Raining leaves

A couple of videos I took on October 2 in the back yard.

Xgiving

or should I say Happy Native American Genocide Day?

To celebrate the holiday, I think I'm going to go skiing.

mmmm... beer.

Inferno Ale from the Lost Abbey. The glass on the left is without yeast sediment, the glass ont he right after swirling the yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle.

Another Dinosaur Comic about cycling

Another great comic from Dinosaur Comics at qwantz.com :















Yesterday I was nearly hit three times while riding my bike to work. Two were my favorite type of motorist: the kind who nearly nails you, and then glares or screams at you, like it's your fault.

I then had a very nice shift, and came outside to twenty degree temperatures and a missing valve stem in my front tire. Yes, that's right: the tip that threads down into the valve stem was missing. (Don't ask why I had a European style, two piece presta valve on my winter commuting bike in Alaska.)

Now, the presta valve started out the day intact and got me the ten miles to work, with stops at the post office and REI on the way. And this is the type of thing that, when the stem tip goes missing, it won't be a slow leak: it'll be a loud, gushing and rapid release of air. So when I showed up at work and locked up the bike, and it was riding fine, it basically had to still have an intact valve stem tip, properly threaded in. Leading me to the conclusion that [you fill in the blank...]

Fortunately, I carry an extra tube with me, and work was still open, so I didn't have to change the tire in the cold and semi-dark. Side note: despite their other virtues, the Nokian studded tires, for all their other virtues, are a serious pain in the ass to get the bead seated in the rim.

Of bicycles, and ice...

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live."
—-Mark Twain, Taming the Bicycle, May 10, 1884

"Every time I tried to steal a look at a pretty girl, or any other kind of scenery, that single moment of inattention gave the bicycle the chance it had been waiting for, and I went over the front of it and struck the ground on my head or my back before I had time to realise that something was happening."
--Mark Twain, Chapters from my Autobiography, Chapter 20

I don't even have Twain's excuse: pretty girls and scenery are in short supply in the dark, at midnight, on my ride home.

A new evening in America

I was driving back from the auto parts store tonight: I had to buy a small engine spark plug for our generator in case the electricity goes out again, as it has four times since July.

NPR, by way of KSKA 91.1, called the election for Barack Obama.

There was a deep yellow, three quarter moon in the southern sky above the Turnagain Arm (a.k.a., the Cook Inlet, a.k.a., the Pacific Ocean. Yes, I'm actually justa little bit closer to being able to see Russia from my doorstep.)

I've made snide, or cynical, or sad jokes for years after elections, riffing off of that scummy rotten bastard president's Morning in America theme. I thought, and hope, that this is a new kind of night, and can be a new kind of day in America.

I'm watching our next president walk out on the stage in Grant Park to give an acceptance speech. I listened a half hour ago to McCain give a mostly gracious speech conceding the election. I listened to his supporters in attendance in Phoenix booing Barack Obama's name.

In 1992, I danced and cheered and celebrated after knocking on doors, walking streets, standing on corners, and making calls for Bill Clinton. I stood in a ballroom celebrating Clinton/Gore 92 California's victory. The time that came after wasn't different: NAFTA, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Welfare to Work, Defense of Marriage Act, and so on, and so on.

Barack Obama just said in his speech "this time must be different." I agree wholeheartedly.

I have hope. I really do. I know that a better world is possible.

Now let's see Barack Obama make a better world. I look forward to it.

Why Alaska is doing fine

No, it's not because tomorrow Tina Fey stands a very real chance of being on the ticket that carries the whopping three Electoral College votes that Alaska has to offer.

It's because we're the only expanding state according to economy.com:

Uhhh, yeah. Everything is great.

It's cold. It's snowing.

My bike is at the shop, with a leaking seal in the rock shox. Boo.

I made a pretty wicked soup last night from the CSA materials, with potatoes, beets, carrots, zucchini, and onions.

So tomorrow. Yes. Well. We either make our collective bed for another four years, or we don't. Here in Alaska, we either re-elect one convicted felon, and another who is just a CH this side of indictment, both of whom are stunt doubles for Cal Worthington commercials, or we don't.

Good thing SNL makes it feel all better.