 on 27 June.

Well, UA 700 was indefinitely delayed for mechanical: apparently on an A320, there are two fans that cool avionics, a minimum of one of them is necessary to fly the plane, and neither was in working order. The gate agent was quite clear that it was distinctly possible that the plane was not going to go out that night, and that passengers would be lucky to get seats on UA 736 ANC-SFO the next day, and possibly even lucky to get re-booked on the next night's UA 700 flight. This was due in some part to the fact that an American Airlines (which TGS and I know better as Aerolineas Stalinsta) flight had already canceled for mechanical, and most of those passengers had already be re-booked on UA 700. She cheerily capped off this bad news by informing us that hotel rooms are exceedingly difficult to come by in the summer in Anchorage, and so hotel vouchers would be very unlikely.

So I called United Premier reservations and asked them what they thought I should do, and they quickly and easily re-booked me on UA 736 ANC-SFO departing at 1409 (notably, still in First,) and UX 6356 SFO-SLC departing 2101. I then (easily) got a hotel room for the night, and took a taxi back into midtown Anchorage. While this definitely was the correct decision at the time, let's just say that hindsight is 20/20. So UA 736 left ANC an hour and a half late, and I only had an hour and ten minute margin between the flights. Then, UX 6356 left SFO on time, and so I missed it by about fifteen minutes. I found out at a check-in terminal that UA's genius computers (note the dripping sarcasm) had already re-booked me: to fly out the next day, and connect through LAX, and arrive home around 2100. No, not on either of the TWO daily nonstops that UA and UX (United Express/Skywest) operate from SFO to SLC, nor on any of the SEVEN nonstop flights that Delta and Skywest operate to SLC.

I had a lovely half hour to forty minute wait in line at the United Customer Service counter, where they told me that there was not a single seat available on ANY of the abovementioned NINE nonstop flights to SLC, and that my current re-booked itinerary was definitely the best I would get. They did print out hotel and meal vouchers, telling me that the Crown Plaza in Foster City has a free shuttle every twenty minutes. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to get real food at a real (i.e., non-airport) restaurant, I went straight out to the curb, where I proceeded to stand with about seventeen other stranded passengers from UA 736. We all waited just under an hour for the shuttle to show up. While the check-in was friendly and easy at Crown Plaza (print, sign, date, endorse voucher, get handed keycard) this put us just a little bit past 11pm, which in the suburbia that is Foster City, means EVERYTHING was closed. Not only the hotel restaurants and all nearby chain restaurants, but also the Pizza Smut delivery service. (Who in the hell stops pizza delivery service at 10pm on a weeknight, and 11pm on Friday and Saturday?)

Note that in the midst of all this, my BIL, CKI, was very kindly willing to make the miserable drive from the east bay to come get my sorry ass if I couldn't get a hotel voucher. When I did get hotel vouchers, I opted to stick with them rather than inconvenience CKI and CLI, since I would have also needed an early morning drive to a BART station today. In retrospect, while I immensely appreciate CKI's willingness to come get me, it would have sucked for them.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of visiting Foster City, California, at least for anything but ingress and egress to the San Mateo bridge, it epitomizes lifeless, sterile, boring suburbia. Not only were no restaurants open, there was literally not a single convenience store open anywhere within eyesight or reasonable walking distance. Now looking at google maps, the nearest convenience store is 1.2 miles SE of the hotel.

By sheer luck, I still had an orange and a small bag of chips in my carryon, and so this, together with a cliff bar and a cup of chamomile tea, made for dinner.

So here I sit, in the Alaska Board Room at LAX, looking out at the planes lining up to depart, and landing regularly. Apparently all of this hassle was caused by the weather in the central and eastern US, especially in Chicago. You wouldn't know it by looking at the departures board at LAX, though SFO was basically in complete chaos. One woman in particular was hysterical (and idiotic, and hideously annoying.) She was quite literally yelling at a CS agent at my gate at SFO (gate 69 this morning awaiting the departure of UA 1179, in case any frequent flyers reading this are curious) about how waiting for five hours was totally unacceptable, and her time is "precious" and that they MUST put her on the next available flight to NYC. Apparently she has a concrt to go to tomorrow. From what I could glean, she had been IDB'd (involuntarily denied boarding) albeit along with 53 other people. Well, miss, I got news for you: I'm hoping that my return flight from ANC to SLC doesn't end up taking much more than 48 hours. I don't have a lot of sympathy for your five hour delay.

