Halli Hallo und Herzliche Wilkommen aus Fairbanks

Due to the magic of Google Analytics it has come to my attention that this blog is frequented by Germans so I wanted to give a quick shout out to Deutschland.

Gruss Gott! And if you speak German you should watch this. Munich is my favorite city and I think the accent there is the best for storytelling.

In other news I got vaccinations for yellow fever and hepatitis B yesterday and now I can barely lift my arms.

But now I am ready to face South America next month- aside from altitude sickness, intestinal parasites and malaria I am really looking forward to it. The trip starts in Bogota, Colombia and that's all I know at this point. If anyone has suggestions for what to do with 6 weeks in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, aside from drug trafficking, holla back.

Servus!

20 Below in Fairbanks

The thermometer read -21F this morning, luckily the truck was plugged in. When I went downtown it was only -4F so I'm quite confident I have the coldest lot in Fairbanks. Yeah for me. It warmed up to zero later so I took the dog for a walk and made some snow art. Enjoy.

I took some other pics on the walk to document a proposed expansion by Great Northwest Inc. They are a gravel pit and peat extraction company that has been here for years. They now want to expand their excavations up to my back door. Literally. But they need permission since it's all wetlands. The problem is it's their land and they've been there forever so I doubt it can be stopped. Their remediation is applauded because they leave duck ponds where once there was black spruce. The problem is you can walk and ski and travel through black spruce. These "duck ponds" are massive sink holes 20 feet down in the bog so you can't ski or walk in and out of them and they are bordered by dikes 20 feet high. I am contacting the Army Corps of Engineers to see about the public input process but I fear my lovely back yard will soon look like a WWII battlefield.

It's snowing in Fairbanks

There's finally snow in them thar Fairbanks hills and it's still coming down. I'd say close to 4 inches in the past 24 hours. In honor of the happy white stuff I took my snowmachine "Earline" out for a ride.

White rabbit, white rabbit

Normally if you start seeing white rabbits you should back off your medication. Here in Fairbanks it's a good sign. It means winter is coming and I'm all about that. While walking the dog this morning a white rabbit shot past us, it wasn't completely white, still a bit of gray pepperings, but if it snowed tonight he would be set. I discovered that the nearby gravel pit is bigger after a summer's excavating and it's frozen with perfect ice. I shall sneak over there tomorrow morning and see how many turns I can get in before someone gets their panties in a wad.

Viva la ice skate revolucion!

Here's a vid that rocks, I'll post pics soon.

Bank of America - Worse than a pack of wolves

I'm hopping mad. I just paid my VISA card online for the first time in 6 months. Used to be I could go online and click "Pay this Card" and that was it. But for 6 months it has said "Bill pay temporarily unavailable." 6 months is not temporary you suns a bridges.

I finally called customer service for a WTF chat. Turns out you now have to click the "Customer Service" button, then go to "Transfer from another account" then type in your bank routing and account numbers. Then throw your cell phone across the room. Then type in whatever you want to pay for that month. You will not be prompted to payoff your bill in full.

I imagine this is netting the Bungholes of America massive late fee charges and missed payments.

I hope your outhouse tips over door down you shitcicle eating puta madres.

Craptacular

Well the last 3 days of zero degree mornings finally froze Ballaine Lake and so I hit it with the skates and my dog yesterday and it was glorious. Perfectly smooth, except where the dern kids had thrown rocks on it, the ice was clear and hard and the sun felt great. After about half an hour Mazzy decided it was safe and ventured out for a bit.

On Saturday we finished the craptacular Bailey's Warehouse on South Cushman. Years from now I imagine myself saying, "You see that big non-descript steel warehouse? No that one, no, no that one. Yes! that's the one, well I helped build that and no, there wasn't that much raven crap there when we finished and the meth lab wasn't there either. But it was good times, now pass the Soylent Green..."
It's 140 feet long and 70 feet wide and 28 feet tall and we did it in less than 5 weeks. We ARE the champions, my friend....

Beautiful South Cushman

I went for a run the other morning with my sweetie and I saw this:

I believe it's the remains of a grouse. It made me thankful to not be a grouse on an early morning. But it also made me think how tasty grouse are. Marinated in cream of mushroom soup they are tasty birds.

I started a new job this week, building a steel warehouse for Bailey's Furniture in Fairbanks. I work with a great crew and have the delightful panorama of South Cushman Industrial District at my feet.

We're working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week in an effort to beat winter. We got the roof on last week, insulated and covered with steel, so the first hurdle is cleared. Next week is the walls and if there is slush, frost and sleet dripping off the roof life will be mighty unpleasant.