This is, once again, confirmation that jumping ship from UA to AS as my primary airline was the right choice: when your planes don't require regular trips to ORD, DEN, and Dulles, east coat weather doesn't much matter.

Well, hopefully in a few hours, I'll board a vaguely on-time flight LAX-SLC, and get back to SLC for four nights before we drive to Seattle. Cross your fingers. Meanwhile, the Alaska Board Room is treating me right: two Alaskan Ambers, and a maragrita. Yum.

Confidential to TGS

Now THIS is what I'm talkin' about: the Alaska Board Room in Anchorage serves Glacier IPA (and Blonde) in addition to Alaskan Amber. Guess which one I'm on my second glass of? It's making my very delayed deparfture from ANC much more acceptable.

Now notes to everyone: I'm sure glad I have ditched United in favor of Alaska. Not only does it turn out that United is stopping year-round service to ANC, something I didn't know when I made the decision, but when you take a delay, you are basically screwed until you get lucky. My 2330 flight last night was delayed until almost 2 this morning, and the gate agent was clear that she really didn't know if it would go out last night at all, and that most connections were probably trashed, and further, that ANC in the summer is very difficult to get hotel rooms in, so hotel vouchers would likely be worthless. To top it all off, the only thing they could possibly have done for us, meal vouchers, would have to be used with no vegan food in sight in the ANC airport (and an already closed Board Room.)

So I did the smart thing and called UA's premier line, and got myself rebooked on a 1409 flight today, and (easily) booked a room at Qupqugiaq for $69. Well, it seemed like the smart thing, and while it did get me a good night's sleep and a nice lunch at Middle Way, now my 1409 departure (UA 736) is delayed until 1445, which likely blows my connection to SLC, on UX 6356, which is the last flight of the night SFO-SLC. Getting ugly, friends and neighbors, getting ugly. To top it all off, I'd really like to get to my dentist appointment tomorrow morning at 10:30 to have a cavity filled. Oh well: we do our best, and United Airlines just does a little less. Or sometimes, a lot less.

Confidential to CLI & CKI: will be calling very soon to possibly crash for a night.

Back to working changing address and phone on various things to ANC. YAY!

As soon as I'm home, I'm not

After a luxurious three and a half days at home, and the delight of being with J again, I'm back in an airport. I'm at SFO, which at the end of the day will be my third of four airports en route to Anchorage. ANCHORAGE! Makes me happy.

Going mostly to hang out with TGS, and also to open a PO box, and possibly do a little bit of house hunting.

I keep promising some pictures of Australia, and I'm going to try to sit here and process a bunch of them. I'm realizing that I mostly took pictures of food, which seems appropriate, given that food is most of what I dealt with while on ship.

Okay -- back to pictures, and my cold pint of Alaskan Amber!

All's well that ends well

My second to last full day on ship; I'll be taking an early (~6:30am) airport shuttle Monday morning, and flying for approximately sixteen hours through four airports to return home on Monday evening. (That crazy little interntional date line!)

I've been astonished, once again, at how preposterously expensive some things are in Australia. Examples:
* paint roller covers: AUD$11.80 (USD$9.91)
* four liters (roughly a gallon) of standard interior semi-gloss paint: AUD$70 (USD$58.80)
* blue 3M painter's masking tape, for a 1" wide roll? AU$18!!! (USD$15.11)
* And AUD$28 (USD$23.50) for a 2" roll!

Absolutely, totally, completely asinine, and utterly indefensible.

Working out some last minute travel issues, and getting ready to spend most of an entire day on planes and in airports.

Very likely this will be my last post from Australia, so images should soon follow. See some of you soon!

More carpentry...

is what I've been up to for the last few days, a welcome relief from the galley before I depart. I helped complete some demolition, then laid laminate (pergo) flooring in another cabin, went out and bought molding, and cut and tagged it all today. Tomorrow we start prepping for painting, and possibly begin painting on Sunday before I fly out on Monday morning, early. Big times.

My thoughts about leaving are little different than when I posted a week or so ago: complicated. I'm eager to return home and get some stuf done, and then begin the process of moving to Alaska, but (only) slightly sad to be leaving the ship.

I'm on dish rota today, meaning I do everyone's common dishes from eating meals and snacks in between. It's a funny thing: I'm actually happy to be doing a dozen or so plates or bowls, associated flatware, and glasses, at a time, compared to doing the heavy-duty, burnt-on, baked-on cookware dishes of the galley.

I'm also quite excited to go to AK and see TGS, and do some scoping out for the move. Banal stuff, but critical: cell phones, a PO box, looking at houses, etc.

More may or may not follow before I fly out on Monday morning. I'll definitely try to post some thoughts, and lots of photos, when I return to Utah.

Coming soon...

to the intermountain west. I'm short here, only four more whole days, and a couple of half days. As my time draws nigh, I've moved back to non-galley crew, to get more flooring and carpentry done. I spent all day laying another cabin's worth of pergo-type laminate flooring, and tomorrow afternoon when a "shore crew" member comes with her car, will go to buy molding for both cabins, and lay that.

The little things seem larger or smaller, as my time (in this stint) draws to a close. Already, I'm thinking about the next stint, hopefully to Antarctica. About what to pack: more batteries, and what not to pack: shampoo (the ships has heaps of organic shampoo that has been donated.) About what snacks to bring (more chocolate!) About books to bring. About ways to stay in better shape (yoga.) About digital photography equipment that is needed, and not.

Soon!

Closing time...

Lately, my mind has been largely occupied with thoughts of returning to the states. Finishing our renovations, packing, staying in a hotel for a few nights, driving to Seattle, time there with J while she trains for her new job, possible travel, ferry to Alaska, and settling in to Anchorage.

We're actively looking for housing, both short and long-term. Our hope is to buy again, and we're looking around. We'll see. It sure would be nice to have a home that wasn't built in 1912 with brick frame construction and now-crumbling plaster on lath construction.

I'm so looking forward to going back to Alaska. It always has this draw for me. But then, so does Arizona, and parts of California. I have lots of projects on the middle and back burners for Alaska, and can't wait to get started.

Leftovers!

I has discovered something important: if I put out one or two freshly cooked dishes, and one or two leftovers, the leftovers get shunned by the crew. I can't say I blame them -- I'd do exactly the same thing. So I had their number today for lunch: I put out ALL leftovers. cream of broccoli soup, mashed potatoes, stir fry, chili, green curry, baked pasta, and applesauce. Oh, and rice, which wasn't a leftover.

Dinner was more leftovers, of a sort: fresh bread popovers, filled with the stir fry vegetables and chili, and some with rice and curry, and some with just curry. Also salad, and banana peanut butter cream pie, and banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Yesterday lunch was wraps with roasted and sauteed vegetables, veggies, and spinach salad. Dinner was stir fry with TVP, rice, and salad.

Alaska looms large on the horizon, and much travel is ahead. I was granted MVP status on Alaska Airlines due to my status with United, and now I have to fly 20k miles this year to maintain it for next year. A vicious cycle, indeed. Of course, it's well worth it to be able to pre-book exit row seats on Alaska, which I'll be flying a lot in and out of ANC.

We're looking for housing options for ANC for when we arrive (around July 27.) The rough plan is to sublet or arrange something temporary while we look to buy. I guess we didn't learn our lesson about home ownership. I think we did, however, learn our lesson about old houses. Fortunately, relatively little housing in Anchorage is 95 years old (at least housing we'd seriously consider.)

Back to e-mails now...

More notes on food

Today's lunch: mashed potatoes with carmelized onions, fresh sage, and spices (mustard powder, cayenne, and cumin.) Fresh guacamole. String beans sauteed with soy sauce and "hot chili" sauce. Salad with mandarins and red bell peppers.

I'm hoping to have the energy this afternoon to make the passionfruit banana muffins (though I might just make a cake out of it if I can't find any muffin pans.)

I'm at the Mission for the second time in two days, which is a little unusual, but I've felt a greater need lately to keep in touch. On which not, I'm going to try to call J, and then get back to the ship for a quick pre-dinner-cooking nap.

Super quickie food update

Since I know you all hang on the edge of your seats waiting to hear the vegan food I've pulled off on ship with crappy cooktops, one totally unpredictable oven that works, and 99% donated food, here is tonight's update:

Vegan pizza, with fresh dough, and fun fixins: carmelized onions, sauteed mushrooms, green onions; one with pesto and one with tomato. Also, another with pesto, and all the above good stuff, but with a bunch of hot peppers. YUM!

Power, water, and so on...

So we had a power outtage (necessary due to some wiring that needed to be upgraded) for a day and a half, which also affects the fresh water. It was almost eerily quiet on ship. I was on watch from 8pm to midnight the day we didn't have power, and the ship felt like a cemetary. The lack of power also kept us from getting started laying some flooring, though myself and a new crew member finished that task today, with only molding and some cleanup remaining to be done. Looks pretty good, though when you deal with 99% donated tools, you just have to accept the best you can do.

As I haven't been in the galley for two days while doing flooring, few things to report there. The last dinner I did met with great enthusiasm from the crew: penne pasta with sauteed mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and broccoli; mashed potatoes with carmelized onions and lots and lots of fresh sage (so much it turned fairly green); and spinach salad with fresh veggies. Not sure about tomorrow, but probably something potato based. I'm kind of tempted to do potato latkes and applesauce, since it's fun, deep fried, easily veganized, and we have all the ingredients. Now that I've found the slicing and grating attachments for the food processor, doing large amounts of grating and slicing and dicing are vastly more pleasant. I actually have calluses built up on my palms from cutting with knives.

I met a couple of really fantastic people from Melbourne Food Not Bombs, and plan to go cook and serve with them on Monday night. Should be fun and interesting: I'll report more afterwards.

Last night I read a roughly 300 page book from start to finish in four hours, including time to dish up and eat my dinner. Not a particularly good book, mind you, or a challenging one: Pacific Vortex, by Clive Cussler. But it moved fast enough, and wasn't too ridiculous, such that about 150 pages in, I decided to just go straight through to the (lame and fairly predictable) finish.

Home, soon... while I'm excited about it, it's a bit odd to think of going back to the states in less than three weeks. It's interesting how quickly one can become accustomed to life on ship, and life away from home, and life in radically new environments. Not that I don't miss J every single day: I do. But just how you can find a home away from home, and lonliness; things to keep busy, and time fillers; quiet spaces, and social spaces; routines, and random interactions; expectations, and coping mechanisms when those expectations aren't realized.

Confidential to TGS: thinking about you.

I really don't:

have anything against personally cauliflower. But like anything, in sufficient excess, I just get sick as hell of it. It seems like, for some odd reason, that every donation in the last week has brought cauliflower. I can't explain it. But I've stuffed cauliflower into practically all of the last six meals, and I am, persnally, sick as hell of it.

The last four days of meals:

Wednesday:
LUNCH: veggie burgers; tofu burgers; string beans sauteed with garlic; salad; bread
DINNER: enchiladas with tofu, yellow bell peppers, onions, and sauteed mushrooms; fresh bread, salad

Thursday:
LUNCH: miso soup with onion and tofu; sauteed broccoli with garlic; baked butternut squash with soy sauce annd chili sauce
DINNER: chili; fresh bread; deep fried potato chips; salad with fresh croutons (thanks, mama!)

Friday:
LUNCH: stuffed peppers with rice, onions, garlic, and butternut squash; deep fried french fries; salad with croutons; and fresh canteeloupe juice
DINNER: cream of broccoli soup; stuffed mushroom caps; fresh bread; homemade hummus

Saturday:
LUNCH: fusilli pasta with sauteed broccoli, cauliflower, and garlic; garlic bread; fresh gaucamole; (leftoveer) stuffed mushrooms
DINNER: stir fry with with broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and both rice and noodles; salad; fresh bread; fried veggie chips -- potatoes, sweet potatoes, and parsnips

A good few days, I think, and judging from crew response. Every day, I wake up in the morning, and lay in my bunk thinking about what to make that day. Tomorrow, to be cliche, is a new day. We'll see.

More soon!

Food update:

After all, what else matters?

Today for dinner I made a gigantic pot of chili, and salad, and sauteed onions
with fresh sage leaves donated from a school tour group's garden, and baked two loaves of whole wheat bread.

Now I have to get back to the ship and get to sleep so I can cook tomorrow' food. I'm thinking about boring lunch (veggie burgers) and dinner remains unknown.

So much water around us...

...yet none in the ship. Yeah, so, we ran out of water. The other ship left port for a campaign against illegal whaling in Iceland, and in the days leading up to their departure, much water was consumed. Wednesday night, I got back late from a live music show, and tried to clean up some dishes in the galley around 2am. There has been minimal, and then zero, drinking water since. We're re-filling it, but it takes a LOOOOONG time, and then time to re-pressurize the tanks.

So my life in the galley has been challenging, to say the least. Not only is it damn difficult to cook for six to twelve people without water, it's surprising how quickly you can use every clean dish and utensil, even in a large galley. Last night was leftover surprise night, basically just about anything I could heat up in the microwave without needing more pots and pans. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with what I was able to put out.

Well, enough complaining for now. Really, things are challenging, but not bad: after a lovely hot shower at the Y, and free wireless, and clean clothes, I have to get back to the ship. More soon!

Cooking up a vegan storm

Some notes on recent dishes, per request (you know who you are!)

• chili with kidney beans and navy beans, and rice/tofu burgers ground up, with celery, onion, and carrot.
  
• garlic bread with fresh garlic slices and 'nuttelex' (vegan butter subtitute)
  
• numerous salads, usually with spinach and/or salad greens, and various fresh vegetables
  
• fresh squeezed juice in our crazy expensive, fancy (donated) juicer
  

Upcoming dishes, from my random notes in my notebook, based on the donated vegan ingredients available:

• deep fried tofu
  
• bean dip
  
• nachos, with beans, onions, and sauteed tofu chunks
  
• pita wraps with roasted vegetables
  
• home-made chips (sweet potato; potato; parsnip, etc.)
  
• more fresh squeezed juice
  
• lots of fresh lemon juice from a case of donated lemons
  
• mixed fruit sorbet; tangerine sorbet (pureed fruit, sugar, lemon juice, and a small bit of water, frozen, and re-blended in the food processor for consistency)
  
• potato leek soup
  
• home fried potatoes
  
• chocolate chip cookies
  
• stir fry, with tofu, and rice or crispy noodles, depending on my whim
  
• rice pudding
  
• more chili
  
• muesli bars
  
• coffeecake
  
• deep fried polenta
  
• home made salsa
  
• fruitcake (really, it needn't be just a disgusting holiday joke!)
  
• pies: apple; tangerine; etc.
  
• carrotcake
  

The weather is turning a little grey and rainy, but life aboard ship remains fine. More later!

Sometimes life gets in the way

Today is A's birthday; I'm drinking a Guinness Extra Stout out of a Heinekin glass in the Mission to Seafarers to celebrate. I plan to try to track down something better this afternoon to properly celebrate. If I'm lucky, perhaps a Little Creatures, or Red Oak Boutique Beer Cafe.

I'm now the chief cook on the Robert Hunter, however dubious a distinction that is. 100% vegan. 98% of the food is donated, and when I cook, I keep saying to myself 'you have to play the cards you're dealt, you have to play the cards that you're dealt.' Today's lunch was chili, garlic bread, fruit salad, and leftover spinach salad with "rocket" (a.k.a. arugalu) from dinner last night. Tonight's dinner is sweet potato fries (we have a commercial deep fat fryer!) and possibly vegan pizza, if I get off my ass and go get some sugar for proofing the dough.

As usual...

Spent the last few days doing carpentry, moving steel, and cooking. Today I spent much of the day cutting and cooking down apples to applesauce and for use as an egg substitute.

I've showered twice in five days, which seems a bit of a luxury now, but is amusing relative to showering daily at home.

I'm sitting at the Mission to Seafarers, drinking a AUD$3.50 Guinness Extra Stout, quite a good price by local standards.

Today I rode a beater bicycle to pick up our organic groceries donation, as I do almost every day, and it struck me how nice it is to be able to leave ship every day as I do.

Need to finish this up now, and get back to the ship for a good night of sleep, before a long day tomorrow.

Routines

It's interesting to me how adaptable people are. I've been on the ship for just a day over two weeks as of today, and it basically feels like living in a home situation. Well, not really, and I miss J immensely, but what I mean is that it feels like... just the place that I live.

I have a pretty basic and standard routine. I wake up most every morning by 7:15am, a little earlier if I'm going to cook a hot breakfast for the crew (usually home fries or pancakes; and/or juicing a lot of the fresh fruit we get donated.) I put out breakfast when it's my day to do so (currently I'm still able to rotate this with the other two cooks on board.) I then ride the bike that I put the exceptionally rickety milk crate on (tearing up my finger) to Flinders Organics, where they are exceptionally generous and give us a daily food donation at 9am. I ride this back to the ship, and working with another cook, prepare lunch. Clean up, and then I have a couple of hours I can take off to shower, check e-mail, go over to the other ship to do carpentry (which is nearly done) or bake/cook some special dessert. Then prep for dinner begins around 3pm, is served at 6, and generally cleaned up by 7pm. Unless I have a watch shift, the rest of the night is mine, and is often spent hanging around in the crew lounge, or reading, or playing Maelstrom, and occasionally doing laundry (the tea towels for the galley.)

The daily trip to the organic grocery is a bit tiring, since I have to wake up earlier than I otherwise would on days that I don't have to prepare breakfast, and I have to brave the rude and distracted Melbourne drivers, like the jackass this morning in the 'ute' delivery vehicle that very nearly ran me over TWICE while he was texting on his cell phone on a busy central Melbourne street. But it does get me off ship every day, which is really nice, and reminds me of the world off of the ship.

I just had a lovely hot shower at the YMCA, and have the rest of the day off. Unlike my only other day off so far, when I foolishly hung around the ship and ended up working, I'm going to try to avoid the ship like the plague. I need to try to track down a decent bicycle pump, and some blank CD-Rs. In other words, yes, basically routine.

Okay -- off to run errands.

A pound of flesh

Well, okay, only a few ounces in truth. Last night I was working on a bicycle in the bosun's locker, with tools that are often, at best, moderately adequate. I was trying to piece together a few nuts and bolts that fit one another to put a rear rack and milk crate on a bicycle that has been donated by a local bicycle collective. Long story short, the screw with the extremely frozen nut slipped in the vise, and my right forefinger slipped right along the top of the very sharp machine bolt head, tearing out a good sized chunk of flesh right on the main knuckle. I dressed it, and got various laughs, mostly sympathetic, today.

I have spent most of the last two days doing carpentry on the other ship, installing wood framework for a new autopilot unit, and filling in the hole where the old (and much larger) unit was removed. It's a nice change from the galley, but in truth I'm also looking forward to returning to the galley tomorrow for a few days while another cook is away.

My last foray into the galley was to cut and prep (soaking in vinegar, salt and water) an entire 20 kilo (44 pound) sack of potatoes. A number went into another cook's potato salad, a good portion were cooked and then frozen for future use at sea, a sizable chunk were pan fried one morning, with the remainder being deep fried for the next day's lunch. In the prep process, I got to use my "cheese" slicer, which it's amusing to re-purpose for vegan uses, in this case, slicing some potatoes thin enough to deep fry them as potato chips (or crisps, depending on your frame of reference.)

Life aboard ship remains interesting, with something new every day. Between food, carpentry, occasional first aid, and random tasks here and there, things rarely get boring.

Okay -- the YMCA, where I've had a lovely shower and free wireless, closes shortly, so I'll finish up. Likely more exciting posts to come soon.

Uneventful

Don't have a lot to say, but I was spurred to update anyway by this e-mail from someone who shall remained unnamed (but whose initials are TGS.)

HOLY CRAP, YOU'RE UPDATING YOUR BLOG.

I've been out of the galley for a couple of days, as another cook is coming aboard. So I did a couple of watch shifts, last night from midnight to 4am, and then again today from noon to 4pm. It can be a little bit of a challenge to stay awake, but otherwise doing watch is really quite pleasant. It's slow, especially at night, and i burned CDs to listen to in the galley, and read (War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk) and went for little walks, and watched the occasional random drunk wander by.

Today's big news is that I got to drive (pilot) a Zodiac, a small boat (seats six safely.) I really only put-putted around Melbourne harbour, but it was fun nevertheless. And climbing down and up the side of the ship with a rope to get to and from the little boat is kind of fun as well.

The vegan sorbet I made the other night is sitting back at the ship softening as we speak. I think I might have to throw it back in the food processor to get it back to appropriate consistency.

And the really big news: while sitting here, I downloaded Maelstrom for the PC! With a half full bottle of wine that needs to be drank, big times tonight on ship, no doubt about it.

It's a sailor's life for me, yo ho ho.

Well, sort of, except not, since we're in port, and not actually out on the oceans.

For three days now, I've been in the galley (kitchen) which is next to the skullery (dishroom), cooking for people to sit and eat in the mess (dining room.) I'm really enjoying it. It's definitely a lot of work (the crew is now up above 20) but so far it's all been with another cook, and when it's not, I won't be cooking for so many. The nicest thing is probably the regular schedule: I work from 7:15am to 8pm, give or take, and then I'm done for the day. I can usually take an hour or two between lunch and dinner, unless I'm preparing something fairly complicated. After doing one gangplank watch from midnight to 4am, and then again from noon to four, I'm perfectly happy to not do that again anytime soon.

Some specifics on the food: for each of the last two mornings, I've made fresh juice in a donated (new) juicer: mixed fruit, and apple, the first morning, and this morning watermelon and apple/watermelon. For yesterday's dinner, I made an apple pie. But not just any apple pie: a vegan apple pie approximately twenty inches in diameter, and four inches deep. It took, beginning to end, about three hours. It was well worth it in the end, as it was well received. I considered making fruit sorbet for tonight, but don't have access to an ice cream maker. Possibly chocolate chip cookies.

Being in port, it's really quite pleasant living. Sure, I'm physically living on a ship, but have easy access to hot showers, gyms, high speed internet connections, and we have a lot of wonderful food donations come in, meaning a pretty constant flow of fresh fruits, veggies, bread, and other fresh stuff that is not the stuff of most high seas diets.

I'll continue to try to post, and try to get some pictures up. As I fall into a routine, though, I sort of wonder whether it's all that interesting to just write about the day to day stuff...

And thank you, for your support!

Just a quick note before I have to run (sprint, practically) back to the ship for dinner. Thanks so much to all of you who have e-mailed me with kind notes and wishes and encouragement and light and beauty. I expect to have somewhat limited internet time, so if I don't get a chance to write back individually, I apologize in advance. I'll definitely try to keep this blog updated.

Massive and heartfelt thanks also go out to those who have told me you plan to donate to Sea Shepherd. My brilliant and talented sister, E, has told me it's possible to designate an "honoree" when you donate online at seashepherd.org . You certainly don't have to donate, but if you want to, that would be awfully cool. The whales and seals and and sharks and dolphins (and due to the interconnected nature of the marine ecosystem, pretty much every other form of marine life, and every other form of life on earth) also thank you!

Love, justice, and struggle!
d

aboard the Robert Hunter!

I arrived Sunday afternoon (Australia dating...) and am well and happy and becoming ensconsed in life aboard ship. We're docked at the Melbourne Docklands, a short walk from central Melbourne, so in many ways it's pretty easy ship life, compared to what it could be (on the high seas, that is.)

The ship is operating with a relatively small crew, so I have my own cabin, something I didn't expect. It's a fairly new vessel (build mid-70s) so the facilities are in good shape, and plenty livable even for me at 6'4".

It seems that I'll be the ship's cook very soon, when the current, extraorindarily taleneted cook, leaves the ship for another campaign. The ship's diet is entirely vegan, which is exciting. It does present a few challenges to come up with three meals a day with sufficient protein and other nourishment, but I'm looking forward to it.

The crew of both the Robert Hunter, and the Sea Shepherd's flagship vessel docked nearby, the Farley Mowat, are to a one extraordinary people. Kind, talented, and deeply commited to the cause of saving the oceans and the life of the oceans. It sounds, even to me, like a cliched fundraising pitch or promo for Sea Shepherd, but I mean every word of it. This is a truly amazing bunch of people, doing truly fantastic work. It's entirely selfless: every single person, from the founder, Captain Paul Watson, on down, is a volunteer. People have a great variety of routes, experiences, stories, and convictions that have led them to Sea Shepherd. Across the board, however, people believe in the mission and the work, and comprise an extraorindary team.

Melbourne's generousity is also extraordinary. Being in dock, we have excellent access to facilities that wouldn't normaly be available aboard ship. The very nearby YMCA allows us free access to their gym, pool, and perhaps most importantly, showers. A bit further afield, and not always with regular hours, the Seafarer's Mission provides free internet access, as well as a pool table, library, and a place to relax for free. We have fantastic donations from local and worldwide individuals, groups, and businesses, everything from food, to matériel, to the random supplies that keep a venture like Sea Shepherd running are donated, or purchased from cash donations. I won't explicitly pester anyone reading my blog to donate, but I sure do think it's a great cause!

So as of now, a lot of my work in port will consist of cooking, leading tours, standing watch at the gangplank to the ship, and generally talking about Sea Shepherd. I'll try to keep updating this page semi-regularly.